My saying is: We win and lose together

October 11, 2016 2:02 PM

As we stand four weeks to election day, we know more about the candidates, and it's not good. Things have also recently not been great for Donald; following the taped revelations of last week, involving yet another (and now dismissed) member of the Bush dynasty, a fiery and ugly debate ensued (MetaFilter). Since then, he has marched increasingly alone; Paul Ryan has all but unendorsed him, John McCain has had enough, a lot of other Republicans are doing their own thing, and his friends are mainly the apologist Ben Carson, Rudy Giuliani, a 'coward' in Florida, and Wikileaks and dubious Russian information services (leading perhaps to a campaign event cancellation).

This is largely good news for Hillary, and some early voting signs are encouraging. Hillary and Al Gore appear to have made up and are campaigning in the battleground state of Florida, which also had voter registration extended. It's also looking cautiously good for Hillary in Ohio. So while the polls are looking promising, complacency remains the enemy.

What does all this mean? Nate and co. have Hillary at 79%, while the UK bookmakers have Hillary at around 1/6 and Donald at 4/1 (and Evan McMullin at between 500/1 and 1,000/1). Paddy Power is also offering 16/1 on Donald to win but resign due to impeachment. Elsewhere, some in China don't think the election looks great for democracy, while there is the continuing hubbub over whether the election could be hacked, possibly by Russia, or stolen.

Back to that debate; side distractions turned out to be some of the undecided voters in the panel, including a questioner, a man in a red sweater, and Paul.

Don't know what the JCPL is? Check out the wiki page for in-joke explanations and tips on managing long threads. If you need voter information, lampshade posted a collection of links (additionally, you can register at vote.gov). The MetaTalk election logistics discussion, and the FPP title is of course from Hamilton.

posted by Wordshore (3381 comments total)

THAT'S THE WRONG HAMILTON!
posted by zachlipton at 2:04 PM on October 11, 2016 [26 favorites]

There is no wrong Hamilton.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 2:06 PM on October 11, 2016 [21 favorites]

Thank you for the post, Wordshore! Nice roundup.
posted by stolyarova at 2:06 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Tag suggestion: most of the other threads also had a plain "election" tag
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 2:09 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

THAT'S THE WRONG HAMILTON!

"I never expect to see a perfect work from an imperfect man."
posted by Celsius1414 at 2:09 PM on October 11, 2016 [15 favorites]

My wifi deciding to go on the blink this last hour meant this was not as comprehensive as it should have been; apologies. Most of the last paragraph is lifted from the last FPP by ChurchHatesTucker; thanks.
posted by Wordshore at 2:10 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Princeton Election Consortium today: Clinton Nov. win probability: random drift 95%, Bayesian 97%
posted by Dashy at 2:10 PM on October 11, 2016 [19 favorites]

Amazing how Trump is being used as a pawn, and is being manipulated by Steve Bannon. It's like Trump is some golem controlled by Bannon.

Whose agenda is driving the events of the past few days (or basically ever since Manforte left the campaign)? And just how dumb are the people closest to Trump—the Trump children—not to realize this?

I guess Trump is a grifter after all, and one of the reasons he's just a grifter (who sells his name to schill buildings he does not own) is because he lacks the self-awareness and discipline to be a real billionaire.
posted by My Dad at 2:11 PM on October 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

I'm re-posting the John Noonan tweetstorm because it is so epic and should not be lost at the end of the last thread. Thanks to Talez for finding the storified version.

"Orange Samson" is my new favorite Trump nickname
posted by Jalliah at 2:12 PM on October 11, 2016 [52 favorites]

some in China don't think the election looks great for democracy

This isn't American democracy's finest hour for sure, but the argument for democracy was never that it was the most efficient or orderly system.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:13 PM on October 11, 2016 [16 favorites]

If we do run out of Hamilton quotes (ANY Hamilton), we could segue to Emerson (Lake and Palmer): "Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends..."
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:13 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

Looking into Downballot races today for my districts. and found ballotpedia.

It's a good resource to print out your sample ballot, and find out about not just politicians but also bonds issues coming up, etc.
posted by annsunny at 2:13 PM on October 11, 2016 [11 favorites]

"Orange Samson" is my new favorite Trump nickname

After threatening to jail his political opponent, my new favorite is "Banana Republican"
posted by tclark at 2:14 PM on October 11, 2016 [172 favorites]

Princeton Election Consortium today: Clinton Nov. win probability: random drift 95%, Bayesian 97%

538 still has Trump with a 16% chance... which basically means this election is russian goddamned roulette.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:14 PM on October 11, 2016 [44 favorites]

One of the biggest lessons I took away from reading The Big Con years ago was the assertion that no one was more vulnerable to the grift than a grifter because they thought themselves too smart to get gamed and couldn't resist the easy money.
posted by drewbage1847 at 2:15 PM on October 11, 2016 [23 favorites]

28 more days.
posted by gwint at 2:15 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

I am counting no chickens. October is the surprise month, and we still have another debate scheduled. Plus, even if one candidate is singularly unhinged, both are deeply unpopular.
posted by clever sheep at 2:16 PM on October 11, 2016 [11 favorites]

Also, Trump attacked Ryan and other top Republicans in a flurry of tweets today.

This is amazing. This could be the miracle needed to give the Democrats a shot at retaking the House, if Trump instructs or goads his supporters to not vote for any Republicans who turn against him.

Maybe the theory that Trump is an ultra-deep cover agent for Clinton/the Dems is true, and he's taking the entire Republican power structure down in one apocalyptic flame out.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:16 PM on October 11, 2016 [23 favorites]

Hillary Clinton is proposing a policy to tackle deep poverty

Analysts: Donald Trump’s new tax plan is even more tilted toward the rich than his old one
posted by homunculus at 2:17 PM on October 11, 2016 [25 favorites]

~Princeton Election Consortium today: Clinton Nov. win probability: random drift 95%, Bayesian 97%

~538 still has Trump with a 16% chance... which basically means this election is russian goddamned roulette.

Hopefully, only figuratively.
Now, I'm being serious here...Has any legitimate polling/prediction org put out any numbers on the probability of widespread violence should Clinton win, given the...enthusiasm...of many Trump supporters?
posted by Thorzdad at 2:17 PM on October 11, 2016

"Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends..."

"Come inside, come inside..."
posted by Flashman at 2:17 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

Look on the bright side, Trump fans: I'm sure the very worst thing anyone has on the Donald got leaked more than a month before the election.

And I'm sure after 25 years of a political party maniacally focused on bringing down Clinton, someone has something new under the sun that will be unleashed on her in the weeks to come. The famously strategic and calculating Trump campaign is waiting for the exact right moment to open it up.
posted by 0xFCAF at 2:18 PM on October 11, 2016 [92 favorites]

To be fair, it's been almost entirely good news for Clinton.

Given the amount of digging that's been done, nobody's really been able to find any dirt.

Liberals will need to hold Clinton accountable for some of her centrist tendencies if she's elected, but the election cycle seems to be proving that she can be swayed on most of those issues in the presence of good evidence.

It's also proving that it's surprisingly difficult to buy her influence.
posted by schmod at 2:18 PM on October 11, 2016 [48 favorites]

Maybe the theory that Trump is ultra-deep cover agent for Clinton/the Dems is true, and he's taking the entire Republican power structure down in one apocalyptic flame out.

While this is in no way plausible, how much would you have to pay him to do something like that? Or is it make sure his massive, massive debt is forgiven?
posted by Celsius1414 at 2:19 PM on October 11, 2016

I'm really hoping and expecting that some deeper investigative journalism will come out this week that is based on the leaked 1995 tax return information. The last thread had a link to a post noting other organizations who reported paying Trump in 1995 -- that he should have declared receiving far more than $6k in income. Warren Buffett also brought up the idea of allowable charitable contribution limits.

The "national conversations" we're having on sexism and locker rooms are important reasons for Trump to be defeated. The child-rape trial has to be a primary importance to prosecute, but it's probably not the only trial Trump will face next year.

I hope it's the tax fraud that takes him down in the next four weeks, because the notion that he's a "successful businessman" is the only premise he had for running.
posted by Dashy at 2:20 PM on October 11, 2016 [16 favorites]

While this is in no way plausible, how much would you have to pay him to do something like that?

He's paid in the only coin he cares about: attention.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:20 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Maybe the theory that Trump is ultra-deep cover agent for Clinton/the Dems is true

I agree that this is totally implausible, but this would make me furious. It's the one thing that would make me sit out/vote for Jill Stein.
posted by zutalors! at 2:21 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Samantha Bee making my day a little better (NSFW)
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:21 PM on October 11, 2016 [56 favorites]

Amazing how Trump is being used as a pawn, and is being manipulated by Steve Bannon. It's like Trump is some golem controlled by Bannon.

And his running mate is Race Bannon! Holy shit!
posted by GuyZero at 2:22 PM on October 11, 2016 [14 favorites]

Has any legitimate polling/prediction org put out any numbers on the probability of widespread violence should Clinton win

i predict millions and millions of crushed coors light cans on nov 8
posted by pyramid termite at 2:22 PM on October 11, 2016 [16 favorites]

While this is in no way plausible, how much would you have to pay him to do something like that? Or is it make sure his massive, massive debt is forgiven?

Remember that Trump got called an unwitting agent of the Russians a while back. I'm sure the Clintons are pretty good at flattering his ego.

And I'm not sure how far on the ropes I want him right now. Enough that he has time to start burning the GOP to the ground while not actually being completely gone.
posted by Francis at 2:22 PM on October 11, 2016

[RYAN]
This race is hard enough
Without infighting—

[TRUMP]
McCain called me out. We called his bluff

[RYAN]
You solve nothing, you aggravate our allies in this ENTIRE COUNTRY.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:23 PM on October 11, 2016 [15 favorites]

As some others have pointed out, if he was a Clinton plant, he probably wouldn't be talking up electoral fraud if he loses.
posted by ckape at 2:24 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

1483 days until the 2020 election.
posted by FallowKing at 2:24 PM on October 11, 2016 [44 favorites]

What's the over/under on Trump just spending Nov 9 - Jan 20 acting like he won
posted by beerperson at 2:24 PM on October 11, 2016 [49 favorites]

And voted, thanks to my home state basically having an election month.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:24 PM on October 11, 2016 [14 favorites]

Has any legitimate polling/prediction org put out any numbers on the probability of widespread violence should Clinton win, given the...enthusiasm...of many Trump supporters?

Honestly I think it would be irresponsible for the press to even speculate about that, because it would encourage it or normalize the possibility. Hopefully the Obama administration and various local policeries and state National Guard units are coordinating in order to be prepared for anything.
posted by msalt at 2:25 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

Given the amount of digging that's been done, nobody's really been able to find any dirt.

I heard her risotto is sub-par
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:25 PM on October 11, 2016 [139 favorites]

I'm feeling pretty good about my prediction from June:

Clinton and Trump have both been public figures since the '80s and one of the reasons they have high disapproval ratings is that they have well-defined personas. My theory is that as the election goes on and people take a closer look at them and think of either of them becoming president, they'll like Clinton more and they'll like Trump less. She's not very good at speeches, but she can be charming in smaller settings. He's going from being seen as a cartoonish blowhard to a dangerous lunatic.

If she can keep her cool during the debates like she did at the Benghazi hearing and can provoke him into blowing his top it would be a defining moment in the election. If I were on her staff I'd time some provocative shot at him the day of the first debate that she can casually allude to during the debate.

posted by kirkaracha at 2:25 PM on October 11, 2016 [83 favorites]

Hopefully, only figuratively.
Now, I'm being serious here...Has any legitimate polling/prediction org put out any numbers on the probability of widespread violence should Clinton win?

I really don't think you can poll for this. I do think there is a good chance that somebody, somewhere will do something but if you ask you're going to get way more people that will say and not do.

In my experience, and I've had some in a couple of drawn out conflict situations with the type of people who hold some of these more aggressive beliefs they bluster more then they do. The bluster can be very, very scary and but they don't end up doing it.

For example, big call across the country for white nationalist to descend and fight, lots of chatter, threats of bombing, fires, rocks and bottles all sorts of crap if the police didn't go in an arrest all the damn Indians. Protest day was X. On the boards lots of people said they were coming. The cops were preparing for a huge crowd and called in extra help. Literally 10 people showed up and all they did was be angry and yell.
posted by Jalliah at 2:26 PM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

Samantha Bee making my day a little better

Samantha Bee was so on fire with talking points about rape culture that I've really only heard on Metafilter and occasionally from more thoughtful Facebook friends. I was really excited to hear her addressing this stuff on television. I also found myself wondering if she's on here, and if so, what her user name might be.
posted by infinitywaltz at 2:26 PM on October 11, 2016 [23 favorites]

... and Wikileaks and dubious Russian information services ...

In the face of an abusive, misogynistic, bigoted, scary, lawless authoritarian, what’s a little journalistic fraud or constant fearmongering about subversive Kremlin agents between friends if it helps to stop him?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:26 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

It was a dumb joke y'all. Of course Trump is his own jackass.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:27 PM on October 11, 2016

Charles Pierce today:

We Vote in 4 Weeks. The Party of Lincoln Is in Shambles. 28 days, my friends.

Vladimir Putin Is Determined to See Trump in the Oval Office. The meddling, it knows no bounds.

Paul Ryan Has Already Lost More Than He Can Possibly Lose at the Polls: Profiles in cowardice.

The President Can Still Wage Secret Wars. Just something to keep in mind this November.

And this one from yesterday, in case anyone missed it:

Donald Trump Is Without Parallel. This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.
posted by homunculus at 2:27 PM on October 11, 2016 [18 favorites]

1483 days until the 2020 election.

ಠ_ಠ
posted by Celsius1414 at 2:27 PM on October 11, 2016 [66 favorites]

nobody's really been able to find any dirt.

Today in misleading headlines, this was linked on Google News under the title "Podesta says Clinton 'begun to hate everyday Americans'," so.
posted by psoas at 2:28 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

I agree that this is totally implausible, but this would make me furious. It's the one thing that would make me sit out/vote for Jill Stein.

I'd be furious if Clinton blew up my dog with explosives, and then played bagpipes at its funeral. I grant you it's implausible, particularly as my dog's been dead for years, but I would definitely not forgive her if she did it.
posted by howfar at 2:28 PM on October 11, 2016 [54 favorites]

What's the over/under on Trump just spending Nov 9 - Jan 20 acting like he won

That's exactly his plan. And unfortunately, it's deadly serious. He and his followers will not accept any reality but one in which he is victorious, which means that anyone who says otherwise, be they news companies or government organizations, will be seen as in on the conspiracy, and therefore traitors to the country.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 2:28 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

In the face of an abusive, misogynistic, bigoted, scary, lawless authoritarian, what’s a little journalistic fraud or constant fearmongering about subversive Kremlin agents between friends if it helps to stop him?

I agree with Greenwald here in this case (Kremlin links to hacking are wildly overstated), but he has shown himself to be completely lacking in a moral compass. Another iconic figure of our wretched age.
posted by My Dad at 2:29 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare: crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor and surviving.

[fake]
posted by Cookiebastard at 2:29 PM on October 11, 2016 [14 favorites]

Sent in my ballot. Avoided the temptation of scrawling "THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS" on the envelope.
posted by whuppy at 2:29 PM on October 11, 2016 [94 favorites]

2020? Focus on 2018. We have a lot to lose that year. Even if we get the Senate back this year we'll lose it in 2018 without a ground game.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:29 PM on October 11, 2016 [69 favorites]

I agree with Greenwald here in this case (Kremlin links to hacking are wildly overstated)

I'm curious, what leads you to that opinion?
posted by msalt at 2:31 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Woman: “If Hillary Clinton gets in...I’m ready for a revolution, b/c we can’t have her in”

Pence: “Don’t say that”
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:31 PM on October 11, 2016 [36 favorites]

I am so sick of this shit. Today I got accused of being a blindly unreasonable Hillary fan for arguing with someone who literally said she is not even human. Where did all these stupid blockheads come from? And can they get the fuck back there already?
posted by the agents of KAOS at 2:31 PM on October 11, 2016 [55 favorites]

In the face of an abusive, misogynistic, bigoted, scary, lawless authoritarian, what’s a little journalistic fraud or constant fearmongering about subversive Kremlin agents between friends if it helps to stop him?

there's a strain of "stop being mean to Russia about the stuff they're actually doing, OMG this isn't the Cold War" thought that keeps popping up around here that I find genuinely baffling
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:31 PM on October 11, 2016 [54 favorites]

I agree with Greenwald here in this case (Kremlin links to hacking are wildly overstated), but he has shown himself to be completely lacking in a moral compass.

Hmm. Care to elaborate?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:32 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

"stop being mean to Russia about the stuff they're actually doing, OMG this isn't the Cold War"

Clinton wants more action in Syria, directly scrapping with Russia. You'll get plenty of that next year I think.
posted by Coda Tronca at 2:33 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Woman: “If Hillary Clinton gets in...I’m ready for a revolution, b/c we can’t have her in”
Pence: “Don’t say that”

Scary. Maybe Pence will actually be helpful and have a few McCain-esque "No, no, ma'am, Obama's not a Muslim" type moments? Also she looks like she is literally wearing a foil hat.
posted by AndrewInDC at 2:34 PM on October 11, 2016 [20 favorites]

Who has no moral compass? Greenwald?
posted by dilaudid at 2:36 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Elle: Meet the High School Senior Who Wore a "Grab My Pussy" Shirt To a Trump Rally

She wore the homemade shirt "Grab my pussy, I dare you" along with two friends who wore homemade Black Lives Matter shirts.

"I felt disillusioned then with the opinions of [Trump] and any woman who supports him," Lehane tells ELLE.com over the phone, "You can't control how I vote by grabbing my whatever. The fact that I'm a woman doesn't mean that I'm easily influenced or controllable or someone who shouldn't be taken seriously."

Despite a history of Trump supporters being violent toward protestors, Lehane says danger "didn't cross my mind. It probably should've," she adds, explaining she felt safer with company and "wouldn't have been able to do it without friends." While she wasn't physically harmed while staying through the rally's entirety, Lehane reports "there were a lot of weird comments by creepy old men. One man, he looked to be my grandfather['s age], honestly, he said 'I always like a good dare.'"

Along with her shirt, Lehane wore a Bernie Sanders pin. "Hillary Clinton wasn't my first choice, but she stands for women and I stand for women," she says, "And Bernie Sanders supports Hillary now–I'm not just basing my opinions on him, but I think Hillary is definitely the better choice for the President of the United States."

posted by zachlipton at 2:37 PM on October 11, 2016 [121 favorites]

Maybe Pence will actually be helpful and have a few McCain-esque "No, no, ma'am, Obama's not a Muslim" type moments?

smash cut to Pence tied to the front of the battering ram, the word "CUCK" scrawled across his face in red paint
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:37 PM on October 11, 2016 [32 favorites]

Oh, fucking hell, Greenwald:

There is zero suggestion in the article, let alone evidence, that any WikiLeaks email was doctored: It wasn’t. It was just Sputnik misreporting the email.

"Misreporting."
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:37 PM on October 11, 2016 [24 favorites]

Elle: Meet the High School Senior Who Wore a "Grab My Pussy" Shirt To a Trump Rally

I don't find the term "alpha" very illuminating, but for those who do, this is what a fucking alpha looks like
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:39 PM on October 11, 2016 [70 favorites]

> Woman: “If Hillary Clinton gets in...I’m ready for a revolution, b/c we can’t have her in”

Trump's Promise to Jail Clinton Is a Threat to American Democracy

... The smooth functioning of American democracy rests on the acceptance of established norms. When they are violated, whether deliberately or out of careless disregard, the results can be catastrophic—and sometimes, bloody.

This is not a nation immune from political violence. To the contrary. Its political history is sanguinary. To the extent that elections today are peaceful and orderly, it is because earlier generations witnessed the alternatives, and fought hard to secure the legitimacy of the democratic process, and to contain political conflicts so that they would not expand to become violent conflicts.

Whichever party loses in November will need to find a way to accept the results, even if its members have convinced themselves during the heat of the campaign that the election of their opponent portends the dissolution of the Republic. And the members of whichever party prevails will need to resist the impulse to avenge themselves for the attacks they’ve endured, the outrages they’ve suffered over the course of a long and bruising campaign.

On Sunday night, Donald Trump showed again that he has failed to grasp this essential lesson. He’s running out of time to learn it.

posted by homunculus at 2:39 PM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

Mod note: A few comments deleted. We have a Brexit thread if you want to talk about that, and please don't call each other names.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 2:39 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

Whenever anyone uses the word "alpha", this pops into my head.
posted by pxe2000 at 2:40 PM on October 11, 2016

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: In the last thread, we continued to have problems with people misinterpreting fake / satirical stories as real, and even some cases where real stories were written off as satire. In these challenging times, where what's real is difficult to believe and what would have been impossible to believe just weeks ago is now baked into our expectations of what the next story will be, please make use of [real] and [fake] tags to avoid long and unproductive derails and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our MetaFilter.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:40 PM on October 11, 2016 [126 favorites]

Considering what Greenwald went through with Snowden I can't blame him for not liking the U.S. government very much. His article isn't wrong, and I had to eat a lot of crow while reading it because I retweeted the heck out of Eichenwald last night.
posted by stolyarova at 2:41 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

This could be the miracle needed to give the Democrats a shot at retaking the House

Honestly, I get why that would be exciting, but I honestly think even if you lean Democratic, the nation on the whole would be better served with the Ryans of the Republican side in charge, rather than a Trump-dominated minority party. Trump's civil war against the 'compromising' Republicans is not good. There are a lot of ways even a minority could make previous obstructionism seem like a cakewalk.
posted by corb at 2:41 PM on October 11, 2016

After threatening to jail his political opponent, my new favorite is "Banana Republican".

With Trump's talk about "the shackles" being taken off, I'm going with "Mango Unchained."
posted by tonycpsu at 2:42 PM on October 11, 2016 [173 favorites]

There are a lot of ways even a minority could make previous obstructionism seem like a cakewalk.

You can't divide by zero.
posted by Mooski at 2:43 PM on October 11, 2016 [12 favorites]

In the face of an abusive, misogynistic, bigoted, scary, lawless authoritarian, what’s a little journalistic fraud or constant fearmongering about subversive Kremlin agents between friends if it helps to stop him?

The thing is, multiple private companies and several government agencies have confirmed Russia's involvement in the DNC hacks. Obama took the extraordinary step of formally accusing Russia of it.*

So while not everything is automatically Russia's fault, and Trump isn't some Russian agent, it's not crazy to believe Russia is meddling in this election because Russia has already been shown to be meddling in this election.

*Though perhaps that too was a massive fraud perpetrated by a conspiracy of the entire media, the government, and private security firms.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:43 PM on October 11, 2016 [35 favorites]

>some cases where real stories were written off as satire.

We exist in a timeline where Donald Trump is a credible Presidential candidate. RIP SATIRE ?--2016
posted by Sing Or Swim at 2:43 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

the nation on the whole would be better served with the Ryans of the Republican side in charge, rather than a Trump-dominated minority party

Who said there were only those two choices on the menu? Purge the party of the Ryans and the Trumps. Better yet, have Ana Navarro start her own party and leave the GOP to the dustbin of history.
posted by melissasaurus at 2:44 PM on October 11, 2016 [33 favorites]

Scott Baio Defends Trump’s Sexism With More Sexism

Remember that episode of "Joanie loves Chachi" when Joanie overhears Chachi talk to his friends about sexualy assaulting women, then confronts him about it and then he tells her shut fat, stupid mouth and get used to it because that's how men talk? Heartwarming.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 2:44 PM on October 11, 2016 [27 favorites]

With Trump's talk about "the shackles" being taken off, I'mm'a go with "Mango Unchained."

I'm laughing so hard that I can barely type or breathe. That was the straw that released some tension relieving laughter. Thank you.
posted by Jalliah at 2:44 PM on October 11, 2016 [10 favorites]

Trump has repeatedly burned things down rather than taking a survivable loss by admitting he made a mistake (see: casino bankruptcy in particular). If you want to know whether he would do that to the country, just look what he's doing now to the Republican party and ask if you want to see that scale.
posted by Bringer Tom at 2:44 PM on October 11, 2016 [22 favorites]

Corb , do you think they will have an incentive to remain trumpy if he loses the election?
posted by Tarumba at 2:44 PM on October 11, 2016

RIP SATIRE ?--2016

p. sure satire began in 1998
posted by beerperson at 2:45 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

Are there any good maps of what's going on in the House elections?
posted by annsunny at 2:45 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

28 more days.

28 days. Heh.
posted by octobersurprise at 2:46 PM on October 11, 2016 [15 favorites]

After threatening to jail his political opponent, my new favorite is "Banana Republican".

A Banana power grab?
posted by AndrewInDC at 2:46 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

The way things are going, the post-election TV movie of the Trump presidential run is going to be the Apocalypse Now to Bill Clinton's The War Room by the end:

@realDonaldTrump: Did they say why, Ryan, why they want to terminate my campaign?

@SpeakerRyan: I was sent on a classified mission, sir.

@realDonaldTrump: It's no longer classified, is it? Did they tell you?

@SpeakerRyan: They told me that you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound.

@realDonaldTrump: Are my methods unsound?

@SpeakerRyan: I don't see any method at all, sir.

@realDonaldTrump: I expected someone like you. What did you expect? Are you an assassin?

@SpeakerRyan: I'm a the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

@realDonaldTrump: You're neither. You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill.
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:46 PM on October 11, 2016 [68 favorites]

Am I right in thinking that one of the many things that has allowed Trump to rise is gerrymandering? To whit, once you've made districts "safe" for Republicans by minimizing the threat from the left, the threats start to come from the right and things inevitably start changing in that direction. Both parties, long term, would seem to benefit from being in more direct, regular conflict. Yes, less "safe" seats, but what good is having a safe seat if the person sitting in it is worse than your opponent would be?
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:46 PM on October 11, 2016 [73 favorites]

Honestly, I get why that would be exciting, but I honestly think even if you lean Democratic, the nation on the whole would be better served with the Ryans of the Republican side in charge, rather than a Trump-dominated minority party. Trump's civil war against the 'compromising' Republicans is not good. There are a lot of ways even a minority could make previous obstructionism seem like a cakewalk.

No, sorry. I know you are a Republican and you're a fine person, but the Republican Party is repulsive, and has shown itself to be nothing but for years. Trump didn't start that. He's a symptom, not a disease. Republicans were against the 'compromising' Republicans for decades before him. They built a giant media echo chamber to amplify and reinforce that. They slaughter their own who dare to even try, culminating in the idiot shrieking rage of the Tea Party.

No, the time for that shit is over. If the Dems take power they need to give the Republicans a taste of their own medicine. The Republicans have shown over and over that they despise the very concept of trying to work with the Democrats, and spurn any and all attempts at such. Stomp them into the dirt and stomp the dirt down. Let the minority Republicans try to stop them.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:47 PM on October 11, 2016 [164 favorites]

Corb , do you think they will have an incentive to remain trumpy if he loses the election?

IANAC but the Trumpists don't give a shit about the establishment or the institution. The Republican Party is merely a means to an end. It'll be whoever shouts loudest during the primaries.
posted by Talez at 2:47 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

I am so sick of this shit. Today I got accused of being a blindly unreasonable Hillary fan for arguing with someone who literally said she is not even human. Where did all these stupid blockheads come from? And can they get the fuck back there already?

Paraphrased conversation I've had:

Friend: "Hillary is a straw feminist."

Me: *examples of Hillary's feminist stances and actions*

Friend: "Okay, so she's a half straw feminist."

Me: *drinks a Shiner Bock*
posted by Groundhog Week at 2:47 PM on October 11, 2016 [26 favorites]

I appreciate everyone who is still doing [real] and [fake] tags! There's too much crazy stuff to parse.
posted by isthmus at 2:48 PM on October 11, 2016 [29 favorites]

Huh, I feel like this was the only chance the deplorable voters had, after this they will always be a minority, so their elected downballot people have an incentive to work with the other Republicans
posted by Tarumba at 2:49 PM on October 11, 2016

Who said there were only those two choices on the menu? Purge the party of the Ryans and the Trumps. Better yet, have Ana Navarro start her own party and leave the GOP to the dustbin of history.

It's total baseball, but I'm actually looking forward to seeing what the upcoming Hispanic Republican leader get-together is going to come up with. I heart Ana Navarro forever for a lot of reasons, and if she comes up with a solid plan I will definitely follow where she leads, but I don't know if she and hers have enough of a wing to actually move the whole party.
posted by corb at 2:50 PM on October 11, 2016 [16 favorites]

Friend: "Hillary is a straw feminist."

I wish.
posted by melissasaurus at 2:50 PM on October 11, 2016 [30 favorites]

A friend, on reading the Noonan Tweetstorm: "I'm sure Dr. Frankenstein was pissed when his monster went on a rampage, too."
posted by dilettante at 2:51 PM on October 11, 2016 [45 favorites]

Woman: “If Hillary Clinton gets in...I’m ready for a revolution, b/c we can’t have her in”

Pence: “Don’t say that”

Listen to the rest of that portion though. Pence goes on to say he's worried about voter fraud and encourages that woman to get involved and be a poll watcher, because he's worried about "one person one vote".

So Pence basically hears this woman talking about committing violence around presumably people who don't look like her voting, and directs her to be at the polls on election day.
posted by cashman at 2:51 PM on October 11, 2016 [103 favorites]

the nation on the whole would be better served with the Ryans of the Republican side in charge, rather than a Trump-dominated minority party

The nation on a whole would be better with a Democratic majority, full stop. The Ryan House has been just as awful as Trump has, and having someone who played his lapdog in charge of anything should be a huge red flag. And Ryan himself has a lot of dangerous, harmful, bigoted ideas, so...nope.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:52 PM on October 11, 2016 [69 favorites]

Honestly, I get why that would be exciting, but I honestly think even if you lean Democratic, the nation on the whole would be better served with the Ryans of the Republican side in charge, rather than a Trump-dominated minority party. Trump's civil war against the 'compromising' Republicans is not good. There are a lot of ways even a minority could make previous obstructionism seem like a cakewalk.

I get your point: Ryan is apparently less crazy and turning the minority over to folks to the right of Breitbart would be destructive. But Ryan is darn dangerous. He wants to dismantle Social Security and block grant Medicare so GOP-led state legislatures can destroy it. Ryan doesn't talk like Trump, but some of his budget proposals are far more extreme than Trump when it comes to abdicating any responsibility to take care of the people in our society who need help. The Ryan budget more or less gradually eliminates virtually all discretionary spending except for the military, which he wants to fund more.

In some ways, Ryan scares me more, because the Trumpists announce themselves oh so loudly, while Ryan looks like a reasonable human being as he hides behind numbers and policy proposals nobody bothers to read.
posted by zachlipton at 2:52 PM on October 11, 2016 [105 favorites]

annsunny - This is a decent interactive on house races.
posted by msbutah at 2:52 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

So Pence basically hears this woman talking about committing violence around presumably people who don't look like her voting, and directs her to be at the polls on election day.

YES, THIS. Anyone going on about the dangers of the voter fraud Pence is talking about is on the same level as him and Trump. He's merely redirecting her violent anger at voters rather than politicians.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:53 PM on October 11, 2016 [43 favorites]

A friend, on reading the Noonan Tweetstorm: "I'm sure Dr. Frankenstein was pissed when his monster went on a rampage, too."

He was pissed but he didn't do much about it -- he fucking just took off at first, didn't he? That sounds familiar.
posted by theredpen at 2:53 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

I honestly think even if you lean Democratic, the nation on the whole would be better served with the Ryans of the Republican side in charge, rather than a Trump-dominated minority party.

Fuck that.

On the night of Barack Obama’s inauguration, a group of top GOP luminaries quietly gathered in a Washington steakhouse to lick their wounds and ultimately create the outline of a plan for how to deal with the incoming administration.
...
Among them were Senate power brokers Jim DeMint, Jon Kyl and Tom Coburn, and conservative congressmen Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy and Paul Ryan.

After three hours of strategizing, they decided they needed to fight Obama on everything. The new president had no idea what the Republicans were planning.

posted by kirkaracha at 2:54 PM on October 11, 2016 [173 favorites]

Doktor Zed,

I'm with you on this.
posted by Cookiebastard at 2:54 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'd like to see total numbers of favorites given compared to when the election threads come up. I know what that chart would look like, but I'm curious as to the magnitude.
posted by neonrev at 2:54 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

posted by The otter lady at 2:55 PM on October 11, 2016 [15 favorites]

>>I agree with Greenwald here in this case (Kremlin links to hacking are wildly overstated)

I'm curious, what leads you to that opinion?

I work for a media organization that covers many regions, including Russia and the countries known as "the former Soviet republics." So, from my perspective, and from the information that I consume, the connection between Trump and Putin, and between the Kremlin and various hacks, is wildly overstated. I wish I could provide a number of detailed citations, but here's a good place to start.
posted by My Dad at 2:55 PM on October 11, 2016 [10 favorites]

New polling from Reuters. Clinton up by 8 nationally; Republican men still horrible.
posted by melissasaurus at 2:56 PM on October 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

No Social Security, what does that mean? To my grandmother it meant that after raising 10 children on a farm in Alabama, she became a cafeteria lunchroom lady, until she was too weak to do that, and as a widow, spent her last days on her grand daughter's couch. Little security except for family, freedom to work until death, for minimum wages. So anyone who threatens that is my enemy.
posted by Oyéah at 2:56 PM on October 11, 2016 [145 favorites]

Greenwald's failure to call out and straight-out discredit Sputnik as a propaganda organ, on the other hand, is an example of his profound moral and intellectual bankruptcy. Greenwald doesn't care about democracy, and he certainly does not care about accuracy in reporting. He's just a pundit now.
posted by My Dad at 2:58 PM on October 11, 2016 [16 favorites]

What I have learned thus far
1. Hillary sure to win
2. Kelleyanne, the Trump guide to victory, also dumb and has put her career in peril because she fronts for loser.
3. Trump able to avoid taxes for 20 years and what he has done perfectly legal!
4. GOP in free fall but will be united in their hatred of a woman president. The Know Nothings will re-engage with the Do Nothings.
5. Pence will be doing battle with Rubio in the next election cycle while Cruz wonders why he still has no friends.
6. With the increasing use of early voting, who needs 3 debates stretched out over so long a time.
7. Someone may suggest a mic switch to cut off debaters from going over allotted time.
8. We will soon be humming "Happy Days Are Here Again" till things get underway in Congress and then we will wonder why all seems just like it has been.
9. Christie will ask Trump if he can have a job at new hotel in D.C., perhaps the maitre de position in the restaurant. Rudy will be head of security at a Trump casino till the casino goes belly up
posted by Postroad at 2:58 PM on October 11, 2016 [21 favorites]

It's total baseball, but I'm actually looking forward to seeing what the upcoming Hispanic Republican leader get-together is going to come up with. I heart Ana Navarro forever for a lot of reasons, and if she comes up with a solid plan I will definitely follow where she leads, but I don't know if she and hers have enough of a wing to actually move the whole party.

I still don't get why the two of you still identify as R. Like you do more community involvement than almost anyone in your community. You obviously care about people dearly. What do you still identify with? Just a general dislike of big govt + continued legal access to firearms?
posted by Talez at 2:58 PM on October 11, 2016 [19 favorites]

TRUMP: That's RIGHT, McCain -- "foul mouthed!" Eat ass!
BANNON: (mouthful of sour cream) YEAH!
TRUMP: Who should we do next?
BANNON: (cough)
posted by petebest at 3:00 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

I wish I could provide a number of detailed citations, but here's a good place to start.

mkay

Would Putin enjoy a Trump presidency? Almost certainly. Is he using what means he has at his disposal to bring that about? Quite probably. [...] This focus on Russian ‘active measures’ – on the hacking of Democratic Party computers and the subsequent leaks, or on the ties between Manafort and Deripaska, for example – is the most pernicious of red herrings. It allows us to believe that America is in a battle with a foreign adversary, and thus to avoid the conversation we need to be having with ourselves. The threat to America, my friends, is domestic.

this is less of a refutation than an "I prioritize my worries differently" statement
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:00 PM on October 11, 2016 [21 favorites]

Considering what Greenwald went through with Snowden I can't blame him for not liking the U.S. government very much. His article isn't wrong, and I had to eat a lot of crow while reading it because I retweeted the heck out of Eichenwald last night.

Thank-you 1,000x for your intellectual honesty.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 3:01 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

This is a matter of no importance, but after reading some of the comments from the right criticizing Clinton for liking Beyonce, I went and paid to download Lemonade because nobody disses Queen Bey.

(I'd listened to it on YouTube previously)
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:03 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

Linking that Mike Cernovich GOP civil war threat (or whatever to call it) linked at the end of the previous thread: note at the bottom he calls it #OperationPurgeCucks.

I would be fascinated by this fixation the alt-righters and the Trumpster fires have on the term "cuck," but I got my writing start on Literotica and I'm way too familiar with how that plays out on such sites. Guys routinely go to stories that are very clearly going to be about wives sleeping with men other than their spouses, be it adultery or open relationships or whatever. Invariably, no matter how this fictional plot plays out, these dudes leave horrid, angry, hateful comments. And again, they knew damn well what they were going to read. It's right there on the label.

There's a lot to unpack with this stuff about men seeing women as possessions (and adultery being a loss of control), and a lot of times race plays into it in ugly ways. But when you consider how these dudes keep coming back for more, knowing full well it's just going to drive them up the wall, the whole phenomenon screams of projection and self-loathing.

Every time I see "cuck" used in allegedly conservative circles, I have to wonder about the possible crossover. Like I don't think they specifically go to Lit and so what if they do, but to fling around a term like that? The first thing I think when I see people use "cuck" as an insult is "Wow, you're just gonna let the self-loathing rage and insecurity fly like a flag, huh?"
posted by scaryblackdeath at 3:03 PM on October 11, 2016 [80 favorites]

the connection between Trump and Putin, and between the Kremlin and various hacks, is wildly overstated.

I don't think Trump is actively a knowing plant (though inserting plants into other governments is a thing Putin has done), but I don't think it's at all unreasonable to suggest that Trump & co are both dumb and power-hungry enough to follow whatever threads they find that might make them 'win' and ignore totally the source of those threads. We know for certain that Trump has repeatedly used material cribbed from Kremlin mouthpieces, and has done so literally hours after the material was posted. He has literal Putin operatives who helped destroy and destabilize an entire nation working for him. He's encouraged the idea that Russia is behind the hacks and that they should continue. He doesn't need to knowingly follow orders from Putin if he's dumb enough to trust him on spec.
posted by neonrev at 3:04 PM on October 11, 2016 [28 favorites]

Ryan doesn't talk like Trump, but some of his budget proposals are far more extreme than Trump

I think what I'm trying to say is that regardless of his policies specifically, even with the obstructionism we've seen - which I must admit has reached insane levels, remember we are still down a Supreme Court Justice - a lot of what happens in Congress and the Senate relies on sort of a collective agreement not to be break the wheels of government completely. They obstruct on some things - which is wrong in the way they do it - largely signature Democratic achievements, but they haven't simply stopped passing any bills whatsoever, for example. There have been bipartisan bills that have gotten through. Government shutdowns exist, but have been mercifully short.

There have been some Tea Party Republicans elected to Congress, but never a cohesive group of them with a cohesive leader determined to actually burn things down. They at least have a veneer of civility. I don't think we've seen even a fraction of what an active rebellion of government-burning, minority-hating revolutionists could accomplish.
posted by corb at 3:04 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

TRUMP: Every rally is so great. So great. I feel like I'm winning more than ever. How can I win so much we'll be sick of winning?
CONWAY: Mr. Trump, yes, you're always a winner, sir, but I feel like you might need to follow up on the outreach to women like we disc- ...
BANNON: DESTROY THE GOP!
TRUMP: Of all the Steves, you're my favorite. Where's my tweetphone?
CONWAY: ...
TRUMP: Kellyanne, you know what your problem is? You aren't named Steve. Work on that.
posted by krinklyfig at 3:05 PM on October 11, 2016 [30 favorites]

2. Kelleyanne, the Trump guide to victory, also dumb and has put her career in peril because she fronts for loser.

Not at all. I think at this point she knows Trump will lose or at least expects him to, but knows that being anti-Hillary is going to be a growth industry if she becomes President. Conway, having gone to the mat for Trump against Hillary, will be in a great position to sign on with whatever faction of the GOP comes out ahead once the dust settles. Backing any one specific faction is a sucker's bet -- she was anti-Hillary before Trump, and she's cementing her brand as the all-purpose anti-Hillary hack now.
posted by tonycpsu at 3:05 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

It seems from the last debate that Trump has a very weird view of how government works.

He seems to always say that only he can fix things. Him alone.

He accused Clinton of being a failure as a senator because SHE didn't get anything done. He is clearly assuming that an individual in government can do what they want and can make what they want to happen. Which is how he presents himself as president. HE can and will do what he wants. Him alone.

Is he really that clueless about how government works? Is his narcissism so entrenched that he projects it on to everyone around him? He's the winner, everyone else are losers? The man clearly is insane.

This view also explains his claim that the system is rigged. If you can always do what you want, how do you explain being unable to do something? It's because the system stops you. It's rigged. It's not your fault that you failed. The system is at fault. It's psychopathology everywhere you look.
posted by njohnson23 at 3:06 PM on October 11, 2016 [74 favorites]

Now, I'm being serious here...Has any legitimate polling/prediction org put out any numbers on the probability of widespread violence should Clinton win, given the...enthusiasm...of many Trump supporters?

The polling firm of Pater Aletheias, His Family, And Random People Nearby put the odds at 99.5%.

Honestly, it scares me. It is very easy to see Trump refusing to concede and saying the election was stolen. He's already said that's the only way he will lose. His followers don't trust the polls and they believe in rampant voter fraud, so there's no reason for them not to trust him. If he doesn't do an incredibly out-of-character public concession and pledge to support Clinton, there will be violence. Some skinheads are going to attack minorities on election night when the networks start calling it for Hillary. I don't see how that won't happen. How can it not, given the campaign he is running?
posted by Pater Aletheias at 3:06 PM on October 11, 2016 [28 favorites]

I don't think we've seen even a fraction of what an active rebellion of government-burning, minority-hating revolutionists could accomplish.

As long as they are themselves a minority in the House, it doesn't matter.
posted by zombieflanders at 3:07 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Trump does a lot of business with Russians, by his own admission. By his own admission he tried to coax Putin out for a business/social meeting, and it was a no go. So, Trump is still working on his business relationship with Russia, with Putin, because in his narcissistic way that was a snub, and he is needy for attention. Yes, I think he is just that pathetic. He has worked this for a long time with his marriages, and his businesses. This election is about business. He is setting up for his new life.
posted by Oyéah at 3:08 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Garry Kasparov: Several of us have been pointing out for months that many of Trump's talking points come from Kremlin disinfo with great speed & accuracy.
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:08 PM on October 11, 2016 [57 favorites]

we are still down a Supreme Court Justice - a lot of what happens in Congress and the Senate relies on sort of a collective agreement not to be break the wheels of government completely.

lol
posted by beerperson at 3:09 PM on October 11, 2016 [20 favorites]

A friend, on reading the Noonan Tweetstorm: "I'm sure Dr. Frankenstein was pissed when his monster went on a rampage, too."

He was pissed but he didn't do much about it -- he fucking just took off at first, didn't he? That sounds familiar.

Well, he did a lot of weeping and passing out, and then he ripped a women that he had built for his creation into shreds, so . . . yeah, still works. And perhaps we'll end up with Trump drifting away forever on an ice floe.
posted by bibliowench at 3:10 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

His new life as an international business and disinformation magnate.
posted by Oyéah at 3:11 PM on October 11, 2016

THAT'S THE WRONG HAMILTON!

Nope; I indelibly associate Lewis Hamilton with US elections (as well as with being a damned good driver). In 2008 he won his first championship with some deft overtaking in the last minute of the last race. I was presenting at a video games and librarians conference (yes, those are a thing) in Chicago at the time. Much yelling ensued as I followed the race, partially due to a hefty bet running on this season. At the end of the conference, the winnings paid for four of us who had attended to somehow procure a taxi and go to a rather busy park downtown as something was happening that evening...
posted by Wordshore at 3:11 PM on October 11, 2016 [22 favorites]

a lot of what happens in Congress and the Senate relies on sort of a collective agreement not to be break the wheels of government completely. They obstruct on some things - which is wrong in the way they do it - largely signature Democratic achievements, but they haven't simply stopped passing any bills whatsoever, for example.

I'd like to know how responding to the Zika crisis, 9-11 first responder health care, infrastructure repair funding, VA reform and many more pure 'national good' bills that have been shut down were 'signature Democratic achievements', and not obviously bi-partisan bills that were shut down because the GOP would hate to let a black man do any obvious good for anyone.

There have been some Tea Party Republicans elected to Congress, but never a cohesive group of them with a cohesive leader determined to actually burn things down. They at least have a veneer of civility. I don't think we've seen even a fraction of what an active rebellion of government-burning, minority-hating revolutionists could accomplish.

I don't negotiate with terrorists, and neither should you. Ryan would take the votes of those traitors to the nation gladly, and in fact panders to them. He's a more subtle wanna-be dictator than some we've seen recently, that's all.
posted by neonrev at 3:11 PM on October 11, 2016 [93 favorites]

A friend, on reading the Noonan Tweetstorm: "I'm sure Dr. Frankenstein was pissed when his monster went on a rampage, too."

He was pissed but he didn't do much about it -- he fucking just took off at first, didn't he?

As opposed to Dr. Frank-N-Furter, who just took off fucking!
posted by Celsius1414 at 3:11 PM on October 11, 2016 [20 favorites]

Talk of election night violence is rendered even more frightening by virtue of the nation's largest police union endorsing Trump. How many police officers will be among those who believe the election was rigged? How much effort would they put into protecting those voters and communities most at-risk of post-election violence, especially when they sympathize with the position of the attackers?
posted by palindromic at 3:12 PM on October 11, 2016 [69 favorites]

Also re: Ryan, the man has sided with Donald Trump. He shouldn't be entrusted with safety scissors, let alone being third in line of succession. There's no reason at all to believe (and every reason to believe otherwise) that he would be some sort of sane guy that suddenly gets a case of the bipartisan vibrations. That's not who he was before Trump ran, and it's certainly not who he is now.
posted by zombieflanders at 3:13 PM on October 11, 2016 [41 favorites]

Before Ryan gave in and took the job, I remember pundits were pointing out that technically the Speaker of the House didn't even have to be a member of Congress, so clearly the Democrats need to win the House so we can avoid Speaker Trump.
posted by ckape at 3:15 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

The big question to me isn't so much how much of each GOP faction gets elected, or even how much daylight there really is between the racism-enabling policies of the Tea Party and the explicitly racist messaging of the alt-right. What really matters is how much institutional support the entire, uh, knapsack of undesirables gets from the GOP establishment. The Access Hollywood tape is the very first time we've seen any significant number of Republicans find the line that they wouldn't step across, and it was still such a small number of them that I see no reason to believe that the alt-right would be limited any more than the Tea Party has been thus far.
posted by tonycpsu at 3:15 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

Garry Kasparov: Several of us have been pointing out for months that many of Trump's talking points come from Kremlin disinfo with great speed & accuracy.


He ain't just whistling Dixie...

Google Warns More Than a Dozen Russian Journalists and Activists About ‘Government-Backed Attackers’


Valdimir Putin is bringing back the 1930s: The Russian dictator hopes to benefit from a destabilized Europe. (WaPo)

It's like Trump would like to outdo Charles Lindbergh in Philip Roth's The Plot Against America.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:16 PM on October 11, 2016 [24 favorites]

Just for this month, Esquire has resurrected the much-missed Spy magazine, featuring such articles as "Is Donald Trump Genetically Defective?", "TV Writers Know How to Make Hillary More Likable", and the return of their Separated at Birth series. (OK, that last one is a little stale, but without Gawker, Jon Stewart, and The Colbert Report, I'll take any satire to ease the sense of unreality surrounding this election.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:16 PM on October 11, 2016 [14 favorites]

being anti-Hillary is going to be a growth industry if she becomes President. Conway, having gone to the mat for Trump against Hillary, will be in a great position to sign on with whatever faction of the GOP comes out ahead once the dust settles

From The New Yorker: "Kellyanne Conway's Political Machinations." Worth reading.
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:17 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Buzzfeed: Here’s Audio Of Trump Campaign CEO Saying: “What We Need To Do Is Bitch Slap” The GOP

As first reported by Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic, Bannon years ago — in a 2010 interview — advocated rallying Tea Party supporters to “bitch slap the Republican Party” in the 2010 midterm elections and beyond.

posted by erratic meatsack at 3:23 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

I get annoyed from time to time with Greenwalt's Intercept
There is usually a mix of editorializing and released materials. My pro Israel bias also clashes with his consistent anti Israel bias. In his editorial writing he is a bit like Chomsky and seems unable to find anything decent, nice, about the U.S. We are, true, often doing bad stuff; on the other hand, we have done a lot of good things for the world.
posted by Postroad at 3:25 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

I think that Eichenwald overhypes his stories on Twitter and has a confusing writing style, combined with the awful typography on the Newsweek website, that makes even a story of moderate complexity hard to follow. He sometimes tries to sell a lot more than he has, and that's true here too. He's been busy spending the last day picking fights with random people on Twitter who insult him, which further speaks to this problem. I also agree there's a danger in seeing a red menace everywhere. Most of our problems are coming from inside the house, and it's far too tempting to blame Russia for our own mess. But, it is also in Russia's interest to stir up FUD, and there is reasonable evidence they have sought to do that in a number of countries by backing right-wing groups.

I don't think the issue Eichenwald is flagging should be entirely ignored here. There is no smoking gun that connects Trump and Russian propaganda outfits, other than the fact that they both made the same egregious error misreading an email and trying to cast it as a knockout blow against Clinton. Eichenwald went too far in trying to sell more of a connection that he has no evidence for.

But still, to take the most benign view of the situation, ignoring any other allegations of hacking or disinformation and treating this incident on its own, Trump and Russian propaganda efforts are both trawling the same cesspool for dirt and then presenting it to the world as diamonds, without making the slightest effort to verify anything first, as long as what they find is intended to make Hillary Clinton look bad. Even if it all came form some alt-right tweet, it's a considerable problem that yet another thing so factually wrong came out of Trump's mouth at all. Reproducing random nonsense from the dark corners of the internet is the exact same process that brought us the "sheriff's star" horribleness. And Eichenwald's story has to be understood in the context that you can't handwave away every single bit of evidence of Russian influence anywhere in this election.

You have to really radically misread the email to spin it the way Sputnik and Trump did, like, you have to not look at where it says "Newsweek" and "Kurt Eichenwald" right there at the top. You also have to somehow think that Blumenthal wrote a 10,000 word journalistic story to send to his Clinton campaign pals instead of realizing it was something he was forwarding. To be misread it that wrongly, you have to be either a complete idiot, or not care that you're spreading easily disprovable lies. Two entities met those descriptions here: the Trump campaign and Sputnik.
posted by zachlipton at 3:26 PM on October 11, 2016 [23 favorites]

from my perspective, and from the information that I consume, the connection between Trump and Putin, and between the Kremlin and various hacks, is wildly overstated. I wish I could provide a number of detailed citations, but here's a good place to start.

Thank you very much. I agree that Trump is the immediate threat and needs to be stopped. I'm struck though that this article
1) confirms that Putin is likely taking all the discussed active efforts to help Trump, and
2) does not address one way or the other whether Moscow is behind the hacking. He only says it's a red herring distracting from the real threat, which is Trump.

It seems to be more of a "so what?" than a "not true." And I happen to think that a foreign power actively intervening on behalf of a political candidate who is doing that foreign powers policy favors already (eg Republican platform on Ukraine, comments on NATO), is extremely disturbing -- even if it was John McCain or John Kerry we were talking about.
posted by msalt at 3:27 PM on October 11, 2016 [17 favorites]

Elle: Meet the High School Senior Who Wore a "Grab My Pussy" Shirt To a Trump Rally


In 30 years when she's running for President against Donald Eric Taco Bowl Trump IV and winning in a landslide, and Wikileaks comes out with "SHOCKING PICTURE OF CANDIDATE WEARING OBSCENE T-SHIRT" I'm going to run around the old folks' home smiling and yelling "I TOLD YOU I KNEW HER FROM SOMEWHERE!" and they'll have to increase my medications.
posted by mmoncur at 3:27 PM on October 11, 2016 [108 favorites]

There have been some Tea Party Republicans elected to Congress, but never a cohesive group of them with a cohesive leader determined to actually burn things down. They at least have a veneer of civility.

Rep. Joe Wilson, the guy who shouted "YOU LIE" at President Obama, is a Tea Party Republican. (More examples of similar civility at the link.)
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:28 PM on October 11, 2016 [14 favorites]

@Kasparov63: Anyone can edit Wikipedia, but only the KGB can edit Wikileaks.
posted by thelonius at 3:30 PM on October 11, 2016 [34 favorites]

mkay

If you want to adopt this sort of tone, feel free to MeMail me. I answered your question as truthfully as I could, and with the best of intentions.
posted by My Dad at 3:31 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Am I right in thinking that one of the many things that has allowed Trump to rise is gerrymandering?

Funny you should mention that--I had just posted the below tidbit in the old thread. It put some things into a light that I hadn't considered before.

LA Times: Gerrymandering helped Republicans take control of Congress, but now it's tearing them apart over Trump

A gerrymandering of congressional districts, completed six years ago, sought to secure a Republican House majority for years to come by packing Democratic voters into fewer, often urban and minority districts and giving Republican candidates comfortable majorities in the ones they control.

But those tailor-made districts yielded a new crop of hard-right, often uncompromising Republican members of Congress, running safely in mostly white, older and rural districts, where Trump’s support is strongest.

These conservative House members are increasingly at odds with Republican senators, party leadership and a handful of remaining House swing-district lawmakers, who are wringing their hands over Trump because they still must appeal to a broader swath of voters, including moderates, independents and minorities.
posted by polecat at 3:33 PM on October 11, 2016 [22 favorites]

I'm so glad Keith Olbermann is available to express my anguish in loud dulcet tones.
posted by janey47 at 3:34 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

I still don't get why the two of you still identify as R. Like you do more community involvement than almost anyone in your community. You obviously care about people dearly. What do you still identify with? Just a general dislike of big govt + continued legal access to firearms?

I think it's no accident that Ana Navarro and I are both Nicaraguan, both around the same age, and both with a visceral distaste for left-wing revolutions that affects how we see the world. I don't know all of her family's personal circumstances, but I know for me, this rhetoric about taking down the rich, "fair share" wealth distribution, 65% estate tax, all of this scares me and reminds me far too much of the Sandinistas who took my family's house. It makes it hard for me to hear and trust the Democrats on other matters, because I wonder how they all tie together and where their hard stop is. Sometimes I even want to, but it's hard.

I think I'm holding out a lot of hope that after the Republican Civil War, the reasonable voices will be the ones who win. If the others do, I don't really know where I'll go. I think a lot of us are asking those questions. Join the libertarians and try to make them into a real party? Join the Democrats and try to influence the economic side? It's a real puzzle, honestly. I wish I knew a better answer. I wish I had a better party.
posted by corb at 3:35 PM on October 11, 2016 [147 favorites]

If you want to adopt this sort of tone, feel free to MeMail me. I answered your question as truthfully as I could, and with the best of intentions.

wasn't my question. but my tone was nonplussed, is all; my read of the article was that it was basically agreeing that Putin is doing shenanigans
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:35 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

LAT: Gerrymandering helped Republicans take control of Congress, but now it's tearing them apart over Trump

"The GOP infighting, in many ways, is no surprise and largely of the party’s own making.

A gerrymandering of congressional districts, completed six years ago, sought to secure a Republican House majority for years to come by packing Democratic voters into fewer, often urban and minority districts and giving Republican candidates comfortable majorities in the ones they control.

But those tailor-made districts yielded a new crop of hard-right, often uncompromising Republican members of Congress, running safely in mostly white, older and rural districts, where Trump’s support is strongest.

These conservative House members are increasingly at odds with Republican senators, party leadership and a handful of remaining House swing-district lawmakers, who are wringing their hands over Trump because they still must appeal to a broader swath of voters, including moderates, independents and minorities."

EDIT: Or exactly what polecat posted.
posted by chris24 at 3:35 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

To be misread it that wrongly, you have to be either a complete idiot, or not care that you're spreading easily disprovable lies. Two entities met those descriptions here: the Trump campaign and Sputnik.

It's also an error that suggests, but doesn't prove, either coordination or derivation from the same source. On top of everything else already connecting Trump to Russia.
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:35 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Woman: “If Hillary Clinton gets in...I’m ready for a revolution, b/c we can’t have her in”

The most telling part of that woman's not-a-question was that she'd been pushing Trump on social media constantly for over a year. Like the two people profiled in the WaPo over the last month, she has lots of time on her hands, a desire to make sense of the world, and a never-ending high-pressure hose of shit to fill her days with. (And yes, I'm aware that election threads are a much-less-shitty but not-dissimilar variation on that.)
posted by holgate at 3:37 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

I've been waiting for someone in the Trump campaign itself to jump ship. They have to realize that Trump's chances are remote. They have to understand that they will be forever tainted by their association with Trump (although it's probably too late to do much about that). And it's clear that Trump is no longer even nominally under their control (and is probably as much of a raging fucknozzle to them as he is to everyone else).

If that does happen, it'll be the surest sign yet that the Trump campaign is disintegrating. If his poll numbers continue to plummet, if he becomes even more erratic and earns further condemnation, if there are further damning revelations about Trump – all likely scenarios – maybe one of them will say "fuck this", and flee from the burning building.

It's kind of surprising that it hasn't happened already. Are they hoping for a slot in Trump's rumored TV network? Are they just true believers? (Because I've assumed that anyone working with Trump is just a cynical opportunist, using the feces-encrusted circus peanut for their own purposes.)

Talk of election night violence is rendered even more frightening by virtue of the nation's largest police union endorsing Trump.

This has definitely been on my mind. At this point, I am bracing myself for some kind of unrest in the aftermath of the election. Hopefully it will be no more than a few small, isolated incidents.

Here's the other thing that concerns me about that: it will be very tricky for authorities to contain such unrest without further inflaming the situation. If alt-righters take to the streets with guns, can you imagine what will happen if Obama sends in the National Guard to quash it? That'll play straight into the exact paranoid conspiracy theories that feed Trump's base. That's the kind of situation that can spiral quickly out of control. I doubt that Trumpists have the organization to pull off a successful coup – but they could hurt a lot of people trying. And if some portion of the police, or even the military, do side with the Trumpists...and if Putin starts supporting them...

I wouldn't be surprised if the Obama administration is quietly planning for, at least, small-scale militia actions. I hope they are.

I'm all out of schadenfreude at this point. I just want this to be over.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 3:37 PM on October 11, 2016 [41 favorites]

My goals for President Hillary Clinton and her Democratic Congress:
Bush & Cheney have never been prosecuted for lying to get us into war in Iraq that cost thousand of Allied lives and in excess of 125,000 civilian Iraqi lives.

The banks that tanked the economy - did they break regulations and laws? Can we prosecute?

Reinstate the graduated income tax. It's easier with computing power. Earn more? Pay a higher percentage.

Increase the maximum amount of earnings subject to FICA and index it to the cost of living or something

Raise the minimum wage, and index it to the cost of living or something.

I'll think of more. Not getting complacent, but it's about damn time we set a better agenda.
posted by theora55 at 3:38 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

Breitbart Boss Stephen Bannon Bragged in 2015: ‘I’m Trump’s Campaign Manager’

"A year before he became campaign CEO, the alt-right media master boasted he was calling the shots and turning his news site into a platform for his candidate."
posted by chris24 at 3:40 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Bush & Cheney have never been prosecuted for lying to get us into war in Iraq that cost thousand of Allied lives and in excess of 125,000 civilian Iraqi lives.

You are absolutely right, and that is never going to happen post-Trump and in a Clinton presidency. Or probably any presidency.
posted by Celsius1414 at 3:45 PM on October 11, 2016 [16 favorites]

When I look at what Christie, Cruz, Ryan, &c. have been reduced to, it's an object lesson that "the gates of Hell are locked from the inside."* They could leave this in an instant, if only they could.

*C.S. Lewis "The Great Divorce"
posted by DGStieber at 3:47 PM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

My take on the Trump candidacy (and his big decision of the past two days):

Trump had no real expectation of winning the Presidency and was basically in the primaries because of a toxic mix of ego and greed (the visibility would elevates his brand and the PAC money lines his pockets).

Then the unthinkable happened and far more reasonable candidates like Bush and Rubio started to implode. This left Trump in a position of thinking he might actually have a shot. So he went for it, and by virtue of the massive number of racists and nutbags, managed to win the primary!

Buoyed by this, Trump begins to believe his own press and thinks he's got a chance to take the whole enchilada! Polls show him up (or tied) in many states!

And then, his karma (and septic mouth) catches up to him this past week and he begins to crater.

So he makes a decision - sometime in the past couple of days - that he probably won't win. BUT, he can lock in the fanatical devotion of tens of millions of racists and nutbags and become their hero. So he cancels all of his ads in the swing states yesterday (the better to pocket that sweet PAC money for later influence-buying and self-dealing) and decides to go nuclear.

His overall popularity drops as he becomes more strident and crazy, but his base is now forever his. And if Fox News has shown us anything, it's that you don't need to have the respect of a majority of people (or reason, or couth) in order to make a killing off of millions of people that are utterly devoted to you.

So he's now come full circle...and it's once more all about the grift for Cheetoh Jesus.
posted by darkstar at 3:48 PM on October 11, 2016 [15 favorites]

Woman: “If Hillary Clinton gets in...I’m ready for a revolution, b/c we can’t have her in”
Pence: “Don’t say that”

This video it's so clear that Pence is clearly uncomfortable with Trump fomenting insurrection.
posted by Talez at 3:50 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

The banks that tanked the economy - did they break regulations and laws? Can we prosecute?

Ha! Clinton will never do this. She, like Obama, is going to appoint Wall Street insider types to Treasury and the Fed, and whoever she makes AG won't want to ruin his/her future in a white shoe firm by upsetting their biggest clients.

I wish she would do this, but, reality bites.
posted by dis_integration at 3:50 PM on October 11, 2016 [20 favorites]

I know for me, this rhetoric about taking down the rich, "fair share" wealth distribution, 65% estate tax, all of this scares me and reminds me far too much of the Sandinistas who took my family's house.

The promises are not the problem, as you well know - it's the use of hatred and fear as a motivator, and for the moment at least, those are tools of the Republican party.

Should the powers that be to the left of center being exploring that toolbox, I will no doubt find myself in a similar position as you.
posted by Mooski at 3:51 PM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

You have to really radically misread the email to spin it the way Sputnik and Trump did, like, you have to not look at where it says "Newsweek" and "Kurt Eichenwald" right there at the top.

The Trump fandom has a tendency to make stupid mistakes like this, I've noticed on r/the_donald and Twitter. There was an amusing one on the DNC leak, where Clinton operative Soandso is subscribed to the Ted Cruz fundraising letters for intelligence purposes. So there's a message in the leaks like "Hi Soandso, Ted Cruz badly needs your help to defeat Donald Trump! Please give us all your money!" and they get excited about finding out that the Clinton campaign is secretly funding Ted Cruz...

*Though perhaps that too was a massive fraud perpetrated by a conspiracy of the entire media, the government, and private security firms.

Do you not remember the Iraqi WMDs?
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 3:55 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

All the President’s Misogynists: Why It Took So Long to Derail the Trump Train. "What took so long for members of the GOP to try to 'dump Trump?' The answer lies in the deep pathologies of the GOP agenda, which are shaped in turn by the fundamentalist corporate and religious forces that now control the party, and a shared Madonna-Whore approach to women foundational to the GOP platform."

Democracy Now: "All the President's Misogynists": Jodi Jacobson on Why It Took So Long to Derail the Trump Train
posted by homunculus at 3:55 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

I'm sure that Trump will try to profit from this after he loses, but the notion that his increasingly erratic behavior is some kind of calculated strategy gives him too much credit, I think. He is pure, impulsive id. Nothing he's done over the last 16 months suggests that he's capable of that kind of tactical thinking. We're seeing a pathlogical personality who is cornered and deeply threatened - nothing more.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 3:55 PM on October 11, 2016 [15 favorites]

i can't wait til everyone is at least 1/10th as tired of hamilton as i am
posted by poffin boffin at 3:56 PM on October 11, 2016 [91 favorites]

Nate Silver: Here's what the map would look line if only women voted ... And here's if just dudes voted.
posted by effbot at 3:58 PM on October 11, 2016 [43 favorites]

Yeah, I'm increasingly at a loss to identify Republicans governing in good faith. Every single time the talking head Trump surrogates talk about Americans' dissatisfaction with the direction America is going they miss the implicit asterisk that comes with that statement. When I tell Gallup that this is how I feel, I am explicitly referring to the obstructionist take no prisoners style of government cooked up by the Republicans after Obama was sworn in. By all means, Paul, push back at progressivism, but when you cut off your nose to spite your face I lose faith in your party's intentions. See: Republican attachment of Planned Parenthood agendas to hold up the Zika funding desperately required in mostly red states.
posted by xyzzy at 3:58 PM on October 11, 2016 [21 favorites]

i can't wait til everyone is at least 1/10th as tired of hamilton as i am

The problem is that "success" for musicals is repeating virtually the exact same show every night. Forever. ;)
posted by Celsius1414 at 3:59 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

How many police officers will be among those who believe the election was rigged?

Probably the ones in San Antonio wearing Trump hats.

I'm not so much worried about post-election violence than about voter intimidation shit because of either a) cops not responding to calls; b) a few really shitty cops doing their own intimidation. (It only takes a few of them.) We know that "voters will be checked for outstanding warrants" and "settle your parking tickets or missed child support payments" are routinely used to suppress the vote in minority communities -- flyposters that appear on utility poles as if by magic. The next step would be for a handful of cops to decide that they ought to lurk around certain polling places and check tags. And because policing in the US is so fragmented, there's limited recourse.
posted by holgate at 3:59 PM on October 11, 2016 [15 favorites]

@teddyschleifer
"Trump at Texas fundraiser, per attendees:
-- Pops off on Paul Ryan
-- Repeats he is free from "shackles"
-- Wishes he had loyalty like Dems"
posted by chris24 at 3:59 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

@Kasparov63: Anyone can edit Wikipedia, but only the KGB can edit Wikileaks.

It does appear that, at this stage, Julian Assange is a Russian propaganda asset, willingly or otherwise.

I wonder how long until he follows his instincts (think the fable about the Frog and the Scorpion), bites Putin's hand, and ends up with a gut full of polonium or some equivalent. I imagine the FSB are aware of his tendencies and, are keeping a careful eye on him, and have someone in the Ecuadorian embassy poised to deliver the shot to the base of the skull should he even look like he's contemplating ratfucking Putin, or even before that, when the Czar indicates that his uses have been expended.
posted by acb at 4:01 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

i can't wait til everyone is at least 1/10th as tired of hamilton as i am

Until Saturday Night Live I wasn't 100% sure that Hamilton was a real thing. I thought it might be a Metafilter in-joke like the Steves and Merediths and Egg McMuffin.
posted by mmoncur at 4:01 PM on October 11, 2016 [57 favorites]

I think it's no accident that Ana Navarro and I are both Nicaraguan, both around the same age, and both with a visceral distaste for left-wing revolutions that affects how we see the world. I don't know all of her family's personal circumstances, but I know for me, this rhetoric about taking down the rich, "fair share" wealth distribution, 65% estate tax, all of this scares me and reminds me far too much of the Sandinistas who took my family's house. It makes it hard for me to hear and trust the Democrats on other matters, because I wonder how they all tie together and where their hard stop is. Sometimes I even want to, but it's hard.

The difference, with due respect, corb, is that the propositions for wealth redistribution in the US--at least, the ones made by anybody who has any chance of actually making anything happen--are not at all revolutionary in nature. The reason they are being proposed is to fix a severe imbalance in wealth distribution that, if left unattended, is going to significantly increase the chances of violence in the long-term. The US has had a lot longer post-colonial period to stabilize, and a lot shorter a colonial period in the first place for everything to get totally screwed up here. The dynamics are not the same. We don't have the same problems to fix that Nicaragua has to fix, and we have different resources with which to solve those problems.

We have the advantage here of a long period of relative political and economic stability to start from, which has not generally been the case for Latin America, for a number of reasons. I think this election is proving very well that we can't expect that stability to last forever. That's why the time that we need better education, better health care, a better justice system, and the first baby steps towards better redistribution of resources is now, not fifty years from now. Not just to prevent people from getting angry enough to be violent, but to prevent any group or individual, regardless of which side of the economic spectrum they pretend to support, from using the public's anger to their own benefit.
posted by Sequence at 4:01 PM on October 11, 2016 [188 favorites]

I heard her risotto is sub-par

i never liked her spinach puffs
posted by poffin boffin at 4:01 PM on October 11, 2016 [28 favorites]

This video it's so clear that Pence is clearly uncomfortable with Trump fomenting insurrection.

Then he should have said "vote and then go home", like everybody else. She said she was going to be at the polls wearing red and was encouraging others to do the same. Pence seems to me to be providing himself the thinnest veneer of plausible deniability when that woman sees some person of color walk into a polling place, realize they left something in their car, and then walk back in again to vote. And then that woman takes that "this is dire, my life and kids are at stake" talk she starts off the video with, and does something terrible. Remember - when Trump said he was going to put his political opponent in jail, Pence said that was a great moment in the debate.

Also, I would bet money on not a single person directly involved in the campaign (someone whose name we are all familiar with) leaving and citing dissatisfaction with the campaign in any way. Because look at what Trump is doing. He's gathered together a veritable mob, and anybody who leaves at this point has to be scared for their life if they're viewed as being the person that caused Trump to lose the election via the resulting negative press.
posted by cashman at 4:01 PM on October 11, 2016 [15 favorites]

trump: i do sex crimes
beyoncé: i reward consensual, enjoyable sex with cheddar biscuits
trump supporters: CHECKMATE LIBERALS
posted by erratic meatsack at 4:03 PM on October 11, 2016 [102 favorites]

Here's what the map would look line if only women voted ... And here's if just dudes voted.

Whoa whoa whoa what's that big blue state at the bottom of the "women voted" map?
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:04 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

Here's what the election would look like if only women voted...

Is it too late to change my sex before election day?
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 4:05 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump [real]
Wow, @CNN Town Hall questions were given to Crooked Hillary Clinton in advance of big debates against Bernie Sanders. Hillary & CNN FRAUD!
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:07 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

My very astute 14 year-old niece texted me to say that Casey Neistat has endorsed Hillary Clinton. I don't even know what the demographers call the people who come after the millennials, the post-snake people, but i'm pretty sure most of his subscribers are not old enough to vote. While he basically says that he's voting for Clinton because Trump is so awful, he does challenge the other youtube stars to step up and take sides in the election even if it costs them subscribers or likes or whatever.

It's pretty easy for metafilter to hate on Casey Neistat, but he did make a video about his experience volunteering in 2008 for the Obama campaign in Ohio which is pretty cute and a reminder of better times.
posted by peeedro at 4:07 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

Just got polled out of Gainesville.

Q1: Clinton, Trump, Huntsman, or Stein, undecided.

Q2: Murphy or Rubio, undecided.

Q3: nationwide min wage: abolish, leave at 7 something, raise to 10, raise to 12.50, raise to 15, undecided.

Age:

Sex:

Gun control laws: leave the same, ease, strengthen, not sure I put the choices
In the right order.

Tobacco taxes: same, raise, undecided.

Marijuana nationwide: legal for all, medical only, something I can't remember but had the word medical in it.
posted by tilde at 4:12 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Your daily dose of No Fucks Obama:
This happened. Obama responds to Alex Jones saying he and Hillary are literal demons who smell like sulfur. Then he sniffs himself
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:13 PM on October 11, 2016 [177 favorites]

I know for me, this rhetoric about taking down the rich, "fair share" wealth distribution, 65% estate tax, all of this scares me and reminds me far too much of the Sandinistas who took my family's house.

The GOP talking about who is and isn't a 'real American', and specifically wanting that definition to extend to people born in this country but whose ethnic or racial background does not fit the desires of their elites, all of this scares me and reminds me far too much of the authoritarian fascists who murdered my entire family (who was not so lucky to have fled to the US yet), took our land and repopulated our village with people they found ethnically acceptable.

The main difference between these two things, of course, is that it's not just Trump and the Tea Party, but establishment GOP calling for the monitoring of ethnically different peoples, the deport of ethnically different people, the disenfranchisement of ethnically different people and explaining away, forgiving and even supporting the state sponsored MURDER of ethnically different people.
To the best of my knowledge, even the most crazed of liberal congress-people have never called for taking away anyone's house because they are too rich or really doing more than ensuring that they do not have so many tools to avoid supporting the nation that allowed them to gain that wealth. There's no equivalence, and to ignore literal calls for death because of a false equivalence is just not in good faith.

I will say that I was once a republican, and am still too politically fragmented to solidly identify as a democrat. I'm far too much a redneck, gun-owning, war-mongering, elitist, socialist pacifist to be anything specific in American politics, and that's just fine. If you want to have a party to put your name to, you'd better be willing to accept what they are is all I'm saying. Can't have it both ways.
posted by neonrev at 4:13 PM on October 11, 2016 [97 favorites]

trump: i do sex crimes
beyoncé: i reward consensual, enjoyable sex with cheddar biscuits
trump supporters: CHECKMATE LIBERALS

To troll the whiny Trumpkins, HRC should say she loves Azealia Banks (definitely NSFW, and definitely the best song to use against Trump following Friday's revelations)
posted by My Dad at 4:13 PM on October 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

WaPo editorial: Donald Trump, Putin’s puppet:

And Mr. Trump? Once again, the GOP nominee played the part of Vladi­mir Putin’s lawyer. “She doesn’t know if it’s the Russians doing the hacking,” he said of Ms. Clinton. “Maybe there is no hacking.” Mr. Trump is receiving classified intelligence briefings, so he is certainly aware of the evidence that hackers backed by Moscow have stolen email and other records from the DNC and tried to penetrate state electoral systems. So why does he deny it? Mr. Trump’s advocacy on behalf of an aggressive U.S. rival, and the opaqueness of his motivation, is one of the most troubling aspects of his thoroughly toxic campaign.

Experts differ on whether the Putin regime is trying to tip the election to Mr. Trump, as Ms. Clinton suggested, or merely to sow confusion and distrust about the integrity of U.S. democracy. But the leaks traced to Russia through the WikiLeaks website have been aimed at Ms. Clinton — most recently emails from her campaign chairman revealing excerpts from her private speeches on Wall Street. The timing of the WikiLeaks releases, clearly calculated to do maximum damage to the Democrats, confirms (again) that the website is not a crusader for transparency, but a willing political agent of the Kremlin.

posted by zachlipton at 4:14 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

This happened. Obama responds to Alex Jones saying he and Hillary are literal demons who smell like sulfur. Then he sniffs himself

Now...I mean...come on, people!
posted by infinitywaltz at 4:15 PM on October 11, 2016 [58 favorites]

Glenn Greenwald does not like the United States nor does he like the Democratic Party. He does not have particularly progressive ideas nor does he live according to progressive values. Instead he seems to have fled to Brazil where he can have cheap servants and dodge US taxes. He's spent the last 8 years pissing on Obama and helping advance nothing but his own ego.
posted by humanfont at 4:15 PM on October 11, 2016 [38 favorites]

Bush & Cheney have never been prosecuted for lying to get us into war in Iraq that cost thousand of Allied lives and in excess of 125,000 civilian Iraqi lives.

I hope you aren't getting your hopes up about this one because there's two chances this happens: slim and none (and I'm betting on none).

this rhetoric about taking down the rich, "fair share" wealth distribution, 65% estate tax, all of this scares me and reminds me far too much of the Sandinistas who took my family's house

I get that there's some traumatic family history here, but as people around here like to point out, the Democrats are a party of the mildly center left status quo. Now some of us are satisfied with that and some of aren't (and many of us are both at times). But you could fill the entire Congress with Democrats and they still wouldn't be Sandinistas.
posted by octobersurprise at 4:16 PM on October 11, 2016 [64 favorites]

This happened. Obama responds to Alex Jones saying he and Hillary are literal demons who smell like sulfur. Then he sniffs himself

"I mean... c'mon people!"

I love him so much.
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:17 PM on October 11, 2016 [30 favorites]

Here's what the election would look like if only women voted...

19th Amendment FTW.
posted by chris24 at 4:18 PM on October 11, 2016 [43 favorites]

Poll too late for edit - have I voted early (today was the last day to register according to Rick Scott but the courts have extended it).
posted by tilde at 4:18 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

I think this election is proving very well that we can't expect that stability to last forever.

And one of the overarching narratives of post-colonial South American history is the failure of American-style presidentialism in environments where there's limited trust in institutions, broad and obvious structural inequality, and a lot of outside interference.

(e.g. Glenn Greenwald lives in Brazil, where the sitting president was recently impeached and removed for corruption by a coalition that included plenty of legislators with equally dodgy stuff on their records.)
posted by holgate at 4:19 PM on October 11, 2016 [14 favorites]

Conway, having gone to the mat for Trump against Hillary, will be in a great position to sign on with whatever faction of the GOP comes out ahead once the dust settles.

I'm not so sure. I think future candidates can accept previous losses in a campaign manager but the whole "we're keeping track of names" thing is a slash and burn strategy that only works if the Trumpists end up running the asylum. At best I could see a Paul Ryan looking for insight into the Trump base, but the current Republican Party is demographically doomed. I don't see how you get women and people of color to feel comfortable in a party with increasingly vocal misogynists, racists, and xenophobes. They used to prop themselves up on single issue voters (abortion, guns) but that strategy is becoming decreasingly viable as even gun owners look for common sense gun legislation and pro-lifers recognize that abortions decrease under Democratic administrations.
posted by xyzzy at 4:22 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

@nickgourevitch:
"Gallup favorables:
Clinton w/ Dems: +57 net favorable
Trump w/ GOP: +30 net favorable
Which candidate's base is at risk of not turning out?"
posted by chris24 at 4:23 PM on October 11, 2016 [11 favorites]

Took my little baby daughter to vote today and held her hand so we could push the VOTE button together, so she can say she was there when we elected the first woman president of the United States.

I feel pretty good about American democracy today!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:23 PM on October 11, 2016 [267 favorites]

Economist/YouGov poll conducted over 10/7-8 (post-tape pre-debate) full results [pdf]. 44-38 in 4-way race; 48-43 in head-to-head matchup.

(many other metrics in the pdf like favorability, adjectives to describe the candidates, etc)
posted by melissasaurus at 4:24 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Which candidate's base is at risk of not turning out?

Historically, the one that is made up of young people.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 4:24 PM on October 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

"I mean... c'mon people!"

OTOH, this is exactly what a demon would say.
posted by octobersurprise at 4:24 PM on October 11, 2016 [19 favorites]

one of the overarching narratives of post-colonial South American history is the failure of American-style presidentialism

American-style presidential systems have never worked anywhere else they've been implemented; there's a reason the USA is pretty much the only country with its particular form of government, and most other democracies have some form of parliamentary system (most significantly the problem of conflicting claims to democratic legitimacy and representation of "the will of the people", when the legislative majority is of one party, and the executive is of another).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 4:24 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

1483 days until the 2020 election.

can someone start a thread?
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 4:26 PM on October 11, 2016 [42 favorites]

it's a little known fact, but demons do not smell like sulfur - they smell like kind of stale, dried out cheese ...
posted by pyramid termite at 4:27 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

And here's if just dudes voted.

Looking at this made me angry in a bone-deep, helpless, futile way that's left me genuinely sick to my stomach.

I'd laugh and make jokes about "misandry" but I'm honestly too tired and sad.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 4:29 PM on October 11, 2016 [29 favorites]

You'd think a literal demon would be able to avoid getting pneumonia.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 4:29 PM on October 11, 2016 [38 favorites]

I think it's no accident that Ana Navarro and I are both Nicaraguan, both around the same age, and both with a visceral distaste for left-wing revolutions that affects how we see the world. I don't know all of her family's personal circumstances, but I know for me, this rhetoric about taking down the rich, "fair share" wealth distribution, 65% estate tax, all of this scares me and reminds me far too much of the Sandinistas who took my family's house.

To add on to Corb here, my mother is also Nicaraguan, though much older (she's retired now, she took her oath of citizenship back in the late 60s in Knoxville, TN). I've mentioned before on the blue that the Contras that Reagan armed killed one of her family, not because he was a Sandinista, but because the Contras were the equivalent of a poorly trained militia, some of whom were no more than thugs, and armed thugs target whomever the fuck they want. She, my mother, has always been a republican, even after Iran-Contra came to light, because of what Corb discusses above. She hates the cult of Reagan, but she hates the underlying principles of the left and loves the underlying principles of the right.

My mom is With Her.
posted by Groundhog Week at 4:29 PM on October 11, 2016 [74 favorites]

Limburger.
posted by octobersurprise at 4:29 PM on October 11, 2016

Gone gone the form of man, comes a demon who is a secret Kenyan?

I'll see myself out.
posted by vrakatar at 4:30 PM on October 11, 2016 [12 favorites]

Re: demons: People who can't smell a mountain of bullshit should not be relied upon to detect trace amounts of sulphur.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 4:30 PM on October 11, 2016 [33 favorites]

1483 days until the 2020 election.

can someone start a thread?

Check out the front page of MetaFilter on November 10th (or, shortly before I go into hiding from Cortex et al for a prolonged period of time).
posted by Wordshore at 4:31 PM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

the notion that his increasingly erratic behavior is some kind of calculated strategy gives him too much credit

It would if it were his strategy. What he's doing is clearly in synch with the demonstrated strategies of people like Bannon and Putin, either of whom is perfectly capable of playing the man like a game of Snake.
posted by Devonian at 4:31 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was going to say something about poor Ken Bone, but it looks like he is okay. Someone linked to a tweet he made about his red sweater right after the debate and he had something like 25 followers. He's up to 130k now. I hope he's enjoying his 15 minutes.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 4:33 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

Yeah, the Democratic Party is a big tent.

You can be in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade and be not just a Democrat in good standing, not just a sitting Democratic Senator, but the Minority Leader of the Senate.

You can assemble guns blindfolded.

Hell, you can even vote against the Affordable Care Act.

I mean, these positions would be hard right in any other Western nation. Hard. Right. Even the party of Ford, Reagan and the Bushes is dead now, let alone the party of Rockefeller, Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt and Lincoln. The Grand Old Party has become the Groping Ol'boys Party.

The Democratic Party is the only sane governing party left in this nation. It is the only realistic option for this social democrat, and it is the only realistic option for NeverTrumpers.
posted by tivalasvegas at 4:36 PM on October 11, 2016 [81 favorites]

Just to clarify - the campaign event cancellation link in OP is to a Borowitz report article (satire).
posted by ancillary at 4:37 PM on October 11, 2016

I hope he's enjoying his 15 minutes.

Every time something like this happens, I can't help but think of the drummer who spent like 10 days with the Beatles while Ringo had tonsillitis - there's a picture of him waiting for a train (or bus, or something similarly everyday) - alone. It makes me sad.

I hope Ken Bone comes out the other side of this brush with fame about the same as he went in.
posted by Mooski at 4:42 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

I have long thought undecided voters are really only "TV Fame Hungry."
posted by agregoli at 4:44 PM on October 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

beerperson: What's the over/under on Trump just spending Nov 9 - Jan 20 acting like he won

Maybe we just get Liebot to tell him he won, and let him act like he won? [NB: It is somewhat distressing to look back at this arc and realise that (a) Philippe had a better platform than Trump, and (b) Todd as Philippe's running mate is actually about as offensive as Trump].

Serious answer: I spent yesterday looking at r/The_Donald and these people are nuts. They're now convinced that the GOP, Democrats, all of the media and the polling companies are all in on a plot, that Trump is really at least 10 points up but the polls are lies, and that the election will be stolen. So yeah...
posted by Pink Frost at 4:49 PM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

The Reuters/Ipsos poll that puts Clinton eight points ahead also has this interesting nugget:

Trump, however, appears to be shedding support among evangelicals, who are usually a wellspring of support for Republican presidential candidates. Monday's poll showed that Trump had only a 1-point edge over Clinton among people who identified as evangelicals. That’s down from a 12-point advantage for Trump in July.
posted by Devonian at 4:54 PM on October 11, 2016 [40 favorites]

I wonder if all these pieces by women evangelicals about why they can't support Trump are having an effect.
posted by peacheater at 4:55 PM on October 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

I need a hug. My neighborhood, eastern PA median-price suburban homes, is peppered with trump signs. No Clinton signs (and I'm frankly too scared, tho I do have a magnet on my car).

And new trump signs popped up today.

I'm surrounded by people who hate. This really doesn't feel good.
posted by Dashy at 4:56 PM on October 11, 2016 [83 favorites]

Every time something like this happens, I can't help but think of the drummer who spent like 10 days with the Beatles while Ringo had tonsillitis - there's a picture of him waiting for a train (or bus, or something similarly everyday) - alone. It makes me sad.

It's Jimmie Nicol; the photo is of him at an airport.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:57 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Is it just me, or does Obama look younger in that sulphur video than he has in years? Must feel good to see the finish line in sight! (And to know that HRC is currently in the best racing shape of her life.)
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:58 PM on October 11, 2016 [28 favorites]

I've had my Obama signs kicked down in my upper middle class neighborhood. Don't put up signs anymore. Also have had racial slurs defacing our side walks (we are adjacent to middle class neighborhoods that some Trumpers call "ghetto now" and we house the local elementary school) and a house 12 houses down where a dual wielding confederate flag adorned truck is usually parked.
posted by tilde at 4:58 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Sorry, dashy. That sucks.
posted by Sophie1 at 4:58 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

My hometown, an upper-middle-class white suburb which is EXTREMELY proud of having one of the best public high schools in the county, is peppered with Trump signs. It ain't all dumb hicks who are still Trumping.
posted by desuetude at 4:59 PM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

Serious answer: I spent yesterday looking at r/The_Donald and these people are nuts.

One of my guilty pleasures, if that is the right word, is reading the reddits of people who I massively disagree with. I spent a fair bit of time a few years ago reading reddit's pro-gamergate sub, and it is hard to distinguish between the two in some ways.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 4:59 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

I grew up in the evangelical subculture. I promise there are otherwise rock-solid Republican voters there who are absolutely disgusted with Trump, and hearing him talk about women that way is going to be particularly disturbing to a lot of them. Not that a lot of their views on women aren't deeply problematic, but men being respectful to women (by their definition) is something they hold as important. I can't imagine any of the men in the church I grew up in talking like that about a woman. It's almost like an anti-dogwhistle, a clear signal to many evangelicals that he is Not One Of Them.
posted by EarBucket at 4:59 PM on October 11, 2016 [27 favorites]

Dashy: "I'm surrounded by people who hate. This really doesn't feel good."

I'm so sorry. You are not alone, and we are not going to let people like that win. Take care of yourself first and foremost, I know all too well how easy it is to give in to the hopelessness and rage when confronted with this on a daily basis.
posted by erratic meatsack at 5:00 PM on October 11, 2016 [11 favorites]

I spent a fair bit of time a few years ago reading reddit's pro-gamergate sub, and it is hard to distinguish between the two in some ways.

I'm pretty sure a Venn diagram of the two would form a near perfect circle.
posted by Mooski at 5:01 PM on October 11, 2016 [12 favorites]

In reversal, [NE] Sen. Fischer renews support for Trump
posted by melissasaurus at 5:02 PM on October 11, 2016

Obama mocks Republicans for standing by Trump

“You can’t have it both ways here,” Obama said Tuesday during a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina. “You can’t repeatedly denounce what is said by someone and then say, ‘But I’m still gonna endorse them to be the most powerful person on the planet' and to put them in charge.’”

“So I just wanna make that point because there are still a number of Republican elected officials, some of whom I know and I’m sure are embarrassed and say, ‘Wow, that was a really terrible thing he said,’ but they can’t bring themselves to say, ‘I can’t endorse this guy,’” Obama told the energetic crowd of more than 7,000 people. “And by the way, why did it take so long for some of them to finally do walk away?”

posted by kirkaracha at 5:02 PM on October 11, 2016 [62 favorites]

@adrian_gray:
"White College Women since tape:
PRRI: Trump -39
NBC: Trump -29

Previous GOP Margins (2012...1980): +6, -7, +1, -5, -4, +0, +6, +10, +9"
posted by chris24 at 5:02 PM on October 11, 2016 [15 favorites]

Republicans tell Trump to quit claiming rigged election
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 5:03 PM on October 11, 2016 [15 favorites]

In reversal, [NE] Sen. Fischer renews support for Trump

Strike up the band! Refill that punch bowl!

♫ Hatin' times are here again... ♫
posted by tonycpsu at 5:03 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of white evangelical women pull the lever for Hillary in the privacy of the voting booth and never tell anyone they did it. But a bigger issue is that women make the ground game go, and if they don't show up to volunteer, then the Republicans have nobody doing GOTV stuff. And that hurts Republican candidates up and down the ticket.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:05 PM on October 11, 2016 [54 favorites]

Ben Carson warns conservatives of 'mass killings once again' without resistance to government

Outside the college were the letters "RLM" and a cross covered with American flags. The sign next to them read: "Religious Liberty Matters."

Inside, Ben Carson urged a conservative audience to be strong in their faith and stand by their beliefs in the face of "ever-growing government."

Tyranny will reign otherwise, "and there will be mass killings once again," Carson told a crowd Friday. "The peace that we experience now will be a memory only. This is the nation that stands between peace and utter chaos."

Asked at a press conference how he thought such a grim future might come about, Carson referenced "the whole gay marriage issue."

posted by kirkaracha at 5:05 PM on October 11, 2016 [18 favorites]

Trump is nuts, because no fraud is needed to steamroll his tiny little percentage, but I am so tired of articles that disingenuously dismiss election fraud by "accidentally" calling it voter fraud.

Sometimes I just can't believe we're still stuck in denial like it's still 2000.
posted by rokusan at 5:06 PM on October 11, 2016

Ben Carson is his own entire kind of crazy, isn't he? An asylum of one.
posted by rokusan at 5:07 PM on October 11, 2016 [28 favorites]

In reversal, [NE] Sen. Fischer renews support for Trump

Ignorant jackass or not, he's got something pulling some powerful as hell strings. This person was calling for him to step down last Saturday.

The faster we get this guy back into real estate grifting, the better.
posted by Mooski at 5:07 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

In Greensboro, Obama says Trump has disqualified himself for job at 7-Eleven

“The guy says stuff nobody would find tolerable if they were applying for a job at 7-Eleven,” Obama said during a lengthy speech to a crowd of 7,700 at an outdoor amphitheater. “I also know a lot of casino operators who managed not to lose $1 billion in a year. They say the house always wins. I don’t know what happened.”

posted by kirkaracha at 5:08 PM on October 11, 2016 [94 favorites]

I've watched the "Dish and Dishonesty" episode of Black Adder (the one focusing on an election) twice since Tony "Baldrick" Robinson's Trump advice tweet the other day and its also been making me feel better.
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:08 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

Christianity Today — the flagship Evangelical magazine in America — denounces Trump

Now, the flagship magazine of evangelical Christianity is blasting the Republican presidential nominee – and criticizing the Christians who vote for him.

“Enthusiasm for a candidate like Trump gives our neighbours ample reason to doubt that we believe Jesus is Lord,” Christianity Today editorial director Andy Crouch wrote Monday in an editorial. “They see that some of us are so self-interested, and so self-protective, that we will ally ourselves with someone who violates all that is sacred to us.”

Christianity Today was founded by evangelist Billy Graham in 1956 and today serves as a major voice of evangelicals, who make up about more than a quarter of the U.S. population.
posted by Jalliah at 5:10 PM on October 11, 2016 [84 favorites]

Ben Carson is his own entire kind of crazy, isn't he? An asylum of one.

I think of him as a milliArcham.
posted by Bringer Tom at 5:13 PM on October 11, 2016

Gah I missed my question on my post.

Is the Christianity Today denouncement actually a big deal in Evangelical world?
posted by Jalliah at 5:15 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Ben Carson is his own entire kind of crazy, isn't he? An asylum of one.

Any other election year, I'd say the Republicans dodged a bullet there, but....
posted by invincible summer at 5:15 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

I wish I could go back in time and rip the Scott Baio posters off my wall. Who the hell knew?!
posted by heyho at 5:16 PM on October 11, 2016 [28 favorites]

Rick Wilson is teasing "evidence of the GOP nominee's utter collapse in a red state" that he says will be published soon. My bet is Utah is going blue.
posted by corb at 5:17 PM on October 11, 2016 [32 favorites]

Yeah, Christianity Today is a big deal, and is semi-apolitical with a socially conservative lean. I don't know how many minds it'll change at this point, but it's highly credible to a lot of people who need to hear that message.
posted by EarBucket at 5:18 PM on October 11, 2016 [12 favorites]

someone who violates all that is sacred to us.”

Game over.
posted by vrakatar at 5:18 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Rep [Blake] @farenthold [of TX] just said he didn't know if he would withdraw Trump support if he said, "I love raping people." @chrislhayes jaw hit floor [tweet; no video yet]
posted by melissasaurus at 5:18 PM on October 11, 2016 [50 favorites]

okay you guys we can shut this thing off now

we're done

stop the planet and the stars and all that jazz, we're done
posted by erratic meatsack at 5:20 PM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

[real]

Claiming he is worried about the future of the country, a longtime Boca Raton guardianship attorney has filed a petition in Palm Beach County Circuit Court asking a judge to declare Donald Trump mentally incapable of seeking the presidency.

[...]

Florida law gives any “adult person” the right to question someone’s competency, said West Palm Beach guardianship attorney John Morrissey, who is not involved in Herb’s quest. A judge will appoint an attorney to represent Trump. The attorney will alert Trump that the petition has been filed against him.

[...]

However, Boca Raton guardianship attorney Edward Shipe said he doubted it would go that far.

[...]

Under the state’s guardianship laws, the target of a frivolous petition can demand that the person who filed it be forced to pay his attorneys fees and court costs. “I fear that Mr. Trump with his litigious history may make Mr. Herb’s life hell,” Shipe said.

[/real]
posted by tilde at 5:21 PM on October 11, 2016 [47 favorites]

Yeah, I just saw that and was writing a comment:
Hayes: If Trump was recorded saying "I enjoy raping women," would that cause you to stop endorsing him?
Farenthold: "Uh....well..I mean...... that would be bad. But what is the context..?" (barely paraphrased from memory, so [real])
posted by gatorae at 5:21 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

Blake Frenthhold has a wonderful record with women.. It's a TPM link but may not be work safe.
posted by nathan_teske at 5:22 PM on October 11, 2016

"Is the Christianity Today denouncement actually a big deal in Evangelical world?"

Yeah, it's a pretty big deal.

Christianity Today is a more mainstream arm of evangelical Christianity and, as such, doesn't go in for the conspiracy theory end of the right wing and that sort of thing. But it's the most widely-read evangelical publication (and read among other Christian groups as well) and it's very well-respected and has "good theology." Every Baptist pastor I know subscribes; every evangelical who takes theology seriously takes Christianity Today seriously.

Obviously if you are in the tank for crazy a well-reasoned statement from a well-respected Evangelical publication isn't going to sway you. But a lot of Republican-voting Southern Baptists and Pentecostals will read it and take it very seriously, whether they ultimately agree with it or not.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:23 PM on October 11, 2016 [56 favorites]

“I also know a lot of casino operators who managed not to lose $1 billion in a year. They say the house always wins. I don’t know what happened.”

Whoa! You just got sonned, Donnie.
posted by octobersurprise at 5:25 PM on October 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

Is the Christianity Today denouncement actually a big deal in Evangelical world?

Yes. It is the Evangelical equivalent of TIME or Newsweek. The conventional wisdom of a community that's obsessed with policing its boundaries.
posted by tivalasvegas at 5:26 PM on October 11, 2016 [12 favorites]

Josh Marshall on publishing and authenticating the Podesta emails, "the product of a at minimum a disruption campaign from a foreign state"
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:27 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Mapquest has announced a Trexit contest. The lucky winner will receive relocation to Canada in the event of a Trump victory.
posted by humanfont at 5:27 PM on October 11, 2016 [15 favorites]

>a petition in Palm Beach County Circuit Court asking a judge to declare Donald Trump mentally incapable of seeking the presidency

>the target of a frivolous petition can demand that the person who filed it be forced to pay his attorneys fees and court costs.

Uh-huh. And what opportunities for redress do I have, as the target of a frivolous Presidential campaign?

You have to take an eye test to get a driver's license. Do you have to pass any tests to be President? Like a little multiple-choice quiz even? 'Using a 2B pencil, please circle the truths which we hold to be self-evident'?
posted by Sing Or Swim at 5:27 PM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

It is the Evangelical equivalent of TIME or Newsweek.

I was trying to figure out an analogy for it, but, yeah, that's perfect.
posted by EarBucket at 5:27 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Asked at a press conference how he thought such a grim future might come about, Carson referenced "the whole gay marriage issue."

I know it won't happen, but I wish the media would just...stop giving airtime to people who spew nonsense. I know that false equivalency has been discussed to death already, but it really is a huge part of the problem. There are people who have legitimate policy disagreements that are backed with at least a modicum of reason and good faith, and then there are crackpots and bullshit artists who actively seek to undermine reason. They are not the same, and they should not be treated the same for the sake of appearing "impartial". You should have to meet some baseline level of rationality and coherence before you are granted the platform of the national media. Gibbering that the government is going to start exterminating people because of the homos does not meet that standard. That is the rhetoric of a urine-soaked vagrant, not a person who should be invited to (what should be) a civilized and dignified conversation.

The only reason things aren't this way is because the media values money more than they value their dignity or the health of our republic and our discourse. So it goes.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 5:27 PM on October 11, 2016 [63 favorites]

If that Boca thing is real, Donnie's going to rant about the guy on camera, they just keeping pushing his buttons.
posted by vrakatar at 5:27 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

Farenthold in that interview made me sick. You could actually see the moment where he decided in his head (and stopped short of saying it out loud) that he never wanted to give up his entitlement to bullying women. It was plain as day. That's the first thing that's actually nauseated me so far. Fuuuuuuck.
posted by heyho at 5:28 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

Here's a few choice quotes from the actual Christianity Today editorial. They do not like Democrats in general and Hillary in particular, and this is their typical editorial stance:

But because several of the Democratic candidate’s policy positions are so manifestly incompatible with Christian reverence for the lives of the most vulnerable, and because her party is so demonstrably hostile to expressions of traditional Christian faith, there is plenty of critique and criticism of the Democratic candidate from Christians, including evangelical Christians.

But they REALLY unload on Trump, with both barrels and Scriptural references:

Indeed, there is hardly any public person in America today who has more exemplified the “earthly nature” (“flesh” in the King James and the literal Greek) that Paul urges the Colossians to shed: “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry” (3:5). This is an incredibly apt summary of Trump’s life to date. Idolatry, greed, and sexual immorality are intertwined in individual lives and whole societies. Sexuality is designed to be properly ordered within marriage, a relationship marked by covenant faithfulness and profound self-giving and sacrifice. To indulge in sexual immorality is to make oneself and one’s desires an idol. That Trump has been, his whole adult life, an idolater of this sort, and a singularly unrepentant one, should have been clear to everyone.

And therefore it is completely consistent that Trump is an idolater in many other ways. He has given no evidence of humility or dependence on others, let alone on God his Maker and Judge. He wantonly celebrates strongmen and takes every opportunity to humiliate and demean the vulnerable. He shows no curiosity or capacity to learn. He is, in short, the very embodiment of what the Bible calls a fool.

Idolatry accusations are hard-core attacks:

But there is a point at which strategy [i.e., voting in the hopes of seating conservatives on the Supreme Court] becomes its own form of idolatry—an attempt to manipulate the levers of history in favor of the causes we support. Strategy becomes idolatry, for ancient Israel and for us today, when we make alliances with those who seem to offer strength—the chariots of Egypt, the vassal kings of Rome—at the expense of our dependence on God who judges all nations, and in defiance of God’s manifest concern for the stranger, the widow, the orphan, and the oppressed. Strategy becomes idolatry when we betray our deepest values in pursuit of earthly influence. [...] Enthusiasm for a candidate like Trump gives our neighbors ample reason to doubt that we believe Jesus is Lord. They see that some of us are so self-interested, and so self-protective, that we will ally ourselves with someone who violates all that is sacred to us—in hope, almost certainly a vain hope given his mendacity and record of betrayal, that his rule will save us.

posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:31 PM on October 11, 2016 [131 favorites]

What worries me about this election isn't that we're going to win, but that we're going to win and everyone is going to walk away with the wrong message.

I spent awhile talking to my friend and an acquaintance of hers. Both of them are terrified of Trump winning, but they're both still voting Green (my friend bragged that her entire family is). Both insist that what we need is a shock to the system. My best guess is that they see themselves as Rorschach -- what they want is a world on the brink of tyranny, just so we can all beg them to rescue us and they can say "no."

And when Clinton wins, they're going to declare they were right all along -- that Clinton won because she'd spent her time appealing to right-leaning groups. And, meanwhile, Clinton is going to win with a coalition of centrist voters.

All of which is to say (and I've thought this for awhile), Bernie or Busters are the reason we can't have nice things.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 5:32 PM on October 11, 2016 [22 favorites]

What worries me about this election isn't that we're going to win, but that we're going to win and everyone is going to walk away with the wrong message.

A couple of Supreme Court Justices later, and I give two shits about what everybody's takeaway was.

Maybe 40% of that is the wine talking.
posted by Mooski at 5:34 PM on October 11, 2016 [62 favorites]

Well, she'll have at least four years to convince them otherwise and bring them back into the fold, if that's the case.
posted by penduluum at 5:34 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Maybe the theory that Trump is an ultra-deep cover agent for Clinton/the Dems is true, and he's taking the entire Republican power structure down in one apocalyptic flame out.

Trump's Solid Gold Razor (permanently dull, because gold is uselessly soft for making blades): "It's probably just greed and stupidity."
posted by XMLicious at 5:37 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

Bernie or Busters are the reason we can't have nice things.

BoBs are statistical noise. We have bigger problems.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:39 PM on October 11, 2016 [39 favorites]

Trump doing Trump on O'Reilly:

@kelseymsutton
"Trump just said that Hillary actually got into his space and that “she came into my territory”

“I never walked near her” he says"

...and...

@ndrew_lawrence
Draft dodger says "I wouldn't want to be in a foxhole" with former POW John McCain (video)
posted by chris24 at 5:39 PM on October 11, 2016 [15 favorites]

Both insist that what we need is a shock to the system.

You know, like a complete collapse of society, and takeover by white supremacists and sexual assaulters.
posted by benzenedream at 5:39 PM on October 11, 2016 [10 favorites]

Got my vote-by-mail packet today! Very excited to spend the next week going over all eleventy-zillion propositions, referendums, and elections on it!

Re:stickers: In my neck of the woods we get a sticker with the mail ballot! And if you turn it in at a polling place on Election Day you can get a sticker there, too!
posted by clorox at 5:42 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Shorter GOP, pace Tony Soprano: "What the fuck is a golem?"
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:43 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

What worries me about this election isn't that we're going to win, but that we're going to win and everyone is going to walk away with the wrong message.

Thankfully those people only amount to a tiny percentage of the electorate, far less than her polling margin today.

Clinton will need progressive voices to hold her to promises made, if the one thing the Podesta emails have shown it's that she's open to suggestion from the same old moneyed interests as Sanders people always said she was, but a) that's not new and b) the counter to that is continued grass roots activism and movement building to keep pushing her towards progressive goals. And Bernie Sanders showed she can be moved with concerted pressure. She's an incrementalist, but so is Obama, and he's done a lot of good domestically. People who are willing to throw that away on a Jill Stein vote were never serious about doing the hard work of governing to begin with, and aren't worth worrying over.

Clinton will also undoubtedly face a lot of accusations that she didn't *really* win, because the opponent was a Pumpkin Spice Flavored Mr. PotatoHead. That's also not worth engaging with, and the goal on November 10th will be to build a record of achievements that makes that line of argument seem absurd and petty on its face. Hopefully with a Democratic Congress, or it'll be a tall order.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:43 PM on October 11, 2016 [15 favorites]

And more from Trump on O'Reilly:

@saletan
"Trump just said if he wins, Ryan will be "in a different position." i.e., demoted."

Dictator already planning purges.
posted by chris24 at 5:44 PM on October 11, 2016 [60 favorites]

Damned if you do and damned if you don't, eh Ryan.
posted by erratic meatsack at 5:45 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Both insist that what we need is a shock to the system.

because one of our candidates being the most venal mediocrity since harding and a k-mart level hitler isn't shock enough?

that's alright, we have plenty of more shocks coming
posted by pyramid termite at 5:46 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

> I think it's no accident that Ana Navarro and I are both Nicaraguan, both around the same age, and both with a visceral distaste for left-wing revolutions that affects how we see the world. I don't know all of her family's personal circumstances, but I know for me, this rhetoric about taking down the rich, "fair share" wealth distribution, 65% estate tax, all of this scares me and reminds me far too much of the Sandinistas who took my family's house. It makes it hard for me to hear and trust the Democrats on other matters, because I wonder how they all tie together and where their hard stop is.

Most of the Russian-Americans I know who fled the USSR feel the same way: Reagan is their hero, and the Democrats are radical socialists who want to start by taxing everyone into oblivion and then come for the private property. I know it's hard to break out of that kind of bunker, but corb, I hope you will reevaluate how you think about this stuff. I've mentioned this a number of times before, but the top marginal tax rate under Eisenhower was 91 percent. This was in the '50s, at the high point of American prosperity, and Eisenhower was a Republican. Seriously, nobody is coming to take your house, car, and guns away. I was a Republican myself in the early '60s, because I thought they were more fiscally responsible (and because I was a smartass kid who wanted to piss off my Democratic parents), but I got over it and I hope you will too. Moderate redistribution is not communism.

Also, another reminder to the MeFi public at large that however much we all enjoy these imagined news stories, dialogs, etc., they need to be labeled [fake]. Thank you!
posted by languagehat at 5:50 PM on October 11, 2016 [148 favorites]

But because several of the Democratic candidate’s policy positions are so manifestly incompatible with Christian reverence for the lives of the most vulnerable

What? Is this just abortion? She was a fucking Sunday school teacher! She said this off the top of her head when she was asked about her faith:

My study of the Bible, my many conversations with people of faith, has led me to believe the most important commandment is to love the Lord with all your might and to love your neighbor as yourself, and that is what I think we are commanded by Christ to do, and there is so much more in the Bible about taking care of the poor, visiting the prisoners, taking in the stranger, creating opportunities for others to be lifted up, to find faith themselves that I think there are many different ways of exercising your faith. But I do believe that in many areas judgment should be left to God, that being more open, tolerant and respectful is part of what makes me humble about my faith, and I am in awe of people who truly turn the other cheek all the time, who can go that extra mile that we are called to go, who keep finding ways to forgive and move on. Those are really hard things for human beings to do, and there is a lot, certainly in the New Testament, that calls us to do that.

That's about a third of her entire response. Her policies are in line with what she says about her faith. She and Tim Kaine are motherfucking exemplars of how people of faith should be guided in their political lives.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:52 PM on October 11, 2016 [158 favorites]

Wasn't McCain a pilot? Maybe the fact that planes don't go in foxholes wasn't part of Trump's military school curriculum.
posted by zachlipton at 5:52 PM on October 11, 2016 [30 favorites]

He is, in short, the very embodiment of what the Bible calls a fool.

Wow. That seems to be a not-so-subtle reference to Psalms 14:1, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good."
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 5:53 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

More Trump about Ryan on O'Reilly:

@desiderioDC
"TRUMP on Fox just now: "Paul Ryan is open borders, and amnesty, and bad budgets—very bad budgets."

"More Trump on Paul Ryan: "I don't want his support. I don't care about his support."
posted by chris24 at 5:54 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

I mean, she literally talks the talk and walks the walk.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:54 PM on October 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

What? Is this just abortion?

Yes. Most vulnerable is code for "unborn babies"
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:56 PM on October 11, 2016 [30 favorites]

That seems to be a not-so-subtle reference to Psalms 14:1

Actually, the figure of the Fool is a major one in the Bible's Wisdom literature, particularly Psalms and Proverbs. Psalm 14 is particularly apt, though, as it comes at the end of a cycle of psalms about economic injustice and the wickedness of the rich who oppress and exploit the poor. The fool, it's saying, claims to believe in God but acts like he has no fear of being judged for his behavior: "Have they no knowledge, all these evildoers who eat up my people like bread?"
posted by EarBucket at 5:56 PM on October 11, 2016 [17 favorites]

Yeah, corb- I'm far leftish now but used to be somewhat right, and I know- not think, know- that not all conservative ideas are bad ideas. We have big govt. in this country because it is a big, big country. We have to manage it, and big money and big media make it harder and less fair. But as you know well, this system has give and take and compromise built in, we have to work at it to keep it from getting this toxic. That is what politicians are for.
posted by vrakatar at 5:57 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

The thing that's bothering me the most about this election - the thing that's actually keeping me up nights - is that it seems we have no arbiters of truth or civility. I feel like the press used to serve this function, but that may just be a myth I picked up in childhood.

I listen to clips of what Trump is saying at rallies, the outright lies and the hyperbole and the venom, and I'm just left bewildered. How have we a a nation reached a point where a person who threatens the freedom of their political opponent, who incites violence against his political opponent and voters in her party, can just stand up and spew filth out at his audience and not be called on it by anyone? Why do we even need that tape to stand up and say this isn't right, this shouldn't be allowed to pass unchallenged? What he says every day in front of journalists and on television isn't right, and shouldn't be allowed to pass unchallenged.

I don't want to be super dramatic or anything, but I have actually been having nightmares. Not every night, but every now and then. In the dream I remember most clearly, I woke up the morning of November 9th and remembered that the night before, Trump had won. I had such a gutwrenching sense of despair and fear, it woke me up gasping for breath. In another dream where he won, I traveled to a Trump victory event to speak to him and beg him not to get us into a nuclear war.

I've been firmly in the tank for the democratic candidate for the presidency in every election since I was old enough to vote. We've won some and we've lost some, and when we've lost, I've sometimes been really worried about the nation's future. The night Gore lost wasn't even the night Gore lost for me - it was the morning. I'd gone to sleep with him declared the winner, only to wake up in a George Bush presidency. I thought that was the worst it would ever get.

But even then. I never felt this kind of fear for the country and the world, this certainty that everything good in the world was going to end if the other candidate won, that America was over, in any other election.

I worried we'd get into a war I didn't believe in at worst; I worried about losing Roe v. Wade and delaying action to deal with global warming (or prepare for the results of it); I worried about marriage equality and health care. But I never worried that I or my friends or my neighbors could die if the other candidate won. I never worried that the world as I knew it would be forever changed, or that this could be the last election America ever gets.

And here's the thing. Listening to that clip earlier of the woman saying she was ready for revolution if Clinton won, I heard the same kind of fear in her voice. The way I feel about Trump winning, she feels about Clinton winning. And I just don't know how we got here -- how we got to a place where Democrats and Republican's don't just disagree with each other -- we actively hate and fear each other. This woman is as scared that we're going to steal the election from her as I am that the Russians are going to steal it from Clinton.

When did this start to be so scary? How did we let it get to the point where we're all so afraid and frantic? And is there any way back from it? I'm having a hard time envisioning the 2020 election as any less fraught than this one. I think this entire country needs ... I don't know, some form of intensive couples therapy... before we could ever have a normal election again. Right now, we're so far post-truth and post-civility, it's starting to feel like this country is a failed experiment -- whether Clinton wins or not.
posted by invincible summer at 5:57 PM on October 11, 2016 [120 favorites]

So hanging out watching the stream for the rally in Panama City because I'm apparently a masochist now and God-Emperor Trump has not shown up and it's coming up on 90 minutes past the start time. The last person to speak was 45 minutes ago.

I wonder if he's still coming.
posted by Talez at 5:57 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

He's bested two hours before now...
posted by Devonian at 5:59 PM on October 11, 2016

Trump was bluffing during the second debate when he tried to compare incomes with Clinton, by way of bragging (transcript).

So I’m putting in more than — by the time it’s finished, I’ll have more than $100 million invested. Pretty much self-funding money.... I ask Hillary, why doesn’t — she made $250 million by being in office. She used the power of her office to make a lot of money. Why isn’t she funding, not for $100 million, but why don’t you put $10 million or $20 million or $25 million or $30 million into your own campaign?

UK filings show that Donald Trump misled the public about his income.

Trump's FEC financial form noted that his two Scottish golf courses earned him a combined $23 million in "golf related revenue" last year, with Turnberry pulling in $18.1 million and Aberdeen making $4.8 million. But the public filings the courses submitted in the United Kingdom tell a much different story. Trump's prized course at Turnberry—where he made a much ballyhooed appearance right before the Brexit vote—reported $16.8 million in revenue in 2015 and $18.6 million in expenses. When interest, depreciation, and currency exchange losses are factored in, Trump's Turnberry course lost over $2 million in 2015. And the corporate filings in the United Kingdom show that Trump's Aberdeen course lost about $1.6 million.
posted by Brian B. at 6:00 PM on October 11, 2016 [15 favorites]

Clinton will need progressive voices to hold her to promises made, if the one thing the Podesta emails have shown it's that she's open to suggestion from the same old moneyed interests as Sanders people always said she was

Hopefully she doesn't renege and go back to talking about cutting Social Security benefits, or voting for war overseas without reading intelligence reports, or go back to saying minimum wage raises are not workable. Getting progressives elected in down-ticket races is more important than ever.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 6:00 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

A clarification on the foxhole comment earlier. It not just referred to McCain, but very specifically Ryan. Somebody is very unhappy with Ryan. #civilwar

@jmartNYT
TRUMP: "I wouldn’t want to be in a foxhole with a lot of these people that I can tell you, including Ryan...especially Ryan.”
posted by chris24 at 6:00 PM on October 11, 2016

Oh it's 7:30PM CST so he's only half an hour late so far.
posted by Talez at 6:01 PM on October 11, 2016

I think this was linked in the last election thread, but I just got around to reading it, and thought it was really good and worth reposting: Trump’s One Public Service Was Exposing the Misogyny of the GOP
posted by triggerfinger at 6:02 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

"Fool" in an Evangelical mouth is pretty harsh. It comes up in the Psalms a bit but the concept is really fleshed out in Proverbs. I will try to track down some key references when I get home.
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:02 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

The ever-wonderful Duffelblog, on His Orangeness:Trump: I like Medal of Honor winners who weren't killed in combat.[fake]
posted by corb at 6:02 PM on October 11, 2016

Like, how fucked is Paul Ryan right now?

At this point, his best-case scenario might be that he wins his seat, but Clinton wins the election and the Dems take the House.
posted by box at 6:02 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

Well I'm actually relieved that at least some in the Evangelical Christian community are finally coming to their senses. I mean, I can't think of anybody in public life who's less Christian than Trump. Abu al-Baghdadi, maybe.
posted by Flashman at 6:03 PM on October 11, 2016 [10 favorites]

Most vulnerable is code for "unborn babies"
And "unborn babies" is code for "single-celled fertilized eggs".
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:04 PM on October 11, 2016 [69 favorites]

Huh: Alaska's two U.S. senators resigned leadership posts in the state Republican party after denouncing GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and saying he should step aside.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:04 PM on October 11, 2016 [52 favorites]

Like, how fucked is Paul Ryan right now?

nowhere near enough.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 6:05 PM on October 11, 2016 [125 favorites]

There is only one political party left in the United States. The other three-ring tent of grifters, panderers and sociopaths are too busy chasing down the elephants that have broken their cage to put on a show.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 6:06 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

Eh, the Republicans still control something like 2/3 of the state governments.
posted by drezdn at 6:08 PM on October 11, 2016 [14 favorites]

I have actual living family who would quite literally die if social security and medicare were eliminated because republicans think that free health care is equivalent to unicorns and candy.

Just a reminder that there is more at stake than just not electing Trump. Ryan is a zombie-eyed granny starver and his economic policies are dangerous and regressive. Eliminationalist rhetoric about the poor should not be any more acceptable just because it's covered with a glossy shell of "civility".
posted by winna at 6:08 PM on October 11, 2016 [95 favorites]

Jeez I should know this by now but wow when he latches onto somebody he thinks wronged him he really obsesses.
The way he fixates is scary no matter who it is.
posted by Jalliah at 6:08 PM on October 11, 2016 [17 favorites]

Josh Marshall on publishing and authenticating the Podesta emails, "the product of a at minimum a disruption campaign from a foreign state"

I am particularly worried about what could happen with America's strategic risotto. Can I trust his advice? Or is it just disinformation to undermine the west?
posted by srboisvert at 6:09 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

We're not saying the GOP isn't an extremely successful criminal enterprise; just that it's no longer a political party.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:09 PM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

Eh, the Republicans still control something like 2/3 of the state governments.

Yeah, I'm not saying a bunch of rampaging circus elephants can't do a lot of damage. But that's about all they can do. C.f. Kansas, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 6:11 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

At this point, his best-case scenario might be that he wins his seat, but Clinton wins the election and the Dems take the House.

He's most likely going to have the House and his Speakership as of today, unless Trump continues to nosedive and flail about to see how many Republicans he can take down with him. We can only keep hoping.

If Dems do retake the House, Ryan is fine, he's back to being in Minority Leadership and if he's smart he'd wash his hands of the Trumpster fire and Freedom Caucus wing and focus on rebuilding a new GOP, whatever that could possibly look like. That's actually probably his best case, lose the House, don't seek the cursed office of Speaker ever again, and rebuild his career.

His bigger problem is what happens if he retains the House and Speaker's gavel, with say, a 5-10 seat Republican bare majority, with a Democratic Senate. Then he's MegaFucked. He won't be able to do ANYTHING without Democratic support, because 60-80 of his own caucus will never agree to vote for ANYTHING except burning down the Capital building. This is probably the most likely scenario, and it'll mean hand to hand combat daily literally just to keep the government's light on.

Only slightly less likely is a small House majority, and the Republicans retain the Senate. This is the Democrats worst case scenario, because it means the Hilary Presidency is dead on arrival, and not a damn bit of her agenda will get passed in the first 4 years. Then Ryan can probably ride it out the same as he's been doing, obstructing everything, and biding his time for 2020.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:11 PM on October 11, 2016 [19 favorites]

I am particularly worried about what could happen with America's strategic risotto. Can I trust his advice? Or is it just disinformation to undermine the west?

I will say this: he omitted the step of having the stock on a simmer in an adjacent pot so that, as it's incrementally added and stirred in, it doesn't lower the temperature of the risotto in progress. This is key.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:12 PM on October 11, 2016 [50 favorites]

I am particularly worried about what could happen with America's strategic risotto.
I'm expecting turning over at least half of America's farmland used for rice to beet production. Borscht for America!!!
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:12 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

oh lord, the chris hayes/farenthold tape! it's so beautiful because Farenthold is such a slow man you can see all the thoughts passing behind his eyes: it's a trap, he wouldn't use such specific phrasing otherwise, what if there IS a tape of Donald saying exactly those words? there MUST be a tape, he's setting you up. careful, Blake, careful, don't say yes I would unendorse because then he'll play the tape and you'll be stuck, keep it vague until you can go call somebody

I swear to god he froze the way he did because it's such a full and real possibility that it's not a hypothetical. nice work, Chris Hayes. very nice.
posted by queenofbithynia at 6:14 PM on October 11, 2016 [37 favorites]

> Took my little baby daughter to vote today and held her hand so we could push the VOTE button together

It'll be so nice after Hillary's sworn in and I can stop bursting into tears every few hours.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:14 PM on October 11, 2016 [69 favorites]

Borscht for America!!!

We got the beet / We got the beet / Yeah! / We got it! / We got the beet!
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:15 PM on October 11, 2016 [14 favorites]

Please don't let this break away in the home stretch give pause to anyone still sitting on Trump dirt. For the safety of our democracy, peace, and national security, the harder Trump falls the better at this point.
posted by p3t3 at 6:16 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

Rachel Maddow is talking about canceled fundraisers in Nebraska and New Jersey. They were canceled before the tape was leaked, there was just no interest in supporting the Trump/Pence tickets.

"Not enough people will show up at those events to give Pence money"
posted by mrzarquon at 6:16 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Here's the video: .@farenthold on if he'd revoke support for Trump if he said "I like raping women" -- "It'd be bad...I'd consider it"
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:17 PM on October 11, 2016 [11 favorites]

Guiliani on stage in Panama City. "She even had to drag out Al Gore. Remember him?"
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 6:17 PM on October 11, 2016

It'll be so nice after Hillary's sworn in and I can stop bursting into tears every few hours.

I've been wanting to tell my tears story but I thought it would sound silly. Maybe it is. When HRC stumbled getting into her car at the 9/11 memorial it broke my heart because what I saw was a woman who wanted to pay her respects no matter how badly she felt and how much she had going on. And how heartless it was that all those assholes put the focus on her "stamina" instead of the 15th anniversary of this tragedy.

I dunno, that's it.
posted by zutalors! at 6:19 PM on October 11, 2016 [83 favorites]

I will say this: he omitted the step of having the stock on a simmer in an adjacent pot so that, as it's incrementally added and stirred in, it doesn't lower the temperature of the risotto in progress. This is key.

Typical competitive cooking: Omit an important step/ingredient so if your dish is ever compared with another, tasters say that the other is almost as good.
posted by kingless at 6:19 PM on October 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

You Dumb Motherfuckers by James Madison [fake]
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 6:20 PM on October 11, 2016 [21 favorites]

Guiliani on stage in Panama City. "She even had to drag out Al Gore. Remember him?"

A man with delusions of relevance probably shouldn't be pressing the 'forgotten' button.
posted by Mooski at 6:20 PM on October 11, 2016 [26 favorites]

Typical competitive cooking: Omit an important step/ingredient so if your dish is ever compared with another, tasters say that the other is almost as good.

It's a two-party system. You gotta make a call. This could be decisive.

Holy fuck. I'm watching the live stream. WHY.

Guliani just now: "Hillary Clinton, in a paid speech in CANADA..." socialized medicine, blah blah.

"Do you know anybody who goes to Canada for an operation?"
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:22 PM on October 11, 2016

Actually, he said "Canader"
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 6:22 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Rock critic Robert Christgau in The Village Voice: Confessions of a Hillary Supporter: 'It's Not Like We Can Breathe Easy'

I'm a confident person, but I don't find this work easy. Sure, the commonest task is simply to make sure preselected sympathizers, most of them registered Democrats, are on our side, and then that they vote. But false hits are numerous because our lists are always dated — revising them is a key goal. Anyway, nobody likes getting unsolicited phone calls, or having a stranger knock on the door and ask questions — no wonder every form has a "Refused" box, and that a few refusers are actively hostile. On the phone or the street, the high percentage of no-answers and not-homes can get depressing. And it takes me a while to hit my groove when I do make contact — check for down-ballot support, ask enthusiasts to sign a pledge card, be sure people know their polling place.

But if this grunt work is tedious, it can also be exhilarating. Most exchanges are pro forma, but every fourth or fifth contact will require a conversation in which I impart something, learn something, or both. In Akron I remember the military man who requested email documentation debunking the anti-Kerry Swift Boat slander, the black family whose second-story abode could only be reached by ladder, the left-wing barber whose refrigerator magnet now affixes an Obama pic to my front door. In Alexandria I was moved to tell an uncommitted young white woman, "No matter what you decide, Obama's smarter" and hear her reply, "I know." In Bethlehem my wife touched a hard-up woman with a sick kid by describing our own child's healthcare saga. In Allentown a few weeks ago, I watched the phenomenally together daughter of a phenomenally friendly Spanish-speaking mom register them both a month after they'd moved down from Long Island. And whenever I sensed an opening, I told people that Hillary had been under partisan attack for decades and that almost all of it was lies.

posted by Mothlight at 6:23 PM on October 11, 2016 [23 favorites]

When a rift was opened in the Old Chaos the Dark Farenthold stepped through
posted by prize bull octorok at 6:23 PM on October 11, 2016 [11 favorites]

FARENTHOLD.

it's just like when richard nixon's under the truthoscope and Morbo asks him if he'd steal candy from a baby and Nixon starts sweating and says "Uh, well, I, uh ... the question is-is vague. You don't say what kind of candy, whether anyone is watching or, uh... At any rate, I certainly wouldn't harm the child. "

except different because you feel pretty bad for Nixon in that situation.
posted by queenofbithynia at 6:24 PM on October 11, 2016 [20 favorites]

Oh now Guiliani is ranting about Hils being a cheater, and how people get kicked out of West Point and the Naval Academy for that. When his candidate is a draft dodger.

why am I even watching this?
posted by mochapickle at 6:24 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Aw hell I have tomorrow off, a bottle of Basil Hayden's, a little grass, keilbasa stew, and I just switched over to cnn. You people suck.
posted by vrakatar at 6:24 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Blake Farenthold @farenthold "Proudly serving Texas' 27th Congressional District."
David A. Farenthold, Washington Post

Yes, two starkly different people can have the same last name.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:25 PM on October 11, 2016 [18 favorites]

But we're still searching for someone with the last name Trump who isn't a total waste of organic matter.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:25 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

Giuliani: "[A world] where we get our planes almost shot at."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:26 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Yes, two starkly different people can have the same last name.

But have you ever seen them hold the same political position at the same time?
posted by AndrewInDC at 6:27 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

'Ride of the Valkyries" now playing on the live stream.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:27 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Aw hell I have tomorrow off, a bottle of Basil Hayden's, a little grass, keilbasa stew, and I just switched over to cnn. You people suck.

I have to get up early, but I'm getting the vodka. Good thing I just had pierogies and cabbage rolls.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:28 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Did I stumble into another timeline? Where I'm from Farenthold is a beloved WaPo reporter instrumental in revealing Trump's shittiness.

Different Farentholds!!!! One is WaPo writer, other is Republican representative.
posted by annsunny at 6:28 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Rep. Farenthold tries to clean up answer on rape to @chrislhayes (real)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:29 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

I get almost shot at all the time CUZ I NEVER GET SHOT AT.
posted by vrakatar at 6:29 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

Farenthold 10/11.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:29 PM on October 11, 2016 [11 favorites]

Different Farentholds!!!! One is WaPo writer, other is Republican representative.

And neither is a measure of temperature, in case you're dyslexic like me and keep reading it wrong.
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:30 PM on October 11, 2016 [16 favorites]

Oh fuck. The Donald. BRB. Need to get the vodka.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:30 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Trump at Panama City: "We want room, right?"

Uhhh...
posted by Devonian at 6:31 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Sam Wang: "Rough draft; new data could change this. Looks like only Debate #1 moved numbers. Not the video, yet. Pundits, atone."
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:31 PM on October 11, 2016

I called my cable company and they've had me on Farenthold for a half hour...
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:31 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

Trump at Panama City: "We want room, right?"

Living space?
posted by dis_integration at 6:32 PM on October 11, 2016 [34 favorites]

we're still searching for someone with the last name Trump who isn't a total waste of organic matter


Donald's uncle probably qualifies (he's been dead a while, though)
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 6:33 PM on October 11, 2016

Trump: "The election of Hillary Clinton will lead to the destruction of our country."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:33 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

But we're still searching for someone with the last name Trump who isn't a total waste of organic matter.

It just occurred to me that, although I've never heard of a Trump who isn't related to the Cheeto, they must be out there. This must be an especially trying time for them.

#NotAllTrumps
posted by escape from the potato planet at 6:33 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

You know, when you're caught off guard by a reporter asking you whether you'd support a self-admitted rapist... The only apology that makes sense is "I'm sorry I screamed FUCK NO on national tv" and not "I didn't know what to say, uh... Uh.... It was so sudden."

IMO.
posted by erratic meatsack at 6:34 PM on October 11, 2016 [21 favorites]

Trump at Panama City: calls for special prosecutor, 'we must investigate Hillary Clinton, and we must investigate the investigation'
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 6:34 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump at Panama City: "We want room, right?"

Okay, the dude is just parodying himself now. He can't possibly be serious.
posted by Mooski at 6:34 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Hillary Clinton is the vessel of a corrupt global establishment that's raiding our country..."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:35 PM on October 11, 2016

WHY CNN NOT SHOW ORANGE HULK?
posted by vrakatar at 6:35 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

More living space for Florida? Surely this. [probably fake]
posted by AndrewInDC at 6:35 PM on October 11, 2016

"Hillary Clinton is the vessel of a corrupt global establishment that's raiding our country..."

I.e. Jews? He's going full Breitbart? Globalists is their dogwhistle word for that.
posted by chris24 at 6:36 PM on October 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

For the record: Vodka with Italian lemon soda and Campari on ice. I'm calling it the "corrupt global establishment."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:36 PM on October 11, 2016 [63 favorites]

Egg weighs in on the Fahrenthold comments:
.@farenthold, you mean to tell me that you, a U.S. Congressman, are thrown off by a reporter's simple question about your feelings on rape?
posted by melissasaurus at 6:36 PM on October 11, 2016 [64 favorites]

CNN is going all in on Trump's history of creeping on Ivanka rn
posted by prize bull octorok at 6:37 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

The vodka is Finlandia - because they're suspicious of Putin, too.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:37 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

It just occurred to me that, although I've never heard of a Trump who isn't related to the Cheeto, they must be out there. This must be an especially trying time for them.

There's another bloke out there named Donald Trump. I heard him on some NPR program. I think he's a doctor in Florida or somewhere.
posted by hoyland at 6:37 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

My father had a cancer doctor at Roswell Park Medical Center in Rochester, NY named Donald Trump. No shit.
posted by xyzzy at 6:37 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Go Egg! Way to plant!
posted by mmoncur at 6:37 PM on October 11, 2016 [17 favorites]

Matthew Yglesias: My guess is that in a Trump administration angry mobs will beat and murder Jews and people of color with impunity.
posted by EarBucket at 6:39 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

I know for me, this rhetoric about taking down the rich, "fair share" wealth distribution, 65% estate tax, all of this scares me and reminds me far too much of the Sandinistas who took my family's house.



Corb, I'm sorry this was done to your family. I don't know what political party you plan to align with if the GOP goes full alt right. I get what you are saying about the Sandinistas--my grandfather spent WW2 in the USSR and while he was a lifelong socialist and labor activist, he had a hair trigger for anyone defending communism because he'd seen what it looked like in all its murderous ugliness, and could not handle people wanting to defend it ideologically without engaging with its realities. And I really hope none of this will come across as condescending, because I have a huge well of respect for you and know reading your posts that you're more politically informed and engaged than I am. What I can say, though, about the fear of leftist revolution, is that the USA is so deeply, entrenchedly capitalist a country that every leftist I know, for generations, have never believed it could happen-- have resigned themselves to fighting a lifelong battle for tiny gains like minimum wage increases or worker's rights, not a violent revolution. It's not on the agenda for the furthest left people I know and it would be unimaginable for the more center-left or just centrist people in the Democratic Party.

The USA's ability to redistribute wealth, as a country and as a culture, is so weak,and unenforceable, so low down the list of cutural priorities and possibilities, that we have a presidential candidate bragging on air about how he is a billionaire who has not paid any federal income tax in decades. After Trump dropped the "That would make me smart" bomb in the first debate, discussion was flooded with talk about how of course he wasn't doing anything illegal; all people in those income brackets manage to find legal loopholes in the exact same way.

I feel like hypercapitalism is just so deeply entrenched in both the USA's culture and its power structure that even open socialists like Sanders don't have very high hopes for how much they can actually do in terms of wealth redistribution or even forcing large corporations and banks to abide by our existing laws. The entitites who are taking away houses in this country aren't socialist, they are predatory banks who haven't been punished for their crimes because even the most socialist-leaning administration in decades can't go up against that kind of financial might. I know everyone was saying the same thing about Trump early in his candidacy-- that he was impossible, unthinkable, "it can't happen here"-- but even then, at the very beginning, people were pointing out that every insane, fascist, racist, ethnic cleansing proposal he made had a long history of being the status quo here; were things that existed in living memory like the internment camps George Takei spent time in as a child.

The US is a country with a long, bloody history of right-wing violence, both military and financial, against women, against people of color, against indigenous people-- but never, in our entire history, against the wealthy classes-- there's almost a cultural taboo against it. A lot of the underlying terror of Trump and his supporters comes from that history. It comes from the generational knowledge that the cultural impulse towards lynching, genocide and resettlement, denial of women's agency, women's clinic bombers, slavery or brutal dickensian working conditions, a major civil war fought over the right to own people of color as chattel whose flag modern day right wingers still proudly fly, that is what is lurking inside the culture of this country. That is the form that authoritarian and revanchist violence in the United States takes. There isn't a history of Maoist or Stalinist purges here-- when that kind of ugliness raises its head it historically doesn't get channeled through the political left. Instead, like the Bush/Gore election, the left is often standing around helplessly, not wanting to break the law or turn to violence, not knowing what to do when the extremists among their political opponents don't follow the same rules.

IDK. The last thing I want to do is lecture someone who I feel is a constant voice of wisdom on this board and who is ultimately more politically active than I am, and I hope this isn't disrespectful. But I don't think that kind of violence from the left is something that is historically or currently a possibility here.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 6:39 PM on October 11, 2016 [141 favorites]

There's one or two other Donald Trumps. David A. Farenthold of the Washington Post (to be clear!) ran into them when he was trying to find evidence of DJT's recent charitable giving. Of which there is none, but whatever.
posted by dismas at 6:39 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

I disagree with Egg on a lot of things, but at the very least he seems like a worthy opponent.
posted by pxe2000 at 6:39 PM on October 11, 2016 [23 favorites]

"Two boxes of email were missing."

Boxes?
posted by chris24 at 6:40 PM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

"Two boxes of emails and information were missing. They're gone."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:41 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Hillary Clinton is the vessel of a corrupt global establishment that's raiding our country..."

No, no, no: The pellet with the poison's in the chalice from the palace; the vessel with the pestle holds the brew that is true.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:41 PM on October 11, 2016 [31 favorites]

He's now talking about how the Clintons "ripped off Haiti."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:41 PM on October 11, 2016

Trump just referenced 'two boxes of emails' that went missing.

Perhaps the boxes weren't strong enough, and the emails fell through the bottom?
posted by Devonian at 6:42 PM on October 11, 2016 [21 favorites]

Now he's saying the Clintons attacked Catholics? And then moves on without explaining.

And again saying Clinton should have her Secret Service give up their guns.
posted by chris24 at 6:42 PM on October 11, 2016

Re: Clinton and law enforcement. "By the way, these are weapon-carrying people. They carry weapons." Repeats the assertion that HRC's security detail should be disarmed.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:42 PM on October 11, 2016

Tis like he reads the headlines and mentions whatever he sees, hence Haiti.
posted by vrakatar at 6:42 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

More living space for Florida? Surely this. [probably fake]

If so, he'd better put a decent plan together to combat sea rise, since Florida's quickly becoming 'the Caribbean Atolls Formerly Known As Florida'. Unless it's coral lebensraum we're aiming for
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:42 PM on October 11, 2016 [16 favorites]

"Two boxes of email were missing."

Bill packed them up in a big truck and sent them down the tubes.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:43 PM on October 11, 2016 [19 favorites]

Trump at Panama City: "We want room, right?"
Because his pro-Global Warming policies are going to shrink the state of Florida by at least 50%...

Trump: "The election of Hillary Clinton will lead to the destruction of our country."
Not the first time he has promised to do to America what he did to Atlantic City.

"Hillary Clinton is the vessel of a corrupt global establishment that's raiding our country..."
And NOTHING makes him more jealous...
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:43 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

It just occurred to me that, although I've never heard of a Trump who isn't related to the Cheeto, they must be out there.

Not if Donald has anything to say about it.

Actually, there's a Coast Guard cutter that's named after a highly decorated Coast Guard sailor who participated in the Normandy landings, so at least the greater Trump universe has that.
posted by AndrewInDC at 6:43 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Pat Buchanan said it [mine] was the greatest performance of presidential debates."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:43 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

"Let's hope it boils down winning on Nov 8. Or else I've wasted my time.

Single greatest waste of time and money."
posted by chris24 at 6:44 PM on October 11, 2016 [11 favorites]

"Two boxes of email were missing."

Yes, the inbox and the sent box.
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:44 PM on October 11, 2016 [16 favorites]

Perhaps the boxes weren't strong enough, and the emails fell through the bottom?

Typically Clinton uses baskets to collect her emails for later deletion / bleaching but they were all being used to corral deplorables that particular day [fake]
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:44 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

"If I don't win, it will be the single greatest waste of time, energy and money."

"What we've done has never been duplicated in American history."

"The media's rigged, let me tell ya."

"The only thing she has going is the rigged media."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:44 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Bernie's deal with devil again.
posted by chris24 at 6:45 PM on October 11, 2016

Gawd, this record is tired. I'm only holding on for the shackles to come off.
posted by Devonian at 6:45 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

Trump again on "what a waste" of money and time it will be if he loses.

Not that it will be a loss for policy, for security, for the priorities of his voters. A waste of money.
posted by mochapickle at 6:45 PM on October 11, 2016 [10 favorites]

"Bernie made a deal with the devil...he sold out. Very, very bad."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:45 PM on October 11, 2016

Seriously where can I see this on cable, or a stream? I am morbid.
posted by vrakatar at 6:46 PM on October 11, 2016

"We're gonna have unbelievable trade deals. [...] To the Bernie Sanders people, he was right. You're being sold out."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:46 PM on October 11, 2016

So, in an odd turn of South Dakotan events, Sen John Thune and Gov Dennis Daugaard both denounced Trump after the tapes were released, but Rep. Kristi Noem has reiterated her support. Thune's been on a swingset between rational and wackjob for a number of years now, so a moment of reason isn't that odd, and Daugaard is both wrong about things and a coward all at the same time, so of course he bailed, but I don't get why Noem is sticking in there. The Christian women who were her strongest supporters are not happy with Trump right now.
posted by neonrev at 6:47 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

He just said Hillary wants to cut Social Security and Medicare. A vote for him is a vote to protect them.
posted by chris24 at 6:47 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Stream here.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:47 PM on October 11, 2016

You know, I'm genuinely surprised that he hasn't accidentally cited an Onion or Clickhole article as fact. God knows I've been momentarily taken in by them even before the parody-outstripping century that is 2016.
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:47 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

"To the Bernie Sanders people, he was right. You're being sold out."

This is my #1 favorite Donald delusion -- that he's going to pick up some Bernie voters.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:48 PM on October 11, 2016 [22 favorites]

My Bubbarother asked me about the one world government today. I told him we are one universe, one galaxy, one solar system, and one very special world, that we all have to protect. We have to protect those at the bottom so they can live at all. He is smart, but bought in to the one world order stuff. People can never see the real enemy is themselves. Well, and other things. I think that Hillary's private server, kept her stuff safer, and it is one reason, we got bin Laden. I think most stuff is hacked and people talk, they just can't avoid it, and then a lot of loose talk is listened to, because the people who might drop something important, are the subject of surveillance, by state actors. So that is what I think about the private server. There was one less chance of that leak.
posted by Oyéah at 6:48 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ugh. I'm watching the Giants/Cubs game -- it's very rare that I watch live TV, so I haven't seen many campaign ads -- and I just caught the final shot of a Trump commercial. (He's spending ad money in CA? Huh.)

The title card over the picture of him and his kids said "Defend your rights. Vote for Donald Trump."

I have the TV muted, so I'm not sure exactly what rights they're advocating I defend. My rights as a woman? (No Donald.) My rights as a person with a uterus? (No.) My rights as a member of the LGBTQ community? (Are you fucking kidding me?)

I guess I can't complain about the ad wholesale since I only saw that single slogan and didn't hear any of the rest of it, but what bunch of delusional loons created a spot like that is basically the political equivalent of Betteridge's law of headlines?
posted by mudpuppie at 6:48 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

David A. Farenthold of the Washington Post (to be clear!)

David A. Fahrenthold! With an H, as in, "HRC is going to owe David A. Fahrenthold of the Washington Post an absolutely massive beer when this is all over".

As opposed to Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX), with no H, as in "no way in Hell that Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX) comes out of this looking good".
posted by saturday_morning at 6:48 PM on October 11, 2016 [40 favorites]

"The dishonesty of the New York Times is unbelievable. The dishonesty of the Washington Post is unbelievable. Those cameras back there."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:49 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oh, god- are we still doing this?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:49 PM on October 11, 2016 [11 favorites]

Trump's proxies' Beyoncé related idiocy shows again that the right’s favorite mode of discourse is false equivalency.
posted by signal at 6:50 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

"The media can't report on the establishment because the media is the establishment."

"We're gonna beat the system."

"I didn't need to do this. Folks."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:51 PM on October 11, 2016

This is my #1 favorite Donald delusion -- that he's going to pick up some Bernie voters.

The ones that can't stomach voting for a woman, yes.

May they forever need viagra.
posted by Mooski at 6:51 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

saturday morning: that's what I get from copy/pasting from earlier in the thread! poor David Fahrenholhd.
posted by dismas at 6:51 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh, god- are we still doing this?

Yeah why are we live commenting and watching (for that matter) a Trump rally? Just let him rant, unshackled, and the media will pick up whatever unhinged barbarism he spouts for you. It can't be good for your blood pressure to watch him.
posted by dis_integration at 6:51 PM on October 11, 2016 [19 favorites]

So I was looking for recent info on the NC flooding on Twitter, and I found this tweet. It is the saddest thing. The idea that that man gives a single damn about the people that make up his crowds. It's tragic.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:52 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

Y'all are right. I just turned it off and it feels good.
posted by mochapickle at 6:52 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Ha, "don't let the water out of Lake Okeechobee and we won't have droughts."
posted by chris24 at 6:53 PM on October 11, 2016

Question for u guys that's been bugging me for months, why are people calling Trump's people "surrogates" or "proxies" rather than "campaign staff"?
posted by moonlight on vermont at 6:53 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is the internet version of white knuckle fever. It has everyone rapt. We are waiting for the revelation that brings it all down, but the current revelations are horrific, as Trump advocates violent overthrow of our government, if he doesn't have his way with this election, (rhymes with another popular word.) We are witnessing a massive tantrum, disguised as campaigning. I don't see how he can go on at this pace, that is my only hope.
posted by Oyéah at 6:53 PM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

I got a stream open, thanks! He's really gonzo.
posted by vrakatar at 6:53 PM on October 11, 2016

In response to Matt Yngleisias' tweet:
@DouthatNYT @jbouie My guess is that in a Trump administration angry mobs will beat and murder Jews and people of color with impunity.

Douthat responds: "Nor do I want to find out, and every Jewish conservative I know spent the primary season so besieged.... But I respect your concerns and I would undoubtedly feel this more intensely if Catholics were the target ..."

I am at a loss for words.
posted by Freen at 6:54 PM on October 11, 2016 [10 favorites]

Trump's people "surrogates" or "proxies" rather than "campaign staff"

People who are not actual paid employees of the campaign, like Christie, Giuliani, etc. are traditionally called surrogates.
posted by chris24 at 6:54 PM on October 11, 2016 [18 favorites]

It can't be good for your blood pressure to watch him.

Oh, so today in the world of eyeglass making, a patient was not having a good time with their prescription, and we couldn't figure it out until it came out that she was having diabetes issues, which was causing blood pressure fluctuations that made her necessary prescription differ from the current state of her eyes on pickup.

So yeah, if you start seeing blurry and getting tense, take a break. It turns out your blood pressure can mess with your vision. Take care of yourselves, everybody. I love you all and we have much more work to do once this election is over.
posted by neonrev at 6:55 PM on October 11, 2016 [17 favorites]

Question for u guys that's been bugging me for months, why are people calling Trump's people "surrogates" or "proxies" rather than "campaign staff"?

I do it because surrogate has a different meaning than campaign staff, and I'm referring to a surrogate.
posted by diogenes at 6:56 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Yeah why are we live commenting and watching (for that matter) a Trump rally? Just let him rant, unshackled, and the media will pick up whatever unhinged barbarism he spouts for you. It can't be good for your blood pressure to watch him.

Yes, I wish there wasn't even going to be a third debate. Why bother? It's not as if he's going to have learned anything, or have any new facets of his temperament to display. With a generic Republican you can at least consider his arguments, but this is a hideous charade.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:56 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

Trump's performance feels perfunctory. He's doing his best but his energy is leaden, like a man marching to defeat. He's just running through his greatest hits one by one and tossing them aside as he gets bored with them.
posted by EarBucket at 6:57 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump again on 'what a waste' of money and time it will be if he loses.

That's true. He's wasting everyone's time and a lot of his money.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:57 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

>this rhetoric about taking down the rich, "fair share" wealth distribution

It's okay to take the skepticism quotes off of 'fair share'. We live in a country where Donald Trump, a billionaire, pays no taxes. Maintenance of the country's roads, bridges, libraries, schools, fire departments, etc., etc., is left to the working poor. And when there's holes in the road and the library's closed because there's no funding, Trump's (disputable) party offers this as evidence that Government Doesn't Work, and offers as a solution the idea that we should privatize it all. Defending America against a Communist takeover is the Maginot Line of modern ideologies. The plutocrats are implementing corporate feudalism while the patriots of the Right keep a vigilant watch, pointed 180 degrees in the wrong direction.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 6:58 PM on October 11, 2016 [78 favorites]

He just jumps around from topic to topic, sounds angry, demands agreement, it sounds like he expects the editors to just grab chunks and edit it down so it sounds like a narrative.
posted by vrakatar at 6:59 PM on October 11, 2016

"If I don't win, it will be the single greatest waste of time, energy and money."

If he were to win it would only be the second biggest waste, after his administration.
posted by ckape at 6:59 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Borscht for America!!!

Where's the beet?
posted by octobersurprise at 6:59 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Watching this stream is distracting with the "comments" flying by, obviously written by quarter wits. There are 11,521 people watching. I'm subtracting one. What a fucking wanker.... And how did this country get to this situation?
posted by njohnson23 at 7:00 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Update from an idea I posted in the last thread:

I looked into the Trump Truck giveaway, and decided to read the rules and regs very VERY carefully, and that is how I learned that the truck they are giving away is actually a used '87 Chevy pickup. I'm having serious second thoughts about entering this because I'd hate to spin that into a donation and end up with it being a problem becuase it's a piece of shit. I'm sleeping on it.

This happened. Obama responds to Alex Jones saying he and Hillary are literal demons who smell like sulfur. Then he sniffs himself

I so want him to pull a full-on Luther, the Anger Translator riff here.

To troll the whiny Trumpkins, HRC should say she loves Azealia Banks

Or Peaches.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:01 PM on October 11, 2016 [19 favorites]

Lawrence O'Donnell has an Apprentice crew member tonight.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:01 PM on October 11, 2016

Trump just told the crowd to go register and get out the vote on November 28. [real]
posted by gatorae at 7:01 PM on October 11, 2016 [100 favorites]

"You know, in Canada...when people with some money want an operation they come here. So slow. And it doesn't work."

"You will have health savings accounts." You'll be able to afford the best health care ever, etc.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:01 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ha. Ha. Trump told his crowd in Florida to get out and vote on November 28th.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:01 PM on October 11, 2016 [36 favorites]

That little counterfactual where CNN was around in the 19th century and falsely reported that Abraham Lincoln lost the election was weird.
posted by EarBucket at 7:02 PM on October 11, 2016

"I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created."

Greatest hits time.
posted by chris24 at 7:02 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

"I will be the best jobs president that GOD [emphasis his] ever created, believe me."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:02 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yeah, he's throwing out the same old same old, interspersed with Wikileaks. Usual weaving all over the place - not sure how we got from healthcare to the Late Great Abraham Lincoln in about three lettuce leaves of word salad, but we did. But it's pretty low energy. Perhaps he'll pick up when he gets onto the fresher meat of his treacherous party.
posted by Devonian at 7:02 PM on October 11, 2016

"The dishonesty of the New York Times is unbelievable."
Actually, that one I partially agree with. The New York Times used to very dishonestly promote Trump as a "local character/real estate developer".
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:02 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

I 1000% support this plan to have his voters wait until the 28th.
posted by EatTheWeek at 7:03 PM on October 11, 2016 [64 favorites]

I've got the stream on audio only, and wow he sounds nuts. Baseline nuts no politics filter.
posted by vrakatar at 7:03 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

He's created a lot of jobs at Doral, Mar-a-Lago, etc.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:03 PM on October 11, 2016

Now he's saying the Clintons attacked Catholics? And then moves on without explaining.

The relevant e-mail I think - not the Clintons per se.

Think tank guy John Halpin mentions Rupert Murdoch and Robert Thompson raising their children Catholic. Describes either Catholicism in general or traditional Catholicism as a "bastardization of the faith." Sounds typical of Protestant anti-Catholic opinion, though I didn't find his own religion. Jennifer Palmieri, now comms director for HRC, responds that Catholicism "is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion."
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 7:04 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

I watched like 15 seconds, and decided to come here. Trump's ideas are like a teen year old story, where the middle gets left out and ends with everything is great if we do it my way.
posted by AlexiaSky at 7:04 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Perhaps he'll pick up when he gets onto the fresher meat of his treacherous party.

Yeah, I'm watching in the hope of some GOP attacks.
posted by chris24 at 7:04 PM on October 11, 2016

I looked into the Trump Truck giveaway, and decided to read the rules and regs very VERY carefully, and that is how I learned that the truck they are giving away is actually a used '87 Chevy pickup

Is there a better working metaphor for voting for Trump?
posted by Countess Elena at 7:04 PM on October 11, 2016 [37 favorites]

re: NAFTA "They get the cash, they get the businesses - we get drugs."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:04 PM on October 11, 2016

Holy fuck he just threatened to pull his jobs out of FLA if he loses the state.
posted by vrakatar at 7:04 PM on October 11, 2016 [28 favorites]

Saying again he's going to terminate NAFTA.
posted by chris24 at 7:05 PM on October 11, 2016

Then with the closure of the casino, and the revelations that his Scottish properties are tanking, you have to wonder if he is actually a billionaire, and is this all in hope to open a Russian market thinking those long abused people are going to fall for a con artist like Trump?
posted by Oyéah at 7:05 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

He just jumps around from topic to topic

So that no one had a chance to interrupt?
posted by uncleozzy at 7:06 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

"She's crooked as a three dollar bill. I used to say two-dollar bills. But now they make two-dollar bills."

Bzzt. Wrong. Not new.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:06 PM on October 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

Isn't it illegal for an employer to tell people he will fire them if they don't vote a certian way?
posted by AlexiaSky at 7:06 PM on October 11, 2016 [15 favorites]

Trump on Hillary: "She's crooked as a 3-dollar bill. I used to say 2-dollar bill, but they make those now."

Not only is that such a weird thing to say, MAN he is old. The modern $2 started in 1976.
posted by Room 101 at 7:06 PM on October 11, 2016 [38 favorites]

Maybe Trump will do a Depardieu and move to Moscow for tax reasons?
posted by njohnson23 at 7:08 PM on October 11, 2016 [12 favorites]

He's about to justify his stalking.

Spoiler alert: it was her fault. She got in his space.
posted by vverse23 at 7:08 PM on October 11, 2016

Now saying she's a liar for saying he entered his space. Like we didn't see it all.
posted by chris24 at 7:08 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

"By cheering. Who did better in the debate?"

"Hey wait, wait, wait. Did you see where she said I entered her space?"

Holy shit. He sounds like Frank Pentangeli.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:09 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Isn't it illegal for an employer to tell people he will fire them if they don't vote a certian way?

Yep. But it doesn't seem to matter.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:09 PM on October 11, 2016 [12 favorites]

this rhetoric about taking down the rich, "fair share" wealth distribution, 65% estate tax, all of this scares me

Respectfully, if this scares you, it's because you're allowing yourself to be frightened by hyperbolic rhetoric as opposed to actual policy proposals. The ultra-rich in this country are liked spoiled children who are so used to getting their way, even the mildest of "no" responses to their every whim is responded to with "OMG COMMUNISM THIS COUNTRY IS FALLING APART KLEPTOCRACY KLEPTOCRACY GRARGRARGRAR". Meanwhile, no tax cut for the rich is ever unwarranted.

This attitude has led to where we are today, where even relatively generous tax proposals are seen as an unbelievable affront to the rich (and of course, to the poor who the rich have suckered into believing these taxes would ever apply to them -- see the old saw about americans all believing they're just temporarily embarassed millionaires).

At some point, when you look around and see the kinds of wealth concentration going on like it is in this country, you have to accept that maybe the problem is in fact that we don't tax the rich enough.
posted by tocts at 7:09 PM on October 11, 2016 [75 favorites]

It was her fault, her face got in the way of his hand.
posted by Oyéah at 7:09 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

The claim that she invaded his space is so bizarre. He knows the whole thing was on the teevee, right?
posted by diogenes at 7:10 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

"If you asked Lyin' Paul Ryan or Crooked Hillary if the election is November 28th, they'd say it isn't, that's how desperate they are!" [fake]
posted by ckape at 7:10 PM on October 11, 2016

I don't know if anyone's linked to the 30 Days 30 Songs project against Trump. Songs by people like Death Cab for Cutie and today's, by Aimee Mann.
posted by emjaybee at 7:10 PM on October 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

>Trump just told the crowd to go register and get out the vote on November 28. [real]

That would make it a really black friday.
posted by Catblack at 7:11 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Saying in 4 years he'll win the black and hispanic vote.
posted by chris24 at 7:11 PM on October 11, 2016

"I say to African Americans suffering in our inner cities: What do you have to lose? Vote for Donald Trump."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:11 PM on October 11, 2016

"We're gonna have safe inner cities instead of these horrible horrible death traps."
posted by chris24 at 7:12 PM on October 11, 2016

Here's a fun little shirt a friend posted on FB.
posted by notsnot at 7:12 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

"She's a bad, bad person. Remember that. I will fight for you harder than anyone."

He'll fix the inner cities.

How?

"Disadvantaged children will be able to send their children to the school of their choice."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:12 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

November 28th is the first day of the Trump University Trial. Hard to keep these important dates straight.
posted by Freen at 7:13 PM on October 11, 2016 [87 favorites]

Describes either Catholicism in general or traditional Catholicism as a "bastardization of the faith." Sounds typical of Protestant anti-Catholic opinion, though I didn't find his own religion.

He's referring to conservative Catholicism as "a bastardisation of the faith" (Catholic Christianity); the reference to Christian democracy makes that pretty clear.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 7:13 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

"We're going to protect internet freedom. You see how they want the internet run by the world?"
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:14 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

"You have 28 days to make every dream you ever dreamed for your country to come true."

O.k., Tony Robbins.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:16 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

The Silver Fox, Anderson Cooper, shuts up Kellyanne Conway for at least a few seconds by making her look stupid.

The look on his face. Just. "CNN sucks hey? Well fuck you lady."
posted by Talez at 7:16 PM on October 11, 2016 [50 favorites]

"And how did this country get to this situation?"

A bunch of European countries said, "Hey, let's send our religious fanatics, criminals, and impoverished strivers to a different continent and see what happens!" THIS HAPPENED. Europe's always all "Oh we're a rationalist continent without fanatics" and I'm all "YES YOU SHIPPED THEM ABROAD."

"That little counterfactual where CNN was around in the 19th century and falsely reported that Abraham Lincoln lost the election was weird."

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., has a really great exhibit where (NBC's) Tim Russert is reporting on the 1860 election as if it were a post-2000 election and there's a crawl and everything where it's like "Louis Pasteur claims "microscopic organisms" cause disease," "Pony Express makes first delivery in record-breaking 10 days" and so on.

It is a great exhibit but possibly Trump got confused.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:16 PM on October 11, 2016 [60 favorites]

Going to appoint Supreme Court judges who'll uphold the Constitution. Which will play merry hell with all the unconstitutional things he's promised.

He's just going through the motions now.
posted by Devonian at 7:17 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure trump had a weird salad order of I'm going to do (verb) because ( noun ) freedom.

Mad lib away.

We need trump mad libs.
posted by AlexiaSky at 7:17 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

"We will build the wall. And we will stop drugs from pouring in."

"We will build the wall - ok folks, are you ready - who's going to pay for the wall?"

Crowd: Mexico!
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:18 PM on October 11, 2016

The hell with the rallies. Bye, felipe.
posted by vrakatar at 7:19 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

"One people under one god saluting one American flag."
posted by chris24 at 7:19 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Does he not realize "america first" is taken?
posted by vrakatar at 7:20 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Fin
posted by chris24 at 7:20 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Also, don't know if was posted in old thread, but NARAL had a FB meme that as of today, we only have one menstrual cycle till the election!

We're all gonna get more bloated, achy, and prone to mood swings in the next few weeks, ya'll. Stock up on chocolate, heating pads and pain relievers. Perform self-care. Take long showers. Scream into pillows. Whatever it takes to get you through.
posted by emjaybee at 7:20 PM on October 11, 2016 [36 favorites]

From way upthread, in response to corb -

It's not on the agenda for the furthest left people I know and it would be unimaginable for the more center-left or just centrist people in the Democratic Party.

"It" being aggressive economic wealth distribution, I am assuming. Because I have heard super-left people espousing this very thing; I went to a protest after the death of Philando Castille in the summer and a couple of the speakers they had there busted out full-on anarchist "tear down the system" views.

Although to redirect back to the original point (that this was rare) - in this system, it is rare. Rare to the point of being nigh-impossible to pull off, and that's on top of it being generally hard to pull off anyway. It is just plain human-nature-level hard to share, it is hard to counter that baser human instict towards greed; that's why they spend so much time talking about sharing on Sesame Street. And that is also why we call the government in to create tax codes in the first place, because leaving it up to the individual to willingly contribute the amount they see fit would leave us with practically nothing, because even with the tax codes we got, we have everyone gaming the system to keep as much money as they can.

So even though you may come across a person or two who does espouse a whole anarchic society here and there, they would have to combat not only capitalism, but human nature itself, which I have always seen as being a profoundly unlikely turn of events.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:21 PM on October 11, 2016 [11 favorites]

Trump's done. Just before the audio on the live stream cut out, there was a half second of "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

It's a perplexing song choice.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:21 PM on October 11, 2016

Well, poo on you, Trump. That was the weakest rally you've served up in ages. Shackles off?

Guy always promises, promises, promises and lies, lies, lies.
posted by Devonian at 7:21 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

"We will build the wall. And we will stop drugs from pouring in."

I live in Delaware County, Indiana. Meth production captital of the state, and one of the top producers in the nation. Is this where the wall will be? I'd like to know so I can move out before the bricks start being laid.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:23 PM on October 11, 2016 [18 favorites]

Holy fuck he just threatened to pull his jobs out of FLA if he loses the state.

If/when Trump loses, I'll be happy to watch him insult his supporters all night in lieu of a concession speech.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:23 PM on October 11, 2016 [16 favorites]

Yeah, a pretty by-the-numbers, going-through-the-motions speech (though my wife hadn't seen a rally in its entirety before and was horrified.) No attacking Ryan or McCain. Sad.
posted by chris24 at 7:24 PM on October 11, 2016

"I get the biggest audiences in the world for a man without a guitar"

Yeah, nope.
posted by Devonian at 7:24 PM on October 11, 2016

If/when Trump loses, I'll be happy to watch him insult his supporters all night in lieu of a concession speech.
posted by octobersurprise at 10:23 PM on October 11

A November suprise!
posted by vrakatar at 7:26 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Kurt Eichenwald‏ @kurteichenwald
JESUS. Now Greenwald's assholes are literally going after my wife!! Folks: Do it, & my lawyer will track u down and sue you into the ground.
posted by Yowser at 7:26 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

I looked into the Trump Truck giveaway, and decided to read the rules and regs very VERY carefully, and that is how I learned that the truck they are giving away is actually a used '87 Chevy pickup. I'm having serious second thoughts about entering this because I'd hate to spin that into a donation and end up with it being a problem becuase it's a piece of shit. I'm sleeping on it.

I thought that it was the shitty older one, not the giant people-plow one that looks like a late model. What are the taxes on a 29 year old truck, like $200? It'd be worth that much to video it going into a car crusher and putting it on YouTube.

But I'm not sure Id donate it to someone who might need to actually rely upon it working.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:26 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

"I get the biggest audiences in the world for a man without a guitar"

Yeah, nope.

I feel like Kevin Hart has topped this by now.
posted by dis_integration at 7:27 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Paul Ryan with those PX-90 honed byceps getting his ass whooped by an obese orange septegenarian. All his tough talk over the years and he's having his ass handed to him by the playground bully. Then we get to watch Hillary the coolest girl in school beat the shit out of that same orange bully. Don't tell me that this isn't a little fun.
posted by humanfont at 7:29 PM on October 11, 2016 [29 favorites]

You think if Paul asks nicely she'll teach him how to shimmy?
posted by cmfletcher at 7:31 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Don't tell me that this isn't a little fun.

Ask me again on November 9. Right now, a brush with American facism doesn't do good things for me.
posted by Mooski at 7:31 PM on October 11, 2016 [11 favorites]

San Antonio TX police showing up in uniform to greet Trump on the tarmac wearing MAGA hats.

*shudder*
posted by Talez at 7:32 PM on October 11, 2016 [57 favorites]

San Antonio TX police showing up in uniform to greet Trump on the tarmac wearing MAGA hats.

*shudder*

It's not hyperbole to say this is what fascism looks like.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:33 PM on October 11, 2016 [201 favorites]

Trump told his rally to come out and vote November 28th. November 28th is when the Trump University trial is scheduled to start.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:34 PM on October 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

That seems like something public servants shouldn't be allowed to do (in government uniform, anyway).
posted by turbid dahlia at 7:35 PM on October 11, 2016 [50 favorites]

NYT: Split Over Donald Trump Threatens to Tilt Republican States

"Mrs. Clinton’s campaign has concluded that at least two traditionally Republican states, Georgia and Arizona, are realistic targets for her campaign to win over. And Republican polling has found that Mr. Trump is at dire risk of losing Georgia, according to people briefed on the polls, who spoke on the condition of anonymity." (my bold)
posted by chris24 at 7:35 PM on October 11, 2016 [21 favorites]

xyzzy, I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that your dad's doctor donated to charity, as per Fahrenthold.
posted by Yowser at 7:36 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Anyone know what this is about? Another Trump tax leak - 2013 Federal taxes this time - but favourable to the man. I can't find anything else about it, nor what it'd be doing tucked away in the unclassified bits of the Baltimore Gazette.
posted by Devonian at 7:37 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Charlie Sykes on Lawrence O'Donnell: "The campaign's gone full Breitbart" and "about to go full Alex Jones".
posted by Talez at 7:38 PM on October 11, 2016 [11 favorites]

Oh, naw, man, you never go the full Alex Jones.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:39 PM on October 11, 2016 [11 favorites]

You think if Paul asks nicely she'll teach him how to shimmy?

"I wish I could shimmy like my sister colleague Kate Hillary."
posted by octobersurprise at 7:39 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

The USA's ability to redistribute wealth, as a country and as a culture, is so weak,and unenforceable

Except it does, in ways that aren't typically considered redistributive: the "white enough" city-dwellers who wanted suburban houses in the 50s got mortgages and tax deductions while their taxes paid for the highways allowing them to commute, highways that were typically built through "low value" black urban neighbourhoods.

More broadly, this is a reflection on low-trust / high-trust societies. Many immigrants who come from low-trust societies are relieved to find themselves in a higher-trust society where they don't (generally) have to bribe officials to keep their businesses running, or fear expropriation, or need the right friends to get crimes investigated. But the US also contains large pockets of low-trust society, which isn't helped when cops wear red hats to greet Trump.
posted by holgate at 7:39 PM on October 11, 2016 [39 favorites]

At least Wikipedia says.

Baltimore Gazette is definitely a fake news source.
posted by dis_integration at 7:42 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

Except it does, in ways that aren't typically considered redistributive: the "white enough" city-dwellers who wanted suburban houses in the 50s got mortgages and tax deductions while their taxes paid for the highways allowing them to commute, highways that were typically built through "low value" black urban neighbourhoods.

White flight was one of the country's biggest stealth wealth redistributions from the poor to the middle class ever. They looked at decades of debt and obligations, wholly pulled up stakes, and founded a new city with a clean slate a few miles down the road without any debt or obligations. They saddled those debts and obligations with the poor black people that remained. Now that they've started to clean up that shit sandwich by cities declaring bankruptcy or just flat out renegotiating benefits post-facto, whites are coming back in to "gentrify" the place.

White people got a massive fucking wealth break on that one even if they didn't realize it at the time.
posted by Talez at 7:43 PM on October 11, 2016 [70 favorites]

So it's like The Onion for non-humorous right-wing wish-fulfillment fake news?
posted by prize bull octorok at 7:44 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

Bizarre. It was definitely fake, but I couldn't work out what it was pretending to be.
posted by Devonian at 7:54 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

chris24: ""We're gonna have safe inner cities instead of these horrible horrible death traps.""

His audience for that shit is really the white people who haven't set foot in a city other than to go to a football game in forty years. All they know about the city that they live near is what they see on the 11 local newscast.
posted by octothorpe at 7:54 PM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

Ten minutes without a comment? Did Trump quit?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:54 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

I am super fired up! Just got home from a GOTV planning meeting for these next few weeks. Early voting begins tomorrow in Arizona, through November 4th.

This is going to be amazing.
posted by Superplin at 7:55 PM on October 11, 2016 [36 favorites]

So Trump's entire campaign plan right now is to make him seen so fucking insane that Democrats think they've won and won't bother voting.
posted by Talez at 7:56 PM on October 11, 2016 [12 favorites]

So it's like The Onion for non-humorous right-wing wish-fulfillment fake news?

It's like an Onion for people who just write fake stories that aren't funny. They got me a couple weeks ago with a story about the DEA recanting the insane classification of Kratom as a schedule I substance. I was excited because a good friend of ours relies on it for pain control, and uses it now in place of what she used before, which was a metric shitload of opiate painkillers. She's distraught about having to go back to being in a daze and liver function tests for the rest of her life, and those shitwhistles at the Baltimore Gazette thought it'd be a funny story to write up that the DEA had postponed the decision. That's some satire, I'm sure The Onion is worried about their market share.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:57 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

There's a bunch of sites now that exist only to publish outrageous clickbait stuff and they don't even bother to make it really amusing or whatever--they're there just to get ad dollars from whatever people share without reading or only skim and don't pay attention. Also the source of a lot of stories about very-much-living celebrities having recently died.
posted by Sequence at 7:57 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

Trump's done. Just before the audio on the live stream cut out, there was a half second of "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

It's a perplexing song choice.

He's been using this song at his rallies for months. It is indeed perplexing, but it's not new.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 7:57 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

The URL for the website was registered in July 2015 through Domains By Proxy, a company started by GoDaddy.com founder Bob Parsons that keeps owner information marked private. An email inquiry to the totally legit-sounding [e-mail] was not immediately returned.

Full bit.
posted by vrakatar at 7:58 PM on October 11, 2016

He's been using this song at his rallies for months. It is indeed perplexing, but it's not new.

Oh yeah. It was the final song (IIRC) played at the RNC.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:59 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's not on the agenda for the furthest left people I know and it would be unimaginable for the more center-left or just centrist people in the Democratic Party.

"It" being aggressive economic wealth distribution, I am assuming. Because I have heard super-left people espousing this very thing; I went to a protest after the death of Philando Castille in the summer and a couple of the speakers they had there busted out full-on anarchist "tear down the system" views.

I mean, yeah. I have run in anarchist activist circles as well, mostly because they were the people who were doing the on the ground work that felt important (defending sex workers, harm reduction) and I still maintain that an actual left wing revolution is not on anyone's agenda, even the people yelling "smash the state" or whatever. For a lot of people in this country, the idea of "the revolution" is basically a secular spiritual concept, a time when society has evolved in the way Empress is talking about, when people learn to fucking share and treat each other decently. There's a huge disconnect between that concept and what an actual, IRL, real revolution is. I say that a revolution is not really on anyone's agenda because nobody is working towards that goal: when you look at the actual activism of these smash the state anarchists, at least in my experience, it's all incredibly anti-violent community-oriented stuff like "volunteer at the local free/homeless clinic" or staffing crisis lines or domestic violence shelters or building community gardens. Nobody in these groups or social circles are out there planning or working towards for an actual armed left wing or anarchist overthrow of the government.

And unlike the Trump supporters who are like, ladies who keep food banks running in their real lives, people who also have that weird paradox of violent political rhetoric coupled with the most nurturing and nonviolent community activism, there are no political candidates or programs that anarchists might be voting for who might put "the revolution" into real political play in the way a Trump or Ryan would get voted into office and try to put more Muslims into internment camps or take down Roe V Wade. FWIW, the general wisdom among people who participated in the Occupy movement was that people who really were making a big deal of trying to stir up violence, building bombs, whatever (this really happened in Boston-- scary shit), were likely to be, and often were revealed to be, government plants.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 8:01 PM on October 11, 2016 [16 favorites]

So as a white, XY person who doesn't open carry and who won't loom menacingly at PoC, can I show up at the polls and, like, counter-balance the Trumpist poll-watchers with a big smile and a friendly wave? Are there rules about this? Would a "Vote your conscience, ignore the thugs next to me" sign be cool?

Is there anything I can legally do to offset these people, if they show up at my polling place?
posted by wenestvedt at 8:03 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

The San Antonio police brazenly wearing Trump hats while on duty, coupled with Trump's increasingly insistent demands that his supporters intimidate black voters at the polls, is truly terrifying. His "Law and Order" rhetoric was always scary and gross, but this stupid hat incident seems like a clear sign that the marriage of police & Trump is now being openly flaunted. It is extremely intimidating.
posted by gatorae at 8:03 PM on October 11, 2016 [90 favorites]

Is there anything I can legally do to offset these people, if they show up at my polling place?

Sign up for poll watching and keep the National Lawyers Guild on speeddial.
posted by Talez at 8:04 PM on October 11, 2016 [11 favorites]

Isn't it illegal for an employer to tell people he will fire them if they don't vote a certian way?

Yep. But it doesn't seem to matter.

“I’m not bragging, I’m just stating the fact: I personally got George W. Bush elected,” Siegel told me during two days of interviews. “I’m not proud of it. I feel like I’m responsible for all the problems in the world.” By that he meant, mostly, the then-deteriorating situation in Iraq.

Here’s Siegel’s account of how he swung the election in Bush’s favor: “Whenever I saw a negative article about [Al] Gore, I put it in with the paychecks of my 8,000 employees. I had my managers do a survey on every employee. If they liked Bush, we made them register to vote. But not if they liked Gore. The week before [the election] we made 80,000 phone calls through my call center—they were robo-calls. On Election Day, we made sure everyone who was voting for Bush got to the polls. I didn’t know he would win by 527 votes. Afterward, we did a survey among the employees to find out who voted who wouldn’t have otherwise. One thousand of them said so.”

Holy shit.
posted by cashman at 8:07 PM on October 11, 2016 [77 favorites]

So I totally love John Oliver and Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah and all the rest of them, but I have to say that I am so, so glad that we have Sam Bee to speak out for us. All the discussion of misogyny in our culture, combined with the low-level sexism I have to deal with literally every single day really starts to get to me sometimes and now is one of those times. Having people like Sam Bee and Hillary Clinton and Gloria Steinem (who I saw speak the other night at an event) stand out there front and center and shout back against it, when the best I can do is curl up under my covers in bed because I get so overwhelmed by it all, means the world to me. They are my real-life heroes. I wish we had more of them.

(Sam Bee is once again on fire tonight on Full Frontal. I'd definitely recommend watching if you can.)
posted by triggerfinger at 8:07 PM on October 11, 2016 [61 favorites]

there was a half second of "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

It's a perplexing song choice.

♪♫ But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game ♫♪
posted by fuse theorem at 8:08 PM on October 11, 2016 [24 favorites]

Wow, the very conservative, very evangelical World magazine has come out against Trump.

@WORLD_mag: Unfit for power: It’s time for @realDonaldTrump to step aside and make room for another candidate https://world.wng.org/2016/10/unfit_for_power @MarvinOlasky
posted by chris24 at 8:14 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

Just read the Matt Yglesias thread. It's terrible and all the more so because there are no Jews on Twitter tonight. The white supremacists have full reign because it's Yom Kippur, the holiest of holy days. (Also, I am a terrible Jew). Frankly, I don't have the ovaries or the energy right now to put up any kind of a fight, as if that would do any good.
posted by Sophie1 at 8:16 PM on October 11, 2016 [18 favorites]

G'mar Hatimah Tovah, Sophie. I'm here in the bad jew political junkie basket with you. <3
posted by moonlight on vermont at 8:19 PM on October 11, 2016 [24 favorites]

Would a "Vote your conscience, ignore the thugs next to me" sign be cool?

This would terrify me tbh
posted by zutalors! at 8:21 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

As a Canadian...who watched his father, a firefighter, wait 3 months for an MRI, and then die from a brain tumour,...it's still more important to me that there be universal access, ...so I'd like to tell Trump and Gulianni to go fuck themselves with corncobs (actually, I'd like to fuck them with corncobs but that's a bit too rude to say here, so please flag away and I'll still be glad I got it off my chest)
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:22 PM on October 11, 2016 [10 favorites]

Man, these evangelical non-endorsements - like, yay I guess, but I just can't fathom the world these guys live in where Clinton is this monstrously evil cackling villain. It's like I'm a one eyed woman looking at a magic eye painting. I just literally cannot see it. It makes no sense to me.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:22 PM on October 11, 2016 [35 favorites]

G'mar chatimah tova to you as well, moonlight.
posted by Sophie1 at 8:23 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

What Matt Yglesias thread? On Metafilter?
posted by Justinian at 8:23 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

It’s time for @realDonaldTrump to step aside and make room for another candidate

I'd say it's a little past the time for swapping candidates. I already voted.
posted by p3t3 at 8:26 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Mentioned near the end of the last debate thread, relevant: Trump Taj Mahal Casino closes after years of losses...
So, yeah. Babylon. Crumbling.
posted by sexyrobot at 8:27 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

"Am I out of touch for supporting Donald Trump?"

"No, it's the cucks who are wrong!"
posted by Talez at 8:30 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

did you ever watch the jonestown video? i think trump has truly come unhinged. as in his jaw, so he can swallow himself whole.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 8:30 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Babylon? More like Babbling-on.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:30 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Humane Society endorses Clinton, condemns Trump (video). (It came out last week, so sorry if it's been posted already.) There's a bunch of info about stuff like Clinton/Kaine's animal rights records, probable front-runners for Trump's cabinet for Secretary of Agriculture, Minister of the Interior, etc, and how Trump "even called for the Food and Drug Administration to stop regulating pet food," which y'all probably know about but I managed to miss that tidbit in September.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 8:30 PM on October 11, 2016 [37 favorites]

It's like I'm a one eyed woman looking at a magic eye painting. I just literally cannot see it. It makes no sense to me.

It's because abortion is the only way nowadays that religious conservatives can vilify, shame, and harass women for being sexual beings because they can pretend it's not about the women, but a potential embryonic human.

Nevermind that considering a fertilized egg a full human is a modern theological invention with no historical support in Christian theology.
posted by tclark at 8:31 PM on October 11, 2016 [36 favorites]

Matt Yglesias thread mentioned by Earbucket
posted by Sophie1 at 8:32 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Silver Fox himself, Anderson Cooper, again blows Kellyanne Conway the fuck out over settling lawsuits.
posted by Talez at 8:34 PM on October 11, 2016 [26 favorites]

Matt Yglesias thread mentioned by Earbucket

Specifically, twitter thread. Which, it's been striking to me to lately notice people on twitter referring to strings of twitter comment as such; I've been actively following a lot of twitter stuff for years now and really don't feel like that's been such common parlance until pretty recently. Tweet storms, sure; "in my mentions" for interactions; a couple other bits of lingo I feel like are just eluding me right now.

But the move from "this" to "this whole thread" feels like a recent change in the wind. It trips me up because my immediate thought is "oh dang what MetaFilter thing are they talking about?" before I reassess. It's that twitchy response that has me feeling sure that I haven't been seeing it used that way previously; whether that's because it's just catching on lately, or just catching on lately with the subset of people/tweets retweeted by the folks I follow, I don't know, though that'd be a heck of a coincidence if it's the latter.
posted by cortex at 8:37 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

And it's kind of annoying because Twitter is shit for trying to actually follow a threaded conversation. It's like they're actively trying to combine the worst aspects of flat and threaded discussions.

And don't get me started on "tweetstorms", or those dumb "image of long paragraphs of text attached to a tweet" things.

(Reattaches onion to belt.)
posted by tonycpsu at 8:43 PM on October 11, 2016 [48 favorites]

Frankly, I don't have the ovaries or the energy right now to put up any kind of a fight, as if that would do any good.

I am an Episcopalian, who as a child sat in the pews while Father Desmond Tutu came to preach in our tiny, no-account New England church. He said things I take with me now as an adult and try to teach my kid and my nieces and nephews.

I am not sorry for who I am. I will use my might to fight for those who can't. I will meet in peace and with gentleness those who want to fight me, and be the victor.

Father Tutu has decided he is at an end, this week. I am not one to deny him this.

I am not one to deny him a better tomorrow. We have heard a plea for help from our non-Christian countrymen and women, Christian or not. We must help them. Go. Vote. Explain to others why you vote. Be strong and gentle. Win.

This is a fine time for me to rediscover religion. Yet I have. It involves a story too stupid to relate here, but profound to me in ways I can't explain.

What energy I have, I will lend it to you any way I can.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:44 PM on October 11, 2016 [48 favorites]

I'm kind of an old, so I call everything a thread because I don't know what the current terms are.
posted by Sophie1 at 8:45 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

It's really funny how Anderson Cooper has stopped putting up with Kellyanne's shit right after Trump starts up "CNN sucks" chants.
posted by Talez at 8:45 PM on October 11, 2016 [10 favorites]

I think the hip new term is "thrizzle".
posted by mmoncur at 8:46 PM on October 11, 2016 [10 favorites]

The San Antonio mayor responded to the photo of the cops w/Trump.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:46 PM on October 11, 2016 [32 favorites]

Update: "San Antonio police officers who wore Trump hats with their uniforms "will be disciplined appropriately," chief says" (Boston Globe Tweet)(Article)(City of San Antonio Tweet)

"The officers wearing the campaign hats while in uniform violated SAPD policy and will be disciplined appropriately. SAPD officers are charged with protecting the entire community. The officers displayed poor judgment. I expect them to know better than to give the appearance of endorsing a candidate while on duty and in uniform, regardless of the political campaign or the candidate." - Chief William McManus

posted by cashman at 8:48 PM on October 11, 2016 [123 favorites]

Haha especially in San-fucking-Antonio, with its gigantic Hispanic population. Those fuckers. I hope they get fired.
posted by emjaybee at 8:51 PM on October 11, 2016 [29 favorites]

Erick Erickson: Trump Supporters Want Nancy Pelosi In the Speaker’s Chair

And it contains this tidbit: "More dirt will be coming out on Donald Trump this week to further suppress Christian voters by showing what an immoral lout he is."
posted by chris24 at 8:51 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

> The officers wearing the campaign hats while in uniform violated SAPD policy and will be disciplined appropriately.

Sure, that's great, but I think minorities and abuse victims received the message loud and clear - if you call the cops, you take your chances with people who wore #MAGA hats with their uniforms. Well done, San Antonio police, well done.
posted by RedOrGreen at 8:52 PM on October 11, 2016 [49 favorites]

Will they get a day off to think real hard about what they've done?
posted by erratic meatsack at 8:52 PM on October 11, 2016 [20 favorites]

I spent awhile talking to my friend and an acquaintance of hers. Both of them are terrified of Trump winning, but they're both still voting Green (my friend bragged that her entire family is). Both insist that what we need is a shock to the system.

So, I'm a Green voter, I have a Jill Stein magnet on my Prius, and chances are pretty good that I will vote a straight Green ticket since, for the first time ever, I actually can. (*)

But I think they're very wrong about the "shock to the system" thing. This kind of thinking is like expecting the next mass shooting to finally sway public opinion about gun control, or the next Hurricane Katrina to launch a massive initiative to reduce carbon emissions, or the next Wall Street-driven economic crash to result in useful regulations, or the next terrible election cycle to reform our political system.

(*) Honestly? My vote may actually depend on how close things look, and I hate that. I hate every single facet of this calculation and I will continue to argue that lesser-evil voting is horrible and will only lead to increasingly terrible candidates. In 2020 or 2024 there's a real danger than that someone worse than Trump will be the Republican nominee and someone worse than Clinton will be the Democrat and the same damned arguments will come out again. I live in a red state and seriously doubt that a "strategic" vote for Hillary will work against Trump in any way, while a supposedly "protest" vote is the only effective message I can really send. But. I am watching the polls.
posted by Foosnark at 8:53 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

The Silver Fox himself, Anderson Cooper, again blows Kellyanne Conway the fuck out over settling lawsuits.

This is just great. Anderson is doing a fantastic job right now, and making most of the people on MSNBC look like amateurs. He's the first person I've seen be able to really reduce Conway to a stuttering mess with straight facts. He's like her Kryptonite. I love it.
posted by cashman at 8:53 PM on October 11, 2016 [43 favorites]

Cooper is one of CNN's few redeeming features these days.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 8:57 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

I just read something cringe worthy in the Salt Lake Tribune. Political forces really want Utah to go to Evan McMullin. They don't feel the love for Johnson. But the thing they revealed is that if no one gets the electoral majority, then Paul Ryan will decide who is our next president. The house decides. This is what Evan McMullin is on the ticket to do, is throw the race to who the house chooses. Yeah, so, for that I disparage this individual.
posted by Oyéah at 8:57 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Everytime Trump talks about the "boxes of emails," I think about the scene in Zoolander when Derek and Hansel are all, "the files are in the computer" and start smacking the computer monitor and screeching like apes and they try to retrieve the files...
posted by TwoStride at 8:57 PM on October 11, 2016 [19 favorites]

The Silver Fox himself, Anderson Cooper, again blows Kellyanne Conway the fuck out over settling lawsuits.

Thing is, it does imply guilt, on both sides. They both have to already know this.
posted by rhizome at 8:59 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trumpists were absolutely rabid at Anderson Cooper on twitter during the debate, saying things that are unrepeatable. I know any out dude in the public sphere has had to develop a thick skin, but I bet he's also out of evens at this point when it comes to Trump and the deplorables among his base. So good on him for not letting Conway get away with her spin.
posted by xyzzy at 9:00 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

I just read something cringe worthy in the Salt Lake Tribune. Political forces really want Utah to go to Evan McMullin. They don't feel the love for Johnson. But the thing they revealed is that if no one gets the electoral majority, then Paul Ryan will decide who is our next president. The house decides. This is what Evan McMullin is on the ticket to do, is throw the race to who the house chooses. Yeah, so, for that I disparage this individual.

The race would need to be a hell of a lot closer nationally for this to actually matter. In what scenario does Clinton's path to victory require her to win Utah? But it's one way to persuade people to 'vote their conscience' and feel like it might actually matter... and the most likely result of a bunch more people in Utah voting for McMullin is that it throws the state to Clinton.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:01 PM on October 11, 2016 [21 favorites]

The west coast AC feed is on CNN go right now if you want to watch.
posted by Talez at 9:01 PM on October 11, 2016

Cooper is one of CNN's few redeeming features these days.

They've actually been better I think since the whole Trump hotel infomercial bait and switch. It took them getting taken for a ride and tricked into unwittingly pitching the real estate equivalent of Trump Steaks on QVC to do it, but most of their anchors and talent seems to have had enough, at long last.

Except they still have on the same cast of miserable contributors, and still pay Ledowanski, so it's not like they're real journalists yet. But baby steps.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:02 PM on October 11, 2016

I just read something cringe worthy in the Salt Lake Tribune. Political forces really want Utah to go to Evan McMullin. They don't feel the love for Johnson. But the thing they revealed is that if no one gets the electoral majority, then Paul Ryan will decide who is our next president. The house decides. This is what Evan McMullin is on the ticket to do, is throw the race to who the house chooses. Yeah, so, for that I disparage this individual.

This was talked about months ago on here. Sometime around February or March, and probably every month since.
posted by cashman at 9:02 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

And it contains this tidbit: “More dirt will be coming out on Donald Trump this week to further suppress Christian voters by showing what an immoral lout he is.”

This seems less like an insider’s tip and more extrapolation based on past performance. But I’d love to be wrong.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:05 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

This was talked about months ago on here. Sometime around February or March, and probably every month since.

Hmm? Egg only got into the race in early August.
posted by neonrev at 9:06 PM on October 11, 2016

Hmm? Egg only got into the race in early August.

For instance.
posted by cashman at 9:07 PM on October 11, 2016

For McMuffin to throw the race to the House he'd have to win a bunch of states including at least one blue state. He has as much chance of that as I do and I am only getting 3 votes at last count.
posted by Justinian at 9:08 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

Early August, and that is right, this whole ride a campaign on the resemblance to Egg McMuffin, using McDonald's advertising as name recognition, irritates me. Not that my irritation is a factor, but I have felt for a while that there is a plan underway to throw this crazy election with Ryan as a fulcrum. So there.
posted by Oyéah at 9:09 PM on October 11, 2016

And see also Etrigan's comment, pre-Egg.
posted by cashman at 9:10 PM on October 11, 2016

Four, Justinian, and I'm in a solid blue state (and don't tell quidnunc kid)
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:11 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

After the quidnunc kid tapes came out, I'm going to make that 4 Justinian
posted by localhuman at 9:11 PM on October 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

Maine's own homegrown Trump, Gov. Paul LePage, calls on Trump "to show some authoritarian power in our country."
posted by dhens at 9:11 PM on October 11, 2016

Yeah, I fundamentally don't understand how Egg or any other conservative 3rd party candidate weakens Clinton electorally at all. All it would do is weaken Trump voters and further ensure a larger Clinton margin. Am I missing something?
posted by neonrev at 9:11 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Justinimentum.
posted by Justinian at 9:12 PM on October 11, 2016 [25 favorites]

For McMuffin to throw the race to the House he'd have to win a bunch of states including at least one blue state. He has as much chance of that as I do and I am only getting 3 votes at last count.

Not to freak out the JCPL, but McMuffin could play spoiler winning only Utah, with a generous, but still plausible, projection for Trump.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:13 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

You're missing that most people don't actually understand our electoral process, neonrev. Up to and including the Hillary Clinton campaign staff in 2008.
posted by Justinian at 9:13 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Am I missing something

The magical thinking of a desperate Republican?
posted by chris24 at 9:13 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

Well, there seem to be some marching orders, and if there were, it would be Utah, Idaho, Nevada, and maybe even Wyoming I'm just sayin, then there are the other 3rd party candidates, who are on all ballots. McMullin is on 12 state ballots, all of a sudden, or not.
posted by Oyéah at 9:13 PM on October 11, 2016

MAKE BYZANTIUM GREAT AGAIN
posted by stolyarova at 9:14 PM on October 11, 2016 [11 favorites]

A (Charles II to George IV) reproduction furniture blogger I follow posted this funny Trump image from a Rubens painting.
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:14 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

McMuffin could win Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming with 100% of the vote an have no bearing on the election. Winning Nevada could possibly affect the election but almost certainly will not.

Really, Oyeah, you're freaking out over nothing and if I'm telling you that you know it must be true. I am the master emperor of freaking out.
posted by Justinian at 9:16 PM on October 11, 2016 [26 favorites]

Sorry I'm late I've been out drinking in my clown costume. Is that a trowel?
posted by svenvog at 9:17 PM on October 11, 2016 [10 favorites]

I just have PTSDUT. I have my stuff wrong anyway, he is concentrating on Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. I will chill out.
posted by Oyéah at 9:21 PM on October 11, 2016

By the way, here are some new colors for color-coding the JCPL.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:21 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Not to freak out the JCPL, but McMuffin could play spoiler winning only Utah, with a generous, but still plausible, projection for Trump.

In this map he's a spoiler for Trump not Clinton, because Trump would have won Utah if McMuffin didn't. It would likely mean a President Ryan rather than a President Trump. Which would be a really bad thing but better than President Trump.

McMuffin is almost certain to have no effect whatsoever on the race. But if he does pull off a miracle and do something interesting it would be to take the election away from Trump not to give it to him.
posted by Justinian at 9:22 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm about a hundred comments behind, but re: evangelical women: I am facebook friends with quite a few, none of whom really post about politics generally, and most of them have posted something or linked something expressing outrage about the Trump tape.

A good friend whose husband is a youth pastor put up a long impassioned plea to young people to understand that this was not normal or acceptable or God-honoring behavior. She was profoundly upset by the whole thing.
posted by gerstle at 9:23 PM on October 11, 2016 [19 favorites]

I take that back, it couldn't mean a President Ryan since the House has to cast its votes for one of the people who received electoral votes, I believe. Maybe a faithless elector would cast one for Ryan? That would be interesting. In any case it couldn't make things worse, only neutral or better.
posted by Justinian at 9:23 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

In other news I now have a zillion different election threads open that I'm hoping to go back and finish, like, someday. Remember books? I have whole shelves of them and no idea what I used to use them for
posted by gerstle at 9:24 PM on October 11, 2016 [29 favorites]

By the way, thanks to the folks who've pointed out good christian arguments to use on wavering conservatives. I've been blanketing family with purely religious arguments against Trump (which has got a be a real head trip when it's coming from the only non-christian member of the family) and I've been finding headway. I'm not getting anyone onto the Clinton train, it's probably too late for that, but I'm demotivating voters left and right, and while I'd ordinarily feel bad about that, when it's Trump it's a damned public service, no question.

Keep 'em coming if anyone has anymore, and I encourage those who know how to fight this on religious grounds. It's a rare chance to make headway into conservatives using God, and maybe it'll stick in their minds. Every little bit helps.
posted by neonrev at 9:25 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

In general, if it's close enough to worry about third party spoilers, you should already be even more worried about Trump winning outright.
posted by ckape at 9:25 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

“The Apprentice” Microphone Guy Says Trump Repeatedly Called Him A “Fucking Monkey” (Buzzfeed)
posted by Weeping_angel at 9:28 PM on October 11, 2016 [24 favorites]

A friend who lives nearby reports that a Trump sign, one of the only ones sighted in our small but generally liberal section of Colorado Springs, was taken down after the tape came out.

I repeat, a Trump sign is down in my notoriously red city.

I am feeling optimistic.
posted by mochapickle at 9:31 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

I'm about a hundred comments behind, but re: evangelical women: I am facebook friends with quite a few, none of whom really post about politics generally, and most of them have posted something or linked something expressing outrage about the Trump tape.

Just wondering, did any of them have any problem with Trump's vicious racism and misogyny up until now? And if not, why not?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:32 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

Love hearing that Georgia is in play! My parents' votes usually cancel out but my dad said he wouldn't vote this year because of Trump (not sure if not at all or just leaving President blank) and I'll be voting absentee from Canada. So that's two more votes for the Democratic candidate over 2012.

Our county has had big demographic changes as the racists move out even further from Atlanta (note that racist here is not conjecture- I know people who have told me that's why they moved) and I'm pretty sure already flipped to Obama. It'll be interesting to see what the county breakdowns are.

Georgia also has a particularly horrible constitutional amendment on the ballot to dissolve the current Judical Qualifications Commission and reform it under control of the General Assembly. Best I can tell, the only reason this is happening is because a judge that was removed is in the GA now and is sponsoring the bill (11 Alive news link) but I had to ask two friends who are lawyers in Georgia to tell me what I was actually voting for/against. I don't know how y'all do it in California with so many initiatives.

Also, I totally cried when I clicked open the absentee ballot pdf and saw HILLARY CLINTON. I'm waiting until I have the emotional fortitude to handle how proud I am going to be when I fill in my oval.

Also also, no one's listed on the ballot so I'm planning on writing in Leslie Knope for County Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor.
posted by TheLateGreatAbrahamLincoln at 9:34 PM on October 11, 2016 [27 favorites]

I kind of like Cory Booker for 2024.
posted by tresbizzare at 9:38 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

Neonrev -- maybe contrast the Trump snake song recitation with the parable of the good Samaritan? They're almost exactly opposed.
posted by Sauce Trough at 9:41 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

Why do people like Cory Booker so much, really? I don't feel like he was very effective. Hell, his signature program crashed and burned.

I'm still on the Gavin Newsom Train.
posted by Justinian at 9:43 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Please not Gavin Newsom! As a San Franciscan, let me talk your ear off about my issues with him if he's ever on your ballot.
posted by gingerbeer at 9:50 PM on October 11, 2016 [22 favorites]

This seems less like an insider’s tip and more extrapolation based on past performance.

The most prominent NeverTrump strategists -- including Rick Wilson, who's on Team McMuffin -- seem to think that it's only a matter of timing for some big oppo droppo. They've also seen the GOP private polling in Georgia that shows the bottom dropping out of Trump's support. As has Erickson, I imagine, since he's in GA and has the right connections. I'd expect POTUS or FLOTUS in Atlanta in the next fortnight.

If the Clinton team (or any smart anti-Trumper) has control over when the big oppo gets released, it'll be when more panicky elected GOPers retract their retractions, as Deb Fischer did this evening. It's the Clausewitz approach towards an army in disarray: shell them, let them regroup, shell them again.
posted by holgate at 9:51 PM on October 11, 2016 [19 favorites]

Some combination of Tim Kaine and Kamala Harris 2024!
posted by asteria at 9:59 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

I would loooove to see Kamala Harris on the ticket.
posted by erratic meatsack at 10:01 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Somehow this feels like what my moms's generation has been working toward for decades. And, for her, it's still a very white story based in the American 1960s. She's still very much in the not-pure-enough camp, w/r/t HRC (thanks, Vietnam War), but despite her reactions to Sunday's shitshow, damning the whole thing, she's not throwing her vote away. She was in town for a couple days, between major travels for work, and I'm really bummed we didn't get to talk much detail about all this, because I really, really wanted to get her perspective.
The closest we got was the ride to the airport in the dark of this morning, when she mentioned how much like Hitler everything seemed. I asked if she'd read that Dunderhead to Demagogue review, she hadn't.

I lived in Germany a few times in the late 90s and Austria in 2001, back when things looked pretty damn optimistic until That Day, and the legacy of the NSDAP was still a very shallow cultural memory. Held close like only dark fears can be. And a lingering cultural-level shame, mostly from people who were born post-war. It was deeply embedded. And that takes into account the cultural difficulties of the Turkish influx there in the 90s-- they legit tried their goddamn best to be OK with that. And that wasn't because they were refugees just trying to stay alive-- they were offered jobs and took them! But there was a proportion of the population who never quite let go of the fact that most of the people doing those jobs (which, to a large extent, were well-paying, manufacturing-type jobs, and an ecosystem of familiar-food purveyors) had darker skin. And somehow, 15-20 years later, we have another refugee crisis happening and the turning to vilifying those who allow refuge to people who are in the most dire need is the worst of humanity. It's hard to estimate how the prevalent attitude of the USA affects the rest of the world, when you've never been outside it.

I guess this is just rumination on hoping for a broader perspective. I get so caught up in the instantaneous up/down twitter reports, the bigger why-doesn't this-fucking-matter-Fahrenthold-and-so-many-others reporting, that I lose sight of the currents because of the spray at the top of the curls. No matter how all this plays out, we're already stuck with this shame. Even the Rush-carrying radio station I sometimes listen to for fun, today, said that Trump should just be running on the Nationalist ticket (brought up LePage), and fuck it (thankfully not in an endorsing way).

Maybe trauma is the best teacher. Maybe we can do better.
posted by rp at 10:01 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

just dropped in to say Fuck Chachi.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 10:03 PM on October 11, 2016 [24 favorites]

I made a big post about McMullin's chances in Utah last thread. One salient point which is missing from that post: in no state besides Utah is he polling above 1 or 2%. Pretty much forget about him having any major effect in any state besides Utah.

In Utah, as of the last polling which included McMullin - WHICH WAS BEFORE THE FIRST DEBATE - it was 12% McMullin, 25% Clinton, 34% Trump, 13% Johnson.

Imagine two scenarios: in the first, McMullin has gained votes since that poll and Clinton has remained steady or lost votes; and in the second, both McMullin and Clinton have gained votes. (Johnson also matters but for the purposes of this we can pretend he stays steady. Introducing him makes my variables more variable, but the BASIC point stands.)

Scenario 1: For McMullin to win Utah, McMullin has to bleed off a solid 14 points from Trump, or 9 from Trump and 5 from Clinton, or some other equivalent of a 14-point gain, all by himself. If he makes a 13 point gain or less by pulling from one or both of them, either Trump wins or Trump and Clinton tie.

Scenario 2: McMullin and Clinton, together, have to bleed off 9 points from Trump. McMullin could gain 8 points and Clinton could gain 1, and she would win. With 26 points, but she would win. More likely is that they each gain 4 or 5, or else the two of them and Johnson each gain 3.

Starts to sound downright plausible, right?
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:04 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

Why do people like Cory Booker so much, really?

Cory Booker rescued a cold puppy one time and Gavin Handsome is very Newsom. winsome. whatever. so I suppose you could rank them in any order you pleased.

before you tell me those are bad reasons to vote for gentlemen let me suggest that they are in fact good ones. better at least than voting for a man because he is rich and mean. and for Booker at least, you could tell him that some large financial institution was refusing to let a shivering dog sleep in its heated lobby and he would rise up in rage and cast off the ties of whatever problematic industry affiliations he may have. this has not been tried yet but I trust we are all waiting for 2024.
posted by queenofbithynia at 10:06 PM on October 11, 2016 [18 favorites]

Let's start hating on Newsome by noting his wine is overpriced. They're stingy with the tasting comps, too, with like a $50 minimum purchase before waiving the tasting fee!
posted by notyou at 10:06 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

I talked to my Evangelical mother a couple days ago about the election, very gingerly, and found out that she was not aware of the 2005 tape at all. (In fact, she'd seen something in the paper about people calling for Trump to leave the ticket and rolled her eyes at it without bothering to read what he was supposed to leave for.)

I had previously considered her, if not a high-information voter, at least not a super-low information voter: the impression I get is that she's been so turned off by the tone of the election in general, and so secure in the knowledge that Christian = Republican, that she hasn't paid as much attention as she normally would. Dad listens mainly to Fox and Rush, but she doesn't particularly enjoy politics even in normal election years.

Have tasked a sympathetic sibling with showing the video to both parents and will report back.

Also got to share The Good News About Evan McMullin, which Mom seemed receptive to. She isn't a Trump fan, but will never vote for Clinton because of abortion, and the Greens and Libertarians aren't anywhere close to my parents' positions on anything, so McMullin is kind of the only candidate I could even suggest as an alternative.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 10:07 PM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

I'm about a hundred comments behind, but re: evangelical women: I am facebook friends with quite a few, none of whom really post about politics generally, and most of them have posted something or linked something expressing outrage about the Trump tape.

Behind also...just hope their outrage outweighs their pro-life reflexes. I'm not sure it will. Oh and in that Chris Matthews tape, Trump said (after much insistence by Matthews to just fucking say it) women would have to be punished for getting an abortion, possibly jail time. And of course, the men? Nothing.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 10:07 PM on October 11, 2016

I would loooove to see Kamala Harris on the ticket.

I want Kamala Khan on the ticket.
posted by BinGregory at 10:11 PM on October 11, 2016 [31 favorites]

People looking to sell McMullin to relatives may be interested in this interview with his running mate. While parts of it make me reflexively eurghhh, other parts are pretty compelling for people who are conservative and pro-life but hate Trump. Particularly the end:

GLAMOUR: You and Evan are a long shot ticket. Are you simply running to make a point and if so, what point?

MF: There is a couple pronged strategy. If Evan and our ticket were to win a state, for example, and either of the major parties failed to get to 270 electoral votes, it would go to the House. So recognizing it’s a long shot, there is that possibly. But secondarily, it’s clear to me there is huge movement behind this ticket, that we are a glimmer of light in what many have seen as a sea of darkness in this election. They’re so hungry, not just for an alternative but for a ticket they can feel proud to vote for. That is the secondary goal and that movement is going to be really important not just between now and November, but in the years ahead.

What’s happening right now with these kind of anger and fear-driven populous movements that’s fueling Donald trump is there’s also a bit of a counter movement, which is really how we see ourselves. We really believe that the work we’re doing is still vitally important to combat the fear-mongering and hate that’s coming from portions of the Donald Trump electorate.

GLAMOUR: To that end, what lesson do you want other women to take away from your long-shot bid?

MF: Sometimes you have to fail to move forward, so failing is part of the process. You can’t be afraid to fail. You have to know that your voice matters. That’s what I hope women get out of it. It’s important to be in the movement. We’re fortunate to live in a country where we’re free to speak our minds, to criticize every figure from president on down, and so your voice matters.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:14 PM on October 11, 2016 [12 favorites]

The most prominent NeverTrump strategists -- including Rick Wilson, who's on Team McMuffin -- seem to think that it's only a matter of timing for some big oppo droppo

“Oppo Droppo” sounds like something right out of Veep
posted by Going To Maine at 10:15 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

I'm ready for the "far worse" stuff to drop now and kill the Trump candidacy dead. I know that might not be best for media ad revenue, but Trump is starting to do permanent damage. It's time.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:23 PM on October 11, 2016 [10 favorites]

Pat Buchanan said it [mine] was the greatest performance of presidential debates.

It probably sounded better in the original German.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:25 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

@SopanDeb:

Trumpism tonight: "You better make sure we win or there will be no more Trump rallies. The hell with that. The hell with the rallies."

posted by salix at 10:26 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm ready for the "far worse" stuff to drop now and kill the Trump candidacy dead. I know that might not be best for media ad revenue, but Trump is starting to do permanent damage. It's time.

Give it a couple days. The past few haven't even sunk in, yet.
posted by rp at 10:27 PM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Yeah when it drops is almost as important as what it is.
posted by vrakatar at 10:28 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

One people under one god saluting one American flag.

Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer
posted by kirkaracha at 10:30 PM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

I'm ready for the "far worse" stuff to drop now and kill the Trump candidacy dead. I know that might not be best for media ad revenue, but Trump is starting to do permanent damage. It's time.

It's not about ad revenue. It's about the short attention spans of voters. That's the conventional political wisdom, anyway - the reason you do an October Surprise rather than a September Surprise is because then it's fresher in voters' minds and the other camp has no time to counter or recover.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:30 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

(Note to guy earlier in this thread: Kratom being rescheduled by the DEA is temporarily on hold. If it WAS legal in your state before, it should still be legal as of this moment.)
posted by thebrokedown at 10:32 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yes, kratom re-scheduling is indeed on hold. The DEA is being forced to have a public input process on it. The outcome may be the same, but please encourage your friend to plug into the kratom advocacy networks and contact their legislator. It's been an overwhelming and surprising outcry and it's working.
posted by gingerbeer at 10:37 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

In 2020 or 2024 there's a real danger than that someone worse than Trump will be the Republican nominee and someone worse than Clinton will be the Democrat

That's a reasonable expectation; from a lefty perspective most Democrats would be worse than Clinton. I mean, which actually elected presidents would you point to as better? Obama, who was consistently to the right of her on everything that wasn't Iraq? The other Clinton, who brought third-way left-lite stuff to the US? Carter, who appointed Volcker to the Federal Reserve to burn inflation out with punishing interest rates and who started the enormous defense expansion we usually think of as Reagan's? Kennedy and LBJ, who devoted much of their presidencies to bombing the shit out of southeast Asia? Truman, who personally ordered the incineration of two Japanese cities?

I live in a red state and seriously doubt that a "strategic" vote for Hillary will work against Trump in any way, while a supposedly "protest" vote is the only effective message I can really send.

It won't send the message you want. This is a year where the Democrats have offered you maybe the most liberal platform in 40 or 50 years. Clinton isn't just admitting that her policy proposals imply a tax increase, she's actually running ads talking about raising taxes on rich fuckers. On television, in America. The message you will send with another Green vote is not for the Democrats to move left, it's just that you (and people with your demographics and survey responses and whatnot) just can't be reached. Which is fine if you really can't be reached and no plausible Democratic candidate for President would ever be acceptable to you.

I mean, this is basic clicker training. Reward movement towards the behavior you're trying to shape, or don't be surprised when the animal loses interest in working with you.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:38 PM on October 11, 2016 [198 favorites]

Ok so I just counted up all the things on my ballot: 39. Thirty-freaking-nine. If I spent just five minutes researching and thinking about each one it would still take more than three freaking hours.
posted by clorox at 10:45 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Right, but how many hours have you spent reading the election threads?

ahahahahaha *sobs*
posted by yasaman at 10:46 PM on October 11, 2016 [90 favorites]

It's really funny how Anderson Cooper has stopped putting up with Kellyanne's shit right after Trump starts up "CNN sucks" chants.

Conway: Anderson, I guess a question I have is why can't CNN cover Obamacare and ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism?
Cooper: We do, all the time.
Conway: No you don't! Respectfully, you don't!
Cooper: You guys should know we do because you watch CNN all day long.

It's like the Indiana Jones scene where Harrison Ford responds to all of the fancy swordplay by impatiently shooting the guy.
posted by XMLicious at 10:48 PM on October 11, 2016 [63 favorites]

The message you will send with another Green vote is not for the Democrats to move left, it's just that you (and people with your demographics and survey responses and whatnot) just can't be reached.

Thank you so much for saying this. The bitter truth of politics is that low turnout or protest voting in a particular demographic pushes the priorities of that demographic further down the list. Jane Smith, 68 years old, regular voter and campaign donator, is going to get a working microphone. I learned this lesson when my mom and dad would doggedly make time to vote for the school budget in order to fight the legion of old folks starving the schools of resources because they have the time and inclination to participate in a way that people with actual children in school didn't.
posted by xyzzy at 10:50 PM on October 11, 2016 [34 favorites]

> Rick Wilson is teasing "evidence of the GOP nominee's utter collapse in a red state" that he says will be published soon. My bet is Utah is going blue.

Poll: Trump falls into tie with Clinton among Utah voters
posted by guiseroom at 10:57 PM on October 11, 2016 [24 favorites]

Ok so I just counted up all the things on my ballot: 39. Thirty-freaking-nine. If I spent just five minutes researching and thinking about each one it would still take more than three freaking hours.

Just voting no on everything is a reasonable enough default, especially for stuff that's not being actively fought over on the airwaves. Or print out the local Dems' positions and do what they suggest without researching further.

Informational shortcuts are a beautiful thing.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:57 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

On O'Reilly tonight, Trump was asked about how he's going to regain the support of women. His answer started with:

Well, first of all, locker room talk and most people have heard it before. And I've had a lot of women come up to me and said, "Boy, I've heard that and I've heard a lot worse than that over my life."

A few observations:

Well, first of all, just saying the words "locker room talk" isn't a defense, it's a bullet from your talking points. Your aides wrote that down somewhere, sure, but you actually have to string it together into a sentence. It's a ridiculous and offensive argument that in no way excuses anything, but if you're going to insist on making it, it's just lazy to say "locker room talk" without context and expect everyone to treat that phrase as a shorthand for your attempts to minimize sexual assault.

But then the second point; Trump is right, and yet oh so wrong. I'm damn confident many women have not only heard, but felt and experienced a lot worse than that over their lives. I know this, because of the outpouring of stories I've heard from friends, family, and fellow Mefites since Friday, stories I've forced myself to listen to and read because listening to what victims of sexual assault are telling us is literally the very least I can do right now. I also know this because I've heard what KathrynT described: "virtually every woman I know had a 3 AM trauma response anxiety thing last night." Has Trump listened to a single one of these women tell their story? Ever? The fact that a lot of women have heard worse doesn't minimize Trump's conduct; it goes to show how much of a gigantic problem we all have. We're talking about sexual predators here. It's a pretty long and disgusting list; not being literally the worst one is not something you get a cookie for. It's like trying to defend the first Star Wars prequel by saying the Holiday Special was worse. Yes, it was, but that doesn't make Jar Jar any more acceptable.

Any remotely decent human being with an ounce of contrition would have followed that up with something to the effect of "and so I and this country need to do better, and here's how." Trump, because he's not decent or human, follows that statement up by talking about ISIS and borders and other word salad. He continues to show no awareness whatsoever of why this is a really huge deal to the extent that he is doing psychological harm to an enormous chunk of the nation. Five days later, and he can't even fake a degree of empathy. Why? Because he's a snake. That's what he does. Everyone knew that when we met him.
posted by zachlipton at 10:57 PM on October 11, 2016 [61 favorites]

Speaking of McMuffin, this from the Deseret News: Trump falls into tie with Clinton among Utah voters

Republican Donald Trump appears to have, in his earlier words, "a tremendous problem in Utah" as a new poll shows him slipping into a dead heat with Democrat Hillary Clinton since crude comments he made about women surfaced last weekend. ... The poll shows Clinton and Trump tied at 26 percent, McMullin with 22 percent and Libertarian Gary Johnson getting 14 percent if the election were held today. Y2 Analytics surveyed 500 likely Utah voters over landlines and cellphones Oct. 10-11 The poll has a plus or minus 4.4 percent margin of error. ...

McMullin’s ballot strength is striking considering that only 52 percent of voters are aware enough of his candidacy to offer an opinion, according to Y2 Analytics. However, among those that recognize his name, four out of five see him favorably.

posted by maudlin at 10:58 PM on October 11, 2016 [21 favorites]

Poll: Trump falls into tie with Clinton among Utah voters

YESSSSSS
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:03 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

Wait, so McMullin is actually within a few points of picking up Utah? Does 538 have odds on him picking up EVs yet?
posted by corb at 11:04 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

Harry Enten is on it.
posted by yasaman at 11:05 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

That's the conventional political wisdom, anyway - the reason you do an October Surprise rather than a September Surprise is because then it's fresher in voters' minds and the other camp has no time to counter or recover.

It's also about disruption and counter-progamming. Once again, time is the most precious commodity for any campaign at this stage, so you want oppo out in ways that eat up 3-4 days at a time.

The drip-drip release of hacked Dem-campaign email from Wikileaks -- and the stupid breathless way it's been covered, as if it's a whistleblower release and not stolen goods via foreign state-based actors -- may change this a little.

And on preview, I now think McMuffin could win Utah. Permission has been granted. Won't make a difference to the overall result, but it will cause nightmares for the institutional GOP, especially if Trump turns on Chaffetz and Herbert (and even Mormons in general).
posted by holgate at 11:07 PM on October 11, 2016 [10 favorites]

Keep 'em coming if anyone has anymore, and I encourage those who know how to fight this on religious grounds.

Speaking-in-tongues Pentecostal here. I'm feeling pretty smug this week since I didn't need a hot mic tape to convince me to drop Trump. I've been planning on not voting for Trump since the beginning, and am still not really sure why the Billy Bush tape surprised anyone. I'd like to say it's my upbringing that helped me see Trump as completely unacceptable*, but everyone here definitely helped (and not just this election. I remember first reading about white privilege on MeFi before it was a hot button topic, years ago. I think it was called the invisible backpack then? Y'all have really helped me learn great things). I have a list of articles I've been collecting that present the thought process that helped bring me along the path from "Never Trump" to "I'm With Her". I don't have them with me now on my phone, but I'll make sure to post them soon.

Since I don't have the links right now, though, here's my fun talking point of the week. People may already know this, but the FBI director who said Hilary didn't do anything criminal? While he was appointed by Obama, he was formerly a deputy attorney general under Bush. So for all of Trump's talk, the email server issue has literally already been looked into by a Republican AG.

Not that that's the first thing of why "Cause you'd be in jail" is ridiculous, but it gave me a good eye roll.

Anyway, I've always cast a bit of a side-eye at social conservatism being joined with fiscal conservatism - that is, what in the world do lower taxes have to do with Biblical morals? - but have tended to play it safe and just voted Republican.

When Trump started doing well in the primaries, I actually got a little excited because I knew if he won the nomination I'd actually be comfortable talking to family and friends about my doubts about the political right. I guess I never thought that'd become such a popular thing for everyone else to start doing.

...Which reminds me of another talking point. I'm from Milwaukee, home of #NeverTrump Charlie Sykes' conservative radio show, so he's definitely helped me think though some stuff this season. I believe I have an article for this I can post later, but his ex-wife has been mentioned as a possible Trump nominee to the Supreme Court. Even with the chance of someone he knows well (and to my understanding is still friendly with), Sykes wants nothing to do with the idea that a vote for Trump is a vote for a conservative court. He just doesn't trust the guy.


Like I said, I have some articles I can share later tomorrow (Wednesday), but in the meantime if I can offer any insight into what I'm seeing in my circles, I'm happy to answer questions.



*In fact, I recently dug up my high school English paper on why "Donald Trump is not a businessman". The thesis probably would have made more sense if I had said "successful businessman", but I think the project requirements restricted that somehow.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 11:07 PM on October 11, 2016 [55 favorites]

It occurs to me--and this is certainly not an original thought, but still--that Egg is running for 2020 or 2024, not 2016. If he manages to pull out Utah somehow, it could put him in the serious-candidate-untainted-by-Trumpstink category with Sasse and Flake 4 or 8 years from now.
posted by dersins at 11:08 PM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

Trump at Panama City: "We want room, right?"

Okay, the dude is just parodying himself now. He can't possibly be serious.

Are there transcripts yet?

previously, (vanity fair):
Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. Kennedy now guards a copy of My New Order in a closet at his office, as if it were a grenade. Hitler’s speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist.

“Did your cousin John give you the Hitler speeches?” I asked Trump.

Trump hesitated. “Who told you that?”

“I don’t remember,” I said.

“Actually, it was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he’s a Jew.” (“I did give him a book about Hitler,” Marty Davis said. “But it was My New Order, Hitler’s speeches, not Mein Kampf. I thought he would find it interesting. I am his friend, but I’m not Jewish.”)

Later, Trump returned to this subject. “If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them.”
posted by sebastienbailard at 11:09 PM on October 11, 2016 [24 favorites]

Poll: Trump falls into tie with Clinton among Utah voters

I grew up in Utah. I have a number of friends still there. What I hear is that it's just chaos. The local news outlets, who would normally be giving Republican-slanted coverage, are unsure what to do day to day. People who are used to agreeing with each other politically by default are shouting at each other.

This may be unfair, but from my (non-Mormon, and so outsider's) perspective, it seems to me that many Utah Mormons have never really had to give much thought to their vote, at least at the national level. No real turmoil along the lines of the Clinton-Sanders split that ripped apart the American left this primary season. The right thing to do has just always been... clear.

Not this time. There's a political crisis and a moral crisis, and the voices that usually provide such clear guidance are confused and contradictory.

I think it's fantastic, and I really wonder what will happen there after this election.
posted by gurple at 11:10 PM on October 11, 2016 [84 favorites]

In 2020 or 2024 there's a real danger than that someone worse than Trump will be the Republican nominee and someone worse than Clinton will be the Democrat

The Republican civil war changes the game theory options you have.

If we help the Democratic Party completely pulverize the Republican Party this year (or maybe this year plus 2018) there's all the more chance that it'll be a worse Democrat being credibly challenged by a nominee from a third party. Both as a result of Democrat-criticizing remnants of the GOP coalescing, but also because if the Democrats get enough of an upper hand then responsibility for everything during the ensuing White House and Congresses will be unambiguously theirs, as opposed to two established parties transitively blaming each other and passing the buck back and forth.

The various aspects of our democracy that prevent third parties from existing stably do still permit a change in which two parties are on top. Hopefully all of the racist, sexist, fascist crap from Trump will become the "abject Whiggery" of the 21st century.
posted by XMLicious at 11:13 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

By the way, thanks to the folks who've pointed out good christian arguments to use on wavering conservatives.

Dude literally covets his neighbor's wife, if that helps.
posted by sebastienbailard at 11:15 PM on October 11, 2016 [49 favorites]

Also, there must be some stuff in there applicable against spousal rape?
posted by sebastienbailard at 11:15 PM on October 11, 2016

Donald urges his fans to vote
posted by boo_radley at 11:21 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

Public service note for California voters -- if you have questions about the state ballot initiatives, or want to know how I'm voting (progressive queer feminist, registered Dem), hit me up in MeMail. Offer also good for San Francisco voters.
posted by gingerbeer at 11:26 PM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

Holy shit, McMullin's gonna win Utah. Calling it now. I REALLY thought it would be Clinton, but now that he's polling so close, it gives undecideds and weak Trump voters every reason in the world to vote for him. He's not going to stop picking up voters, and now I think he has the momentum to pick them up faster than Clinton can.

This is huge. We might have a state not go R or D for the first time in 50 years. And the Mormons might come out of this election looking like the most principled Christians in America.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:32 PM on October 11, 2016 [45 favorites]

We might have a state not go R or D for the first time in 50 years.

And this time it won't go to the white supremacists.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 11:39 PM on October 11, 2016 [25 favorites]

And the Mormons might come out of this election looking like the most principled Christians in America.

That outcome would be horrible news for America.

In a presentation that has provoked some criticism, former Senator Gordon H. Smith, a Republican of Oregon, shared with the apostles that he voted in favor of the Iraq War partly because he believed it could open the region for Mormon missionaries.

That isn't principled Christianity, that's exercising political control over the Armed Forces of the United States of America to recruit people to your church, even if that results in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:41 PM on October 11, 2016 [39 favorites]

TRUMP: "I wouldn’t want to be in a foxhole with a lot of these people that I can tell you, including Ryan...especially Ryan.”

You didn't want to be in a foxhole with anybody, which is why you evaded the draft.
posted by msalt at 11:52 PM on October 11, 2016 [54 favorites]

It won't send the message you want. This is a year where the Democrats have offered you maybe the most liberal platform in 40 or 50 years. Clinton isn't just admitting that her policy proposals imply a tax increase, she's actually running ads talking about raising taxes on rich fuckers. On television, in America. The message you will send with another Green vote is not for the Democrats to move left, it's just that you (and people with your demographics and survey responses and whatnot) just can't be reached. Which is fine if you really can't be reached and no plausible Democratic candidate for President would ever be acceptable to you.

I mean, this is basic clicker training. Reward movement towards the behavior you're trying to shape, or don't be surprised when the animal loses interest in working with you.

I'm so close to paying another $5 just so I can favorite this twice.
posted by heathkit at 11:55 PM on October 11, 2016 [89 favorites]

I've actually read some of Hitler's speeches. I have a tough time believing that Donald could understand them. However, Hitler's speech upon the dissolution of the Weimar Republic has some pretty disturbing ideological parallels to the rhetoric we face today--trade protectionism, focus on the decline of the German state, pointing out an apocalyptic level of criminality on German streets, calling out social democrats as believers in a demonic doctrine, calling out weak leadership, raising the German worker and peasant from their misery, lowering taxes, denouncing the practice of Germany getting nothing for something on the world stage, etc. etc.

But the big difference between Trump and Hitler is that Hitler's approach was ruthlessly crafted after years of study and convincingly delivered. Trump may have picked up on the fact that some of these arguments would work, but his elocution is incredibly weak. He's certainly compelling to some segment of the population, but we live in a world where Saturday Night Live and twitter exist. It would take a much craftier and more charismatic candidate to actually deliver the US into fascism.
posted by xyzzy at 12:03 AM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

I mean, this is basic clicker training. Reward movement towards the behavior you're trying to shape, or don't be surprised when the animal loses interest in working with you.

Who's holding the clicker here, me or the Democrats?
posted by 3urypteris at 12:12 AM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

I'm about a hundred comments behind, but re

I was going to say I found this opening a little hurtful as I have made the 1500-comment slog from the middle of the last thread to here over the last several hours. Then I realized that there were others who would be more pained than I am: I expect you will receive a pointed memail in February when tehhund reads this.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:12 AM on October 12, 2016 [22 favorites]

"Donald Trump is not my role model. He is not my 'Christian on a Mission.' That's my ministry, that's what I do," said Guardiola. "But when you compare what he has said which is again lock room talk compared to what Hillary has done in reference to the abortions and Planned Parenthood and everything, you can't compare."
posted by tilde at 12:12 AM on October 12, 2016

Who's holding the clicker here, me or the Democrats?

You. If the Democrats court you and you reject them, then they have to push a more centrist platform in order to get elected and effect meaningful change. Witness Bernie's ability to reach out to leftists and the party's response by shimmying left.
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:15 AM on October 12, 2016 [27 favorites]

Who's holding the clicker here, me or the Democrats?

You are. The time to express positions is during primaries. My friend voted for Bernie to let Hillary know that he was engaged but progressive. But there's no way that he would consider voting third party after being rewarded with a much less centrist platform during the DNC.
posted by xyzzy at 12:16 AM on October 12, 2016 [34 favorites]

This is huge. We might have a state not go R or D for the
first time in 50 years. And the Mormons might come out of this
election looking like the most principled Christians in
America.

Huh. Secular humanist here, but former sunday school teacher
Hillary Rodham Clinton seems to have some fairly praiseworthy
principles and backs them up with Christ-like behavior, right?

You're saying that at a time of unprecedented wealth disparity,
teetering past a tipping point for climate change that's going to
result in mass death and forced migrations, that the best Utah
can do is, instead of voting for a staggeringly racist
spouse-raping plutocratic fascist, is to instead cast an
ineffectual protest vote for a coreligionist? Instead of casting
a positive vote for a highly competent and compassionate policy
wonk?

There are other Christians out there whose principles I respect a
bit more right now.
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:16 AM on October 12, 2016 [57 favorites]

The other day I posted on fb:
I'm mad at my wife for singing "Tim Kaine in the membrane, Tim Kaine in the brain." Because now it'll be stuck in my head until I invent a Time Machine and go back in time to kill Cypress Hill.

The first, most brilliant comment following was:
Please be having done it as soon as has been possible.

Which gave me the first good laugh in weeks. I hate every election year, but this one feels like the worst in my adult life. I get the lukewarm response to Hillary despite her competence, but I cannot fathom wanting Trump as president unless zombie Hitler were running against him. We know now that even the pretense of ideological compliance trumps character in every way that counts with at least 30% of the population, and I suspect given the right circumstances a similar percent of the opposite end of the political spectrum. *sigh*
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:29 AM on October 12, 2016 [32 favorites]

It would take a much craftier and more charismatic candidate to actually deliver the US into fascism.

So, what you're saying here is just wait for the GOP ticket circa 2020.
posted by mwhybark at 12:34 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

“When you consider what pro-lifers believe abortion is, which is essentially the systematic killing of millions of children every year, that’s an issue of some national importance,” said Long, the co-president of Harvard Right to Life. “If Clinton gets this nomination, you know that essentially our generation is not going to fix Roe v. Wade.” Even with those stakes, Long would only say he is “tentatively” leaning toward Trump. (He confirmed Monday that the Access Hollywood tape had not changed that.)

[...]

Still, few young pro-lifers I spoke to felt comfortable voting for Hillary Clinton. They are disturbed by her support for legal late-term abortion and for repealing the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funds from being used to pay for abortion. The Democratic platform adopted at the convention in July is more strongly in favor of abortion rights than ever. That makes the Republican Party the only quasi-reasonable place for committed pro-life voters.

posted by tilde at 12:35 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

and I suspect given the right circumstances a similar percent of the opposite end of the political spectrum

I for one sure hope it does, given the stakes. I'd hope no-one would throw away our last chance to address climate change just because they were mad at some non-PC comments made by Clinton in a gotcha tape from decades ago. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 12:38 AM on October 12, 2016

So, what you're saying here is just wait for the GOP ticket circa 2020.

The seeds are surely there. There's a motivated segment of Trumpists and possibly enough apathy in other segments of the electorate to make 2020 and 2024 concerning. So what we need to have happen is an elected candidate with long coat tails who can address the needs of those who feel disenfranchised by improving the economy. Even my Trumpist uncle says he never felt better than when Bill was in charge during an economic boom. This anti-Obama obstructionism just feeds into the narrative that government doesn't work and nothing matters, driving the apathy that concerns me even more than the InfoWars wing of the Republican Party.
posted by xyzzy at 12:55 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

It would take a much craftier and more charismatic candidate to actually deliver the US into fascism.

I couldn't disagree more. When I look at the fascist dictators of the recent past, what always strikes me is how stunningly un-charismatic most of them were. I never understood how people would rally around them.

I still don't understand, even though we're witnessing it now first hand.
posted by kanewai at 12:59 AM on October 12, 2016 [26 favorites]

[US Senate candidate Darryl Glenn (R-challenger)] avoided answering repeated questions about whether he would vote for Trump, despite two days earlier calling him unqualified for the job and demanding he end his White House bid after a 2005 video showed the New York businessman bragging about groping women. Glenn now says his faith teaches him to forgive Trump but his endorsement is “suspended.”

“This is a teachable moment of faith because if an individual actually says they need help and they want to repent, then your faith teaches you to give them an opportunity,” Glenn said, calling Trump a part of the Republican family.

posted by tilde at 12:59 AM on October 12, 2016

Translation: he's waiting for the n-word tape to come out before he walks.
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:05 AM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

When did Trump say he needs help and wants to repent? The news sure moves fast these days!
posted by thelonius at 1:08 AM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

If you read between the lines and squint real hard....
posted by perspicio at 1:14 AM on October 12, 2016

I sort of suspect the next shoe to drop won't be the racial slurs, but evidence he paid for abortions.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 1:20 AM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

I can't believe that Trump paid for abortions. I could believe that he promised to pay for abortions...
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 1:23 AM on October 12, 2016 [117 favorites]

As per Ben Carson, Trump may have been seen ostentatiously praying briefly before the debate. This is a special action that can be performed once per turn. It resets the Status Condition "Sexual Assaulter" but uses 10 MP. Your character is helpless to melee and range attacks while praying, but can be defended by surrogates.
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:26 AM on October 12, 2016 [75 favorites]

It would take a much craftier and more charismatic candidate to actually deliver the US into fascism.

Maybe it would take someone like that to convert the US into a robust fascist state capable of launching a two-front world-conquering war while discovering nuclear fission and inventing rocket planes and ballistic missiles, but we did actually just see Trump, completely winging it and when he wasn't busy opening golf courses, utterly overrun the 162-year-old institution of the GOP and then cram his hand up its ass and use it as a puppet.

As kanewai points out, it doesn't exactly take Dr. Evil to pull off the version of fascism where you burst a few of the least-well-maintained dams holding back problems in society and leverage the anarchy so you can take power over whatever's left afterwards.
posted by XMLicious at 1:30 AM on October 12, 2016 [27 favorites]

It won't send the message you want. This is a year where the Democrats have offered you maybe the most liberal platform in 40 or 50 years. Clinton isn't just admitting that her policy proposals imply a tax increase, she's actually running ads talking about raising taxes on rich fuckers. On television, in America. The message you will send with another Green vote is not for the Democrats to move left, it's just that you (and people with your demographics and survey responses and whatnot) just can't be reached. Which is fine if you really can't be reached and no plausible Democratic candidate for President would ever be acceptable to you.

I mean, this is basic clicker training. Reward movement towards the behavior you're trying to shape, or don't be surprised when the animal loses interest in working with you.

We hope! Unfortunately, the platform doesn't mean anything if you can't trust Clinton or the Democrats. I mean, when Obama ran in 2008 he promised to raise taxes on the wealthy too. They even gave him the Nobel Peace Prize, and then he went and bombed five countries.

Besides, what message is being sent if you are a member of the Green Party and also vote for the Green candidate? That's not a protest vote, that's a vote. But if you live in a solidly red state already, then why not? If Stein can pull 5%, then the Greens will get public funding in 2020 and become stronger. The way things are shaping up, there's really no better time than this election--the more Trump bleeds in the polls, the less necessary it becomes for you to cast a lesser-evil vote for Clinton. (Depending, maybe, on what state you live in.)
posted by I'm Only Happy When It Rains On Your Wedding Day at 1:33 AM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

...it doesn't exactly take Dr. Evil...

Okay so maybe Dr. Evil isn't a good example of someone who is both charismatic and crafty, but you get what I mean.
posted by XMLicious at 1:34 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Maybe it would take someone like that to convert the US into a robust fascist state capable of launching a two-front world-conquering war while discovering nuclear fission and inventing rocket planes and ballistic missiles, but we did actually just see Trump, completely winging it and when he wasn't busy opening golf courses, utterly overrun the 162-year-old institution of the GOP and then cram his hand up its ass and use it as a puppet.

The GOP has been setting itself up for this ever since it went hard for the Southern Strategy. I think.
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:36 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Kanewai, I totally get what you're saying, but charisma is not just elocution and physical appearance; the whole package has to be credible within the system it wishes to subvert. Putin is the perfect example--his credentials as a political animal were impeccable and he was able to easily subvert the young Russian democracy and bring it much closer to totalitarianism, if not outright fascism. Trump comes with too much baggage and too little political experience to make it very far into an actual Presidential term, imho. If he'd already spent years grooming the Tea Party and the alt right without being overly offensive to more traditional Conservatives, I would feel much differently.

But he still must be aggressively opposed, obviously, because he could do an incredible amount of damage in a very short time. Something akin to XMLicious' vision is very credible, imho.
posted by xyzzy at 1:38 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

But if you live in a solidly red state already, then why not?

What's red today? The more of the house and senate we give Hillary, the more we can do on the environment.
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:41 AM on October 12, 2016 [24 favorites]

Well, she'll have at least four years to convince them otherwise and bring them back into the fold, if that's the case.

I actually can't wait for years from now when everyone is SHOCKED at how great a president Hillary has turned out to be.
posted by threeturtles at 1:42 AM on October 12, 2016 [39 favorites]

The GOP has been setting itself up for this ever since it went hard for the Southern Strategy. I think.

It reminds me of the Roman Empire building roads into barbarian lands while conquering them, then the barbarians use the roads for invading Rome. (I don't know how significant that actually was in the fall of the Roman Empire but if it's just a History Channel soundbiteification it seems all the more appropriate given the sorts of patterns and behaviors the GOP has cultivated in its electorate, which Trump took advantage of.)
posted by XMLicious at 1:46 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Holy shit, McMullin's gonna win Utah. Calling it now. I REALLY thought it would be Clinton, but now that he's polling so close, it gives undecideds and weak Trump voters every reason in the world to vote for him. He's not going to stop picking up voters, and now I think he has the momentum to pick them up faster than Clinton can.


I don't know, I like to see Egg McMentum but I still think Clinton's got a chance in Utah. And I still think Trump has a much bigger chance than that. There are a ton of racists here and a ton of people who have just punched the "R" button their entire life.

Gary Johnson has 14% in that poll, when he had 1% in 2012, so I think those 13 points are going to go to someone. Historically, it's probably going to be Trump. Maybe Egg does have a chance though.

Then again, this is the first time in my political life I've been unable to 100% predict the election outcome in my state...
posted by mmoncur at 1:47 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Guiliani on stage in Panama City. "She even had to drag out Al Gore. Remember him?"

I...I did not know how much anger I still held from the 2000 election until I read that. I mean, I think that flare of rage was almost the worst I've felt this whole season.

And FUCKING GUILIANI says that??? FUUUUUUUUU
posted by threeturtles at 2:00 AM on October 12, 2016 [37 favorites]

What's red today? The more of the house and senate we give Hillary, the more we can do on the environment.

Well, downballot is more complex and consequently may require more complex decisions. Stein's not running for congress, though--if you're in, say, Missouri, it makes at least some sense to vote Stein for president with 2020 in mind, and Kander for senator instead of whoever the Greens are putting forward (if they even have a candidate for senator there?)
posted by I'm Only Happy When It Rains On Your Wedding Day at 2:00 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

> "Who's holding the clicker here, me or the Democrats?"

Well, both, in a sense. This kind of thing is based on mutual goals.

The human wants the dog to behave in a particular way. The dog wants a treat. From the human point of view, treats are being used to encourage behavior. From the dog's point of view, behavior is being used to encourage treats. IT IS A PERFECTLY REASONABLE ARGUMENT THAT THE DOG IS TRAINING THE HUMAN. That's because this kind of training works on mutual benefit. It is only effective when both parties are being rewarded with something they desire.

The voter wants the political party to behave in a certain way. The political party wants a vote. Who is training who, exactly? Who cares? When the political party is exhibiting the proper behavior, GIVE THEM THEIR TREAT BECAUSE BOTH SIDES THEN BENEFIT.
posted by kyrademon at 2:34 AM on October 12, 2016 [56 favorites]

It reminds me of the Roman Empire building roads into barbarian lands while conquering them, then the barbarians use the roads for invading Rome.

no, what they did was hire the barbarians for their armies - which, if you look at who is in our armed forces and our police isn't too far from what we're doing
posted by pyramid termite at 2:40 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Frank Luntz, via Balloon Juice: Between Sept. 10th and Oct. 10th, the Florida GOP registered 117 new voters.

Florida Democrats registered 6,920.
posted by Gelatin at 2:44 AM on October 12, 2016 [65 favorites]

I wonder how easy it would be to get an "End male suffrage" chant going at a Trump rally.

Just curious.
posted by vbfg at 2:56 AM on October 12, 2016 [52 favorites]

Speaking as someone from a red state that's probably going to stay red this year, it doesn't really make much sense to vote Stein. Even in a place as goddess-forsaken as my home state of Kansas. A vote for Stein only counts towards the 5 percent goal which, if current polling is to be believed, isn't going to be reached this year.

In all other respects, it's a fairly useless vote. The teabagger forces here will merely have a good laugh at any vote for Stein. Having the Democrats & Clinton get an extra 5% this year will put the fear of God into them, especially with moderate Kansas Republicans in full revolt now. Since we're stuck with Brownback for 2 more years, more votes for the Democrats at all levels puts more pressure on him to either moderate his actions, or double-down, the latter of which will take Mr. 20% Approval's branch of the party even further down the polls and pave the way for a Democratic governor in 2018. Which means Democrats will have a voice in the re-districting of 2020.

Having the Democrats score higher will also encourage other people to show up at the polls in 2018 and 2020. In a state like Kansas, it's really easy for my fellow Democrats to get discouraged and stay home. At the presidential caucus this year, the polling place was packed and the constant refrain was "I didn't know there was so many of us!" Voting for Clinton reinforces that message. There are more of us than many Kansas Democrats think. And a decent show in numbers will encourage Republicans on the fence to switch sides.

And with 2016 being such a weird year, there's always a small chance of a strong turnout of quietly NeverTrump people, or Republicans who decided at the last minute they want nothing to do with someone so vulgar. Voting for Clinton in a place like Kansas may help produce a lovely surprise on Election Day.

Stein helps with none of that. The Greens have absolutely no presence here beyond a handful in Lawrence. A vote for her is as useless in Kansas as it is anywhere else.
posted by honestcoyote at 2:58 AM on October 12, 2016 [81 favorites]

THAT'S THE WRONG HAMILTON!

"Time is said to have only one dimension, and space to have three dimensions. ... The mathematical quaternion partakes of both these elements; in technical language it may be said to be 'time plus space', or 'space plus time': and in this sense it has, or at least involves a reference to, four dimensions. And how the One of Time, of Space the Three, Might in the Chain of Symbols girdled be."
posted by kersplunk at 3:00 AM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

I wonder how easy it would be to get an "End male suffrage" chant going at a Trump rally.

"Men have suffered enough! End Male Suffrage!" I think you'd get some bites.
posted by honestcoyote at 3:00 AM on October 12, 2016 [39 favorites]

An elector in Washington state pledged to vote for Clinton has announced that he may be a faithless elector.

Robert Satiacum Jr. calls Hillary Clinton a “clown,” a “rat,” a “criminal” and a virtual clone of Donald Trump. But that’s not all... Satiacum, an activist member of Washington’s Puyallup Tribe, says he isn’t aware of any truly “criminal” activity by Clinton but distrusts her environmental policies, which he calls “crimes against our mother, this Earth."

posted by xyzzy at 3:04 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

On a more relevant note, here in Ireland we have a parliamentary system, typical campaigns last a few weeks, we have single transferable vote with multi-seat constituencies, individual candidates aren't allowed to spend more that €30-€45k (depending on whether it's a 3, 4, or 5 seater constituency), the biggest donation a candidate can take is €2.5k and a national party €6.3k. We have presidential elections which also last a few weeks, but president here is a mostly powerless, largely ceremonial role. Our current president by the way is a 5'4" left wing poet and former soccer club president whose loveliness is perhaps best captured by this tea cosy.

As an outside observer, I love the quirky insanity of the American process - the Iowa caucuses, speeches at St. Anselm, Dixville Notch, Super Tuesday, 'town halls', brokered conventions, superdelegates, faithless electors... This time around though, I'm completely sick of the whole thing and just want it to be over and for that orange shithead to crawl back from whence he came.
posted by kersplunk at 3:23 AM on October 12, 2016 [28 favorites]

Regarding voting for the Greens, I just don't get it. Not only for the reasons mentioned above, but because I find it impossible to see Stein as a good choice for pretty much anything at this point and the Greens don't do much of anything in our political system except throw up candidates like her every four years then disappear. It seems more like voting for the name "Green" as if that alone was meaningful. I'd personally need to hear any sort of realistic defense of Stein and her foolishness this cycle to be able to even vaguely understand voting for the Greens right now, and even that would leave all the other points raised unanswered as to any real value in the decision.

Regarding McMullin, it certainly wouldn't be my ideal outcome if he miraculously managed to throw the election to the House. But given that McMullin would likely then end up as president since Trump would be a non-starter for too many Republicans at that point, I could still live with the outcome. Having a moderate like McMullin as the head of a Republican government could really change the relationship between the two parties. That's something we drastically need to avoid walking up to the edge of a cliff every four years and daring ourselves to jump.

Among other things, we need to end the practice of using race as a dividing point in elections and to get past the "my way or no way" law making going on in the congress. Given how little we know about Egg, it's hard to be certain of what he'd do, but from his platform positions and what he says, there is good reason to imagine that he'd be someone who could work with both parties. So, for me, the minuscule risk of this going to the House is easily outweighed by any added possibility of preventing Trump from getting anywhere close to the presidency.

So Satiacum's a Bernie guy then? Or maybe even Stein perhaps?
posted by gusottertrout at 3:29 AM on October 12, 2016 [18 favorites]

Frank Luntz, via Balloon Juice: Between Sept. 10th and Oct. 10th, the Florida GOP registered 117 new voters.

Florida Democrats registered 6,920.

This confirms the Ace-in-the-hole that I was hoping we had for this election: Trump supporters don't know how to register to vote.

(Maybe they can still register by November 28th though!)
posted by mmoncur at 4:20 AM on October 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

Anybody else notice the Leia/Jabba memes starting to crop up? Look at Crooked Leia storing confidential data on a private server...
posted by Sublimity at 4:30 AM on October 12, 2016 [36 favorites]

So while not everything is automatically Russia's fault, and Trump isn't some Russian agent, it's not crazy to believe Russia is meddling in this election because Russia has already been shown to be meddling in this election.

I'm always a little astonished when Americans are skeptical Russia might be meddling in American affairs. Do they not realize we brought down their entire system/empire partly through a sustained campaign of economic and cultural espionage? The remaining powers from the old USSR have every incentive in the world to want to promote social and political discord in the US and they'd even have plenty of reason to feel self righteous about doing it since it's not like the US hasn't interfered in their affairs, regardless of how you feel about the historical necessity for all that Cold War interference... I don't think working on behalf of destructive political figures like Trump is the first or the last we should expect to see of Russia trying to influence American affairs to our collective detriment. Putin is ex-KGB. Fostering confusion and chaos wherever it's most advantageous is just SOP for guys like him.
posted by saulgoodman at 4:32 AM on October 12, 2016 [61 favorites]

Having a moderate like McMullin as the head of a Republican government could really change the relationship between the two parties.

Citation needed on more than a few things in this sentence.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 4:38 AM on October 12, 2016 [19 favorites]

Maybe Egg does have a chance though.

Him?
posted by Meatbomb at 4:45 AM on October 12, 2016 [46 favorites]

NYT Frank Bruni: Daughters and Trumps: As the father of no daughters, I’m appalled by Donald Trump’s comments about groping women.

As the husband of no wife, I’m offended.

What, you ask, do my parental and marital status have to do with recognizing the outrage of what he said? I wonder, too. But they must be germane, because Republicans seem unable to censure Trump without invoking female spouses and especially offspring.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:53 AM on October 12, 2016 [104 favorites]

New Clinton video. Obama's greatest hits. GO VOTE.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:01 AM on October 12, 2016 [60 favorites]

Okay so I totally had a dream about Hillary Clinton last night!

It was a weekend night and I was hanging out with the girlfriends in my apartment (I actually live in a house, but this place frequently appears as my abode in my dreams), drinking bourbon and eating a combination of healthy and unhealthy snacks like normal, when Hillary shows up.

My friends and I commented about how awful this election was and fangirled a reasonable amount. We all hung out together and laughed a lot and got pretty drunk. It got to be the point in the night when someone would typically fire up a bowl, but we thought maybe that wasn't the best idea, so we played Apples to Apples. I kept getting really good cards, so it was around here that I started to suspect this was probably a dream.

Afterward she thanked us for a fun night away from the stress and the cameras and letting her just be herself for a couple hours.

Then I woke up. For the first time in months I woke up and didn't feel like something horrid was lurking around the corner. I wasn't even that sad that the dream was over. I just fell back to sleep. It was a really great dream.
posted by chaoticgood at 5:13 AM on October 12, 2016 [59 favorites]

Early Voting is open in Ohio. Ohio Mefites, get out there and vote ASAP. Every vote banked early is a vote we don't have to worry about on election day. No excuses!
posted by Justinian at 5:15 AM on October 12, 2016 [20 favorites]

I have a Jill Stein magnet on my Prius,

You don't say.
posted by spitbull at 5:15 AM on October 12, 2016 [72 favorites]

Surely the Green Party should want as few votes as possible so as to maximize the homeopathic effect of their convictions on the election.
posted by winna at 5:28 AM on October 12, 2016 [143 favorites]

I have a Jill Stein magnet on my Prius,

I know, right? I thought Jill Stein didn't believe in magnets.
posted by box at 5:28 AM on October 12, 2016 [59 favorites]

I'm way behind on this thread, but just popping in to say congrats to the Eggman and we're all so proud of you.
posted by sallybrown at 5:36 AM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

> New Clinton video. Obama's greatest hits. GO VOTE.

Damn that was good.
posted by vbfg at 5:38 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Woman: “If Hillary Clinton gets in...I’m ready for a revolution, b/c we can’t have her in”
Pence: “Don’t say that”

Scary. Maybe Pence will actually be helpful and have a few McCain-esque "No, no, ma'am, Obama's not a Muslim" type moments? Also she looks like she is literally wearing a foil hat.

Or because he's running for President. On Sunday, Trump unintentionally launched Pence's 2020 campaign. It won't be difficult for Pence now to distance himself from the Hindenburg-esque election and post-result whinefest.
posted by dances with hamsters at 5:39 AM on October 12, 2016

Citation needed on more than a few things in this sentence.

Heh. I meant it as a comparative to our current crop of Republicans and would reemphasize could in the my original statement.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:44 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

roomthreeseventeen: "New Clinton video. Obama's greatest hits. GO VOTE."

Damn, that got me all teary eyed.
posted by octothorpe at 5:45 AM on October 12, 2016 [31 favorites]

Also got to share The Good News About Evan McMullin, which Mom seemed receptive to.

I'm amused at the stealth canvasing conservative-friends-and-family-of-MeFites for McMuffin operation we have going on.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:48 AM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

Woke up this morning, turned on the TV and saw Obama's speech in North Carolina. And felt - even for an English person in England - a sudden and overwhelming regret that quite soon he will no longer be POTUS, and can't and won't be POTUS again. It's strange, this strong feeling that I will personally miss someone being leader of a country that I don't live in, and is a continent away.
posted by Wordshore at 5:49 AM on October 12, 2016 [76 favorites]

Or because he's running for President. On Sunday, Trump unintentionally launched Pence's 2020 campaign. It won't be difficult for Pence now to distance himself from the Hindenburg-esque election and post-result whinefest.

He's only distanced himself from the pussy grabbing. He was a full supporter of the racism and Islamophobia and general misogyny. He has no political future.
posted by rocket88 at 5:49 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Saw some of the Frontline documentary last night and specifically the part positing that Trump is doing this all as a reaction to the grilling Obama gave him at the Press-Correspondance dinner business (it's already been linked up thread/in another). And the way Trump is flipping out and lashing out at all the republican 'leadership' it occurred to me that Obama could, just maybe add this feather to his cap. That by goading this maniac into running for the presidency he has in fact managed to break the Republican Party who, for the last eight years have been such total fucking dicks. And wow, is that a satisfying thought.
posted by From Bklyn at 5:50 AM on October 12, 2016 [117 favorites]

Honestly? Screw Pence for that half-hearted denial. Any answer to her revolution talk that segues into talking up mythical voter fraud is just encouraging the problem. He wants her anger, he just doesn't want to get his hands dirty with it. You wind up these people and set them in motion and we get the Planned Parenthood shooting or the Malheur Refuge or Oklahoma City or worse.
posted by bluecore at 5:51 AM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

I know, right? I thought Jill Stein didn't believe in magnets.

Water, fire, air, dirt. Fucking first-past-the-post voting systems, how do they work?
posted by snofoam at 5:51 AM on October 12, 2016 [26 favorites]

He's only distanced himself from the pussy grabbing.

As far as I know he's only distanced himself from the talking about the pussy grabbing.
posted by Too-Ticky at 5:51 AM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

>a sudden and overwhelming regret that quite soon he will no longer be POTUS, and can't and won't be POTUS again.

Pretending for a moment that the ugliness of the currect election cycle isn't happening--if we're having Former First Lady Presidents now, can we have Michelle Obama next?
posted by Sing Or Swim at 5:54 AM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

I mean, when Obama ran in 2008 he promised to raise taxes on the wealthy too

and he did! The Bush tax cuts sunsetted for the top marginal rate, which is back at 39.6%.

Democrats also got PPACA funded by hitting the rich with a pretty hefty Medicare tax (this is their true reason for wanting "repeal and replace")

Beginning with tax year 2013 , single taxpayers who earn more than $200,000 and married taxpayers with combined income of more than $250,000 will face a new 3.8 percent Medicare tax on their investment gains.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 5:55 AM on October 12, 2016 [23 favorites]

Wow - the Go Vote ad was amazing. I noticed in the Mormons for Hillary ad (not sure of the exact title) and this one that much of the spoken word was captioned on the screen - which just feels so inclusive to me. Has that been the case with most of the Hillary ads?
posted by hilaryjade at 5:58 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

That VOTE video from Obama along with the pro-Hillary ads running in my state is a clear signal that we have reached the positive messaging stage of the HRC campaign as a direct opposition to the beheading video in the recent Trump ad. I think this is a good move right now.

I disagree with Obama on like three major things but in many ways he is my Kennedy. Even now, when I hear him speak, I think we can change the world. He's just so incredible at the aspirational messaging.
posted by xyzzy at 5:58 AM on October 12, 2016 [38 favorites]

if we're having Former First Lady Presidents now, can we have Michelle Obama next?

I get the sentiment, but there is considerably more to both Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama than 'Former First Lady.'
posted by Mooski at 5:58 AM on October 12, 2016 [34 favorites]

My cat reminded me that if anyone grabs her she hopes they won't miss their eyeballs and lips.

I swear she runs and hides when Trump comes on TV. And she's not the only tuxedo cat with good sense.
posted by spitbull at 5:59 AM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

Has that been the case with most of the Hillary ads?

Yes, but I think not so much for accessibility as because they are usually run on Twitter and FB where the default is the sound being muted.
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:59 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

I adore Michelle Obama, but I don't think she's ever given any indication that she wanted to be president.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:00 AM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

I thought this was a fairly interesting analysis:

Where Do Clinton And Trump Have The Most Upside?
posted by kyrademon at 6:01 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Winnie the Dog from the Hillary app is on Instagram and I have no idea why she doesn't have 10 trillion followers. #ImWoofHer
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:03 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

And she's not the only tuxedo cat with good sense.

Posted by Meredith. [real, but a different Meredith. I think.]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:03 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

HA! I reached the end!

Seriously, though: the Republican establishment has been fostering a monster for the last 4 decades, and now that monster has turned on them and will rip them to shreds. The monster isn't Trump - he's just one of its many heads. The monster is their electorate, their riled up mob of ignorant, racist and misogynist haters, to whom they've been feeding base lies and dogwhistles. And now the establishment has completely lost control. Cut off Trump - so what, there are hundreds of hate-spewing heads on that monster, and now it is emboldened: it has learnt that nothing is too lewd, too aggressive, too crazy.

I have hopes that the monster will die of old age, but I fear for the damage it will do until then.
posted by mumimor at 6:04 AM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

Guiliani on stage in Panama City. "She even had to drag out Al Gore. Remember him?"

WHY YES I DO REMEMBER HIM, MR. GUILIANI. He lost the presidential election by 527 votes, the same year that you couldn't even make it to the Republican ticket for the senate race against Hilary because the GOP dropped you after you fell twelve points behind in the polls because of your complete moral turpitude and failure of leadership in NYC. Yes, many of us remember the year 2000 quite well, sir.
posted by Mayor West at 6:05 AM on October 12, 2016 [111 favorites]

Winnie the Dog from the Hillary app is on Instagram

#Fraggles4Hillary
posted by pxe2000 at 6:10 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Good to see over on The Twitter some photographs of early voters in Ohio: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
posted by Wordshore at 6:11 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Arizona has turned blue on 538.
posted by EarBucket at 6:12 AM on October 12, 2016 [54 favorites]

Trump has been tweeting again whining about Wikileaks and with a complete misunderstanding of the powers of a Senator and First Lady of Arizona.
posted by Talez at 6:14 AM on October 12, 2016

Major GOP Donors Are Asking Trump for Their Money Back
posted by mumimor at 6:15 AM on October 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

Teen beauty pageant contestants say Trump walked in on them changing, says "Don't worry, ladies, I've seen it all before."

Teenagers. Some as young as 15.
posted by helloknitty at 6:15 AM on October 12, 2016 [84 favorites]

If Dems invested the time and energy they use to castigate Green voters for not voting Democratic on fighting for transferable voting in Democratic-controlled legislatures instead, the problem would be gone by now.
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:16 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Yeah Giuliani just gave away the secret to his shameful descent into a laughingstock fool (we New Yorkers already knew this though).... He is bitter he never got even close to the presidency, and that his Mr. 9/11 framing was so weak.

Christie and Gingrich too, their nasty ressentiment is a mask for bitterness at overwhelming rejection of their fondest ambitions. They feel emasculated. It's the connection between sexual harassment and presidential aspiration.

And that is what Trump faces now in the mirror, which is why he is losing his shit.

That outcome where Trump is utterly humiliated into an election night tirade that destroys him historically and costs him his future prominence and success!

ETA: humiliated by ... a woman!
posted by spitbull at 6:16 AM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Came rushing in this morning for the McMuffin love, stayed for the amazing Go Vote video.
posted by anastasiav at 6:18 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Trump voter shows Rick Wilson he can be a complete hypocrite by donating a thousand dollars to Ann Kirkpatrick, McCain's opponent

If Dems invested the time and energy they use to castigate Green voters for not voting Democratic on fighting for transferable voting in Democratic-controlled legislatures instead, the problem would be gone by now.

Ahahahahahaha. Ahahahaha. Oh Tiva that was a good one. Democrats have spent a decade trying to pass the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. And you think we could get STV for the presidential election just like that? Wow.
posted by Talez at 6:18 AM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

"I swear she runs and hides when Trump comes on TV. And she's not the only tuxedo cat with good sense."

Everybody knows cats are for Johnson

Weird and self absorbed but overall harmless
posted by Tarumba at 6:19 AM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Major GOP Donors Are Asking Trump for Their Money Back

haha good luck with that, suckas
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:20 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Cats want to let the free market decide where they can and cannot barf.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:21 AM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

@ThePlumLineGS
"New Baldwin Wallace U. poll of Ohio, all taken post debate:

Clinton 43
Trump 34

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2016/10/new_ohio_poll_puts_hillary_cli.html"

I think this is the biggest Clinton lead I've seen in Ohio.
posted by chris24 at 6:24 AM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

if we're having Former First Lady Presidents now, can we have Michelle Obama next?

We're having former senator and secretary of state presidents, so no, we are not supporting Hillary Clinton as a means to a nudge-wink-sure-you can grow up to be president if you marry power, that's the right way to get it, just choose your early boyfriends well and hitch your wagon to a star, girls! Remember your husband always gets his turn first.

If Michelle Obama chooses to devote her post-First Lady life to more public service and has the kind of amazing success record that you'd have to have to be ready to run on it in eight years, we can all vote for her like crazy. She hasn't said those are her current career ambitions, but why pay attention to what she says?

Michelle Obama had an impressive early career, just like Hillary Clinton had, but all the wearisome meme-jokes about why can't she be president aren't about any of that. They are based on a superficial approval of the "mom in chief" who gives good speeches and looks nice and they are very far from being a compliment to her. She deserves more respect than this, as do all the women who have run for high political office in this country, which you can in fact do no matter who your husband is.
posted by queenofbithynia at 6:25 AM on October 12, 2016 [122 favorites]

Next up on the 538 "snake" graphic are the Maine/Nebraska congressional districts, then Georgia, then Alaska.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:27 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Everybody knows cats are for Johnson

My cat has a better foreign policy background than Johnson.
posted by entropicamericana at 6:29 AM on October 12, 2016 [43 favorites]

Yeah, whenever people praise Michelle Obama, I totally agree with them on one level, but I also feel a bit sad. I think Michelle saw that she could be easily put into the box of Angry Black Woman and therefore took concrete steps to stay above the fray and just kill them with kindness, so to speak. It's not an accident that her pet project is Let's Move, which is about as inoffensive as it can be. So I think we're praising Michelle in part for playing her role well, and that role seems to be to sit back, work on the women's issues, and let her husband do the heavy lifting. She isn't really being praised for her amazing track record pre the Obama Presidency, or her law career (don't forget that she was senior to Barack when they first met).
posted by peacheater at 6:30 AM on October 12, 2016 [40 favorites]

If Maine District 2 goes blue I will eat my shoes. The unique brand of Maine Republican is 100% a lock for Trumpism.
posted by selfnoise at 6:31 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah my cats can name a historical foreign leader they respect, Meow Zedong
posted by localhuman at 6:31 AM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

I would like Jon Stewart to make a GOTV ad now. Please.
posted by The Noble Goofy Elk at 6:31 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

. And you think we could get STV for the presidential election just like that? Wow.

I do. State legislatures get to decide how their electors are delegated, no? So there isn't anything standing in the way of the state legislature making the Presidential ballot STV. The Interstate Compact is an order of magnitude more difficult because by its own wording it can't go into effect until passed by a group of states with combined 270 electoral votes, so they can automatically be a bloc for the national popular vote.

And on the particular issue of third-party spoilers the Compact actually makes things worse because a third-party vote anywhere (not just in a swing state) becomes a potential spoiler.

To be clear, I am voting for Hillary and am happy to do so for a number of reasons, though I've typically voted Green in the past. What I'd like to see is a strong progressive environmental party that doesn't split the vote. And pragmatically, Democrats are not going to get that hard 2 percent of Green voters to switch by browbeating them; it hasn't worked in the past 16 years at least. So if you can't beat them, join 'm -- that is, make a way for them to register their first choice preference and also indicate their second-choice preference for the Democrats. I fail to see how this is not a win-win.
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:33 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

The monster isn't Trump - he's just one of its many heads. The monster is their electorate, their riled up mob of ignorant, racist and misogynist haters, to whom they've been feeding base lies and dogwhistles.

Absolutely. The Republican elite can change their brand or their leaders all they want, but they can't change their base. How can they nominate someone who even looks moderate in 2020? It wouldn't even surprise me if Trump got the nomination again. He's shameless enough and the base is bloodthirsty enough.
posted by PlusDistance at 6:33 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Betsy Woodruff: Did Right-Wing Group Citizens United Target Dementia Sufferers for Fundraising?

Bell said her relative never sent that $50 check in the first place. Bell’s family had taken away the relative’s checkbook before she was hospitalized, so they knew she hadn’t sent a check. Moreover, how would Bossie know she had sent one if it never actually got to him?

Why would Citizens United send out a fundraising solicitation that appears to be a lie? Bell said she suspects the group designs mailers to prey on elderly people with memory loss.

“The fact that they’re sending this fraudulent piece of mail that says, ‘Oh, we didn’t get your $50’—that means they know the person has forgotten they didn’t send a check,” Bell said. “If you send them multiple pieces in a day, they’ll write a check for every piece because of dementia or Alzheimer’s.”

Bell said the mailers she saw from Citizens United seemed designed to scare elderly people into giving them money. A separate mailing touted Bossie’s former work in Congress—without, of course, mentioning the circumstances of his resignation.

She said she called the group multiple times trying to get her relative’s name taken off the list, but to no avail.
Trump lambasted Ted Cruz when his campaign sent out the infamous “voter violation” mailer before the Iowa caucuses. As of this story’s publication, Trump’s team has no comment on his deputy campaign manager’s use of similarly mendacious fundraising tactics.

posted by zombieflanders at 6:34 AM on October 12, 2016 [43 favorites]

And you think we could get STV for the presidential election just like that? Wow.

No, "in Democratic-controlled legislatures" is what he said; but it's difficult to get a political party to understand something, when its two-party system depends on not understanding it.
posted by XMLicious at 6:34 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Did Right-Wing Group Citizens United Target Dementia Sufferers for Fundraising?

This is my surprised face.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:37 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

No, "in Democratic-controlled legislatures" is what he said; but it's difficult to get a political party to understand something, when its two-party system depends on not understanding it.

The Democratic legislatures have already said their EVs are going to the national popular vote winner once 270 EVs agree. To throw the STV spanner into the works at this point would be fatal to the NPVIC which is arguably far more important.
posted by Talez at 6:38 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

(don't forget that she was senior to Barack when they first met).

I tried hard to forget it so I could be happier about him winning the primaries. He always repeated that line as a semi joke on himself whose only implicit punchline could be "and look at her now!" infuriated me, and what else were you supposed to take away from it?

(but yeah, she made her own choices. from among the ones available to her, which weren't and aren't so great as they should have been.)
posted by queenofbithynia at 6:40 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Arizona has turned blue on 538.

Just as a reminder, this was the 2008 electoral map. I know Pence is from Indiana, but aren't there more people there that hate him than support him? Why did Indiana go blue in 2008 but not 2012 or 2016?

I'd love to see either Georgia or Alaska turn over next.

Next up on the 538 "snake" graphic are the Maine/Nebraska congressional districts, then Georgia, then Alaska.

I started to write that I don't think either Emily Cain (D-Challenger) or Clinton has a shot at Maine District II, but apparently the newest polls show it to be a pretty tight race. Cain is fighting to unseat Rep. Bruce Poliquin, and if she can do it, it would be amazing not only because it would help dems take the House, but because Poliquin is one of LePage's closest advisers, and a vote against Poliquin is essentially a vote against LePage. Anyway, here's Emily Cain's website if you want to kick her a few bucks.
posted by anastasiav at 6:41 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Public service note for California voters -- if you have questions about the state ballot initiatives, or want to know how I'm voting (progressive queer feminist, registered Dem), hit me up in MeMail.

I think we could easily do a California ballot thread if anyone was up for that. There is SO much misinformation about some of the propositions. I am especially pissed off about the two that AIDS Healthcare Foundation are funding (60 and 61).
posted by Sophie1 at 6:42 AM on October 12, 2016 [29 favorites]

I know for me, this rhetoric about taking down the rich, "fair share" wealth distribution, 65% estate tax, all of this scares me and reminds me far too much of the Sandinistas who took my family's house. It makes it hard for me to hear and trust the Democrats on other matters, because I wonder how they all tie together and where their hard stop is. Sometimes I even want to, but it's hard.

I think I'm holding out a lot of hope that after the Republican Civil War, the reasonable voices will be the ones who win.

Sorry to be chiming in so late, corb, but like many here, I appreciate your perspective and wanted to respond.

First of all, the so-called "reasonable Republicans" push an economic policy virtually indistinguighable from Trump's -- massive tax cuts for the wealthy, deep cuts in regulations, likely cuts in social services -- but probably enough to cause pain without offsetting the tax cuts -- and increased spending on the military. "Reasonable Republicans" pledge not to countenance a tax increase under any circumstances. Reasonable Republicans ran Kansas and Louisiana's economies into the shredder.

Second, I would urge you to step back and recognize that what passes for the Left in the US is far, far from the Communist ideology of the Sandanistas. Democrats are a relatively liberal party, but as many pointed out during the primary, they are not very leftist. Even Bernie Sanders, about as liberal a politician as you're likely to find on the national stage, is a fairly middle-of-the-road socialist by European standards. Despite the accusations of Republicans back in the 50s and 60s, Democrats have never been about fostering Communist ideology.

If memory serves me correctly from studying Marxism back in my college political philosophy class, Marx predicted that the liberal bourgeoisie would institute reforms to appease the proletariat, but that it would ultimately be futile in staving off the ultimate revolution.

Well, maybe, but at least since the 1930s, Democratic policies proved him wrong. New Deal policies instead built a robust economy and a thriving middle class. Then along comes Ronald Reagan and his voodoo economics, and since then, practically all the gains in the economy have gone to the top 1%. Republicans have slashed capital gains taxes to the point that, as Warren Buffett has pointed out repeatedly, he pays a lower tax rate on his millions than his secretary does on the income she works for.

As others have pointed out, that kind of thing is what fosters revolution.

When Republicans agitate for eliminating the estate tax, their intent is not to keep the family home or farm from being taken away -- the exemptions run into the millions of dollars -- but to enable billionaires to hand unearned wealth to their heirs and effectively create a hereditary aristocracy. It was to prevent just such an occurrence that even the Founders established an estate tax.

Democrats favor a policy that rewards work at least as much as it does wealth, and does not seek to hand the wealthy even more advantages than they already enjoy. That's a far cry from the confiscatory policies of the Communists, no matter how much movement conservatives like Grover Norquist complain about it.

I want to emphasize that, as I've said before, your skepticism of motivations and desire for a check on liberal excesses is something the American political system vitally needs. We need competition between parties to curb excesses -- look at what happened to the Republicans when they gerrymandered themselves into safe districts! -- but it's interesting that although Democrats are also packed into (fewer) safe districts, not as many radicals have arisen on their side of the aisle. But the Republicans are so in the throes of an extreme ideology that they had to construct an entire alternative-reality bubble to prevent the facts that their policies do not work as advertised from leaking in. None of this is healthy for the Republic, so I join you in hoping the Republicans come to their senses, if only to avoid a long period in the political wilderness.
posted by Gelatin at 6:42 AM on October 12, 2016 [46 favorites]

can we have Michelle Obama next?

She's young - if we're going for strong women I say it's Dolly Parton next.
posted by Segundus at 6:43 AM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

if we're having Former First Lady Presidents now, can we have Michelle Obama next?

I'd love it, but she's made it clear she wants nothing more to do with Washington or politics, and I Cant. Fucking. Blame her. The only thing that makes me feel better about Obama leaving office is that it's exactly what he and his family want. They've spent eight years getting cannonaded with shit by idiots while he did great work in the hardest job in the world. It's time to let them go.
posted by PlusDistance at 6:45 AM on October 12, 2016 [42 favorites]

> "Anyway, here's Emily Cain's website if you want to kick her a few bucks."

Thanks, I did.
posted by kyrademon at 6:46 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Kellyanne Conway on Good Morning America complaining about lack of Republican support:

“Enough of the pussyfooting around about, do you support us or do you not support us?”

Are we not doing phrasing?
posted by chris24 at 6:47 AM on October 12, 2016 [91 favorites]

Actually, I'm good with taking a break from straight white men in the Oval Office for a few decades. Maybe we get our collective shit back together and whatnot.
posted by Mooski at 6:47 AM on October 12, 2016 [27 favorites]

A measure which everyone understands my take many years to accomplish. And which solves a pretty narrow problem. If legislators are concerned about conflict between STV and the Compact they can insert language nullifying STV when the Compact goes into effect.

I'm suggesting legislation that can be passed simply by one state which will immediately help a known issue for progressive electoral success. Why should it be postponed for the sake of fixing a thing that has only been a problem twice in US history?
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:48 AM on October 12, 2016

reminds me far too much of the Sandinistas who took my family's house

If you look more closely at the history of Nicaragua (and anywhere else in the settler colonial New World) it's house taking all the way down. Always worse when it's personal of course.
posted by spitbull at 6:50 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

I think we could easily do a California ballot thread if anyone was up for that. There is SO much misinformation about some of the propositions. I am especially pissed off about the two that AIDS Healthcare Foundation are funding (60 and 61).

Not to derail too much, but I'd love to see this. I've been spending a lot of time on Ballotpedia lately trying to make heads or tails of a few of these. I'm pretty sound in my choices on most of them, but both 51 and 61 are huge messes, and I'd definitely be happy to learn more. Also, the KQED propositions guide, and ballot.fyi
posted by themadthinker at 6:50 AM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

Oh, and Clinton has taken a slim lead in the crazy, very Trump-friendly LA Times/USC poll. So the three polls that have come out polling completely after the 2nd debate:

1) Up 9 in Ohio
2) Tied in Utah
3) Ahead in LAT/USC
posted by chris24 at 6:51 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Brian Beutler: Hillary Clinton to Panicked Republicans: You’re on Your Own

The unambiguous message is that Clinton’s offer not to treat Trump as a totem of the Republican Party has expired. Obama underscored the shift in strategy this week when he upbraided these Republicans for sticking with Trump through disgrace after disgrace. “Why’d it take so long for some of them to finally walk away?” he asked. The Democratic super PAC Priorities USA has seemingly picked up these signals and will begin airing ads in Senate battlegrounds in the coming days.

Clinton’s conservative critics will surely object that her magnanimous-sounding offer was always a feint. But consider that until the Republican Party descended into total chaos, Republican candidates were doing a pretty good job decoupling themselves from Trump without much Democratic resistance. Incumbent GOP senators in every competitive state were running significantly ahead of him, aided in some measure by Clinton’s consistent message that Trump is an altogether different beast.
[...]
Clinton’s critics in the Democratic Party will wonder whether she should have recognized this earlier—whether it’s be too late now to leash Trump to these cynical Republicans in time to defeat them, and maximize Democratic Party gains on Capitol Hill. I’m skeptical that one strategic approach was clearly superior to the other. Clinton and Obama would’ve looked like geniuses if she’d managed to sustain her post-convention lead on the strength of Republican disunity and crossover support; instead she looks can claim to have made a meaningful gesture that Republicans rejected until it was too late. At some level, I suspect she knew it was an offer they wouldn’t accept—in part because victory still appeared to be in reach, and in part because Republicans really did beget Trumpism. Now that they realize the magnitude of their error, she’s decided to stop excusing them. Now that their voters are starting to peel away, I suspect that she’ll be quick to remind them who had Trump’s back when.

posted by zombieflanders at 6:54 AM on October 12, 2016 [32 favorites]

Looking at the percentages, 538 says that Alaska has about the same chance of going blue as Ohio does going red.
posted by KathrynT at 6:54 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

"Enough of the pussyfooting around about, do you support us or do you not support us?”

Are we not doing phrasing?

We are most definitely doing phrasing. Calling potential GOP defectors pussies is pure Trumpism, up to and including gratuitously alienating moderates (who they believe don't really exist).
posted by argybarg at 6:55 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Everybody knows cats are for Johnson

Stare into the eyes of the pic in my profile and back away slowly when you say that, says Kitty-O (as in Jackie O).

She was for Bernie in the primaries. We had some arguments about it. Mostly I've healed up though. For her it wasn't about the bankers and such but about the goddamn bird thing. She says anyone who can make birds come to them is a divinity.

Anyway now she's a solid Hillary vote. Cuz Bernie said so.
posted by spitbull at 6:57 AM on October 12, 2016 [30 favorites]

Looking at the percentages, 538 says that Alaska has about the same chance of going blue as Ohio does going red.

And there is a greater likelihood of Texas going blue than there is of Pennsylvania going red.
posted by argybarg at 6:57 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Calling potential GOP defectors pussies is pure Trumpism

Oh I agree they want to emasculate defectors. It would just be a bit more effective if she wasn't reminding people that he's bleeding votes for saying he likes to grab pussy.
posted by chris24 at 6:59 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's been fun to see all three 538 models climbing this week.
posted by zutalors! at 6:59 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Mod note: Just as a quick reminder, these threads are long, and fill up fast, so let's try to not go down every conversational side path (ie Michelle Obama is not running for president, and we've discussed the Sandinistas and Corb's family home many times before). Also, folks seem to be getting a tad bit restive, but please Dog let's not start up again with fights about Bernie Sanders, or pointless goading about Jill Stein (a couple deleted on that). There's enough excitement in the main show.
posted by taz (staff) at 7:01 AM on October 12, 2016 [25 favorites]

TMZ: We're told Bush is upset because he feels like a scapegoat ... no one at NBC had a problem with him until the footage leaked, and when NBC had a PR problem they just cut him loose.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:05 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

The unambiguous message is that Clinton’s offer not to treat Trump as a totem of the Republican Party has expired.

The thing that sucks about that is at least a healthy percentage of Republicans have been planning to vote Clinton - not as many elected officials as I would like, but it's a real crossover that has been happening. It turns out she didn't need them to win, but those people switched over in good faith. It'd really suck after people have been going out on a limb that Hillary Clinton supports honest disagreement, and it's safe to vote for her, she pulled the rug out from under them now.
posted by corb at 7:06 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Rude Pundit: Trump Didn't Start the Fire, but You Fuckers Can Still Burn

I'm not even giving a pass to conservatives who were anti-Trump from the start. Go fuck yourself, George W. and George H.W. Bush, who pushed anti-woman policies and judges. Eat shit, Lindsey Graham, who pimps war like it's the last pretty boy in the gigolo house on a late Saturday night. You fuckers aren't noble. You're just lucky you could identify someone worse than you are.

posted by gaspode at 7:06 AM on October 12, 2016 [31 favorites]

Exclusive: USA TODAY survey shows that a quarter of elected top Republicans won't endorse Trump

"Twenty-six percent of Republican governors and members of Congress are refusing to endorse GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, according to a survey by the USA TODAY Network.

Of the 31 Republican governors, 54 GOP senators and the 246 Republican members of the House (331 total), the survey identified 87 who are not endorsing Trump's candidacy as of late Tuesday.

It is an extraordinary demonstration of the fracture Trump’s candidacy has revealed in the Republican Party. There is no precedent in modern American political history for elected officials of either party to refuse en masse to support their presidential nominee. It shows that Trump will have to wage a national campaign without the fleet of surrogates and supporters that every other presidential contender has relied on for decades to help bring voters to the polls. And it illustrates how hard it will be for the GOP to rebuild if Trump loses."
posted by chris24 at 7:07 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Huh. The president of the Iowa Federation of Republican Women just resigned because the group pledges to support the entire Republican ticket, and she says she can't do that this election. It's sort of hard for me to get that enthused, though, about someone who was apparently just fine with Steve King but thinks that Trump is just a bridge too far.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:07 AM on October 12, 2016 [32 favorites]

> Yes, I wish there wasn't even going to be a third debate. Why bother?

I think I'm going to skip watching it, just follow it through the MeFi thread instead. I "enjoyed" the second debate, for certain perverse values of "enjoy," but I didn't sleep well afterwards, and my wife and I have noticed we're increasingly filled with angst and undirected rage. This election season is the most toxic I can remember, and I remember 1968, 1972, and 1980.
posted by languagehat at 7:08 AM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

TMZ: We're told Bush is upset because he feels like a scapegoat ... no one at NBC had a problem with him until the footage leaked, and when NBC had a PR problem they just cut him loose.

Cry me a fucking river, you revolting, feckless twerp.
posted by dersins at 7:08 AM on October 12, 2016 [83 favorites]

@paulkrugman
"I think I'm seeing a shift in media narrative, from hyping the supposedly close election to Trump disaster porn. This could be a big deal."
posted by chris24 at 7:10 AM on October 12, 2016 [68 favorites]

I wish there wasn't even going to be a third debate. Why bother?

My friend who works for the local news, and covered the RNC and the first debate, is supposed to go to Vegas for the final debate. He's still a little bit concerned that it won't happen.

He really likes to gamble.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:10 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

All alone, across the sea
When your people say they hate you
Don't come crawling back to me
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:11 AM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

Pence has a terrible record, zero warmth, flat lizardy eyes, and a smile like a rictus. I'm not worried about his 2020 run against Hilary.
posted by emjaybee at 7:12 AM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

Hillarys for President

Policy wonk. Pragmatist. Truth-twister. There are many versions of Clinton—and we’ll need them all to navigate the political chaos unleashed by Trump.

posted by kirkaracha at 7:12 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

So, they are just going to let Donald have his phone every day now, huh?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:15 AM on October 12, 2016

It'd really suck after people have been going out on a limb that Hillary Clinton supports honest disagreement, and it's safe to vote for her, she pulled the rug out from under them now.

That's... not what's happening. The change in messaging identified in the Beutler piece is that she's not going to continue reaching out her hand to the remaining Trump dead-enders. It's not like she's moving away from any particular position that would alienate Republicans, because she really didn't move in any direction to get their support in the first place. Her appeal to them was little more than "seriously, this fucking guy?" She's still not Donald Trump, so why would those who responded to that message feel jilted now that she's not holding the door open for those who still haven't come around?
posted by tonycpsu at 7:17 AM on October 12, 2016 [37 favorites]

Hashtag NoShackles
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 7:18 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

She's still not Donald Trump, so why would those who responded to that message feel jilted now that she's not holding the door open for those who still haven't come around?

Because they've spent three decades desperately looking for--and outright inventing--bullshit reasons to hate her, so why stop now?
posted by dersins at 7:20 AM on October 12, 2016 [24 favorites]

Corb, one thing that I truly believe is that the smart thing to do for Democrats is look for reasonable consensus and offer an olive branch to nevertrump Republicans. I am familiar with many conflicts around the world where, the perfect being the enemy of the good, chances for rebuilding were wasted.

I know this won't be a popular opinion with many liberals, but this is a real chance we have at ending the long term divisiveness that has affected this country and actively fed all the vitriol we see today.

If Trump can be of any use, it will be as the enemy that will unite us left and right. I hope we Democrats can remember that our motto is "stronger together" , and that requires a degree of compromise.

Someone else said it before here on MeFi. We need the left to ensure service provision, and we need the right to ensure fiscal responsibility. If we can rescue the sane part from the right we can easily outnumber the alt-right and move the country forward.
posted by Tarumba at 7:21 AM on October 12, 2016 [23 favorites]

Corb- Clinton was offering this to the Republican Party representatives, i.e. The house and senate, that she would work with them.

I don't think she's going fuck you to Republican citizens, just at this point, it has been shown that there truly is no Republican Party in Washington to work with. There is no leadership and those who would have been leaders are failing so hard at their job I think backing away and waiting for the dust to clear is fine.

And I'm sorry but the republicans have spent the last eight years throwing out obstructionist tactics the entire time. Maybe if they managed to appoint a Supreme Court nominee instead of being terrified of being purged because that's the right thing to do, it could show some merit of instead of just being people who want to facilitate the narrative that enables Trump (the government doesn't work for you, it's broken, mostly because the republicans have tried their hardest to do that).
posted by mrzarquon at 7:24 AM on October 12, 2016 [38 favorites]

Hey corb -- just wanted to say ... whatever happens among those running for elected office, you, personally, have made me feel more warmly about moderate Republicans than I have at any time since 2000, when I came to the conclusion that the entire party had betrayed the principles of democracy and was irrevocably tainted along with everyone who chose to associate with it. I still disagree with the Republican party on almost every core concept, from economics to foreign policy to climate change science to the rights of minorities, women, and voters, often passionately, and that is extremely unlikely to change. But nonetheless, the mere fact that there is a wing of the Republican party, some percentage, any percentage, that could look at Donald Trump and from the beginning say, "No; this is an ignoramus. This is a fascist. This is a monster. This cannot be allowed to happen here." ... That gives me hope that someday, somehow, in years that will come, there might be a rational dialogue again at the national level.
posted by kyrademon at 7:25 AM on October 12, 2016 [104 favorites]

Tarumba: We need the left to ensure service provision, and we need the right to ensure fiscal responsibility.

But the right doesn't do that. At all.
posted by Mitrovarr at 7:25 AM on October 12, 2016 [63 favorites]

And the Mormons might come out of this election looking like the most principled Christians in America.

If you make the slight adjustment to conservative Christians*, then yes, absolutely. Mormons are putting evangelicals to shame in their willingness to recognize what Trump is and vote accordingly. I suspect that's because Mormons are perpetual outsiders except in Utah, and haven't enjoyed the same place at the political table that evangelicals have. Power has corrupted the evangelical establishment.

*No one ever pays attention to liberal Christians, but we're here. Been here a long time now.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:26 AM on October 12, 2016 [81 favorites]

If anything it's time for members of the Republican Party to acknowledge your party probably doesn't serve your interest, and will say anything to retain power for the billionaire energy execs who fund it, including allowing for a racist sexual abuser to be at the top of the ticket.
posted by mrzarquon at 7:26 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

I believe Trump has been losing the overall Catholic vote all along.

But yeah, I can totally see him turning on LDS voters.

Did anyone note him threatening Florida voters last night?
posted by spitbull at 7:29 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

guiseroom: Poll: Trump falls into tie with Clinton among Utah voters

Who do Utahns support in the presidential election if the election were held today:
HRC: 26%
DJT: 26%
Egg McMuffin: 22%!!!
Google Gary Johnson: 14%
(Polling likely Utah voters, +/- 4.4% margin of error)
posted by filthy light thief at 7:29 AM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

I mean, threatening people is pretty much trumps entire campaign strategy.
posted by valkane at 7:31 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

MSNBC showing people early voting in Cleveland right now.

Also tomorrow, President Obama is having an Early Voting event in Cleveland for Hillary Clinton's campaign.
posted by cashman at 7:31 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

It'd really suck after people have been going out on a limb that Hillary Clinton supports honest disagreement, and it's safe to vote for her, she pulled the rug out from under them now.

The article clearly points out that she's not going to reach out to the ones who stuck by him until an arbitrary point. In fact, the point is made in the next two sentences after the one you chose to quote.

But yes, at some point, those Republicans who choose to support her will have to make a choice between continuing their support for her or if they're going to go back to being 99.5% opposed to her. There are several major issues where those Republicans are not just out of step with her, but of reality itself. For starters, continuing to support voter ID and other voter suppression laws that have proven almost universally to be both racist and ineffective at stopping the kind of voter fraud that decides elections has to be abandoned, otherwise they're just making noise while supporting a revival of Jim Crow. And on anthropogenic climate change, and specifically the utterly discredited arguments about how just letting the free market deal with it will cost less in both economic and human costs, it's time for those Republicans to come around. Those are just a few examples, but I feel like "not supporting cartoonishly racist laws" and "working to solve the greatest threat to humanity" should be easy bars to clear.

I know this won't be a popular opinion with many liberals, but this is a real chance we have at ending the long term divisiveness that has affected this country and actively fed all the vitriol we see today.

At this point, it's clear that this has meant conservatives pulling the country further to the right. That's the problem that created Trump. At some point, conservatives have to offer something more, which has thus far not been much in evidence.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:32 AM on October 12, 2016 [33 favorites]

If you make the slight adjustment to conservative Christians*, then yes, absolutely. Mormons are putting evangelicals to shame in their willingness to recognize what Trump is and vote accordingly. I suspect that's because Mormons are perpetual outsiders except in Utah, and haven't enjoyed the same place at the political table that evangelicals have. Power has corrupted the evangelical establishment.

*No one ever pays attention to liberal Christians, but we're here. Been here a long time now.

Sorry - this was what I meant! I know there are liberal Christians, but they never seem to present as a unified voting block the way conservative Christians do.

That's why I wish Clinton had spoken more about her faith on the campaign trail. Despite being an atheist, I find her good-works-based version of Christianity to be very compelling, and I wouldn't mind seeing a whole hell of a lot more Christians like her in public life - but where are they? If they exist, they, like her, seem not to ever really talk about it.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:33 AM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

Because they've spent three decades desperately looking for--and outright inventing--bullshit reasons to hate her, so why stop now?

I have a friend. He's mostly a pretty decent guy. But he's a straight-up brogressive. I'm pretty sure he gets 95% of his political ideas from Opie & Anthony or whoever replaced them. So, basically: LGBT rights are important, climate change is a problem, legal weed would be nice, but Muslims, and maybe blacks, are savages and, of course, Hillary Clinton is Literally Hitler.

Pretty sure he was a Bernie-or-Buster. He's in the "they're both terrible" camp right now, and it's infuriating. This is a smart person who first, barely cares about anybody other than himself, and second, can't see past the twenty-five-year smear campaign against the Clintons.

The good news, I guess, is that he doesn't vote anyway. Which I suppose is the hallmark of people like him: impotent rage against shadows.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:34 AM on October 12, 2016 [23 favorites]

From the Salt Lake Tribune endorsement:

Clinton's devotion to making the world a better place for the less fortunate, especially children, has been the core of her whole career. She sees the threats of terror abroad, gun violence at home and climate change globally and has plans to address all of that, and more.

She recognizes the unfairness of those who lack access to health care and those at the short end of extreme economic inequality. She would make tax policy more equitable and work to help the poor climb out of their misery.

She has stood up for religious freedom around the world, even in dealing with regimes such as China, where it was a risky position to take.

posted by Sophie1 at 7:34 AM on October 12, 2016 [57 favorites]

*No one ever pays attention to liberal Christians, but we're here. Been here a long time now.

I'm a secular humanist but was christened Anglican and have read the bible including reading the New Testament more than once. I still have to routinely school "evangelical" in-laws about what Jesus actually said and WWJD. I'm thankful that I've only had to use 1 Timothy 2:12 once in my life.
posted by Talez at 7:34 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

I mean all you really should have to know from Jesus can be distilled down to this image. Everything else is secondary.
posted by Talez at 7:36 AM on October 12, 2016 [22 favorites]

Oh, and in local news, this happened.


Police: Trump supporter threatens black woman in Albany
_{55-year-old white man faces aggravated harassment charge}
By Emily Masters Published 7:01 am, Wednesday, October 12, 2016
posted by mikelieman at 7:37 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

"They will tear each other into pieces, Jesus Christ, this will be fun!"

DadadaDAHda
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:37 AM on October 12, 2016 [20 favorites]

Friend in Cleveland has just voted after waiting 50 minutes due to an unexpectedly long line. She described the other people in the line as "obviously solid Hillary support". Some (more) nice pictures of Ohio lines today: [1] [2]
posted by Wordshore at 7:37 AM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

Huh, so this is interesting: Here's the (pretty boring) list of events in the greater Portland area for the Clinton campaign. They have a regular "brunch and calling" event on Sundays called "Brunch for Hillary" -- except! -- the one on October 23rd has a different title: Brunch for Hil and Bill.

Wonder if we're getting a campaign stop at the end of October?
posted by anastasiav at 7:39 AM on October 12, 2016

I know Corb is our only avowed Republican on this thread, but I feel like it's worth asking what a healthy/positive Republican party would even look like? If you drop sexism, racism, homophobia, what do you have left that they stand for? Just a general hatred of taxes uncoupled from any understanding of their necessity for a functioning society?

I feel like they're not going to know for a long time. I sure don't. I hope that some of them, somewhere, are ready to do that thinking, otherwise the Democratic party is going to be the only choice for increasing numbers of us. And as much as I like voting blue, I think a healthy democracy needs more than one party.

I'm happy Clinton is winning, and many hateful people are getting burned by this eleciton, but once the schadenfreude wears off, I want to have a clear idea of what kind of elections, what kind of parties, we should have to work towards.
posted by emjaybee at 7:39 AM on October 12, 2016 [62 favorites]

If Maine District 2 goes blue I will eat my shoes. The unique brand of Maine Republican is 100% a lock for Trumpism.

The 538 D snake just ate ME-2. Would you like me to buy you a bottle of Worcestershire Sauce? I hear it helps with eating shoe leather.
posted by Talez at 7:41 AM on October 12, 2016 [25 favorites]

"But the right doesn't do that. At all."

That's not what I've seen. So many people on the right have chosen principles over party. I see that as an opportunity. I agree that the leadership seems to have their head up their ass, but if we lead by example and work with them we can bring them over to collaboration.

I mean for example McCain, sure he tolerated way too much for Trump, but even during the 2008 elections he was adamant that Obama is a good, respectable man. I think we can work with that.

Our other option is to wait until Republicans spontaneously become liberals before we can work with them, which sounds a little unrealistic to me.

It sort of reminds me about how many of us (women) paired up with non feminist guys who were essentially good people but clueless and privileged. In my case it wasn't my duty to explain things to my husband, but I sure as shit don't regret the work I put in now that I see him furious about rape culture. At least in relationships you have a choice to be alone and happy, but in politics you don't. That seems a more compelling argument for collaboration to me.
posted by Tarumba at 7:41 AM on October 12, 2016 [19 favorites]

If you're tired of the soft music and rolling hills in Clinton's previous ads, her new one is METAL! As in 80s hair metal. And it's devastating.
posted by PlusDistance at 7:42 AM on October 12, 2016 [54 favorites]

I mean we ask conservatives to look at the bigger picture and not sit out this election because of what Trump represents. We should practice what we preach and be prepared to make some compromise if that will keep the alt right at bay.
posted by Tarumba at 7:44 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Surprising that Gob Bush didn't show up in that ad.
posted by pxe2000 at 7:44 AM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

it's worth asking what a healthy/positive Republican party would even look like?

I think what you have left is sort of Libertarian Lite. Socially middle-of-the-road (not openly bigoted but not on board with leftist understandings of privilege and systematic oppression), fiscally conservative, without being quite as "burn it all down!" as Libertarians tend to be. I mean, I still think it's wrongheaded and willfully misunderstands how the world actually works, but it's not quite so outrageously evil.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:44 AM on October 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

I'm interested to see how far devoted Trump supporters can ride this cognitive dissonance/denial train. There doesn't seem to be a limit to what they can rationalize.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:48 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I mean for example McCain, sure he tolerated way too much for Trump, but even during the 2008 elections he was adamant that Obama is a good, respectable man. I think we can work with that.

That was the absolute minimum to be expected of him, not some sort of compromise.

Our other option is to wait until Republicans spontaneously become liberals before we can work with them, which sounds a little unrealistic to me.

No, that's not the only other option. There's a wide variety of policy issues that they could compromise on (two of which I outlined above) that don't require them to become liberals. If joining the reality-based community on basic civil rights is somehow too far a stretch for them to be considered a compromise, then the responsibility or blame that can be laid at the feet of the of the left is approximately 0%.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:48 AM on October 12, 2016 [32 favorites]

I am trying very hard to keep up with these threads and of course it isn't working, but I wanted to say something about Paul Ryan and his behavior.

It's always seemed to me like Paul Ryan wants to be seen as a wise leader. He wants people to look to him for guidance and dispense wisdom and have people be impressed by his understanding of nuance and clarity of thought. He wants to be presented with problems, think them through, and give Solomonic answers in the style of a Philospher-King. Unfortunately, the only asset he has to help him achieve this goal is his big sad eyes. He is simply not a smart man, and he is not a man of principle either.

I think he got the (correct) idea somewhere that true leaders are flexible, and willing and able to change their minds as they get new information, and that wisdom includes the ability to reflect and come to new conclusions and to see nuance and come up with creative solutions.

Unfortunately for Paul Ryan, he is pretty dumb! He has these big eyes that make it look like he's thoughtful but there's nothing going on behind them. I think his wavering support and his "do what's in your heart" and his "I'm not endorsing but I'm not UNendorsing" nonsense are his attempts to be a wise leader; I think he sees these moves as flexibility and subtlety because he deeply, profoundly does not understand what wisdom or leadership are but he has internalized some basic ideas about them. My theory is that Paul Ryan's ultimate goal is to be a wise and thoughtful conservative leader and he simply has absolutely no idea how to make this happen and the result is that when he doesn't understand what's happening (which is often) he attempts to compensate by declining to settle on a single course of action and mistakes this for a creative solution to a complicated issue.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 7:49 AM on October 12, 2016 [62 favorites]

I feel like it's worth asking what a healthy/positive Republican party would even look like? If you drop sexism, racism, homophobia, what do you have left that they stand for?

Low taxes, of course. More decisions taking place at the local and state level, with the federal government primarily focused on defense and maybe social security/medicare. Stronger borders/ carefully controlled immigration in a way that isn't overtly racist. I could envision a Republican party that sincerely wanted federal government slimmed down and limited and whose vision of America was 50 very distinct states who only cooperated on things that truly require a national response. That's not necessarily an offensive vision, just (I think) impractical. But then, I'd love to see state governments largely dissolved, except as convenient administrative districts for an all-powerful federal government that created consistent policy nationwide.

I'm tired of taking a new driving test every time I move to a new state.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:50 AM on October 12, 2016 [67 favorites]

her new one is METAL

This video was directed and produced by diamond Joe Biden in my head canon.
posted by cmfletcher at 7:51 AM on October 12, 2016 [29 favorites]

One gets the sense that Paul Ryan thinks that cutting the baby in half was the right solution.
posted by one_bean at 7:51 AM on October 12, 2016 [63 favorites]

his "I'm not endorsing but I'm not UNendorsing" nonsense are his attempts to be a wise leader

Remember, folks -- Solomon's plan to split the baby was a bluff.
posted by PlusDistance at 7:51 AM on October 12, 2016 [24 favorites]

"If joining the reality-based community on basic civil rights is somehow too far a stretch for them to be considered a compromise, then the responsibility or blame that can be laid at the feet of the of the left is approximately 0%."

Is blame what matters though? If the alt right becomes more active and aggressive because the rest of us continued to be divided it will be small comfort to know that the left is not responsible, when minorities are being targeted. I think results are more important than assigning blame to groups.
posted by Tarumba at 7:53 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

My theory is that Paul Ryan's ultimate goal is to be a wise and thoughtful conservative leader and he simply has absolutely no idea how to make this happen and the result is that when he doesn't understand what's happening (which is often) he attempts to compensate by declining to settle on a single course of action and mistakes this for a creative solution to a complicated issue.

This is giving Ryan far, far too much credit. The Zombie Eyed Granny Starver's only goal is to cut taxes for his paymasters, and destroy the welfare state for the undeserving, along with every positive function of government. That's it. His motivations are not more complicated or more noble than that.

His puppy dog eyes and fitness cover shoots are the tools he uses to mask his monstrous agenda, not an indication of the purity of his intent hidden just below the surface.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:54 AM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

"But because several of the Democratic candidate’s policy positions are so manifestly incompatible with Christian reverence for the lives of the most vulnerable"

kirkaracha: What? Is this just abortion?

T.D. Strange: Yes. Most vulnerable is code for "unborn babies"

oneswellfoop: And "unborn babies" is code for "single-celled fertilized eggs".

Which gets us all the way back to slut-shaming - no responsibility for the guy who got the lady pregnant, it's all about the woman who was so sinful as to fornicate out of wedlock. Her life then matters less than what could become a child, because that's a woman's role in the world: make more Christian babies. At least to some Christians, including those who stand against Democrats on principal of "protect the unborn babies" (who aren't really babies, but could be, if the woman doesn't naturally miscarry, which is then totally God's will; unless the mother-to-be did something foolish with her body, then she's a monster).
posted by filthy light thief at 7:55 AM on October 12, 2016 [19 favorites]

The Go Vote video is very interesting. It's clearly aimed at black voters - but it resonated very powerfully with me (not black, not voter, not American) through its message of progress, equality and confidence.

If this is the quality of the Democratic messaging, and if they're going to throw the war chest behind the media campaign in the final weeks, it's going to hammer several nails in that coffin lid.
posted by Devonian at 7:56 AM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

One gets the sense that Paul Ryan thinks that cutting the baby in half was the right solution.

Right, exactly; he's not smart and he's not good or kind and those are important qualities in a leader but he lacks the self-awareness to recognize this about himself so he comes up with things that look to him like leadership but are just terrible nonsense.

I seriously think that if he didn't have big mournful eyes that make him look like he's thoughtful and maybe suffering just a little bit under the weight of his (non-existent) commitment to responsible decision-making no one would ever listen to him.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 7:56 AM on October 12, 2016 [22 favorites]

If the alt right becomes more active and aggressive because the rest of us continued to be divided it will be small comfort to know that the left is not responsible, when minorities are being targeted.

Supporting voter suppression laws is targeting minorities. If conservatives insist on supporting it despite all the evidence showing it targeting minorities, then how much does that differentiate them from the alt-right in the first place?
posted by zombieflanders at 7:57 AM on October 12, 2016 [28 favorites]

What I continue not to understand is - if a person sincerely believes that abortion is murder, how in hell do they justify making an exception in cases of rape or incest? If it's murder, it's murder! I genuinely find it more reasonable to oppose it in all cases than to oppose it in all cases "except for rape."
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:57 AM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

This is giving Ryan far, far too much credit. The Zombie Eyed Granny Starver's only goal is to cut taxes for his paymasters, and destroy the welfare state for the undeserving, along with every positive function of government. That's it. His motivations are not more complicated or more noble than that.

His puppy dog eyes and fitness cover shoots are the tools he uses to mask his monstrous agenda, not an indication of the purity of his intent hidden just below the surface.

Sorry, I genuinely DID NOT mean to give Paul Ryan credit for anything; I don't mean he actually wants to be a good leader, I mean he wants to roleplay his idea of a good leader. I don't think he gives a fuck about actual leadership, he just wants people to take him seriously and be seen as a resource for wisdom. I don't think he has any desire AT ALL to be a caring or responsible human being and I don't think he could if tried (which he won't).
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 7:58 AM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Clinton was once willing to draw a distinction between "normal" Republicans and Donald Trump. Not anymore.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:59 AM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

I just told my two immediate coworkers about the now-dead "Win the Trump Truck" fantasy. I finished and shrugged and said "eh, I still can vote."

....A moment later, one of them said, "huh. I wonder if my registration went through?" I told her she could check with the Board of elections web site. A moment later she said "yay, it did!"

A moment after that the other one asked "hey, what's that site you checked?..."

I encouraged two voters to register today w00t
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:59 AM on October 12, 2016 [70 favorites]

That New Republic article that kirkaracha posted might be useful to share with any friends who are leaning Hillary but are still swimming around in the "but I just don't trust her" tub. It concedes her flaws but then makes a pretty cogent argument that she might not be the President all of us want, but she's most definitely the President the country needs, precisely because of what are perceived to be her flaws. tl;dr making the sausage has to be done by someone and Hillary has been expertly making sausage for decades. You don't have to enjoy watching it, but if you want a beer brat, someone does have to make it.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:00 AM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

I'm just waiting for Trump to threaten to investigate and jail Ryan and McCain for failing to support him.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:00 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

As a brown immigrant woman I feel a lot safer with your average conservative than with a Trump supporter. I would much rather work with a McCain than a Trump.
posted by Tarumba at 8:00 AM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

So, a couple things on this "what do we want out of the post-Trump Republican Party?" discussion.

First, the goalposts have moved a lot during Obama's presidency. In a lot of ways, Obamacare more closely represents the healthcare plan that McCain ran on than what Obama was originally proposing. There's a huge place for essentially market-driven solutions to public policy problems. I want the Republican party to be the ones championing those--partly because I want the Democrats championing more socialistic solutions.

Second, I want to see a Republican party that's extremely vocal on the ills of government surveillance. Since I've started following digital rights issues, I've had to change my opinions on a lot of Republicans in congress--many of them are the ones holding the NSA and FBI's feet to the fire. Remember, we're about to elect a president who doesn't really believe in your right to use encryption. We desperately need opposition.
posted by roll truck roll at 8:01 AM on October 12, 2016 [32 favorites]

Friend in Cleveland has just voted after waiting 50 minutes due to an unexpectedly long line. She described the other people in the line as "obviously solid Hillary support". Some (more) nice pictures of Ohio lines today: [1] [2]

From someone born and raised in NE Ohio: this warmed my heart this morning.
posted by rp at 8:02 AM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

Pence's positions are pretty unpopular, and his approval rating in Indiana is abysmal. Even Indiana Republicans hate the guy. If it weren't for Trump sucking all the oxygen out of the room, the Clinton campaign would have been attacking Pence far more. I don't think he could survive a general election, even though he is admittedly a very good talker.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:03 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

And that man's name was Scott Baio Booth.
posted by y2karl at 8:04 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Can we all agree that there is a spectrum of Republicans, the same way there is a spectrum of Democrats and everything else. Do you think, FOR ONE MINUTE, that Hillary and co. have no awareness of nuance? That they don't grasp the difference between a Trumpist and a woman who has lived in Idaho, voted Republican her entire life, is anti-choice and is feeling nauseated by Trump? Give me a break. She is really, really freaking smart and she no more puts all Republicans into one basket than any other group.

Critical thinking FTW.
posted by Sophie1 at 8:05 AM on October 12, 2016 [27 favorites]

I don't want Clinton to offer any "olive branch". The Democrats have offered whole orchards of olive branches to the Republicans at this point - we've given away almost everything that made the Democratic party worthwhile, which is why Sanders had traction.

Let the Republicans offer us some olive branches for a change - "we will behave like normal people and fill court vacancies with only reasonable amounts of quibbling"; "when we see rising economic inequality devastating people's health and wellbeing, we will not stand in the way of moderate reform backed by policy expertise or demand more tax cuts"; "we will not fight attempts to rebuild our physical infrastructure"; "when we see statistics that show dramatic racial inequality, we will not stand in the way of reforms that are backed by historical example and policy expertise but will stand up to our white base when our white base says things that are totally untrue and paranoid". Those are the olive branches I want to see. Republicans who can respect the rule of law and the common good instead of stanning for inequality and human misery might be worth working with - McMuffin and leftward, I guess - but no olive branches for the rest of them.
posted by Frowner at 8:06 AM on October 12, 2016 [140 favorites]

1 more time ICYMI: I got this message from my little sister tonight. This is why T***p cannot win. #oneofmanyreasons #vote

TW: all sorts of fucked up in the image.
posted by Talez at 8:06 AM on October 12, 2016 [32 favorites]

Sing or Swim: It's okay to take the skepticism quotes off of 'fair share'. We live in a country where Donald Trump, a billionaire, pays no taxes. Maintenance of the country's roads, bridges, libraries, schools, fire departments, etc., etc., is left to the working poor.

Related: Panama: The Hidden Trillions (MetaFilter thread)

“The economic system is, basically, that the rich and the powerful exited long ago from the messy business of paying tax,” [Luke Harding, a former Moscow correspondent for The Guardian] told an audience of academics and research students. “They don’t pay tax anymore, and they haven’t paid tax for quite a long time. We pay tax, but they don’t pay tax. The burden of taxation has moved inexorably away from multinational companies and rich people to ordinary people.”

There are legal loopholes, er "business incentives," in the US tax code, plus there are offshore tax havens, of which Panama is just one. The working poor can't pay someone to find all the deductions for their personal taxes, let alone set up companies to take losses that they can write off, and they definitely don't hire lawyers to set up tax shelters.

Want to make America great again and patch $3.6 trillion of infrastructure improvements by 2020 (American Society for Civil Engineers Infrastructure Report Card, which has always been bad, in part because the US doesn't invest infrastructure like it should, and because CEs would like more work to fix these problems)? Make the wealthy and their corporations pay their fair share.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:07 AM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

"Trump is a self-celebratig sexual predator", says former Canadian Prime minister Kim Campbell
posted by chapps at 8:07 AM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

I know Corb is our only avowed Republican on this thread, but I feel like it's worth asking what a healthy/positive Republican party would even look like? If you drop sexism, racism, homophobia, what do you have left that they stand for? Just a general hatred of taxes uncoupled from any understanding of their necessity for a functioning society?

My traditional explanation of the modern Republican party is that is a coalition of several factions:

* Fiscal conservatives. Deregulate everything, slash taxes, let corporations run the nation, more money for us fuck you.

* Religious conservatives. Four score and seven years ago the Bible told me so, and that's good enough to be the basis of civil and criminal law.

* Xenophobes. The nature of the beast; to want to bomb the shit out of that which is different. This is a local country, for local people, there's nothing for you here.

* The traditional power brokers. We have a nation of authoritarian-identifying sheep just crying out for some Big Strong Leaders to prop up, so by cracky it might as well be us.

There are overlaps between these groups, of course. Such as Prosperity Gospel types, i.e. if you were a decent person worthy of assistance you wouldn't need it, or Libertarians, i.e. all regulation should be abolished except for the parts that let me control what you do, or Evangelicals, i.e. why haven't we bombed the Arabs back to the stone age so that Israel can take it all over and Jesus can come back? Likewise, there are full-blown Bullshit Fundamentalists and there are those who simply identify slightly more with what the Republican Party claims to stand for than with its opponents' credos.

They have spent decades building up populist boils and now they have come to a head. The country has been overrun by Angry Loud White People who are demanding that Their Country be Returned To Normal, where Normal means that they're in charge, everyone else knows their place, and the ideas that homosexuals, transfolk, women, Muslims, immigrants, liberals, and other groups that are Not Them have equal rights are discarded with prejudice.

Not all Republican ideas and principles are inherently wrong. But the preceding paragraph? 100% fucked up and bullshit. When Trump loses, those people are not going away.

The Republican Party has a choice at that point. It's not a new choice for them. They can either embrace the anger, institutionally -- standing with Tea Partiers and House Freedom Caucus members and bomb-throwing dingbats and saying Yes, we will obstruct everything that Communist Muslim Murderer Hillary wants because she's a Sulfur-Ridden Demon from Hell -- or they can repudiate it, and say outright that if the bigot vote is how they get elected, they don't want it, that _they_ are the true conservatives and that they can be conservative without losing their humanity. But they need to say that loudly, clearly, and without backsliding once their poll numbers drop.

And they will drop. Because there are areas of this country in which only a Louie Gohmert can win. But that's how you get a Republican Party again, by pointing to outright hatred and sexism and xenophobia and saying No, You Are Not Welcome Here.
posted by delfin at 8:07 AM on October 12, 2016 [18 favorites]

For years, some people, mostly on the left, have been concerned about possible tampering with electronic voting machines and about whether they correctly report votes. Proposed solutions are either voter-marked paper ballots or machines with a voter-verified paper audit trail. (I think the latter is better; see Florida 2000 for issues with voter-marked ballots.)

If, post-election, the alt-right feels that the election was "stolen," I wonder if that can be transformed into increased support for more tamper-resistant voting methods?
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:07 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Jesus, what I wouldn't give for a centralized Federally-funded equitable nationwide grade school system instead of resting on the tax bases of tiny local school districts

But then how would we get our license plates made? Won't somebody please think of the DMV!
posted by Talez at 8:09 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I would be worried about a Pence vs Hillary debate. My consolation is I kind of doubt he's able to channel the blood-soaked moxie that carried Trump through this primary, and he's more likely to meet the same fate in the 2020 Republican primary that folks like Bush/Rubio/Perry did in 2016.

I'm not so sure. Trump steamrolled through primary season because the rest of the field kept waiting for voters to come to their senses and listen to the same platitudes the party has been pitching for decades. Kasich and Cruz really really really believed that the fervor would eventually die down, and that the voting public was too proud to be taken for such populist fools. They bet wrong. Maybe no one can match his bluster and gamesmanship, but you can be absolutely sure that the rest of the Republican field won't be caught flat-footed by another huckster like Trump in 2020. They'll ratchet up the crazy to keep pace, and Pence will either adapt or be knocked out in the primaries.
posted by Mayor West at 8:10 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

If, post-election, the alt-right feels that the election was "stolen," I wonder if that can be transformed into increased support for more tamper-resistant voting methods?

I sure as fuck hope so. I hate hate hate our electronic polling machines in TX. Please, give me a paper ballot and a goddamn receipt.
posted by rp at 8:10 AM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

Nate Silver, 538: Women Are Defeating Donald Trump

To put those numbers in perspective, that’s saying Trump would defeat Clinton among men by a margin similar to Dwight D. Eisenhower’s landslide victory over Adlai Stevenson in 1952, while Clinton would defeat Trump among women by a margin similar to … actually, there’s no good comparison, since no candidate has won a presidential election by more than 26 percentage points since the popular vote became a widespread means of voting in 1824.

... if the electoral franchise were really restricted only to men, our politics would look a lot different. And if it were restricted only to women, they’d look really, really different, perhaps with entirely different coalitions than the ones that prevail now.

The first bit quoted is about the PRRI poll that came out yesterday. Other polls are showing a large gender gap, but not that large. I think the difference PRRI's results and others may be large numbers of Republican women deciding not to vote. PRRI's method of filtering likely voters is sensitive to stuff like that; most pollsters' methods aren't.
posted by nangar at 8:11 AM on October 12, 2016 [19 favorites]

1 more time ICYMI: I got this message from my little sister tonight. This is why T***p cannot win. #oneofmanyreasons #vote

Wow, that's just like the people among the Brexit voters who literally thought that a Brexit win meant that their racist fantasies were, like, literally law the minute the count was in. People really think they're installing a dictator - it's not even that they're just hateful misogynists, they think that Trump is going to come in and, what, send the military around to enforce his gross personal beliefs the second he's in office?
posted by Frowner at 8:11 AM on October 12, 2016 [32 favorites]

Wow - the Go Vote ad was amazing. I noticed in the Mormons for Hillary ad (not sure of the exact title) and this one that much of the spoken word was captioned on the screen - which just feels so inclusive to me. Has that been the case with most of the Hillary ads?

As much as I'd love to say this is for reasons of inclusiveness - coming from the ad world, the sad truth is, that it's just the way you do advertising video for feed based media like Twitter or Facebook which most people use on their phones and don't necessarily have their sound on.
posted by starzero at 8:12 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Trump steamrolled through primary season because the rest of the field kept waiting for voters to come to their senses and listen to the same platitudes the party has been pitching for decades. Kasich and Cruz really really really believed that the fervor would eventually die down, and that the voting public was too proud to be taken for such populist fools. They bet wrong.

Most people casting votes in the primary voted for someone other than Trump. I have no idea if a really unified anti-Trump coalition would have ultimately won, but that's where the party establishment failed.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:12 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

This video was directed and produced by diamond Joe Biden in my head canon

And he checked out the final mix in both a Camaro and a Corvette.

Although honestly I don't like the karaoke soundstage in the ad. But I drive a Mazda with a surround sound system.
posted by spitbull at 8:17 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Tarumba Corb, one thing that I truly believe is that the smart thing to do for Democrats is look for reasonable consensus and offer an olive branch to nevertrump Republicans. I am familiar with many conflicts around the world where, the perfect being the enemy of the good, chances for rebuilding were wasted.

I don't think I can scream "NO" loudly enough to adequately express how opposed I am to this mindset.

If we'll just surrender enough, the thinking goes, maybe then the Republicans will be nice to us!

We just had eight years of Obama surrendering everything he could to the Republicans and look what it got him. Did he get compromise? Did he get cooperation?

Obamacare **STARTED** as a Republican proposal, and he systemically stripped from it the most liberal parts in a misguided belief that if he could just surrender enough, if he could just give the Republicans enough, they'd be nice to him. And what did that get him?

Nothing. Not one single Republican vote. He literally tailored parts of that bill based on what Republican senators claimed would get their vote, and he got nothing.

As a reward for surrendering almost completely on every single issue of importance, the Republicans gave him more filibusters than were ever used in the entireity of all American history prior to his election. As a way of showing how much they value compromise and seeking the middle ground, after Obama capitulated totally and gave them more than they asked for (remember when Obama volunteered to slash Social Security even though the Republican's hadn't even asked for it?) they paid back his unconditional surrender of all liberal values by blocking his appointments and declaring that his last year in office magically doesn't count and refusing to even hold a hearing on the center right, moderate conservative, Supreme Court nominee he picked especially as a compromise candidate.

Trying to play nicey nicey with the Republicans does nothing but get them what they want and make us suckers.

We cannot continue to surrender in hopes that if we just give up enough then magically the Republicans will stop being the obstructionist, absolutists, that they are.

I think Clinton is smart enough to recognize what Obama never did: there can be no compromise with the Republicans because they won't compromise. They will never, ever, give up the tiniest thing to meet in the middle. We've given up virtually everything we've ever asked for and they've done nothing but grow fat and strong on what we've surrendered while in return they gave us absolutely nothing at all.

I know this won't be a popular opinion with many liberals, but this is a real chance we have at ending the long term divisiveness that has affected this country and actively fed all the vitriol we see today.

The divisiveness has come entirely, 100%, from one side: the Repubicans. You cannot with any degree of seriousness claim that the Democrats have been failing to offer a hand across the aisle, or make compromises. To speak in the passive voice about "divisiveness" as if it were the fault of both parties is not merely incorrect but incorrect in a way that actively harms us. It promotes the idea that the proper way to deal with Republican intransigence is via increased capitulation and the surrender of yet more of our values and goals. It promotes the idea that we, on the left, are responsible for the Republican intransigence.

If Trump can be of any use, it will be as the enemy that will unite us left and right. I hope we Democrats can remember that our motto is "stronger together" , and that requires a degree of compromise.

And the very instant the Republicans compromise I'll say we should look seriously at it. But compromise requires both sides to be willing to compromise. And Ryan, McConnell, et al have shown not the slightest willingness or desire to compromise. They created Trump by their steadfast refusal to compromise, by their constant and never ending demonization of liberals and Democrats, by the vicious take no prisoners approach they used in dealing with Obama and his continuous, submissive, attempts at compromise.

I don't, much as I'd like to, urge that Clinton be vindictive towards Republicans.

But enough is enough.

We've tried. For eight solid years we've tried. And it's gotten us nothing but Trump.

If they're willing to compromise, that's fine. But we give nothing more. We've already given far, far, too much. Let them give a bit for a change.

And if they won't?

Then I'd hope that Clinton will play hardball.
posted by sotonohito at 8:18 AM on October 12, 2016 [243 favorites]

The parents of a 7-year-old boy say he was beaten by five students on a school bus, allegedly while they made references to Muslims and the boy’s Pakistani heritage.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:19 AM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

Power has corrupted the evangelical establishment.

Corrupted power was built into it from the beginning.
posted by Celsius1414 at 8:21 AM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

About an hour ago, I voted on the first day of Indiana's early voting. Y'all can probably guess who for.
posted by Gelatin at 8:21 AM on October 12, 2016 [26 favorites]

The divisiveness has come entirely, 100%, from one side: the Republicans. You cannot with any degree of seriousness claim that the Democrats have been failing to offer a hand across the aisle, or make compromises. To speak in the passive voice about "divisiveness" as if it were the fault of both parties is not merely incorrect but incorrect in a way that actively harms us. It promotes the idea that the proper way to deal with Republican intransigence is via increased capitulation and the surrender of yet more of our values and goals. It promotes the idea that we, on the left, are responsible for the Republican intransigence.

This. We cannot sacrifice what we believe in just to get more ridiculous demands from the right. President Obama did his best but I think part of the issue at the beginning of his first term he failed to recognize that at this point the Republicans are the party of no and cannot be appealed to or reasoned with.

I have no idea how we fix that. Perhaps their current internal collapse will help facilitate the rise of people who understand that stamping their feet like toddlers and refusing to share is not how you govern a nation of millions.
posted by winna at 8:23 AM on October 12, 2016 [34 favorites]

It seems more like voting for the name "Green" as if that alone was meaningful.

I'd be more sympathetic to the argument that a vote for Stein is a vote for public funding if there were any indication that that public funding wouldn't be spent solely on another Stein campaign in 2020, instead of on winnable local races.

The thing that sucks about that is at least a healthy percentage of Republicans have been planning to vote Clinton - not as many elected officials as I would like, but it's a real crossover that has been happening.

September is for winning converts; October is for mobilising the base. Ultimately, Clinton can't be putting as much time into winning over any possibly-maybes who haven't already jumped ship, not when there are downballot challengers who now need to run hard against their own opponents, and when Clinton needs at least the Senate in Dem hands to deliver on some of her pledges. If there are Republican voters who are undecided about splitting their ticket, then they'll have to make that decision for themselves.

All in all, it seems like Team HRC is treading fairly lightly compared to the kind of October campaign they could be running: the Miami speech was mostly about climate change and "every vote counts".
posted by holgate at 8:24 AM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

> We desperately need opposition.

Yup. I think a lot of progressives have a fantasy of getting True Power in which they are finally able to do All the Good Things and everybody will live happily ever after. (I'm not saying anyone actually thinks this consciously, because it's obviously silly if you think about it, but there's a lot of impatience with any kind of opposition—"oh, so they're against Trump, but they're still for Stuff I Don't Like, so fuck 'em"—which translates into the same thing.) But that's not how politics works; any entrenched group with no meaningful opposition will degenerate into autocracy and corruption. So root for a reformed GOP that focuses on fiscal conservatism and opposition to more than a bare minimum of involvement with foreign countries (which was what it was like when I was growing up), even if you don't like those ideas, because it's important that people who share those ideas have a responsible party to advocate for them. If you crush the reasonable opposition, you're left with the wild-eyed fanatics.
posted by languagehat at 8:24 AM on October 12, 2016 [40 favorites]

Regardless of what you think about the principles of compromise, if Trump causes the Republicans to lose seats they are going to be moderate seats in swing states. The remaining congressmen will not be the sort of people you reason with.
posted by selfnoise at 8:25 AM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

It's sort of hard for me to get that enthused, though, about someone who was apparently just fine with Steve King but thinks that Trump is just a bridge too far.

This for me about the whole turnaround in general. Great that you all are on board, but it's not like this guy and a good chunk of his party weren't on display saying horrible things about women and POCs and non-Christians the whole time. It's really weird to me that "let's shoot Muslims with pig's blood bullets and torture their wives and kids" (paraphrasing) is hunky-dory but "I moved on her like a bitch" isn't. I don't get it, even factoring in my in-the-bones belief that we are nowhere near the rational and principled species we tell ourselves we are.

So, I'll take the mass exit from his support base, but I'm not exactly going to congratulate them on their morality, empathy, or clear thinking here. I'm mostly going to be thinking about Nate Silver's gender-specific maps, trying and failing not to think about the percentage of Americans who would gladly bring back segregation and maybe even slavery, and worry my ass off about potential violence now and the long-term future of US policy.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:26 AM on October 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

Remember Judge Merrick Garland? Because the Republicans in Congress sure don't.

How in the god damn hell are we supposed to even ATTEMPT to "compromise" with these fucking people? They won't even bother to vote AGAINST the guy! They REFUSE TO DO THEIR JOBS and WE'RE supposed to "reach across the aisle" to THEM?

I'm sick and tired of this bullshit nonsense false equivalence garbage. Republicans are the problem. Full fucking stop.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:26 AM on October 12, 2016 [163 favorites]

Most people casting votes in the primary voted for someone other than Trump. I have no idea if a really unified anti-Trump coalition would have ultimately won, but that's where the party establishment failed.

It's not the establishment though. Every one of Trump's opponents had an insurmountable problem. Jeb? He had a ground game. He had a fundraising machine generating money out the wazoo. He also had all the charisma of a fence post. Marco? Charisma, Republican "moderate", Latino. Ground game? What's a ground game? We'll win Florida and people will wake up! Ted Cruz? Evangelical but nobody actually likes him. Every single person in Congress actively dislikes him. Can't build coalitions with vanquished foes but still needs them to defeat Trump. Kasich? Same problem as Marco. Likeable enough. Not nearly as crazy as the rest of the field. Ground game? Well he'll wait for the Ohio primary and the establishment will coalesce behind him and he'll skate on forward.

The establishment didn't have a chance. They backed the wrong horse (Jeb!) and then none of the remaining candidates wanted to be the sacrificial lamb for another horse.
posted by Talez at 8:27 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

I know Corb is our only avowed Republican on this thread, but I feel like it's worth asking what a healthy/positive Republican party would even look like? If you drop sexism, racism, homophobia, what do you have left that they stand for? Just a general hatred of taxes uncoupled from any understanding of their necessity for a functioning society?

I think their first step is to excise the word "hatred" from their vocabulary. Oppose something? Fine. Vigorously oppose something. Fine. But once they get into this blood fever that tends to manifest when they talk about anything, you get, well, we found out what you get. You get a Donald Trump rally.

Be adults again, Republicans. It's not as fun, but it's sober and responsible, which is what your always trying to pass yourselves off as anyway.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:28 AM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Thinking about how Donnie's become unhinged, obsessing about his November 28th court date, I had a bath-thought last night:

After discussions with his lawyers regarding upcoming litigation schedules Mr. Trump announced that he is withdrawing from the campaign. At a press conference, Mr. Trump explained, "America needs a full-time President" [fake]*

_{* I reserve the option to upgrade to [real] if I'm in the alternate reality where this happens.}
posted by mikelieman at 8:29 AM on October 12, 2016

The parents of a 7-year-old boy say he was beaten by five students on a school bus, allegedly while they made references to Muslims and the boy’s Pakistani heritage.

This makes me unbearably sad.
posted by Sophie1 at 8:30 AM on October 12, 2016 [23 favorites]

I feel like it's worth asking what a healthy/positive Republican party would even look like?

Healthy for them or healthy for everyone? Because simply nixing the outright racism and cartoonish xenophobia would give the party another shot at the White House. "Healthy for everyone" is a different question and one that's probably presumptuous of me to try to answer but some kind of Chamber-of-Commerce-meets-Christian Democracy—free market economics tempered by the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity, less avowedly secular than parties to the left but still this side of Enlightenment denial—would seem to be a step in the right direction.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:30 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Eric Trump doesn't seem to know about the 19th Amendment
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:31 AM on October 12, 2016 [30 favorites]

"Do you think, FOR ONE MINUTE, that Hillary and co. have no awareness of nuance?"

I agree, she's well known for working with both sides of the isle. The thing is, I was used to seeing Trumpers all gloaty and sort of fantasizing about how they would eat the heart of their enemies the day Trump wins the elections, and while we don't do that, there is an element of" told you so!" from our side that I think Hillary or Obama would not tolerate.

If the GOP is in crisis, and its hijacking by the crazies is finally complete, we can choose to hammer on our differences with sane Republicans or we can focus on alienating hateful people.

We complained when Bernie Bros didnt want to support Hillary to protect their ideological purity, but we would be doing exactly the same thing.

Look at the news. The alt right is gaining strength, children are attacked because of their ethnicity, people are harassed because of their gender. Hammering on the dichotomy between Democrats and Republicans is irresponsible in this climate. I'm sure Hillary knows this. Yesterday with Pence people were clamoring for revolution. Things can get a lot worse from here. We need to stand together.
posted by Tarumba at 8:31 AM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

There is only one way to guard against voter intimidation, hacking attempts, and ID supporession: check your voter registration NOW, and vote as soon as possible through early voting, absentee ballot, whatever your state allows.

This also allows the campaigns to focus on people who haven't voted yet, helping the ground game.

And be sure to encourage your parents and older friends to do this. They are at the greatest risk of suppression, and if you help them check their status now, you might have time to help them get a proper driver's license, ID card or birth certificate as necessary.
posted by msalt at 8:32 AM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

In re the fate of the Republicans....I'd like a reasonable opposition party, too. But what are the chances? The whole point of Trump, the reason for his existence, is that it turns out a substantial plurality of the Republican electorate is basically fine with big government, taxing the rich, and trade protectionism, they're also just bigots. If passionate fiscal conservatism were enought to win you the presidency, most Republicans would have disavowed Trump way before now. Remove their base and they cannot get elected. And what Trump proves is that the base really doesn't give a fuck about taxes.
posted by Diablevert at 8:33 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

I have no idea how we fix that.

My parents live in a county in North Carolina that went for Mitt Romney by over forty points, where I live is almost certainly any Democratic presidential candidate's three most reliable electoral votes (Jimmy Carter's 75% in '76 of the vote is the lowest DC has ever given to a democratic candidate). When I go visit, it's like we occupy different worlds. Even when I I try to accept some of their basic premises, and explain, for instance, that we've already spent lots of money on securing the borders, that illegal immigration is down, that voter fraud is not a real problem, I can tell that these facts are, for them, coming from an outside reality. Even leaving aside who is responsible for the "divisiveness" (and I agree with you about where it comes from), I have no clue how we'd have a debate in this country that makes any kind of sense. We're starting from completely different premises.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:34 AM on October 12, 2016 [18 favorites]

I'd like to remind everyone that some of us live in states, and that in many of those states there is basically nothing to restrain the GOP. Just because they won't win the White House doesn't mean they won't still run the Tennessee legislature for years to come.

And at the state level you don't necessarily get the most reasonable, reflective types.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 8:36 AM on October 12, 2016 [27 favorites]

I agree, she's well known for working with both sides of the isle.

Yeah, Upper West Side progressives and moderate Upper East Side republican bankers!

I tease, of course!
posted by spitbull at 8:37 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

If the GOP is in crisis, and its hijacking by the crazies is finally complete, we can choose to hammer on our differences with sane Republicans or we can focus on alienating hateful people.

That's exactly what we're doing. People who believe voter suppression is OK and whose civil and human rights stance is indistinguishable from the people siccing dogs on African-Americans (i.e. "state's rights") are hateful people.

We complained when Bernie Bros didnt want to support Hillary to protect their ideological purity, but we would be doing exactly the same thing.

Asking people to meet the basic bars of civility is not even close to the same thing as ideological purity. To claim that is what people here are asking for is ridiculous.

Look at the news. The alt right is gaining strength, children are attacked because of their ethnicity, people are harassed because of their gender. Hammering on the dichotomy between Democrats and Republicans is irresponsible in this climate. I'm sure Hillary knows this.

She does, which is why she's specifically not asking for Democrats compromise on everything, and nor are her surrogates, including Bernie Sanders.

Yesterday with Pence people were clamoring for revolution. Things can get a lot worse from here. We need to stand together.

Not if they're going to continue to support and encourage the exact same things that got us here in the first place.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:37 AM on October 12, 2016 [20 favorites]

This doesn't mean unrestrained Democratic party control of everything, all the time, but rather some new structure that has roots in a modern understanding of basic humanity, morality and ethics. The GOP is harmful, it is hateful, it is wrong. It is unwelcome. It deserves to be destroyed.

Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

Parties don't arise out of the ether. Parties arise when enough people want a thing to happen that they're willing to work together to make it happen. The GOP will change, after this. Maybe it will even die and we'll get something new. But whatever the new form is, it will be a form that has at least a chance of getting 50% of the people to vote for it. Out-and-proud white nationalism gets you 35%-40%, is what this election reveals. Maybe you can find something else that those people care about. But they're not going away.
posted by Diablevert at 8:39 AM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

"Don't message me saying all those things I listed are wrong. I know they're wrong. Or rather, I think they're wrong, because I now live in a blue county and work for a blue industry. I know the Good Old Days of the past were built on slavery and segregation, I know that entire categories of humanity experienced religion only as a boot on their neck. I know that those "traditional families" involved millions of women trapped in kitchens and bad marriages. I know gays lived in fear and abortions were back-alley affairs.

I know the changes were for the best.

Try telling that to anybody who lives in Trump country."

How Half of America Lost its Fucking Mind
by David Wong
posted by Groundhog Week at 8:40 AM on October 12, 2016 [35 favorites]

CNN everybody:

AMANPOUR: Can I just try one last question? One last question. A bit cheeky butI'm going to ask you. Russia had its own Pussy Riot moment. What do you think of Donald Trump’s pussy riot moment?

RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV: Well, I don't know what this would… English is not my mother tongue, I don't know if I would sound decent. There are so many pussies around the presidential campaign on both sides that I prefer not to comment on this.”

The look on Amanpour's face.

And this may be most disturbing campaign update yet:

"Trump outreach to millennials is real. The pre-rally soundtrack is "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys. It's working on @alivitali." --@SopanDeb

"Spotted dancing to "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys: everyone here, but especially @SopanDeb" --@jdelreal

"Fact check: pants on fire. As in because I lit the dance floor on fire with my moves." --@SopanDeb

I think the press corps has broken.
posted by zachlipton at 8:41 AM on October 12, 2016 [76 favorites]

Trump is below 15% on the 538 polls-only forecast (for the first time this election, I think?)

Can I unclench yet?
posted by murphy slaw at 8:41 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sick tool from HRC campaign pulling up a random year and comparing what Trump and HRC were doing that year.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:43 AM on October 12, 2016 [74 favorites]

> I'm amused at the stealth canvasing conservative-friends-and-family-of-MeFites for McMuffin operation we have going on.

Glad to amuse, but it's deadly serious for me. What's at stake is whether I have to think of my parents as morally monstrous. McMullin wouldn't be good, but I've managed to make my peace with them voting for Republicans like him before. If they can vote for Donald Trump, they're not the people I thought they were. Which I can't say to them, because it would sound manipulative and hysterical -- and maybe it is, I'm not really in the right frame of mind to be able to tell right now -- but the future of our relationship very possibly hinges on being able to convince them to vote for anybody but Trump. And I'm not optimistic.

help me, Egg McMuffin, you're my only hope
posted by Spathe Cadet at 8:43 AM on October 12, 2016 [37 favorites]

NBC’s ‘Law & Order: SVU’ Tackles Donald Trump-Like Character in Episode That Drew Internal Scrutiny

"NBC’s “Law & Order: SVU” has a long history of developing stories inspired by real-life headlines. This season, one of the show’s most provocative episodes is sure to be “Unstoppable,” which features a Donald Trump-esque character running for president who gets tangled up in a sordid case when several women come forward with damaging accusations.

Gary Cole stars as a character described by a source as a wealthy and boorish man who makes a run for the White House. Aspects of the story were said to be inspired by the civil lawsuit pending against Trump, the Republican nominee for president, by a woman who alleges she was raped by Trump when she was 13 in the mid-1990s. Trump’s attorneys have vehemently died the allegations by the woman identified in court documents as Jane Doe."
posted by chris24 at 8:44 AM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

Zombieflanders, I am a little confused because I think we essentially agree, what I am trying to say is that there are portions of the Republican party that can be rescued and that we can work with. I am not saying they are not oppressive or discriminatory, I am saying that once the alt right storms off it affects their numbers but the percentage of reasonable people will shoot up.
posted by Tarumba at 8:44 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

In case you don't watch Fox: The one where Mike Huckabee tries to make a Jaws analogy and Megyn Kelly savagely destroys it like a, well like a
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:45 AM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

Absentee Voting Off to Bumpy Start in New York City
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:46 AM on October 12, 2016

The sooner we, as a society, come to terms with the simple fact that the GOP was a failed, evil endeavour, the better.

Lincoln was totes evil.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:47 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Zombie Lincoln was worse.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 8:48 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Eric Trump doesn't seem to know about the 19th Amendment

We talked about government a few weeks back at Girl Scouts (after which the girls wrote a wonderful letter to President Obama that included "p.s. Donald Trump is Donald Duck") and used the 19th Amendment as an example of what can happen because of the rights granted to us by the 1st Amendment.

The girls had NO IDEA women weren't allowed to vote. (This had just come off a discussion about how they think it's unfair that kids can't vote, so the idea that all women--their moms, their sisters, their teachers, them when they grew up--couldn't vote at all ever just 100 years before was shocking.) You don't know fury like righteous anger of a nine year old learning how unfair the world is. I wish I had had a camera pointed on them, because their reactions were just so pure and heartbreaking and assured.

Anyway, I'd love to see how Eric would fare in a room with them. The sap would get eaten alive.
posted by phunniemee at 8:48 AM on October 12, 2016 [115 favorites]

I guess if you're more sympathetic to Republicans you could assume Obama was either lying or misinterpreting things in this interview, but:

When I came into office, my working assumption was that because we were in crisis, and the crisis had begun on the Republicans’ watch, that there would be a window in which they would feel obliged to cooperate on a common effort to dig us out of this massive hole... what proved to be the case in that first year and that second year was a calculation based on what turned out to be pretty smart politics but really bad for the country: If they cooperated with me, then that would validate our efforts. If they were able to maintain uniform opposition to whatever I proposed, that would send a signal to the public of gridlock, dysfunction, and that would help them win seats in the midterms...

There are two other elements that I think contributed to the Republican approach: The first was that even where their leadership wanted to cooperate, the tenor of the Republican base had shifted in a way that made it very difficult for them to cooperate without paying a price internally... It might not have been representative of Republicans across the country, but it meant that John Boehner or Mitch McConnell had to worry about that mood inside their party that felt that, No, we shouldn’t cooperate with Obama, we shouldn’t cooperate with Democrats; that it represents compromise, weakness, and that the broader character of America is at stake, regardless of whatever policy arguments might be made. As a consequence, there were times that I would meet with Mitch McConnell and he would say to me very bluntly, “Look, I’m doing you a favor if I do any deal with you, so it should be entirely on my terms because it hurts me just being seen photographed with you.” During the health-care debate, you know, there was a point in time where, after having had multiple negotiations with [Iowa senator Chuck] Grassley, who was the ranking member alongside my current Chinese ambassador, [Max] Baucus, in exasperation I finally just said to Grassley, “Is there any form of health-care reform that you can support?” and he shrugged and looked a little sheepish and said, “Probably not.”...

I have very cordial relations with a lot of the Republican members. We can have really great conversations and arrive at a meeting of the minds on a range of policy issues, but if they think they’re going to lose seats or that they’re going to lose their own seat because the social media has declared that they sold out the Republican Party, then they won’t do it.

Compromise, huh? Olive branch? What the fuck ever.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:51 AM on October 12, 2016 [119 favorites]

A disturbing anecdote in that story of Trump walking in on Miss Teen contestants changing:

"Billado said she told Ivanka about Donald Trump entering the room while the girls were changing their clothes. Billado remembers Ivanka answering, “Yeah, he does that.”

Umm, so he has a habit of walking in on Ivanka changing as well...
posted by chris24 at 8:52 AM on October 12, 2016 [41 favorites]

The sooner we, as a society, come to terms with the simple fact that the GOP was a failed, evil endeavour, the better.

Lincoln was totes evil.

Can we get off the Party of Lincoln thing? GOP is not the same party as Lincoln's party. Why do people insist on this?
posted by zutalors! at 8:53 AM on October 12, 2016 [24 favorites]

Arizona flipped blue on the 538 map through the special sauce correlations with national polling. Georgia is probably the only serious stretch goal worth Team Clinton's attention -- the value of another trip to Omaha for a single EV is limited; Missouri might be worth attention because of Jason Kander, depending upon whether his campaign wants to be seen closer to Hillary or at a slight distance.

Kellyanne Duckspeak can't even go to the LA Times tracking poll any more.
posted by holgate at 8:53 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

"What do you think of Donald Trump’s pussy riot moment?"

😲
posted by octobersurprise at 8:54 AM on October 12, 2016

Linguist Lynne Murphy: Linguistics explains why Trump sounds racist when he says “the” African Americans
posted by Spathe Cadet at 8:55 AM on October 12, 2016 [24 favorites]

A federal judge just extended Florida voter registration for another week! Til the 18th.
posted by chris24 at 8:57 AM on October 12, 2016 [41 favorites]

Lincoln was totes evil.

It’s absurd to suggest the GOP as it exists today has anything to do with Lincoln.

It’s absurd to label the GOP “a failed, evil endeavor” and then assume that people won’t think you’re including its first President in that indictment. It’s certainly worked fine for Republican candidates.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:57 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

As a compatriot of Melania's (we both come from the former Yugoslavia) I'd like to comment on the pussy bow situation.

I think it was genuinely unintentional for two reasons:

1. Melania has tried to keep as low a profile as possible throughout the campaign, but especially since the convention speech fiasco.

2. Her English is pretty basic and I doubt very much she knows the term "pussy-bow". It is possible a stylist snuck it in all innocent-like, if she is working with a stylist, although she also seems to view herself as very confident about dressing herself. This is just my impression however.

Just generally, though, Melania's Stepford wife persona feels very off to me. Slovenia has a reputation for being a very progressive nation, kind of like Iceland. I have a hard time believing Melania is really the submissive wife she appears to be.
posted by Dragonness at 8:58 AM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

Look at the news. The alt right is gaining strength, children are attacked because of their ethnicity, people are harassed because of their gender. Hammering on the dichotomy between Democrats and Republicans is irresponsible in this climate. I'm sure Hillary knows this. Yesterday with Pence people were clamoring for revolution. Things can get a lot worse from here. We need to stand together.

Every one of the outrages you describe is the result of Republican spewed hate. Yet, we're supposed to come to the aid of the reasonable republicans whose long-standing policies caused this shit. Fuck that. How about this for a deal. We will work with the republicans, but, in return, they must :

1. Pass a bipartisan Single Payer Health Plan for all Americans
2. Agree to repeal the Hyde Amendment
3. Increase the tax rate for the wealthiest top 5% of Americans by 50%
4. Pass a $00.01 per share per trade tax on all electronically traded stock transactions
5. Pass a comprehensive immigration bill that gives all immigrants, legal and illegal, a path towards citizenship

Pick 3.
Then we'll talk about "standing together." Otherwise, this is just more right-wing concern trolling.
posted by Chrischris at 8:58 AM on October 12, 2016 [51 favorites]

Possibly the only Downfall video I'm ever going to make in my life, but someone had to do it:

Donald Trump discovers he might lose to [Metafilter's adopted own] Evan McMullin in Utah
posted by garius at 8:58 AM on October 12, 2016 [79 favorites]

In Utah McMullin is the LDS candidate for president. He is potentially, Orrin Hatch's replacement for the senate a couple of years down the line. Everybody else got old, and they know it. McMullin is being groomed for relevance. Utahans are going to be told who to vote for, that is not Hillary in this election, after not Trump. That is how it is going down. I still think there are enough voters in western states, to dent this election. Who will Ryan choose if it comes down to it? Believe me the powers that be have been working on this for a good, long while.

There are a lot of Democrats in Utah, they have just given up. They came out of the woodwork at the caucases, and to register, so maybe Hillary will win in Utah.
posted by Oyéah at 8:58 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Absentee Voting Off to Bumpy Start in New York City

Whatever came of the investigation of the voting rolls purge in the NY state primary?
posted by msalt at 8:59 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

It’s absurd to label the GOP “a failed, evil endeavor” and then assume that people won’t think you’re including its first President in that indictment. It’s certainly worked fine for Republican candidates.

What are you getting at here?
posted by zutalors! at 8:59 AM on October 12, 2016

One thing that has really angered me about the coverage of the 2005 tape is what words get bleeped. I'm not advocating that all words should be censored or not, but I am bothered by the following disparity.

"Fuck" get bleeped, even though sex is a common human activity. "Pussy" gets bleeped, too, for some reason. Apparently words describing the genitals of many women is too much for sensitive ears.

"Bitch", however, almost never seemed to get bleeped, even though it's a specifically gendered, dehumanizing insult so often directed at women who will stand up to men.

What's up with that? I've been stewing about this for days.

Note: HFA's ad featuring these words does bleep "bitch".
posted by Excommunicated Cardinal at 9:00 AM on October 12, 2016 [19 favorites]

We don't have to save the republican party for there to be continued opposition in this country. I'd like to see something like either the Working Families party coalesce on the left and/or a rethought (less scorched earth) Libertarian party on the right. The apparatus of the GOP will take decades to crumble. But, unless there is a kind of internal clearing of house of Tea Party nuts (or a splinter right break into a Reform party lead by Trumpites), the GOP brand is doomed.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:00 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

The GOP survived Nixon. They can certainly survive Trump.
posted by math at 9:02 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

FYI, I put in ten bucks at Raul Barrera's campaign to send that rapist apologist Farenthold packing.
posted by Talez at 9:05 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

It's absurd to suggest the GOP as it exists today has anything to do with Lincoln.

No less absurd than it is to suggest that the GOP is "a failed, evil endeavour" that must be destroyed.

Political parties are comprised of people, who periodically make collective decisions about the goals of that party. At one time, the GOP valued things that today we would consider "progressive" - at another, their values lay elsewhere. But in all cases, it was the will of the individual people amongst the party itself that steered the course.

I agree with the notion that the current course of the GOP seems to be leading towards doom for the party, but the way to fix that is not to write off every blessed thing it's ever done, but rather to encourage members to mutiny and get some damn control back from the nutbars running the ship now.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:06 AM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

To paraphrase noted philosopher Rick Pitino:
"Abraham Lincoln is not walking through that door, fans. Teddy Roosevelt is not walking through that door, and Dwight Eisenhower is not walking through that door."
posted by Huffy Puffy at 9:07 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Donald Trump discovers he might lose to [Metafilter's adopted own] Evan McMullin in Utah

Holy shit, that's the funniest thing I've seen all week!

"Don't worry. Kelly took away his Android."

I laughed so hard the dogs ran into the room to see what was wrong.
posted by zakur at 9:07 AM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

@DLin71 Daniel Lin:
2015 GOP: Stop perverts from walking in on girls

2016 GOP: One of those perverts should be President
posted by chris24 at 9:07 AM on October 12, 2016 [131 favorites]

>It’s absurd to label the GOP “a failed, evil endeavor” and then assume that people won’t think you’re including its first President in that indictment. It’s certainly worked fine for Republican candidates.

I don't believe that any good-faith interpretation of language and history can draw a continuous ideological line between Abraham Lincoln and the modern Republican Party. Despite the chaff about Lincoln thrown up by the right, Lincoln has about as much to do with the comtemporary Republican Party as Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Aaron Burr have to do with the contemporary Democratic Party.

Would it be possible to focus on contemporary right wing thought rather than the brand name it operates under? And would it be possible to entertain the idea that some systems of reasoning are simply bad, as in tending to yield near-universal misery as a result?

Regardless of whether or not modern conservatism, the entity operating under the brand name "Republican Party" in America, is one of those bad systems, we must at least start from the position that it's possible for a widely held belief system to be no good — a source of problems rather than of solutions for problems.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:10 AM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

It's a shame that there's no way we'll ever know for sure, so I can't put a modest amount of money on the prop bet "Eric Trump has hunted humans for sport."
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:11 AM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Trump has a new ad out saying Clinton only cares about "power, money and herself."

Corruption

The projection is strong with this one. #TrumpsMirror
posted by chris24 at 9:12 AM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

The thing is, if you take out the racism, bigotry and misogyny, there will never be a plurality for the GOP policies. It's the same in most Western democracies: people want their health care and their social security, and they want billionaires to pay taxes. In the US, a majority wants stricter gun control, and we can see in that other thread, a majority of Brits want a soft Brexit. But 20-30% of any electorate will go with identity politics over their own interest and they can be manipulated with lies and drama.
Not only in the US, but across the globe, we are seeing now how dangerous that route is.
posted by mumimor at 9:13 AM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

It's a shame that there's no way we'll ever know for sure, so I can't put a modest amount of money on the prop bet "Eric Trump has hunted humans for sport."

Here I was thinking that picture of Trump Jr. holding up an elephant's tail sure has a lot of symbolism now.
posted by Talez at 9:13 AM on October 12, 2016 [30 favorites]

Yeah, but they aren"t "G" any more. We get it, we want it to be over for colonialism, skin tone privilege, money privilege, and the idea that might makes right, and the Golden Rule, "HE who has the gold, makes the rules." We don't want our planet destroyed, in the name of getting it together to get to another one. They need to regroup.

My Bubbarother is all worried about the fact he has absolutely no power, and that thought that he should have power because he three illusions that comfort him, the right genitalia, the right color, the right religion; is only shaky because he can't get enough money.

I have tried telling him that is a part of the bigger plan, that he is a wage and debt slave, but he feels good, because of the three comforting illusions. Instead he is sure he will war to prevent one world government, or some such straw problem that he more complimented by, than reality.
posted by Oyéah at 9:15 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Possibly the only Downfall video I'm ever going to make in my life, but someone had to do it:

LOLeriffic! You are the Michelangelo of Downfall videos, sir!
posted by octobersurprise at 9:16 AM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Can we get off the Party of Lincoln thing?

we're all john wilkes booth now.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 9:17 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

@TonyFratto
"The real test for GOP isn't repudiating Trump. Thats easy. It's having courage to repudiate Trump voters & appeal to a better constituency."

And this is why I think the Republican Party is doomed as a national party. Because there's no one with the courage and morals to do this and spend the time in the wilderness it would take to remake their constituency. Until they lose Texas for good they're going to keep trying to max out the white vote and minimize minority vote. And even once they lose Texas they may be content to control regionally and be a permanent minority party.
posted by chris24 at 9:19 AM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

I have very cordial relations with a lot of the Republican members. We can have really great conversations and arrive at a meeting of the minds on a range of policy issues, but if they think they’re going to lose seats or that they’re going to lose their own seat because the social media has declared that they sold out the Republican Party, then they won’t do it.

This was Obama's single biggest failing as President. He happily assumed the role of Charlie Brown, time, and time, and time, and time, and time, and time, and time, and time, again. He opened every negotiation with Republicans assuming they were acting in good faith. They never were, not even once. His opening offer, every time, was a compromise position that represented the minimum position that Democrats could accept, and he lost ground from there, every, single, time.

Let's hope Clinton was watching all of those times.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:19 AM on October 12, 2016 [61 favorites]

I feel like it's worth asking what a healthy/positive Republican party would even look like?

I think, at its most basic, deepest disagreement, from my perspective and I believe from theirs (and if I'm reading the Dems wrong, I apologize), the Republicans are the party that values the good things of the past more than the potential good things of the future, while the Democrats are the party that values the good things of the future more than the potential good things of the past.

Like others, I believe that both parties are deeply necessary - I think the Republicans need the Democrats to drag us kicking and screaming into the future, and I think the Democrats need the Republicans to say, "Hey, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater."

I think that the absolute highest priority for a healthy Republican party would have to start with a good understanding of things that are so deeply entrenched that the fight has been lost, and the ability to pick their battles.

For example, in one of the biggest ones, the fight has been lost for the pro-lifers on abortion. Even Republicans who genuinely, with their whole hearts, believe that abortion is murder and Roe v Wade was wrongly decided (This is, btw, not me), need to accept that there is no putting the genie back in the bottle. People for whom it's their most important priority need to start thinking of "How can we minimize abortions, without being asshats?" (*cough* funding birth control *cough*)

The Republican Party needs to hear criticisms from the other side, not automatically dismiss them, and offer solutions that fix problems.

So, for example, someone above mentioned Voter ID law, which is a useful example. The Democrats, correctly, point out that minorities tend to be disproportionately poor, and thus have less free time and transportation, which means they are less likely to have an ID and be able to vote, so it ends up as de facto disenfranchisement. The correct answer to this is not "I don't give a fuck", but "Okay, so how can we get everyone an ID? This is important to us, so how can we fund the process of getting an ID better? What are we willing to cut/tax to get this?"

(NB: I am aware that for some people, the disenfranchisement by race is a feature, not a bug. Those people will ideally be too busy burning in hell to have a part in this new party.)
posted by corb at 9:20 AM on October 12, 2016 [117 favorites]

It's a shame that there's no way we'll ever know for sure, so I can't put a modest amount of money on the prop bet "Eric Trump has hunted humans for sport."

please. their vital humors are necessary to his diet. what Eric does is subsistence hunting
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:21 AM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

At the point when it can't stop an openly fascist candidate, either from lack of will or statesmanship on the part of leaders or because it can't keep from inculcating and reinforcing attitudes that increase the tractability of its members but make them easy prey for fascist demagoguery, the Republican Party is a rotten and nonfunctional part of our political immune system.

It's seriously dangerous to have it as the lens for half the political force in the country. I do not at all get these comments that seem to be saying a couple of touch ups will make it good as new, as though it's a house being flipped or something.
posted by XMLicious at 9:22 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

And on anthropogenic climate change, and specifically the utterly discredited arguments about how just letting the free market deal with it will cost less in both economic and human costs, it's time for those Republicans to come around.

I'd he happy if Republicans simply abandoned their utter denial that a problem even exists and actually got behind a market-based solution, mainly cap and trade.

Return with us now to the thrilling days of yesteryear, when pollution was causing dangerous smog and acid rain. The conservative solution at the time was cap and trade -- a baseline level of pollution was established, and those who reduced their emissions by a lot could sell their right to pollute to others who did not do so well.

At the time, I thought it was a lot of Republican free-market hooey, but you know what? . It worked so well, in fact, that Democrats -- who tend to focus on desirable outcomes rather than ideological correctness -- adopted this policy to carbon dioxide. That the Republicans, once again, abandoned their own program in order to oppose Democrats is just further evidence that even the "reasonable" ones are not acting in good faith.
posted by Gelatin at 9:23 AM on October 12, 2016 [36 favorites]

If you're tired of the soft music and rolling hills in Clinton's previous ads, her new one is METAL! As in 80s hair metal. And it's devastating .

Oh my heck. So there's the replacement line "Final Meltdown", which they play with the caption and once during the O'Reilly interview. The replacement voice also sings in the background (in the style of the original phrases "leaving ground"/"to be found") the phrase "filthy mouth" when talking about McCain and salty language. But they leave the original phrase "Final Countdown" in once... immediately before the commentator calls Trump a "nuclear bomb". Score one for doing the little details right, digital team.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 9:23 AM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

I may have missed it but what is everyone's take on this Saudi and Qatar email thing from the Podesta files?
posted by JakeEXTREME at 9:25 AM on October 12, 2016

I’m one of the Central Park Five. Donald Trump won’t leave me alone.: In some ways, I feel like I’m on trial all over again. Like Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown, young men who were killed and then crucified in the media, I know what it is to be a young black man without a voice. Even though we were found innocent by a court of law, we are still guilty in the court of public opinion. That brings a certain kind of stress.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:26 AM on October 12, 2016 [52 favorites]

I may have missed it but what is everyone's take on this Saudi and Qatar email thing from the Podesta files?


I tuned out to the wikileaks/email thing after Podesta's risotto tips. If there were anything but more #nothingburgers, we'd already have heard it.
posted by mikelieman at 9:27 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

I can't tell if it's just my skewed perspective or if corb is actually for reals describing the Democratic Party in her description of a sane Republican Party.

I mean all of those things above are just Tim Kaine af, y'know?

How about we have an old-school Democratic-Republican party opposed on the right by a small white supremacist party (call them the Trump Rump) and on the left by some kinda NDP-style alliance of social democrats and democratic socialists? That sounds a hell of a lot more healthy than having two conservative parties, one of which tries to be social democratic sometimes and the other of which has a severe problem with fascist entryists.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:29 AM on October 12, 2016 [37 favorites]

I tuned out to the wikileaks/email thing after Podesta's risotto tips. If there were anything but more #nothingburgers, we'd already have heard it.

The one I've been dealing with is Hillary Clinton doesn't like 'Everyday Americans'. Indeed. She's right. As a phrase it sucks - and the email discussion was what phrase the campaign should use.
posted by Francis at 9:29 AM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Because there's no one with the courage and morals to do this and spend the time in the wilderness it would take to remake their constituency.

I'm not sure they have the technical capacity to "go into the wilderness", because the primary system. Repudiate Trumpism and you may lose a challenge to a Deplorable Basketeer, and that creates a vicious cycle in terms of fundraising and local party support. It's a kind of entryism that anyone familiar with the UK Labour Party will recognise.
posted by holgate at 9:30 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

She believes, like intelligence orgs and officials like Biden have said, that Saudi Arabis and Qatar have been helping Daesh.
posted by zombieflanders at 9:31 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

It’s absurd to label the GOP “a failed, evil endeavor” and then assume that people won’t think you’re including its first President in that indictment. It’s certainly worked fine for Republican candidates.

What are you getting at here?

I believe that You Can’t Tip A Buick captured my opinion, but I would add that labeling the GOP as evil opens up the window for people to deploy Lincoln to obscure matters. The Democrats and the Republicans have been and stood for many things, often at the same time (depending on where you live).
posted by Going To Maine at 9:31 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Holy shit, that's the funniest thing I've seen all week!
"Don't worry. Kelly took away his Android."
I laughed so hard the dogs ran into the room to see what was wrong.

Yes. I was laughing so hard Dad came to see if I was okay because he thought I was crying.
And this is how I learned when I laugh really hard it sounds like I'm crying.
posted by Jalliah at 9:32 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

localhuman: Yeah my cats can name a historical foreign leader they respect, Meow Zedong

This is as good a chance as I'll get to flog this t-shirt on the blue: Chairman Meow
posted by strange chain at 9:32 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

This was Obama's single biggest failing as President. He happily assumed the role of Charlie Brown, time, and time, and time, and time, and time, and time, and time, and time, again. He opened every negotiation with Republicans assuming they were acting in good faith.

The problem with advocating that he should have done something else, in my view, is that if you turn the Democrats into the mirror image of the Republican party in their negotiating behavior, you'd probably end up with the Dems less able to take advantage of appearing "high minded" during times like the present. And you're relying on significant electoral sweeps in the presidency and Congress in order to get anything done, when those kinds of outcomes are increasingly rare (2016 seems like an outlier).
posted by AndrewInDC at 9:34 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Regarding voting for the Greens, I just don't get it. Not only for the reasons mentioned above, but because I find it impossible to see Stein as a good choice for pretty much anything at this point and the Greens don't do much of anything in our political system except throw up candidates like her every four years then disappear. It seems more like voting for the name "Green" as if that alone was meaningful. I'd personally need to hear any sort of realistic defense of Stein and her foolishness this cycle to be able to even vaguely understand voting for the Greens right now, and even that would leave all the other points raised unanswered as to any real value in the decision.

They can't do much of anything because the Green Party is essentially treading water--they have to spend most of their effort just to stay on the ballots. The more votes they have, the more influence they will have. It has to start somewhere.

What foolishness are you referring to? I follow Stein on Twitter and she hasn't made a single tweet about vaccines, or WiFi, or anything that she's been smeared with, except maybe to link to Snopes articles debunking said smears. Mostly she criticizes Clinton and Trump, and expresses support for BLM and #NoDAPL and other environmental causes. I personally don't agree with her on everything, but I think it means a lot that she's willing to put herself at risk of getting arrested. I don't think any of the other candidates have said a word about the Dakota Pipeline--she actually went to North Dakota.

I'd be more sympathetic to the argument that a vote for Stein is a vote for public funding if there were any indication that that public funding wouldn't be spent solely on another Stein campaign in 2020, instead of on winnable local races.

Ok, but the Green Party has plenty of downballot candidates. Why's it reasonable to assume they're not spending any money on those campaigns?
posted by I'm Only Happy When It Rains On Your Wedding Day at 9:34 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Decided yesterday I want to go to the inauguration. Put my name on the list with my congresspeople for tickets and booked a hotel. Weeeeeeeeeeeee!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:35 AM on October 12, 2016 [50 favorites]

they think that Trump is going to come in and, what, send the military around to enforce his gross personal beliefs the second he's in office?
posted by Frowner at 11:11 AM on October 12 [5 favorites +] [!]

Why wouldn't they? That's certainly what I think.

*shivers in sudden, spiritual chill*
posted by invincible summer at 9:37 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

The very definition of the GOP is based on hatred and misinformation, which, in my personal case, is a direct threat to me and my family. I will not negotiate my humanity with such people. Their allegiance to the GOP as a brand is indefensible.

But the same could be said of the Dixiecrats in the 30s and 40s. FDR did what he could to pull the Dems to a progressive left, and he did a lot of good. But the compromises he had to make, specifically with Social Security and a lot of the WPA-type programs flew in the face of that Progressive push. Racism and hatred of non-whites was alive and well in Democratic Party. The Civil Rights Amendment, which faced a ton of Dem opposition, eventually pushed the party towards a more inclusive base and Johnson did a lot to make that happen. You could say that the only reason the Dems moved away from racist-ass policies is the push by a Dem President to make the CRA happen. After the stormclouds cleared, the only Dems that were left were ones who were less racist. Case in point, Strom Thurmond was a Democrat initially and left the party over the Civil Rights Act.

To paint a political party with such a broad brush and to say that they can't be redeemed is harsh and unrealistic. I'm sure if you stood on the floor of the Senate in 1876 and said that the first black president of this country would run as a Democrat and win, you'd be met with incredulous laughter at best and possible canings at worst.

It would take a very strong and committed set of leaders to identify the necessary steps to change and to put them in place. Many historians see Johnson's support of the CRA as one of the many reasons he didn't even win his party's nomination. I don't know if that kind of leadership is in existence for the Republicans, but if they can rebuild after this nightmare, there is a path.

For what it's worth, I'm what they call a yellow-dog Democrat, so unless the party does a major backflip and loses its mind, I'll be backing whatever D they throw at me.
posted by teleri025 at 9:38 AM on October 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

I would add that labeling the GOP as evil opens up the window for people to deploy Lincoln to obscure matters. The Democrats and the Republicans have been and stood for many things, often at the same time (depending on where you live).

And the Dodgers used to be from Brooklyn, but it was long ago and all the players, coaches, and owners have changed. Everything has changed but the name on the jersey.
In other words, The Republican Party is *not* the Party of Lincoln.
posted by rocket88 at 9:38 AM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

The thing I think is funny is that honestly I'm a conservative person in the sense that I am not keen on change for change's sake and I think it's probably best not to tear everything down without looking at why it was done that way so we can retain as much as possible. I think that fiscal responsibility is a fine idea and that an efficient government should work closely with the public to ensure that it is an accountable government.

But I also believe that all people are created equal, that equality of theoretical opportunity is not true equality, that taxes should be levied in proportion to the amount of service the government provides the taxed entity (which is really what progressive taxation does, quite frankly), that religion has no business dictating public policy, and that we spend a stupid amount of money on state violence and not enough on the people who live here.

A party which advocated for true fiscal responsibility and acted as a brake against too rapid political change is one that I wouldn't necessarily dismiss out of hand. But for my entire lifetime that party has not been the Republican party - it is the Democratic one.
posted by winna at 9:38 AM on October 12, 2016 [38 favorites]

Calling it here: There will be no reformed Republican Party. It will fester as a rump until it is killed off by the Democrats splitting into factions.
posted by whuppy at 9:38 AM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

If there's anyone here convinced that either McMullin or Stein are going to be president this time around, they are both currently at 2,000/1 at one bookmakers (i.e. bet £5 and win £10,000 - if your bet wins). Good luck!
posted by Wordshore at 9:38 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I’m one of the Central Park Five. Donald Trump won’t leave me alone

The other day, I heard an interview with one of their lawyers, telling about what they have been through in jail. It was horrifying. No one can give them their lives back. I hope they have loving families all around them.
posted by mumimor at 9:39 AM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

My dream Republican party would be one that was capable of looking at objective information, identifying the ways in which that information points to a problem, and then proposing courses of action that would solve (or reduce the impact of) the problem.

These seem like obvious and basic things for a political party to do. And yet, here we are.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 9:39 AM on October 12, 2016 [32 favorites]

Last night at trivia our team name was "When Trump wants that rump he takes you to the Dump" and I was shocked at the number of people who hadn't actually listened to Trump's access hollywood tape and had no knowledge of the Nancy O'Dell part.
posted by DynamiteToast at 9:40 AM on October 12, 2016

Republicans are the party that values the good things of the past more than the potential good things of the future, while the Democrats are the party that values the good things of the future more than the potential good things of the past.

Except they're really choosy about which parts of the past they want. "The past" includes the times when unions were the backbone of middle class upward mobility, with support across the ideological spectrum. It also includes the era when gun control at state and municipal levels was uncontroversial. It also includes the vast majority of the 20th century during which Keynesian economics, including stimulus spending / tax cuts during business cycle valleys and tax increases / spending cuts during business cycle peaks was understood to be in the nation's best interest.

But no, for quite some time, Republicans have absolutely not been the party of sticking to tradition. They've been the radicals. Maybe your description is targeted toward what you think the party ought to be, but it does not line up with how actual Republicans have governed over the last 40-plus years.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:41 AM on October 12, 2016 [70 favorites]

the Republicans are the party that values the good things of the past more than the potential good things of the future, while the Democrats are the party that values the good things of the future more than the potential good things of the past.

This feels entirely accurate to me. Particularly given the basic definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" that I was given in high school, which is that "liberal" basically means "driving toward change" while "conservative" means "minimizing change." Neither of those are inherently good or bad; everything depends on context.

That said, in the context of American politics, "minimizing change" usually equates to the ugly standards of inequality we've had all along in American history. A lot of Republicans recognize that in principle, but they don't like what the changes mean in practice...which to me sounds like a cheap dodge to avert a perceived loss of privilege, but I grant many don't see it that way.

The other fundamental split I tend to remember came from a poli sci professor. Both Republicans and Democrats value liberty, order, and equality. All three of these are important things. The difference is in prioritization: Democrats prioritize liberty and equality first, while Republicans prioritize liberty and order.

Again, it all gets down into the details and the alliances either party makes. Those core mindsets themselves aren't ugly; it's the individual details and policies that make it ugly. But that's when we get to the point where I have no sympathy for all the Republicans going down in flames right now, 'cause their details and policies sure don't line up with my idea of liberty or equality or even order. I want change, because things have been shitty for too many Americans (basically all the ones who don't look like me) for far, far too long.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:41 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Should probably add that by "problem," I mean things that are problems for Americans in general, not just the ones who fund election campaigns.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 9:41 AM on October 12, 2016

the Republicans are the party that values the good things of the past more than the potential good things of the future, while the Democrats are the party that values the good things of the future more than the potential good things of the past.

A bit of a devil you know situation for the conservative. That devil was really good to a narrow sliver of people. Not just based on race, but gender, economic class, religion, etc a lot of the good stuff wasn't available to everyone. I believe that there are conservatives who want the good things applied to everyone. But it's hard to separate out the conservatives who want the good things from the past applied to everyone from the narrow sliver who who just want to maintain their unfair advantage.

Unfortunately, the current incarnation of the GOP is run by the latter. And they're so committed to their cause that they can't compromise. This reduces the benefit of having a conservative party. I.e. instead of simply holding progressives in check, conservatives are actively pulling us backward. To a devil we know really really sucks.

A lot of people I know and respect are on the conservative side. They haven't really felt like the Republicans represented them in a while, and they are actively repulsed this time around.
posted by ghost phoneme at 9:43 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

The GOP survived Nixon. They can certainly survive Trump.

Suppose someone servived smallpox, and, years later, got cancer. Do you think the parallel argument "He survived smallpox, so he can survive cancer" would hold water?
posted by thelonius at 9:44 AM on October 12, 2016 [38 favorites]

For anybody who might have skimmed past it, the Hillarys for President link article is one of the best pieces of political writing I've read this election cycle. I don't agree with everything in it, but it's definitely smart, nuanced, and brings up stuff I didn't know before. I think it's also really clear-eyed about both Hillary Clinton and American politics.

Here's the intro:

One of the political parables about Hillary Clinton that’s kicking around the internet features Senator Elizabeth Warren talking about a bankruptcy bill. It all goes back to Hillary’s First Ladyhood. The way Warren tells it, she sat down with Clinton to explain how the bill would penalize, if not trap, single mothers dependent on child support. The point of the story is that Hillary absorbed the details in a matter of minutes, saw the big picture, and immediately understood the flaws. “I never had a smarter student,” Warren recalled. “Quick, right to the heart of it.” Hillary went back to the White House and, a little pillow talk later, Bill Clinton vetoed the bill.

The real takeaway of the story is to introduce you to a Hillary we all know—the smarty-pantsuit valedictorian and policy wonk who does the tedious homework, masters the footnotes, and gets an A+ for effort on the day’s big legislative assignment. This is the Hillary who wins honest praise from her worst enemies, men like Newt Gingrich or Lindsey Graham, because finessing an accommodating solution from the donkeywork of writing legislation is something Washington insiders admire—even if, in the bear pit of Fox News, trying to solve a problem through compromise is held out to be the problem.

Then, in the video where she tells this story, Warren adds a twist.

And there's a twist after that, and one following that, too. Thanks for posting the article, kirkaracha!
posted by joyceanmachine at 9:45 AM on October 12, 2016 [45 favorites]

I don't know how much clearer I can be that I'm discussing the GOP as it exists today, as the party that has nominated Trump

Odinsdream, I get that you're talking about the party of today. I was just pointing out that if we let history show us some things, we see that parties can be redeemed. The Democrats started the fucking Civil War. So they could own black people! They were traitors and totally unredeemable. And yet, the party evolved over centuries and became the home of the first black president.

I'm just saying it may not be until 2164 that we see a better Republican party, but it's not an impossibility.
posted by teleri025 at 9:46 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Here I was thinking that picture of Trump Jr. holding up an elephant's tail sure has a lot of symbolism now.

ok I repeat myself here but I honestly have no fucking idea how you can stand there like a malignant goon holding up a severed elephant tail for a photo op and not have the entirety of your inner dialogue for the rest of your natural life be "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE, I AM A MONSTER"

fuck Donald Trump and his garbage sons. what a fucking disgrace
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:47 AM on October 12, 2016 [91 favorites]

Suppose someone servived smallpox, and, years later, got cancer. Do you think the parallel argument "He survived smallpox, so he can survive cancer" would hold water?

It's almost as if facile analogies aren't worth much.
posted by Celsius1414 at 9:48 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

From What the Actual Fact with Desi Lydic on The Daily Show last night: "It's not even that the man lies -- it's more like he rejects the very idea that the point of language is to describe reality."
posted by numaner at 9:48 AM on October 12, 2016 [57 favorites]

the Republicans are the party that values the good things of the past more than the potential good things of the future, while the Democrats are the party that values the good things of the future more than the potential good things of the past.

This feels entirely accurate to me. Particularly given the basic definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" that I was given in high school, which is that "liberal" basically means "driving toward change" while "conservative" means "minimizing change." Neither of those are inherently good or bad; everything depends on context.

These back of the napkin platforms might be somewhat accurate in a textbook sense, but in reality, the Republican/conservative brand in America is not at all "conservative". The only thing they want to "conserve" is white supremacy, every other part of their agenda is deeply reactionary and radical. The want to eliminate progressive taxation, the estate tax and corporate taxes. They want to eliminate nearly every part of business regulation in every sphere from fincial disclosure to job safety. They want to repeal every part of the labor movement. They want to eliminate the entire safety net including Social Security and Medicare. Throw a dart at the globe, they want to bomb it. Wiping away 250 years of human progress is in no way, "conservative", it's wantonly regressive.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:48 AM on October 12, 2016 [35 favorites]

Speaking as a guy who lives in Texas, yes. It is a completely different state of mind.

It'd be nice to imagine that all of Trump's talk about how America is ruined is just campaign babble, but no, a great many Republicans actively believe it.

It's hard to describe this to people who haven't directly encountered it without sounding mean, or like I'm dismissing them as crazy or unreachable. And, I'll freely admit, my own personality probably makes it harder for people to hear this from me. I am an unapologetic ideologue, I'm strongly partisan, and despite my efforts to the contrary my asshole side comes out a lot.

So please believe me when I say that I'm not being partisan or dismissive of other ideologies here.

For a great many, maybe even most, Republicans certain things are axiomatic. These beliefs are not rooted in reality, they exist independent of reality. They are beliefs which are faith based rather than fact based, and therefore facts to the contrary simply don't register as reasons to question the axiom, but rather as an indicator that the person bringing up the fact is untrustworthy or malevolent, or at best simply ignorant or not part of the in group.

When Trump declares that America has open borders, that America is swarming with illegal immigrants, that the Obama administration is not fighting this but rather encouraging it, he isn't stating facts. He's signaling his membership in the in group. He's reasserting articles of faith. He's affirming that the axioms from which most Republicans draw their conclusions are valid.

Trying to counter this with facts is a futile effort because it's talking about the wrong thing.

It isn't about facts, it isn't about reality, it's about feelings, emotion, beliefs, faith.

Trying to talk about it from a fact standpoint is as futile and pointless as telling a person who believes that Jesus loves them that there isn't any evidence for God. Facts are simply not relevant to the discussion.

I have no idea how they can be reached, or if they can. People with these beliefs are my neighbors and coworkers, and I've found that the best strategy for surviving in an environment where Trump style thinking is prevalent is cowardice, I simply do not talk politics with them and if they try I retreat into mealymouthed platitudes and noncommittal vagaries.
posted by sotonohito at 9:50 AM on October 12, 2016 [53 favorites]

Getting back to the Rudy and the Donald's comments on Canadian health care last night, here are benchmarks for treatment and wait time trending across Canada from the Canadian Institute for Health Information. For some procedures, there's no data available, but it gives a bit of a picture. Quick infographic here.

There's also been a bit of coverage of his claims in Canadian media - Number of Canadians seeking health care abroad in 2015 drops over previous year:

1% of patients receiving specialist treatment went abroad, report says

The report does not break down the numbers to determine how many Canadians went to the U.S. for treatment, but just refers to those who have received treatment in another country.

The report focuses on 12 types of specialist treatments such as urology, neurosurgery and plastic surgery, but does not explain why Canadians chose to travel abroad — just that they did.

So they may have gone abroad for reasons other than wait times (e.g., a new or experimental procedure only available in another country), and not all of those people went to the U.S., either.

And out of those, it's not necessarily wealthy people opting for treatment elsewhere. OHIP, the single payer insurer in Ontario, for example, will (dependent on an approval process) cover expenses for out-of-country treatment if it is:

- either not performed in Ontario by an identical or equivalent procedure, or

- performed in Ontario but the insured person must receive the services outside Canada to avoid a delay that would result in death or medically significant irreversible tissue damage.

Note that the Fraser Institute, whose study is cited in the CBC story in the link, is a right-wing Canadian think tank that, among other things, advocates for more private involvement in health care delivery in Canada. IMHO, they're advocating a "two tier" system that would lead to the erosion of universality.

In any case, it's a right-of-centre source that contradicts Trump's claims about Canadian health care being a "catastrophe" prompting a mass exodus for treatment in the U.S.

It has its problems, sure, but everybody's covered.

To quote Steve Earle:

Yeah, I know, that sucks - that your HMO
Ain't doin' what you thought it would do
But everybody's gotta die sometime and we can't save everybody
It's the best that we can do
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:50 AM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

Huh. The president of the Iowa Federation of Republican Women just resigned because the group pledges to support the entire Republican ticket, and she says she can't do that this election.

Her full journey of how she got to this point was an interesting read, and also gives some clues/tactics on possibly swaying other Republican voters and activists uncomfortable with Trump.
posted by Wordshore at 9:54 AM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

Would it be possible to focus on contemporary right wing thought rather than the brand name it operates under? And would it be possible to entertain the idea that some systems of reasoning are simply bad, as in tending to yield near-universal misery as a result?

That's exactly what I'm advocating, to call it "contemporary right-wing thought" rather than "GOP".

To my mind, if you call the GOP "evil", that just makes moderate Republicans want to double-down and tell you to fuck off, but if you instead say that it is "contemporary right-wing leadership" that's evil, or whatever, that has a better chance of encouraging people like Corb to want to take the GOP back from the very evil people in question.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:56 AM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

This was Obama's single biggest failing as President. He happily assumed the role of Charlie Brown, time, and time, and time, and time, and time, and time, and time, and time, again. He opened every negotiation with Republicans assuming they were acting in good faith. They never were, not even once. His opening offer, every time, was a compromise position that represented the minimum position that Democrats could accept, and he lost ground from there, every, single, time.

I’m not a great negotiator, but as a general rule I understand that you tend to open negotiations knowing that you’ll eventually reach a compromise middle ground. If Obama opened negotiations with “the minimum position that Democrats could accept”, that doesn’t make him an optimistic reader of Republicans - it makes him a terrible negotiator in general.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:57 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

@Nate_Cohn: Why did Clinton surge in the LAT/USC poll today? One 19 year old black Trump supporter dropped out of the sample
posted by zombieflanders at 9:57 AM on October 12, 2016 [33 favorites]

This cracked article was already linked upthread, but it's really good.
posted by svenx at 10:00 AM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

There is nothing Democrats can do that will affect the Republican Party in any way. The moment they became a party defined by obstructionism, refusal to compromise, and demonizing the opposition party, they stopped being a party that could be worked with.

What happens to the party now is entirely in its own hands. If I were to guess, I would guess it will split or collapse -- it's happened before, like when the anti-immigrant wing of the whigs split off to join the Know-Nothings, or when the Federalist Party collapsed, which ended an era of intense political rivalry like we have now.

The Republican Party has had these fracture lines for a long time. They aren't a single party with a single cohesive political philosophy, but an unweildy collaboration of Plutocrats, single-issue voters, religious extremists, and fringe conspiracy theorists united by their hatred of Democrats.

The Republicans have controlled both houses for almost Obama's entire terms, and have done nothing meaningful with it except engage in endless obstructionism, because they aren't an actual party anymore, but a group of career politicans grasping at straws. Any one policy straw they grab is as likely to infuriate one group of constituents as it will satisfy another, and so they only straws they can safely grab are cheap mechanics for amassing political capital -- jerrymandering, shut downs, fillibusters, etc., all historically nuclear options which the party now threatens and deploys with increasing desperation and frequency.

It used to be a party with a mission. An actual mission, which we can glean from their accomplishments -- to siphon money from the poor to the rich. They were the plutocrat party, and they could placate the others with occasional, oh, anti-abortion bills that they know would go nowhere, or by blocking gun control legislation.

But their power grabs have repeatedly passed too much power on to constituencies they don't really care about, who can then make demands that must be respected. It's the Tea Party just now, and the alt right that followed, and these are anarchists who are just as happy to burn down the party as support it. So we're left with this desperate pandering, and with a candidate who doesn't pander but instead actually reflects the racist, conspiracy minded fury of this group. And they won't just split, they might collapse the party.

And what can the Repubs do? Break off and become the party of Plutocrats again? That never had popular support. Embrace the racists? That's not likely to work in a world where whites will soon be in the minority.

And I don't care, because I never liked the party of Plutocrats, I never liked the way they exploited social fault lines with placating promises as a way of gimmicking support, and I don't like the fact that they have a history of being on a nodding relationship with fascism.

Let them stew in this. They made the problem. It's not the job of Democrats to fix it.
posted by maxsparber at 10:01 AM on October 12, 2016 [66 favorites]

@Nate_Cohn: Why did Clinton surge in the LAT/USC poll today? One 19 year old black Trump supporter dropped out of the sample

My headcannon is that this guy is actually a BLM activist fucking with people. "Ooooh, I'm tooooooootally going to vote for Trump, absolutely, Chad!"
posted by Frowner at 10:02 AM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Odinsdream, I get that you're talking about the party of today. I was just pointing out that if we let history show us some things, we see that parties can be redeemed.

The Free Silver Party will rise like the phoenix any day now, I'm tellin' ya. Dumbass Republicans, thinking gold will get them anywhere.
posted by XMLicious at 10:02 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

AHHHHHHHhhh I just early voted (Indiana). No different than every other time, but it was weirdly cathartic to know that I was able to actually, really fill out my ballot in the most troubling election of my lifetime. A lot of our downticket stuff was really important too (school levy and fuck you, Eric Holcomb and Trey Hollingsworth—and oh, Todd Young? Fuck you the most).

When I told my co-workers I voted, one of them said, "I dunno, early voting kind of makes me nervous." I told her, "You know what makes me nervous? TRUMP SUPPORTERS ON ELECTION DAY."
posted by Rykey at 10:03 AM on October 12, 2016 [40 favorites]

Just listen to right-wing media for a bit and they do a pretty effective job of quite purposefully painting themselves as radicals. It's part of the whole macho schtick. Ooooh look at us! We're so DANGEROUS! We're broadcasting from a SECRET BUNKER because if anyone knew where we were, we'd be LOCKED UP for being SUCH THREATS to the status quo!!!

It drives me bonkers even beyond just the "I hate every idea you people are expressing right now." I can barely listen to the Radio Free GOP podcast (which is very much #nevertrump and frequently pretty interesting) because it takes it's style cues from right wing talk radio and the pose of "I'm a DANGEROUS REBEL DROPPING TRUTH BOMBS ON THE MAN! So you can see who the real VICTIM OF THE SYSTEM is here [spoiler alert: it's me]." Sit the hell down, you're a pasty white man talking for hours into a microphone. Quit wanking to the idea of being a political prisoner.
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:04 AM on October 12, 2016 [24 favorites]

LAT: I have a great idea. Let's make a poll. A crazy poll. Totally different from everybody else's

USC: I like this already

LAT: We'll poll the same people every week

USC: Perfect

LAT: And they'll be quirky people

USC: I was just gonna say that

LAT: Like, we'll have a 19 year old black Republican

USC: Solid gold

LAT: Jill Stein. Let's put actual Jill Stein in our sample group

USC: Can one of our sample voters be a twenty-sided dice that we roll to see who it supports

LAT: Fucking yes

USC: This is going to be awesome
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:05 AM on October 12, 2016 [137 favorites]

I have no idea how they can be reached, or if they can.

Nope. We just all turn out to vote, and their 27% will be just that. The complement to Hillary Clinton's 73%

The Keyes Constant cohort as you pointed out, vote from axiomatic faith, ( and not in spiritual values terms generally )
posted by mikelieman at 10:06 AM on October 12, 2016

We're so DANGEROUS! We're broadcasting from a SECRET BUNKER because if anyone knew where we were, we'd be LOCKED UP for being SUCH THREATS to the status quo!

The Wikileaks non-announcement on Alex Jones featured Julian Assange from "an undisclosed location" and I wanted to scream "everyone knows where you are! I'm surer of where you are than of where basically anyone I can't see with my eyes is"
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:06 AM on October 12, 2016 [38 favorites]

Ooooh look at us! We're so DANGEROUS! We're broadcasting from a SECRET BUNKER because if anyone knew where we were, we'd be LOCKED UP for being SUCH THREATS to the status quo!!!

this reminds me of nothing so much as kids' cereal or candy ads that posit themselves as being far too extreme for adults to handle
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:07 AM on October 12, 2016 [31 favorites]

Ok, but the Green Party has plenty of downballot candidates.

On that page, seven of 12 are running for US Senate, US House or Governor, i.e. not actually winnable. Three are running in local races that make sense for a Green Party actually serious about getting people elected.

Why's it reasonable to assume they're not spending any money on those campaigns?

Jill Stein's campaign has $2.8m in total receipts, of which $22,300 has been transferred to state GP committees, while half a million was spent on a TV ad buy.

Robin Laverne Wilson, running for the NY Senate seat, has reported $0 in receipts and expenses, and is currently in the FEC naughty corner for not filing proper paperwork. Margaret Flowers has actually received $36k in donations; $20k+ of campaign spending has gone to the chair of the Baltimore Green Party as a campaign management fee. That's just the two candidates at the top of the list.

This is not what a serious grassroots challenge to the political establishment looks like.
posted by holgate at 10:07 AM on October 12, 2016 [55 favorites]

this reminds me of nothing so much as kids' cereal or candy ads that posit themselves as being far too extreme for adults to handle

See also: commercials for cars and trucks that make it seem like the vehicle is actually going to try to kill you. CAN YOU HANDLE THE POWER OF THIS ENGINE WITHOUT DYING IN A FIERY WRECK ON THE SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY???????
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:09 AM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

I voted early today, something I have never done in a general election before. It just seemed too important to wait.

I walked a few blocks from work to the Hamilton County Board of Elections in downtown Cincinnati and it was like a party down there, y'all. The Hillary supporters were basically running up and down the sidewalk clapping and smiling and high-fiving anyone who would join in. It was infectious enthusiasm and I was able to grab a couple signs so I wouldn't have to stop at headquarters on the way home (I need to put some at the entrance to our neighborhood).

However, the Trump supporters who were there seriously looked embarrassed to be there. They weren't holding their signs up, they weren't making eye contact, and a handful of them left while I was inside, leaving only two of them there to hold down the fort. They didn't even have any sample ballots to hand out! They didn't have any extra signs to give away!

I overheard two Board of Elections staff saying that they've never, ever seen it as busy as it was on the first day of early voting. That's good. Historically, that means that the Democratic base is getting out and when the Democratic base shows up, the Democrats win.

I'm with her! LET'S DO THIS!!!!!
posted by cooker girl at 10:10 AM on October 12, 2016 [96 favorites]

The Free Silver Party will rise like the phoenix any day now, I'm tellin' ya.

I'm hoping for the return of the Bull Moose party, personally.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:10 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

The way to appeal to Republicans is to clearly articulate a beneficial vision for the future, do the work of gaining the consensus of the voters, and work hard to get versions of this vision enacted at local, state and federal levels. Also make it clear how the work has benefitted people. Then repeat.

Everything else is bullshit.
posted by argybarg at 10:10 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

My headcannon is that this guy is actually a BLM activist fucking with people.

One of my main head-scratchers with the LA Times tracker is how gameable it is, especially as it's become the polling crutch for Trump and the Trumpkins. If you're part of the sampled group and you know more or less how it works, you can fuck with it.
posted by holgate at 10:11 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Since I inadvertently kicked off the "whither the Republicans" debate, let me clarify that I do not advocate:

a. giving in on any Democratic principles to "assist" with unity or;
b. that doing this work is the job of the Democratic party.

As with any kind of therapy or growth, true change can't be imposed from outside. It's possible the party is simply too fragile to change, which means it will fracture; it's possible a group inside the party will find some worthwhile principles (that voters respond to) and take it back. My interest, as an American, is in the question "so long as we have two parties, what should they look like?" and apparently we don't know.

I think what's really interesting (sad) about both party stances is that at least since the Civil War, each party has taken its turn being the White Supremacy Party. First Democrats, now Republicans. I think that description has in some way taken over the party system entirely, so that now it's very hard to imagine white supremacy as something that's simply rejected in political discourse.
posted by emjaybee at 10:11 AM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

It has been a while since I've heard the label "tax-and-spend" being widely used to identify Democrats, but since it was one of the first identifying political traits I learned in my junior high education, it has stuck, and still bubbles to mind from time to time. At the time, I accepted the perjorative nature of the label, and would mock the archetype of the foolish and wasteful Washington fat cat with his hand in the piggy bank. At that time, it made sense to me that Republicans just wanted everybody to slow down, take a deep breath and save a few dollars for a rainy day. The framing made perfect sense to a kid whose main goal was to collect enough babysitting dollars for some record albums.

And the framing still makes sense if you exclude from your mental model the Iraq War, the Bush tax cuts, the cost of the Trump Wall, and I don't suppose I have to go on. Yet for millions of Americans, the myth persists that Republicans are fiscally responsible and Democrats aren't. I don't suppose I will ever in my life vote for a Republican again, except perhaps for the odd local seat if the Dem contender is just ridiculous, which happens, or if we ever see the Democratic analogue of Trump, which my poor brain just cannot even.

I miss the days, though, when we at least ostensibly had two parties that could keep each other in check and rein in excesses. That's the way our system is supposed to work. I'm shedding zero tears over the bifurcation of the Republican iceberg, but I don't think most of us know how this machine is supposed to work now. I'm not fearful or cynical about it, but I do hope that smarter minds are working over the ramifications of this new model.
posted by vverse23 at 10:11 AM on October 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

zombieflanders: @Nate_Cohn: Why did Clinton surge in the LAT/USC poll today? One 19 year old black Trump supporter dropped out of the sample

Direct link to NY Times article

There is a 19-year-old black man in Illinois who has no idea of the role he is playing in this election.

He is sure he is going to vote for Donald J. Trump.

And he has been held up as proof by conservatives — including outlets like Breitbart News and The New York Post — that Mr. Trump is excelling among black voters. He has even played a modest role in shifting entire polling aggregates, like the Real Clear Politics average, toward Mr. Trump.

How? He’s a panelist on the U.S.C. Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Daybreak poll, which has emerged as the biggest polling outlier of the presidential campaign. Despite falling behind by double digits in some national surveys, Mr. Trump has generally led in the U.S.C./LAT poll. He held the lead for a full month until Wednesday, when Hillary Clinton took a nominal lead.

Our Trump-supporting friend in Illinois is a surprisingly big part of the reason. In some polls, he’s weighted as much as 30 times more than the average respondent, and as much as 300 times more than the least-weighted respondent.

posted by filthy light thief at 10:13 AM on October 12, 2016 [52 favorites]

This is not what a serious grassroots challenge to the political establishment looks like.

I'm not really sure what a serious grassroots challenge would look like anymore - the amounts of money required point either to a relative few millionaire and billionaire donors (which isn't grassroots), or an extremely large group of lower/middle/upper class donors (which are mostly declared Red or Blue already).

I can see grassroots change within the political establishment, but not outside it.
posted by Mooski at 10:13 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

In re the Greens: Minnesota has had a few Greens in office - a mayor and some city council people.

One of our city council people, Dean Zimmerman (from my neighborhood; I used to see him around all the time) was indicted in 2006 on corruption charges and went to jail for 2.5 years.

Another, Cam Gordon, absolutely knifed local activists on police brutality issues in the wake of RNC 2008, and I hold this seriously against him since I went to the fucking City Council meeting holding a sign in support of his proposal, only to find that he had changed it dramatically from what he'd told us before.

The mayor of Cass Lake, Elaine Fleming, seems perfectly cromulent and seems to come to being a Green from an indigenous rights/environmentalist perspective.

But my personal experience with Greens locally has been pretty crummy. I have not been especially impressed with most of the organizing I've seen them do on other issues, either, which is disappointing. IME of being organized by them, so to speak, they are not good at reaching people outside the seriously-hippie demographic, even to the point where they have trouble with punks and other left subcultures.
posted by Frowner at 10:15 AM on October 12, 2016 [20 favorites]

And I only just realised that Egg's running mate is Mindy Finn for an actual McMuFinn ticket.
posted by holgate at 10:16 AM on October 12, 2016 [109 favorites]

Zorak: Ugh! You bloody fool!

Space Ghost: Sore loser!

Zorak: British imperialist swine!

Space Ghost: Tax and spend Democrat!

Zorak: Jive turkey!

Space Ghost: Big baby! Baby mantis!
posted by Existential Dread at 10:16 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

this reminds me of nothing so much as kids' cereal or candy ads that posit themselves as being far too extreme for adults to handle

Extreme cereal. Extreme cereal. I'm saying, extreme cereal.

TRUMP™ PLATINUM GRAHAMS™. BECAUSE FOR ONCE, GOLDEN WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH.
posted by XMLicious at 10:17 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Whelp, starting out today with a full rage bar after reading that an elector in my home state of Washington says he might reject Clinton and just pay the fine for being a faithless elector. I can't even with this sanctimonious shit. This jackass has embarrassed me as a Washingtonian already by taking part in that Buster Press Tent Tantrum at the DNC and I can't believe I have to trust him to represent me as an elector.

Is there any way for a citizen to challenge an elector or petition for their replacement this close to the vote?
posted by EatTheWeek at 10:17 AM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

Also, everybody really liked Dean Zimmerman. No one wanted to believe it when he was indicted and everyone wanted to believe it was a set-up, but as events unfolded, it sure looks like he was on the take. It was a huge, huge betrayal of a lot of very sincere, well-meaning people. Not that this is unique to the Greens at all, but it didn't make people think that the Greens were better than, say, an honest, left-leaning DFLer.
posted by Frowner at 10:17 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

No less absurd than it is to suggest that the GOP is 'a failed, evil endeavour' that must be destroyed.

Every Republican administration since Nixon (except maybe Ford) has been actively criminal. During Watergate Nixon committed obstruction of justice and had the head of the FBI destroy evidence. During Iran–Contra Reagan and George H.W. Bush illegally sold weapons to Iran to illegally fund the Contras. George W. Bush lied us into invading Iraq in violation of US and international law. Each of these guys should have been impeached and removed from office for abusing the office of the president.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:18 AM on October 12, 2016 [30 favorites]

> My interest, as an American, is in the question "so long as we have two parties, what should they look like?" and apparently we don't know.

Are we talking about long term, beyond the next 20 years or so? Then the chances are we end up with a left wing party that is in favor of liberal projects based on higher tax revenue, and a right wing party that is focused on lower taxes and conservative (literally, not "Conservative") ideas.

The current Democratic party will form the bulk of the right wing, along with sane members of the current Republicans. The Bernie wing of the Democrats will form the left wing party, along with the non-feckless Greens.

Then there'll be the noisy nationalistic white-pride far right rump, and possibly a further left Greens and Socialists wing.

But this is all in the long run - and as we all know, in the long run...
posted by RedOrGreen at 10:18 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

> His opening offer, every time, was a compromise position that represented the minimum position that Democrats could accept, and he lost ground from there, every, single, time.

He would have lost ground no matter what. The Republicans in the House and Senate were entirely upfront about the fact that they were going to obstruct his every move no matter what, because that was their only goal.
posted by rtha at 10:19 AM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

And I only just realised that Egg's running mate is Mindy Finn for an actual McMuFinn ticket

Can we call her "Dunk"?
posted by Slothrup at 10:20 AM on October 12, 2016 [19 favorites]

The other issue with changing the Republican Party is that the party itself doesn't control all that much. The power rests with an overlapping collection of lobbying groups, "think tanks," talk-radio hosts, and Fox News. They're the ones who are ginning up primaries and primary threats that are crazifying the base.

I don't know how the party can change course without getting a new base. I can't see any way for that to happen in the short term. And I don't see any of these groups looking to moderate over the long term.
posted by PlusDistance at 10:21 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

“I have to either step down from being this thing I was elected to be or I’ve got to step down from being myself,” he said. “That’s the teeter totter I’m on.”

As a Washington resident, how do I help him make the right choice here?
posted by Slothrup at 10:22 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

So the Trump 28th mixup is asking to be made a 30 second ad.

*Clip of Trump saying go out and Vote Nov 28th*

"The date is Nov 8th, Donald. The 28th is when your trial for fraud with Trump University starts. A President should be able to keep the people in mind, and not their own priorities"
posted by mrzarquon at 10:23 AM on October 12, 2016 [19 favorites]

Egg, I dreamed that we won Utah.
posted by asteria at 10:24 AM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

Maybe contact WA Secretary of State Kim Wyman:

48 states, including Washington, use a “winner-take-all” system; the presidential ticket that receives the most votes in the state are entitled to all of Washington’s electoral votes. The nominees for President and Vice President that receive the most votes in Washington’s 2016 General Election will receive all 12 of Washington's electoral votes and that presidential ticket will send 12 electors to Olympia on December 19th to cast their votes for the nominees.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:24 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

I mean, it doesn't seem like a conundrum at all to me. He was elected to carry out the will of the people of Washington State. If the people's will is that Hillary Clinton gets Washington's electoral votes, it has nothing whatsoever to do with his personal choice.
posted by cooker girl at 10:24 AM on October 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

queenofbithynia: "[Michelle Obama] deserves more respect than this, as do all the women who have run for high political office in this country, which you can in fact do no matter who your husband is."

Indeed, and I think the next major hurdle for our country will be whether we let a woman get within striking distance of the White House without getting a man to “vouch” for her.

Hillary is supremely qualified for this job, and it bothers me that if her husband had not been president, she would not have had so much time to let America get to know her. Leaving out vice-presidential picks for now — because they're impossible to divorce from electoral strategy — we seem to be awful at pipelining intelligent women into positions of power that have traditionally been stepping stones to the presidency — senator, governor of a big state, or a major cabinet position. And the ones who do get into those positions are parliamentarians like Nancy Pelosi or technocrats like Madeleine Albright.

So I fear that, much like the problems in the STEM pipeline, we are unconsciously guiding our best women away from podiums and toward supporting roles. I hope that Hillary's superhuman ability to shrug off bullshit gendered abuse will make her a sort of Jackie Robinson figure so that the gauntlet itself can be navigated more easily next time around.
posted by savetheclocktower at 10:26 AM on October 12, 2016 [25 favorites]

As a Washington resident, how do I help him make the right choice here?

Well, this is what HRC was talking about with public and private points-of-view.

This person's PRIVATE belief is that there isn't a heck of a lot of difference between Clinton and Trump.

This person's PUBLIC DUTY is to cast their vote for the person their constituents nominated. elected.

Remind them that they need to put their private feelings aside and do their public duty, or resign.
posted by mikelieman at 10:26 AM on October 12, 2016 [18 favorites]

A political historian explains why Trump’s tape could destroy the GOP A short article including a nice narrative of how the Republican Party has changed, and why.
posted by Peach at 10:26 AM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

This is not what a serious grassroots challenge to the political establishment looks like.

But that's almost exactly what Trump's campaign looks like and... oh... I see now.
posted by Talez at 10:26 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

As a Washington resident, how do I help him make the right choice here?

As a fellow Washington resident: You don't. I believe him when he says that any attempts to persuade him will only make him dig in harder. You're dealing with a very childish mindset, one that says the world is me-shaped. Nothing any of us can do about that.
posted by argybarg at 10:27 AM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

It has been a while since I've heard the label "tax-and-spend" being widely used to identify Democrats, but since it was one of the first identifying political traits I learned in my junior high education, it has stuck, and still bubbles to mind from time to time.

My response to this was always "as opposed to 'don't tax but still spend' GWB?"
posted by Groundhog Week at 10:27 AM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

No less absurd than it is to suggest that the GOP is “a failed, evil endeavour” that must be destroyed.

Every Republican administration since Nixon (except maybe Ford) has been actively criminal.

If you wish to say that the “Post-Southern-Strategy GOP” has been an “evil endeavor” (certainly not failed, given its widespread success) it would be more difficult to have a beef here.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:28 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Todd S. Purdum at Politico (Magazine): “The Man Behind the Tapes That Could Sink the Donald”
posted by Going To Maine at 10:31 AM on October 12, 2016

"Liberals will need to hold Clinton accountable for some of her centrist tendencies if she's elected...."

Do you mean after the election? Clearly you fail to grasp the dynamics of our system. Unless you are talking about the next election cycle. Sorry, I don't mean to dwell in snark but the word accountable made me spit up some coffee.

meanwhile, back in the jingo.
posted by mule98J at 10:31 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Indeed, and I think the next major hurdle for our country will be whether we let a woman get within striking distance of the White House without getting a man to “vouch” for her.

I think that if Liz Warren had made a bid for the job she'd have gotten within striking distance. We need more Elizabeth Warrens.
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:31 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Anecdotally: My friend in Utah, a Mormon, is pretty disgusted with the whole thing. There is no way she would ever vote for Clinton (I suspect any support of abortion whatsoever is the deal), but she can't vote for Trump. She thinks Utah is going third party.
posted by Peach at 10:32 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

This cracked article was already linked upthread, but it's really good.

Ha! That county election results map gives me the warm fuzzies because one of the exceptions to the country v city rule is a little sea of blue in Northeast South Dakota where my extended family is from. Marshall, Day and Roberts counties in SD, Sargent and Ransom in ND, Traverse in MN - combined total population of like 30k and change, all old family farms and agribusiness, and voting blue. The difference? Deep, old Farmers Union ties and values. There are models of rural culture in America that don't conform to the stereotypes, and some of them are AWESOME.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:32 AM on October 12, 2016 [32 favorites]

Previously on NSAID's political journey as a Pentecostal


As I mentioned before, since the beginning I certainly was not going to vote for Trump, but here's some of the literature that articulate some of the reasons why I'm voting for Hillary.

• Charlie Sykes’ Air War - I grew up hearing Charlie on the radio, so knowing that other conservatives weren't enamored with Trump was really great. This article includes mention of his ex-wife being a potential nominee to the Supreme Court, and that even that isn't a good enough reason to vote for Trump.

  Sykes says he’s “very close” to his ex-wife. “She would be absolutely fantastic for the court,” he says. “That would be an outstanding choice.” There’s just one problem. “I don’t trust [Trump] that he will appoint the people he says. I don’t believe the promises he’s making aren’t negotiable. He’s backed off virtually everything.”

• Op-Ed: Filling Supreme Court vacancies isn't a good enough reason to vote for Trump - Written by two conservative law professors.

  But the Supreme Court is not enough. Our nation confronts a revanchist Russia; a bellicose, expansionist China; terrorism in Europe; and civil war in the Middle East — in short, a world reeling at the edge of chaos. The president's first responsibilities are to maintain national security, advance our national interests in foreign affairs and provide direction for the military.

• Save the Republican Party: Vote for Clinton - written by James K. Glassman, director of the George W. Bush Institute.

  Unfortunately, the Trump campaign has already cost the Republican Party its credibility. Out of some twisted notion of loyalty, party leaders previously seen as devoted to conservative ideals and policy are now viewed widely as unprincipled cynics. And they deserve to be. How do you recover from that?

• Clinton Karma - written by someone by the name of Chris Ladd, formerly running his blog with the domain GOPlifer.com and now at PoliticalOrphans.com. He's had a bit journey this election season.

  After years of loathing, I am about to cast a vote to send a Clinton to the White House. Not only will I be voting for Hillary Clinton, I will do it in gratitude for her leadership. A Clinton is now all that stands between the country I love and a dangerous megalomaniac nominated by my former partisans. I am counting on Hillary Clinton to save us all. [He then goes on to list the great, um, "family values" of Gingrich, Foley, and other Republicans.]

• Four Issues to Consider Before You Support Trump – What is Really at Stake - written by Samuel Whitefield, who is on the leadership team at the International House of Prayer. Long article, lots of citations. There's some specific prophetic and eschatological ideals here that may not quite match up with all Evangelicals/Protestants, but I don't think it's anything that would cause people to completely write off the entire article. Certainly no more than the length would.

  I have no doubt that Trump would pray a prayer if he thought it would give him support on the campaign trail, however Jesus was clear that we are to evaluate men by their fruit. Until there is a genuine, public brokenness backed up by a radical change in demeanor, a commitment to repair past wrongs, and real fruit to demonstrate the truth of the commitment we should ignore any claims of an election conversion. That is one of many political tricks that have been repeatedly used on the church. It is time for our gullibility to stop. We have to be honest and ask if we sometimes are so enamored with powerful men that we want some proof that they are Christians even when their behavior is the exact opposite so that we can enjoy access to their power. [...] We enjoy the awesome privilege of voting, a privilege the vast majority of humanity has never had and something the biblical authors could never imagine. We should engage in every area of society, including politics, but we should look to [the prophet] Daniel as our example. Daniel was an influence in government and politics but he never put his hope in it and was therefore able to be a prophetic voice. He never confused Babylon with Zion and that’s why Daniel was just as able to serve as easily under Babylon as under Persia. We should be equally able to be a prophetic voice to the Republicans and to the Democrats. Becoming the slave of either for the sake of a little political influence will cause us to abdicate our higher calling to be a true light in a dark culture.

• I'm pro-life. And I'm voting for Hillary. Here's why. - written by Shannon Dingle speaker and writer. I'd never heard of her, but it seems like she might have some name recognition in certain circles. Also long, but an article I really like.

  Well, nothing [has changed] in my stance toward abortion. I’m still opposed to it. But since Roe v. Wade, most Republicans have talked a lot about abortion while doing little to make meaningful change in that area of policy. Furthermore, they’ve opposed or even stalled measures that could prevent abortions by targeting the underlying causes, like poverty, education, lack of access to healthcare, and supports for single parent and low-income families. In fact, I suspect these reasons contribute to why abortion rates rose under Reagan, rose under the first Bush, dropped under Clinton, held steady under the second Bush, and have been dropping under Obama. As such, I’m not sure we can hold that voting Republican is the best thing for abortion rates in this country. [article goes on to talk about Hillary's work with the Children’s Defense Fund, starting the first rape crisis hotline in Arkansas, and other "pro-life-after-birth" ideas.]

I made mention of who wrote each article because that was important to me - I try to be careful about who I allow to give input to my life. If you share these articles, the minor appeal to authority may result in the author just being labeled a RINO, but so it goes.

Speaking of RINOs, that's probably exactly what I am right now (I'm fine with taxes, I don't want the CFPB shut down to reduce the size of the government, I'm really really not convinced legislating morality is gonna help anyone, etc), but at this point I'm really starting to question people who are "voting their conscience" and going with Trump. In fact, I've been a little annoyed over the fact that I can't even pray about who I should vote for. Like, I'm not going to ask God if I should go punch someone in the face, you know? Likewise, I get really uncomfortable with the idea of asking God if I should vote for Trump. I can't do it without laughing. So yeah, I guess I'm a RINO at best.

I'm also following my vote for Hillary with my down ticket votes. Besides the presidential race, my ballot only has two other races where a non-Democrat is an option, but I'm pretty fed up with the party as a whole being shocked, shocked! to find out Trump said naughty things on a hot mic.

On Facebook I'm seeing a lot of people start calling out Trump on things, especially since the tape released. This has especially been women who previously haven't (to my knowledge) care much about politics, but have seen that Trump is really too much. It's a really nice feeling knowing that I'm not alone in that, though I'm being a little cautious in how enthusiastically I talk about certain candidates on social media. Some things I just need to ease into with face-to-face conversations.

FWIW, I think this election has really made the idea of the Christian left much more palatable to people. Some people are stuck on "Jail Hillary" (and oh boy, I have thoughts on those people, who for all their talk can't seem to read an FBI press release), but for people who aren't, I think talking about God's love and what that looks like really starts making a good argument for voting Democratic. But that's probably a whole different novel length post, and is pretty well represented by the Shannon Dingle article I linked to.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 10:33 AM on October 12, 2016 [95 favorites]

Maybe contact WA Secretary of State Kim Wyman:

Thank you. They directed me to the state Democratic Party. Placing a call now.
posted by EatTheWeek at 10:33 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

I keep saying Elizabeth Warren is too smart to run. She would end up at best a one-termer liked Jimmy Carter, because she would find it too difficult to compromise. You need someone who is a career politician and is able to swim with the snakes.
posted by Peach at 10:34 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

PSA: I just verified my registration right now ( NYSVoter Public Information - Voter Registration Search ) to ensure I can vote for Hillary.
posted by mikelieman at 10:35 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Ohio Trump sign distribution point - keeping it erm classy.
posted by Wordshore at 10:35 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I keep saying Elizabeth Warren is too smart to run

She is going to kick so much ass as Secretary of the Treasury.
posted by mikelieman at 10:36 AM on October 12, 2016 [27 favorites]

Ohio Trump sign distribution point - keeping it erm classy.

Some of the other photos are just as classic. Like the Trump volunteer photo being entirely white. Or the "Trump Train" being a boat.
posted by Talez at 10:37 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

“I have to either step down from being this thing I was elected to be or I’ve got to step down from being myself,” he said. “That’s the teeter totter I’m on.”

As a Washington resident, how do I help him make the right choice here?

There's a real similarity between this situation and that of Kim Davis. Your conscience or your public duty? If he can't bring himself to cast his vote for the people's choice then he should resign and let someone else do it.
posted by rocket88 at 10:38 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Some people seem to appear slightly excited about early voting in Ohio.
posted by Talez at 10:39 AM on October 12, 2016 [48 favorites]

Are we back to putting Elizabeth Warren in jobs she doesn't want? Why this need to promote everyone we like to a "higher" position, despite their preference and where they can be effective?
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:41 AM on October 12, 2016 [38 favorites]

But no, for quite some time, Republicans have absolutely not been the party of sticking to tradition. They've been the radicals. Maybe your description is targeted toward what you think the party ought to be, but it does not line up with how actual Republicans have governed over the last 40-plus years.

Why consider that just because something's been around for 40 years it's set in stone? Took the French 35 years to get another king on the throne after their first revolution. Does that make the Bourbon restoration radical?

I'm being a bit flip, but I do think that's the crux, here. Grover Norquist style traditional limited government fiscal conservatism would mean going back to something pre-New Deal, in terms of the federal government's structure. That's really the dream.

But the thing is, it's not really a majority position. or, as maxsparber put it, a lot more succinctly than me:

And what can the Repubs do? Break off and become the party of Plutocrats again? That never had popular support. Embrace the racists? That's not likely to work in a world where whites will soon be in the minority.

I don't know where they do from here, either. A straight low-tax, limited-government, non-outright-bigoted party already exists and it's the Libertairans and best case scenario is like 20% of the electorate. The vision of a "sane" GOP that people in this thread would like --- one that accepts social security and some form of universal health care are here to stay, that climate change exists and we will need new laws to force change to deal with it --- this is basically Democrat-lite. And it leaves their current base out in the cold. Given that embracing all the worst tendencies of that base has quite nearly gotten them the presidency, given that a vast media machine exists whose survival depends on feeding that base paranoia, it's hard for me to imagine that "eh, fuck it, we'll just give up on all our most cherished policies" is going to be the solution...
posted by Diablevert at 10:43 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Apparently there was a camp out at the BoE in Cincinnati!
posted by cooker girl at 10:44 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

njohnson23: He seems to always say that only he can fix things. Him alone. ... Is he really that clueless about how government works?

That's exactly how government works in many places, and it's how many people wish it would work in the US. It's an attitude that's worth being afraid of, because - American exceptionalism aside - it has proven to be a viable governing option. Maybe even the most viable governing option, if you look across societies and time.
posted by clawsoon at 10:44 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Glad to see the 19 year old black Trump supporter make the NYT-- the reddit user cabinet_space who discovered this weeks ago and has been monitoring (stalking?) his activity since has dubbed him "Carlton".
posted by acidic at 10:45 AM on October 12, 2016 [23 favorites]

I'm out of favorites again, and there are so many great comments and links here. But that Ohio celebration is the cutest I've seen long time
posted by mumimor at 10:45 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump Hump the Chair Song (Somebody Call Clint Eastwood)
posted by Talez at 10:45 AM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

She is going to kick so much ass as Secretary of the Treasury.

A Clinton Presidency is going to do a lot of good, but it's unlikely it'll do that much good. We'll have a Big Banker as Secy of the Treasury, as is tradition. There's probably a Hamilton quote about it.
posted by notyou at 10:45 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm out of favorites again, and there are so many great comments and links here. But that Ohio celebration is the cutest I've seen long time

No favourites? Then why the hell am I still posting? Dammit!
posted by Talez at 10:46 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Today begins the final 100 days of President Obama’s time in office.

Holy crap.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:47 AM on October 12, 2016 [52 favorites]

> She is going to kick so much ass as Secretary of the Treasury.

I hope for this so much.

What I do see, and have seen this throughout Clintons career, is she really does appear to bring successful women along with her as part of her entourage. I am convinced there are lot more women than just Elizabeth Warren as potential Presidential and political positions, we just haven't seen them thanks to the spotlight not being on them.

Warren was barely a political figure eight years ago. I think after eight years of a Clinton presidency, we might be talking about a whole new group of successors.
posted by mrzarquon at 10:48 AM on October 12, 2016 [20 favorites]

I am curious to see the effect this has on the Evangelical community. American Fundamentalism used to be fairly apolitical, in the sense that they tend to see the secular world as corrupt and too much participating in it as corrupting. But the Republican Party began actively courting them thanks, largely, to Jerry Falwell, who was as politically ambitious as he was religious and formed the Moral Majority in 1979. The anti-abortion movement was originally Catholic, with Southern Baptists actually supporting looser restrictions on abortion laws until 1980, but then evangelicals took over up the anti-abortion flag. Unsurprisingly, this was the year after the start of the Moral Majority, and I think it is impossible to see the two as being disconnected.

And so Republican candidates have playacted as being Evangelical, or at least fellow travellers, for decades. But I have to imagine Trump is a scales-from-eyes moment, and I know that a number of prominent Christian groups have come out against him.

I am curious to see if there is a movement by Evangelicals to retreat from public life in the wake of this. I would be ready to get the hell out of dodge.
posted by maxsparber at 10:48 AM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Some people seem to appear slightly excited about early voting in Ohio.

Serious question - is that in danger of being seen as an electioneering violation, the way you can't carry anything with a slogan within 350 feet of the poll station or whatever?...
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:48 AM on October 12, 2016

(I mean, it's awesome, but I'm also paranoid)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:48 AM on October 12, 2016

Are we back to putting Elizabeth Warren in jobs she doesn't want? Why this need to promote everyone we like to a "higher" position, despite their preference and where they can be effective?


I 100% agree with this, but I honestly think a lot of this comes around because the rest of us are just super jealous of Massachusetts and want to cast a vote for her too.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:49 AM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

Left a voicemail and sent an email to the Washington State Democratic Party, will await word for now. If any other Washington State Democrats in this thread would like to express their concern to the party about potential faithless elector Robert Satiacum Jr, the party's phone number and contact form are over here.
posted by EatTheWeek at 10:50 AM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

is that in danger of being seen as an electioneering violation, the way you can't carry anything with a slogan within 350 feet of the poll station or whatever?...

Law in Ohio is 100 feet from the entrance and 10 feet from the actual line. If the front door of the location is behind the band (which is where the measuring would start from, at least in Illinois*), they are probably fine.

(* Please stay tuned for the rest of the election where I pretend to be super knowledgeable about things because I did 4 hours of Election Judge training.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:54 AM on October 12, 2016 [25 favorites]

Trying to counter this with facts is a futile effort because it's talking about the wrong thing.

THIS. Heads up liberal hippie lady-lovin' types! This is why the pussy tape worked! But obviously there needs to be more content than that to continue the rout, so, given that facts are a waste of time, what else is there?
posted by petebest at 10:55 AM on October 12, 2016

Rudy Giuliani: "Hillary, we don't want your socialized medicine. Take it and stuff it up your... I didn't say it!" [real]

Are. we. done. here. yet.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:57 AM on October 12, 2016 [83 favorites]

Are we back to putting Elizabeth Warren in jobs she doesn't want? Why this need to promote everyone we like to a "higher" position, despite their preference and where they can be effective?

I posted this in reply to a suggestion that there were no women capable of getting close to the white house without the explicit help of a man. in no way was i suggesting that Warren wants or should have the job, simply that she is a credible female candidate who has forged a path on her own. please read in context.
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:58 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Trump Hump the Chair Song (Somebody Call Clint Eastwood)

I giggled at this way more then I should have. My humor circuts are all over the place because of this election.
posted by Jalliah at 10:59 AM on October 12, 2016

Elizabeth Warren is absolutely vital to the Senate. If it's a 50/50 split especially but she's from a state wirh a Republican governor. If moving her from the Senate risks a plurality or slight majority she should stay where she is.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:00 AM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

Rudy Giuliani: "Hillary, we don't want your socialized medicine. Take it and stuff it up your... I didn't say it!"

Party of Lincoln, folks.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:00 AM on October 12, 2016 [18 favorites]

Trump on the Commission for Presidential Debates: "I have no respect for that group by the way, I'm done."
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:01 AM on October 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

Regarding the McMuffin effect: I wonder how it might spill over into other Western red states with high Mormon populations? In particular, I wonder if it might be enough to seal Trump's doom in Nevada, and if we might see Idaho and Wyoming pinker than usual (as opposed to bright, Nancy-Reagan-red) this time around.
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 11:02 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Elizabeth Warren is absolutely vital to the Senate. If it's a 50/50 split especially but she's from a state wirh a Republican governor. If moving her from the Senate risks a plurality or slight majority she should stay where she is.

Majority leader of the Senate, then?
posted by entropicamericana at 11:02 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

(If) moving her from the Senate risks a plurality or slight majority she should stay where she is.

I don't disagree. I'm sure she can share her thoughts with whomever the Sec. Treasury is easily enough. Maybe teach a class at Georgetown? Can a sitting Senator do that?
posted by mikelieman at 11:03 AM on October 12, 2016

I posted this in reply to a suggestion that there were no women capable of getting close to the white house without the explicit help of a man. in no way was i suggesting that Warren wants or should have the job, simply that she is a credible female candidate who has forged a path on her own. please read in context.

I wasn't responding to you, I was responding to the person who said she was going to be a great Secretary of the Treasury.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:03 AM on October 12, 2016

Except they're really choosy about which parts of the past they want.

So one interesting thing that I've been slowly pondering for the last few years - though it's difficult to explain or quantify, so please bear with me - is the concept that things - and time, and cultural understandings - don't all change at the same rate. Some change slower than others and some faster. So the time periods that we all are living in, are not just different belief areas, but we are actually experiencing almost different realities, and that's why we're talking past each other sometimes.

When I was in the Army, I lived and spent most of my life on Army posts, which culturally, for the most part, is like some weird equalized version of the 1950s. People don't always lock their doors. They let their kids play without supervision, and it's fine. Everyone has very good job security. Most households have only one working parent, because you can absolutely afford to do so. There were almost no drugs, because every family had one person being regularly drug tested. Everyone goes to watch the fireworks displays together. But everybody bleeds green, so it was a really racially diverse rah-rah America that did not exist in the broader actual 1950s. But for me, for the ten years I lived there, that was just what suburban America was during the 2000s.

When I left, I had to go essentially from 1950s but good, straight into the NYC 2010s, which are both good and bad. To me, it seemed like everything changed so fast - like it was a blur around me. All of a sudden, words and politics and economics and everything was just different. I turned from a progressive to a conservative overnight, just by stepping out of one place and into another. I'm the same person - but the things that were radically progressive for Army-1950s (support of gay marriage, alternative religions, etc) are just kind of the bare minimum in NYC-lefty-2010s. But when my now-husband came to join me from Seattle, to him NYC-2010s looked like Seattle-1970s, and he was astonished by what he considered retrograde attitudes.

And I wonder how that plays out all over the country. I wonder how much various places are also experiencing a time warp, either deliberately or because of isolation. I think of how people experience those time warps as they get older and still remember their best time as a particular decade which is forever preserved for them. I wonder how much people from those various pockets see each other as essentially time-travelling space aliens. How many people are trying to be simultaneously conservative and progressive, in turns, but are working with a different understanding of What Is Now than everyone else. And I really, really wonder how that impacts everyone's voting, and their understanding about where other people are and what information they're voting with.
posted by corb at 11:04 AM on October 12, 2016 [131 favorites]

Trump on the Commission for Presidential Debates: "I have no respect for that group by the way, I'm done."

I wonder if this means he's not going to be at the 3rd debate.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:04 AM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

Ben Wofford interviews school teachers and officials at Politico: “‘Mrs. G, He Said the P-Word!’”
posted by Going To Maine at 11:05 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

>> Trump on the Commission for Presidential Debates: "I have no respect for that group by the way, I'm done."
> I wonder if this means he's not going to be at the 3rd debate.

Please please please. I'm not sure my liver can withstand a third debate.
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:05 AM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

Trump on the Commission for Presidential Debates: "I have no respect for that group by the way, I'm done."

Trumpykins needs a nap. He's starting to get stroppy.
posted by Talez at 11:06 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Ohio Trump sign distribution point - keeping it erm classy.

I'm okay with this. It exposes the problem with delegating sign production to local parties: they get all creative (typically in a crappy "we know DTP!" way) and so you get that kind of aggressive base-of-the-base shit scattered around localities.
posted by holgate at 11:06 AM on October 12, 2016

He might be going to the third debate but he will hack his own hole into the wall to enter.
posted by Namlit at 11:06 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

> Trump on the Commission for Presidential Debates: "I have no respect for that group by the way, I'm done."


1) Don't worry Donald, no one really had much respect for you either.
2) Fuck your notion of respect
3) Does this mean with get 90 minutes of Prime Time Q&A with Clinton/Kaine?

I pity the person who has to explain, probably in language for a 4th grader, why giving Clinton a national spotlight for 90 minutes isn't really a good idea. Worse that showing up.
posted by mrzarquon at 11:06 AM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

Elizabeth Warren is absolutely vital to the Senate. If it's a 50/50 split especially but she's from a state wirh a Republican governor. If moving her from the Senate risks a plurality or slight majority she should stay where she is.

Majority leader of the Senate, then?

I dunno. How good is she at raising money for fellow Democrats and getting them to line up on votes?
posted by Going To Maine at 11:06 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

since Roe v. Wade, most Republicans have talked a lot about abortion while doing little to make meaningful change in that area of policy

After 9/11 George W. Bush had sky-high approval ratings and Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. Bush had said he would support a constitutional amendment banning abortion. If they didn't ban it then, when will the ever?
posted by kirkaracha at 11:07 AM on October 12, 2016 [18 favorites]

I wasn't responding to you, I was responding to the person who said she was going to be a great Secretary of the Treasury.

My phrasing may have been more precise, but whether or not she wants or takes the job is irrelevant to the actual point.

There is no one better qualified to spend their working day spanking bankers. ( This is a reference to an old bloom county comic strip, btw... )

And they need spanking. I say that with decades of experience in financial services and banking.
posted by mikelieman at 11:07 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

(Also, it sounds like it is sinking in to him that he is losing, and doesn't want to do this anymore).
posted by mrzarquon at 11:08 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Majority leader of the Senate, then?

That is likely going to be Chuck Schumer, the guy I had to harass day and night about his affinity for fracking. (Fracking is sort of fine for energy independence purposes, but the Cheney loopholes make it absolutely unacceptable and I told him that if he wants fracking those holes need patched.)
posted by xyzzy at 11:08 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Trump on the Commission for Presidential Debates: "I have no respect for that group by the way, I'm done."

So no next debate for today at least. Or maybe a few hours when he forgets he said it, or decides to change his mind and purposely forget he said. So we'll get days of , no 3rd debate, maybe 3rd debate if Hillary stops doing this or Ryan apologizes (whine of the day) , no truely no 3rd debate, of course I'll be at the 3rd debate, what are you talking about he never said he wouldn't debate he's the best debater ever and on and on.

But then again maybe unshackled Donald is just relieved that no one will tell he has to do it anymore and this is really what he wants. (Though of course it's everyone elses fault that he can't do it)
posted by Jalliah at 11:09 AM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

"His path to victory — preventing either of the major candidates from getting 270 electoral votes and throwing the election to the House of Representatives — may not be very plausible. But for McMullin, the campaign is really about something much simpler: doing his part to fight what he sees as a threat to this country, as he had done in the shadows his whole career." WaPo

For those in the know, would it be the new house or the old house?
posted by Oyéah at 11:10 AM on October 12, 2016

Pussy Fights Back

Protesters aiming to derail Donald Trump’s White House run descended on Trump Tower on Wednesday to give the GOP presidential nominee an earful

Warning: NY Post
posted by petebest at 11:11 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Rudy Giuliani told Donald Trump supporters at a rally on Wednesday that he “doesn’t remember” seeing Hillary Clinton after the attacks on the Twin Towers — despite being photographed right next to her at Ground Zero.: I remember September 11, 2001. Yes, you helped to get benefits for the people who were injured that day. But I heard her say she was there that day. I was there that day. I don’t remember seeing Hillary Clinton there. That was like when she said she had to run through gunfire. That turned out to be — what do we call it? A lie!
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:12 AM on October 12, 2016 [44 favorites]

I pity the person who has to explain, probably in language for a 4th grader, why giving Clinton a national spotlight for 90 minutes isn't really a good idea. Worse that showing up.

If he really is deciding not to do it my thought is they will schedule their own Donald only 90 min reality show/debate at the same time. The question would be how much the media would decide to cover it.
posted by Jalliah at 11:12 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

> She is going to kick so much ass as Secretary of the Treasury.

Senate. Majority. Leader.

tbf this was my second reaction. my first reaction was, of course:
WARREN: Treasury or state?
CLINTON: Treasury.
WARREN: Let's go.

posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:13 AM on October 12, 2016 [54 favorites]

of course I'll be at the 3rd debate, what are you talking about he never said he wouldn't debate he's the best debater ever and on and on.

You know what, I really liked those primary debates, lots of action, the most action. What I'm thinking is, maybe we invite Gary Johnson, maybe Jill Stein, maybe we even invite the whole McMuFinn ticket, just have a mass debate, just mass debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday night, mass debate all over the airwaves, every channel showing me mass debating. We are gonna make America mass debate again.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:13 AM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

For those in the know, would it be the new house or the old house?

Old house. One vote per state delegation. New house starts January 3rd, electors meet December 15th. Constitution says house has to choose a president straight away.
posted by Talez at 11:14 AM on October 12, 2016

So, yesterday I replied to a journalist's remark on Twitter that he's hearing a lot of women talk about how they were upset by Trump's leerig but that men didn't notice. I basically said that I had a high heart rate during the debate, and in the follow-up posted that I watched some footage again during a late-night show and had the same reaction. "Hello, PTSD," I said.

I woke up this morning and my timeline was A SHIT SHOW. People responding calling Clinton a "dyke" and posting videos of people literally slaughtering other people, people calling me "cupcake" and telling me I was full of shit, people telling me I should see what really being scared feels like, people telling me I should try serving in the military, people calling me a bitch and telling me I need my pussy grabbed. People whose display names are "Deplorable ____" and who have usernames that use fascist and Nazi-related words and whose timelines are filled with their seeking out and harassing people.

I duly reported and blocked and Twitter removed a few, but not all, of the comments, but Jesus Christ. This is an @ message beneath someone else's tweet, not an affront to anyone's existence. I didn't express a single political opinion, and didn't even mention the fact that I grew up in an abusive household where that kind of behavior was common and yes, HAVE FUCKING PTSD because this is the society I grew up in as a woman.

Anyway. I just needed to get that off my chest. I find this entire thing so scary—that simply by saying "I'm scared," people like me are subject to attacks and threats. It's like the piranhas smell blood or something. This is where we are at. This is "political discourse" in 2016.
posted by mynameisluka at 11:16 AM on October 12, 2016 [194 favorites]

Old house. One vote per state delegation. New house starts January 3rd, electors meet December 15th. Constitution says House has to choose a president straight away.

No. The 20th Amendment specifically staggered the beginning of the new Congress (Jan 3) and the swearing in of the new President (January 20) so that the incoming House could vote in such a situation.
posted by dhens at 11:17 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Rudy Giuliani: "Hillary, we don't want your socialized medicine. Take it and stuff it up your... I didn't say it!"

Apparently we're twelve now. "Take it and stuff it up your pussy... cat has a wonderful, fluffy, shiny coat!"
posted by Talez at 11:20 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Psst... if you think McMullin Or Clinton will win Utah, you can put money on it here and here. As of this writing, if you bet on both and either of them wins you will still make a profit.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:20 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

That Podesta risotto secret isn't a secret.
It is literally how you make risotto.
That's like saying the secret to apple pie is remembering to put fruit in it.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 11:22 AM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

Sorry you had to go through that mynameisluka. Thats straight up bullshit.

I'm never gonna join the TweetFace for that and 1,000 other reasons. My suggestion is always (and particularly for every journalist ever) drop it like it's a hot mess.
posted by petebest at 11:22 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Rudy Giuliani: "Hillary, we don't want your socialized medicine. Take it and stuff it up your... I didn't say it!"

Giuliani is a festering sack of... Shhhhhaving cream, be nice and clean,
shave every day and you'll always look keen.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:22 AM on October 12, 2016 [34 favorites]

Rudy Giuliani told Donald Trump supporters at a rally on Wednesday that he “doesn’t remember” seeing Hillary Clinton after the attacks on the Twin Towers — despite being photographed right next to her at Ground Zero.:

Senility is an awful thing.
posted by entropicamericana at 11:22 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

He might be going to the third debate but he will hack his own hole into the wall to enter.


Like the Kool-Aid Man?
posted by tilde at 11:25 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

That's like saying the secret to apple pie is remembering to put fruit in it.

or ritz crackers
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:27 AM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

A political historian explains why Trump’s tape could destroy the GOP

Coming out of World War II, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Republican Party backed government policies that promoted equality of opportunity—projects such as education, infrastructure, government regulation, and social welfare. These policies were both effective and enormously popular. But wealthy men loathed government regulation and the taxes that an active government required. Calling themselves conservatives, they started a movement to undermine the idea that promoting equality of opportunity was the proper role for the American government.

They had a problem: Most Americans liked the government programs. So to push their agenda, movement conservatives rejected fact-based evidence and instead advanced a very simple narrative: hard-working white American men were under siege by minorities, women, organized workers, and "special interests" who wanted government handouts. Government policies that promoted equal opportunity were the very opposite of fair. They redistributed wealth from hard-working white men to lazy minorities

How Republicans went from the party of Lincoln to the party of Trump, in 13 maps [video]

The Republican Party has nominated Donald J. Trump for president of the United States. This is a remarkable turn of events, and it only gets more remarkable when you think back to how the party began its existence: fighting against the expansion of slavery.

But over the past century and a half, the party of Abraham Lincoln has changed dramatically. It went from a party that was racially progressive for its times, to one that gets little support from nonwhite voters. It went from a Northern-only party, to one that dominates the South. Here's how it happened.

posted by kirkaracha at 11:27 AM on October 12, 2016 [27 favorites]

Thanks, petebest. Sadly, I'm pretty much expected to engage with people on Twitter for work, and to be fair I've found plenty of friends and great resources there. It's just shocking how any tool can be adapted for purposes of harassment.
posted by mynameisluka at 11:27 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Rudy Giuliani told Donald Trump supporters at a rally on Wednesday that he “doesn’t remember” seeing Hillary Clinton after the attacks on the Twin Towers — despite being photographed right next to her at Ground Zero.

Senility is an awful thing.

Senility has nothing to do with it. Giuliani has always been a lying asshole.
posted by aught at 11:28 AM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

Giuliani is a festering sack of... Shhhhhaving cream, be nice and clean,

Rudy Giuliani can go fuuuuuu...ck himself.

Did I do that right?

Yeah, I did that right.
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:28 AM on October 12, 2016 [117 favorites]

I really have no idea what the GOP is going to do. They have maybe one more election cycle to even try running on white resentment before the demographics just become impossible for them. It's more of an uphill climb every year. Long term, they can't win national elections without appealing to minorities. That was the major take-away of their post mortem analysis after 2012, and yet they voted for Trump. The problem is that the most rabid part of their base are the white folks who are angry at the way the country is changing, and they are going to keep showing up to primaries to be sure that this country is a white supremacist Herrenvolk democracy to the fullest extent possible, for as long as possible.

Honestly, if I were the RNC, I'd consider a truly radical measure and get rid of primaries. They've fed their base so many lies for so long that they can't trust them to choose a decent nominee. There's no legal requirement to go through that process. I'd make everyone who wanted to be the GOP candidate submit their application to the national party, be vetted by a committee that does extensive background checks including medical records and tax returns, and then--if approved as a potential candidate by the committee--sent on for a vote by the current pool of GOP senators, representatives, and state governors. Announce the nominee with a big press conference/mini-convention, and start preparing that person for the nationwide race against the Democratic nominee. Sure there are some downsides--the primary process itself is a sort of test that a person can handle running a campaign and draw nationwide support, but the big upsides are: 1) no more dangerously unqualified candidates, 2) by default, the candidate will be someone most of the party leaders respect and can vigorously endorse, and 3) you can spend all your money and effort on the national race.

Sure, people would complain about it and you might take a hit from people who say it's not a democratic process, but it's not like their party is super happy to have Trump as the candidate, anyway. I'd seize the opportunity to do a big reform.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:28 AM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

You can change your web notifications in Twitter so you only get the notifications you want. Though I know that won't work if your job is in the media and you want to interact with people.
posted by asteria at 11:29 AM on October 12, 2016

New Bernie Sanders statement on WikiLeaks: "The job of the progressive movement now is to look forward, not backward." [real]

"Now STFU." [fake]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:29 AM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

Rudy Giuliani told Donald Trump supporters at a rally on Wednesday that he “doesn’t remember” seeing Hillary Clinton after the attacks on the Twin Towers — despite being photographed right next to her at Ground Zero.:

So his actual quote is:
I remember September 11, 2001. Yes, you helped to get benefits for the people who were injured that day. But I heard her say she was there that day. I was there that day. I don’t remember seeing Hillary Clinton there. That was like when she said she had to run through gunfire. That turned out to be — what do we call it? A lie!

I hate Giuliani and fully support HRC, but his statement is technically accurate. She was in Washington on 9/11 and was allowed to fly down on 9/12. He even acknowledges that she helped get benefits for people afterward, though in the most dismissive way possible.

I don't know why I'm bothering to be pedantic about this. I guess I just hate it when the GOP wildly distorts a Democratic talking point, so I feel I have to be fair when something they say gets distorted too.
posted by pocketfullofrye at 11:30 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

I wonder how much various places are also experiencing a time warp, either deliberately or because of isolation. I think of how people experience those time warps as they get older and still remember their best time as a particular decade which is forever preserved for them. I wonder how much people from those various pockets see each other as essentially time-travelling space aliens. How many people are trying to be simultaneously conservative and progressive, in turns, but are working with a different understanding of What Is Now than everyone else. And I really, really wonder how that impacts everyone's voting, and their understanding about where other people are and what information they're voting with.

Corb, this is really profoundly true.
posted by Dashy at 11:30 AM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Like the Kool-Aid Man?

Like the Underminer (thanks to the Pixar geniuses, we have known it all for years).
posted by Namlit at 11:30 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

I hate Giuliani and fully support HRC, but his statement is technically accurate.

No it isn't. I've never heard her say "I was in New York on 9/11."
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:33 AM on October 12, 2016 [27 favorites]

3) Does this mean with get 90 minutes of Prime Time Q&A with Clinton/Kaine?

If he does pull out, I really hope this happens. Clinton already agreed, she should still get the air time.

She is going to kick so much ass as Secretary of the Treasury.
Senate. Majority. Leader.
tbf this was my second reaction. my first reaction was, of course:
WARREN: Treasury or state?
CLINTON: Treasury.
WARREN: Let's go.

NO. Nonononononononononononono. No sitting Democratic Senators should be appointed to a Clinton administration, period. Full Stop. We need every last one right where they are, most especially Elizabeth Warren. The Senate NEEDS strong progressive leadership, and for the first time maybe ever, it has some. Why the eff would Clinton take that away, and why would we want her to? Warren can do the most good right where she is. Give her a Chairmanship, Finance or Oversight, anything. But she needs to stay put. Plenty of people can run Treasury, I'm sure Warren has a list of suggestions. But no one can replace Warren on the Senate floor or in committee, as the Wells Fargo hearings should show us.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:34 AM on October 12, 2016 [61 favorites]

As all evidence points to the huge victory of Hillary, and as GOP leaders why Trump attacks the GOP as often as he does his opponent's party, and thus these actions seem unnatural, there may well be a very simple explanation for what is taking place. The Breitbart guy running Trump is out to destroy the GOP as it has existed over the years, gather up the many Trump loyalists and bring about a new white nationalist party to replace what will at this point seem a rather benign if ineffectual party.
posted by Postroad at 11:34 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

so it was a really racially diverse rah-rah America that did not exist in the broader actual 1950s.

Complete with the sorta-socialist PX. I tease, because it's a great observation, but there's nowhere closer to central planning in the US than military bases. (I've been around a few in the SE.) Perhaps the nearest comparison is big retirement communities like The Villages -- a place that bans kids for anything other than short visits -- with their own unaccountable regulations and overseers.

Around them? Payday loan places, pawn shops, [dive and/or strip] bars and liquor stores, all the stuff that's been associated with armies since the vicus of the Roman encampment, and probably further back.

Anyway, when you have communities (both rural and urban) that are net exporters of young people, of people whose skills don't fit the prevailing industries and jobs, of gay people, of people who see the military as a way forward, you get social sorting the way that algorithmic simulations of housing eventually lead to self-segregation. It's a kind of path dependency.

That can be reversed in some cases -- I've seen it happen close up -- but the process of keeping people around or bringing new people in brings with it issues of gentrification. There's nobody more irate about the social changes that accompany local prosperity than people who were born here and lived through the slow decline.
posted by holgate at 11:34 AM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

I really have no idea what the GOP is going to do

I'll tell you what they're going to do....
They're going to leave 2018 with a Senate majority in almost all likelihood. So between HRC's inauguration and then, best restock the Supreme Court if she can.
In 2020 they're going to run a candidate who didn't support Trump and doesn't have embarrassing history that even light opposition research should have found. He (guaranteed to be a 'he') will seem much fresher than a HRC who, in addition to being in her 70's, will have had 4 years of a presidency and 2 years of a highly opposition senate (if not House also) to deal with. Given the landscape today I'd wager HRC will be a one-term president. And in January 2021, more likely than not you're going to have a Republican president and both chambers of Congress.

That's what the GOP is going to do - wait 4 years, let the stain of Trump wear off, and regroup.
posted by splen at 11:34 AM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

As far as ThinkProgress could discern, there’s no record of Hillary Clinton ever saying she was at Ground Zero on September 11, 2001. (link)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:35 AM on October 12, 2016 [19 favorites]

First a Departy and then another tea party
posted by Namlit at 11:36 AM on October 12, 2016

> Can we get off the Party of Lincoln thing? GOP is not the same party as Lincoln's party. Why do people insist on this?

Because if it isn't the same party as it was in Lincoln's day, it doesn't have to stay the same party as it is now. Things change. I would have thought that was pretty obvious. Just a half century ago, when I considered myself a Republican (though I was way too young to vote), this was the rising star of the GOP. Does Ed Brooke look like a Neanderthal racist fuck?

> Maybe your description is targeted toward what you think the party ought to be, but it does not line up with how actual Republicans have governed over the last 40-plus years.

Maybe? That's explicitly what she was talking about, in response to a question that asked literally exactly that. This is what I object to: an attitude of "I'm going to twist everything you say around so it makes you look as bad as possible." I see it too often at MeFi as well as in the world at large, and I wish we could cut it out.
posted by languagehat at 11:36 AM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

Outside prediction for 2020:

-McMullin manages to win Utah this time and thereby gains national name recognition and a certain degree of infamy among Republicans.
-McMullin runs for the Republican nomination in 2019.
-Possibly the primary voters will be more disgusted with Trumpism than not, and find his genuine outsider status plus religious conservatism plus pretty chill vibes appealing, and select him to run; or possibly (more likely) he loses, but will have managed to convey his message of let's-change-the-Republican-party-and-stop-being-total-dicks to a broader national audience.
-If he loses, he launches another Independent bid, and this time secures a bigger chunk of the popular vote (while still likely only winning Utah, and possibly Idaho as well (26% Mormon)).
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:36 AM on October 12, 2016

You may be wondering how far Rush Limbaugh is willing to go to defend Trump against sexual assault allegations.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:37 AM on October 12, 2016 [29 favorites]

Mistakenly dipped my toe into r/the_donald:

theverybestideas 55 points 4 hours ago
Trump misspells Wikileaks on purpose because pointing it out will force the MSM to admit Wikileaks exists.

Are these people for real? Or is it a bunch of teens cosplaying idiots for the lulz? I don't get it.
posted by bluecore at 11:38 AM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

That Podesta risotto secret isn't a secret.
It is literally how you make risotto.

It is the traditional method, but like a lot of cooking it's encumbered by myths. Kenji debunked this one a while back with his own tests, and concluded that warming broth doesn't do more than save you a little time, and small broth batches and heavy stirring have little to no effect on creaminess.

His best results came from a covered, wide skillet and a single stir. Serious Eats even has a pressure cooker risotto recipe.

The only useful thing I am seeing out of this stanky-ass Wikileaks hatchet job is an opportunity to once and for all debunk yet another needlessly fussy recipe.
posted by middleclasstool at 11:39 AM on October 12, 2016 [45 favorites]

I wonder how much various places are also experiencing a time warp, either deliberately or because of isolation. I think of how people experience those time warps as they get older and still remember their best time as a particular decade which is forever preserved for them. I wonder how much people from those various pockets see each other as essentially time-travelling space aliens. How many people are trying to be simultaneously conservative and progressive, in turns, but are working with a different understanding of What Is Now than everyone else. And I really, really wonder how that impacts everyone's voting, and their understanding about where other people are and what information they're voting with.

Corb, this is really profoundly true.

“In every important way we are such secrets from one another, and I do believe that there is a separate language in each of us, also a separate aesthetics and a separate jurisprudence. Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable – which, I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live. We take fortuitous resemblances among us to be actual likeness, because those around us have also fallen heir to the same customs, trade in the same coin, acknowledge, more or less, the same notions of decency and sanity. But all that really just allows us to coexist with the inviolable, intraversable, and utterly vast spaces between us.”
— Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
posted by Going To Maine at 11:39 AM on October 12, 2016 [45 favorites]

RUSH LIMBAUGH: You know what the magic word, the only thing that matters in American sexual mores today is? One thing. You can do anything, the left will promote and understand and tolerate anything, as long as there is one element. Do you know what it is? Consent. If there is consent on both or all three or all four, however many are involved in the sex act, it's perfectly fine. Whatever it is. But if the left ever senses and smells that there's no consent in part of the equation then here come the rape police. But consent is the magic key to the left.

Huh! What he's saying sounds pretty reasonable to me. Consenting adults should be able to do whatever the hell they want and rape should be investigated by the police. Glad to see you've come around Rush
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:39 AM on October 12, 2016 [168 favorites]

Giuliani is a festering sack of... Shhhhhaving cream, be nice and clean

Giuliani is a festering sack of... Sheila don't be so cruel
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:41 AM on October 12, 2016

Yeah Rush that's all stuff I believe and I would have said was pretty reasonable.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:41 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

But if the left ever senses and smells that there's no consent in part of the equation then here come the rape police. But consent is the magic key to the left.

Is our rightwing blowhards learn?
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:42 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

So... Rush is fine with rape, but a threesome is beyond the pale?

I'm going to start peeing in jars just so that I have some extra stocked up for when he's finally in the ground.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 11:43 AM on October 12, 2016 [53 favorites]

I'm watching this thread from the other side of the Atlantic and I just made risotto for dinner. I'm not saying it's as a direct result, but...
posted by parm at 11:43 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Good job The Left, PC Police! Obviously only an utter shitstain of a person would complain about any of that.
posted by Artw at 11:44 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

> Can we get off the Party of Lincoln thing? GOP is not the same party as Lincoln's party. Why do people insist on this?

Because if it isn't the same party as it was in Lincoln's day, it doesn't have to stay the same party as it is now. Things change. I would have thought that was pretty obvious.

And here I would have thought it was pretty obvious that Republicans stopped being the Party of Lincoln when they adopted the Southern strategy and other explicitly racist tactics, and people are just tacking that on to try to say the modern party isn't racist.
posted by zutalors! at 11:44 AM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

Senor Cardgage: That's like saying the secret to apple pie is remembering to put fruit in it.

prize bull octorok: or ritz crackers

Context: How Chemistry Transforms Crackers Into Apple Pie

Mock-apple pie filling is made, primarily, of crackers. There are no apples in it. Still, most people who taste it swear that they are eating real apple pie. What is the chemistry that tricks our senses?

A recipe, and previously on MetaFilter.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:45 AM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind
posted by AFABulous at 11:45 AM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

You may be wondering how far Rush Limbaugh is willing to go to defend Trump against sexual assault allegations.

I'm really, really not.
posted by Gelatin at 11:45 AM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

The GOP is actually contractually obligated to say "party of Lincoln" and "states' rights" in the same breath several times a day because since the recent caps on coal burning in Illinois, the City of Springfield generates the majority of its electricity from Lincoln rolling in his grave.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:46 AM on October 12, 2016 [58 favorites]

Obama checks his demon status...
posted by Namlit at 11:46 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Is...is Rush Limbaugh saying or implying that's not reasonable? Because all that is, indeed, the foundation of my sexual education, sexual coming of age, and sex life, and governs everything about the way I talk and think about sex. I run in fairly sexually liberal circles, it's true, but I wasn't aware that consensual sex was a controversial or debatable thing. Like, I have cast many a "your kink is not okay" stone, but it's been limited to wrinkling my nose and muttering "gross," and otherwise not giving a fuck, because if it's consensual and between parties that are capable of consent, it's not my goddamn business.
posted by yasaman at 11:47 AM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

But if the left ever senses and smells that there's no consent in part of the equation then here come the rape police. But consent is the magic key to the left.

Oh I see, we've been trying to get the regular police to care about rape. What we needed to do was call the rape police. My mistake, sorry about that. What's the number for the rape police again? Are they supporting Trump like the regular police are?
posted by melissasaurus at 11:47 AM on October 12, 2016 [57 favorites]

Protestors playing 2005 P**** audio. Female Supporter: "Who hasn't said that?"
Me: Have you?
Her: "No. Don't be stupid."

/facepalm
posted by Talez at 11:48 AM on October 12, 2016 [25 favorites]

zutalors!: Can we get off the Party of Lincoln thing? GOP is not the same party as Lincoln's party. Why do people insist on this?

In short: to claim "Hey, we're not racist! We're the party of the Emancipation Proclamation!"

Except, they won't follow that up with "and we're the party of the Southern Strategy, because we chose to capitalize on the white fright following the Civil Rights Act of 1964, so we've been banking on (and promoting) racism for a few decades now."
posted by filthy light thief at 11:49 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yes, I'm aware of that, I meant more in these threads.
posted by zutalors! at 11:50 AM on October 12, 2016

> So... Rush is fine with rape, but a threesome is beyond the pale?

In words it's beyond the pale for him. In practice, I'm certain he doesn't limit himself to hiring one sex worker at a time.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:50 AM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

RUSH LIMBAUGH: You know what the magic word, the only thing that matters in American sexual mores today is? One thing. You can do anything, the left will promote and understand and tolerate anything, as long as there is one element. Do you know what it is? Consent. If there is consent on both or all three or all four, however many are involved in the sex act, it's perfectly fine. Whatever it is. But if the left ever senses and smells that there's no consent in part of the equation then here come the rape police. But consent is the magic key to the left.

OK, somebody help me here - is Limbaugh trying to be derogatory about the left in explaining this? Like, is he seriously trying to say that an insistence on consent (i.e., the parties involved are capable of giving meaningful assent) with regards to sex is a bad thing?

Because - Evens. Out.

Words. Fail.
posted by nubs at 11:51 AM on October 12, 2016 [33 favorites]

Yeah, having read what Limbaugh said quoted here, that paragraph about consent being essential strikes me as completely reasonable. What strikes me as crazy is the Limbaugh's seeming implication that he disapproves of that concept, and that his audience therefore will as well.
posted by Gelatin at 11:55 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

But consent is the magic key to the left.

I just.... yes? It is? Because it's kind of key to the whole idea of personal liberty?

I need to refill my evens bag again.
posted by soren_lorensen at 11:55 AM on October 12, 2016 [36 favorites]

Some people seem to appear slightly excited about early voting in Ohio.

is that in danger of being seen as an electioneering violation, the way you can't carry anything with a slogan within 350 feet of the poll station or whatever?...

Law in Ohio is 100 feet from the entrance and 10 feet from the actual line. If the front door of the location is behind the band (which is where the measuring would start from, at least in Illinois*), they are probably fine.

But it's Luther! In Ohio if you read the law, there is an exception for marching bands playing Luther Vandross*. Ashford & Simpson will get you a warning. George Benson - you'll probably get a small fine & court costs.

*Heavyset loofa, not little loofa.
posted by cashman at 11:56 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

I didn't think Limbaugh could shock me anymore with how low he'll sink or how detached he is from reality, but here I am. Motherfucker doesn't understand the significance of consent. Doesn't understand what that actually means, and therefore what the opposite means. And he said it right there on the air like he's proud of it.

I'm stunned.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 11:57 AM on October 12, 2016 [18 favorites]

I want to know what the hell the context was (not that I think it'll help) but I really, really do not want to listen to the recording.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:57 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

In attempting to understand Limbaugh (ugh), I think what he's saying is that any number of "depraved" sex acts are totally okay and totally acceptable as long as there's consent, according to us liberals. And, well, yeah! Yeah, they are! I don't care if you don't like orgies or pegging or bondage or sounding or roleplay or what the fuck ever, Limbaugh, what people do in their bedrooms is none of your business! He appears to be mistaking the benign apathy of all reasonable people to other people's private sex lives with approval/endorsement. And, uh, no. I don't need to know or care about your kinks to think you're entitled to engage in them, as long as everyone consents.
posted by yasaman at 11:57 AM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

Let's spend a little while being scandalized, but let's not pretend that he doesn't mean what he says, and that people don't believe what he says.

Rush Limbaugh's publicly held belief that sex without consent, which is to say rape, is in many circumstances fine, is real. There are many people like him.

What we take as a bare minimum for decency is in fact not upheld by many of our fellow humans.

Decency doesn't make itself. Decency must be meticulously built through the active labor of decent people against indecent people. Some indecent people can be swayed by persuasive rhetoric — but some won't.

This is not a matter of debate, where the best debaters win. This is not a matter of intellect, where the smartest thinkers win. This is not a matter of ethics, where the most ethical person wins. This is a matter of organization, of discipline, and of active struggle against genuinely malevolent adversaries. The best organized faction wins, not smarts or decency or eloquence.

We do not yet know if the long arc of history bends toward justice. We can hope and pray that it does. But in practice? It bends the way organized power wants it to bend.

Let's be organized. Let's be powerful.

here's a fight song, if that helps.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:59 AM on October 12, 2016 [53 favorites]

OK, somebody help me here - is Limbaugh trying to be derogatory about the left in explaining this? Like, is he seriously trying to say that an insistence on consent (i.e., the parties involved are capable of giving meaningful assent) with regards to sex is a bad thing?

We are less than fifteen years removed from the Supreme Court decision that invalidated sodomy laws, stating clearly that, yes, it is perfectly legal for two same-sex individuals to have consensual sex in their own private bedroom.

And there are many people who would pay dearly to see that reversed because Jesus Doesn't Like That.

Now, whether Rush is also arguing the opposite tack -- that Man Grab Woman Go Unf should be acceptable because That's The Way It's Always Been and Boys Will Be Boys and Political Correctness Run Amok -- can be debated. But the first principle -- that some sexual acts are permanently taboo regardless of consent -- is a long-standing conservative moralist principle.
posted by delfin at 11:59 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

The less I consider Rush Limbaugh's kinks, the better.
posted by soren_lorensen at 11:59 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

and for good lord when they tell us who they are let's believe them.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:00 PM on October 12, 2016 [27 favorites]

It's been a long time since I listened to Limbaugh. I'm struck by the sheer volume of multi-nested, un-matched parentheticals in his speech. Reminds me of someone else we've been hearing a lot from lately.
posted by klarck at 12:01 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

and for good lord when they tell us who they are let's believe them.

And not forget it if they temporarily seem to change their spots.
posted by winna at 12:01 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

You're not supposed to have The Pervy Bad Sex even if everybody consents. What matters is not just the consent of the people involved, but also whether you're having the kind of sex that The Lord God Almighty wants you to have. Presumably missionary position, for purposes of procreation, and with your eyes closed so you won't get any Dirty Bad Ideas while you're having it.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 12:02 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Now, whether Rush is also arguing the opposite tack -- that Man Grab Woman Go Unf should be acceptable because That's The Way It's Always Been and Boys Will Be Boys and Political Correctness Run Amok -- can be debated.

Check out the links at the bottom of that Media Matters post. Yeah it seems like he absolutely thinks this.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:02 PM on October 12, 2016

Trump has a new ad out saying Clinton only cares about 'power, money and herself.'

The "Corruption" ad starts out with a sinister question. "The Clintons. From dead broke to worth hundreds of millions. So how did Hillary end up filthy rich?"

Turns out if you've been President of the United States or you've been First Lady and Secretary of State people will give you a shitload of money to hear about it.

Bill Clinton got a $15 million advance for his autobiography My Life (2004); as of April 2008 he'd earned about $23 million in royalties. He got about a $5 million advance for Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World (2007); he earned $6.3 million in royalties for and donated $1 million to charity. (I couldn't find advance or royalty figures for his 2011 book Back to Work.) So that's at least $48.3 million from books.

Hillary Clinton got an $8 million advance for her autobiography Living History (2000); it sold more than a million copies in the first month by by 2007 she'd earned over $10 million in royalties. She got an estimated $14 million advance for her memoir Hard Choices (2014); by mid-2015 she'd earned more than $5 million. (She didn't take an advance for It Takes a Village and donated most of the royalties to charity.) So that's about $48.3 million from books.

In addition to at least $85.3 from book sales, the Clintons "made a combined $153 million in paid speeches between 2001 and the time that Hillary launched her 2016 campaign." Bada-bing! $238.3 million.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:02 PM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

OMG guys I found this thing that must have been cooked up by some kind of libertine hippie commune

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

like they think the word consent is just magic, as though there's something fundamentally wrong if consent isn't present
posted by XMLicious at 12:03 PM on October 12, 2016 [39 favorites]

Rush may very well get sexual pleasure out of orating depraved insanity over the airwaves.

Choosing to listen is an act of consent.
posted by perspicio at 12:03 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Reminds me of someone else we've been hearing a lot from lately.

*looks around guiltily*

I have got to cut down on my sentence lengths.
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:04 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

I want to know what the hell the context was (not that I think it'll help) but I really, really do not want to listen to the recording.

In attempting to understand Limbaugh (ugh), I think what he's saying is that any number of "depraved" sex acts are totally okay and totally acceptable as long as there's consent, according to us liberals. And, well, yeah!

Here’s the clip, care of Media Matters. There’s plenty of surrounding context on the tape.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:04 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's been a long time since I listened to Limbaugh. I'm struck by the sheer volume of multi-nested, un-matched parentheticals in his speech. Reminds me of someone else we've been hearing a lot from lately.

Yeah, it's tough to keep track of the strawmen when he gets going. Russian nesting dolls of strawmen.

Rushtryoshka?
posted by notyou at 12:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

> I have got to cut down on my sentence lengths.
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:04 PM on October 12 [1 favorite −] Favorite added! [!]

The trick, I've learned, is to switch from embedded parenthetical clauses over to footnotes once the nesting gets too deep.¹

[1]: okay tbf mostly I do this because sometimes I like to LARP David Foster Wallace.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:07 PM on October 12, 2016 [30 favorites]

And there are many people who would pay dearly to see that reversed because ^^^they think Jesus Doesn't Like That.

Fixed.
posted by Gelatin at 12:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

nangar: Nate Silver, 538: Women Are Defeating Donald Trump

Looking at the "if only men voted" map, I'm really excited to see that I moved from the bright blue bastion of California to the surprising southwestern pocket of liberals that is New Mexico. Seriously, it's Washington, Oregon, California, New Mexico, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, and Maryland, with Maine as a toss-up. West coast, Northeast, plus Illinois and New Mexico, minus New Hampshire (WTH, NH?)
posted by filthy light thief at 12:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

OMG guys I found this thing that must have been cooked up by some kind of libertine hippie commune

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

like they think the word consent is just magic, as though there's something fundamentally wrong if consent isn't present

Well point taken but to be fair, the writer of these words didn't really have a problem with raping people and neither did plenty of the signatories. Originalism!
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

You Can't Tip a Buick: and for good lord when they tell us who they are let's believe them.

winna: And not forget it if they temporarily seem to change their spots.

cf. Beck, Glenn
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 12:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

So... has right wing radio officially gone pro-rape?
posted by defenestration at 12:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm not surprised that Limbaugh is framing the "left's" insistence on consent as essentially another example of the left's insistence on political correctness. I've been thinking a lot about the Trump audio and why it's been so triggering for me and finally realized, duh, it's because he said "when you're a star, they let you do it."

Let.

"Let" implies a permissiveness on the part of the sexual assault victim. It absolves the perpetrator of responsibility. What he described doing was disgusting at its baseline, but the fact that he framed assault as something people "let" him do -- that just brings it to a whole new level of "she was asking for it."

Trump's supporters have to double down on it. They have to spin it to make what he said somehow less bad. They are saying the same damn things that sexual assault victims hear all the damn time. They're weaponizing the narrative of shame that sexual assault victims already carry with them. And it's not happening in the little local sphere of some clueless dude you work with, or a guy at a bar, or your stupid uncle saying something offensive that perpetuates rape culture. It's a conversation that is germane to the current presidential election, and is repeated in every newspaper and on every news program on a daily basis, and there is nothing more potentially triggery than that.

Someone linked to an article either in this thread or the last about how America's therapists are concerned for our mental health. I haven't seen mine since the tape was released and don't see her until next week, and boy does she have her work cut out for her.
posted by mudpuppie at 12:09 PM on October 12, 2016 [63 favorites]

Or at least its most popular pundit...
posted by defenestration at 12:09 PM on October 12, 2016

(Also, in re: consent, there are certain things that the left does care about because the assumption is that consent can’t be given. Statutory rape, for instance.)
posted by Going To Maine at 12:09 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Going To Maine: Here’s the clip, care of Media Matters.

"But consent is the magic key to the left" treating your partner like a human being.

FTFY, you pile of reprehensible filth.

What a world it would be if there such magical "rape police," who believed the words of people instead of asking them what they wore, how much they had to drink, and if the perpetrator was their significant other. Thanks for the dream, Rush.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:11 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Rush is fine with rape, but a threesome is beyond the pale?

Geddy, Alex, Neal... that's inherently a threesome, innit? One hopes that they're not okay with rape but OTOH objectivists so presumably it's okay to have sex with women who objectively should consent to sex with you irrespective of their actual statements on the matter or whatever twaddle Rand offered for why the rapes she wrote were okay
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:12 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

All these guys just wind up sounding like Matt Foley to me.
posted by soren_lorensen at 12:14 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

> And here I would have thought it was pretty obvious that Republicans stopped being the Party of Lincoln when they adopted the Southern strategy and other explicitly racist tactics

It is. Has anybody denied that? The point is that they can change. They don't have to stay the party of racism any more than they stayed the party of Lincoln. I feel like a broken record, but damn, you'd think that was too simple a point to misunderstand.
posted by languagehat at 12:16 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The: So... Rush is fine with rape, but a threesome is beyond the pale?

This is just another example of "my world view is the only acceptable world view, until my views or circumstances change. Oh, and I get a free pass to do something that I say is reprehensible, because I'm also a special sunbeam." (Divorce and adultery, premarital sex, abortion, generally being unChristianly and so forth).

[Note: I'm not ranting against Christians, but those who publicly profess to be Christians but fail to follow so many of Christ's lessons.]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:16 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also, in re: consent, there are certain things that the left does care about because the assumption is that consent can’t be given. Statutory rape, for instance

Or the morality panic squad's perennial favorite, bestiality.
posted by Gelatin at 12:16 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

So... has right wing radio officially gone pro-rape?

They've been there for a while:
Rush Limbaugh Dismisses Date Rape: "The Reality Is That Boys Chase Girls"
Limbaugh Defends Offensive Rape Comments By Hiding Behind "Absurdity" Defense
Limbaugh Responds to Criticism Of Bud Light Slogan: "There Is No Rape Culture In America"
Limbaugh: Obama's "Totally Made-Up Statistics" On Rape "Further Divide Men From Women"
posted by melissasaurus at 12:17 PM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

My mom and I are going to volunteer together doing data entry for the Clinton campaign this weekend. Mom is so very solidly With Her that she literally put off her retirement for this election season. I was a Bernie gal until he started unraveling at the end of the primaries, enduring a whole bunch of "oh but he could never really win" and "oh you're so cute and idealistic, you'll understand pragmatism someday" from mom and her centrist siblings along the way. And I'll admit, happy as I was for my mom when Clinton got the nomination, I also wasn't too pleased about the prospect of an election season's worth of I Told You So from my family. (Though, to be clear, voting for Stein or another third party candidate was never in the cards for me.)

But then my socialist/anarchist peers started speaking out about Clinton too. Many spoke from the perspective of their safety; please don't let the fascist tangerine win, it would make me fear for my life as a trans person/Muslim/person of color. But one of the most compelling cases I've read so far is here: presidential elections are an opportunity to choose the climate we organize in. The author of this post does a fair bit of organizing herself and knows from where she speaks, and she made me realize that the relatively few Stein 'stans in my life are people who are all bluster and no organizing experience.

So I'm gonna go log a lot of voter data into the computer, because that's the good ally thing to do, and that will make for a better climate to organize in. Suck it, thinkpieces about millennial Clinton hatred.
posted by ActionPopulated at 12:17 PM on October 12, 2016 [58 favorites]

If I count up all the times I've been sexually assaulted over my entire life, most men would think I was nuts. Many women don't count a boob grab or an unwanted kiss or even a pussy grab as sexual assault, but they are. So when I count it up and tell my story, I tend to minimize it, for fear of being treated like a drama queen or a bit off. But actually, I'm just fantastically unlucky and so I don't share it and men like Trump, and Billy and Rush and the rest keep getting away with it because if a woman feels crazy for clapping back, she's going to find a way to cope and move on.
posted by Sophie1 at 12:19 PM on October 12, 2016 [45 favorites]

McMuffin live on CNN shortly.
posted by vrakatar at 12:19 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

> It is. Has anybody denied that? The point is that they can change. They don't have to stay the party of racism any more than they stayed the party of Lincoln. I feel like a broken record, but damn, you'd think that was too simple a point to misunderstand.

I just don't see why there's any need for a political party to the right of the Democrats. And I don't see why the apparatus of the Republican Party should necessarily be preserved. I mean if a group of relatively decent entryists are able to someday hijack that disorganized trainwreck of deplorable factions and rework it into something Lincolnlike again, that's fine, that's good... but why hope for that particular implausible thing instead of some other better thing?
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:22 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump [real]

The people of Cuba have struggled too long. Will reverse Obama's Executive Orders and concessions towards Cuba until freedoms are restored.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:22 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Man, he really thinks first-generation Cuban exiles are the key to Florida, huh?
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:24 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

Geddy, Alex, Neal... that's inherently a threesome, innit? One hopes that they're not okay with rape but OTOH objectivists

Peart is now a US citizen and plans to vote Democrat.
posted by Ber at 12:24 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National Polling Averages

tl;dr: There's a 19 year old black guy in the LA Times sample who is an Always Trump guy and because of the sample composition and the weighting of the data he has a huge influence on the results of the survey.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 12:25 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Hillary Clinton Needs to Start Campaigning Aggressively for a Democratic Congress

The issues threatening to engulf Donald Trump’s candidacy and embroil him in a destructive civil war with congressional Republicans are offering Hillary Clinton a surprising new opportunity not only to become president but to work with a Democratic Congress. But she may have to seize that opportunity.

posted by kirkaracha at 12:25 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Any interest in a PredictIt sidebar? I just joined and put some literal, real money on the outcome of the run for the White House and wondered if anyone else was playing US Politics Gone Crazy: The Home Game as well. I'd appreciate insight and discourse with you brilliant folks for sidebets and offshoots that might make a bit of cash this election season.

Yes, I know how dark it is to bet on politics. I know.... but it's cathartic somehow... don't ask my why.
posted by RolandOfEld at 12:26 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Maybe favorite this comment, if the mods don't disagree, and that'll be a show of interest in PredictIt stuffs...?
posted by RolandOfEld at 12:27 PM on October 12, 2016

Asked about Trump's remark that he's "done" with the debate commission, Jason Miller responds, "He said in his speech that he look forward to the third debate. Were you yourself not listening?"'

The best thing about the Trump campaign staffers is they act like you're the crazy one when you ask about something crazy Trump said.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:29 PM on October 12, 2016 [31 favorites]

I was thinking about Donald looming over Hillary during Debate 2, and I think he really cannot stand for anyone else to hold the center of attention. also, he is a revived sludge monster of some sort, of course.
posted by theora55 at 12:29 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

“Putin ally tells Americans: vote Trump or face nuclear war,” Andrew Osborn, Reuters, 12 October 2016
posted by ob1quixote at 12:30 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

"I do have to tell you about O.J. and 'The Apprentice,'" Trump said in July 2008 on the Howard Stern Show. "NBC went totally crazy when I wanted to put O.J. on The Apprentice."

Trump added that while he was friendly and played golf with O.J. before the murder trial, he abandoned him when he "realized he killed his wife."

"Why would you put him on the Apprentice?" Stern asked

"Well you know, in your business, there's a thing called ratings. And, you know you can come up with a cure for cancer — I found out a lot about your business — because, hey, I'm the biggest star. I'm now the biggest star," Trump said. "So I know that if you come up with a cure for cancer, and if you put it on, and if it doesn't get ratings, they will not broadcast it."
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:31 PM on October 12, 2016

Any interest in a PredictIt sidebar? I just joined and put some literal, real money on the outcome of the run for the White House and wondered if anyone else was playing US Politics Gone Crazy: The Home Game as well. I'd appreciate insight and discourse with you brilliant folks for sidebets and offshoots that might make a bit of cash this election season.

I've been doing it for a bit (joined just in time to lose like $20 on Brexit). Currently I have about $50 invested and I'm up about $15. I bought "Dems win the election" and "Dems win NC" a while ago, and am up significantly on both; recently dumped "Republicans keep the Senate" for a loss; and in the past day or two bought "Dems win Utah" and "a third party wins a state" to hedge my bets on a Trump loss in Utah. (Check both of these now, and if the total of those two options is less than $1, you will make money on either Trump loss scenario in Utah.) I also bought "Trump becomes a third party candidate in 2016" for about 2 cents on the dollar ages ago; I could sell it for 4 cents now and make a whole two bucks, but it amuses me more to hold on it it.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:32 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Geddy, Alex, Neal... that's inherently a threesome, innit?

Oh no you did not. First of all, it's Y-Y-Zed, and secondly Power Trio is the accepted nomenclature. I sentence you to play "Big Money" twice in a row and would remind you to leave our Canadian bass virtuosos out of it. *whap* Next case!
posted by petebest at 12:32 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Livestream: Hillary in Pueblo, CO
posted by mochapickle at 12:33 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Speaking of RINOs, that's probably exactly what I am right now...So yeah, I guess I'm a RINO at best.

The folks in Abilene probably aren't having to hose your urine off of Eisenhower's grave every morning. The party left me is probably a pretty fair assessment for a lot of people these days.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 12:33 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

How Hillary Clinton should go in for the kill

This is a magnificent opportunity for Clinton and every other Democrat in a tight race. Trump is more and more unpopular, but Republican base voters still support him — thus putting every Republican running for election on the horns of a dilemma. Either disavow Trump, and disappoint and anger base voters, or stay behind him, and go down in flames with the #TrumpTrain. Every Democrat must constantly press this point — and stop the habit of portraying Trump as some weird aberration from normal Republican politics.

Clinton must be the leader in such an effort. The presidential race is sucking up virtually all the media oxygen and attention from voters. It's an unfortunate but undeniable fact that ordinary people pay vastly more attention to presidential elections than to local ones, where their votes are dramatically more likely to matter. But there's no changing that, and so Clinton needs to define the overall election from the top.

posted by kirkaracha at 12:36 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

Trump backers tweet #repealthe19th after polls show he'd win if only men voted
posted by melissasaurus at 12:37 PM on October 12, 2016 [26 favorites]

Trump backers tweet #repealthe19th after polls show he'd win if only men voted

I would like to get off the 2016 ride now, please.
posted by corb at 12:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [139 favorites]

Trump backers tweet #repealthe19th after polls show he'd win if only men voted

This makes me feel physically ill.
posted by mynameisluka at 12:40 PM on October 12, 2016 [53 favorites]

also, he is a revived sludge monster of some sort, of course.

Trump is The Rotten: a vile pile of sludge that can barely hold its shape together, lives with a bunch of poison-spitting assholes, obsessed with building things but not actually good at it

Clinton is the Emerald Herald: ok maybe she is not perfectly 100% crystal-clear about her true intentions all of the time and sometimes isn't forthcoming with information she's holding on to but she is definitely on the side of good and also she is made of dragons
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:40 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

Putin Ally one thing, but Putin says he will work with whoever we elect.
posted by Oyéah at 12:40 PM on October 12, 2016

I just discovered National Journal's 'Travel Tracker' to test the hypothesis that Trump hates sleeping in a bed he doesn't own. Especially since August, he's rarely headed west. May be just coincidence because most competitive states are on the eastern seaboard and in the midwest, but probably not. He's even added a rally down the road from Mar-a-Lago tomorrow at noon.
posted by holgate at 12:42 PM on October 12, 2016

Trump backers tweet #repealthe19th after polls show he'd win if only men voted

"I would be willing to give up my right to vote to make this happen #repealthe19th"

It can't happen here.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 12:42 PM on October 12, 2016 [27 favorites]

“Putin ally tells Americans: vote Trump or face nuclear war,” Andrew Osborn, Reuters, 12 October 2016

NUTS!
posted by VTX at 12:42 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

also, he is a revived sludge monster of some sort, of course.

It's a household rule that whenever a Grimer or Muk shows up on the Pokemon Go tracker, Mr. Machine and I have to yell, "IT'S A DONALD!"
posted by joyceanmachine at 12:43 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Trump backers tweet #repealthe19th after polls show he'd win if only men voted

This makes me feel physically ill.

Just like our election of President Obama peeled a lot of the coating off the racism in our country, we're going to see a lot more of the misogyny over the next (dv) four years.

It makes me sick, too, and wildly angry.
posted by winna at 12:43 PM on October 12, 2016 [58 favorites]

mudpuppie: "Trump's supporters have to double down on it. They have to spin it to make what he said somehow less bad. They are saying the same damn things that sexual assault victims hear all the damn time. They're weaponizing the narrative of shame that sexual assault victims already carry with them."

I had a facebook argument (which I never do) with an otherwise-reasonable acquaintance from high school who said that obviously Trump wasn't admitting to sexual assault because he himself says the women “let” him do it. Never mind that he outright said that he kisses them without asking their permission first, which is the very definition of sexual assault, even if the advance turns out to be favorably received. Never mind that Trump is a demonstrated narcissist and is probably not the best judge of whether the women he non-consensually kisses are into him or not.

But, like, we've got a tape of Trump practically admitting to the crime and that's not enough for some people. Do they need video evidence of him actually assaulting someone? At what point does their deniability become not only implausible but impossible? Even Giuliani admitted that Trump was describing sexual assault.

Sorry for the rant, but all this steam has to get vented somewhere.
posted by savetheclocktower at 12:43 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

Man, he really thinks first-generation Cuban exiles are the key to Florida, huh?

Wouldn't have thought that telling third- or fourth-generation Cuban-Americans they'll never get to see the land of their grandparents would be a yuge selling-point in Florida but then I'm not surrounded by all the best minds like Donnie.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky is solidly aboard the Trump Train:

"He (Trump) won't care about Syria, Libya and Iraq and why an earth should America interfere in these countries? And Ukraine. Who needs Ukraine?," said Zhirinovsky, who once counted himself a friend of Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and whose deaths he still laments.

... Though Putin and Trump have never met, Zhirinovsky said he believed they could establish a close working relationship, adding: "Victory for Trump would be a gift to humanity. But if Hillary Clinton wins it will be the last U.S. president ever."

Careful, Rudy, looks like someone's bucking to be Donald's new best friend.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:44 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

I wish every journalist and network anchor would open up every interview with Trump or his surrogates with, "How do you define sexual assault?"

And then I wish they wouldn't let the interview proceed until the guest answered the question.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 12:46 PM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

>Trump backers tweet #repealthe19th after polls show he'd win if only men voted

Good. They should let everybody know exactly who they are and what they believe. Let them have what they no doubt imagine to be a heroic last stand with whatever remains of their little troglodytic cadre, after they've driven away anybody with even a tiny shred of decency.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 12:47 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

On that map of the states if only men voted: if only men voted, the whole country would be like prison pretty quick. It feels like that's the Trump fan base's intent, a police state ....backed by the Aryan brotherhood.
posted by bonobothegreat at 12:49 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

I was thinking about Donald looming over Hillary during Debate 2, and I think he really cannot stand for anyone else to hold the center of attention. also, he is a revived sludge monster of some sort, of course.

Watching him try to loom behind Clinton, I keep imagining him saying "I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away."
posted by octobersurprise at 12:49 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

NO. Nonononononononononononono. No sitting Democratic Senators should be appointed to a Clinton administration, period. Full Stop. We need every last one right where they are,

I gots some bad news for you about the incoming veep, then...

Look, you're absolutely right with regards to Warren. The rules of her state would mean a (R) governor appointing the replacement, which gives that person an incumbent advantage in 2018. That's a bad move.

Kaine, on the other hand, means vacating a seat that a (D) governor - and being McAuliffe he's about as in tune with the Clinton machine as anyone possibly could be - will appoint the replacement for that seat and the special election will be in 2017, which will also be the governor race so there's a better chance of good democratic turnout.

So no - not "full stop." There's the possibility of strategic appointments depending on how the seat would be refilled and what the odds are of keeping it blue. Considering that this is exactly how Clinton became SoS it seems silly to condemn it.
posted by phearlez at 12:50 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

This makes me feel physically ill.

It's a belief openly shared by Peter Thiel and Ann Coulter. There we are.
posted by holgate at 12:50 PM on October 12, 2016 [19 favorites]

More tales of conservatives breaking our democracy:

Sarada Hanumadass was born in Ireland in 1974, to Indian parents, and moved to the United States when she was 6 weeks old. She became a US citizen when she was 8 and grew up in the Chicago suburbs. (Hanumadass is her maiden name, she did not want to include her last name for privacy reasons.)...

Despite working for the state and having a driver’s license, a Social Security card, and a marriage certificate, she can’t vote in Wisconsin in 2016. “I’m an American,” she says. “I’m being asked for my papers in Wisconsin and I’ve never been asked in my life to prove my citizenship. I feel disenfranchised. It’s super-frustrating and offensive.”
posted by a lungful of dragon at 12:51 PM on October 12, 2016 [25 favorites]

We need more Elizabeth Warrens.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Is in Trouble After Court Decision: Elizabeth Warren's Work Is in Trouble, Thanks to a federal court featuring a wacko justice.
posted by homunculus at 12:53 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Apparently....Trump supporters are trying to start #OperationPurgeCucks....which includes stopping by GOP offices in person, and if they are closed or not supporting Trump, taking "Next Steps". They are calling this a "war" and "fight for our lives", supposedly because the GOP is too "welcoming to Islamic terrorists"
posted by corb at 12:54 PM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

Watching him try to loom behind Clinton, I keep imagining him saying "I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away."


has anyone actually seen undoctored footage of trump's knees
posted by murphy slaw at 12:54 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Wooooo new Keepin it 1600 is up!
posted by rp at 12:57 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

>> Watching him try to loom behind Clinton, I keep imagining him saying "I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away."

> has anyone actually seen undoctored footage of trump's knees

I... think we may have discovered one reason why his suits fit so badly.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:58 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

You need a doctor to put a foot on your knee.
posted by Namlit at 12:58 PM on October 12, 2016

Apparently....Trump supporters are trying to start #OperationPurgeCucks....which includes stopping by GOP offices in person, and if they are closed or not supporting Trump, taking "Next Steps". They are calling this a "war" and "fight for our lives", supposedly because the GOP is too "welcoming to Islamic terrorists"

Well maybe the party could just hire some off-duty cops. Oh, wait...
posted by Chrischris at 12:58 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Cleveland, Ohio EV update:

Got to the Board of Elections building about 10 am - no huge crowds, but a steady stream of 2-5 at a time. LOTS of cheerful enthusiasm from everybody, even the election staff & volunteers. They were clearly ready for the rush - there was a long counter staffed with employees and volunteers, at least 15 people, who would pull your ballot and hand it to you with instructions. There's even two dedicated parking lots for early voters, one next to the building and one a block away. I think it's kind of technically vote-by-mail, where once you've filled out your ballot you stuff it in an envelope and seal it (ordinarily we feed our ballots through a reader as soon as we've filled them out.) Didn't take any longer than "regular" voting.

Then spent a couple of hours canvassing for Hillary - and the emphasis is now clearly on GOTV rather than winning hearts and minds. My gig was to go knock on doors of previous Dem voters and ask if Hillary had their vote & encourage them to vote now. If I got a Trump voter or an obvious Hillary-hater my instructions were to say "thank you for your time" and move on. Otherwise I was armed with handouts that showed when the BoE would be open for early voting.
posted by soundguy99 at 12:58 PM on October 12, 2016 [24 favorites]

Apparently....Trump supporters are trying to start #OperationPurgeCucks....which includes stopping by GOP offices in person, and if they are closed or not supporting Trump, taking "Next Steps". They are calling this a "war" and "fight for our lives", supposedly because the GOP is too "welcoming to Islamic terrorists"

ACTUAL.

FASCISTS.
posted by dis_integration at 1:01 PM on October 12, 2016 [56 favorites]

Here's what the map would look like if it weren't washed cold with like colors
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:01 PM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

Remember on July 27th, when Donald Trump literally asked Russian hackers to hack Hillary Clinton's emails?

"Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."

Since then, Russian hackers have hacked the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Clinton's campaign manager, several other Clinton staffers, and many state Democratic parties, looking for Hillary's emails and blatantly releasing material designed to help Trump and hurt Clinton.

Ironically, the one server they haven't been able to hack -- as far as we know -- is Hillary's private email server. Not a single email from it has leaked. And while it doesn't not appear to have been especially hardened against cracking, the main vector for hacking has been phishing attacks, so having only 2 people able to click on URLs pointing to malware may have been the key protection.

So how can Republicans criticize Hillary for "security lapses" and not hold Trump accountable for encouraging, if not coordinating with, America's enemies?
posted by msalt at 1:02 PM on October 12, 2016 [39 favorites]

I shrugged when I saw the "repeal the 19th" because it's perfectly in character for this group of losers to whine and demand to move the goalposts when their sad pathetic team doesn't win.

Women ain't going anywhere. The 19th isn't getting repealed. Their shambling asshole candidate is going down. All the hashtags in the world won't change that.
posted by emjaybee at 1:03 PM on October 12, 2016 [48 favorites]

Trump making fun of NFL concussion rules. "Uh! Uh! A little ding in the head you can't play the rest of the season." [sounds fake, right? real]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

Nevada Republicans Abandon Heck For Abandoning Trump

A new Public Policy Polling survey of likely voters in Nevada finds Catherine Cortez Masto with her biggest lead in the race to date. She’s at 43% to 39% for Joe Heck.

Heck’s disavowal of Donald Trump is hurting him in the race. 34% of voters say that makes them less likely to vote for Heck, compared to only 19% who say it makes them more likely to support him. Among Trump voters, 48% say Heck’s statement makes them less likely to vote for him.

posted by melissasaurus at 1:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

Ars Technica: [Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon] wants nationwide, all-mail voting to counter election hacks

Nice sentiment, but it does raise the specter of a lot of votes being coerced out of sight. On a slightly different note, what's being done to safeguard voter rolls?
posted by ZeusHumms at 1:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

There's the possibility of strategic appointments depending on how the seat would be refilled and what the odds are of keeping it blue.

Seniority matters too. It shapes the agenda of committees and the character of the Senate caucus. Winning a third term is usually enough to get you towards the top of the pile.
posted by holgate at 1:06 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

PPP has both Clinton and Cortez Masto up by 4 in their latest poll of Nevada.
posted by zombieflanders at 1:06 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

“Putin ally tells Americans: vote Trump or face nuclear war,” Andrew Osborn, Reuters, 12 October 2016

It's probably worth noting that this particular man has a long history of outrageous statements, opinions, and writings. A friend of mine said he's like a Russian Alex Jones, if Alex Jones ran a fringe political party. It doesn't make sense to take his statements as expressions of the Russian government's policies and intentions.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:06 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

/me wonders when people are finally going to stop expecting rationality from Trump supporters
posted by entropicamericana at 1:06 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

roomthreeseventeen: "Trump making fun of NFL concussion rules. "Uh! Uh! A little ding in the head you can't play the rest of the season." [sounds fake, right? real]"

Of course — Trump is that know-it-all schmuck who calls into sports talk radio whose only argument for his position is “c’maaaaaaaahn.” Wait until PFTCommenter gets wind of this one.
posted by savetheclocktower at 1:09 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Put on the Billy Bragg and Wilco cover of All You Facists and remember these fascists are going to lose.
posted by humanfont at 1:09 PM on October 12, 2016 [18 favorites]

You know what we need?

A #DOXPEPE Twitter counterassault, where we have hackers, the remnants of Anonymous, and Twitter moles discover and publish the real names and addresses and employers of these fine fellows. It will be awesome to see them explain to their wives, female co-workers, sisters, and mothers just how important it is that female suffrage be banned. Awesome! (Fake)
posted by Chrischris at 1:09 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

This is great:

How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind, By David Wong

I know a lot of people in this thread are tired of calls for empathy for Trump voters - but this isn't that. It's not a call for empathy, it's just an explanation. And I think it matters for the post-election America.

I was born and raised in Trump country. My family are Trump people. If I hadn't moved away and gotten this ridiculous job, I'd be voting for him. I know I would...

tl;dr-

6. It's Not About Red And Blue States -- It's About The Country Vs. The City
5. City People Are From A Different Goddamned Planet
4. Trends Always Start In The Cities -- And Not All Of Them Are Good
3. The Rural Areas Have Been Beaten To Shit
2. Everyone Lashes Out When They Don't Have A Voice
1. Assholes Are Heroes
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:10 PM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

Trump supporters are trying to start #OperationPurgeCucks....which includes stopping by GOP offices in person, and if they are closed or not supporting Trump, taking "Next Steps"

The steps:

1) A series of increasingly intense Care Bear Stares
2) A STRONG LETTER to their Congressperson
3) If the Congressperson does not fix it, a STRONG LETTER to the lead singer of Echo & the Bunnymen.

DEAR MISTER ECHO
posted by delfin at 1:12 PM on October 12, 2016 [18 favorites]

/me wonders when people are finally going to stop expecting rationality from Trump supporters

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I have concluded that while my expectations of rationality or decency are not being met, there's nothing wrong with having that expectation. I think people should behave rationally, and decently, and just because some people are willing to turn their backs on the social contract doesn't mean I should abandon the expectation that people will bring their highest and best to the table. If we all just give up on other people, the basic understandings that underpin our society will collapse.

Yes, I sound like a Pollyanna, but to me the only way to save our democracy is to make a good-faith effort to at least EXPECT it to work.
posted by mynameisluka at 1:12 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

I... think we may have discovered one reason why his suits fit so badly.

Not a lot you can do when you're cursed with oversized knees and tiny little hands.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:12 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Sarada Hanumadass was born in Ireland in 1974, to Indian parents, and moved to the United States when she was 6 weeks old. She became a US citizen when she was 8 and grew up in the Chicago suburbs

Wow, I went to school with her! I remember her, not that it's especially relevant, but she was (presumably still is) super nice, even though school was horrible. We were in many an honors class together in the sinkhole that was our mutual Chicago suburb.
posted by Frowner at 1:13 PM on October 12, 2016 [35 favorites]

I gots some bad news for you about the incoming veep, then...
...
Kaine, on the other hand, means vacating a seat that a (D) governor - and being McAuliffe he's about as in tune with the Clinton machine as anyone possibly could be - will appoint the replacement for that seat and the special election will be in 2017, which will also be the governor race so there's a better chance of good democratic turnout.

I said she shouldn't have picked Kaine either, for the exact same reason. VA is not guaranteed to replace Kaine with a Dem in 2017, Mark Warner was very nearly upset in 2014 and the Governor's election will be comparatively low turnout, potentially throwing the Senate back to the Republicans after only around 11 months of Dem control. Picking Kaine was an absolutely terrible strategic move, but what's done is done, and there's no reason to further compound mistakes with more mistakes taking more Senators out of play. So yes, full stop. No more shooting your own side in the back by taking away precious votes in the Senate. There's other qualified people, appoint them.
posted by T.D. Strange at 1:13 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind, By David Wong

In 2016, we nakedly acknowledge that punditry is often just jpgs and bulleted lists.
posted by Going To Maine at 1:13 PM on October 12, 2016

Restaurant owner commissions huge painting of Hillary Clinton as sword-wielding goddess from Zach Galifianakis' uncle [real]
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:14 PM on October 12, 2016 [46 favorites]

Trump's complaining again about the fire marshal not letting the huge crowds of people into the rally. Jenna Johnson from WaPo checks; there's no one waiting in line outside.
posted by melissasaurus at 1:15 PM on October 12, 2016 [40 favorites]

like a Russian Alex Jones, if Alex Jones ran a fringe political party

So ... like Alex Jones.
posted by penduluum at 1:15 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Restaurant owner commissions huge painting of Hillary Clinton as sword-wielding goddess from Zach Galifianakis' uncle [real]

WANT
posted by tonycpsu at 1:16 PM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

Shouldn't they be calling it Cuckstallnacht?
posted by delfin at 1:16 PM on October 12, 2016 [46 favorites]

Nice sentiment, but it does raise the specter of a lot of votes being coerced out of sight.

Once more with feeling: it's not the voting method, it's the prevailing political culture. Oregon's white political leaders have never felt the need to suppress the black vote because fewer African-Americans live in the state of Oregon than in the city of Charlotte.
posted by holgate at 1:16 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

It will be awesome to see them explain to their wives, female co-workers, sisters, and mothers just how important it is that female suffrage be banned

what do you want to bet their wives, sisters, mothers etc are already sick of hearing them "explain" stuff
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:17 PM on October 12, 2016 [60 favorites]

As a compatriot of Melania's (we both come from the former Yugoslavia) I'd like to comment on the pussy bow situation.

I think it was genuinely unintentional for two reasons:

I am ridiculously late to this since it was posted this morning and there are oh let's see about 500 comments between now and then, but: I would bet money that Trump ordered Melania to wear that blouse. Whether she wanted to or not. And that she was plotting divorce during that debate (I hope the latter is true, actually).

I don't comment often but I've been reading nearly every comment in the election threads since July. My hair might be falling out and my skin may be turning pasty and pale, I may be having bad dreams and I may have started howling when the moon is full, but damn if I'm not going to stick it out until I can celebrate Clinton's election here on Metafilter with you all.
posted by jokeefe at 1:18 PM on October 12, 2016 [41 favorites]

Apparently....Trump supporters are trying to start #OperationPurgeCucks....which includes stopping by GOP offices in person, and if they are closed or not supporting Trump, taking "Next Steps". They are calling this a "war" and "fight for our lives", supposedly because the GOP is too "welcoming to Islamic terrorists"

This is almost the first thing that's made me laugh in this whole election.

I always tend to assume that the fringe left is a bunch of goofballs, but that the fringe right's hatred and authoritarianism keeps everyone in line....so it's nice to see that they're turning on each other in good old Minneapolis hippie-co-op-wars style, except that hippies just wanted to control the co-ops, not shatter the rule of law and install fascism.
posted by Frowner at 1:18 PM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

That Wong article has been linked at least twice before in this thread. I read it, and wasn't all that impressed. The only new angle it has is that a lot of movies and TV shows are about the cities where 62% of the population lives. It also assumes that all rural populations are white and conservative, which isn't the case.

The most interesting part of it, for me, was last-name-based specuation whether the author is Asian-American, and how his (presumably) Asian-American Trump voter family ended up in rural Indiana or whatever. Anybody know whether Wong is Asian-American?
posted by joyceanmachine at 1:18 PM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

like a Russian Alex Jones, if Alex Jones ran a fringe political party

Pshaw. I'll bet he isn't half the squalling manbaby Alex Jones is.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:21 PM on October 12, 2016

David Wong isn't his real name. He's white.
posted by Yowser at 1:21 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

I'm tired of the Trump vote explainers not because Trump voters don't deserve sympathy, but because I want some Clinton vote explainers to have some balance.

* Alice just graduated from college. She's 24 and appreciates competent people in positions of power. After seeing legacy admissions in her college give upper-class kids a leg up when she worked hard to get in to a selective school, she's more aware than ever of the effect of wealth distribution in the country.

* Bob, 43, is a manager at a restaurant. He sees that his dishwashers don't make enough to make ends meet and wants the minimum wage raised because his corporate office won't let him pay them more than the state minimum.

* Kelly, 71, relies on Social Security to make ends meet. After doing some cursory research, she's become aware that the Paul Ryan budget would put out her on the street. She also doesn't want to see her niece's marriage dissolved by a retroactive ban on same-sex marriages.

* Frank believes that climate change is real because he is familiar with "science". He's concerned that his new daughter's children will be living in an uninhabitable world by the time they're his age. He's also not a giant racist, and is concerned that his wife Saida will be put in a camp or deported because she regularly attends services at the local mosque.
posted by 0xFCAF at 1:21 PM on October 12, 2016 [105 favorites]

“Putin ally tells Americans: vote Trump or face nuclear war,” Andrew Osborn, Reuters, 12 October 2016

It's probably worth noting that this particular man has a long history of outrageous statements, opinions, and writings. A friend of mine said he's like a Russian Alex Jones, if Alex Jones ran a fringe political party. It doesn't make sense to take his statements as expressions of the Russian government's policies and intentions.

Note also the length of dude's tie. The sincerest form of flattery etc.
posted by Existential Dread at 1:22 PM on October 12, 2016

I would bet money that Trump ordered Melania to wear that blouse.

Really? Trump can barely dress himself.
posted by DynamiteToast at 1:22 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

That Wong article has been linked at least twice before in this thread. I read it, and wasn't all that impressed.

I'm not in the US. For me, as an outsider, it was rather informative.
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:24 PM on October 12, 2016

"I've won many environmental awards, many," Trump says.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:24 PM on October 12, 2016

But he pays close attention to what women wear.
posted by clever sheep at 1:24 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

DEAR MISTER ECHO

I am so old
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 1:25 PM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

Ironically, the one server they haven't been able to hack -- as far as we know -- is Hillary's private email server.

Not that private. Just get it from NSA. (Just watched Citizen Four)
posted by tilde at 1:26 PM on October 12, 2016

That Wong article has been linked at least twice before in this thread. I read it, and wasn't all that impressed.

I found the mindset it described to be fairly accurate to actual rural conservative voters, but unfortunately it's not at all true so I have no idea what to do with it. I live in one of the giant elite cities people in those areas complain about and we don't spend our time sitting around laughing at rural yokels or Southerners or whatever. Even in a time when 40% of the country is supporting a fascist clown to spite us, we're not doing that. I have no idea how to convince people of that, though.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:26 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

Mr. Eko?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:26 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

NYT: Some in G.O.P. Who Deserted Donald Trump Over Video Are Returning

Senator Deb Fischer, a Republican from Nebraska who said on Saturday that Mr. Trump’s remarks were “disgusting” and that he should drop out of the race, said on Tuesday that she still planned to vote for Mr. Trump. [...] Ms. Fischer reiterated that she found Mr. Trump’s remarks unacceptable, but added, “I never said that I wasn’t voting for our Republican ticket.”

Profiles in courage, every single one of them!
posted by RedOrGreen at 1:26 PM on October 12, 2016 [30 favorites]

Swear to Crone, I am starting a fire under the cauldron. If you want to find me, I will be dressed in the blood of the men who underestimated Us.
posted by Sophie1 at 1:28 PM on October 12, 2016 [36 favorites]

where is poffin boffin and the wicker cage when you need her.
posted by corb at 1:29 PM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

Sexual Assault Hotline Traffic Spiked During The Debate
Online hotline traffic saw a 33 percent increase over the weekend following Trump’s vile remarks.
posted by melissasaurus at 1:29 PM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

A present from Scotland - Trump's accounts for his golf courses and resorts.

{tl;dr - loses tons of money, claims otherwise, pays no tax, dodgy all round. I know, you're aghast, right?)
posted by Devonian at 1:30 PM on October 12, 2016 [18 favorites]

Sophie1, wait for me. I'll catch a ride with the Vulvalini.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 1:31 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

That Wong article has been linked at least twice before in this thread. I read it, and wasn't all that impressed.

I also wasn't that impressed (and I usually enjoy it when Cracked gets socio-political). But what do I know, I'm a city-slicker born and bred. Just one of them liberal elites that's ruining everything. (Seriously, I get that I have some relative privilege but I've grown up my whole life hearing that I'm not a "real American" because I'm from a city, I'm not religious, and I eat dijon mustard. I have limited patience for being told that once again like this is new news.)
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:32 PM on October 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

(important context)
posted by Sys Rq at 1:34 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

But consent is the magic key to the left.

In college in New England in the mid-80's, we lived in murkier times regarding sexual interactions. Like, we all knew that no meant no, but for several reasons we didn't all necessarily grasp the concept of affirmative consent. Part of this was because of male dominated culture but part of this was also because our society at the time was even more into the "women who want sex are bad" thing than we are now so there was lots of social pressure for women to not actually say what they want. We managed consensual sex anyways but the accepted social norm was "men want sex, women don't."

Thank God we're past that now. Affirmative consent is the greatest thing to be introduced to sexual relations ever. It removes any doubt about what the people involved want, it encourages a healthy discussion of sex (and let's take a second to pour one out for Dr. Ruth for making sex talk healthy and public) and its sexy as hell.

Yes, when I was 20 I did balk at the idea that a couple (or more) should have to ask every step of the way during a sexual encounter, but I was young and stupid. Our college had a day focused on sexual harassment that dealt with consent and it completely opened my eyes. It didn't just change my attitude about sex - its made me better at listening to people's needs and trying to adjust my behavior to make the world a little better for everyone. I still get an occasional adolescent twinge of "what do you mean I can't say/do [blank] anymore" when I have to alter my behavior to be respectful of others, but I shut that twinge the fuck down.

What I'm saying is fuck yes consent is the magic key to the left. Not just in bed, but in life. Because consent implies respect, listening and shutting down your selfish base instincts to serve the greater good. I could not possibly support consent more.

Do your freaky things with your consenting freaky friends. Or your boring vanilla things with your consenting boring friends, Rush Limbaugh. Consent is the best magic. Consent is the secret sauce. Consent also happens to be the law, but its the coolest law.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:34 PM on October 12, 2016 [36 favorites]

Clinton's PrioritiesUSA super PAC cancels last two weeks of TV ads in Colorado - presumably out of an abundance of confidence?
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 1:34 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

I think that Cracked article is reasonably OK at describing why the Culture Wars are a thing, and why we have "red" and "blue" states in the first place. However, it does a terrible job of explaining the Trump phenomenon, since Trump is an urban elite who shares precisely zero values with ignored/disadvantaged rural small c conservative types, and unlike Dubya, McCain, and Romney, he doesn't even try to pretend that he's a folksy dude who gets them. Racism is literally the only thing they have in common, and it's disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

Not to mention that the "all those blue spots are big cities!" point is wrong, anyway. It ignores the very rural, poverty-stricken, and chronically ignored Mississippi Delta and a lot of border-adjacent Texas. Which are full of non-white voters who are trustworthy Democrats.

So, yeah, it really does distill down to racism, no matter what you want to call it. This is the new version of the old "it's not race, it's class" argument.
posted by Sara C. at 1:35 PM on October 12, 2016 [49 favorites]

I don't think the cracked article was saying that city people actively mock rural people so much as that rural people feel like they do.

Although, they do. Flyover country, anyone?
posted by Mitrovarr at 1:36 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

I understand the point of the Wong article, but I hate the blue vs red maps that don't account for population. It depresses me. Plus, the remark about a state being red except for the major metro area discounts all of the people living in a metro area.

Those city voters are part of the state too. They're just living in a higher density area, which doesn't make their vote less important (well, shouldn't, anyways).
posted by ghost phoneme at 1:36 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

So, what are the actual demographics of the Alt-Right? The Wong article assumes it's downwardly mobile rural whites, and the usual Republican base is older white men. It's not 60-year-old dudes in Podunk making dank Nazi frog memes, is it? This is the most confusing thing for me. Are there lots of White Supremacist Millennials?
posted by Kitty Stardust at 1:37 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Flyover country, anyone?
There are cities in the interior of the country.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:39 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Consent is the best magic. Consent is the secret sauce. Consent also happens to be the law, but its the coolest law.

"Consent is the law, consent under will" -- 21st Century Aleister Crowley
posted by Kitty Stardust at 1:40 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

The alt-right is a blend of paleoconservatism and fascism rebranded for web-savvy millennials. The recent use of it to mean "all white supremacist conservatives" is weird.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:40 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Mark Warner was very nearly upset in 2014

That's because he was trying to win the votes of white men, instead of the votes of people who actually support the agenda of the Democratic party. Speaking as a Democrat and one of his constituents, I was extremely annoyed with how he was campaigning that year. I do not think he will make the same mistake again.
posted by longdaysjourney at 1:40 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Clinton's PrioritiesUSA super PAC cancels last two weeks of TV ads in Colorado - presumably out of an abundance of confidence?

Probably. They also have access to private polling, whereas pubic polling has been thinner on the ground. Michael Bennet is even safer in his Senate race. Better off spending more in states like NC where there's a chance to win EVs, the governorship and a Senate seat.
posted by holgate at 1:41 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Flyover country, anyone?

A term invented and popularized by people who live there. Your point?
posted by Sys Rq at 1:42 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

I liked the Wong piece (though, disclaimer: I'm a fan of his work and nominated his most recent book for the Hugos) and thought it did a nice job of threading the needle on talking about the mindsets that give rise to Trump supporters without being apologia or claiming to be a complete answer. Perhaps I am just primed to give him a benefit of the doubt I am not willing to give random NYT or WaPo authors anymore but I found it a lot less demanding of understanding than the other pieces we've seen on Trump voters in recent months.
posted by phearlez at 1:42 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I really think a Republican myth is that if we just stop spending extravagant amounts of money in cities rural areas will get better.
posted by AlexiaSky at 1:43 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

i live in a red county in a blue state and anytime i hear the red voters complain about not getting represented or treated fairly, it's basically because they are being respresented and/or treated fairly for a change.
posted by entropicamericana at 1:43 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

So, what are the actual demographics of the Alt-Right?

IDK about the alt-right as a movement distinct from Trump voters, but during the primaries demographic polling indicated that median income among Trump voters was higher than Sanders or Clinton voters.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:43 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

In half my life spent in major urban centers, I'm not 100% positive I've heard anyone use the term flyover country in life. Half or more of us are FROM those places in my experience.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:43 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

538 is going to add McMuffin to the model (in Utah)! Watch him sail past Gary Johnson in the "expected electoral votes"!
posted by Huffy Puffy at 1:44 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

This, outside my work, right now.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 1:45 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

I really think a Republican myth is that if we just stop spending extravagant amounts of money in cities rural areas will get better.

That's the assumption that the R-dominated Pennsylvania state government generally operates under. Destroy Philadelphia's schools, constantly play chicken with Pittsburgh's transit funding, fuck everything up in Erie and voila! The Centralia mine fire will finally be put out, natural gas prices will triple, and everyone in the Cumberland Valley will get a new McMansion!
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:47 PM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind, By David Wong

I'm from one of those red areas on Wong's map (actually from a college town that's about 50-50, but my family are all from the country). And yeah, resentment for the cultural tyranny of cities is a real thing. I've had more than one New Yorker, upon hearing where I'm from, look at me with the sort of pity usually reserved for when someone tells you their cat has just died. It pissed me off. And I even like cities, unlike a lot of my friends here in the Midwest.

But I really don't think the city vs. country thing can explain Trump's popularity. Back in the primaries, I honestly thought Trump's very East Coast speech and mannerisms and obvious self-aggrandizement would hurt him with rural voters here in flyover country. How can Donald fucking Trump--with his wheeler-dealer persona and gaudy, gold-plated everything and nouveau riche ties and massive buildings (which are, of course, exclusively in big cities)--possibly resonate with people from rural areas? The man's accent is from Queens, for fuck's sake. He embodies everything country people are supposed to dislike about cities.
posted by Hypocrite_Lecteur at 1:47 PM on October 12, 2016 [22 favorites]

The weird thing is that the mindset of "being self-sufficient" described by Wong is total bullshit. The skills needed at actually be self-sufficient in the present are far more intellectual "soft skills" than shooting things and fixing a car. Being able to use your wits to keep yourself competitive in the job market is going to do much more for your family than 19th century agrarian skills. (No shade). Rural decay and poverty are real consequences of America's long love-affair with anti-intellectualism. I don't doubt that the people Wong describes believe in their definition of self-sufficiency, they're just working from an outdated template.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 1:49 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

This is the new version of the old "it's not race, it's class" argument.

This.

For the last 20-something years, pundits and pols have been interpreting the white male racist vote in all manners that could help them disenfranchise someone. To me this is getting really tired.
posted by mumimor at 1:49 PM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

I'm actually not really comfortable with going all vote-by-mail. That actually seems like it really *would* be super susceptible to fraud and coercion.
posted by kyrademon at 1:50 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

OverlappingElvis: ugh. I’m sorry.
posted by nicepersonality at 1:50 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

I've had more than one New Yorker, upon hearing where I'm from

It's okay, New Yorkers do this to everyone who isn't from New York.

Who amongst us in second-tier cities has not had the NYT Style Section come to their city like Lewis & Clarke to breathlessly report that there is actually life on the other side of the George Washington Bridge?
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:51 PM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

The weird thing is that the mindset of "being self-sufficient(*)" described by Wong is total bullshit.

* = self-sufficient provided you have a Ford F-250, diesel to fuel it, roads on which to drive it, and a Wal-Mart where you can go buy some more shells and Busch beer
posted by entropicamericana at 1:51 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

It's not 60-year-old dudes in Podunk making dank Nazi frog memes, is it?

SCENE: A FARM IN MIDWESTERN ANYWHERE, USA. DAWN. ROOSTER CROWS.

FARMER STEVE: "Mabel! I'm going out to the barn to see if the memes are dank enough. You rustle me up some breakfast when I get back."

FINIS.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:52 PM on October 12, 2016 [52 favorites]

The skills needed at actually be self-sufficient in the present are far more intellectual "soft skills" than shooting things and fixing a car.

the irony being that things like guns and cars require egghead engineers to design them and infrastructure to manufacture them. dump these folks in the Amazon without their truck/rifles/whatever and most of 'em'll die with the rest of us
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:53 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

I had a friend work in Saudi as a flight controller for a time. This is not the US, of course. He said that he routinely saw them burning mail out on the desert, if they got behind. I don't like the mail- in concept. I just got a check in my mail box for someone else yesterday. I sought them out, because they were easy to find, and turned it over to a responsible party. Mail in, no.
posted by Oyéah at 1:53 PM on October 12, 2016

Yeah, I grew up in "God, guns, and country" territory. Any article that attempts to analyze those communities without acknowledging the root cause of racism is just not trying hard enough.

The point of the article is not to explain the phenomenon to each other (because we all pretty much accept that premise); the point is to explain what the people living in these areas believe.

I don't doubt that the people Wong describes believe in their definition of self-sufficiency, they're just working from an outdated template.

Again - that's the whole point of the article.

As for the assertion that it doesn't explain why they're going for a 'city slicker' - I definitely thought it explained that. It's because 1. he is speaking directly to them about the economic decline of their towns (which even most Republican politicians care little about and haven't helped), and because 2. he's yelling at the people they want to yell at.

And as for how to reach those people - I think if Clinton can get her WPA-lite infrastructure plan though, it will help a lot.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:53 PM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

About the Elizabeth Warren/Senate thing: It would only be an issue, possibly, until November. The way it works here, the governor appoints a temporary senator who serves until an election that November. So when John Kerry quit to become Secretary of State in January, 2013, Mo Cowan served until Ed Markey was elected that November to fill out the rest of Kerry's term. This was put in place by our overwhelmingly Democratic legislature to keep one of our usual Republican governors (Deval Patrick being an outlier) from making a longer-term appointment (and yes, it doesn't always work, i.e., our election of Scott Brown, R-Cosmo, following Ted Kennedy's death).
posted by adamg at 1:54 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yeah I've got to say that I didn't think my decision to explore Judaism more seriously this year was going to be so harrowing.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 1:55 PM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

Plus TV & movies made by wicked big-city folks, medications and smarty-pants doctors to keep them alive, American flags manufactured in China etcetera etcetera.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 1:55 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yup. Erasure of rural black and brown people for the win.

Any analysis of the Trump phenomenon that doesn't begin with the fact that nearly 100% of his supporters are white (and conversely, nearly 100% of black voters and a massive majority of Latino voters are against Trump) is inherently flawed. You don't have to end there, but a genuine cultural analysis of Trumpism has to start with the fact that it is a white American phenomenon and it must include an understanding of how whiteness has been constructed, how its supremacy has been maintained and how its borders have been policed. From there we can move into the intersection with misogyny, the connection to deindustrialization, the differences in regional support for Trump, etc. But we have to start at the beginning or we will never get to the end.

The alt-right is a blend of paleoconservatism and fascism rebranded for web-savvy millennials. The recent use of it to mean "all white supremacist conservatives" is weird.

What else could "white supremacist conservatives" possibly mean? Is there some secretly anti-racist paleoconservative movement that I've been blissfully unaware of until this moment?

The point of the article is not to explain the phenomenon to each other (because we all pretty much accept that premise); the point is to explain what the people living in these areas believe.

Yeah, I grew up in a white working-class neighborhood in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I don't need for buzzfeed to explain the midwest to me.
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:56 PM on October 12, 2016 [45 favorites]

I really think a Republican myth is that if we just stop spending extravagant amounts of money in cities rural areas will get better.

And this too is based on racism. They believe it's only PoC who live in the "inner cities" and that "well, we've tried to help them w/ money ('spending per student is highest in the cities but they're doing the worst!!!1!1!') but it doesn't help" so, "let's take 'our' money back and spend it on our own kids."

On the city-focused media thing, much of this is self-imposed among Trump supporters. They feel like anything that doesn't reflect their exact circumstances is liberal propaganda (many Trump supporters are about 1-2 steps removed from outright spouting Jewish media conspiracies; many are already there). For example, my parents refused to watch Wall-E because they said it's "Al Gore propaganda." Like, what? How do you even communicate with someone like that?
posted by melissasaurus at 1:56 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

But he pays close attention to what women wear.
But more attention to when they don't wear anything. He's never been in a MEN's locker room, but...
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:57 PM on October 12, 2016

Yeah, I grew up in a white working-class neighborhood in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I don't need buzzfeed to explain the midwest to me.

That's a city.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:57 PM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

What else could "white supremacist conservatives" possibly mean? Is there some secretly anti-racist paleoconservative movement that I've been blissfully unaware of until this moment?

The KKK is not alt-right. Breitbart and /pol/ are.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:59 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

OverlappingElvis: This, outside my work, right now.

Oh, you're being oversensitive.
I'm sure it's just a joke.
Maybe it says "US" at a 45 degree angle.
Come on, can't take a joke?

Tailgate says "Trump: Do the white thing."

I ... I ... I got nothing.
posted by RedOrGreen at 1:59 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

The David Wong sentiments about the country and rural America are as ignorant as Trump's statements about the inner city.
posted by humanfont at 2:00 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

That Wong article is just more "but my family is nice and cool to black people, so the Trump thing isn't race" stuff. I usually like Wong but he was out of his depth there.
posted by zutalors! at 2:00 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

RUSH LIMBAUGH: You know what the magic word, the only thing that matters in American sexual mores today is?

I step out for A FUCKING HOUR and the entire world, which has already gone crazy, just doubled down on crazy and I come back to THIS?
posted by mikelieman at 2:01 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

I've had more than one New Yorker, upon hearing where I'm from, look at me with the sort of pity usually reserved for when someone tells you their cat has just died. It pissed me off.

Having lived in a rural area, and then New York City, and then a different major US city on a different coast, in my experience this is 99% a NY Metro Area thing and not really a "people in cities" thing.

For example I learned very quickly to drop Southernisms from my speech and never bring Rotel to a party, living in New York. Now that I'm in Los Angeles I'd say that the vast majority of people I know here have at least some roots in a rural/"red"/"flyover" area (if only San Bernardino or Fresno), and are not only respectful of those types of American regional differences but use them as a way of bonding with new people. Even people who are from Los Angeles tend to have memories -- even if they're really only family stories -- of when the Valley used to be all orchards. I've been very surprised at the level of Good Clean Living and Wholesome Family Fun that L.A. culture embraces*, considering that I was raised to see it as the origin point of basically every scary urban blight.

My guess is that other cities are even less like the stereotype of Mean City Folk What Make Fun Of Us than Los Angeles is.

Meanwhile, in New York I had exactly the kinds of people who'd be the worst sort of provincial conservative chip-on-your-shoulder types anywhere else openly mock the fact that I was from the south.

*Many to most of my friends here are married, a surprising number go to church, abstaining from alcohol is very normal, people are excited about mainstream all-American activities like Monday Night Football and Disneyland, etc.
posted by Sara C. at 2:02 PM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

This, outside my work, right now.

Ugh, I'm so sorry. I literally* felt a wave of nausea wash over me when I saw that picture.

*And I do mean literally in the literal sense, not the figurative/hyperbolic sense.
posted by litera scripta manet at 2:02 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

For the record, David Wong (real name Jason Pargin, born January 10, 1975) is the Executive Editor of Cracked.com, so anything that he writes for the site WILL get published. I like a lot (but far from all) of the content there, and more than I used to, but his pieces neither stand out to me as the Best or Worst there. As to his honesty, the title of his first novel "John Dies At The End" (SPOILER) is a lie.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:03 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I just emailed the WA State Democratic Party as per the link provided upthread by (I'm so sorry; I can't find your comment now to give you due credit :( ). Bad enough that we still have the electoral college in this time of widely accessible actual vote counts, but for any state to have faithless electors (when the winning candidate has not died or is otherwise no longer available) is unconscionable. If a person cannot accept the will of the voters in his/her state and vote accordingly, then either that person should resign or they should be replaced the state party.

At least this electoral voter put us on notice. I'm hoping the situation can be solved ahead of the election or ahead of the electoral vote, even if it's changing the penalty for faithless electors to something a little more meaningful than a $1000.00 fine. I understand the need for a faithless elector in the case of a candidate's death, but I don't accept it because an electoral voter does not support the candidate for whom the voters of the state voted.

As an electoral voter, if you find yourself unable to support the candidate for whom the voters of your state voted, please do the honorable thing and resign. This isn't a matter of my support for any particular candidate; I don't want this sort of behavior in any state. Honoring the state vote, assuming the candidate is still available, is the only way the electoral vote even semi-mirrors the actual vote.

And yes, I do think it's time for a serious national conversation about using the popular vote rather than the electoral vote for our presidential elections.
posted by Silverstone at 2:03 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

That Wong article is just more "but my family is nice and cool to black people, so the Trump thing isn't race" stuff. I usually like Wong but he was out of his depth there.

Yeah, we all have blind spots. I'm not comparing the two directly, but this week liberal stalwart Ruth Bader Ginsburg whiffed big time with her ignorant comments about Colin Kapernick. I can't think of many other figures the American left reveres more than The Notorious RBG. If she can be this out of touch on an issue, so can anyone.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:04 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

never bring Rotel to a party

UGH Rotel was the answer to a trivia question when my boyfriend and I went a few weeks ago and I could picture it in my head but somehow could not read the label.
posted by zutalors! at 2:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

I feel like I read an entirely different article than most of the people here.

That Wong article is just more "but my family is nice and cool to black people, so the Trump thing isn't race" stuff.

What? My reading of the article was "my family genuinely think they are not racists even though they are" not "my family are not racists." Hell he says as much at the top of page 2.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:06 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

David Wong isn't his real name. He's white.

Not necessarily. Wong, Wang, and Vang are all relatively uncommon (but not unheard of) Norwegian surnames, so it's entirely possible that a white guy from the midwest could be born David Wong.
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 2:06 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

That Wong article is just more "but my family is nice and cool to black people, so the Trump thing isn't race" stuff. I usually like Wong but he was out of his depth there.

Yeah, we all have blind spots. I'm not comparing the two directly, but this week liberal stalwart Ruth Bader Ginsburg whiffed big time with her ignorant comments about Colin Kapernick. I can't think of many other figures the American left reveres more than The Notorious RBG. If she can be this out of touch on an issue, so can anyone.

Of course, but maybe this is why we don't need endless pleas on Understanding the White Trump Voter Written By Their Family Members.
posted by zutalors! at 2:07 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

Catching up to old topics: to Limbaugh, Trump and their ilk, Rape Culture is THEIR Political Correctness. Boys Will Always Be Boys (Unless They're Black) and any who actually grow up to be Real Men are castrated cucks. The More You Know.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

[ah, on non-preview I see that onefellswoop got the real scoop! But the point still stands: Wong is very occasionally not an Asian name.]
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 2:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

What? My reading of the article was "my family genuinely think they are not racists even though they are" not "my family are not racists." Hell he says as much at the top of page 2.

That is exactly the paragraph I highlighted when I first linked it in the thread above.
posted by Groundhog Week at 2:09 PM on October 12, 2016

What else could "white supremacist conservatives" possibly mean? Is there some secretly anti-racist paleoconservative movement that I've been blissfully unaware of until this moment?

The KKK is not alt-right. Breitbart and /pol/ are.

Sure, but what is the point on insisting that "alt-right" be used when we could say "white supremacists on the Internet". I just don't see what useful purpose that serves other than to obfuscate the ideological connections between the "alt-right" and "traditional" white supremacists. And it actually feeds into the narrative that white supremacy is mostly just a problem with hicks and hillbillies or whatever.

White supremacists wear button-up shirts and ties, too. Some of them have nice shoes and minivans and they go home to their nice manicured lawns in the leafy suburbs. They would never say any impolite words about black folks or immigrants (well, maybe in the locker room, or anonymously online). But they live in white neighborhoods and their kids go to white schools and they worship in white churches and if that starts to change, they'll just move further away.

When we call your stereotypical overall'd yokel a "white supremacist" and his white-collar nephew an "alt-righter" instead, that's classism.
posted by tivalasvegas at 2:09 PM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

for factual accuracy, can we just change references to "the Jason Pargin's Pen Name article"?
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:09 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

What is so cool, or not; I have never heard Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, or any of the rest, utter a word. I only see the aftermath of ignorance in their devoted listeners. I don't listen to any other radio either. Just so you know I am equal opportunity on the passive input thing.
posted by Oyéah at 2:10 PM on October 12, 2016

I mean, it's undeniable that many rural areas are dying a slow miserable economic death and that the recovery has not helped them. And the fact that a lot of liberals seem to think "yeah, but they're all racist, and their towns should die because the economic base of the US is changing, so who cares" is honestly kind of maddening to me.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:11 PM on October 12, 2016 [18 favorites]

I really think a Republican myth is that if we just stop spending extravagant amounts of money in cities rural areas will get better.

It's complicated.

When I was doing social work in homelessness prevention, one of the problems that I would face is that there was a lot of support for people struggling inside the cities, and almost no support in rural areas. This wasn't, you know, a liberal conspiracy or anything - it's largely because the social work organizations are most often centered in cities, where they can both fundraise, hire staff easily, and serve the most clients. There is a dearth of social workers willing to commute to rural areas, and even if there were a large pool, you would still have to pay them enough to lure them there, which grants focused on a rural county generally cannot do. And the way the government gives grants, it's to organizations that have already proven themselves, largely in the cities.

And it's also /hard/ to deal with rural poverty. It's not as simple as "put them in an apartment." Often you have to deal with RVs, or taxes on land, or lack of proper sewer facilities. These aren't cheap "pay the first month's rent and you're home clear" fixes. These are expensive and protracted problems.

So they're not wrong in seeing a lot of money going to the cities, and not much to them - but they're also not considering that it is largely much cheaper to provide social services in a city than it is out in rural areas.
posted by corb at 2:12 PM on October 12, 2016 [55 favorites]

And the fact that a lot of liberals seem to think "yeah, but they're all racist, and their towns should die because the economic base of the US is changing, so who cares" is honestly kind of maddening to me.

What an absurd caricature of what's actually being said here. One can believe that rural white voters have gotten short shrift for decades and still believe that the press's myopic focus on Trump's aggrieved, economically anxious supporters is somewhere between counterproductive and offensive given the equal or greater levels of suffering elsewhere.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:12 PM on October 12, 2016 [38 favorites]

One can believe that rural white voters have gotten short shrift for decades and still believe that the press's myopic focus on Trump's aggrieved, economically anxious supporters is somewhere between counterproductive and offensive given the equal or greater levels of suffering elsewhere.

Yes, this exactly.
posted by zutalors! at 2:14 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

As far as Limbaugh and consent goes, Libby Anne on her blog Love, Joy, Feminism, is a good conservative whisperer and has an explanation.

The TL;DR is that in conservative purity culture the only path for sexual morality is following what God allows, consent is irrelevant. Sex inside marriage is permissible, everything else is forbidden. This, you will note, all but explicitly endorses marital rape.

Limbaugh is kind of blurring things by invoking the purity culture's vision of sexual morality since technically Trump isn't permitted there (groping the property of another man is forbidden by God too), but it explains the disgust and disdain for the liberal consent model of sexual morality. God approved == good, everything else == bad. Consent is simply not a factor in the Christian vision of sexual morality and ethics.
posted by sotonohito at 2:14 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

So they're not wrong in seeing a lot of money going to the cities, and not much to them - but they're also not considering that it is largely much cheaper to provide social services in a city than it is out in rural areas.

They're also overlooking or willfully ignoring the many forms of aid and subsidy they are eligible for and/or availing themselves of.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:14 PM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

I mean, it's undeniable that many rural areas are dying a slow miserable economic death and that the recovery has not helped them. And the fact that a lot of liberals seem to think "yeah, but they're all racist, and their towns should die because the economic base of the US is changing, so who cares" is honestly kind of maddening to me.

For me, it's more: if you want to make your town uninhabitable for PoC, women, LGBT people, people with disabilities, people whose children have disabilities, people with mental illness, "elites" with college degrees, etc., then you can't really complain when your town has a declining population and a declining economy. Try not discriminating against the majority of American workers and consumers and maybe your economy wouldn't be going to shit.
posted by melissasaurus at 2:15 PM on October 12, 2016 [57 favorites]

I think part of what strikes me as off about the Wong article is that my experience is more like Sara C's in the two cities I've lived in (Seattle and Chicago): most people I meet are from somewhere else, frequently more rural.

And some people from more rural areas will have very negative views on those areas: it's why they left. Not all, obviously. But most of the transplants have a pretty good idea about life back home. So explaining how shitty things have been for the rural voter doesn't really help us understand the Trump voter. We know! We've been there!
posted by ghost phoneme at 2:15 PM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

I mean just consider this from the perspective of a minority - not only is there anxiety about what's going on, but then you also are beaten over the head about your high falutin' refusal to feel badly enough for people who want to deny you your health, safety, very existence. It's not academic.
posted by zutalors! at 2:16 PM on October 12, 2016 [45 favorites]

About the Elizabeth Warren/Senate thing: It would only be an issue, possibly, until November.

Losing Warren in the Senate would hurt much more than losing a replacement level Democratic cardboard cutout, say, Evan Bayh or Chris Coons. Warren has an outsized roll in the current political landscape, and in shaping the Democratic priorities in the Senate. She actually has direction and real conviction. Swapping her vote for deadwood like Martha Coakley is not remotely a one to one trade.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:16 PM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

On the other hand, showbiz_liz, I spend a lot of time during almost every election year wondering why issues that are local to one or two minor US regions like Appalachian coal country suddenly have to be part of the national dialogue, while Anderson Cooper never stops a presidential debate to ask about transitioning the Gulf Coast away from dependence on offshore oil drilling jobs, or what is to be done about coastal levees and hurricane preparedness, or similar issues in the small and relatively insignificant region I happen to be from.

And then I realize it's because the small and relatively insignificant region I happen to be from is full of non-white people whose concerns are less important in the eyes of politicians than their Appalachian and Rust Belt counterparts. I'm sure there are a lot of other rural areas which would say the same thing, and frankly it's kind of weird that this one part of the country is meant to be a stand-in for rural people everywhere.
posted by Sara C. at 2:16 PM on October 12, 2016 [57 favorites]

What does the Trumptopia look like for these dying rural areas? Going back to being factory/plant towns? Those are still places with extremely limited opportunity.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 2:17 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

What does the Trumptopia look like for these dying rural areas?
Whatever it was like before they started dying, even though it's physically impossible?
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:20 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yes, melissasaurus! I distinctly remember an article about a brain drain from MI published right around the time the ban on gay marriage was passed.

I turned to a classmate and said, "What the fuck did they expect? The economy sucks and you're being assholes to our friends instead of doing something useful."
posted by ghost phoneme at 2:20 PM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

They're also overlooking or willfully ignoring the many forms of aid and subsidy they are eligible for and/or availing themselves of.

They're also often resistant to outsiders paid by the state or even the county. Their ideal scenario would be sending bags of cash to churches and other established orgs, even if there wouldn't be the same open-door policies and evidence-based outcomes from their programmes. (This applies to addiction and mental health outreach as well.)

It's a Hard Problem.
posted by holgate at 2:20 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

I was just subjected to KellyAnne on CNN

What the fuck is wrong with anyone who doesn't just call her on the bullshit
posted by mrzarquon at 2:22 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

The "evidence-based outcomes" for church-based programs is Number of Conversions/Souls Daved, not Number of Lives Saved.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:24 PM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

I mean just consider this from the perspective of a minority - not only is there anxiety about what's going on, but then you also are beaten over the head about your high falutin' refusal to feel badly enough for people who want to deny you your health, safety, very existence.

It's not about us feeling bad for them. It's about us strategically figuring out how to deal with them going forward, because even if I don't like it, they have political power and they also have some legitimate grievances that the Democratic Party is well-situated to address, like corb's point of expanding social services to rural areas, or Clinton's jobs plan. That's the kind of thing that can chip away at Republican support without compromising Democratic ideals or condoning racism. I really am not approaching this stuff from any kind of "let's feel bad for the rural whites" standpoint, I just think it's leaving money on the table to write these guys off, or to assume that their only or primary motivation is racism even when they're actually racist.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:25 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

I was just subjected to KellyAnne on CNN

What the fuck is wrong with anyone who doesn't just call her on the bullshit

They're all playing the same game

They admire her for how well she plays it
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:25 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

CNN needs to have KellyAnne keep coming in for the same reason that Marvel Comics can't kill off Doctor Doom. (Although heroes are frequently killed off and resurrected six issues later)
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:26 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

The "evidence-based outcomes" for church-based programs is Number of Conversions/Souls Daved,

The obvious problem being that its hard to collect that data on whether the soul was truly saved or not. Perhaps there should be some sort of post-death exit interview so we can gather data and study this.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:26 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sometimes I find myself thinking about America as if it were actually Panem and it scares me a little.
posted by Sara C. at 2:27 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

hey guys here's my latest #election #prediction map based on latest data and polls
posted by boo_radley at 2:27 PM on October 12, 2016 [23 favorites]

Did they at least ask Ms Conway about Trump bragging about barging into dressing rooms to look at naked teens? And then follow up by asking if this was going to make it more difficult for him to himself in an upcoming lawsuit over his alleged rape of a 13 year old?
posted by humanfont at 2:29 PM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

I live in a red county in a red state and even here in the less-urbanized US, the main sources of economic activity are government-based. Granted, mostly stimulated by defense spending, which never seems to take a hit from the Republicans. When the housing market and the space program both shrunk, there was an exodus of about 12-20% (I don't recall exactly) of the populace. The only thing that guarantees a steady economy in this area are government grants. The biggest employer in the county is county government. Without government intervention, small towns, especially in isolated rural areas, are not going to be sustainable.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 2:30 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

>What does the Trumptopia look like for these dying rural areas?

Whatever it was like before they started dying, even though it's physically impossible?

Right. And meanwhile progressives, who actually do have workable solutions for improving the lives of rural people, are constantly lambasted by the rightwingers who have appointed themselves Guardians of America's Rural Heritage.

It wasn't a Republican who brought electricity to the Tennessee Valley.

The "evidence-based outcomes" for church-based programs is Number of Conversions/Souls [S]aved, not Number of Lives Saved.

This is an unfair generalization.
posted by tivalasvegas at 2:30 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

On the one hand I can think of like seventy-five different reasons why the "cities are stealing rural money" narrative is delusional — cities are the engines of wealth, and city I've ever lived in has paid out far more in state taxes than it has received back, with the difference being sent out to the rural hinterlands. but in the end that's not important.

What's important is that we must love each other. And love is sometimes measured in USD. if we can get enough USD into rural schools the kids there can get the knowledge, skills, and values they need to better their communities. If we can get enough money into rural poverty relief programs, rural communities can become healthy enough to have no need to blame the cities they depend upon for anything.

And should bitter old fossils come to hate us because their children are smarter and kinder and lovelier than they themselves can bring themselves to be, if they can't return love with love, then we will frustrate their hopes for renewed hatred by being empathetic anyway — while nevertheless continuing to teach their children better values than they'd like them to have.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:32 PM on October 12, 2016 [31 favorites]

I just discovered National Journal's 'Travel Tracker' to test the hypothesis that Trump hates sleeping in a bed he doesn't own. Especially since August, he's rarely headed west

Obviously, on October 4th and 5th, someone messed up and broke the line of salt following the longitude 110° line. Still, you have to give them credit for maintaining a kekkai that long...
posted by happyroach at 2:32 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

hi, I'm You Can't Tip a Buick, and I want to corrupt your children with my San Francisco values. And I don't feel a bit of shame about it, because San Francisco values are fundamentally healthy and strong.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:33 PM on October 12, 2016 [28 favorites]

They're all playing the same game

They admire her for how well she plays it

Watching her hold up to Bill Maher TRYING to make her break character was amazing. I don't blame anyone when they drive a dumptruck full of money to their house and want you to do a gig.

That said, man, I hope she's spending it on stripmalls.
posted by mikelieman at 2:34 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was just subjected to KellyAnne on CNN
What the fuck is wrong with anyone who doesn't just call her on the bullshit.

But she provides such high ROI to investors. I don't see what your problem is here.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:35 PM on October 12, 2016

I endorse boo radley's electoral map, especially since it would put my location at the north end of the "Wild Human Preserves", at the "Pueblo Builders", and now that I have a cat (not 'owned', not 'pet', she tolerates me because I feed her), I might get along better with the United States of Lions.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

What does the Trumptopia look like for these dying rural areas?

For the rural Rust Belt it is complicated.
People were brought up in the post WWII generation with the belief that if they worked hard in heavy industry they'd be able to afford a lower middle class life with each generation slightly ahead of the last. When steel and iron went kaput in the late 70's through early 90's, many jobs and that dream was was lost, with medium and heavy manufacturing following suit. Then along came NAFTA, and regardless of whatever facts you want to cite, regardless of whatever proof you have to offer, a huge chunk that is right now wearing out the #MAGA hashtag fully and 100% blame Clinton 42 for killing off their last chances. And here comes his wife. My word do they hate her. She represents everything 'evil' about Bill and then some. 'Hillary for Prison' is a whimsical quip compared to some of the signs I've seen 15 minutes from my house. (German translation: The Hillary, The)

Trumptopia is a freight train rolling back into town, steel and manufacturing jobs brought back from the Chinese, Mexicans, or wherever else those jobs went (and will never, ever come home). Remember what I said about NAFTA? Facts don't matter - Donnie promises that the steel mills and factories will start up again. Reality doesn't matter.

Corb, you've done God's work trying to help those in these situations (and worse).
posted by splen at 2:40 PM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

John Yoo: Trump 'Reminds Me A Lot Of Early Mussolini'

For those not familiar, John Yoo's support for torture is so extensive that he once wrote that it was a-ok for the president to order a suspect's child's testicles crushed to gain information from that suspect.
posted by indubitable at 2:41 PM on October 12, 2016 [30 favorites]

I don't blame anyone when they drive a dumptruck full of money to their house and want you to do a gig.

I do. Money's not everything.
posted by tivalasvegas at 2:41 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Woah, I've been having trouble reading every post in these threads but did this video get posted already? It's incredibly effective/disturbing.

How TRUMP really feels about black people & "the good old days"
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:42 PM on October 12, 2016 [35 favorites]

Making those dollars useful means imposing some kind of control on the curriculum, control that parents can't opt out of.

No signing your kid out of sex education. No "school of choice" money going to religious schools that don't follow the curriculum.

In some circles, that'd get the kids homeschooled permanently. Isolating them even more.

So, I'm all for love and money heading that way. It's just not going to be warmly received in some places.
posted by ghost phoneme at 2:42 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

I really do think "throw money at the problem" should be tried, and tried aggressively. Some people will get crab-potted into darkness no matter what — but some will get better, if they're flooded with the resources they need to do it.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:42 PM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

And yes, I do think it's time for a serious national conversation about using the popular vote rather than the electoral vote for our presidential elections.

Agreed, but I also want a national voting holiday in order to counter some of the problems of representation for minority interests in a straight popular vote. Californians get upset that Wyoming voters have much more power, but it's not like we can just dissolve Wyoming and ignore their rural problems, which is a real risk in straight popular voting.
posted by xyzzy at 2:44 PM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

Wait, wait, wait...

How. The. Hell...is it possible I have never seen this video of Trump and Giuliani??? :-o

And why are we not seeing more of it this election season?
posted by darkstar at 2:45 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

Are you the cool aunt or uncle of a kid out in Trumpland? Try to make clear to the kid that your door is always open and you'll even buy the bus ticket. Take measures to avoid tipping off your Trumpist relatives, though. Just let the kids know that if they want a way out they've got one.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:46 PM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

I thought I had a pretty good grasp of how deep America's hatred of women went until a woman ran for president.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:48 PM on October 12, 2016 [57 favorites]

The topics for the third debate are out:

Debt and entitlements
Immigration
Economy
Supreme Court
Foreign hot spots
Fitness to be President
posted by melissasaurus at 2:50 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

> I had a friend work in Saudi as a flight controller for a time. This is not the US, of course. He said that he routinely saw them burning mail out on the desert, if they got behind. I don't like the mail- in concept. I just got a check in my mail box for someone else yesterday. I sought them out, because they were easy to find, and turned it over to a responsible party. Mail in, no.

Hey sorry you have weird anecdata about mail, but in states that have switched to it fully, we've not seen those issues at any conceivably large scale.

Not to mention: you get a confirmation number. If you see your vote as not counted, you can file a petition to resubmit it. If they think your ballot was tampered with, they will contact you.

You can always drop off your ballot, in an envelope, directly at ballot collection boxes, or go to a physical location to pickup a new ballot (where they then strike your old ballot record number, so you can't double submit) fill it out and drop it off. But now you have two weeks or so to vote, everyone is immediately enrolled in absentee / early voting process, and you don't have make sure you are free on a random tuesday.

And you get a validation that your vote has been counted, have two weeks to review the actual ballot in the privacy of your own home, and not have to carry a cheat sheet about which referendum you wanted to vote for, etc.
posted by mrzarquon at 2:50 PM on October 12, 2016 [31 favorites]

And why are we not seeing more of it this election season?

You talking about the motorboating video with Giuliani in drag? I think that it's not being used as an attack because it has some ugly implications that could potentially bleed over to vulnerable communities. I've seen it make the rounds on the comedy shows.
posted by xyzzy at 2:52 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

I really do think "throw money at the problem" should be tried, and tried aggressively. Some people will get crab-potted into darkness no matter what — but some will get better, if they're flooded with the resources they need to do it.

I grew up (comfortably) in the crab pot ("State of Jefferson") and was able to understand how important it was to GTFO largely due to a handful of involved and effective teachers over the years. I'm sure lots of you have similar experience. They deserve every dollar we ought to be throwing at them.
posted by notyou at 2:52 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

I thought I had a pretty good grasp of how deep America's hatred of women went until a woman ran for president.

I've seen a bunch of men saying stuff like this and it's both heartening and also depressing that even our allies didn't already know this, because I don't know many women who are surprised by it at all.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:53 PM on October 12, 2016 [28 favorites]

Fitness to be President

This is a horrible debate topic. It's basically a 'yes' or 'no' question. "Of course I'm fit and my opponent's not!"
posted by tofu_crouton at 2:54 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Of all the debates, the third one has me the most worried. The moderator is Chris Wallace of Fox News, and I can't trust him to be balanced.
posted by helloknitty at 2:54 PM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

The topics for the third debate are out:

Debt and entitlements
Immigration
Economy
Supreme Court
Foreign hot spots
Fitness to be President

As if...

Benghazi
You Coulda Fixed it 30 Years Ago
Boxes and Boxes and Boxes of Emails
ISIS
Horribad Inner Cities
Strong Borders
Hey, Why Don't You Ask Her to Stop When She's Overtime?
posted by notyou at 2:55 PM on October 12, 2016 [55 favorites]

Brilliant: Trump & Clinton Duet
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:55 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

I kept saying early on that if we were lucky, Trump will be Berlusconi, a sexist clown out to enrich himself and make the country a laughingstock; if we were unlucky, he'd be Mussolini. There is no question in my mind now that he's Mussolini.
posted by benzenedream at 2:55 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

The latest from Jon Rosenberg's "Scenes From A Multiverse" comic (gocomics.com edition), which frequently is good for reminding me that we are NOT in the Worst of All Possible Realities.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:56 PM on October 12, 2016

Of all the debates, the third one has me the most worried. The moderator is Chris Wallace of Fox News, and I can't trust him to be balanced.

At this point, I literally cannot imagine a scenario in which Trump wins a debate with Clinton. He's proven he can't talk for 90 minutes without going on bizarre tangents and jumping at every bit of bait Clinton lays out.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:56 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

If you're going to help out people in poverty, you need healthcare for all. A whole lot of untreated illness, physical and mental, out there that is holding people back and leading them to dark places of addiction or suicide. But also yes, education, infrastructure, investment.
posted by emjaybee at 2:57 PM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

> I just don't see why there's any need for a political party to the right of the Democrats.

See my comment above about progressives' fantasy. I'm sorry, but there's not going to be a magical world in which everybody is progressive. There are going to be a bunch of people more conservative than you, and they get a party too. It's called democracy.

> I live in one of the giant elite cities people in those areas complain about and we don't spend our time sitting around laughing at rural yokels or Southerners or whatever. Even in a time when 40% of the country is supporting a fascist clown to spite us, we're not doing that.

You realize you sound exactly like a man saying there's no sexual harassment problem because he and his friends don't do that, right? Maybe take the word of someone who's experienced it rather than smugly denying it? The Wong piece was excellent, and there's a reason it makes urban lefties uncomfortable. My thanks to showbiz_liz for her patient explanations in defense of it.
posted by languagehat at 2:58 PM on October 12, 2016 [39 favorites]

Oh. And if there's one thing that is a lesson to be learned from this election, it is that email communications not subject to FOIA should always be encrypted. Like I was saying in, you know, 1994.
posted by xyzzy at 2:58 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

The more unbalanced Wallace looks, the better Clinton will look. If he is even slightly abusive, she will immediately make him sorry, and so will the rest of us, in our own little ways. Fox has been unfair and unbalanced for years now. It is their trademark. Clinton is a highly trained diplomat, he is a performer, his stake is his paycheck. Ha ha ha Chris Wallace.
posted by Oyéah at 2:59 PM on October 12, 2016

Trump is back to Hillary failing to pass the bar in DC in his rallies. Everything and the kitchen sink.
posted by Talez at 3:00 PM on October 12, 2016

I do. Money's not everything.

True, but then again, "Work is work." She *knows* it's going to be 73 - 27. She's just hoping there isn't another moment where her basic human decency requires her to say, "you know what Donald, fuck you!"
posted by mikelieman at 3:01 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Backstreet Boys to Trump: Don't use "I Want It That Way"
posted by Talez at 3:01 PM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

Tom Hanks on Donald Trump's lewd comments: 'I'm offended as a man, I'm not offended as a husband or a father'


“He was at work man. He wasn’t in a locker room, he was at work,” the Castaway actor told the Press Association. “He was showing up to do a thing on camera.

“Look, I’m offended as a man. I’m not offended as a husband or a father. I’m offended as a guy. That’s just not right, I’m sorry. It’s not right at work. It’s not right in the locker room. It’s wrong. Period. The end. That’s all.”/em>
posted by Jalliah at 3:02 PM on October 12, 2016 [78 favorites]

Trump wouldn't be able to even sit still for the duration of a bar exam, let alone take and pass one.
posted by melissasaurus at 3:02 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

“There are people in tears, I shed mine a couple of days ago,” the esteemed Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace confessed to Politico Thursday afternoon in Cleveland. Ailes was “the best boss I’ve ever had,” Wallace reportedly added, noting that he “loved [Ailes] personally.”

I'm sure Wallace will be fair and balanced. I wonder if Ailes let him into the sexual harassment club?
posted by benzenedream at 3:02 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

1% of patients receiving specialist treatment went abroad, report says

The report does not break down the numbers to determine how many Canadians went to the U.S. for treatment, but just refers to those who have received treatment in another country.

Skipping ahead so this might already have been posted (I did try to search). Most importantly, that study doesn't distinguish between people who went abroad for healthcare, and people who got healthcare abroad. The study reported here shows that .5% (one half a percent) of Canadians had received healthcare abroad. This is all Canadians not just those seeing a specialist, which is one reason numbers may be different. More importantly, only .1% (one tenth of a percent) had gone abroad for healthcare. The rest were just people who WERE abroad and needed healthcare while on vacation or whatnot.

As a Canadian...who watched his father, a firefighter, wait 3 months for an MRI, and then die from a brain tumour,...it's still more important to me that there be universal access, ...

I'm so sorry, Bonobothegreat. But remember, the assumption here always seems to be that there would have been faster care in the US, but that assumption isn't well justified. There are many many people in the US who never get MRIs though they might need them, and many who do get them who wait a long time. Everyone always seems to compare the non-American who's appointment is in a few months to an American who just show up in the waiting room of any doctor on a momen's notice with a wad full of cash. But that's not most Americans. Most Americans are the people posting on AskMe trying to figure out what their insurance will cover and won't and which doctor is "in-network" and getting pre-approval for testing and procedures (seriously...want an MRI to see if your cancer has spread...the docs need your insurance company's permission first. I'm not making this up.) So yeah, that sucks about your father-in-law, but don't assume the outcome would have been different in the US.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 3:04 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

Those topics...?? They are like set-ups for Trump talking points!

By the third debate we still haven't seen them discuss, outside of sideways work this in somehow moves from Clinton:

Income inequality
Future Jobs Policy
Energy Policy
Tax Policy
Foreign Policy that doesn't involve Syria/ISIS
Competing Family Leave policies
Etc.

Bad job, CPD!
posted by notyou at 3:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

And now Paul Ryan is claiming the Clinton campaign has "disdain for the Catholic faith."
posted by melissasaurus at 3:06 PM on October 12, 2016

melissasaurus: Try not discriminating against the majority of American workers and consumers and maybe your economy wouldn't be going to shit.

snickerdoodle: My high school is small enough that there's only one Facebook group for all the alumni. Someone posted a Trump rally, and the chorus of "this is why we all left" was deafening.

It's hard to build new economies, so small towns that had their one or two economic drivers die, you can't just build something new. The local economy was built on manufacturing, mining or agriculture, so everything supports that industry. Manufacturing processes change and some factories are either closed because they're outdated or no longer competitive, mining won't last forever, and agriculture has shifted to larger and larger scales. So how do you keep people in town without those core industries? Some are lucky enough to get something new to keep their town alive, often natural or man-made tourist attractions.

But generally, they decline, and urban populations continue to grow as rural populations shrink (with suburbs coalescing somewhere outside of urban centers). Lose enough people, and businesses start going. Fewer businesses mean fewer jobs and fewer reasons to stay in the area, and the decline continues.

Discrimination seems to come as populations dwindle, not causing populations to shrink. Sure, it's not helping community growth if the community is xenophobic, but really there's no a lot of reasons to move to rural communities, unless you want a lot of land for a little money and a really long commute to work. Telecommunication is often pitched as the savior of Small Town USA, but then you get back to the lack of businesses. Sure, some rural communities are beautiful, but if it's an hour drive to get gallon of milk, and three hours to the nearest basic health services, do you really want to move out there? You'll need a lot of people to move out to support new businesses, or at least attract a lot of tourists to support at least seasonal businesses.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

The topics for the third debate are out:

Debt and entitlements
Immigration
Economy
Supreme Court
Foreign hot spots
Fitness to be President

It's Chris Wallace, so it's gonna start with emails and end with Trump just going off for 20 minutes without interruption.
I'm almost surprised there's even going to be a third debate. we will watch it, but will the casual voter?
I expect another shitshow.
posted by OHenryPacey at 3:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Making those dollars useful means imposing some kind of control on the curriculum, control that parents can't opt out of.

I think that doesn't have to be the case - that's definitely the thing that gets the biggest pushback, and if it's not necessary, it would go over a lot better. If you're teaching kids to read and research and giving them windows of opportunity, you don't need to give them social education - they'll get that. Their inquiring minds will get there once they leave or have access to the internet. You just have to teach kids how to think and that they have a future.
posted by corb at 3:08 PM on October 12, 2016

T.D. Strange linked this above, but it's so damned absurd I just want to point it out again. Eric Trump used 538's speculative "Men-Only" map as a fundraising graphic showing momentum for Trump. The mind literally boggles.
posted by Existential Dread at 3:10 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

I don't know about youse, but the more I hear about this moderator the more I'm bracing for yet more exquisitely painful sympathy pains from one woman to another who has had to deal with that shit. Ganged up on by two dudes in the workplace who both think they're better than you? Oh boy. Haven't we all been there. Haven't we just.

Nobody put "they both interrupt at the same time" on their bingo cards. Way too dangerous to liver health.
posted by E. Whitehall at 3:11 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

Field report: We're back to calling local Ds to gauge support and recruit volunteers. I recruited three more people in about two hours, which puts my total at six (plus one guy I IDed who was already volunteering in the neighboring swing state.) Force multiplication feels good.

Highlight of the day was one guy who didn't want to volunteer (state equivalent of the Hatch act concerns) but was gushing as soon as I said why I was calling. He was from Africa and launched into a series of colorful denunciations of Donald. "You tell Ma-Ma* that Trump is a round-headed idiot!" etc. I put him down as a strong 1.

*His term for Clinton. He made it sound like a title.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 3:17 PM on October 12, 2016 [36 favorites]

Fitness to be President

This is a horrible debate topic

That's the door open for Wallace to tag team with Trump on emails and accusers, he can claim it's a legitimate topic of debate.

Also "debt and entitlements" should be grand, how much is Social Security ruining the country, Paul Ryan or Alan Simpson?
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:18 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Hillary Clinton website has a new thing that answers the whole what have you done in the last 30 years..
posted by humanfont at 3:19 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

I just received an application to request a "vote by mail ballot" (which is apparently just an absentee ballot under another name) from the Democratic Party of Illinois, complete with pre-paid return envelope. I have never seen such a thing before and this is my 16th year living in Chicago.

Still going to vote in person, since I work from home on Tuesdays and my polling place is never that busy, even in presidential years, but way to work it, party machine!
posted by merriment at 3:20 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

For once their inability to actually comprehend anything actually works out. Just think how terrible it would be if Eric Trump had said this is what the map would look like of only men voted, hint hint.
posted by ckape at 3:23 PM on October 12, 2016

Lawrence, KS is offering free public transportation for all residents on November 8th to help get out the vote. I am so proud to live here.
posted by helloknitty at 3:24 PM on October 12, 2016 [57 favorites]

http://crooksandliars.com/2016/10/montana-republicans-warmly-embrace-white
Montana Republicans Warmly Embrace A White Nationalist's Legislative Candidacy

Mr. Alt-Right Goes to Washington
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:26 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

And now Paul Ryan is claiming the Clinton campaign has "disdain for the Catholic faith."
They're trying to turn another Wikileaks nothingburger into a thing. Meanwhile, Paul Ryan continues to support Donald Trump, who got into an argument with the Pope earlier this year.
posted by airish at 3:26 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Without government intervention, small towns, especially in isolated rural areas, are not going to be sustainable.

'Twas always thus. The narrative of individualistic boot-strapping roll up your sleeves and git 'er done rural America is almost as toxic a cultural trope as the Lost Cause.

There are a lot of parts of the US that are just not going to have a self-sustaining capitalist economy that isn't dependent on anybody else. They never did, they can't now, and they never will. Trying to solve the problems of these places with the free hand of the market created those problems in the first place.
posted by Sara C. at 3:26 PM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

if only there was a solid Catholic whose placement at a high level in the Clinton campaign would refute this
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:31 PM on October 12, 2016 [89 favorites]

Those topics...?? They are like set-ups for Trump talking points!

Whatevs. If we've learned one thing at the debates, it's that the topics don't matter. Where was "treatment of beauty queens" in the first debate schedule? Where was "Bill's sexual history" in the second?

The candidates will talk about whatever they want to talk about. I'm not going to get worked up over the titles of the segments.

At the end of the day, Trump can't debate, and that's not going to change. And yeah, Wallace won't fact-check like Raddatz and Cooper did. Meh. You could put Bill O'Reilly in the moderator's chair and HRC would find a way to come off as the grown-up in the room.
posted by saturday_morning at 3:32 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

hey guys here's my latest #election #prediction map based on latest data and polls

If Trump wins, I'm moving to Strange Fire Area
posted by penduluum at 3:33 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

I'm so, so glad that my prediction that Hillary would be a grownup and Donny would fail utterly at debating her turned out to be true. I remember saying it as soon as he gelled in as the candidate, and a lot of my fellow liberal friends insisted that by some Republican magic, he would win all the debates and if anything seem more electable than her. Thank god that even if we have to live in this particular timeline, it's not the Worst Timeline.
posted by Sara C. at 3:36 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Sopan DebVerified ‏@SopanDeb
Trump in Lakeland: "The women in this country want what I’m saying."

They want to be grabbed in their genitals without consent? I admit I'm a guy so I don't know exactly what women want but I'm pretty sure women don't want what you're saying.
posted by Talez at 3:39 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

The Atlantic asked more than 50 big muckety mucks in tech about a bunch of stuff. Of interest: literally none are voting for Trump, 88% are voting for Clinton, 92% are shitting on Thiel for his various bad decisions. Oh, NorCal.
posted by hleehowon at 3:39 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

And now Paul Ryan is claiming the Clinton campaign has "disdain for the Catholic faith."

This should be the final nail in the coffin of Ryan as being one of the "sane" and "reasonable" Republicans. I mean, for most of us that happened a long time ago, but the guy is actively spouting Trump's borderline-libelous talking points now.
posted by zombieflanders at 3:40 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

That's the sound of GOP gears grinding.
posted by petebest at 3:41 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

When I was doing social work in homelessness prevention, one of the problems that I would face is that there was a lot of support for people struggling inside the cities, and almost no support in rural areas.

Here's an idea: we could cut our military budget in half, still outspend every other country in the world, and have money for rural homelessness prevention and lots of other social programs. (Note that almost all of the top 15 countries ranked by military expenditure are at least nominally our allies.)
But of course the "small government" people want to spend more money on the biggest government agency of them all.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:43 PM on October 12, 2016 [28 favorites]

Two Women Say Donald Trump Touched Them Inappropriately [nyt; autoplay video for some reason]

The gist - Trump groped a woman on his plane 30 years ago and a woman at Trump Tower in 2005. I feel like this is just the beginning of a long line of women coming forward about this Trump assaulting them.
posted by melissasaurus at 3:44 PM on October 12, 2016 [38 favorites]

airish: And now Paul Ryan is claiming the Clinton campaign has "disdain for the Catholic faith."

Man, somebody really should tell Kaine, poor guy.
posted by Superplin at 3:48 PM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

From the NYT article I just posted:

“None of this ever took place,” said Mr. Trump, who began shouting at The Times reporter who was questioning him. He said that The Times was making up the allegations to hurt him and that he would sue the news organization if it reported them.

“You are a disgusting human being,” he told the reporter as she questioned him about the women’s claims.

Asked whether he had ever done any of the kissing or groping that he had described on the recording, Mr. Trump was once again insistent: “I don’t do it. I don’t do it. It was locker room talk.”

posted by melissasaurus at 3:48 PM on October 12, 2016 [44 favorites]

“None of this ever took place,” said Mr. Trump, who began shouting at The Times reporter who was questioning him. He said that The Times was making up the allegations to hurt him and that he would sue the news organization if it reported them.

“You are a disgusting human being,” he told the reporter as she questioned him about the women’s claims.

Michael Jackson eating popcorn gif, also the gif of Andy Dwyer looking shocked and delighted at the same time x1000
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:49 PM on October 12, 2016 [23 favorites]

And the Dodgers used to be from Brooklyn, but it was long ago and all the players, coaches, and owners have changed. Everything has changed but the name on the jersey.

I get the analogy, but Vin Scully was an announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and he just retired from the Los Angeles Dodgers a couple weeks ago.

Tommy Lasorda has had a bunch of different jobs/positions, but he was also part of the Brooklyn Dodgers org, yet is he is still part of the LA org.

/end derail
posted by sideshow at 3:51 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is the promoted tweet Trump is paying for right now.

"It’s US vs the RIGGED system and we still WON! I WILL fight for YOU! Donate BIG today: http://bit.ly/2dEp4gS"

(video clip of his "you'd be in Jail" one liner)
posted by mrzarquon at 3:54 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump dude here at the bar (in NYC) desperately wants to smack talk about the election. I'm like, whatever man, Trump's toast. Shut him right up. What a difference one month makes.
posted by monospace at 3:54 PM on October 12, 2016 [43 favorites]

“None of this ever took place,” said Mr. Trump, who began shouting at The Times reporter who was questioning him.

Oh please please PLEASE let there be video of this
posted by tivalasvegas at 3:55 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Here's an idea: we could cut our military budget in half, still outspend every other country in the world, and have money for rural homelessness prevention and lots of other social programs.

Fully 10% of American manufacturing jobs are in military contracts. So, sure, cut the budget in half and then look to replace a significant number of safe American jobs right afterwards. I mean, no one else is manufacturing American fighter jets or systems for US carriers. I totally get what you're saying, but cutting military spending without closely considering the consequences to the military industrial complex would be a mistake, especially since military spending as a percentage of GDP has already been decreasing.
posted by xyzzy at 3:55 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

You realize you sound exactly like a man saying there's no sexual harassment problem because he and his friends don't do that, right? Maybe take the word of someone who's experienced it rather than smugly denying it? The Wong piece was excellent, and there's a reason it makes urban lefties uncomfortable

Apologies if I seemed smug; I'm not, just frustrated. These are, largely, my people. I would not be surprised if every white member of my family back home votes for Trump. The sense of "real" vs "fake" America is strong with them, and I'm way more often on the receiving end of that than I have ever been of any ill treatment from lifelong city folks on account of my roots. That a little man who in no way represents what's good about my people is leveraging fear of my experience to advance his awful agenda is frustrating.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 3:57 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

The Times story also has video interviews.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:59 PM on October 12, 2016

Fully 10% of American manufacturing jobs are in military contracts. So, sure, cut the budget in half and then look to replace a significant number of safe American jobs right afterwards.

We have lots of highways, bridges, and inner-city schools that need fixing.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:59 PM on October 12, 2016 [59 favorites]

Montana Republicans Warmly Embrace A White Nationalist's Legislative Candidacy

Just a head's up, that link tried to force download a "your Firefox is out of date, run this javascript" on my browser, then prompted me to download firefox.js.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 4:00 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Fully 10% of American manufacturing jobs are in military contracts.

Do a phase-out/phase-in approach, replacing military manufacturing jobs with civilian infrastructure jobs? Instead of building tanks and fighter jets, build light rail systems, automated buses, along with improved roads, tunnels, and bridges.
posted by fings at 4:01 PM on October 12, 2016 [35 favorites]

Apparently something gets screwed up in mobile safari with these big threads, took me 3 or 4 times to post my last comment.

Fix for posterity- goto settings, safari and clear website data.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:02 PM on October 12, 2016

That little quote where he calls the (female) reporter "a disgusting human being" is hardly the worst thing about him in that story, but it's such a telling detail. She's just doing her fucking job.

Also I just ran the numbers and the women who came forward with these stories have, roughly, fifty thousand billion times more personal courage than Paul Ryan and every other spineless #StillTrump GOPer combined
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:07 PM on October 12, 2016 [75 favorites]

Trust me, I'm not fighting for a huge military. But my aunt who has worked her way up to HR at Lockheed Martin with just a high school diploma would have just as much reason to be concerned about a massive military spending cut as the guy who actually works on the assembly line. And imho, this is why Conservatism needs to exist--slow change is more durable, which is why phased change is a much more palatable option and gives workers a chance to evolve with the marketplace.
posted by xyzzy at 4:11 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

This feels really accurate: "I think it's possible that DJT & KellyAnne aren't even speaking. She's just doing TV because there's nothing else to do." (tweet)
posted by roll truck roll at 4:12 PM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

@mitchhurwitz: A sneak preview of Arrested Development Season 5: Thank you #NeverCaesar !
posted by melissasaurus at 4:13 PM on October 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

I just received an application to request a "vote by mail ballot" (which is apparently just an absentee ballot under another name) from the Democratic Party of Illinois, complete with pre-paid return envelope. I have never seen such a thing before and this is my 16th year living in Chicago.

Still going to vote in person, since I work from home on Tuesdays and my polling place is never that busy, even in presidential years, but way to work it, party machine!

I'm suspicious. Is it sent from the real party? Is the return address legitimate?
posted by ZeusHumms at 4:21 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

And the accusations of predatory behaviour keep coming.

Donald Trump deliberately walked in on two young Miss USA 2001 contestants while they were naked and getting dressed for a rehearsal, one of the former beauty contestants has claimed in an interview with the Guardian.

The two women were putting on their outfits to rehearse the opening number, the former contestant recalled, when Trump, who owned the pageant at the time as part of the Miss Universe family of pageants, burst into the room without a word.

Just before he entered, the former contestant said, she heard the security detail outside the dressing room tell someone approaching the door that the women inside were naked.

“Mr Trump just barged right in, didn’t say anything, stood there and stared at us,” she recalled. Trump’s attitude, she said, seemed to be: “I can do this because I can.”

“He didn’t walk in and say, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I was looking for someone,’” she continued. “He walked in, he stood and he stared. He was doing it because he knew that he could.”

There are several other accusations in the article, one involving a 15 year old girl.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:22 PM on October 12, 2016 [51 favorites]

Don't think this has been posted yet: Mr. Bright Side

It examines the connections between Trump and the Norman Vincent Peale school of Positive Thinking. Hadn't quite heard this perspective articulated before.
posted by aspersioncast at 4:23 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Conservatism needs to exist--slow change is more durable, which is why phased change is a much more palatable option and gives workers a chance to evolve with the marketplace.

Nobody told Thatcher.

In my ideal world, progressive politics would be 'let's fix this problem by promoting this change' and conservatism would be 'ah, but if you do that then the downside is unacceptable, and the problem is better categorised by a different view'' and neither would be either change for change's sake or against change because it's change. Instead, you work towards a consensual path that takes account of both sets of socially-driven perspectives , and the voters give more power to whichever side makes the best arguments over time, as evidenced by the best results as defined by a consemsual view about making a better, happier, nation/world in the long term.

I also fight despair and a deep hatred of the human race's relationship to power amd identity on a nightly basis. So there's that. But I do hope that the quiet changes Obama has made towards evidenced-based governance will continue under Clinton, and that they will prevail over time.
posted by Devonian at 4:24 PM on October 12, 2016 [28 favorites]

Looks like CBS has decided that if NBC won't step up, they will.
posted by zombieflanders at 4:27 PM on October 12, 2016 [19 favorites]

Twitter-free Trump-rested Development clip linked by @mitchhurwitz
@twitterfree
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:28 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Looks like CBS has decided that if NBC won't step up, they will.

This doesn't seem to have a lot of teeth just because you can't see him or the girl, whoever it is. But god it's the grossest thing ever.
posted by dis_integration at 4:29 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Are either of the two women who came forward the person Erin Burnett has referenced in the past? Her friend?
posted by Justinian at 4:29 PM on October 12, 2016

CNN's Brianna Keilar and Kellyanne Conway have a frank exchange of ideas on Trump's walking in on Miss USA contestants in the changing room in 2001 and Trump telling Howard Stern in 2005 that:

“I’ll tell you the funniest is that I’ll go backstage before a show and everyone’s getting dressed,” Trump told Stern in the recordings. “No men are anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in, because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it…. ‘Is everyone OK’? You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. ‘Is everybody OK?’ And you see these incredible looking women, and so I sort of get away with things like that.”

posted by kirkaracha at 4:30 PM on October 12, 2016 [23 favorites]

zombie flanders, could you transcribe? not playing here.
posted by clever sheep at 4:30 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump, referring to a very young girl on video in 1992: "I'm gonna be dating her in ten years. Can you believe it?"
posted by Leslie Knope at 4:31 PM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

"SCOOP: Trump campaign going nuclear. Will soon roll out new accusers. "We're going to turn him into Bill Cosby," vows Bannon. @bw story soon

posted by boo_radley at 4:32 PM on October 12, 2016

Jessica Leeds and Rachel Crooks are heroes, and the American people owe them a ginormous debt of gratitude. I wish I could do something to shield them from the sheer tonnage of fucking bullshit and abuse they are going to get for stepping up.
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:33 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

Trump already is Cosby. We just don't have all the details yet.
posted by Dashy at 4:34 PM on October 12, 2016 [23 favorites]

"SCOOP: Trump campaign going nuclear. Will soon roll out new accusers. "We're going to turn him into Bill Cosby," vows Bannon. @bw story soon

If they had anything, they would have used it by now. They've got nothing.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:35 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Trump already is Cosby. We just don't have all the details yet.

That statement is the Trump campaign saying that they are going to turn Bill Clinton into Cosby.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:36 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Susan B. Glasser and Michael Kruse interview the authors of books about Trump (Wayne Barrett, Gwenda Blair, Michael D’Antonio, Harry Hurt and Timothy O’Brien) for Politico (Magazine) about what will the nominee will do next: “‘I Think He’s a Very Dangerous Man for the Next Three or Four Weeks’”
posted by Going To Maine at 4:37 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

"SCOOP: Trump campaign going nuclear. Will soon roll out new accusers. "We're going to turn him into Bill Cosby," vows Bannon. @bw story soon

If they had anything, they would have used it by now. They've got nothing.

I think they're gonna go big on Danney Williams, the Arkansas guy who says that Clinton is his father
posted by dis_integration at 4:37 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Is this the actual playing of the woman card?
posted by vrakatar at 4:37 PM on October 12, 2016

it's not like we can just dissolve Wyoming and ignore their rural problems, which is a real risk in straight popular voting.

They do get two senators. Are there any problems on a federal level that are unique to Wyoming, as opposed to that region in general?

There's really no excuse for retaining the electoral collage. There's arguably an even bigger cultural divide between urban and rural in France and they elect their president by popular vote.
posted by holgate at 4:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

They've got nothing.

That won't stop them from trying to drag up every 90s conspiracy they can find.
posted by drezdn at 4:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Even if they have something it doesn't change the fact that Bill Clinton is not running for president.
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [31 favorites]

Looks like CBS has decided that if NBC won't step up, they will.

How many different news outlets have how many different sexual assault stories, just today? Holy shit. What happens by Friday? Either Trump is swallowed by a black hole, or he explodes in a supernova.
posted by My Dad at 4:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think they’re gonna go big on Danney Williams, the Arkansas guy who says that Clinton is his father

Snopes
posted by Going To Maine at 4:41 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

The awful thing is that they could line up 50 victims and Trump will still finish within 10 points of Clinton.
posted by Justinian at 4:41 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Woman says Trump groped her in Palm Beach.

The woodworks, they're coming out of them.
posted by dis_integration at 4:43 PM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

And once again, even though Bill is sleazy at best and rapey at worst, no matter what they dig up it will never make me want a Trump presidency. Maybe if Hillary is really the immortal Elizabeth Bathory, but even there....
posted by Frowner at 4:43 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Mod note: Couple deleted. Trump is plenty gross, no need to bring in a bunch of comparisons to other rape and serial killing etc as a joke.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 4:46 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

"He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them" was a shot across the bow that partly got lost in the Machado followup. There's going to be a lot more of this.
posted by holgate at 4:48 PM on October 12, 2016 [22 favorites]

but [Ryan] is actively spouting Trump's borderline-libelous talking points now.

Looks like the GOP might be going with a 'Be Like Boy' strategy.
posted by Flashman at 4:48 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Miss Washington 2013 says Donald Trump groped her
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:49 PM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

Are either of the two women who came forward the person Erin Burnett has referenced in the past? Her friend?

Nope, Erin Burnett said her friend's incident was in 2010 (? or at least after 2005), and the two NYT women were before that and didn't involve TicTacs.
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:50 PM on October 12, 2016

The craziest part of the Danney Williams thing to me is that they could run even a less accurate paternity test on the basis of information in the Starr Report.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:52 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Miss Washington 2013 says Donald Trump groped her

Non-mobile link.
posted by cashman at 4:52 PM on October 12, 2016

Trump, referring to a very young girl on video in 1992: "I'm gonna be dating her in ten years. Can you believe it?"

I'm as anti-Trump as you get and even that remark sounded entirely facetious. Like he was trying to complement the young girl in his own, fucked up way. That being said, playing up the dirty old womanizer stereotype is never wholesome is it?
posted by Talez at 4:52 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

IT BEGINS
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 4:52 PM on October 12, 2016

YouTube thought after watching Trump-rested Development I might want to segway into The Final Meltdown. Well played, YouTube.
posted by snofoam at 4:52 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

It's not like the GOP likes science, they'll just claim that Danney has Clinton's nose.

Edit for grammar but already quoted!
posted by AlexiaSky at 4:53 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's not like the GOP is likes science, they'll just claim that Danney had Clinton's nose.

Because if there's one thing that the GOP believes in it's Darwin.
posted by Talez at 4:54 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

It’s not like the GOP likes science, they'll just claim that Danney has Clinton's nose.

Dang it Bill Clinton isn’t a child that won’t fool him for a second.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:55 PM on October 12, 2016 [69 favorites]

I don't know. Remember his reaction to the balloons?
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:57 PM on October 12, 2016 [36 favorites]

Trump, referring to a very young girl on video in 1992: "I'm gonna be dating her in ten years. Can you believe it?"

I'm as anti-Trump as you get and even that remark sounded entirely facetious. Like he was trying to complement the young girl in his own, fucked up way. That being said, playing up the dirty old womanizer stereotype is never wholesome is it?

It doesn't matter if it was a joke. His first thought upon seeing a group of young girls is how, someday, they will be his property. Not - what's your favorite subject in school, what do you want to do when you grow up, what do you do in your free time, what are you reading, etc. The only thing he knows or cares about girls is that they will someday be women that he can have sex with.
posted by melissasaurus at 4:57 PM on October 12, 2016 [89 favorites]

It's not like the GOP is likes science, they'll just claim that Danney had Clinton's nose.

Ah, the Ned Stark theory of genetics.
posted by asteria at 4:57 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

Mod note: "Mr. Trump, we're getting more and more first-hand reports of you forcing yourself on women."

"Says who?"

"Your victims? All of them."

fake
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 4:58 PM on October 12, 2016 [19 favorites]

I too will join the Trumpians in pledging to not vote for Bill Clinton.
posted by Slackermagee at 4:59 PM on October 12, 2016 [18 favorites]

I'm suspicious. Is it sent from the real party? Is the return address legitimate?

Really, there's no need for paranoia, ZeusHumms. After all, Chicago is well known for its tremendously above-board elections!

Hamburger aside, it does appear that this is entirely kosher. I think they're just trying to give people who might not be able to get out to their polling place on the day an easy option for mailing in their ballot.
posted by merriment at 5:00 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

I am honestly worried that we are all relaxing way too early about the possibility of a Trump win. I think there are quite a few secret Trump voters (a la Brexit) and it seems like all of a sudden my lefty friends are coming unglued and posting about how "Trump can't win now, so I'm a gonna vote my conscience" and getting really upset when people question them.

All I can do is talk to people via my Facebook feed. I grew up in Trump country, and I've got a pretty active dialogue ongoing with many. The hardcore Trump voters aren't going to be swayed. I think the Cracked article pretty neatly sums up their point of view-- Trump is Ironman coming to save them. They aren't evil, but they can't be reached right now. Then there's the squishy middle and none of them will admit to a Trump vote. But they might give in and do it, so I'm trying to post as much real information as I can. They can be reached, and much will depend on how much they'd need to hold their nose to cast a vote for Trump.

The people I don't know how to talk to are the lefties who either plan to sit this one out or throw their vote to a third party (even in Swing states). I don't get them at all. Their conspiracy theories are worse than the ones on the right. Trump works for Clinton. Sanders is being literally forced to support Clinton, he doesn't believe it at all but is in fear for his life and living (seriously!). Are these folks like hard core Trump voters, just give up, or is there any way at all to reach them?

I do *really* badly when discussing politics with people who are emotions = facts voters. I feel as though a lot of us are, and it seems like a serious missed trick to me.

But please, don't get too confident. Don't overestimate that middle either.
posted by frumiousb at 5:01 PM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

Young voters not swayed by Bill Clinton's history
posted by melissasaurus at 5:01 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

If accounts of sexual assault start gaining traction in the media, I presume we're in for lots of defense about "flirtatious" Trump and his "horseplay."
posted by snofoam at 5:02 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

We're going to get another round-and-round of "why didn't these women come forward earlier?" and "isn't this politically motivated?" Yet unlike cases such as Cosby, with Trump it isn't just the standard and completely legitimate "It was my word against a powerful, respected, better-connected man" and all the rest. This time, the accusers also have the completely understandable "Holy shit, have you seen his supporters? Who would want to deal with the backlash from all that?"

I said a long time back on a Cosby thread that we should remember to stop and say "Thank God for Hannibal Burress," but ultimately the real courage is shown by Cosby's accusers. I still feel that way, of course.

In thinking of that, and considering this political climate? The courage it must take to step up and speak out about Trump is incredible.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 5:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [23 favorites]

They do get two senators. Are there any problems on a federal level that are unique to Wyoming, as opposed to that region in general?

Michigan has two senators also. How did that work out for Flint for more than two years? The point being that just straight up popular voting feels good but does come with some problems that would be better addressed in a Parliamentary system due to the destruction of the two party system.
posted by xyzzy at 5:06 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

@WillOremus: Pressed by CNN's @ErinBurnett, Jerry Falwell Jr. says he would vote for Trump even if he has a record of sexual assault.
posted by zombieflanders at 5:06 PM on October 12, 2016 [19 favorites]

For those who think Kellyanne Conway has attempted to be a moderating influence, by the way:

"Conway strenuously denied being against raising the women issue. 'It’s a sexist remark,' she told me. 'I have been attacking the Clintons for 20 years. The idea that I wouldn’t tell a presidential candidate to shame and blame this woman — and say, ‘Yeah, let’s talk about jobs’ — is complete bullshit.'" [real]
posted by kyrademon at 5:06 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

it seems like all of a sudden my lefty friends are coming unglued and posting about how "Trump can't win now, so I'm a gonna vote my conscience" and getting really upset when people question them.

Yeah, I'm seeing a new round of Bernie support bitching, too. I hesitate to bring it up 'cause I don't want to relitigate the primaries anymore than the rest of the blue, but the timing is...ugh.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 5:07 PM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

30 years ago, 2005, 2013... I bet there is a victim from the last year, making absurdity of his "recent faith journey" defense.
posted by vrakatar at 5:07 PM on October 12, 2016

I think there are quite a few secret Trump voters (a la Brexit)

I don't think the Clinton campaign can afford to relax for even a second, but the main difference between the Brexit referendum and the 2016 election is that the Leave campaign, which was not expected to win, was far more energized, motivated and organized than the Remain campaign, which was expected to win.

In this case, HRC is expected to win. And to say that the HRC campaign is much more organized than the Trump campaign is an understatement. Trump doesn't have a campaign anymore. He doesn't have the ability to identify and mobilize the 5% of undecided voters it's going to take to win the election.

And his campaign, such as it is, is filled with internal divisions. Kind of like the Remain campaign.
posted by My Dad at 5:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

@WillOremus: Pressed by CNN's @ErinBurnett, Jerry Falwell Jr. says he would vote for Trump even if he has a record of sexual assault.

Jerry Falwell Jr. continues his DiMaggio-like streak of being a terrible human being.
posted by Talez at 5:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

I've seen a bunch of men saying stuff like this and it's both heartening and also depressing that even our allies didn't already know this, because I don't know many women who are surprised by it at all.

I'm a 46-year-old American woman and I have been surprised (and disgusted) to see the display during this election of just how deep and wide and vitriolic the hatred of women is.

I grew up here. I was a pre-teen during the 1970s when it felt like open season on girls (Pretty Baby, "nothing comes between me and my Calvins", etc.). I had no illusion that we had reached some kind of post-sexism state.

And I have been surprised at just how bad it is.
posted by Lexica at 5:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [37 favorites]

CNN needs to have KellyAnne keep coming in for the same reason that Marvel Comics can't kill off Doctor Doom

fool! kellyanne toots as she pleases!
posted by poffin boffin at 5:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [25 favorites]

Does this mean that every time KellyAnne is defeated it turns out it wasn't really her but a Kellybot pretending to be her?
posted by sotonohito at 5:12 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

I imagine that in his wildest fantasies Trump imagined that being a presidential candidate would give him entry into that world of dignified old wealth and power that has so far eluded him.
Isn't it rich that his petulance in the face of defeat will almost certainly see him shunned.
I sleep easier believing that he will be an asterisk to presidential history, his only legacy being that his run also took down his house of cards "empire" as well.
posted by OHenryPacey at 5:13 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Does this mean that every time KellyAnne is defeated it turns out it wasn't really her but a Kellybot pretending to be her?

Except for the time Squirrel Girl defeated her, you mean?
posted by zombieflanders at 5:15 PM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

30 years ago, 2005, 2013... I bet there is a victim from the last year, making absurdity of his "recent faith journey" defense.

Even if he had a recent 'faith journey' [and he didn't], the most recent reported incident was 2013. A guy who takes until his late 60s to decide that it's not OK to be a rape monster isn't qualified to be outdoors, let alone be president of a country.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:16 PM on October 12, 2016 [46 favorites]

the fact that a lot of liberals seem to think "yeah, but they're all racist, and their towns should die because the economic base of the US is changing, so who cares" is honestly kind of maddening to me.

It's not a matter that they're racist or "who cares," it's that there's not a viable alternative in many areas short of a substantial transfer of money to dying towns. There's a certain limit to how much tax revenue can be generated (a limit which is generally kept lower by red area politicians), and when we hit the point that an equal amount of tax money can benefit 2,000 people in an urban area or 100 people in a rural one, I'm going to vote to help the most people for the most part. It's just not sustainable with our current economic system to send money to areas where there's no jobs just because it's an area that made sense for people to live in in 1880.

My father grew up in an economically dying area and much of my extended family is still there. I feel bad for the area when I visit. My relatives that taught in the school system watched more and more of their students and former students get swept up in problems with alcohol, meth, and opiates because they were the only escape in their reach. The whole area is increasingly desperate as the farms get increasingly automated and fewer and fewer good industrial jobs are available. Retail in the area is pretty much gone, other than Walmart, Dollar General, and convenience stores. But feeling bad doesn't cancel out the reality that there aren't jobs that are easy to create in those regions. If there were a practical solution to do so, we'd be doing it already.

I want a universal income (or something akin to it) eventually, and that is something that would allow for people to live in those towns for the most part, but there's no political will to get there, again thanks in no small part to conservative politicians. I certainly have some venom towards that - in my state, it's the predominantly rural politicians that are consistently working to keep teacher's pay low and cut funding for public universities, limit health care for the poor and restrict unemployment benefits, use racial profiling to exclude minorities from voting, fight tooth and nail against environmental protection, restrict access to abortion, force their religion on others, and explicitly transfer money from urban areas to rural ones. In other states they're the politicians doing things like HB2 or making union busting a signature item.

So yeah, at a certain point, I do wonder about the merits of sending money to keep those areas going when their political agenda is to pretty much fuck over me, mine, and the disadvantaged.
posted by Candleman at 5:16 PM on October 12, 2016 [54 favorites]

When I was in kindergarten, my school bus driver said racist things about all black people, knowing that a bus full of black and white kids were listening. I was lucky enough that I had never been exposed to racism before. I never told anybody.

When I was 8, I was at a gift shop at the beach with my family. I was looking at a rack of keychains with your name on them, when some guy squeezed my butt. I had no context to even understand what was happening, and by the time I even looked around, he was running out the door. I never told anybody. (I just told my husband. I have known him for 20 years.)

For the past week, I have slept badly, concentrated badly. Remembering more and more times that somebody has said something horrible racist or xenophobic or ablist or homophobic. Remembering more and more times that a man or a boy, often someone I knew, treated me like an object for his use.

And I've come to realize that I have no interest in understanding the Trump voters and I have no interest in waking up on Nov 9 and refriending and refollowing people who I know voted for Trump. Because they are voting for that racist bus driver and that tacky gift shop groper and the boys who pushed me against the gym wall and the friends who waited until they had me alone to say horrible things.

Right now, I'm happy because the first wild-born California condor in a century just fledged, because NC is going to Hillary, and because GA is on the verge of flipping. But I'm not willing to pretend like I am okay or our country is okay.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:19 PM on October 12, 2016 [159 favorites]

I can't even begin to comprehend the type of mind that thinks:
I'd vote for Trump even if he's committed sexual assault

And then can also claim:
I can't vote for Clinton - her husband has committed sexual assault

I mean - that's how some of these Republican statements (like Falwell Jr.) read.
posted by hilaryjade at 5:20 PM on October 12, 2016 [34 favorites]

NYT, where ya been? What was that metric crapton of email stories about?

Bonus, the picture in that article is a young Der Trümp with what I used to think of as his smug-ass fartsniffing face, but now see is his Resting Groper Face.

Those actions would get him 2-8 years, in a place where he'd hear lots of locker room tawk, in any state where he's a young black man.
posted by petebest at 5:23 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

hydropsyche, I'm you from afar. You are not alone and there are men among the monsters.
posted by vrakatar at 5:23 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump really can't win a war of sexual assault accusations against Bill Clinton. That video of him bragging about it makes any accusations toward him look plausible, and the desperate and futile attempt to discredit Bill during his presidency makes any accusations toward him look less plausible. Plus, Bill isn't even the candidate!
posted by Mitrovarr at 5:24 PM on October 12, 2016

Trump really can't win a war of sexual assault accusations against Bill Clinton. That video of him bragging about it makes any accusations toward him look plausible, and the desperate and futile attempt to discredit Bill during his presidency makes any accusations toward him look less plausible. Plus, Bill isn't even the candidate!

The object isn't to win. It's to demoralize H supporters so much that he can try to win with 40% of the electorate.
posted by Talez at 5:27 PM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

>Does this mean that every time KellyAnne is defeated it turns out it wasn't really her but a Kellybot pretending to be her?

Except for the time Squirrel Girl defeated her, you mean?

For every woman I shame and blame, another dozen vex me!
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:28 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

Imagine your ten year old kid (boy or girl) riding that escalator while Trump is announcing he will add your child to his list of sexual conquests once he or she comes of age.
posted by humanfont at 5:30 PM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

I don't even think it's aimed at depressing turnout for Clinton. I think it's entirely out of rage and spite. Like at first I thought Trump figured by accusing Bill (and also accusing HRC of enabling), he'd get people to fall into the "both sides are awful" false equivalency and thereby negate the damage to his own campaign.

Now I think assigning strategic thought to this just gives Trump too much credit. This is just a sputtering, resentful need to hurt people.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 5:30 PM on October 12, 2016 [30 favorites]

So, now that Trump is subject to (even more) multiple accusations, on the record, of sexual assault, are any more republicans going to disendorse him? And will Trump drift even deeper to his rage spiral and swing even harder at the GOP, like he's done with Paul Ryan?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:31 PM on October 12, 2016

It's not a matter that they're racist or "who cares," it's that there's not a viable alternative in many areas short of a substantial transfer of money to dying towns.

Exactly this. Of course, the NC legislature wants to divert more sales tax revenue to rural areas, but that's more about punishing cities and their populations. And even throwing money at those areas is treated with scepticism. The umpteen "travel to the saddest 98% white small town somewhere near Appalachia" pieces over the course of the campaign emphasised how people didn't want anything labelled as "government help" -- they wanted the ability to keep doing the jobs they've been doing for decades, even if there's no market for them. They want to be paid historical re-enactors of their own pasts.
posted by holgate at 5:32 PM on October 12, 2016 [43 favorites]

My Dad: I don't think the Clinton campaign can afford to relax for even a second,

I can assure you that, at least in Arizona, they aren't relaxing one bit.

Resting Groper Face

I died. This is perfect.
posted by Superplin at 5:32 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Jason Miller, senior communications advisor to the Trump campaign, released the following statement after the article was published Wednesday evening:

“This entire article is fiction, and for the New York Times to launch a completely false, coordinated character assassination against Mr. Trump on a topic like this is dangerous. To reach back decades in an attempt to smear Mr. Trump trivializes sexual assault, and it sets a new low for where the media is willing to go in its efforts to determine this election.

(Emphasis added) Can I borrow some evens?
posted by petebest at 5:35 PM on October 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

There’s a sexy Ken Bone costume now, as if Ken Bone himself weren’t sexy enough
posted by kirkaracha at 5:35 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Trump, referring to a very young girl on video in 1992: "I'm gonna be dating her in ten years. Can you believe it?"

When you're a little girl, and a man says something to you that makes you realize you're not a just a person and a kid like your brother is but a Thing men look at, or will someday, it snatches away a feeling of comfort and safety in your own skin that you never get back. At least that was my experience.
posted by sallybrown at 5:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [160 favorites]

So, now that Trump is subject to (even more) multiple accusations, on the record, of sexual assault, are any more republicans going to disendorse him?

No...because they can easily dismiss the accusers...they're only women, right? They had a harder time ignoring the videotaped evidence.
posted by Preserver at 5:40 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

>I was shocked at the number of people who hadn't actually listened to Trump's access hollywood tape and had no knowledge of the Nancy O'Dell part.

Yeah, this is how the surrogates & such are able to create the narrative that it is "just locker room talk" or whatever, and why they expend so much effort to get that kind of narrative out there.

So many people hear the spin and sort of fill in the blanks about what they think the "real thing" was and never actually bother getting the full details.

The way I break it down, Trump did or revealed that he did 5 things in that clip:

1. Said some naughty words.

2. Revealed that he made a "heavy" move on Nancy O'Dell, even though both he & O'Dell were married at the time.

3. Told O'Dell's immediate co-workers in explicit and denigrating language about the attempted affair, adding in some additional sexually denigrating and crude remarks. (The fact that he dishes on the supposed "move" to her immediate co-workers is almost worse than the action itself; the very definition of "hostile work environment".)

4. Said that he uses his wealth and stardom to sexually assault women (kiss on lips, grab in crotch), again using explicit and denigrating language.

5. Immediately transitioned from talking about this to teaming up with Billy Bush to actually demonstrate exactly what he'd been talking about on a real person.

When you hear the spin, you think only #1 happened.

Whereas each of #2-#5 is actually far, far worse.
posted by flug at 5:40 PM on October 12, 2016 [58 favorites]

HRC: "You keep going on about 30 years this and 30 years that. Yes, I have spent 30 years in public service, advocating for and helping women. Should I have instead spent those years groping them, like you?"

[fake]
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:41 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

There’s a sexy Ken Bone costume now, as if Ken Bone himself weren’t sexy enough

One Halloween in college, I dressed up like a cat and went out to a bar with friends. A man I didn't know came up behind me and - in Donald's parlance - grabbed my pussy while meowing into my ear. When I turned around and told him to take his hands off me, he said "You should have dressed up as a dog instead - that's what you are." I remember that every Halloween.

For some reason it's particularly enraging to me that someone "sexified" a costume from a debate in which the sexual abuse and objectification of women was a crucial topic.
posted by sallybrown at 5:45 PM on October 12, 2016 [79 favorites]

Yeah, I'm seeing a new round of Bernie support bitching, too. I hesitate to bring it up 'cause I don't want to relitigate the primaries anymore than the rest of the blue, but the timing is...ugh.

scaryblackdeath, no me either, but I am really taken aback by some of what I am seeing. Full on temper tantrums in friends' threads, screaming that they know how Bernie really feels and he would *never* want them to vote HRC no matter what. It almost feels as though they wanted a Trump presidency to prove how right they were about HRC and now that they think it isn't going to happen, they're starting to fight the primary battle again.

Is there any way to talk to them? I know a lot of these folks. I asked one woman what Sanders would have to do to prove to her that he wanted her to vote for HRC and she answered "literally nothing" since she knew he was not allowed to speak freely. It was *astounding*. This is a grown up woman.

I don't want to relitigate the primaries at all, but this is not a good time for the left base to split.
posted by frumiousb at 5:46 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

> Apologies if I seemed smug; I'm not, just frustrated. These are, largely, my people. I would not be surprised if every white member of my family back home votes for Trump.

Sorry I misunderstood you, and thanks for clarifying!
posted by languagehat at 5:46 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Silver Fox himself, Anderson Cooper, is going all-in on the NYT reports of Jessica Leeds and Rachel Crooks and not taking any shit from the Trump surrogates.
posted by Talez at 5:46 PM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

I think there are quite a few secret Trump voters (a la Brexit)

American polling is vastly more sophisticated and frequent than UK polling and I wish people would stop harping on this already
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:48 PM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

Of course, the NC legislature wants to divert more sales tax revenue to rural areas, but that's more about punishing cities and their populations

Of course the plan to aid rural counties involved a sales tax on auto repair, a service many people in poverty in rural areas rely on, rather than increased income taxes on the actually wealthy.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:48 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

I wish people would stop harping on this already

Worrying, not harping. But I'm sorry if it annoys you. I wish I had your degree of certainty.
posted by frumiousb at 5:51 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

There’s a sexy Ken Bone costume now, as if Ken Bone himself weren’t sexy enough

[real] tag, people!
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:51 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

The North Carolina governors debate ... Gov. Pat McCrory ... defended the states bathroom bill and said the private sector can do whatever it wants but if Caitlyn Jenner worked out at a state facility she would use the mens shower. Point blank no hesitation or second thought.

On abortion McCrory claimed that there were two clinics and they didn't wash the floors or even clean the utensils between abortions and that addition measures requiring doctors visits weren't an impediment. And that he fixed the clinics. Tools were now being washed and so they reopened.

On not releasing police body cam footage ... he is on the wrong side or without empathy on every single social issue and seem only focused on punishing any group that doesn't meet his approval. His challenger, Roy Cooper did an okay job but didn't show as much polish and lacked fire confronting the onslaught of indignities.

There is a movie called Small Town Gay Bar. In it the filmmaker interviews Fred Phelps and Phelps show him the framed first poster he ever made. He was protesting who he presumed was using the public restrooms. Not really relevant, just something I thought while listening to McCrory.


The Nebraska 2nd congressional debate between Rep Brad Ashford (D) and Don Bacon (R) was actually an interesting cordial discussion and well focused on policy. Bacon is a retired airforce brigadier general. Ashford is fairly new to the House so hasn't been tremendously visible but hasn't been notably bad either. It was a fun watch.


The first West Virginia governor debate ... two monotone unenthusiastic men droning on about ... I'm not sure, it was outstandingly unexciting. They actually had their second debate yesterday, but the CSPAN video seems to be a still image so I went looking else where found their first debate to get a fix on who these people are ... I don't recommend it.


There is currently a Utah debate between Sen.Lee and Misty Snow. I'm cheering hard for Misty and she is doing a great job.
posted by phoque at 5:53 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

Vox article says three women, I didn't see this third person in the NYT article:

Mindy McGillivray told the Palm Beach Post that she yelled at the TV screen: “You liar!’’ She says Trump “grabbed [her] ass” in 2003, when she was helping Ken Davidoff with a photo shoot at a Ray Charles concert at Mar-A-Lago. Davidoff, who was one of the official Mar-A-Lago photographers at the time, confirmed hearing about the assault from McGillivray at the time.
posted by petebest at 5:53 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Like, I get that Bannon is unhinged. So is Trump. Conway, who has Clinton Derangement Syndrome and became a Republican because Reagan made her feel safe, is also on a ledge. Having once hung around with a large contingent of wake up sheeple types, I even get this sort of thinking. But I have never seen such dogged devotion to logical fallacies and fuzzy thinking in order to prop up and normalize an unreality. There's a huge difference between chuckling a little bit over Art Bell and romancing the X-Files of it all and trying to run a campaign on that conspiratorial plank.
posted by xyzzy at 5:55 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

The Wong piece was excellent, and there's a reason it makes urban lefties uncomfortable

I disagree that it was excellent, and it made me uncomfortable in a different way than you probably think.
posted by zutalors! at 5:55 PM on October 12, 2016 [18 favorites]

This gives more reason for Ryan, evangelicals, etc to disavow him. And his remaining staff demoralized and exhausted. This is a masterstroke- Hillary brought up that he likes to "hang around" pageants, he took the bait, threatened to bring up Bill's adultery in the spin room, which brings up these allegations. And of course Donnie's people have not been watching the clock.

Withdraws for health reasons just before or just after the third debate? Possible. Might come down to how much of this his wife and kids can take. Someone is going to act out in a very clearly psychotic episode sort of way.
posted by vrakatar at 5:56 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

melissasaurus and others said what I was thinking: sexualizing a 10-year-old girl is wrong, even if it is the sincerest compliment that Trump is capable of giving. It's certainly not the most egregious thing we've heard from him this week, or even this evening, but it adds to the overall picture of sliminess.
posted by Leslie Knope at 5:56 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

The Silver Fox himself, Anderson Cooper, is going all-in on the NYT reports of Jessica Leeds and Rachel Crooks and not taking any shit from the Trump surrogates.

Welp, I turned on CNN for a second, and they're just reading Podesta emails word for word. No explanation or context, and nothing remotely newsworthy, literally just reading Podesta back and forth with Abedine over when Clinton should hold a press conference, with a vaguely menacing voice actor guy reading with the email plastered on screen.

Anderson, Anderson, everytime I give you a complement, you immediately prove me wrong.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:56 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Worrying, not harping. But I'm sorry if it annoys you. I wish I had your degree of certainty.

Frankly, I am obsessed with this election. I look at every poll, I've watched every swing state as they've shifted over the last year, I know the specific demos in each swing state that are more or less likely to vote for each candidate, I've been looking at the GOTV numbers and the early voting numbers and the various electoral college scenarios, I've read about historical election comparisons for context. I do this because if I don't, I can't stop myself from freaking out.

But having spent hundreds of hours thinking about this election from every angle, yes, I am convinced that it is going to be historic, I believe Trump is likely to lose Utah and will certainly lose NC, and I believe that Clinton will win. I have seen no evidence of millions of secret Trump voters who have remained undiscovered by hundreds of polls by dozens of different polling companies which were then obsessively analyzed by five or six poll aggregators. It's just not scientific to still, at this point, think Trump will win. I'm not saying it's IMPOSSIBLE, but it is extremely, vanishingly unlikely.
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:57 PM on October 12, 2016 [18 favorites]

I think there are quite a few secret Trump voters (a la Brexit)

If so, the ones in North Carolina are showing incredible discipline which would suggest that they've really carefully coordinated this (pause for laughter) or it's not going to happen that way.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 5:59 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

trying to run a campaign on that conspiratorial plank.

What conspiracy, though? Bill Clinton's exhaustively documented failings? I would have thought they'd be a little more . . Y'know interesting. About it. I mean c'mon no chemtrails, no underground bases? Pass.
posted by petebest at 6:01 PM on October 12, 2016

Liberty United Against Trump just published their first statement (twitter), which ends:

We are not proclaiming our opposition to Donald Trump out of bitterness, but out of a desire to regain the integrity of our school. While our president Jerry Falwell Jr. tours the country championing the log in his eye, we want the world to know how many students oppose him. We don't want to champion Donald Trump, we want only to be champions for Christ.

posted by sallybrown at 6:01 PM on October 12, 2016 [45 favorites]

Liberty University students have started a petition against Jerry Falwell Jrs. endorsement of Trump [Google doc]
posted by Sophie1 at 6:02 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Kayleigh McEnany has to be the most deluded person in the campaign right now.
posted by Talez at 6:02 PM on October 12, 2016

Mother Jones: Trump's Political Advisers Wanted to Vet Him. He Said No.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:04 PM on October 12, 2016 [30 favorites]

he said "You should have dressed up as a dog instead - that's what you are." I remember that every Halloween.

For some reason it's particularly enraging to me that someone "sexified" a costume from a debate in which the sexual abuse and objectification of women was a crucial topic.

I'm so sorry, sallybrown. I have a number of bad memories like that myself and one thing I hate about that is how they continue to pop up making your present feel as bad as the day it happened. The humiliation, pain, and anger just keep playing over and over like really bad songs stuck in your head.

I hope the women coming forward to accuse Trump get some sense of satisfaction and closure.

@Foxnews .@oreillyfactor: "Any journalist colluding with a political campaign should resign immediately, or be forced to resign. Period."

Corey Lewandowski? Sean Hannity? Or someone else?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [20 favorites]

Tom Brady walks out of press conference after being asked about Trump

Compare Tom Brady with Lebron James
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:06 PM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

"Any journalist colluding with a political campaign should resign immediately, or be forced to resign. Period."

Guess FOX should just fold up shop.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:07 PM on October 12, 2016 [22 favorites]

BurnettFilter:

Mark Burnett denies that he's pro-Trump: "Given all of the false media reports, I feel compelled to clarify a few points. I am not now and have never been a supporter of Donald Trump's candidacy. I am NOT "Pro-Trump." Further, my wife and I reject the hatred, division and misogyny that has been a very unfortunate part of his campaign." More from MGM's counsel here.

(twitter links)
posted by sallybrown at 6:12 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Trump messes with my PTSD because he reminds me of my father if you replace beauty pagents with atheletics.

I feel so deeply for the woman who are hearing him on stage, who remember him from in person, who are speaking out and not speaking out.
posted by AlexiaSky at 6:13 PM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

People are worried about lefties staying home, and probably some people will stay home/vote Jill Stein, etc. However, think of this - Trump is so disgusting that another cohort will be eager to vote against him just for the sake of feeling that they personally have repudiated him. I think a lot of people will want to go to the polls for that reason, whereas if the Republican were a less polarizing candidate, they might feel that a likely Hillary victory was enough and stay home.
posted by Frowner at 6:13 PM on October 12, 2016 [22 favorites]

It's great that all these women are stepping forward, and I'm in awe of their bravery, but it's a given that Republicans will never, ever believe them, right? Until/unless it's dozens upon dozens of women, or there's actual video, this isn't going to move the needle and all the Republicans holding fast to their precious endorsements are just going to stick their fingers in their ears and go "la la la they're all lying bitches but def believe all the people we're trotting out to accuse Bill Clinton," and not see any contradiction.
posted by yasaman at 6:14 PM on October 12, 2016

That Mother Jones article. Good lord.
posted by vrakatar at 6:15 PM on October 12, 2016

Baltimore Sun 4 women accuse Donald Trump of unwanted sexual touching

NYTimes: Jessica Leeds and Rachel Crooks
The Palm Beach Post: Mindy McGillivray
NBC: Miss Washington 2013, Cassandra Searles,

I have seen no evidence of millions of secret Trump voters who have remained undiscovered by hundreds of polls by dozens of different polling companies which were then obsessively analyzed by five or six poll aggregators.

Plus here is where the GOTV "strategy" of Donald Trump is going to show how bad his campaign is. He hardly spent any money or effort building a network of people but relied on his fan base to be so excited that they would do all of it for him. The people who have volunteered for him may not show up on election day. Don't forget that women by and large are responsible for the emotional labor of voluntary campaign work. As a volunteer myself I look around and see that women are probably 90% of the network.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:17 PM on October 12, 2016 [43 favorites]

People are worried about lefties staying home, and probably some people will stay home/vote Jill Stein, etc. However, think of this - Trump is so disgusting that another cohort will be eager to vote against him just for the sake of feeling that they personally have repudiated him. I think a lot of people will want to go to the polls for that reason, whereas if the Republican were a less polarizing candidate, they might feel that a likely Hillary victory was enough and stay home.

I want to repudiate him so bad and since I can't vote, on your election day I'm going to make my own ballot with crayons, take the black one, make an X so hard in the Hillary box, read the name Donald Trump, spit on the floor and then tack the thing to my wall.

I'm serious.
posted by Jalliah at 6:20 PM on October 12, 2016 [81 favorites]

I think Burnett is not a likely Trump supporter:
In 2008, Burnett and Downey each gave the maximum donation permissible to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. After Obama won the White House, Burnett donated a hefty $30,400 to the Democratic National Committee. In the previous election cycle, Downey, who starred in the television show Touched by an Angel, supported John Kerry's presidential bid. In 2013, Burnett gave $5,200 to Alison Grimes, a Democrat who was challenging Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. Last September, Downey sent a donation to Kathleen Matthews, a Democrat (and the wife of MSNBC's Chris Matthews) who was running for a congressional seat in suburban Maryland outside of Washington, DC.
posted by peacheater at 6:21 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Jerry Falwell Jr. says on CNN that we shouldn't get "bogged down" in whether a candidate for president is a "good person."

Students at Liberty University-- the Christian college founded by his father and where he is President-- have released a vehemently anti-Trump statement that says "a man who constantly and proudly speaks evil does not deserve our support"
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:22 PM on October 12, 2016 [29 favorites]

It's not like the GOP likes science, they'll just claim that Danney has Clinton's nose.

Nonsense, the proper GOP response is to measure his skull with calipers and claim he has the adulterer's forehead bumps.
posted by indubitable at 6:22 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Guess FOX should just fold up shop.

Technically not journalism.
posted by Artw at 6:22 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Hillary Clinton got 16,914,722 votes in the Democratic primaries; Bernie Sanders got 13,206,428 votes. That adds up to 30,121,150 votes, and I think she'll get a pretty high percentage of votes from people that voted for Sanders.

Trump got 14,015,993 votes in the Republican primaries. (He loves to brag about getting the most Republican primary votes ever--without adjusting for population--but he got 2,898,729 fewer votes than Clinton. More people voted against Trump than for him. Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio got a combined 15,628,124 votes. Adding that to Trump's votes is 29,644,117, but I think he'll get a smaller percentage of his rivals' supporters than Clinton will get from Sanders supporters.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:22 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

At Sunday's debate, Trump was asked by a moderator whether he ever behaved in such a way. "No, I have not," he responded.

Thanks again, Anderson Cooper. Now every single one of these articles has that lying-ass denial as a reference point, and millions of people saw it live.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:22 PM on October 12, 2016 [69 favorites]

What conspiracy, though? Bill Clinton's exhaustively documented failings?

Today's rallies have been about a liberal and conservative establishment conspiracy to destroy the Trump campaign and the inoculation of the Clintons against legal and political repercussions by those people and the mainstream media. In response to this their intention is to destroy Bill Clinton.
posted by xyzzy at 6:22 PM on October 12, 2016

And now another story: More Questionable Footage of Trump's Comments on Women [CBS News]

In an “Entertainment Tonight” Christmas feature in 1992, Trump looked at a group of young girls and said he would be dating one of them in ten years. At the time, Trump would have been 46 years old. In the clip, Trump asks one of the girls if she’s “going up the escalator.” When the girl replies, “yeah,” Trump turns to the camera and says: “I am going to be dating her in 10 years. Can you believe it?”

posted by Fizz at 6:24 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Anderson Cooper is Namor Gandalf, or a benevolent Hunter Rose.
posted by vrakatar at 6:25 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Former Miss Teen USA Kamie Crawford, via her twitter:

The most Trump tea I'll spill for the day is this... when I was 17, I met Mr. Trump for the first time as Miss Teen USA. As the first WOC...To win the title in almost a decade - I was forewarned prior to meeting him that, "Mr. Trump doesn't like black people. So don't take it...""...the wrong way if he isn't extremely welcoming towards you. If he is, then u just must be the "type" of black he likes." Now again... I'm 17. Raised in the suburbs of Potomac, MD. Only experienced racism personally ONCE and it was outside of my hometown. SO...Needless to say, I was totally caught off guard&super nervous bc this is supposed to be my boss I'm meeting - &he might not like me ALREADY? Sure enough after I was warned about him, I saw him in action&witnessed him completely snub a black contestant at Miss Universe rehearsals.. While she was practicing on stage. Literally turned his back to the stage and made a face like he was going to vomit at the sight of her. Granted, he could've had some bad Thai food right before but... I doubt it. So now I'm like f*ck this lol I don't wanna meet this guy & he projectile vomits on me at the sight of ME. Luckily for me - I was the "type" of black he liked. He toted me around his buddies who were all there gawking at the Miss Universe girls.. Bragged about how "beautiful" and "well spoken" I was. "She's so smart, look how smart she is" he kept saying. Mind u, baby boy just met me.

posted by sallybrown at 6:25 PM on October 12, 2016 [87 favorites]

Today's rallies have been about a liberal and conservative establishment conspiracy to destroy the Trump campaign and the inoculation of the Clintons against legal and political repercussions by those people and the mainstream media. In response to this their intention is to destroy Bill Clinton.

It's as if you were playing basketball and your opponent kept lofting jumpshots at your bench instead of at your basket.
posted by dersins at 6:26 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

(I know this thread is fast-moving, but it would be appreciated if people could do a quick ctrl + f or even glance at the past couple dozen posts before theirs before posting links...that were already posted right above)
posted by sallybrown at 6:27 PM on October 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

@BrianBeutler This isn't He Said/She Said so much as They Said, because he said 'I sexually assault women with impunity" and she said, 'yes that's right.'

@JBarro Has there ever been a bigger dumbfuck campaign strategy than making it about sexual assault when you've been groping women for decades?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:27 PM on October 12, 2016 [85 favorites]

“None of this ever took place,” said Mr. Trump, who began shouting at The Times reporter who was questioning him. He said that The Times was making up the allegations to hurt him and that he would sue the news organization if it reported them.

Please do this, Mr Trump. You wouldn't survive discovery.
posted by Talez at 6:27 PM on October 12, 2016 [40 favorites]

The GOTV thing is huge. There are people who always vote. Then there are people who usually vote if reminded. Then there are people who vote if reminded a lot. Elections are won on those last two groups. Trump appears to have next to no campaign apparatus for doing this. One reason non-presidential year elections are so weird is there is far far less GOTV spend going on. In presidential years that is driven by an engine with the presidential campaign at the center. There's a reason why top price tickets to presidential campaign fundraising events are so large (there's one here locally where the most exclusive tickets are $27,000): most of that money gets shared back to state campaigns and state gotv efforts. That entire engine is nearly missing for the republicans this year. And as noted up thread, the overwhelming majority of the "grunt" work in the local GOTV campaigning is done by women who in this election are fleeing the candidate in disgust.
posted by R343L at 6:29 PM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

from the MoJo article above, "After all, you're expected to know your own record. Any responsible campaign would do that."

Ah, well there's yer problem. First, it's not a responsible campaign. Second, he knows his own record. Why go dig all that up? Pfft. Morans.
posted by petebest at 6:31 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

I mostly use twitter to stay in touch with a group of friends, post pictures of my cats, and retweet Robert Downey Jr.

If I want to branch out into following election topics, without falling into the Hellmouth, who would be good to follow? Has anyone made a definitive list?

I'm sure the list will include Katy Tur, SopanDeb, Joy Reid, David Farenthold, maybe Kurt Eichenwald, PEC and 538, Robert Costa... jbarro...who am I missing?
posted by invincible summer at 6:33 PM on October 12, 2016

I really hope the Clinton campaign is able to the words of women to bring Trump down even further.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:33 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Please do this, Mr Trump. You wouldn't survive discovery.

If you're bound by an NDA but subpoenaed to testify at deposition in a civil suit, can you break the NDA? I would be chasing down every former and current participant in a Trump pageant...every female employee...every Apprentice contestant...
posted by sallybrown at 6:34 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm sure the list will include Katy Tur, SopanDeb, Joy Reid, David Farenthold, maybe Kurt Eichenwald, PEC and 538, Robert Costa... jbarro...who am I missing?

That's the exact list of who I'm following with the addition of Daniel Dale from the Toronto Star
posted by Jalliah at 6:36 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

The Times reporter on Maddow says the Trump team is considering filing litigation against the news organizations.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:37 PM on October 12, 2016

I'm sure the list will include Katy Tur, SopanDeb, Joy Reid, David Farenthold, maybe Kurt Eichenwald, PEC and 538, Robert Costa... jbarro...who am I missing?

I also follow:

Maggie Haberman (she and Costa have the best inside info on TrumpWorld)
Jon Lovett
Bradd Jaffy
Kyle Griffin
Olivia Nuzzi
Jeet Heer
posted by sallybrown at 6:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

To sum up on the current accusations
-2 in the New York Times today
-1 in the Palm Beach Post today
-1 in the New York Times story on Sunday
-The pending rape lawsuit
-Ivana's claims in their divorce papers of abuse and rape

So we are up to 6 accusations.
posted by humanfont at 6:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

So many women in just the span of an hour of a day. This isn't going to stop. Sexual predators don't stop.

They'll probably hold back the Trump murder dump for sweeps.
posted by guiseroom at 6:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

@JoshTPM
posted by chris24 at 6:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Former Miss Teen USA Kamie Crawford, via her twitter:

I storified Kamie Crawford's Experiences with Trump to make it easier for people to read.
posted by Talez at 6:39 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

hi, I'm You Can't Tip a Buick, and I want to corrupt your children with my San Francisco values. And I don't feel a bit of shame about it, because San Francisco values are fundamentally healthy and strong.

Even in places like Oakland and San Francisco, which have experienced basically one party Democratic rule for decades, there remain some pretty fundamental problems of social justice. Values like affordable housing, efficient and inexpensive public transit, equitable schools, well-trained and well-behaved police forces - those are values that are pretty hard to come by these days. Let's not shit on rural areas all the while pretending like left coast cities are unassailable ecotopias.
posted by one_bean at 6:39 PM on October 12, 2016 [55 favorites]

If I want to branch out into following election topics, without falling into the Hellmouth, who would be good to follow? Has anyone made a definitive list?

Someone a million comments ago mentioned The Reagan Battalion (@ReaganBattalion) as worth following from the conservative side of things. I added them to my list and have found it a useful addition to my over-whelming liberal twitter feed. Definitely old-style Republican conservatism but also definitely not Hellmouth. As anti-Trump as most of us here but from the other end of the political spectrum.
posted by vac2003 at 6:41 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

The Times reporter on Maddow says the Trump team is considering filing litigation against the news organizations.

Trump always says that too! That's his go to move when he doesn't like something that's said. What a jackass.
posted by cashman at 6:42 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

To sum up on the current accusations
-2 in the New York Times today
-1 in the Palm Beach Post today
-1 in the New York Times story on Sunday
-The pending rape lawsuit
-Ivana's claims in their divorce papers of abuse and rape

So we are up to 6 accusations.

+ Cassandra Searles makes 7 on the record.
+ Erin Burnett's anonymous (so far) friend.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:43 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

The Times reporter on Maddow says the Trump team is considering filing litigation against the news organizations.

To what end? I know I should give up trying to figure these people out but isn't this just going to make the stories about the assaults more widespread?
They don't have a libel or slander case at all because no doubt they're reporting the truth.
Could some sort of cease and desist work?

These people...
posted by Jalliah at 6:44 PM on October 12, 2016

Given Trump's current rhetoric about the election being rigged and his total repudiation of societal norms, I think the media has a responsibility NOT to televise his concession speech live, or at least not without a delay. That shit needs to be vetted.
posted by piyushnz at 6:44 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

If you're bound by an NDA but subpoenaed to testify at deposition in a civil suit, can you break the NDA?

You're compelled to. That's the whole point of discovery.
posted by Talez at 6:45 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

Tomorrow's NY Daily News cover: HAD EYES FOR A 10-YEAR-OLD

Tell us what you REALLY think.
posted by Talez at 6:47 PM on October 12, 2016 [26 favorites]

People are worried about lefties staying home, and probably some people will stay home/vote Jill Stein, etc.

I have no doubt that some of them will, but look, the honest-to-God left is relatively small in the US and the will-not-vote-for-HRC-under-any-circumstances-left is a fraction of that. I suppose they could swing a 2000-style race but at the moment this race doesn't look like that. Maybe I'm wrong, but if I'm right then these voters won't have any effect at all.

I have seen no evidence of millions of secret Trump voters who have remained undiscovered

And even assuming that there are, well, what then? If every poll is wrong, then we're flying blind and there's very little to say or do about it except run around and flap our arms.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:47 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

If you're bound by an NDA but subpoenaed to testify at deposition in a civil suit, can you break the NDA?

A protective order can keep the info out of the public record, so the court and counsel know, but no one else. My only experience with that though is with trade secrets and settlement agreements.
posted by yasaman at 6:48 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump is so disgusting that another cohort will be eager to vote against him just for the sake of feeling that they personally have repudiated him. I think a lot of people will want to go to the polls for that reason, whereas if the Republican were a less polarizing candidate, they might feel that a likely Hillary victory was enough and stay home.

Yep, this is me. I'm registered as a Democrat because I've spent most of my adult life in cities where the closed Democratic primaries were the only place to vote in competitive elections for most elected offices. However, I've never considered myself a Democrat, as I'm well to the left of them on pretty much any issue. I've had many opportunities to vote for Hillary Clinton and never did.

All that said, you better believe I'm voting for Clinton. If the Republicans had nominated an actual, y'know, candidate, I wouldn't be, but the thought of this gross, racist, sexist, authoritarian fascist rapist monster losing by less than 10 points makes me furious.
posted by Automocar at 6:49 PM on October 12, 2016 [18 favorites]

Given Trump's current rhetoric about the election being rigged and his total repudiation of societal norms, I think the media has a responsibility NOT to televise his concession speech live, or at least not without a delay. That shit needs to be vetted.

Shut it all down until we can figure out what's going on there.
posted by indubitable at 6:49 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

Given Trump's current rhetoric about the election being rigged...

Current? He's been whipping that horse since the primaries.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:49 PM on October 12, 2016

Ehh... in general I think it's better for the press to freely highlight any craziness, ideally while fact-checking it. Sunlight as disinfectant, etc.

I guess I just have a visceral reaction to the idea of censoring a concession speech for a mainstream political presidential candidate.
posted by samthemander at 6:51 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Rachel Maddow says there is yet another woman who was kissed against her will who will be interviewed on the Today show tomorrow morning.

So it begins.
posted by gatorae at 6:52 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

Mod note: Breaking: Trump replaces rally closer "You Can't Always Get What You Want" with a new song.
fake; not a RickRoll
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 6:54 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm sure the list will include Katy Tur, SopanDeb, Joy Reid, David Farenthold, maybe Kurt Eichenwald, PEC and 538, Robert Costa... jbarro...who am I missing?

Public Policy Polling for sure
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:55 PM on October 12, 2016

who am I missing?

Paul Waldman & Greg Sargent
Brian Buetler
@taniel
Chris Hayes
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:56 PM on October 12, 2016

Rachel Maddow also has internals from a Wisconsin Marquette Law School conducted Thursday through Sunday.

10/6: 41%T, 40%H
10/7: 44%H, 38%T
10/8, 10/9: 49%H, 30%T.
posted by nathan_teske at 6:56 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

-2 in the New York Times today
-1 in the Palm Beach Post today
-1 in the New York Times story on Sunday [Temple Taggert?]
-The pending rape lawsuit
-Ivana's claims in their divorce papers of abuse and rape

+ Cassandra Searles makes 7 on the record.
+ Erin Burnett's anonymous (so far) friend.

+ Rachel Maddow says there is yet another woman who was kissed against her will who will be interviewed on the Today show tomorrow morning.

+ Jill Harth
+ Rowanne Brewer Lane and Trump's creepy behavior in this May NYT article
+ at least three stories (1, 2, 3) of Trump walking into pageant changing rooms
+ Instagram post from former Trump waitress notes "He didn't make me stand there while he put his arm around me and made the other men at the table tell me how beautiful I was like he did to my friend."
+ Making "sexual comments" to Marlee Matlin and Lisa Rinna in the boardroom during Celebrity Apprentice
+ "lewd and sexist" behavior to Apprentice employees
posted by sallybrown at 6:58 PM on October 12, 2016 [34 favorites]

For NeverTrump/Egg McMufFinn info, @therickwilson
posted by Sophie1 at 6:59 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Pretty soon we're going to need FiveThirtyEight-style infographics just to keep track of all of the women Trump has allegedly abused.

So, uh, what are the rules on Hillary releasing her campaign funds for down-ballot races?
posted by tonycpsu at 7:00 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Don't worry sallybrown, I've already seen lots of comments on Facebook saying that all those women are clearly lying because if it happened they would have said something ages ago. Not sure if those are worse or better than the people who accept it as true and don't care. /punches wall forever
posted by gatorae at 7:00 PM on October 12, 2016

10/6: 41%T, 40%H
10/7: 44%H, 38%T
10/8, 10/9: 49%H, 30%T.

EIGHT POINTS DOWN IN TWO DAYS *cackles*
posted by sallybrown at 7:00 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Kellyanne Conway complains CNN host is taking Trump's jail comments literally.
posted by waitingtoderail at 7:01 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Sopan Deb is also worth following
posted by Ber at 7:02 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

A lawsuit is being drafted now by Trump against the NYT. Very possible it could be announced tonight, though discussions ongoing.

Hold me I can't breathe
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:02 PM on October 12, 2016 [33 favorites]

Trump is so disgusting that another cohort will be eager to vote against him just for the sake of feeling that they personally have repudiated him. I think a lot of people will want to go to the polls for that reason, whereas if the Republican were a less polarizing candidate, they might feel that a likely Hillary victory was enough and stay home.

This is surely the case. I always vote, and I was going to vote for Clinton regardless of which Republican was running, and I was REALLY going to vote for her after Trump became the nominee. But with every passing day, I am going to vote for her so much more gleefully and enthusiastically and so goddamn hard that I'm glad we use paper/marker ballots here because if I had to press a button, I would probably crush that fucker.

Trump's whole campaign is like the embodiment of every revolting, vicious, oppressive, violent, benighted, pig-ignorant bit of bullshit that HRC and every woman everywhere has to endure and push back against every minute of every day just to go about our daily business let alone achieve great things. I am guessing that many, many other voters will not want to miss out on the joy and catharsis of voting this year.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:02 PM on October 12, 2016 [20 favorites]

I'm only about half way through this thread, but if I knew how I would make a condensed version, like with the EL thread. Like just make a script (?) and grab every comment with more than thirty favorites (or use that as a drafting for editing), and then the substantive links. There are so many profound and well-considered insights into our political moment, and who we are as a country, that my draw dropped repeatedly. I've run out of tabs and the comment links don't work for bookmarking anymore.

You people are amazing.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:03 PM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

Top story on CBC radio news is about the women who are coming forward and Trump saying he'll sue.

Considering it's now being covered by outlets all over the place is he going to sue them all?
posted by Jalliah at 7:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

A lawsuit is being drafted now by Trump against the NYT. Very possible it could be announced tonight, though discussions ongoing.

Hold me I can't breathe

somewhere, a junior associate who's used to reviewing endless corporate litigation documents is salivating in mixed horror/excitement at the thought of reading Trump's emails
posted by sallybrown at 7:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [57 favorites]

Trump is so disgusting that another cohort will be eager to vote against him just for the sake of feeling that they personally have repudiated him

My Bernie-loving, intially-HRC-curious friend would personally crawl through broken glass to vote against Trump; I know this. And so would I, of course. If she were 35 points up in the polls I would vote for her for the joy of it.
posted by argybarg at 7:07 PM on October 12, 2016 [26 favorites]

I'm not going to make it to the end of the thread tonight so let me share some Green Party anecdotes:

I am currently volunteering for Peter Jacob, NJ-7 challenger, who is the only guy in NJ to be endorsed by Bernie Sanders, so a good portion of the staff is former Bernie-ers. The campaign manager was telling us today how he kept trying to coordinate with the Green Party, both for Bernie's campaign and Peter's. They just totally refused.

Two or three people were like "We don't work with Democrats" - when both Bernie and Peter barely identify as Democrats - and "What are you going to do for our candidates?" My campaign guy asks, "What candidates are those?" And the regional coordinator for the Green Party is like "uhhhh gimme a sec lemme pull out my sheet"

and finally my guy says "Yeah sure we can endorse your school board candidate" but they were still no help because their idea of "voter outreach" was "standing on a highway overpass with a banner". You reach so many people that way!! Everyone who drives by will see your message!

He tried to get some help canvassing Niagara Falls, which is apparently so blown out that he couldn't in good conscience send volunteers, and the Green Party was useless, but the Working Families Party sent four paid staffers literally the next day.

And it's like. This guy would love to support the Green Party. A lot. He might even work on their campaigns, if they had any actual campaigns to speak of in this region.

--

Also in the campaign office today there was a 17-year-old girl phonebanking and she let an angry Trump supporter yell at her on the phone for five minutes. ..... I love hearing everyone's field stories here. I'm glad it's been a positive experience for so many people. But that positivity is .... super super weird for me. I know a lot of canvassers, and none of them consider it a fun way to spend your afternoon. What it is, is work worth doing.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 7:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [41 favorites]

OMG, I cannot wait until voting day. Going to ask my 12 year old if she'd like to be the one to put my ballot in the counter so we can vote for the first female president together!
posted by Sublimity at 7:09 PM on October 12, 2016 [19 favorites]

I voted for Nader in 2000 (in California, so don't blame me for Bush!) but if I had any thoughts of voting for Stein in an otherwise safe state for Clinton, this would have quickly dissuaded me.
posted by Slothrup at 7:09 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

So the MotherJones article mentioned Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and Bill Clinton with a link to foxnews.com. (Warning) So I say, hey, lets see what this Bill angle is that I saw mentioned here earlier.

Ugh. The Mar-a-Lago thing was one thing, and Bill's jetsetting was another, but the plea deal part was . . . also very bad. I did not know this:

On Sept. 24, 2007, in a deal shrouded in secrecy that left alleged victims shocked at its leniency, Epstein agreed to a 30-month sentence, including 18 months of jail time and 12 months of house arrest and the agreement to pay dozens of young girls under a federal statute providing for compensation to victims of child sexual abuse.

In exchange, the U.S. Attorney’s Office promised not to pursue any federal charges against Epstein or his co-conspirators.

Of which he served 13 months in prison/at home.

Okay Trump, puppettrümper Bannon, legions of basement man-children: you got something on this? What is it? It's never gonna get more nower, so put up or shut up. If you got anything more than gossip, break it out. Otherwise this is 3d9 damage to everyone including your groper.
posted by petebest at 7:10 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Kellyanne Conway complains CNN host is taking Trump's jail literally.

If only you stop to remind yourself that words don't mean words but mean other words then you'll realize they're just words and not words. [DADA]
posted by Joey Michaels at 7:10 PM on October 12, 2016 [23 favorites]

I am also extremely excited to bring my 1 year old daughter with me to vote. I bought her a box of Hillary paraphernalia as a little time capsule/memento so she can always know she was there with me to vote for the first woman president.
posted by gatorae at 7:11 PM on October 12, 2016 [23 favorites]

What's he going to sue for? Journalism? Those are credible complaints from credible sources. He'd have to claim that they were concocted by the complainants either off their own bat (in which case, whither suing the NYT?) or that the NYT paid the complainants to make false statements against him.

Which is - well, I find vanishingly unlikely.That makes no sense.

So, I concur - bring it on, Mr Trump. Let's see those cards.
posted by Devonian at 7:11 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Costa (twitter): As rest of the party watches the unfolding scene with unease, PRIEBUS is talking with Trump tonight. "Shares Trump's outrage" per one source

~@<@~
posted by sallybrown at 7:11 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

If only you stop to remind yourself that words don't mean words but mean other words then you'll realize they're just words and not words. [DADA]

"Well Anderson if you stop and think about it all words are made up so we shouldn't take anything he says literally" [fake]
posted by Talez at 7:12 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Sublimity they might not let you have your 12 year old feed it into the machine with you . It's been my exp that unless you are slinging the kid on your hip, they have to wait away from the mechanics of things. I could still sling my tweenager but my slings are only rated to 50 ponds and she weighs eighty five.
posted by tilde at 7:12 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I remember reading that NYT article (in sally brown's post) in May. Rereading it now it seems so prescient, and so comprehensive. Alicia Macado is in there, Jill Harth, the pageants, the kissing (which is quite odd for the germophobe he otherwise claims to be), it's all there, and no one was listening.
posted by Dashy at 7:13 PM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

As an Old who was a yuge fan of Suck way back in the day, I love that Ana Marie Cox has been all over this campaign and is giving Trump hell on Lawrence O'Donnell right now.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:16 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

John Dingell wins Twitter for the day.
posted by melissasaurus at 7:16 PM on October 12, 2016 [22 favorites]

I love the idea of Bannon and Trump furiously dictating a complaint against the NYTimes right now from Trump Tower. Even if you were going to do this, which would be absolutely fucking insane because he's going to lose on at least 4 different legal theories I can think of off the top of my head, wouldn't you consult with outside counsel and take a couple days to do it right? We're talking about the highest profile lawsuit since the Pentagon Papers case, which the NYT knows 100% they will win. Even if Team Trump has some novel First Amendment defeating plan, it's a few hundred thousand man hour case that the NYT would happily walk down to federal court to file with Trump just to get him into open discovery. And they're not about to let him quietly walk away from it after the election either. Might want to take more than 45 minutes of white hot rage to plan it out.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:20 PM on October 12, 2016 [43 favorites]

So I'm but a lowly paralegal and I'm not familiar with New York's statute on this, but if Trump does go forward with a suit against the NYT, won't it be vulnerable as hell to an anti-SLAPP motion?
posted by yasaman at 7:20 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Imagine if we still had Gawker"
posted by porn in the woods at 7:21 PM on October 12, 2016 [23 favorites]

Also discovery. I can't imagine a discovery process would go well for Trump.
posted by R343L at 7:21 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

I imagine Priebus is trying to talk him down.

Because how does any suit against the NYT in the four weeks before the election confer anything but pure liquid shit upon the GOP? Completely turns the remainder of the election into DJT's sexual assaults. Downside for HRC - zero.

If only Donald cared about the GOP, eh?
posted by Devonian at 7:22 PM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

Has anyone taken a more in depth look at the wikileaks stuff that's come out? I took a cursory look at what the Trumpsters are saying they're saying (summary Hillary colluded with media, supported ISIS, got the debate question before hand, bribery) but the only places I've found them on are horrible and I can't bare to dig further. I'm assuming that it's not all that and context matters with whatever they're pulling up. Whole lot of nothingburgers? Or stuff that could have some sticking power if reported on badly?
posted by Jalliah at 7:22 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

So I'm but a lowly paralegal and I'm not familiar with New York's statute on this, but if Trump does go forward with a suit against the NYT, won't it be vulnerable as hell to an anti-SLAPP motion?

NY has a pretty shitty SLAPP law actually. But they also have the finest of white shoe law firms on retainer, they can come up with a counter claim.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:23 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

I've gone from saying I would never vote for Hillary to shrugging and saying "meh, less of two evils" to gleefully looking forward to casting that vote simply because of how over the top Trump's grossness has become.

I kind of feel bad for the poor GOP politicians who are being caught between angry Trump supporters and the reality of the situation -- there really isn't a good option for them no matter how much they dither.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:26 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

It's really telling that he/Alex Jones are having that stunt this week of offering money to people to wear the Bill Clinton "Rapist" t-shirts to Hillary's rallies. Classic "I'm rubber, you're glue" Trump.
posted by gatorae at 7:26 PM on October 12, 2016

"We now know more about how Trump will grope a woman than we do about his plan to defeat ISIS." ~ One of my male former military friends.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:26 PM on October 12, 2016 [106 favorites]

In response to Trump campaign manager AJ Delgado's statement that "Any reasonable woman" would have come forward immediately after being sexually harassed, Goldie Taylor (editor-at-large of the Daily Beast) asks: "How long did it take you speak publicly about your sexual abuse and name the perpetrator? It took me 30 years..." (twitter; some disturbing stories in response).
posted by sallybrown at 7:27 PM on October 12, 2016 [41 favorites]

Goldie Taylor is a gem. That is all.
posted by mynameisluka at 7:27 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Has anyone taken a more in depth look at the wikileaks stuff that's come out? I took a cursory look at what the Trumpsters are saying they're saying (summary Hillary colluded with media, supported ISIS, got the debate question before hand, bribery) but the only places I've found them on are horrible and I can't bare to dig further. I'm assuming that it's not all that and context matters with whatever they're pulling up. Whole lot of nothingburgers? Or stuff that could have some sticking power if reported on badly?

It's a giant case of "everybody's private email makes them look like shit". If there wasn't Santa coming down the chimney with a bottomless sack of Trump sexual assault bullshit the more not so great stuff would probably be in the news cycle for 1-2 days.
posted by Talez at 7:28 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

NY has a pretty shitty SLAPP law actually. But they also have the finest of white shoe law firms on retainer, they can come up with a counter claim.

The Times doesn't need a counter-claim when they have discovery. Can you fucking imagine?
posted by dersins at 7:29 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

NYT is no doubt salivating at the idea of defending the 1st amendment vs a dubious Trump suit.

There is pretty much zero upside for Trump going with that course of action, maybe a couple of weeks ago NYT might've backed down but now when there is blood in the water and all of the sharks are circling?

Right now there seems to be a desperate race to find whatever is the silver bullet that ends the Trump candidacy and the Washington Post currently has dibs so you know everyone else wants to find something even juicier.
posted by vuron at 7:30 PM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

My hope is that he descends into Wendell Wilkie levels of obscurity, only remembered on the TIL subreddit when people learn that, like nimrod, trump used to mean something completely different.

perhaps in a hundred years or two he becomes a side character in the history book turned musical about the life of famous 21st-century figure Chuck Tingle.
posted by ckape at 7:30 PM on October 12, 2016 [53 favorites]

kirkaracha: CNN's Brianna Keilar and Kellyanne Conway have a frank exchange of ideas on Trump's walking in on Miss USA contestants

Kellyanne: "There's no way for me to know what happened there. I would have no way. I'm the campaign manager Trump's campaign for president. for I've obviously never been in a beauty pageant, let alone a swimsuit portion of one.... I wasn't in that pageant or any other one."

I am so sad for Kellyanne. Was this something she or someone scripted as a response for this segment? She has some canned response regarding "the women Hillary has blamed and shamed," so part of me believes she or someone else wrote up a bit for her to say "I have never been pretty enough to be in a pageant."

She is terrible for trying to normalize a sexual predator and his sexual assaults, but she's being degraded in the process.

The Trump campaign is toxic for everyone it pulls in. Fuck this noise.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:31 PM on October 12, 2016 [19 favorites]

Thanks Talez
posted by Jalliah at 7:31 PM on October 12, 2016

I can't want to see the oral arguments for the inevitable subpoena for MGM’s "The Apprentice" tapes.
posted by Talez at 7:31 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

The Trump campaign is toxic for everyone it pulls in.

As only toxic people would work for it, they can all burn as far as I care.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:32 PM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

Everyone will obviously remember Trump as the candidate whose campaign led to the rise of the greatest President in United States history, Egg McMuffin.
posted by sallybrown at 7:33 PM on October 12, 2016 [20 favorites]

Because how does any suit against the NYT in the four weeks before the election confer anything but pure liquid shit upon the GOP?

I'll take Trump and his team of horrible people saying "We don't comment on ongoing litigation" for 1000, Alex.

It's the same nonsense he's using to dodge the taxes question. This guy is a grade a shitbag, so you can bet he's going to pull something like this.
posted by cashman at 7:33 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Change of subject, but: Obama Guest-Edits November Edition of Wired
posted by aka burlap at 7:33 PM on October 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

It's really telling that he/Alex Jones are having that stunt this week of offering money to people to wear the Bill Clinton "Rapist" t-shirts to Hillary's rallies. Classic "I'm rubber, you're glue" Trump.

Or "if I'm down here in the mud, I'm pulling you down with me."

We know he's not spotless, so if he's disgusting, why not make his opponent as dirty as possible, so he has some hope of leveling the field.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:35 PM on October 12, 2016

This was probably posted earlier in one of the many fast-moving threads, but I keep playing it tonight amid the insanity of watching Trump's campaign burn to the ground, and it just makes me laugh and laugh and laugh:

You walked into the party
Like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your face it was apricot
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 7:35 PM on October 12, 2016 [18 favorites]

Right now whenever something comes out about Trump and his campaign I'm imagining the Downfall scene replaying itself over and over in Trump Tower.
posted by Jalliah at 7:35 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

The Times doesn't need a counter-claim when they have discovery. Can you fucking imagine?

Right that's the main goal, but I'd assume they would want something to keep him in the case and not let him fail to prosecute the claim for 4 weeks then try to skulk away in a motion to dismiss. He has no case, none. Not remotely and he'd be insane to actually file it. But if he really does...they're going to want to keep him in court as long as possible to see what shakes out, and he's going to be paying their attorney fees to do it.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:35 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I am so sad for Kellyanne. Was this something she or someone scripted as a response for this segment? She has some canned response regarding "the women Hillary has blamed and shamed," so part of me believes she or someone else wrote up a bit for her to say "I have never been pretty enough to be in a pageant."

I thought it very telling when she commented to Chris Matthews that she had been subjected to sexually abusive behavior by Congressmen when she was "younger and prettier."
posted by sallybrown at 7:36 PM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

I... can't believe they would consider suing the New York Times. If they sue they open themselves up to discovery. The fucking NYT will ask for every piece of Donald Trump's life for the last thirty years to be subpoenaed. Doing this would be a clusterfuck of epic proportion for Trump.

My guess, if this is real, is that it's not intended as a real lawsuit. It gets filed, loiters around through the election without so much as a hearing, and then is dropped post-election.
posted by Justinian at 7:36 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

I see T.D. Strange knows what's up and said so before I did.
posted by Justinian at 7:36 PM on October 12, 2016

I am so sad for Kellyanne.

Shit, I'm not.

She is terrible for trying to normalize a sexual predator and his sexual assaults, but

No buts really. She's a terrible person. I'm not going to feel sorry for her when she chose to join Trump's team, get paid lots of money, and help him come way too close to ruining life for millions of people in her own country and abroad.
posted by cashman at 7:37 PM on October 12, 2016 [54 favorites]

There is pretty much zero upside for Trump going with that course of action

So, in the last weeks of the election Trump is opening up a new front in what's already a what a three front war against both Clintons and the GOP? Please, proceed Mr. Trump.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:37 PM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

Everyone will obviously remember Trump as the candidate whose campaign led to the rise of the greatest President in United States history, Egg McMuffin.

I would never be able to refer to him anything but President McMuffin. It so ingrained in my brain that I when I tell people about Utah I have to pause to try to remember his actual name. Twice now I've said and "now in Utah there's a 3rd party candidate Egg Mc.... er wait"
posted by Jalliah at 7:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

Ben Jacobs of the Guardian confirming (twitter) that Trump will sue the New York Times.

The lawyers who enable this madness...you guys are the reason they want to kill all of us!!!!
posted by sallybrown at 7:39 PM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

Two or three people were like "We don't work with Democrats" - when both Bernie and Peter barely identify as Democrats -

Heh. This is like the time in college when I was out with the Pagan Student Union collecting canned goods for a holiday food drive and the house full of good Christian girls refused to give us anything, saying, "Not for the Pagan Student Union!" I was like, "It's for the [church-run] food bank!" but the door was already being slammed in my face.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:40 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

So, in the last weeks of the election Trump is opening up a new front in what's already a what a three front war against both Clintons and the GOP? Please, proceed Mr. Trump.

posted by octobersurprise at 10:37 PM on 10/12
[+] [!]

Eponysterical!
posted by tilde at 7:40 PM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

The lawyers who enable this madness...you guys are the reason they want to kill all of us!!!!

Holy shit. I just realized Michael "Says Who" Cohen is Trump's attorney.

IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!
posted by Talez at 7:41 PM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

the greatest President in United States history, Egg McMuffin.

Future pedants will forever be explaining to people, "A lot of people don't know this, but actually, they named the President after the breakfast sandwich, not the other way around."
posted by Spathe Cadet at 7:41 PM on October 12, 2016 [72 favorites]

I'm afraid this is a way for Trump to name the women personally as codefendants to intimidate any other women from coming forward and defend the suit on the "higher" ground of it being about truth in publishing.
posted by sallybrown at 7:43 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Holy shit. I just realized Michael "Says Who" Cohen is Trump's attorney.

I may actually overdose on glee if he files a complaint tomorrow.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:43 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

My Dad: "I toldja he was a pervert" (he did, too)
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:43 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

Holy shit. I just realized Michael "Says Who" Cohen is Trump's attorney

Yep. Every time Trump or his campaign does something legally boneheaded, I'm reminded that their general counsel is that guy.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:44 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

I would feel a modicum of sympathy for Kellyanne but her obfuscating and outright lying on behalf of the Dumpster have pushed it away. I don't wish her ill but don't sympathize. Now Bannon, that fucker, I do indeed wish him ill.
posted by Ber at 7:44 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

You guys, he has the best lawyers in the world on the case. The Best! He's hiring BOB LOBLAW.
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 7:44 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'll take Trump and his team of horrible people saying "We don't comment on ongoing litigation" for 1000, Alex

Normally, I'd agree with you. But this is a much bigger story - more people, more outlets - than any one suit can encompass, so he's not off the hook. Even if he wasn't Trump; it's one thing to keep your cool when you're executing a well-planned stunt in which few people are interested. We've seen how eagerly he takes bait. how badly he takes advice, and this is a decision made in white-hot rage.

He's not doing this to avoid questions. He's doing it because he's very, very angry. That won't change.
posted by Devonian at 7:45 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Eponysterical!

This month every day is eponysterical.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:45 PM on October 12, 2016 [57 favorites]

Guardian liveblog of today's Trump accusations
posted by porn in the woods at 7:45 PM on October 12, 2016

People Magazine: writer Natasha Stoynoff:

We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds, he was pushing me against the wall, and forcing his tongue down my throat.
Now, I’m a tall, strapping girl who grew up wrestling two giant brothers. I even once sparred with Mike Tyson. It takes a lot to push me. But Trump is much bigger—a looming figure—and he was fast, taking me by surprise, and throwing me off balance.
I was stunned. And I was grateful when Trump’s longtime butler burst into the room a minute later, as I tried to unpin myself.

The butler informed us that Melania would be down momentarily, and it was time to resume the interview. I was still in shock, and remained speechless as we both followed him to an outdoor patio overlooking the grounds. In those few minutes alone with Trump, my self-esteem crashed to zero. How could the actions of one man make feel so utterly violated? I’d been interviewing A-list celebrities for over 20 years, but what he’d done was a first. Did he think I’d be flattered?

I tried to act normal. I had a job to do, and I was determined to do it. I sat in a chair that faced Trump, who waited for his wife on a loveseat. The butler left us, and I fumbled with my tape recorder. Trump smiled and leaned forward.
“You know we’re going to have an affair, don’t you?” he declared, in the same confident tone he uses when he says he’s going to make America great again. “Have you ever been to Peter Luger’s for steaks? I’ll take you. We’re going to have an affair, I’m telling you.” He also referenced the infamous cover of the New York Post during his affair with Marla Maples. “You remember,” he said. “Best Sex I Ever Had.”

Fuck.
posted by sallybrown at 7:46 PM on October 12, 2016 [151 favorites]

Save your sympathy for the women who are coming out of the woodwork to say that yes, Trump did this shit to me. Women who are already being called liars and will undoubtedly have a world of shit rained down on them from Trump's lowlife supporters and forever have their names associated with this disaster. Kellyanne is paid handsomely for her work and has made her fucking bed.
posted by gatorae at 7:46 PM on October 12, 2016 [85 favorites]

Holy shit. I just realized Michael "Says Who" Cohen is Trump's attorney.

IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!

Says who?
posted by mean square error at 7:46 PM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

So, in the last weeks of the election ...
posted by octobersurprise at 10:37 PM on October 12

Tell me more
(in my best Gene Wilder voice)
posted by Dashy at 7:47 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

My hope is that he descends into Wendell Wilkie levels of obscurity, only remembered on the TIL subreddit when people learn that, like nimrod, trump used to mean something completely different.

I'm starting to think he should be in prison. And I don't mean that in the "HILLARY LIED SEND HER TO PRISON!" kind of way. I mean it in the solemn "this guy is likely guilty of a litany of crimes" way. I'm wondering how many women he has assaulted, abused and raped. How many girls.

This election has been awful enough, and I'm hopeful that this is the last dark turn, but fearful it isn't.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 7:48 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Michael Cohen was also the guy who thought it was impossible to rape your wife.
posted by peacheater at 7:48 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

I attended Hillary's rally today in Pueblo, CO and I was ever so tempted to skip to the bottom of the thread to comment, but I dutifully read the 600+ new comments since I left the house this morning. It was my first campaign rally/speech/event and it was amazing. It was soothing to be in the presence of so many Hillary supporters, even standing in line for over 90 minutes to get into the venue. It was also nice to unplug from the steady stream of stories about Trump and the effects it's having and people's anxiety about the election. It felt like a little bit of self-care, although as an introvert, I'm tired after being in a large crowd all day. The candidate for CO-3 spoke and was well-received by the crowd, though I don't know how Gail Schwartz is polling in her race against incumbent Scott Tipton. Senator Bennet spoke and got so fired up talking about one of his points that he took his jacket off and dropped on the ground behind him, while talking about his opponent saying that Republicans in Washington have been too conciliatory. I don't know if he usually does that, but I thought it was weird. Anyway, his challenger Darryl Glenn is a Tea Party guy who's convinced the problem in Washington is too much bipartisanship but refused to answer when Bennet asked him how exactly he'd get anything done.

Former Senator and Secretary of the Interior and the current head of Hillary's White House transition team Ken Salazar introduced Hillary. The crowd cheered for ages before quieting for Hillary to speak. I know it's tricky to comment on her appearance, but she looked fantastic in a navy and white long jacket. She looked energetic and happy. She spoke on a number of topics, but started with Colorado's mail-in ballot system and how important it is that everyone register to vote and return their ballots as soon as they get them. She went over the relevant dates, all spot on and detailed. She talked about doubling the child tax credit to help families. She talked about the tenor of the election and elicited my favorite call and response moment of the speech, with Michelle Obama's line that when they go low, we go high. The crowd finished it with her and roared. It was phenomenal. I took my kids out of school for the day so they could come and see history and I'm so glad. I bought matching Madam President buttons for my daughter and me.

Tomorrow I will volunteer again and go out to register more voters. Official GOTV efforts in CO start on the 17th when ballots go out in the mail. The plan is solid and there was a huge turnout last week for a training for volunteer leadership roles like canvass captains and phone bank captains and this weekend is a "dry run" to make sure everyone is ready to do their part. I'm so encouraged by this and by the stories of how many people have already voted early. Concrete action has been super helpful for me--I am one of those women who was triggered by Donald Trump in the last debate, as he said "they're just words" with his horrible face and I had to leave the room, because my rapist used awful words against me afterward, in the halls at school and the principal's advice was to walk a different route between classes. My son followed me out of the room to ask if I was OK and offer to share his blanket with me. Hillary spoke of wanting a better world for children. I want that too. A world that is more fair, more just for everyone. I'm doing what I can to make sure she, and we, have that chance to keep working towards it.
posted by danielleh at 7:48 PM on October 12, 2016 [106 favorites]

@DLin71:
TRUMP: I like to sexually assault women
WOMEN: We agree
TRUMP: Liars
posted by chris24 at 7:49 PM on October 12, 2016 [110 favorites]

Are we positive Trump can't back out at this point? Because, if these accusations are going to take him down, I want to be sure they're going to take him down at a point where there's no alternative candidates the Republicans could even think of introducing.

I agree that Trump should be in prison, based on these accusations, but I feel like -- ironically -- his calls for Clinton to be imprisoned are enough to make any charges against Trump look politically motivated.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 7:51 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump has been threatening to sue the NYT throughout his campaign, over absolutely everything negative they've said about him in that time. Now the boy who cried wolf is pretending to shoot at a wolf. There is still no wolf.

Are we sure he doesn't have some sort of fetish for humiliating losses?
posted by Sys Rq at 7:51 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

More women are coming out because they know they can count on society to stand up to this little pissant. Rip this presidential campaign apart. 370 votes motherfuckers. 380 is a stretch goal.
posted by Talez at 7:52 PM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

People Magazine: writer Natasha Stoynoff

So that's five today? One more expected tomorrow?
posted by waitingtoderail at 7:52 PM on October 12, 2016

Is Trump going to sue all of these outlets tonight
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:53 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Why would you only expect one more? That seems like ... an underestimate, perhaps.
posted by Dashy at 7:54 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Save your sympathy for the women who are coming out of the woodwork to say that yes, Trump did this shit to me. Women who are already being called liars and will undoubtedly have a world of shit rained down on them from Trump's lowlife supporters and forever have their names associated with this disaster. Kellyanne is paid handsomely for her work and has made her fucking bed.

Seriously, I can't imagine the bravery of these women. I want to gleefully dance about too, but my heart breaks for them, that this is how Trump needs to go down, rather than the taxes or something where women didn't have to come out and announce their assault.
posted by zutalors! at 7:54 PM on October 12, 2016 [33 favorites]

@AlecMacGillis: "So if you endorsed Trump, then un-endorsed him over the video, then re-endorsed him, can you un-endorse again? Asking for a political party."
posted by gwint at 7:55 PM on October 12, 2016 [104 favorites]

Kellyanne Conway is a mercenary who signed up for a job where other people get hurt and she gets a new beach house in Florida. My empathy muscles need a lot more days in the pity gym to feel anything for that lady.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 7:56 PM on October 12, 2016 [37 favorites]

Is Trump going to sue all of these outlets tonight

I'd like to see him try and sue People for libel. They are famously, famously careful never to say anything that's not ironclad.
posted by sallybrown at 7:56 PM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

Trump just spent the entire debate telling us we should believe sexual assault accusers.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:57 PM on October 12, 2016 [48 favorites]

I don't think it'll stop at one more tomorrow.

He's been behaving like this for thirty years. The lawsuit - if it happens, because everything Trump says is a lie unless it actually happens - will embolden more, who may have been considering it already. It's a big step, but injustice is a big motivator.
posted by Devonian at 7:57 PM on October 12, 2016

Trump has been threatening to sue the NYT throughout his campaign, over absolutely everything negative they've said about him in that time. Now the boy who cried wolf is pretending to shoot at a wolf. There is still no wolf.

He is the fucking wolf.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 7:58 PM on October 12, 2016 [19 favorites]

Why would you only expect one more?

One scheduled to be on one of the morning shows. More would not surprise me.
posted by waitingtoderail at 7:58 PM on October 12, 2016

So basically, by the next debate, the audience will include the four Clinton accusers, and every other seat will be the women assaulted by Trump.
posted by chortly at 7:59 PM on October 12, 2016 [25 favorites]

Suing could go very badly to Trump, as he could wind up being deposed.
posted by Existential Dread at 8:00 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm starting to think he should be in prison. And I don't mean that in the "HILLARY LIED SEND HER TO PRISON!" kind of way. I mean it in the solemn "this guy is likely guilty of a litany of crimes" way.

WHAT IF THIS WAS HIS PLAN THE WHOLE TIME
posted by Sara C. at 8:04 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm going to be like some of my students and jump in pretending I've done the reading of the thread to offer my anecdote that may or may not be relevant:

I know a couple of Bernie-or-Busters. I stopped asking questions about politics until this one day, which happened to be the day of P-Gate, and I sort of figured that maybe this would change things. Nope. They're now exploring Libertarianism. I was like uh reproductive rights and this friend was like *everything's fine*.

They are lovely people, and I don't want to jeopardize my relationship with them over this fucking election. Maybe in my twenties I'd be obnoxious, but now I'm like *whatever*

But this thing happened me that puzzled me. One friend passed around this thing on his phone he found hilarious. I'm vaguely familiar with the Harumbe meme, so when I saw the picture of the gorilla with the child, I get the context. But the text was something like the gorilla saying to the child, "And so the location of Clinton's deleted emails is" and then I guess the joke is the gorilla is shot ha ha.

Now I admit that some memes delight me and the gorilla one does not, because I don't know I'm old? Although I am fond of Dat Boi. Anyway, my point is, what is the joke here? Because I honestly don't get the joke.

My SO claims that Clinton hatred (which he doesn't share) is the source of the humor. But I honestly don't get it. Okay, some crazy sad drunk person is all about the emails, but these people were, well, certainly neither crazy nor drunk.

It bothers me, I don't know, maybe because I'm explaining in class why this is funny/ironic/whatever in poems I have this sense that I should be able to understand cultural humor.
posted by angrycat at 8:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

The thing that horrifies me the most is I truely believe Trump believes that what he has done over the lady 30 years isn't a crime because everyone should just 'love' him.
posted by AlexiaSky at 8:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

@ABCPolitics
.@realDonaldTrump: "Why the hell is Obama allowed to campaign for Hillary Clinton?" (video)

LOL
posted by chris24 at 8:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [42 favorites]

As of right now, I don't think he'll do the next debate. I flipped past Hannity, who was doing a big screed about how all the media are in the tank for Hillary. I think that's just signaling the route he'll take-- he'll play up the "it's rigged against me" stuff that he's been laying the groundwork for a while-- it was rigged against Bernie, she gets more time, she gets the questions in advance, etc. Expect the campaign spokespeople's talking points to hit this stuff for the next several days.
posted by bluecore at 8:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

He is the fucking wolf.

No, he's the snake. Haven't you listened to his poetry readings?
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 8:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

So the normalization of Trump's conduct as "locker room talk" and just "something guys do" is really bugging me. It shames all men just as much as it condones abuse of women to accept that language. On behalf of trying-to-be -woke men who came of age before we had to confront misogyny and patriarchy and privilege as harmful to us too, and I suspect like a lot of other men who were horrified but not surprised by the latest revelations about Trump, I have really introspected hard about whether I was in denial about how normal such talk as "grab them by the pussy" really was among my fellow men of a certain age (or class, or region). Have I been complicit? Have I been Billy Bush? Are most or all men like that?

I didn't want the answer to be yes. Not in a #notallmen way, but in a "there is a line between normal, gross, problematic, and totally unacceptable" way and most men I have known have mostly been aware of it not out of chivalry but out of a basic moral sensibility and humanity.

I'm a middle aged straight white guy and have, for personal and professional reasons, spent a lot of my life in various mostly-male and all-male working class contexts in many parts of the country including Texas, New England, the Ozarks, and the PNW, and ranging from multi-day hunting trips to working as a furniture mover to years in touring country and western bands (and thus countless rough bars full of men), to hanging out in an Ozarks tractor shop, not to mention numerous all male group settings in my present more upper middle class professional context of 25 years.

I can recall only two instances where *anyone* outright bragged about actual sexual assault-level actions against a woman, or were known to or observed their fellow men to have forced themselves on a non-consenting woman. In both of those cases that I can recall, both quite different in detail but very blue-collar to the core (and both in Texas), the men who bragged about or even performed their willingness to rape or sexually abuse women as a mark of their masculinity were *expelled* from the group by their fellow men (a drummer fired from a band and a man kicked out of a bar) for crossing the line.

The hard part was parsing the "line" itself given the vagaries of memory, rationalization, and changing social mores and standards of discourse and conduct around these issues over the 35 or so years of my adult life.

Have I heard (and surely engaged in) sexist objectifying talk about women's appearances or beauty or physical qualities? Countless times. Bragging about seductions and conquests or planning or imagining such things? Hell yeah. Dismissive misogynistic insults addressed to women who don't respond to such efforts? Better believe it. Crude sexist jokes about women in general? Of course. And some of that kind of talk can contain a strong element of menace or aggression without disrupting masculine sociability. But I really have racked my brain for an example of someone bragging about having forced themselves sexually on a woman as a way to enhance their reputation with other men and can't come up with anything that's a real match in my experience in my adult life.

In fact the closest thing I can recall to what Trump said on that bus being received the way Billy Bush and Donald Trump tell us it should be occurred in an Ivy League dorm room when I was 19, over lines of coke and philosophy books. And that was a transient social encounter. But it was a group of wasted adolescent men 30+ years ago and as best I can recall I don't think we believed it was true at the time, like much adolescent sexual braggadocio.

No, it isn't normal to brag about sexual assault and men don't routinely do it or excuse it even in rough and macho contexts, is my relieved conclusion.

So Trump can go to hell. Dude is insulting many men just as much as all women.
posted by spitbull at 8:06 PM on October 12, 2016 [20 favorites]

(To clarify, I mean what if he actually *is* playing 11th dimensional chess, but just not with the goal of being elected President. He's hoping that all his various crimes will be uncovered, but because he threatened to show-trial Clinton during a debate, he knows that it'll look bad if he is in turn prosecuted for his many actual crimes.)
posted by Sara C. at 8:06 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

The bad news for Trump right now is absolutely dizzying. It's overwhelming. It's just nonstop. It's not even about the election at this moment, it's just stunningly terrible stuff.
posted by zutalors! at 8:07 PM on October 12, 2016 [24 favorites]

I'm starting to think he should be in prison. And I don't mean that in the "HILLARY LIED SEND HER TO PRISON!" kind of way. I mean it in the solemn "this guy is likely guilty of a litany of crimes" way. I'm wondering how many women he has assaulted, abused and raped. How many girls.

I felt this way before he ever decided to be a Candidate for President. And it didn't have to do with assaulting women (besides raping his own wife); it was mostly financial fraud. But I find it semi-satisfying to see him suing the New York Times, the one media entity among many that was MOST responsible for building up Trump's fraudulent reputation in the decades before NBC took over the ugly job.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Trump's Mirror seems to be correct on just about every accusation he has made.

Who did he shoot on 5th Ave.?
posted by Mister Fabulous at 8:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [26 favorites]

From Brian Stelter of CNN (twitter): Source says "NYT editors, reporters, politically motivated accusers better lawyer up." (emphasis mine)

How DARE he.
posted by sallybrown at 8:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

Jacob Weisberg is going to have to start doing Trumpcast 24/7
posted by zutalors! at 8:10 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

So Trump can go to hell. Dude is insulting many men just as much as all women.

We're not the ones he's assaulting, though, so we should probably suck it up and listen to those who are.
posted by dersins at 8:10 PM on October 12, 2016 [43 favorites]

As of right now, I don't think he'll do the next debate.

I'm beginning to wonder if Clinton should pull out of the next debate. Stop treating him as a serious candidate at all. Offer to debate Ryan or Pence.
posted by mmoncur at 8:11 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

My response to this was always "as opposed to 'don't tax but still spend' GWB?"

My response to the wish for "small government" has always been "So, wait, you think these people who you put in positions of power are going to vote for themselves to have LESS power? That's not going to happen. They aren't going to reduce government spending or the size of government, they're just going to spend it on what THEY want, like war and kickbacks to their friends. So would you rather fund military contracts for Dick Cheney's buddies or education?"
posted by threeturtles at 8:12 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

Here's the thing: I don't want there to be more women who were sexually assaulted by Trump. Unfortunately, with any serial abuser, the tip of the iceberg emerges and you just know there's more under the water.

It's apparent that this goes down a long, long way.

So, to the women who have come forward so far: You are courageous - and believed.

To the people in the U.S. working to register voters and get the vote out - keep it up.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:13 PM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

I bet Trump's "longtime butler" has seen some shit
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:14 PM on October 12, 2016 [60 favorites]

I storyfied Josh Marshall's Tweetstorm on the libel case. Enjoy.
posted by Talez at 8:14 PM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

Spitbull, did you see that twitter thread just a little ways up there? Goldie someone or other, about how long it took for women to name their accusers?

I fully believe you that in all your experiences, there were only two guys who came right out and said that they'd sexually assaulted someone, amidst a sea of every other kind of sexual evaluation/bragging/scheming about women.

Did it ever occur to you that the prohibition about admitting sexual assault might be stronger than the prohibition against perpetrating it?
posted by Sublimity at 8:15 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

@ltthompso
[Ted Cruz on phone for Trump pic]
"Yeah I heard. Yep. I know. I'm an idiot. Totally got this one wrong. Career killer for sure. Terrible instincts. Uh huh. Love you too honey"
posted by chris24 at 8:15 PM on October 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

MSNBC just played a small clip of one of Trump's victims crying as she talks about the heartache she feels when she thinks about having to raise her baby daughter in a world where men like Trump still exist.
posted by sallybrown at 8:15 PM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

He's going to sue his victims? For making stuff up for political reasons?

May he be given his just rewards tenfold.
posted by Devonian at 8:15 PM on October 12, 2016 [38 favorites]

I bet Trump's "longtime butler" has seen some shit

So, so many spider webs.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:17 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

And just think: it's going to get worse.
posted by rhizome at 8:17 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

The Trump surrogate on MSNBC just said that these allegations are politically motivated and points out that both of the women in the NYT piece are Clinton supporters.

I can't even. Maybe they support Clinton, in part, because her opponent sexually assaulted them? Could that be? This goddamn world.
posted by Justinian at 8:18 PM on October 12, 2016 [61 favorites]

Are most or all men like that?

My experience and observation has been that far too many men are gross and creepy and will happily engage in sexual objectification of women. Even "good" guys, even ones who think they're "decent" and "not like that". It may not go as far as Trump's "grab 'em by the pussy" comments, but it's just as essentially objectifying if you're out with a bunch of your friends and you're all "hey, check out those tits" or "man, look at her ass" or "dude, I'd fuck her SO HARD". And it's easy to see why; it's in the air we breathe, it's part of our culture. Women are there to be pretty. To be attractive. To be aesthetically pleasing to men. It's not just men giving off this message, it's magazines like Cosmo etc with their makeup tips and "how to get a man" advice. (And it's magazines like Esquire and GQ with their pointlessly objectifying photo shoots of attractive models in lingerie and mens' shirts, for that matter.) Honestly all this "not all men" and "the guys I know aren't like that" and "not my locker room" stuff that people are feeling compelled to say is really bothering me because yeah, most guys probably aren't advocating for sexual assault, but Trump's comments are just the most extreme version of a culture where women are sexual objects, and that's something that far more men than like to admit it participate in (ffs, go look at MeFi back in the days of "boyzone" before people started realising "oh hey, women post here, maybe this shit isn't cool" and see how much squicky stuff there is).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 8:18 PM on October 12, 2016 [20 favorites]

I bet Trump's butler is fairly high up the deposition list.
posted by Devonian at 8:19 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

This would be the racist, birther butler, yes?
posted by maudlin at 8:20 PM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

We're not the ones he's assaulting, though, so we should probably suck it up and listen to those who are.

Umm, ok? I missed the part where I suggested otherwise. But it also behooves men to use this incident to reflect on their own lives and relationships and check their own experiences and change the way they interact with other men.
posted by spitbull at 8:21 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

The Trump surrogate on MSNBC just said that these allegations are politically motivated and points out that both of the women in the NYT piece are Clinton supporters.

Yes, it was despicable when Clinton held a press conference with several of Trump's accusers right before the debate, and then tried to have them seated in the family box.
posted by ckape at 8:22 PM on October 12, 2016 [46 favorites]

Can we declare "but exactly how many men really *are* sexual harassers" verboten as a topic in this thread? It's super off-topic, the conversation has been had about a dozen times now, and it's both triggering for those of us who are survivors of sexual assault and also boring as fuck.
posted by Sara C. at 8:22 PM on October 12, 2016 [90 favorites]

Forget locker-room talk, says Elizabeth Smart, there’s ‘no justifying’ sexual violence

By RACHEL PIPER | The Salt Lake Tribune

But because so many people don't believe rape can happen to them or to someone they love, that's something too few people understand, Smart says — as evidenced by some reactions to a video showing Donald Trump talking about kissing and groping women without their consent.

Instead, she says, people need to talk seriously about the realities of rape, and educate others about their own self-worth and about consent.

"Especially for girls in Utah, that would be great, because I know I was raised to be kind, to be polite," she says. "You didn't say no, you only said yes. I wish the word 'no' was emphasized. 'No' is a good word to say every now and again, especially when it comes to your personal well-being."

posted by tilde at 8:23 PM on October 12, 2016 [50 favorites]

Trump's comments are just the most extreme version of a culture where women are sexual objects,

Also hope it was clear that I agree profoundly with this, and making those connections vivid is really important work men have to do amongst ourselves.
posted by spitbull at 8:23 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

What do you think would be more humiliating, Melania filing for divorce or KellyAnne leaving the campaign before the election?
posted by Sophie1 at 8:24 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

He's going to sue his victims?
Consistent with his longtime practice of threatening to sue people he cheated out of money. It's his way of life. And any lawyer low enough to have worked for Degenerate Donald for any amount of time will never tell him he can't do it.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:24 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Hisham Rana, MD ‏@hrana
Brian is reporting on CNN that @realDonaldTrump aides are telling the press that the two women in the NYT's story should "lawyer up."
posted by Talez at 8:24 PM on October 12, 2016

I am genuinely worried for Melania.
posted by yasaman at 8:24 PM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

One small bit of more positive news: Giuliani apologies for saying Clinton lied about being in NY on 9/11: "I made a mistake. I'm wrong and I apologize."
posted by sallybrown at 8:25 PM on October 12, 2016 [50 favorites]

I feel for these women. For what they've been through, and for having the burden of so publicly having to revisit it now. I admire their strength, and I hope finally airing everything out will bring them some sort of peace.

I, too, am of the mind that this is only the beginning. I feel that more extremely dark, awful things are going to come out about Trump.

I hope that he not only loses but that this is his reckoning, and all the shitty, fucked up stuff he's done in his life will surround him for the rest of his life and never disappear from public consciousness. I hope for justice.

Shame on anyone who supports this man.
posted by defenestration at 8:27 PM on October 12, 2016 [20 favorites]

I can't even express how much I want Melania to walk out of that tower with Baron right fucking now.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:27 PM on October 12, 2016 [65 favorites]

So, who wants to call Rep. Farenthold?
posted by sallybrown at 8:28 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Mod note: One deleted. Please let's not do another round of "what kind of talk do the men of Mefi engage in with other men"; I know it's well-intended, but it leads in a bad and at this point repetitive direction.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 8:29 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

What do you think would be more humiliating, Melania filing for divorce or KellyAnne leaving the campaign before the election?

Why not both?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:30 PM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

Brian is reporting on CNN that @realDonaldTrump aides are telling the press that the two women in the NYT's story should "lawyer up."

Oof, I don't know... Do you think they can find an attorney willing to countersue a billionaire?
posted by Sys Rq at 8:30 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

This would be the racist, birther butler, yes?

That I don't know or particularly care, but if he is he'll be the racist birther butler in court under oath. being asked "Did you ever observe or have reason to believe that behaviour of the sort the defendants claimed took place?", and he'll have to weigh up what scares him more, Trump or time.
posted by Devonian at 8:30 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm kind puzzled by the respect and affection a lot of people have for Kellyanne Conway (e.g. SNL), which is atypical for any GOP flack, let alone an employee of Donald Trump. Is there some kind of backstory there, like was she once in Bikini Kill or the literary editor for Mother Jones or something?
posted by Flashman at 8:31 PM on October 12, 2016 [37 favorites]

I'm still trying to analyze the journey through the Breitbart fever swamps. Follow this logic:

1: The MSM wants Clinton to win and to destroy Trump.
2: To stop reporting on Trump sexual assaults, the campaign warns that any stories will result in nuclear attacks on the Clintons.
3: In response to this, the MSM immediately publishes multiple stories on such assaults.

And this is evidence the MSM is in Clinton's pocket how exactly? These guys need a lesson in the internal consistency of credible fantasy. If the MSM media cared about Bill's reputation they wouldn't have the rapist shouter and Bill's allegation that he was a hick on repeat.
posted by xyzzy at 8:31 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oof, I don't know... Do you think they can find an attorney willing to countersue a billionaire?

Maybe not, but I think we can find one willing to sue Donald Trump.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:32 PM on October 12, 2016 [89 favorites]

I checked again and the butler is not just racist, he repeatedly called for Obama's death and got a visit from the Secret Service for it. At the very least, I want to see that fucker squirm.
posted by maudlin at 8:34 PM on October 12, 2016 [39 favorites]

So drawing from a couple of the comments here, I think Trump's "sue the NYT" strategy is this:

1. File the lawsuit
2. Run out the clock on the election with his surrogates all saying "we won't comment on an ongoing legal matter" whenever confronted on this whole issue
3. Either he wins and then he's president, or he loses and then he withdraws the suit; in both cases, it's over before discovery begins, right?
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:35 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

So we are up to 6 accusations.

Nate Silver's going to need a different aggregator to finish the campaign.
posted by holgate at 8:36 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

Why down ticket races are so important

Nebraska U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer and First District Congressman Jeff Fortenberry pledged again to vote for Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump Tuesday after calling for him to get out of the race last weekend.
[...]

“Having Mike Pence at the top of the ticket is not a legal way out,” Fortenberry said, explaining his decision Tuesday.

Voting Trump for president is important to block a Clinton presidency and for the direction of the Supreme Court, Fortenberry said.
[...]

"I will do nothing that empowers Hillary Clinton,” he said.

Blocking everything Obama they could for 8 years worked out pretty well, so I can imagine the same happening to Clinton. Well, I probably won't have to imagine it. :(
posted by tilde at 8:37 PM on October 12, 2016

in both cases, it's over before discovery begins, right?

Yes. The case has no time to go anywhere in the next 3.5 weeks. It might get to a scheduling conference in that time, maybe. Which is why the NYT would try to counterclaim for something to keep him in, it'll be a story way beyond the election.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:37 PM on October 12, 2016

1. File the lawsuit
2. Run out the clock on the election with his surrogates all saying "we won't comment on an ongoing legal matter" whenever confronted on this whole issue
3. Either he wins and then he's president, or he loses and then he withdraws the suit; in both cases, it's over before discovery begins, right?

It won't work. If it was only the NYT reporting maybe but other news outlets have their own stories now. He'd have to sue them all.
posted by Jalliah at 8:37 PM on October 12, 2016

1: The MSM wants Clinton to win and to destroy Trump.

I mean, to be fair, this is probably true. Sure they're the media, but they have to live here too, and who the fuck wants to leave in a "here" that includes a President Trump?
posted by dersins at 8:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

How long before Giuliani realizes that his bigger mistake was doing ALL the Sunday shows and being the key surrogate for "this was just guy talk."
posted by humanfont at 8:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

Kevin Drum has a convenient reference list of groping accusations, with little excerpts of the stories: Donald Trump is a Pig.

Unfortunately (i) the list is incomplete because the accusations are coming thick and fast, and (ii) the list is already enough to leave me feeling nauseated.

How could this cretin think that his past wouldn't catch up with him if he ran for President? And what was the point of the Republican primary process? It's political malpractice by Lyin' Ted, Little Marco, and Low-energy Jeb!
posted by RedOrGreen at 8:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Is there some kind of backstory there, like was she once in Bikini Kill or the literary editor for Mother Jones or something?

Well, she had that recurring role on Freaks and Geeks, and then she was Whit Stillman's muse for a couple of years.
posted by Iridic at 8:39 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

If the legal bills for countersuing Trump did get expensive, I feel like an online legal defense fund would do pretty well. I'd certainly kick in a few shekels to thank these victims for their courage and possibly for saving the world from certain destruction. If Peter Thiel can bankroll Hulk Hogan to kill Gawker, why can't we protect these women from being victimized yet again?
posted by tonycpsu at 8:39 PM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

Either he wins and then he's president

he ain't president until he's sworn in. and he ain't gonna win anyway, but what happens if something medical/mental/indictable happens before January?
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 8:43 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

"Biggest GoFundMe in Internet history" is the phrase I've seen on Twitter tonight.
posted by Devonian at 8:44 PM on October 12, 2016 [17 favorites]

If the legal bills for countersuing Trump did get expensive, I feel like an online legal defense fund would do pretty well. I'd certainly kick in a few shekels to thank these victims for their courage and possibly for saving the world from certain destruction. If Peter Thiel can bankroll Hulk Hogan to kill Gawker, why can't we protect these women from being victimized yet again?

I would too. I have the feeling that if it's needed there would be some high profile pro-bono thing happen as well as other people of means that would gladly help out.

I'm not concerned about any financial problems for them at all. I'm more concerned about their safety and emotional health with all of the people that will be harassing and attacking them now. I'm sure they had some idea of what they were in for so I'm hoping they all have strong support networks.
posted by Jalliah at 8:45 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Man, his vision for #MAGA involves a lot of time spent in depositions.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:47 PM on October 12, 2016 [30 favorites]

NYT's @mikiebarb

Journalists using blind quotes from Trump Land to warn women to "lawyer up" are abetting a campaign of intimidation, no?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:47 PM on October 12, 2016 [42 favorites]

Well of course thousands of people pledging financial support in advance for the victims if Trump sues them is a way of warning Trump and his supporters that we have their backs and making them feel supported, and given Trump's view of the world also a good way to counter-intimidate the fucker. So financial support is emotional support.

Put me down for $100 as soon as it's announced.
posted by spitbull at 8:48 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Gary Johnson can't do anything right
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:49 PM on October 12, 2016 [36 favorites]

I got my mail-in ballot today! I've been kind of concerned about it, as me and the missus both missed the primary, and I was expecting them to show up earlier.

Looking forward to working through the ginormous San Francisco ballot. I rarely vote "democrat", unless some particularly odious GOP opposition is in one of the higher offices (like Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina sometime back), but I'm actually quite happy to vote D for Hillary this time around!

Anyway, figured that might be a little positivity in what's been an otherwise orange shit-nozzle of a campaign week(?) month(?) year(s)?
posted by lkc at 8:50 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Quick breather?

Megyn Kelly ‏@megynkelly 2h2 hours ago
.@FoxNews decision desk moves #Utah from “solid Republican” to “toss-up.” #KellyFile
posted by Devonian at 8:50 PM on October 12, 2016 [27 favorites]

Oof, I don't know... Do you think they can find an attorney willing to countersue a billionaire?

I can think of one who is suddenly going to have a lot of free time on Jan 21, 2017 and might be up for a little pro bono work.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 8:51 PM on October 12, 2016 [86 favorites]

I love the idea of Bannon and Trump furiously dictating a complaint against the NYTimes right now from Trump Tower. Even if you were going to do this, which would be absolutely fucking insane because he's going to lose on at least 4 different legal theories I can think of off the top of my head, wouldn't you consult with outside counsel and take a couple days to do it right? ... Might want to take more than 45 minutes of white hot rage to plan it out.

I hope they're still there at this very moment surrounded by empty cans of Red Bull and Googling the difference between "slander" and "libel".
posted by vverse23 at 8:51 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

And what is a mowmen?
posted by spitbull at 8:52 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

It's still 12 days till I can early vote ya'll, it's killing me.

Still only one other Hillary sign on my block, but no one's bothered ours, and I haven't seen ANY Trump signs at all. Very few bumper stickers. At this point in the last election we were definitely seeing a lot more Romney signs.
posted by emjaybee at 8:54 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

And what is a mowmen?

Weren't they a 90s surf punk band from San Francisco?
posted by vverse23 at 8:55 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

What's the matter with Mississippi? How is the state with the highest proportion of African Americans going so strongly for Trump. I found this article, which basically talks about gerrymandering, but gerrymandering shouldn't matter for the presidential vote, should it? Is their voter suppression of black voters just super effective there or are a bunch of black people in Mississippi actually voting trump or what?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:56 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

I've seen as many Trump signs in my neighborhood* as I saw Romney signs last time around, which is to say 'none whatsoever'.

The only Clinton sign I've seen was at least 4'x6' so that's awesome.

* Mid-City shining-blue-dot-in-a-depressingly-red-state New Orleans
posted by komara at 8:56 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

In Johnson's defense his staff was high when they wrote that.
posted by humanfont at 8:57 PM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

I would love to hear the advice Roger Ailes gave to Trump about managing this flood of sexual assault allegations.
posted by My Dad at 8:58 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Stuff from Twitter:

1. No suit has been filed.There used to be a newspaper protocol against reporting ounfiled suits.
2. Reporting 'lawyer up' threats from unnamed Trump sources is abetting intimidation.
3. Egg speaks out!
posted by Devonian at 8:59 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Is their voter suppression of black voters just super effective there or are a bunch of black people in Mississippi actually voting trump or what?

Neither. White people in Mississippi vote Republican (in the Presidential race) at rates of about 90%.
posted by Justinian at 9:00 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

she had that recurring role on Freaks and Geeks, and then she was Whit Stillman's muse for a couple of years.

And she did that 'zine about her Swatches. Yeah, she was cool once.

[fake]
posted by octobersurprise at 9:00 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

What's the matter with Mississippi?

It's only 37% Black. That leaves a lot of white Republicans. I dunno what the numbers are but I'm sure it's hard to find a White Democrat in Mississippi.
posted by dis_integration at 9:02 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

And what is a mowmen?

Weren't they a 90s surf punk band from San Francisco?

Some sort of Mike Watt side project? With an album called Ball-Hog Or Pussy-Grabber?
posted by tclark at 9:02 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Egg speaks out!

"By now we know Donald Trump will do nothing but deny his predatory and disgusting actions when it comes to his abusive pattern of behavior with women. At this point, it's not Donald Trump's behavior and judgment that's in question [maybe not how I would have worded that Egg...]; it's the behavior and judgment of the Republican elected officials who continue to back him. That RNC Chairman Preibus, most Members of Congress, and other so-called conservative public figures continue to stand by Donald Trump -- and in some cases defend his statements and actions -- is now beyond objectionable; it now borders on defending the criminal."

posted by sallybrown at 9:04 PM on October 12, 2016 [38 favorites]

More women are coming out because they know they can count on society to stand up to this little pissant. Rip this presidential campaign apart. 370 votes motherfuckers. 380 is a stretch goal.
posted by Talez at 7:52 PM on October 12

There are at least 40 comments between the one I just pasted and the one I'm making, so I apologize if I'm repeating anything someone else said, but this is something I can't keep myself from addressing.

One of the reasons Trump's "grab them by the pussy" audio caused such a visceral (and triggery!) reaction for me is that it reminds me of why I, as a 15-year-old -- and as a 15-year-old who really, really needed some adults to help me with what happened to me -- didn't say anything at the time. I didn't say anything then because I was afraid I would be blamed, and I was afraid I'd be labeled a slut, and I was afraid I'd be asked why I LET it happen.

That was almost 30 years ago, and until last week I really believed in my heart that things have improved in the past three decades. Over the past six days, I've realized that they haven't, and it's been a fucking gut punch.

I'd love to believe that these women are coming out because they think society will support them. I also think that is terribly, terribly naive. Because even if we here support them and believe them without question, there are many, many, many people out there who are going to do just the opposite. There are many, many people out there who will not take a woman's word for it, and who will excuse an attacker's actions based on his half-hearted truth dodging. This is something that has not changed.

Their coming out is brave, without question. But they're not doing it because they believe they'll be backed. They're doing it despite knowing they'll be attacked.

This isn't directed specifically at you, Talez, I just wanted to get it on the record. Those women have no expectation of support, and they've opened themselves up for a shit storm, and they have likely said what they said knowing that, and doing it anyway.

I ache for them, and I fucking hate that this is something that's even remotely relevant to a presidential election.
posted by mudpuppie at 9:04 PM on October 12, 2016 [128 favorites]

White people in Mississippi vote Republican (in the Presidential race) at rates of about 90%.

See also, Alabama. Hence the problem with my family enumerated previously.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:04 PM on October 12, 2016

Back-of-the-envelope math.

Population of MS: ~3,000,000
Percent African-American: ~37%
Percent White: ~59%

37% of 3,000,000 = 1,110,000
59% of 3,000,000 = 1,770,000

If Justinian's 90% R number is true for whites, even a 100% D number for the non-white population doesn't close the gap. Factor in voter intimidation and the pessimism and disengagement that comes from being Democrats in a deep red state, and it's hard to imagine Democrats doing well there in state-wide races anytime soon.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Regarding yard signs, someone stopped by one of the field offices yesterday to ask if he could get yard signs and/or bumper stickers and my organizer told him that they don't have any and won't have any because it's not a priority. It doesn't make as much difference as calling people and knocking on doors. On the one hand, I think it's hard for people to hear that a relatively easy thing for them to do and a public show of support doesn't matter as much as other actions they can take, and on the other, I'm glad that the organizers and staff are so focused on doing what the data shows will increase turnout.
posted by danielleh at 9:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Instead of, I don't know, actually doing their jobs, the the Parliament of the Australian state of New South Wales passed a motion today endorsing the description of Donald Trump as 'a revolting slug unfit for public office'. [real]
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [77 favorites]

White people in Mississippi vote Republican (in the Presidential race) at rates of about 90%.

Voter ID helps suppress the black vote a bit further, especially in rural counties, just to be sure. The past is not even the past.
posted by holgate at 9:06 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Oh I'd forgotten all about the racist, birther butler!
posted by glhaynes at 9:06 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

@JessicaTaylor: Katrina Pierson is arguing that the assault 30 years ago couldn't have happened bc planes back then in 1st class had immovable arm rests.
posted by gatorae at 9:07 PM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

Oh I'd forgotten all about the racist, birther butler!

Coming soon to a Netflix near you: Remains of the Day 2 -- The Entrumpening
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:09 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Costa (twitter):

Trump camp has so far not spoken on-record about ongoing discussions about legal moves. Only on bkngd about "war." Pushing for on-record.

Based on my reporting, Trump orbit on edge about possible coming wave of allegations, hence intimidating talk of legal threats.

This is just the beginning.
posted by sallybrown at 9:09 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

but I'm sure it's hard to find a White Democrat in Mississippi

They are technically known as "my parents" and it is a little tough to find them, just because you can't see the house numbers from the road
posted by Countess Elena at 9:09 PM on October 12, 2016 [61 favorites]

RE: Pierson's statement.

Disgusting.
posted by defenestration at 9:09 PM on October 12, 2016

Voter ID helps suppress the black vote a bit further, especially in rural counties, just to be sure. The past is not even the past.

That's true, but it's also true that African American turnout in Mississippi is about what we'd expect if suppression wasn't a big factor. Every vote is important, obviously, but it isn't suppression that is the proximate cause of Miss. going R in Presidential races, it's white folks voting almost as a monolith.
posted by Justinian at 9:09 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Voter ID helps suppress the black vote a bit further, especially in rural counties, just to be sure. The past is not even the past.

Again, ditto Alabama. But my personal experience goes even into uglier depths. By that I mean it's also a mix of resigned poverty and soul crushing work expectations that leads to a non-negligible portion of the poor, black voting population not being able to make it to the polls at all. Certainly not as easily as their richer and/or whiter, I don't want to say neighbors, fellow citizens, I guess.

Some sort of national holiday for election day(s) can't come soon enough.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:11 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Also regarding Mississippi, according to the state ACLU , there are 21 crimes (mostly violent felonies) that keep you from voting. I imagine like the rest of the country, black people are going to be disproportionately charged with them (especially ones like felony bad check writing and the theft related ones where it's pretty easy for a prosecutor to let someone off). The voter ID one though looks like it is suppressed a lot in the last election. I guess they've been working on making it so white people don't have to vote so consistently together and still have the republicans win.
posted by R343L at 9:11 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

I linked this report from the census people a thread or two (or three? jesus, who can remember) ago. Anybody with even a passing interest in the racial demographics of voting, how they are changing, and how they are very strongly correlated with geography will find it interesting.
posted by Justinian at 9:12 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

At least look at the maps halfway through if that report is tl;dr. They are fascinating.
posted by Justinian at 9:13 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

What do you think would be more humiliating, Melania filing for divorce or KellyAnne leaving the campaign before the election?

With Meredith driving the getaway car. The three of them live happily ever after in an airstream on the edge of a desert somewhere.
posted by srboisvert at 9:14 PM on October 12, 2016 [18 favorites]

Liz Mair on Twitter 5 minutes ago: By the way, the two really, really bad stories I mentioned would soon be dropping still haven't actually dropped.
posted by maudlin at 9:15 PM on October 12, 2016 [57 favorites]

@JessicaTaylor: Katrina Pierson is arguing that the assault 30 years ago couldn't have happened bc planes back then in 1st class had immovable arm rests.

So is Reddit now in charge of Trump campaign messaging?
posted by dersins at 9:16 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

@JessicaTaylor: Katrina Pierson is arguing that the assault 30 years ago couldn't have happened bc planes back then in 1st class had immovable arm rests.

Here (twitter) is the video of this. I don't know who the man all the way on the left is, but I feel you.
posted by sallybrown at 9:16 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Liz Mair on Twitter 5 minutes ago: By the way, the two really, really bad stories I mentioned would soon be dropping still haven't actually dropped.

Well don't leave us hanging, Liz! DROPPO THE OPPO.
posted by dis_integration at 9:16 PM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

Finally caught up with the thread...

So when I left Yom Kippur services tonight, there were 4 NYC cops in full gear (big vests, machine guns, helmets) standing guard outside, and 2 cars with the blue lights flashing. I go to a tiny synagogue (maybe 40 families) on a side street, not one of the big shuls, and I'm on the Upper West Side (unofficial motto: A shul for every Starbucks). I asked them if anything was up and they said no, everything was fine. But they weren't there this morning for services, and they weren't there last night for kol nidre, so I am pretty sure this wasn't any definition of business as usual. Plus my husband went to one of the big synagogues a few blocks uptown and there were no cops there (though they hire security guards). I checked the Times and a few online sources but no one knows anything. Was hoping someone here would have known something, but I guess not.

The thing is, any other year if this happened I would just think "random terrorist threat, awesome" and try not to think more about it. But now I'm stuck wondering was it a neighbor? Was it related to something a presidential candidate said?

So much for the theory that it wasn't 2016 that was all wrong, only 5776...
posted by Mchelly at 9:17 PM on October 12, 2016 [24 favorites]

NYCAviation on Twitter: Hi @KatrinaPierson, the aircraft types you mentioned all did operate into New York City.
posted by maudlin at 9:19 PM on October 12, 2016 [45 favorites]

Every vote is important, obviously, but it isn't suppression that is the proximate cause of Miss. going R in Presidential races, it's white folks voting almost as a monolith.

Oh, I agree. Mississippi adopted Voter ID late, just as a kind of fuck-you insurance policy against demographics, because they were sure that 90% of white people were going to vote explicitly against black people. (They also had the VRA preclearance provisions to deal with until Roberts, CJ fucked that over.)

It's states like Wisconsin and Ohio and Indiana (and NC) whose Voter ID laws are predicated on enough white people voting for Dems, which gives power to the black vote, so let's fuck the black vote.

As an immigrant, I keep a mental record of How To Understand the US Properly, and "certain states do not believe in free and fair elections because they have never had a truly free and fair election" is a 64-point bold entry on the list.
posted by holgate at 9:20 PM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

Trump has been owned by two types of candy, and now an airport.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:21 PM on October 12, 2016 [59 favorites]

Here (twitter) is the video of this. I don't know who the man all the way on the left is, but I feel you.

OMG.

Lewandowski (that's him, second from L, yes?) is biting his lips so fucking hard the whole time Pierson is wording.
posted by dersins at 9:21 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's Peter Beinart on the left
posted by zutalors! at 9:22 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Liz Mair on Twitter 5 minutes ago: By the way, the two really, really bad stories I mentioned would soon be dropping still haven't actually dropped.

I assumed as much. All the women who have come forward since Friday are just people who heard Trump's bullshit at the debate and became too incensed to stay quiet. As people are wont to do when jackhole abusers bloviate at cameras.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:22 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Honestly, I'd be somewhat surprised if the"racist birther butler", if he has been in Trump's employ for more than a few years, HASN'T lied under oath for his employer before. Maybe not as many times as a deposition about multiple incidents would require, but I really believe he MUST have done it before.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:23 PM on October 12, 2016

What's the matter with Mississippi? How is the state with the highest proportion of African Americans going so strongly for Trump. I found this article, which basically talks about gerrymandering, but gerrymandering shouldn't matter for the presidential vote, should it? Is their voter suppression of black voters just super effective there or are a bunch of black people in Mississippi actually voting trump or what?

538's swingomatic has plots below the main widget showing the share of electorate and their Trump support. Mississippi* is labelled as an outlier on the three plots containing its primary demographic groups:
Non-college educated white voters are mostly 40-50% Trump in blue states, 55%ish for Trump in swing states, 65-80% for Trump in red states and maybe 85% Trump in Mississippi, the reddest state.
College educated white voters are 35-45% Trump in blue states, 50-55% Trump in swing states, 60-75% Trump in red states and maybe 90% Trump in Mississippi, the reddest state.
African-Americans are roughly 95% Clinton in every single state. (Mississippi is an outlier in having the second highest proportion, after DC - both go 95% for Clinton. The difference is white people in DC are also 90% for Clinton.)
* Where there's nobody learning such a foreign word as fair
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 9:24 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

I'm getting a bit tired of insider types dangling these tidbits in front of us like the trainers at Sea World. You know something? Say it. Or at least say when the story will drop. Otherwise you're just being kind of annoying. I love Liz Mair but really.
posted by Justinian at 9:25 PM on October 12, 2016 [22 favorites]

I'm the white Democrat in Mississippi! Got my absentee ballot on the way, as I am living with my mom, who has had a psychotic break of sorts and counts the rise of Trump among her reasons for a recent suicide threat, then actual attempt. She is another white Democrat from Mississippi. Normally, I live in the college town of Hattiesburg, MS, and I have a TON of friends from there voting Clinton. We exist, and we're mad as hell. I know Mississippi is going for Trump in the end, but I'm going to vote for Clinton SO HARD.
posted by thebrokedown at 9:26 PM on October 12, 2016 [77 favorites]

xyzzy:

I'm still trying to analyze the journey through the Breitbart fever swamps. Follow this logic:

But I don't want to! [/whine]

I'm so tired.

I made the mistake of dropping out of the previous thread with 300 comments left, then coming back to catch up with that and this one in a couple of hours. And also read election-related commentary ElseNet. Which means that all of the following, a non-comprehensive list, impacted upon my mindscape within a very, very short time indeed:

• What seems be the opening official hostilities of the no-really-Republican presidential candidate against the no-really-Republican Party,
• "Repeal the 19th Amendment" (this is the one that used up all daily weeks quota of evens all at once, which sucked because it left me with none for...)
• Elementary school kid assaulted by other elementary school kids in what would called a racially-motivated hate crime in police statistics,
• That train-platform incident of "can't wait until Trump is elected and we'll be able to–[anti-women sewer gunk that I can't even repeat without recoiling]"
• Utah
• The Downfall parody about Utah (which gave me a few evens back so thanks, garius, but unfortunately I lost them almost immediately back to...)
• He said what about consent, like that was his outside voice and everything,
• Republican Party members and leaders jumping ship, climbing back on the ropes, and in general demonstrating as much decisiveness and unity as a herd of catnip-stoned cats,
• The dam on the sexual abuse accusations reaching that "pop!... pop!... crack...crack...pop!" stage within a few hours, like you just know by tomorrow night the entire valley will be underwater and we'll be holding on to wreckage,
• ...sue the NYT!??

Moral of the story: Don't ever, ever try to catch up to the election threads within a few hours, if you fall more than an hour behind. The compressed-time even-suction effect of 2016 will break you.

I'll go cuddle with my cat now. And of course, not listen to my own advice next time I fall behind.

Come to think of it, this may be why Tehhund is lagging. They're preserving their mental health.
posted by seyirci at 9:27 PM on October 12, 2016 [42 favorites]

By the way, the two really, really bad stories I mentioned would soon be dropping still haven't actually dropped.

Those are presumably the ones that Rick Wilson, Mike Murphy and Stuart Stevens know about as well. And all the hints suggest it is that it's overt n-word racism on tape, in the possession of Team HRC to use at their desire, while the groping allegations are "organic" in the sense that those women came forward entirely by themselves.

(A few people speculated that Alicia Machado got the treatment she did because she was having none of it with Trump, a man who acquired a pageant and thought it gave him possession over its human assets. I can go with that speculation.)

Also, let's remember that there's still the modelling agency, committing visa fraud that makes people vulnerable to exploitation, and its employment of the kind of women who Trump thinks he can grope at will.
posted by holgate at 9:27 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I wonder what Peter Luger's tweet will say?
posted by Defying Gravity at 9:30 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Trump releases lawyer's letter to the NYT calling article "libelous" and demanding a retraction and apology

He's not going to file, an actual lawyer must've broken through to Priebus. I bet the NYT frames that toothless nastygram in the editorial room
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:30 PM on October 12, 2016 [50 favorites]

From That Cracked Article:

"I never saw a family member, friend, or classmate be mean to the actual black people we had in town. "

Yeah I have. My in-laws used the n-word regularly about the black people in our neighborhood. Who apparently wronged them by being slightly more poor. (I use the past tense because we no longer speak to my in-laws and they got so pissed they up and moved to another state. One with fewer black people, I might add.) I mean, no they weren't mean to anyone's face because they were busy avoiding non-white as much as possible, but I heard how they talked behind their backs.

So, I mean, yes, rural vs city has a lot to do with things, but let's not pretend there isn't plenty of racism in rural areas. My husband swears his parents never talked like that when he was growing up and they lived in a city. But they moved to a rural area and suddenly started talking that way. In fact, I'd say the more people they got to know out there, and the more interaction they had with the local community, the more glaringly racist they became. Why? I dunno, to fit in, I guess? Because they could get away with it?

ETA: the link
posted by threeturtles at 9:32 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

It's only 37% Black. That leaves a lot of white Republicans. I dunno what the numbers are but I'm sure it's hard to find a White Democrat in Mississippi.

From the 2012 CCES, about 20\% of white Mississippians were Democrats or Democratic leaners. In AL it was about 24\%.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:33 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Arkell v Pressdram applies.
posted by Devonian at 9:34 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Apropos of nothing, I would just like to note that more than once this week I have gone outside, turned around three times and spat and cursed. [real]
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:34 PM on October 12, 2016 [32 favorites]

Those are presumably the ones that Rick Wilson, Mike Murphy and Stuart Stevens know about as well. And all the hints suggest it is that it's overt n-word racism on tape, in the possession of Team HRC to use at their desire

I don't believe this. The actions of the Trump campaign staff (the professional ones, not the alt-right shitheels) are not those of people who are aware such a tape exists and is in the hands of their opponents. Nothing makes sense if you're right. Up is down, left is right, dogs and cats are living together.
posted by Justinian at 9:35 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I just now realized that the chances of me crying in the voting booth when I cast my vote for Hillary are rapidly nearing 100%. God, that's going to feel good.
posted by merriment at 9:36 PM on October 12, 2016 [19 favorites]

"Apropos of nothing, I would just like to note that more than once this week I have gone outside, turned around three times and spat and cursed. [real]
posted by DevilsAdvocate "

Dude, when you're on the Devil's payroll, that doesn't help with the demons, they're just messengering you documents!

Alternative discarded joke: Michael Cohen is that you???
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

I wonder what Peter Luger's tweet will say?

"Steak for one, Donald?"
posted by dersins at 9:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [29 favorites]

I'm still trying to analyze the journey through the Breitbart fever swamps. Follow this logic:

At the moment the Breitbart home page has two derogatory stories about Paul Ryan above the fold. There are some abstract, wonky stories about Hillary Clinton (and maybe one story whining about how she got debate questions beforehand, lol), and of course, nothing about the sexual assault allegations.

It's pretty obvious that the goal here is the destruction of the GOP.
posted by My Dad at 9:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

The next candy to get Trumped...
Snickers: 2 to 1
Reeses (Cups OR Pieces): 3 to 1
Twizzlers: 10 to 1
Anything else in George's "ten candy bar lineup": 25 to 1
Mentos: 100 to 1 (had been much higher but when Tic Tac came up, it threw all other mints out of consideration)
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:40 PM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

Well, it ain't like Trump can afford to get any more estranged from 100 Grands than he already is.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:43 PM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Kellyanne Conway scares the tar out of me.
posted by argybarg at 9:44 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm imagining a desk at Clinton HQ with several folders on it marked OPPO. Each day they have a meeting and decide to release OPPO B tomorrow. They prepare and then nope Trump did something again. It goes back into the folder.
I feel bad for the OPPO files, they must be feeling so lonely and unloved.
posted by Jalliah at 9:44 PM on October 12, 2016 [47 favorites]

It's pretty obvious that the goal here is the destruction of the GOP.
No, I think the goal is really a hostile takeover of the GOP. Badboy Bannon wants to sit behind the RNC Chairman's desk and light a cigar from a bonfire of pictures of past Republican Presidents. If that fails, he wants an office in Trump Tower where he'll head the Trumparty.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:44 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Mentos: 100 to 1 (had been much higher but when Tic Tac came up, it threw all other mints out of consideration)

TRUMPTOS: THE GROPEMAKER!
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:46 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

By Sunday, how many women will have gone public with allegations of Trumps' sexual assaults?
posted by cell divide at 9:49 PM on October 12, 2016

And what is a mowmen?

Say it with me, folks: "20 dollars, same as in..."
posted by infinitywaltz at 9:49 PM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

Kellyanne, of whom no one had ever heard, walked in one day in a bright red gingham dress with shoes and nails to match, bleach blonde updo, heavy makeup. DC is SO sartorially conservative and I'll admit it, I judged. She ended up giving the most kickass, fascinating presentation of the semester, all about polling and data interpretation before Big Data was cool.

See that makes it worse, the Republican party could employ its talents, which surely it must have some still, even now, towards actual compromise and workable solutions. But instead they decided 8 years ago that even 1 single vote for a bill sponsored by a Democrat, or towards anything that might remotely be construed as the government affecting one single citizen's life in a positive direction was unacceptable.

Kellyanne is the the current epitome of Republican bankruptcy of ideas. They have none. No plans. No policies. No interest in creating any, and no interest in governing in the interest of the people as a whole. It's a dead end movement, and it would be sad that people like Kellyanne were wasting such intellect in service of nothing, if they weren't still actively trying to destroy everything America has ever accomplished.

But since they are, fuck them, and fuck her. May she never live this taint down, and never work again in any capacity.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:50 PM on October 12, 2016 [41 favorites]

"By Sunday, how many women will have gone public with allegations of Trumps' sexual assaults?"

My gut feeling is 21.
posted by komara at 9:52 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I just realized that I'm at the point where I have a Metafilter algorithm in my head which I can use to determine whether some sort BIG ELECTION news has dropped. I have the election thread open all the time and based on the time of day and the rate of new comments in relation to how long I've been away from the tab I can tell that something is up.

Tell me I'm not the only one....
posted by Jalliah at 9:54 PM on October 12, 2016 [82 favorites]

I'm not convinced the oppo-to-come is the n-word. And if it is, I don't think it will impact much. Those who would care already aren't voting for him. I don't think it would bother his supporters. Would it drive away a few of the party leaders when the rape comments didn't?
posted by beaning at 9:55 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

.. you're not the only one.
posted by samthemander at 9:56 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

All of Donald Trump’s Accusers: A Timeline of Every Alleged Grope and Assault
posted by kirkaracha at 9:57 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

I wonder what Peter Luger's tweet will say?

We already know about Peter Luger's in relation to Trump going back to the 70s.

The actions of the Trump campaign staff (the professional ones, not the alt-right shitheels) are not those of people who are aware such a tape exists and is in the hands of their opponents.

Perhaps it's just gossip among the #NeverTrump top-tier campaign strategists. Perhaps it isn't.

One of the more interesting things about the 2016 campaign is that with so many prominent strategists on the sidelines, some through retirement, others because they were blindsider, they've been willing to dish on their podcasts and expose the degree to which yes, they have ideological affiliations, but they also have professional ones that cross party lines: Mike Murphy was talking to David Axelrod for Radio Free GOP this week. Keepin' it 1600 taps into a younger cross-party crowd.

Conway is a skilled poll-cruncher who has acquired the capacity to duckspeak on TV. Bannon is just a rabid shitweasel. Jared Kushner is an amateur. Trump has veto power over all of them.
posted by holgate at 9:59 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Trump seems to have some kind of sadism fetish going on. You can only be on his team if you're willing to do whatever humiliating thing he gleefully thinks up for you. Kellyanne! Go on there and say I was just joking, you're going to look like the biggest idiot craven liar ever in front of the whole country. I'll be tweeting while you're on, making you look like a fool.

Yeah, keep laughing, Rudy. You're on Sunday now.
posted by ctmf at 10:01 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

I have my thoughts about OTHER EXPECTED OPPO but I'll keep them to myself for now. If I'm proved right, it'll be filed under "hiding in plain sight".
posted by holgate at 10:02 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

I have my thoughts about OTHER EXPECTED OPPO but I'll keep them to myself for now. If I'm proved right, it'll be filed under "hiding in plain sight".


Noooo. Now I'm going to lie here before I go to sleep trying to figure it out. Noooooo.
posted by Jalliah at 10:04 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Yeah holgate, have pity on us who are about to go to bed and don't want our brains to hamster wheel over it until we fall asleep.
posted by yasaman at 10:06 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Podesta's twitter account was hacked. I have to assume at this point that he is vulnerable to phishing. And come on holgate, feed me your speculations!
posted by xyzzy at 10:06 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Tell me I'm not the only one....

You're not. Just a couple hours ago, when this latest round of allegation articles started to hit, I was catching up on what I missed in this thread during work when I saw the new comment count start jumping ten or so at a time - far too fast for the usual "lot of folks home from work / done with dinner now" rate of growth. I couldn't help but race to the bottom (sigh) of the page to see what had happened.
posted by EatTheWeek at 10:07 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Can we super pretty please with sugar on top NOT do speculations?
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 10:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

How do you "pull out" of a state? Like what does that mean? Surely that doesn't mean you literally tell people to stop campaigning for you and just stop funding operations but then why would you announce that?! I'm so confused.
posted by R343L at 10:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

It usually refers to advertising buys, but also could mean pulling paid organizers to redeploy to more favorable states.

Although in this case I'm not sure Trump actually has paid on the ground staff, so really we're only taking about ad dollars.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:11 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

You know how when you play a Final Fantasy game you save all your elixirs for the final boss fight and don't end up needing to use any? This analogy is about oppo the Clinton camp might be sitting on
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:13 PM on October 12, 2016 [98 favorites]

well, my Trump supporting student turned in a paper that was a screed about how school uniforms should be mandatory because said uniforms would prevent violence.

i avoided writing "but brownshirts" in the margins.

what's weird is that her HRC-hating buddy turned in an anti-abortion screed last week, and I went on a spiel of how personal essays are about personal experiences, not about ranting about the irresponsibility of all people who do X are evil because Y. So I was like, start over. That's when the Trump student and the anti-abortion student moved to the back of the class and sort of started muttering.

so it's like, yeah, let's show it to the teacher by writing assignments that don't meet the requirements in any conceivable way; you get to annoy your teacher for five minutes, you'll get a bad grade and then what, your opinions about leftists are confirmed, they are the bad-grade giving devil?
posted by angrycat at 10:18 PM on October 12, 2016 [39 favorites]

Trump seems to have some kind of sadism fetish going on. You can only be on his team if you're willing to do whatever humiliating thing he gleefully thinks up for you.

To be fair, male-dominated workplaces can be like this. I have worked for three organizations like this. There's also often an "A Team", or inner circle, and a more transitory "B Team." You get to join the A Team by being willing to submit to the humiliation.

Not all male-dominated workplaces are like this. When I worked construction, competence and hard work were more important than anything else.
posted by My Dad at 10:21 PM on October 12, 2016

How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind, By David Wong

I think I can partly see where David Wong is trying to get at when he talks about how he could easily see himself as a Trump voter. To oversimplify a little bit, immigrants often come form situations comparable to what the rural Trump supporter lives in (and refugees come from even worse). But the difference is that the immigrant/refugee didn't or couldn't 'throw a brick' (support a Trump-like leader) in their home country and instead came to the United States.

Where his analysis falls down is he describes the Trump phenomena as a reaction to the actions of the coastal urban Elites. But if that's the case, why is Trump going after immigrants?

I'm still trying to define this better myself, but basically I feel the way it begins to make a little sense to me is that they're angry at immigrants and refugees for doing what they couldn't or won't do: changing. Changing in the sense of uprooting themselves from their home, traveling a long distance, and when getting there putting aside their pride to learn about an unfamiliar language, culture, and society.
posted by FJT at 10:23 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

"Pull out" is 90% about ad buys, 10% about deployment of field staff, however many the Trump campaign might have. The DC market's expensive, so there's presumably the assumption that Fairfax and Loudoun Counties are out of reach, and after a few events there talking about coal miners, he's done. Nobody not already voting for him is going to vote for him.

(Trump has the shallowest sense of state geography. He was saying "any Cubans here?" in Panama City. Might as well be shouting out for people from Dothan, AL in Miami.)
posted by holgate at 10:23 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

May she never live this taint down

A few weeks ago KellyAnne earned the moniker 'Sugar Farts' from Mrs. Perspicio in honor of her manner of communication, but now I'm thinking 'Taint Down' works just as well.
posted by perspicio at 10:25 PM on October 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

Is there no rule book on what a candidate can do and not do, say and not say? Like threatening their opponent with jail? That's allowed?

Oh god is there NO RULE BOOK?! I'm serious.
posted by soakimbo at 10:26 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

No rule book. Just cultural and political norms that Trump has grossly violated and may take years to recover from. I am hoping that the Republicans take this opportunity to evaluate how much they've enjoyed this election season and consider returning to productive discourse in a new covenant with America.
posted by xyzzy at 10:31 PM on October 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

I don't really care what happens to Kellyanne, who entered this shitshow as a dead-eyed mercenary and will leave as same. But I really want to see the political ambitions of every elected official who hitched their wagon to Trump permadead after this, and may Giuliani always be remembered as nothing more than the petty and contemptible creature he is.
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:32 PM on October 12, 2016 [37 favorites]

I'm glad this is happening in my lifetime.
posted by rhizome at 10:33 PM on October 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

To oversimplify a little bit, immigrants often come form situations comparable to what the rural Trump supporter lives in (and refugees come from even worse).

As I said upthread, it's a low-trust, high-trust thing. If you're an immigrant arriving in a biggish city, you'll gravitate to the "immigrants like you" community (which is often on the outskirts of that city) and you'll build your trust network from that foundation: you'll get advice from people who know how stuff works, but you'll also realise that you don't have to bribe people or deal with personal shenanigans to get things going. If you somehow end up in East Bumfuck County, it's a different story, but you probably won't.

I also said in a previous election thread that for born-in-the-USA Americans of not-so-distant immigrant backgrounds, the "changing" part seems to be filed away as Something Your Grandparents Did. It's enlightening to look at redlining maps from the 1930s of states like Ohio to see the judgement passed on "better foreigners" who were deemed just about worthy of mortgages often from central and eastern Europe, and how their descendants will probably consider themselves proudly "Polish Americans" or "Slovak Americans" but don't see themselves as foreign because they've never had to uproot their lives.
posted by holgate at 10:35 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

* Bob, 43, is a manager at a restaurant. He sees that his dishwashers don't make enough to make ends meet and wants the minimum wage raised because his corporate office won't let him pay them more than the state minimum.

This is so close to my husband's life at the moment. (His name isn't Bob, and he's only 40, though.) He's a kitchen manager at a chain restaurant in a small town and he can't find/keep cooks because he's not allowed to pay them more than $10/hr. And, you know, being a cook is a hard job and in a small town there's just not a lot of people who can do the work and are also willing to work for that wage when they can get more elsewhere. Already almost all the cooks are undocumented immigrants because anyone who isn't can definitely make more elsewhere.
posted by threeturtles at 10:36 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

Well, I've caught up to an election thread for the first time since the DNC.

I am beyond disgusted with this buffoon. The People article left me feeling physically ill. I am awed by the bravery of these women who are speaking out. That the perverse glee I'm feeling at the orange shitheel's downfall comes at the cost of their pain leaves me feeling dirty.

I'm just so tired of this.
posted by Gaz Errant at 10:44 PM on October 12, 2016 [20 favorites]

I'm glad this is happening in my lifetime.

May you live in interesting times....
posted by dersins at 10:47 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Might as well be shouting out for people from Dothan, AL in Miami

Good one! For those that aren't up on deep-south geography, Dothan AL (my home town) is less than 100 miles from Panama City FL -- a lot closer than Miami is to Havana.

What's ironic to me about Trump stumping in Panama City is that it (and the rest of the Florida Panhandle) are both ideologically and geographically closer to south Alabama/Georgia than they are to the rest of Florida south of Tallahassee (where most of the population is). Florida as a whole may be swingable, but the panhandle is Trump country already.

There's a reason that panhandle beaches are known as the Redneck Riviera. I don't expect that anything Trump says in Panama City will have much impact on overall election results in Florida as a whole.
posted by TwoToneRow at 10:57 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

I don't really care what happens to Kellyanne, who entered this shitshow as a dead-eyed mercenary and will leave as same.

I can't help think she and her say-anything-for-a-dollar brothers and sisters are playing a foolish game. She could be in a lot of danger if someone leaked some dirt on Trump to the media and spoofed her return address on it. And she helped create that dangerous environment.
posted by ctmf at 10:58 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm just thinking sometime net week Trump will be alone, desperate, screaming "An Android! An Android! My tower for an Android!"
posted by happyroach at 11:05 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

almost all the cooks are undocumented immigrants because anyone who isn't can definitely make more elsewhere.

And some of the ones who aren't are ex-cons because a) prisons offer culinary training; b) restaurants are less likely to discriminate against people who've served their time. $15/hr and be rid of tips up front because tips empower lower-league versions of people like Trump.
posted by holgate at 11:13 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Pretty sure everyone has seen 538's "if only men voted" and "if only women voted" maps, but Twitter has offered up some other thoughtful alternatives throughout the day.

Here's what the electoral map would look like:

if we gave bears the right to vote.
if it weren't washed cold with like colors.
if only dogs voted.
if only Trump's Twitter supporters voted.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 11:13 PM on October 12, 2016 [28 favorites]

Nevada Republicans Abandon [Senate candidate] Heck For Abandoning Trump

Some independent, left-leaning PACs need to hammer the chickenshit Republicans who endorsed Trump, then unendorsed him after the pussy tape came out. What about now, are they going to re-unendorse him after the latest 6 or 7 groping allegations?

TV ad suggestion: "Profiles in Cowardice," maybe ending with the last bit of Bohemian Rhapsody -- "Any way the wind blows...."
posted by msalt at 11:34 PM on October 12, 2016

People are worried about lefties staying home, and probably some people will stay home/vote Jill Stein, etc.

The best point to make is that large victories create a mandate for change, both for the president and for each senator and congressperson. A narrow victory (with lots of third party votes) makes a congressperson cautious. A big victory gives them confidence to regulate banks, appoint and approve more liberal Supreme Court justices, institute single-payer health care, stop pipelines, etc.
posted by msalt at 11:40 PM on October 12, 2016 [20 favorites]

I'm glad so much evidence against Trump is coming out, but I sort of feel like a sick voyeur waiting for these additional allegations and videos.
posted by gucci mane at 11:42 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

A lawsuit is being drafted now by Trump against the NYT. Very possible it could be announced tonight, though discussions ongoing.

Will it be filed before or after Trump's threatened lawsuit against the NYT for publishing details of his state tax returns? Because that one sort of disappeared.
posted by msalt at 11:45 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

I'm going to be quite angry if "the N word" is what finally does Trump in.

We already know what he is. We already know what he has done and what he wants to do.

The WORDS HE SAYS might be terrible but they're just the tip of the iceberg, and I don't know why most of the Republican party is watching the Titanic sink and staying on board because they aren't 100% sure it's an iceberg because they haven't seen the tip yet.
posted by mmoncur at 11:46 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Some independent, left-leaning PACs need to hammer the chickenshit Republicans who endorsed Trump, then unendorsed him after the pussy tape came out.

Rob Delaney is on the case.
posted by rhizome at 11:47 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

In an interview with Larry King, the 82-year-old chatmaster explains why he still likes Donald Trump and why CNN may be bad, but it'd be worse if he were still there.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:51 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

(a near-perfect example of how the Mainstream Media helped make this monster)
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:53 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Re: the Wong piece on rural America.

* I have a friend who lives in a small rural town, who says, "Rural people know all about the city but city people don't know anything about rural communities." Like everything of this type, this is by no means 100% true but there is a lot of truth in it.

Her explanation for this is that every rural person must visit the city regularly (work, health care, shopping, school, visiting relatives, etc etc etc) but to most city folks the rural parts of the state are strictly "drive-past territory". The rural lifestyle is just so far outside of their daily lived experience that it doesn't even register.

* People who live in suburbia--and particularly the more distant suburbs and exurbs--very often have a very rural mindset and outlook, even though they live in the middle of what looks to any objective eye like the middle of a vast, giant, uninterrupted city.

Our state breaks down pretty evenly 50/50 urban/rural. But at a recent statewide conference I attended, a speaker asked people to raise their hands if they felt an affinity for rural communities or cities. A solid 90% raised their hands for rural. People feel an affinity for rural life and values even if they do not live there any more. Many of these people choose to live in suburbs and exurbs because these parts of cities come closest to matching their ideal of a rural community while also giving them needed access to jobs, services, etc. that the city has to offer.

As often happens in such situations, such "faux-rural" people are a lot more militant and polarized in their views than the actual rural and small-town population.

* You have to take all this with the proper grains of salt. For example, in regard to the red/blue map: NO county in America is strictly red or blue--all are various shades of purple. In rural areas, even more so.

In our state, a number of state house districts in larger urban areas are 85%, 90%, or even 95% Democratic. But most rural districts are more along the lines of 55%-60% Republican.

That means that there are l-o-t-s of Democratic-leaning voters in almost every small town and rural region. It doesn't help anyone to forget about them.
posted by flug at 11:55 PM on October 12, 2016 [13 favorites]

Sublimity they might not let you have your 12 year old feed it into the machine with you . It's been my exp that unless you are slinging the kid on your hip, they have to wait away from the mechanics of things. I could still sling my tweenager but my slings are only rated to 50 ponds and she weighs eighty five.

You could vote by absentee ballot and let the kid fill it out. Oregon is vote-by-mail so thanks for the idea, I'm going to invite my 16-year-old daughter to mark my ballot for president for me. She volunteered for Hillary for the first time this afternoon.
posted by msalt at 11:55 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

The Tweetstorm Heard 'Round the Republican Party, in which Conor Friedersdorf helpfully transcribes Marybeth Glenn's powerfully righteous anger tweets into paragraphs:

If you can’t stand up for women & unendorse this piece of human garbage, you deserve every charge of sexism thrown at you. I’m just one woman, you won’t even notice my lack of presence at rallies, fair booths, etc. You won’t really care that I’m offended by your silence, and your inability to take a stand. But one by one you’ll watch more women like me go, & you’ll watch men of ACTUAL character follow us out the door.

And what you’ll be left with are the corrupt masses that foam at the mouth every time you step outside the lines. Men who truly see women as lesser beings, & women without self-respect. And your “guiding faith” & “principles” will be attached to them as well. And when it’s all said and done, all you’ll have left is the party The Left always accused you of being.

posted by overglow at 12:07 AM on October 13, 2016 [72 favorites]

Donald Trump, May 22, 2013:

Pervert Anthony Wiener will never be able to get away from his perversion-the cure rate is ZERO.

posted by msalt at 12:12 AM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

The whole rural vs city thing has me remembering a coworker I had in Houston, who was from the town where I now live and previously worked as a social worker. (There's 100 miles between the two.) She said before she came to Houston she never realized how prosperous her home town was. They had poor people, of course, but she'd never seen poverty like she saw after she came to Houston and worked doing social services in poor areas. (That's important too, of course. I never saw poverty growing up in Houston like I saw doing that job either, cause there are places you just don't GO if you're white and middle class.)

But having done social work in both areas, she was right. Poverty doesn't look the same out here as it does in the wards and projects of the city.

The rural poor typically own property, or at least someone in their family does. The poorest people I knew in the country were people living on family-owned parcels of land, with several beaten up trailers on a lot, with maybe one or two regular incomes among several households. There might be a hole in the floor of their home (with a rug over it, don't step on that) but they owned it. They might grow a lot of their own food, and maybe they don't always have electricity, but they make do.

Urban poverty is often less barren, less purely desperate maybe from a financial point of view, but also a lot more crowded. There are more assistance resources, more jobs, actual public transportation. But costs are higher, and what's available in terms of housing is often unsafe, bleak, and super depressing.

In the country there's very little opportunity, but you can generally survive on very little. In the city maybe there's more opportunity, but there's very few places you can go and survive on a low wage.

I know which I would prefer if I had to chose: the country. Hell, that's why I live here now, because for the price of rent on a shitty one bedroom in Houston I could get an acre of land and a three bedroom mobile home. Because when I had to quit working due to disability we could survive on 50% of what we had previously made. Because it was in the city where I had mothers breaking down in tears talking to me about how they just couldn't get out of the projects and how terrible it was. (And where I saw a lot more vermin in homes, holes in floors not-withstanding.)

I mean, obviously it's tough in both places if you're poor and uneducated and can't get work/decent work. But the idea that rural areas have some kind of special hellish poverty just doesn't reflect the reality I've seen.
posted by threeturtles at 12:15 AM on October 13, 2016 [42 favorites]

a speaker asked people to raise their hands if they felt an affinity for rural communities or cities. A solid 90% raised their hands for rural. People feel an affinity for rural life and values even if they do not live there any more.

I think this is the key to a lot of support for Trump and other Republican candidates of the last 16 years. We keep looking at poor and disadvantaged rural (white) denizens who live in blighted communities with severe economic issues. But there aren't enough people in that demographic to win the Presidency. If that was the real momentum behind Republicans, they'd be a tiny fringe party.

What we do have is a huge number of people who are middle class, living in prosperous suburbs, who either via their own roots or the general mythology, identify strongly with rural life. These people are a natural fit for candidates like Trump, because they don't actually need to see him as truly embodying rural values. They mostly don't, themselves. This group is also a lot more likely to identify with Trump (as a business owner and recipient of family money, for example) rather than see him as a rich asshole. I also think this demographic is more likely to fall for ideas like "I'm basically Blue Collar", because they want to think that about themselves. This is also the Sarah Palin and Dubya demographic, so it's not that surprising that they remain the real base of the Republican party.

Where's THAT thinkpiece, goddammit?
posted by Sara C. at 12:17 AM on October 13, 2016 [32 favorites]

A Facebook friend in CANADA who hates Trump has shared that her prepubescent daughters came home from the trampoline park photobooth with photos of their cute little faces next to Trump's face. Photos are captioned "Trump 2016." The girls didn't know who Trump was. Parent explained to them (a very mild version, I'm guessing). Girls decided he was mean.

Parent thinks it's hilarious in an awful way, which it is, but I wonder if they haven't heard yet about the audio of Trump saying of the 10 year old girl, "I'll be dating her in 10 years." I couldn't think of anything else, looking at those photos and wanting to vomit. Not that I'll send that audio to them. Canadians can't vote in an American election, and they hate him already. I don't want to make people queasy without a good reason.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 12:29 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

The deplorables are at it again on Twitter with #NextFakeTrumpVictim. Trump's victims are brave to go through this knowing who his supporters are and what they have been known to do (not to mention Trump himself).
posted by guiseroom at 1:27 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

I took the day off from the thread, er, more or less, for Yom Kippur and just spent hours catching up, which was only possible because some of you people are still capable of sleep, somehow. I had already read most of the big headlines, but really, as mentally exhausting as keeping up with the firehose is, taking in the craziness of today in one giant dose is staggering. And whether it's in one dose or spread out a bit, none of this is remotely ok for my mental health. Anyway, I think it's safe to say at this point that 5777 is an equally messed up year.

Obsession with the election was an actual theme discussed this year. A rabbi solicited a list of modern sins worthy of confession from her Facebook friends and read them aloud last night. Some were funny, some serious, some a mix of both. Relevant examples that hit a little close to home included:

• Obsessively following the election
• Reading every article about the election but skimming or skipping the ones about Haiti and Colombia
• Staying up late at night obsessively following the election
• Ignoring work and family to obsessively follow the election

More significantly, a fellow congregant got up before one of the prayers to speak a little, and I thought I'd pass along the gist of it. One difference between Muslims and Jews is that Muslims traditionally prostrate themselves to the ground in prayer five times a day, while Jews generally do not, at least since the Middle Ages (as usual, ask five Rabbis a question, get six answers, so this one varies a bit). And perhaps coincidentally, there are five separate services that make up the Yom Kippur liturgy. The exception is on the High Holidays--on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, some Jews do bow all the way to the ground.

The point here was that, as some were about to perform this action normally thought of as a staple of Islamic prayer, American Jews need to work together to fight this wave of Islamophobia. That we're both small communities increasingly under attack, not in the same exact way, no, but that what is happening is profoundly wrong, and we need to speak up. I don't know how to do this, but as horrible as this national sexual assault conversation is, at least we're having the conversation, while "ban all Muslims" wasn't met with remotely the level of outrage it deserves.

And as if basic decency isn't enough reason to speak out against religious hatred, just check out the @mentions of any Jewish reporter on Twitter.

I'd say more, but I'm already staying up late at night obsessively following the election.
posted by zachlipton at 1:33 AM on October 13, 2016 [62 favorites]

In the good 'ol days. An excerpt from Ava DuVernay's documentary film, 13th. Shows the true fascist, racist nature of Trump. Devastating and powerful.
posted by vac2003 at 1:37 AM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

>

I think I can partly see where David Wong is trying to get at when he talks about how he could easily see himself as a Trump voter. To oversimplify a little bit, immigrants often come form situations comparable to what the rural Trump supporter lives in (and refugees come from even worse). But the difference is that the immigrant/refugee didn't or couldn't 'throw a brick' (support a Trump-like leader) in their home country and instead came to the United States.

Where his analysis falls down is he describes the Trump phenomena as a reaction to the actions of the coastal urban Elites. But if that's the case, why is Trump going after immigrants?

I'm still trying to define this better myself, but basically I feel the way it begins to make a little sense to me is that they're angry at immigrants and refugees for doing what they couldn't or won't do: changing. Changing in the sense of uprooting themselves from their home, traveling a long distance, and when getting there putting aside their pride to learn about an unfamiliar language, culture, and society.

LOL, no. Most immigrants to the US do not in fact come from situations "comparable to rural Trump voters". Country of origin for US immigrants, in order: Mexico, China, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, El Salvador...(here's the rest of the list). The Philippines, in case you haven't heard, DID elect a Trump-like leader. So did India. A lot of immigrants coming from extremely populous and relatively poor countries are representative of their country's elites: university-educated, and coming to the US for a career (look at the number of Indian doctors and software engineers, Chinese working in tech, etc). In most cases these are people who've moved because they have the option to, and they have opportunities waiting for them. Mexico and much of Latin America is perhaps an exception, but it's a lot easier to get to the US thanks to geographic proximity and a shared land border (and rural poverty in Mexico, especially in areas with narco gang warfare, makes rural poverty in the US look like the Big Rock Candy Mountain).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 1:41 AM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

That If it weren't washed cold with like colors map mentioned above Is the same as the map here
for sunshower/the devil is beating his wife. I wonder why the twitter user chose that one?
posted by nat at 2:07 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Telegraph: A State Parliament in Australia on Thursday unanimously passed a motion that described US presidential nominee Donald Trump as "a revolting slug unfit for public office." Jeremy Buckingham, a lawmaker from the minor Greens party, introduced the motion to the New South Wales Legislative Council, the Parliament's upper house. (YouTube video)
posted by Wordshore at 2:10 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

* I have a friend who lives in a small rural town, who says, "Rural people know all about the city but city people don't know anything about rural communities." Like everything of this type, this is by no means 100% true but there is a lot of truth in it.

Her explanation for this is that every rural person must visit the city regularly (work, health care, shopping, school, visiting relatives, etc etc etc) but to most city folks the rural parts of the state are strictly "drive-past territory". The rural lifestyle is just so far outside of their daily lived experience that it doesn't even register.

While I get the point here, it is really not close to 100% true. Rural and suburban folks have absolutely no idea of life in the city, unless they've actually lived in the city. They drive in to their workplace, or whatever specific thing it is they are visiting (shopping street, relative, theatre), and they do that thing and they get back into the car and go home. That is not "knowing the city". And they have fantasies about lack of security, lack of social coherence, lack of culture and lack of values to fill in the blanks. All fantasies that are spoken out by Trump. The other day, I was interviewed by a group of college-age kids - clearly fresh in from the suburbs, clearly sent out by their professor to learn about the reality of things. (I know because I do it too when I get a class of rosy-cheeked innocents). They were all stunned that someone like me could chose to live in what they perceived as a "ghetto" filled with POC, and that I said I felt safer here, as a single woman.

That said, I agree with the premise that city-dwellers no nothing about the vast outside. I've inherited the family farm, so now I spend half my time in a poverty-stricken rural area with no future. It is completely different. Happily, I like my neighbors, because they know everything about me and follow my smallest moves. They don't ever go to the city - maybe they've been once, on a school trip. I have neighbors who have been on charter-trips to Asia, but who have never been in the nearest city. I understand why they don't read the big papers or watch the "serious" TV-channels, because almost nothing in there has relevance for their lives. They know about drug issues, because the village where we all buy our stuff is a regional drug centre. Many of my neighbors are really smart - but their educations are short, because anything longer would require a big move, and money, and that lack of education makes some stuff confusing and irritating. We were talking about shifting to organic farming, and the neighbor who helps me manage the farm would really like to, but "the paperwork is just too much", so we'll have to wait till I move up there permanently. Nobody feels they get enough value for their taxes, and no-one trusts the politicians.

I know, this isn't the US, but I've spent time driving around rural USA, in New York, Tennessee, Virginia, and Texas, and there is so much I can recognize and relate to - I think the structural changes are the same in Europe and the US, and those changes are scary and confusing for a large part of the population.
Racist scaremonger vote in our village: 30%. Which means 70% of the population are sane people who want to work things out and figure out how to adapt to the changes, in spite of their lower level of education, their big challenges and their less exposure to multicultural urban life.
posted by mumimor at 2:27 AM on October 13, 2016 [39 favorites]

@Foxnews .@oreillyfactor: "Any journalist colluding with a political campaign should resign immediately, or be forced to resign. Period."

Mendacious loofah fucker.
posted by sebastienbailard at 2:40 AM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

I've been trying to work out who the recent clueless iteration of Gary Johnson makes me think of, and I just realised it's as if Larry Sanders' sidekick Hank decided to have a political career.
posted by Grangousier at 2:47 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Maine’s Racist, Trump-Humping Governor Just Gave a Press Conference Involving a Monica Lewinsky Nesting Doll
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:48 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

> "... Trump campaign manager AJ Delgado's statement that 'Any reasonable woman' would have come forward immediately after being sexually harassed ..."

GEE WHY WOULD ANYONE NOT IMMEDIATELY ACCUSE THE EXTREMELY RICH AND FAMOUS MAN NOTORIOUS FOR SUING PEOPLE OF A CRIME WHICH ROUTINELY RESULTS IN THE ACCUSER HERSELF BEING SHAMED HUMILIATED AND BRANDED A LIAR IT IS A MYSTERY
posted by kyrademon at 2:49 AM on October 13, 2016 [110 favorites]

Dear metafilter, I bought this election map at a yard sale for $5. I'm planning on cleaning it and then drilling it to make a novelty clock. Before clear-coating it, should I use a dishwasher, strong detergent, or a metal scouring pad to clean it? [troll]
posted by sebastienbailard at 2:54 AM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

Trump seems to have some kind of sadism fetish going on. You can only be on his team if you're willing to do whatever humiliating thing he gleefully thinks up for you. Kellyanne! Go on there and say I was just joking, you're going to look like the biggest idiot craven liar ever in front of the whole country. I'll be tweeting while you're on, making you look like a fool.

That was the entire premise of his reality TV show!
posted by newdaddy at 2:55 AM on October 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

So amidst this horror, I hope we can enjoy this little bit of cross cultural humour. The thing I reacted most strongly to in the David Wong piece from Cracked was this image.
From the penal codes of India and Pakistan, Section 420 has entered everyday slang. "He's a 420" (really "vo tou chaar so bees ha"i is universally understood amongst Urdu and Hindi speakers as "He's a cheat."

I have to say I've been giggling about this in and off for several hours now.
posted by bardophile at 3:19 AM on October 13, 2016 [19 favorites]

It doesn't make as much difference as calling people and knocking on doors.

I'm guessing there are some studies to validate that idea? It's not just anecdata? I see less yard signs overall this year.
posted by petebest at 3:32 AM on October 13, 2016

From the penal codes of India and Pakistan, Section 420 has entered everyday slang. "He's a 420"

I'd guess that his shirt is more about smoking pot than South Asian penal codes.
posted by octothorpe at 3:58 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

section 420 has entered everyday slang. "He's a 420" (really "vo tou chaar so bees ha"i is universally understood amongst Urdu and Hindi speakers as "He's a cheat."

Shit now Gary Johnson is going to know exactly where Islamabad is and propose invasion.

Hey, they don't need call it "kush" for nothing duuuuude.
posted by spitbull at 4:05 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

In the last 24 hours, the Trump campaign has:

• called for Clinton to be jailed on multiple occasions
• accused the press of taking those calls too literally
• defended their candidate's comments about groping
• stated that the problem is too little rape culture
• defended him making disgusting comments about a 10yo girl
• been accused three times of the very same thing they've been defending him on
• spoken about wanting "veto power" over the media
• threatened the victims with legal action
• threatened the press with legal action
• threatened that they'll dig up more about Bill

In the same amount of time, the Clinton campaign has:

• denounced all of the above
• rolled out a plan to help children in poverty

Anyone want to guess what the AP has to say about all that? If you said "2016 devolves into ugly fight over treatment of women," you win.
posted by zombieflanders at 4:07 AM on October 13, 2016 [90 favorites]

I've been trying to work out who the recent clueless iteration of Gary Johnson makes me think of, and I just realised it's as if Larry Sanders' sidekick Hank decided to have a political career.

Yeh now!
posted by PlusDistance at 4:08 AM on October 13, 2016

NPR lead their 6AM EDT broadcast with the NYT story.

I'd like to say that today is the day the wheels come off, but... I'm all out of "Surely This!"s...
posted by mikelieman at 4:08 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh, and I almost forgot to add "encouraged the repeal of the right for women to vote" to the Trump list!
posted by zombieflanders at 4:10 AM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

I'd like to say that today is the day the wheels come off, but...

Trump is riding on his rims now!
posted by spitbull at 4:15 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Inside Donald Trump’s Total Meltdown

_{Alex Altman @aaltman82 Philip Elliott @Philip_Elliott
TIME Magazine}
posted by mikelieman at 4:17 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

I just saw that picture of the San Antonio PD with Trump hats. Is anyone else getting the feeling this is going to end in some kind of halfassed coup/Waco situation consisting of the Fraternal Order of Police and DJT, egged on by Guiliani, when Hillary takes the vote in November?
posted by moonlight on vermont at 4:22 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

How happy is John Boehner right now?
posted by Elementary Penguin at 4:24 AM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

This morning, as of 7:25am, NPR has officially gone on my permanent wolf-in-sheeps-clothing list, as they aired, completely out of the blue, a highly-loaded hit-piece against Evan Bayh (in a fight for Indiana's open Senate seat.)

Fuck you NPR. Fuck. You.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:29 AM on October 13, 2016 [36 favorites]

Throughout this while thing, I've frequently had images of John Boehner riding around on a lawnmower with a tumbler of scotch, waving to the neighbors with a big smile, the happiest he's ever been in his life. And, like, the man was and presumably still is a shitbird, but what a bullet he dodged, damn, that is some serious undeserved luck.
posted by soren_lorensen at 4:30 AM on October 13, 2016 [45 favorites]

Time cover following the prior "meltdown" image -- "Total Meltdown."

Schandenfreudysterical!

TFW you're on the covers of all the big magazines like a fucking rock star.
posted by spitbull at 4:32 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

This morning, as of 7:25am

6:00 am good.

7:25 Not good.

Cycle time of about 90 minutes. Given all the shit that happened in the hour I was away y'day, that sounds about right. It's going to be a LONG day...
posted by mikelieman at 4:33 AM on October 13, 2016

Boehner can go to hell. He is voting for Trump.
posted by cashman at 4:34 AM on October 13, 2016 [15 favorites]

I know it might be technically illegal, but on the ride in this morning I thought, "Boy, wouldn't it be great if all the women coming forward, being called liars by the Trump Campaign, had their "Seconds" go on the talk shows, calling out Trump, and demand satisfaction in the Traditional Manner.
posted by mikelieman at 4:35 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Boehner can go to hell. He is voting for Trump.

Partei vor Lande
posted by Thorzdad at 4:37 AM on October 13, 2016

Thanks so much, mikelieman, I really needed an earworm this early in the morning [fake].


(...it would be all sorts of hilarious, for some value of hilarity, the incivility of the whole dueling concept aside...)
posted by seyirci at 4:50 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Say it with me, folks: "20 dollars, same as in..."

MEXICO!
posted by Talez at 4:53 AM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

describes the Trump phenomena

I'm no prescriptivist but it makes me sad to lose Greek-derived plural forms and very useful singular/plural distinctions. I also think singular "phenomenon" is a beautiful word to speak and read. Our lexicon is a hegemon. Sigh.
posted by spitbull at 4:58 AM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

This morning, as of 7:25am, NPR has officially gone on my permanent wolf-in-sheeps-clothing list, as they aired, completely out of the blue, a highly-loaded hit-piece against Evan Bayh (in a fight for Indiana's open Senate seat.)

Now I'm wondering what the rest of the piece sounded like, because I only flipped to it near the end, when they played clips of two people who were planning on voting for Bayh (to be fair I was only half paying attention, so maybe it was left-handed praise).
posted by uncleozzy at 5:02 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well to be fair Bayh certainly invites charges of corruption given his revolving door career and consequent wealth . He's better than the alternative because we need a senate majority. But no question he's got baggage.
posted by spitbull at 5:05 AM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

I really hope Evan Bayh doesn't hold out on the one and only vote Democrats apparently think he's going to make in another six year term in the Senate before returning to helping corporate America loot the country. Wouldn't that be a punch in the gut if he used his position as a swing vote to hold up a Supreme Court nomination until there was a nominee that his handlers were sufficiently pleased with?
posted by indubitable at 5:11 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Can we end the David Wong derail? He explains in John Dies at the End that he chose the most common first and last name in the world to make his pen name untraceable. Hence: Wong. I really don't think it's anything more nefarious than that.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 5:11 AM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

Shouldn't his name be Mohammed Chang then?
posted by Sys Rq at 5:12 AM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

As a woman who has been sexually assaulted (about two years ago), it's very hard to wake up and see the #nextfakeTrumpvictim hashtag all over Twitter. A friend of mine, who is a professor, said that she didn't believe Trump had done anything wrong at all until this very latest set of allegations. She honestly thought he was kidding.

We have a lot of work to do still.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:14 AM on October 13, 2016 [44 favorites]

Like others, also trying to catch up after an unplugged Yom Kippur!

Two thoughts: The first was police presence outside the synagogue. I think it finally hit me how normal I thought that was, because there's always been police outside the synagogue I've gone to for the High Holidays. And how no, that's actually kind of weird and distressing that we as a community have to do that.

The second: the Rabbi's sermon. We're at a new synagogue (in a swing state), and I had been complaining to my husband that his sermons had been fairly generic. But then the one yesterday was "Well, I can't endorse anybody, because Johnson amendment. But it's a mitzvah to vote, and you should think of Jewish values when you vote. Like love. And diversity. And a women's right to chose. And what Jewish people think family values are. Also, if you abstain, you're yielding to the majority, so please, don't abstain."

It was nice.
posted by damayanti at 5:16 AM on October 13, 2016 [45 favorites]

I think it finally hit me how normal I thought that was, because there's always been police outside the synagogue I've gone to for the High Holidays. And how no, that's actually kind of weird and distressing that we as a community have to do that.

I don't remember having the police outside the synagogue until the first Gulf War. I've never stopped finding it distressing.
posted by grouse at 5:19 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Wong is a fairly common Chinese surname.

The most common, even, afaik (but more often romanized as Wang). And David is a very common first name. Pargin has explained the origin of his pseudonym many times; it started as a fictitious character with a very common name, then he used it as an online alias and for the narrator in John Dies At The End, then it kind of stuck.
posted by effbot at 5:20 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump’s Brilliant Manipulation of the Science of Group Conflict is a quick and interesting read from Sociological Images, and its linked material looks fascinating.
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:22 AM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

MeFi's own jscalzi's endorsement of Hillary Clinton is a humdinger.

I don’t expect Hillary Clinton to be perfect, or not to fail, or to be a president whose actions I agree with straight down the line. I’ve never had that in any president and I think it would be foolish to expect it in her. What I do expect, based on what I’ve known of her since 1992, when she first entered my consciousness, is that she will never not try. Try to be a good president, and try to be a president whose administration does the most good for the largest number of Americans. Now, maybe she’ll succeed and maybe she won’t — it’s not all up to her and even if it was, you never know what happens to you in this life. But everything I know about her from the last quarter century convinces me that she has earned this opportunity, perhaps more than anyone else who has ever run for president.

That's just a smidgen; as they say, read the whole thing.
posted by Gelatin at 5:24 AM on October 13, 2016 [81 favorites]

Giuliani Apologizes for 'Mistake' About Clinton and 9/11
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:26 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Giuliani Apologizes

Hope the Devil's got some nice, warm socks.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:27 AM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

I want to wager that the Clinton camp has a tape of Trump mercilessly ridiculing his base. We know he has no respect for them. We also all saw how hurt they were by references to a 400lb hacker during the debate. Something like that might seriously depress turnout.

The wild card is that the same voters may now help to sink down ballot republicans through petulant infighting, so taking them out of play may hurt more than it helps.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 5:27 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Poll: Clinton leads Trump by 9 in Pennsylvania

That's a relief, especially with the poll watcher issue and technology concerns in that (big Electoral College, and swing) state.
posted by Wordshore at 5:32 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

I want to wager that the Clinton camp has a tape of Trump mercilessly ridiculing his base.

The damnedest thing is, everybody has that tape. He's constantly a dick to his audiences, telling them how crap their towns are, how rotten everything is - and remember the baby? The fire marshal? His fans are in an abusive relationship with him. I don't think there's anything he could be caught saying about them that would hurt him. The reaction would be, "no, he meant those inbred hicks in that town, not us." [fake, as yet]
posted by Countess Elena at 5:37 AM on October 13, 2016 [20 favorites]

400 lb hacker

I had missed this registering as an insult to his base. But hmm, Trump often seems obsessed with weight and physique, both in the women he abuses and objectifies and in men too, including his own vanity allowing him to report an obvious lowball number as his own weight in his so-called medical records, and wearing big body suits and long ties to disguise his middle-aged paunch. (As the possessor of such I claim no thin ground here. But he is very obviously not particularly fit.)

The weight thing. What is it about? And how can it not sting an American electorate beset by obesity and all its miserable and expensive sequelae, a misery particularly common among the working classes due to poor diets, food deserts, suburban lifestyles, the decreasing physicality by of even industrial labor, poverty and stress, and a culture that celebrates anxiety over both food and weight, and relentless marketing of sugar and empty calories by Big Food and Ag (and of expensive treatments for obesity by Big Pharma and Med) among many other factors driving what every sane epidemiologist now calls an epidemic.

The cynic in me wants a question about America's hugely expensive and refractory obesity epidemic at the next debate. I think Trump might alienate a lot of Americans with his immediate repulsed response.
posted by spitbull at 5:40 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

. I don't think there's anything he could be caught saying about them that would hurt him

I was thinking of statements I've seen on twitter in past years calling them all idiots and saying they will believe anything he says. While statements like that might not directly hurt him with his base, having it and, by extension, them mocked everywhere on TV just might.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 5:43 AM on October 13, 2016

Trump is fat: that is a lot more than a 'paunch'
posted by thelonius at 5:43 AM on October 13, 2016

I want to wager that the Clinton camp has a tape of Trump mercilessly ridiculing his base.

I think there's plenty of tape already out there in public. I'm pretty sure that after the primaries, he said something about Iowans being stupid, and the race is still neck and neck in Iowa.

ETA: the exact quote is "How stupid are the people of Iowa? How stupid are the people of this country to believe this crap?" He said it in November, 2015 on an episode of Mythbusters, and it was in reference to some stupid story of Ben Carson's that the Mythbusters people were debunking.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:46 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

a lot more than 'paunch'>

I was being delicate, or rationalizing since, as I said, I possess said attribute albeit not to a Trumpian extent.
posted by spitbull at 5:47 AM on October 13, 2016

The weight thing. What is it about?

There was that other guy that went on about blue eyes and blind hair when he had neither, or the wide-stance homophobic Republicans?
posted by sebastienbailard at 5:52 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I think they made the strategic miscalculation of waiting for a slow news day. Good luck with that.
posted by vbfg at 5:57 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Eyesight to the blond.
posted by y2karl at 5:59 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

@carvellwallace:

1: my favorite thing about this election year:
2: for all my life people of color esp black people have been saying how fucked up this country is and people have been doubting us
3: not just bad, but ugly, violent and terrifying
4: and people have been doubting us
5: and for all my life women have been saying how fucked up this culture is. not just bad but violent and dangerous and terrifying
6: and people have been doubting them
7: and now it's all getting laid out. women have had to endure a goddamn predator running for fucking president while thousands cheer
8: black people have had to watch mobs chant for our death and destruction IN A COUNTRY ALREADY BUILT ON OUR DEATH AND DESTRUCTION
9: and now it's all getting exposed: that a man in a suit is a violent racist predator, and that as many as 40% of voters are down with it
10: and motherfuckers took him seriously for a goddamn year. as the actual leader of the whole country
11: and tbqh i'm pissed no body cared enough to end this dude's run when he was telling his mobs to attack black people
12: and nobody cared enough to end this shit when he was talking bringing about an actual religious purge
13: muthafuckas was still trying to see the nuances during all that
14: fine it took him being a legitimate enemy to women for people to finally take ending him seriously.
15: no actually it didn't take him being a predator. it took PROOF that he was a predator. BUT WE ALREADY KNEW.
16: OPPRESSED PEOPLE ALWAYS RECOGNIZE AN OPPRESSOR. OUR WHOLE GODDAMN SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT
17: my point is this
18: black ppl are always right about racism. women are always right about misogyny. don't ever fucking doubt us again.

posted by gwint at 6:01 AM on October 13, 2016 [235 favorites]

The big Wikileaks revelation of this morning is that *gasp* Hillary's tweets are vetted by her staff. I know, I know, you can pick your jaws up off the floor.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:03 AM on October 13, 2016 [39 favorites]

Those ivory tower eggheads are probably in favor of measure twice, cut once as well. SAD!
posted by cmfletcher at 6:09 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

The big Wikileaks revelation of this morning is that *gasp* Hillary's tweets are vetted by her staff.

So, are there really people so naive and ignorant about Politics 101 stuff like this that they're genuinely incensed, or is it all just performative fauxtrage and concern trolling?
posted by dersins at 6:10 AM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

I think there's plenty of tape already out there in public. I'm pretty sure that after the primaries, he said something about Iowans being stupid, and the race is still neck and neck in Iowa.

His cultists always think he's talking about everyone but them.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:11 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

"How stupid are the people of Iowa? How stupid are the people of this country to believe this crap?"

There's also "How stupid is our country?" during the debate. But he meant it in the nicest possible way.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:15 AM on October 13, 2016

I have to say, I wish Wikileaks would knock it off. They aren't doing themselves any favors.

It would have been much smarter to accumulate the most telling stuff into a dossier that they had organized and release it all. The more garbage "Hillary sometimes has opinions that do not match her policies*" and "sometimes people make mean jokes over email" and "Hillary supports free trade" stuff really weakens their case, because it's either no surprise (Hillary Clinton, supporter of free trade...wow, what a shock, no other major democratic politician has ever done that) or people really, deeply do not care.

Not that any of even the more plausible things would make me want Trump to get elected anyway.

*That whole "sometimes Hillary has a public opinion and a private opinion, the mendacity" thing just really fucking frosts me. It's a blatant fraud upon anyone who has never worked on a committee, a board, a neighborhood organization, etc - in short, on low-information voters. Wikileaks itself is surely full of "private opinions" that differ from what they actually decide as a group to do.

There are certainly situations where I would be really disturbed by a candidate saying one thing in public and another in private, but it would have to do with the specific issue and the specific circumstance. "I wish we could have [a pony in every garage] but I'm going to advocate for [tax credits on pony purchase] because that's what the party wants" doesn't bother me at all. Even "I think we should [do shitty foreign policy thing] but the public won't stand for it" doesn't bother me. "I am going to advocate against drones in public while seeking to expand the drone program behind the scenes" would really make me angry, but that's a specific kind of difference of opinion.
posted by Frowner at 6:16 AM on October 13, 2016 [34 favorites]

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump
The phoney story in the failing @nytimes is a TOTAL FABRICATION. Written by same people as last discredited story on woman. WATCH!

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump
Why didn't the writer of the twelve year old article in People Magazine mention the "incident" in her story. Because it did not happen!

Is it possible to infinity down?
posted by Talez at 6:16 AM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

I'd guess that his shirt is more about smoking pot than South Asian penal codes.
posted by octothorpe

Oh, I agree. But "The Donald 420" is just hilariously appropriate. And a Trump supporter not knowing why a bunch of brown skinned people are laughing at him? I'm not good enough not to enjoy that.
posted by bardophile at 6:17 AM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

So, are there really people so naive and ignorant about Politics 101 stuff like this that they're genuinely incensed, or is it all just performative fauxtrage and concern trolling?

Conversation with my mom anecdata: yes. Or rather, she deep-down knows they all do it and she can't forgive any of them for it. She really yearns for Ye Olden Tymes with the gentleman farmer goes to Washington for a few years to do his civic duty for a token stipend and she doesn't realize that those times never really existed (and in what ways they did, were propped up by the oppression of people of color and women) and I'd argue that in a world of increasing complexity and speed, really can't. I want people who are experts at politics doing my politics and people who have spent their entire lives learning how to be diplomatic being diplomats. tl;dr it's all the same mistrust of expertise that our culture is drowning in.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:18 AM on October 13, 2016 [29 favorites]

400 lb hacker

Hackers aren't basement dwellers anymore. They are highly organized crime rings with connections to thier national officials. US included in that observation.

The threats are advanced, the threats are persistent. The Trump is persistently ignorant.
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:19 AM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

Why didn't the writer of the twelve year old article in People Magazine mention the "incident" in her story. Because it did not happen!

I can't believe that we have a presidential candidate for a major party who tweeted this, and my first instinct was that the "twelve year old article" meant it was an article about him and a 12 year old.
posted by Mchelly at 6:20 AM on October 13, 2016 [39 favorites]

what was the 'last discredited story on woman'?

any and/or all of them as far as he is concerned
posted by Golem XIV at 6:22 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

So now I'm pondering if there's a "redneck" or "rube" or "hick" on tape or something.

Or what if, unselfconsciously, he calls them "racists" outright? (Hey he doesn't think he is himself overweight either when he calls other people "fat" as an insult.)

I mean, our delightful deplorable truther birther bitter clingers might react badly to something like that, no?

Imagining the smile on Barack Obama's face if Trump were to be hoisted by this particular petard makes me happy even as a fantasy.

Now I know how wingnuts felt about the mythical "whitey tape" in 2008 too. I want to believe!!!!
posted by spitbull at 6:24 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Annika Cicada: Hackers aren't basement dwellers anymore. They are highly organized crime rings with connections to thier national officials. US included in that observation.

I think you're talking about cybercriminals. Many of my friends are hackers; none are criminals.
posted by Too-Ticky at 6:26 AM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

I mean, our delightful deplorable truther birther bitter clingers might react badly to something like that, no?

Yeah, no. Again, they'll think he's talking about everyone but them.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:27 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

> "what was the 'last discredited story on woman'?"

Pretty sure he's talking about their May NYT story "Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private", which was "discredited" in the sense that "none of the facts [contained in it] are in dispute" (per CNN) despite a "laughable backlash" against it (per The Washington Post).
posted by kyrademon at 6:28 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm gonna run out of favorites before lunch, man. What time do they reset?

Oh, jscalzi!

People, I flat out fucking admire Hillary Clinton for having dealt with all that bullshit for 30 years and yet not burning the whole world down.

So that’s the first thing, and it’s unfair that it’s the first thing, but since that’s what gets shoved on you the moment you open your mouth about Hillary Clinton, that’s what the first thing has to be.

_{And seriously. I spend a lot of time here on my phone, need a blockquote button for mobile!}
posted by tilde at 6:28 AM on October 13, 2016 [20 favorites]

The deplorables are at it again on Twitter with #NextFakeTrumpVictim.

Yeah, but you know, blame-and-shame... It's Totally Okay If You Are Trumpublican.
posted by invincible summer at 6:28 AM on October 13, 2016

I've gone from saying I would never vote for Hillary to shrugging and saying "meh, less of two evils" to gleefully looking forward to casting that vote simply because of how over the top Trump's grossness has become.

Same. The possibility of Hil getting one or two blue chambers in Congress has me giddy.
posted by entropicamericana at 6:30 AM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

Conway is threatening to reveal other GOP predators running for election this year as revenge, to which my response is "no. No. Do not do that. Absolutely do not do that, and don't provide factual evidence of same either. The left would HATE it if you did that."
posted by mightygodking at 6:33 AM on October 13, 2016 [143 favorites]

Trump often seems obsessed with weight and physique [...] The weight thing. What is it about? And how can it not sting an American electorate beset by obesity and all its miserable and expensive sequelae, a misery particularly common among the working classes due to poor diets, food deserts, suburban lifestyles, the decreasing physicality by of even industrial labor, poverty and stress, and a culture that celebrates anxiety over both food and weight, and relentless marketing of sugar and empty calories by Big Food and Ag (and of expensive treatments for obesity by Big Pharma and Med) among many other factors driving what every sane epidemiologist now calls an epidemic.

Possible answer: maybe you're a poor judge of what's offensive to fat people, and you should drop this line of thought.
posted by fleacircus at 6:33 AM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

> "what was the 'last discredited story on woman'?"

It also might be the story about Harth that the Times had last Friday. So many to choose from!
posted by amarynth at 6:33 AM on October 13, 2016

The deplorables are at it again on Twitter with #NextFakeTrumpVictim.

This was a meme being shared on pol last night. I regret not saving it and I didn't at the time because I didn't think they'd actually be coordinated enough to pull it off.
posted by Talez at 6:33 AM on October 13, 2016

Thank fuck this is almost over, is all I'm saying. I'm anxious enough about it that I've already broken one tooth by grinding my jaw. I just can't look away.
posted by corvine at 6:34 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Conway is threatening to reveal other GOP predators running for election this year as revenge, to which my response is "no. No. Do not do that. Absolutely do not do that, and don't provide factual evidence of same either. The left would HATE it if you did that."

So what Conway is saying is that she is currently protecting Republican sexual predators?
posted by Talez at 6:34 AM on October 13, 2016 [102 favorites]

Conway is threatening to reveal other GOP predators running for election this year as revenge

He's burning the villages and salting the earth as he flees the battle. Couldn't happen to nicer people.
posted by dis_integration at 6:36 AM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

Trump just deleted and reposted:

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump
The phony story in the failing @nytimes is a TOTAL FABRICATION. Written by same people as last discredited story on women. WATCH!
posted by Talez at 6:38 AM on October 13, 2016

While statements like that might not directly hurt him with his base, having it and, by extension, them mocked everywhere on TV just might.

Point of order; by definition, "mocked everywhere on TV" = "mocked everywhere". Which is why NYT's nothingburgers are so pernicious. The media would sell us down the rver, again, for ten more clicks if they could. It just so happens the oppo narrative suits their interests at the moment.

WHEEEEEEEEEE!!!

("That's how you indicate you are having fun; by referring to yourself and some other people." - M. Hedberg)
posted by petebest at 6:38 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

What else could he say?
"That ought to hold the little SOB's." [Frinkiac]
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:40 AM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

TechnicallyRon ‏@TechnicallyRon
@realDonaldTrump Do you prefer articles younger than 12 years old?

SAVAGE. mfw reading this.
posted by Talez at 6:41 AM on October 13, 2016 [30 favorites]

which lead me to believe trump has not imploded entirely yet.

I'm questioning if it's even possible for him to implode completely. I am seriously considering using some of my nonexistent free time [thanks this thread and all of you] and revisiting my understanding of physics to see if true implosion is even possible.

To be clear, I'm not talking tin can at bottom of Mariana Trench here. I'm talking Red Giant crossing over into Neutron Star, Pulsar, Black Hole or 'whatever the next step is because I forget' levels of implosion here as that's the only analogy that can come close to what Trump, and by proxy his campaign and even the entirety of the GOP, hath wrought.
posted by RolandOfEld at 6:42 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

> Thank fuck this is almost over, is all I'm saying.

Sadly, it's just beginning.
posted by vbfg at 6:42 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I've gone from saying I would never vote for Hillary to shrugging and saying "meh, less of two evils" to gleefully looking forward to casting that vote simply because of how over the top Trump's grossness has become.

The background radiation on Clinton includes a lot of negatives. I absorbed a lot of them without realizing it. I didn't dislike her, but felt meh about her. The more I have learned, the more I like her. She genuinely believes the job of government is to govern, and that part of governing is ensuring everyone gets a fair shot, and that government help solve the problems that preclude this. She has an undemonstrative, unfussy style that doesn't initially inspire passion, but she's a very effective politician, and has proven unusually capable of working across the aisles.

I think America is going to be thrilled with her presidency. I just think it is going to take us all a little while to get there.
posted by maxsparber at 6:43 AM on October 13, 2016 [77 favorites]

Conway is threatening to reveal other GOP predators running for election this year as revenge, to which my response is "no. No. Do not do that. Absolutely do not do that, and don't provide factual evidence of same either. The left would HATE it if you did that."

So Conway is a secret Democratic plant who will destroy the Republican Party?

That's a relief. For a while there, I was believing that there was a really ugly reason behind people making excuses for her upthread while throwing deserved shade at characters like Bannon, Lewandowski and Katrina Pierson.
posted by indubitable at 6:43 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Trump just deleted and reposted:

So someone felt it necessary to correct the spelling of "phoney" to "phony"? NOW?

Like, this is when they start scrutinizing these? If that's not an indicator of panic . .
posted by petebest at 6:44 AM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

So, are there really people so naive and ignorant about Politics 101 stuff like this that they're genuinely incensed, or is it all just performative fauxtrage and concern trolling?

Lots of them, across the political spectrum. They're the righties who are trying to ruin their own downballot candidates out of sheer rage. They're the lefties who stubbornly "vote their conscience" regardless of the consequences. It's a view of politics that sees politicians chiefly as messengers of group virtue or grievance and whose duty is to "make a stand" against whatever the group fears or dislikes most. I'm sure this isn't anything new, but it seems like mass media and then the internet have only encouraged it.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:45 AM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

He changed 'woman' to 'women' too.
posted by pixie at 6:45 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

It also might be the story about Harth that the Times had last Friday. So many to choose from!

I just want to clarify that I meant that the Trump campaign would refer to this story as being discredited, not that it actually was.
posted by amarynth at 6:46 AM on October 13, 2016

I refer to actual white and grey hat hackers as "threat researchers" these days and I consider them to be a great resource for training my security gear.

But those are not the people trump was referring to and we all know it.
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:47 AM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

i keep checking the end of this thread and keep seeings posts which lead me to believe trump has not imploded entirely yet. ugh. i'm not even really keeping up anymore. just have it end already.

whatever the oppo is, just drop it already so we can be done with this shitshow.

So far, we've tried racist, sexist, demagogue, know-nothing blowhard, alleged rapist, serial sexual harasser, bigot, criminal, liar, cheater, hypocrite, rabble-rouser and living personification of Dunning-Kruger. And his diehards either edit around reality or gleefully accept all pejoratives as positives.

You got anything else? 'Cause I'm running out of darts to throw here.
posted by delfin at 6:47 AM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

If any of all y'all want a very good laugh this morning:

@DineshDSouza
I guess it is now fine for men to use women's bathrooms but not for the CEO of Miss Universe to walk into a woman's dressing room [real]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:50 AM on October 13, 2016 [25 favorites]

Annika Cicada: those are not the people trump was referring to and we all know it.

Gotcha, thanks. Just checking, since you were using it the way he was (or would). Personally, I'm more of a hard hat, but that's neither here nor there.
posted by Too-Ticky at 6:52 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

> "I just want to clarify that I meant that the Trump campaign would refer to this story as being discredited, not that it actually was."

Thanks for clarifying, although I suspect it was unnecessary ... I am fairly certain no one here believes that Donald "I did not say the thing you literally just heard me say and in fact it was Hilary Clinton who said it" Trump should be taken at his word at this point.
posted by kyrademon at 6:52 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

You got anything else? 'Cause I'm running out of darts to throw here.

Yes. Overriding media narrative. Like "email server" but with "serial sex abuser racist fatcat" instead.
posted by petebest at 6:53 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

In the same amount of time, the Clinton campaign has:

denounced all of the above
rolled out a plan to help children in poverty

Fuck the long look calendar (love you Mina Markham - it's fabulous) we need a last 120 days calendar. Here's another one to get you started.

Meanwhile, while Trump is throwing a temper tantrum over babies and purple hearts and president Obama's remarks, Hillary Clinton is planning to increase the CDCs investment in PrEP for HIV prevention based on the evidence of effectiveness. Y'know, like a presidential candidate.
posted to MeFi by Sophie1 at 4:03 PM on August 2, 2016

posted by Sophie1 at 6:54 AM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

John Yoo: Trump 'Reminds Me A Lot Of Early Mussolini'

Yeah...When you've lost John Yoo, well, the portal back to the other side is closing fast.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:55 AM on October 13, 2016 [23 favorites]

It's a shame that some people will see the election as Clinton winning because Trump is such a disaster, when she deserves to win on her own merits. He must go down, though, so I will gladly take the W and and much of Congress as we can get.

If you had any doubts about her toughness and resilience, though, that should be gone after the debates. Trump's been insane, bullying, tossing out lie after lie, and trying to physically dominate her. Clinton's been calm, cool, composed, and extremely well prepared. If Trump in full crazy mode can't rattle her, who can?

His weird criticisms of her preparing for debates reminded me of NFL wide receiver Cris Carter, who was cut from the Philadelphia Eagles because "all he does is catch touchdowns." (There's a story behind it but the quote was pretty famous.)
posted by kirkaracha at 6:55 AM on October 13, 2016 [28 favorites]

And his diehards either edit around reality or gleefully accept all pejoratives as positives.

I think at this point you could release video of Trump engaged in tender, consensual lovemaking with another man, and his supporters would find a way to rationalize it with their homophobia. "Going down on a guy don't make you gay; makes the other guy gay" or something similar.
posted by logicpunk at 6:56 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Donald Trump’s D.C. Hotel Shows His Brand Is Sinking Along With His Poll Numbers

Looks like the Trump International Hotel isn't doing so hot right now.
posted by Talez at 6:57 AM on October 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

video of Trump engaged in tender, consensual lovemaking ...

I found the implausible part in your scenario.
posted by argybarg at 6:58 AM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

i keep checking the end of this thread and keep seeings posts which lead me to believe trump has not imploded entirely yet. ugh. i'm not even really keeping up anymore. just have it end already.

He has imploded entirely. He's never going to lose the 35-40% of Trumpsters, but he's killed his chances with moderates and women he needs to get higher than that. And 35-40% is historic defeat territory. It's possibly take back the House territory. The only question now is does he destroy the GOP in addition to himself.
posted by chris24 at 6:58 AM on October 13, 2016

A list of all the women Donald Trump allegedly sexually assaulted [updating]

Note: This list does not include assault and rape allegations against Trump made prior to Wednesday, including accounts from his first wife, Ivana, former business associate Jill Harth, and an unidentified woman who is suing Trump for allegedly raping her when she was 13.
posted by Artw at 6:59 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

White woman holds "Blacks for Trump" sign at Florida rally

. . . "Blacks for Trump"??

only . . . sixteen more hours left in this news cycle?
posted by petebest at 7:00 AM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

maybe you're a poor judge of what's offensive to fat people

As I said, I'm overweight myself, like a huge number of Americans, and meant no offense at all and apologize if it came off that way. I tried to word that carefully, but I work in two settings (the working class rural south and Alaska Native communities) where obesity is an immediate and destructive health crisis that could reasonably be called as deliberate as the lead poisoning of Flint's water supply. There's an epidemic of diabetes and heart disease in poor communities I know and among people I love because their food supply is toxic.

Again, I apologize sincerely if I seemed insensitive to a very complicated set of issues that affect me personally too.
posted by spitbull at 7:01 AM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

Looks like the Trump International Hotel isn't doing so hot right now.

Looks like you can get some great deals on rooms for Hillary's inauguration. Apparently their customer service is very good so you could probably get a glass of Trump's Tears from room service.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:01 AM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

This list does not include assault and rape allegations against Trump made prior to Wednesday

I stand awed at an editor's note. What a day.
posted by Etrigan at 7:01 AM on October 13, 2016 [38 favorites]

If you had any doubts about her toughness and resilience

And just think: even if the republicans go down for a historic loss (still iffy), she (like Obama) is of the outlook she must be president for all even if it means working with people who supported Trump even while he was calling for her to be locked up, etc. It's mind boggling. Who among would not just have tapped out in rage? Who among us would be able to find it within ourselves to work with people who wrong us so directly? Because she did it before in the Senate and even made friends with many. I was raised Christian and it's amazing to see someone who has translated one of the messages of Christ in such an effective way.
posted by R343L at 7:04 AM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

John Yoo: Trump 'Reminds Me A Lot Of Early Mussolini'

Right now his campaign is reminding me a lot more of late Mussolini.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:04 AM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

NJ judge issues Probable Cause criminal summons vs. @GovChristie for official misconduct in office
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:07 AM on October 13, 2016 [74 favorites]

NJ judge issues Probable Cause criminal summons vs. @GovChristie for official misconduct in office

So the refrain is going to be "Don't Lock Him Up!" at Trump rallies?
posted by Talez at 7:08 AM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

They have no loyalty to Reek.
posted by Artw at 7:09 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

@jamestaranto
"Trump campaign just emailed me a demand for a retraction from the NY Times. Wrong paper!"

Ha, he hires the best people. Sending a member of the WSJ Editorial Board a letter meant for the Times.
posted by chris24 at 7:11 AM on October 13, 2016 [50 favorites]

@LeonHWolf
How do you explain this gap in your resume?

"I was in jail."

Okay. Sure you weren't working for Trump's campaign?

"Swear to God. Jail."
posted by chris24 at 7:13 AM on October 13, 2016 [97 favorites]

But I thought everything was legal in New Jersey? WHERE HAS THE MAGIC GONE??!?
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:13 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Washington Post: Hillary Clinton for president

In the gloom and ugliness of this political season, one encouraging truth is often overlooked: There is a well-qualified, well-prepared candidate on the ballot. Hillary Clinton has the potential to be an excellent president of the United States, and we endorse her without hesitation.

posted by kirkaracha at 7:13 AM on October 13, 2016 [53 favorites]

I wish this were about his taxes or drug use, so I could have some schadenfreude about Trump's campaign implosion, but I just feel so badly for these women and all the others that are assuredly out there somewhere.
posted by AFABulous at 7:15 AM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

@AdamParkhomenko: Absolutely devastating. [tw: racist violence]

(clip is from Ava DuVernay's new documentary 13th, which is on Netflix)
posted by zombieflanders at 7:16 AM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

I wish this were about his racism, xenophobia, and general misogyny (vs. specific acts), so I could feel like the remains of the GOP might learn a lesson. As it stands, I'm starting to get worried that they're going to pivot to "he wasn't a real Republican anyways, and the problem wasn't his policies, it was that he was a sexual predator!".
posted by tocts at 7:16 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Mod note: Couple comments removed. Please just give it a pass if you're thinking about dressing up a link with any sort of "ha ha it sort of sounds like unwanted penetrative sex, get it" joke.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:16 AM on October 13, 2016 [20 favorites]

As it stands, I'm starting to get worried that they're going to pivot to "he wasn't a real Republican anyways, and the problem wasn't his policies, it was that he was a sexual predator!".

They've been doing that for the last eight years. McCain and Romney were both insufficiently conservative; McCain was too old; Romney was too boring. Ted Cruz might have fucked himself with his nick-of-time endorsement, but the 2020 nominee will be a straight-up Tea Partier.
posted by Etrigan at 7:20 AM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

I guess it is now fine for men to use women's bathrooms but not for the CEO of Miss Universe to walk into a woman's dressing room [real]

Christ that makes me angry on so many levels I need to consume like half a dozen doughnuts and punch a heavy bag.

With Trump's face on it.
posted by Mooski at 7:20 AM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

So, with Trump's overt racism, sexism, Islamophobia, hangin' with anti-Semites, etc., I'm a little surprised that in 15 months of this stupid ass campaign, we haven't heard more about LGBT issues from him. The only ones I could find are him swerving like a drunk driver on trans issues:

But everything else Trump said in the interview sounded like he actually supports transgender people. He made the segue in a line denying that trans protections were a civil rights issue: “I don’t view it as civil rights or not civil rights. I think it’s something where we have to help people — and hopefully the states will make the right decisions.”

The Post summarizes that Trump “repeatedly said transgender people should be protected under the law.” He even seemed understanding of why it’s become a big issue. “You’ve got to protect all people, even though it’s a tiny percentage of 1 percent. I think from that standpoint, [states] should come up with a policy that’s going to work for everybody and protect people.”

Of course, it's not enough and it sucks, but on the spectrum of DTJ suckage, it's pretty tame. And on LGBT rights he said:

During his 75-minute speech at the Republican National Convention in July, Donald Trump looked genuinely surprised at the roar of applause when he said, "As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect LGBTQ citizens."

While saying earlier that he would appoint Supreme Court justices that would overturn Obergfell. So he's just your average Republican on that.

So, I guess what I'm asking is why he seems so passive on the LGBT community by comparison, and why the orange hot rage of the Donald has not turned on this group alone? Not that any queer or trans person would trust him within a mile of them, but what is the deal here?
posted by Sophie1 at 7:21 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

So Trump can go to hell. Dude is insulting many men just as much as all women.

We're not the ones he's assaulting, though, so we should probably suck it up and listen to those who are.

Yeah, my fear around this election circus is that he's encouraging men to further dismiss the concerns of women as if the women are just hot (or ugly) objects that don't really matter, and a whole lot of deplorable people are listening to him. Women lie. They're weak and have no stamina, no real value. Easily overpowered (see: him insisting he can win over Clinton because she's shit). They're nothing. And when other men believe him, our daily lives become more fraught. We're more vulnerable. While I'm optimistic about shining a bright light on sexism and misogyny and assault, and yay, everyone's having the conversations we've wanted them to have... I am not looking forward to the next few years at all. He's whipping up hatred and normalizing it. Racism, sexism, classism, you name it.

I am a woman. I understand clearly my place in the pecking order, and it's making me more and more nervous. I/we need you guys to mobilize to aid those without the level of privilege bestowed upon you—which you didn't even ask for, we get it. You're just another part of this fucked-up system. But it's time for us to ask big favors of you, and it's time for you to shrug off the divisive rhetoric, step up, and pay it back by proactively defending us. Please. We ask this of each other all the time, and now we're asking you because we've all known our whole lives that there is safety in numbers. Join us fully, please. We're awesome.
posted by heyho at 7:22 AM on October 13, 2016 [25 favorites]

So, I guess what I'm asking is why he seems so passive on the LGBT community by comparison, and why the orange hot rage of the Donald has not turned on this group alone?

Give it another few days. Another heinous thing will come out and he'll need to shore up the evangelicals.
posted by Etrigan at 7:24 AM on October 13, 2016

As it stands, I'm starting to get worried that they're going to pivot to "he wasn't a real Republican anyways, and the problem wasn't his policies, it was that he was a sexual predator!".

Oh, you know that will happen. There is simple math at work here:

* There is a quarter of America that responds strongly to authoritarian populist appeals, propaganda, outright falsehoods, and demonization of all opposition

* The GOP cannot win national elections without the support of that quarter of America

* The GOP cannot run 'rational' state/local candidates in many areas that are dominated by said quarter of America, lest they be primaried out in favor of dingdongs

* The GOP is LARGELY RESPONSIBLE for the creation of and the current state of that quarter of America

* The GOP has used that quarter of America quite successfully, gaining control of the House, many state legislatures and Governorships, and many local governments

So the question for GOP leadership is not "how do we regroup and continue without the deplorables?" It is "how do we thread the needle between satisfying the deplorables and regaining casuals who were horrified by Trump's excesses?" It is not rejection of racism and sexism and bigotry, but rather regaining control of the political machine that runs on it.
posted by delfin at 7:26 AM on October 13, 2016 [19 favorites]

argybarg: Kellyanne Conway scares the tar out of me.

I think that's a good thing. Really, you shouldn't have any tar inside of you, so I think you should be thanking her. /dad jokes
posted by filthy light thief at 7:27 AM on October 13, 2016 [15 favorites]

Trump playing chess. He demands to be white. As he contemplates the first move, he stares at his opponent's pieces certain that it's unfair that blacks should have just as many pieces as he does and this must be some sort of affirmative action maneuver Hillary is responsible for during her 30 years in sole command of the United States. Believing these pieces to be inner city blacks he hides his rooks to make sure none of the blacks will move in on his castles. He sacrifices his pawns calling out, "You're fired" as each of them is captured.

He mistakes the black queen for a beauty queen and starts stroking his bishop. Thinking that, being a woman, she has no power, he tries moving his king behind her to unnerve her. Checkmate.

He knocks over the chessboard and declares victory.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:27 AM on October 13, 2016 [74 favorites]

Egg is now included in the 538 Utah forecast
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:29 AM on October 13, 2016 [20 favorites]

Egg is now included in the 538 Utah forecast

We did it, Reddit!
posted by J.K. Seazer at 7:34 AM on October 13, 2016 [19 favorites]

I wonder if anyone in Russia watched the documentary Hacking Democracy...
Wiki
Film Site
posted by LizBoBiz at 7:35 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Homophobia does seem to be an area where he's oddly lacking compared to other republicans - I guess if you're neither religious nor closeted it's hard to go at it more than casually.

More than makes up for it in racism and misogyny, of course.
posted by Artw at 7:36 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

He knocks over the chessboard and declares victory.

Oh my. I am so stealing this entire comment.
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:37 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

An aubergenic rise from young Egg.
posted by vbfg at 7:37 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

I wish this were about his taxes or drug use

There's still time.


I wish this were about his racism, xenophobia, and general misogyny

There's still time.
posted by drezdn at 7:38 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Eggs is currently only at a 3% chance of taking Utah. That feels so anticlimactic.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 7:38 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Egg is now included in the 538 Utah forecast

Him?
posted by entropicamericana at 7:38 AM on October 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

I wish this were about his racism, xenophobia, and general misogyny (vs. specific acts), so I could feel like the remains of the GOP might learn a lesson.

GOP learn lesson? But that's unpossible!
posted by petebest at 7:39 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

So, I guess what I'm asking is why he seems so passive on the LGBT community by comparison, and why the orange hot rage of the Donald has not turned on this group alone? Not that any queer or trans person would trust him within a mile of them, but what is the deal here?

In all seriousness - maybe something to do with that Roy Cohn guy?

For Mr. Cohn, who died of AIDS in 1986, weeks after being disbarred for flagrant ethical violations, Mr. Trump was something of a final project. If Fred Trump got his son’s career started, bringing him into the family business of middle-class rentals in Brooklyn and Queens, Mr. Cohn ushered him across the river and into Manhattan, introducing him to the social and political elite while ferociously defending him against a growing list of enemies.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:39 AM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

He outsourced the homophobia to Pence.
posted by prize bull octorok at 7:39 AM on October 13, 2016 [44 favorites]

Egg is now included in the 538 Utah forecast

This is great news! For Dunk!
posted by drezdn at 7:39 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

We'll have to wait and see what happens with that line in the next few days. There isn't usually poling for president done in Utah.
posted by cmfletcher at 7:40 AM on October 13, 2016

So apparently Trump is now repeating Russian talking points on the Kosovo War.

If they were smarter I'd think they were trying to bring up HRC's Bosnia gaffe from 2008 but, I doubt that.
posted by asteria at 7:41 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

oneswellfoop: In an interview with Larry King, the 82-year-old chatmaster explains why he still likes Donald Trump and why CNN may be bad, but it'd be worse if he were still there.

You’re friends with Trump — can you speak to him in a way that cuts through the bullshit?

The best thing about Donald is whatever you say doesn’t matter. Last July, I was in Craig’s restaurant, and Donald was there and he calls me over and says ‘I think I’m going to run.’ And I said ‘Donald, you went on my show seven times, you were gonna run for governor, you were gonna run for president, you never run. You know you’re not. You like to say you’re gonna run, you like to be interviewed, it sells more hotels, but you know you’re not gonna run.’ He says, ‘This time, I may run.’ So he called me, a month ago, he said ‘I told you. I tooooold you.’ He remembers everything. So I kid him, I say ‘Donald, you’re against abortion?’ And he laughed and said, ‘Well, I’ve had some changes.’ He plays the game. His unbelievable advantage is, if you’re at a press conference and you say ‘Donald, you’re a pedophile!’ ‘I’m a pedophile? Your father’s a pedophile!’ He likes that. He likes to boast and say ‘If I shot someone on Fifth Avenue, it wouldn’t matter.’ It doesn’t matter what he says. So we have to confront that. What Hillary has to confront is, ‘What do I say to a guy who it doesn’t matter what he says?’

(Emphasis mine)

So, let's get this straight: Larry King, a friend of Donald, says Donnie "says he'll get into politics to sell more hotels," and his words don't matter because it's all a game and a play for attention (to sell more hotels, or steaks, or wine, or magazines, or whatnot).

Yup, sounds right. Except you didn't mention that he normalizes the things he says to get attention, so more people say those things, or worse, do those things, because Famous Donnie said it and he's famous, so he knows what's up.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:44 AM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

In all seriousness - maybe something to do with that Roy Cohn guy?

No. Roy Cohn hated himself just about as much as he hated all of the other queers. During the HUAC hearings, he targeted government officials and cultural figures not only for suspected Communist sympathies, but also for "alleged homosexuality."
posted by Sophie1 at 7:46 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is great news! For Dunk!

Eggs is currently only at a 3% chance of taking Utah.

I feel, at this point, it would be appropriate to point out that Egg is the nickname of Aegon "The Unlikely" Targaryen.
posted by nubs at 7:47 AM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

Wherein Trump blames Nicole Simpson for OJ killing her and jokes about killing one of his wives:

"I'm sitting having dinner and O.J. came up to me — I was sitting with very important people, big bankers, nobody that you know, big, big bankers, and we were sitting there, there were six of us, and O.J. came up," Trump said. "And he was talking to us for about three minutes, and Nicole, was with her mother I think, and she came over, and she started screaming at him, 'get over to the table, what the hell are you—' she was rough, in all fairness."

"So, he decided obviously to kill her," Trump said, laughing.

"It might have been right at the [restaurant] that he decided it," Stern responds.

"She was very tough," Trump continued. "She came over and she really embarrassed him, she was screaming at him. She didn't care. And that was before 'The Apprentice' so she didn't give a damn about me. Now she'd be kissing my ass. Now I'm the biggest star on television, she'll kiss my ass."

"You would never kill one of you ex-wives, would you?" Stern asked.

"Uhh, I could think about it," Trump replied, laughing.
posted by chris24 at 7:48 AM on October 13, 2016 [26 favorites]

The reason he got that roar of applause at the convention for saying we need to protect LGBT...Q people is that the Pulse atrocity had just happened, and for a few weeks there was a weird situation where conservatives temporarily quashed their homophobia the better to indulge their islamophobia. He stumbled on a right read of the mood that time. More typical was yesterday's boneheaded shoutout to "Little Haiti" to a crowd in the livestock pavilion in Ocala, Florida. Technically, yes, Ocala and Miami are both in the state of Florida. But the number of people attending a Trump rally in Ocala who knew that "little Haiti" was a neighborhood in Miami could fit in the palm of one of Trump's teeeeenytiny hands. They probably thought it was his affectionate name for Haiti. Or another country similar to Haiti. But, like, a lot smaller.
posted by Don Pepino at 7:48 AM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

But I thought everything was legal in New Jersey? WHERE HAS THE MAGIC GONE??!?
As the Traveling Wilburys said back in 1988, "In Jersey anything's legal as long as you don't get caught."
posted by fings at 7:48 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

That Conway stuff. Wow.

We're literally at a point where a sexual predator is running for president and openly blackmailing other sexual predators for support.

And people will still vote for him.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 7:53 AM on October 13, 2016 [19 favorites]

filthy light thief, it's tempting to believe this has all been a big con, but I think Larry King is full of shit. That "oh, he just talks a lot of shit, he doesn't care, he loves offending people but he wouldn't really..." is just like script perfect for every dude I know who rationalizes the behavior of some psychopath or serial predator they want to keep being buddies with because they're infinitely entertaining and because the prospect that yeah, this guy really truly has raped his way across the five boroughs while you were laughing with him on the phone is too uncomfortable for them to handle. Larry, it's time to open your eyes.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 7:54 AM on October 13, 2016 [28 favorites]

We're literally at a point where a sexual predator is running for president and openly blackmailing other sexual predators for support.

And people will still vote for him.

And, let's be real, for the other sexual predators.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:55 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Eggs is currently only at a 3% chance of taking Utah. That feels so anticlimactic.

None of 538's predictive models is designed to cope with what's happening in Utah right now, because it's so anomalous and the sampling rate is so low. Just have to watch the next few polls and see what they say.
posted by Devonian at 7:56 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

This morning I shared the Atlantic piece conveying yet another angry, betrayed rant by a conservative, Republican woman, furious that the men she has gone to bat to defend have abandoned women so completely in spineless defense of Donald Trump.

I am remembering that the feminist wave of the late 60s and 70s was borne out of the anger of (white) women who had worked in the civil rights movement. They and their (white) male counterparts were acting on their principles of racial equality--but in practice, the men in the movement displayed appalling sexism that clearly contradicted any principles about "all people being created equal."

I'm in my late 40s and grew up shaped by 70s feminism. I had those nascent feminist role models and the cultural struggle for the ERA and Free to Be You And Me and those values sunk in. I have been a proud feminist all my life and a student of feminist history.

Many women not too far behind me came of age in the 80s as that was being torn down and feminism became a dirty word. They grew up in the culture of mockery and feminazis. The third-wave feminists have been fighting the good fight but there are a lot of women who have lived in the "I'm not a feminist but" netherworld.

But now, thinking about the genesis of second wave feminism, I am watching these conservative women face the bitter truth and thinking: we are midwifing the next wave of feminism, right here, right now.

I can't wait to see it.
posted by Sublimity at 8:01 AM on October 13, 2016 [89 favorites]

[Trump re: Nicole Brown:] Now she'd be kissing my ass. Now I'm the biggest star on television, she'll kiss my ass."

Those days when an agnostic/ atheist wishes there was Hades.
posted by NorthernLite at 8:02 AM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

I think it's interesting that Katrina Pierson doesn't say the assault couldn't have happened because Trump isn't like that but that because the planes didn't work that way.
posted by drezdn at 8:04 AM on October 13, 2016 [53 favorites]

Sophie1: No. Roy Cohn hated himself just about as much as he hated all of the other queers. During the HUAC hearings, he targeted government officials and cultural figures not only for suspected Communist sympathies, but also for "alleged homosexuality."

Oh, no argument there. And it continued long past HUAC. The thing about Roy Cohn's speech in Angels in America:

Roy Cohn: Your problem, Henry, is that you are hung up on words, on labels: "gay", "homosexual", "lesbian." You think they tell you who a person sleeps with, but they don't tell you that. Like all labels, they refer to one thing and one thing only: Where does a person so identified fit in the food chain? In the pecking order. Not ideology or sexual taste, but something much simpler: clout. Who owes me favors. Not who I fuck or who fucks me, but who will pick up the phone when I call. To someone who doesn't understand this, homosexual is what I am because I sleep with men, but this is wrong. Homosexuals are not men who sleep with other men. Homosexuals are men who, in 15 years of trying, can't get a pissant anti-discrimination bill through City Council. They are men who know nobody, and who nobody knows. Now, Henry, does that sound like me?

...is that if we changed up some terminology in those lines, you can hear Donald Trump's voice delivering them.

What I was getting at was Trump being all like "One of them helped me out one time." It's a flimsy thesis, I know.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:06 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

It's wild that Wikileaks is promising to release new Clinton campaign emails every day til the election or something and that's likely half the rate of new Trump assault allegations until election day.
posted by DynamiteToast at 8:06 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

In all seriousness - maybe something to do with that Roy Cohn guy?

Huh, so I just checked out Cohn's wikipedia page and read this:

Cohn aided Roger Stone in Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign in 1979–80. Cohn helped Stone arrange for John B. Anderson to get the nomination of the Liberal Party of New York, a move that would help split the opposition to Reagan in the state. Stone said Cohn gave him a suitcase that Stone avoided opening and, as instructed by Cohn, dropped it off at the office of a lawyer influential in Liberal Party circles. Reagan carried the state with 46 percent of the vote. Speaking after the statute of limitations for bribery had expired, Stone later said, "I paid his law firm. Legal fees. I don't know what he did for the money, but whatever it was, the Liberal party reached its right conclusion out of a matter of principle."

Is there any ratfucking in the last fifty years that Roger Stone didn't have a hand in?
posted by octothorpe at 8:06 AM on October 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

That Liberty U statement has some good stuff:

Associating any politician with Christianity is damaging to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But Donald Trump is not just any politician. He has made his name by maligning others and bragging about his sins. Not only is Donald Trump a bad candidate for president, he is actively promoting the very things that we as Christians ought to oppose...

...“We’re all sinners,” Falwell told the media, as if sexual assault is a shoulder-shrugging issue rather than an atrocity which plagues college campuses across America, including our own.
It is not enough to criticize these kinds of comments. We must make clear to the world that while everyone is a sinner and everyone can be forgiven, a man who constantly and proudly speaks evil does not deserve our support for the nation’s highest office...

...We are not proclaiming our opposition to Donald Trump out of bitterness, but out of a desire to regain the integrity of our school. While our president Jerry Falwell Jr. tours the country championing the log in his eye, we want the world to know how many students oppose him...
posted by nubs at 8:07 AM on October 13, 2016 [20 favorites]

DONALD TRUMP APOLOGIZES TO SERBIA FOR YUGOSLAVIA BOMBING

Wherein the Republican nominee sides with Milosevic, ethnic cleansing, and Putin. Yes really.

Trump does an apology tour and it's to a genocidal maniac.
posted by chris24 at 8:07 AM on October 13, 2016 [63 favorites]

“Have you ever been to Peter Luger’s for steaks? I’ll take you. We’re going to have an affair, I’m telling you.”

Why would you go there for an affair? Why not go there for the excellent steaks? I liked the little bowl of creamed spinach, myself.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:08 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Those days when an agnostic/ atheist wishes there was Hades.

Nah, I don't want the man to go to hell. I want him to have an epiphany. I want him to suddenly be able to see himself the way all the people he hurts see him, and for him never to be able to see himself any other way again.

I want him consumed by shame and horror at the way he has lived his first 70 years for the remainder of his life.

Hell's too easy.
posted by Mooski at 8:08 AM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

I'm really enjoying the lovely shade of light pink that Alaska, Utah and Georgia have become on 538's models.
posted by peppermind at 8:08 AM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

Why would you go there for an affair? Why not go there for the excellent steaks?

Peter Luger's: Come for the affairs; stay for the steaks.

[fake: I have no idea who Peter Luger is, how good or bad his steaks are, and I highly doubt he promotes people having affairs in his establishment]
posted by nubs at 8:10 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Nah, I don't want the man to go to hell. I want him to have an epiphany. I want him to suddenly be able to see himself the way all the people he hurts see him, and for him never to be able to see himself any other way again.

I want him consumed by shame and horror at the way he has lived his first 70 years for the remainder of his life.

This is exactly what I think Hell is. Alone with yourself, with no distractions, excuses, or self-deceit.
posted by EarBucket at 8:10 AM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

DONALD TRUMP APOLOGIZES TO SERBIA FOR YUGOSLAVIA BOMBING

Isn't apologizing for America one of the things they're constantly blasting Obama for?
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:11 AM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

I thought that was zazen.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:11 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

I bet there is a victim from the last year, making absurdity of his "recent faith journey" defense

Guys, there's a thousand comments here, it's impossible to catch up, and it's definitely impossible to hit Google for every quotation that sounds like it might just be referencing a story from The Onion.

So let's reiterate,

please make use of [real] and [fake] tags

When the unrepentant sexual predator claims to have had an incredible "faith journey", and you want to reference that, then you need to add a "[real]" tag.

If you instead want to talk about Trump's "recent faith journey and conversion to the worship of Xipe Toltec, Our Lord The Flayed One, whose temples will soon run red once again with the glorious sacrifice of our slaves' blood", then you need to add a "[fake]" tag.

At least, I assume. Like I said, I'm not caught up yet.
posted by roystgnr at 8:14 AM on October 13, 2016 [33 favorites]

Is there any ratfucking in the last fifty years that Roger Stone didn't have a hand in?

Honestly, the direct line between Roy Cohn and Donald Trump with Pence as a running mate makes me feel like we need a third part of Angels in America which includes also includes Rogers Stone and Ailes as characters.

Like "Millenium Approaches" to "Perestroika" to "Are You Fucking Kidding Me With This Shit Still"
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:16 AM on October 13, 2016 [34 favorites]

Those days when an agnostic/ atheist wishes there was Hades.

Hell, I'd settle for a Total Perspective Vortex.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 8:17 AM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

Eggs is currently only at a 3% chance of taking Utah. That feels so anticlimactic.

Here's the thing though: three of the four Utah surveys they are currently giving weight to were conducted before the first debate. The only survey conducted after this scandal shows the three candidates in a dead heat.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:20 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

That Conway stuff. Wow...We're literally at a point where a sexual predator is running for president and openly blackmailing other sexual predators for support."

I wonder if this is why some of the un-endorsers have now jumped back on the sinking ship.
posted by PlusDistance at 8:21 AM on October 13, 2016 [21 favorites]

The only survey conducted after this scandal shows the three candidates in a dead heat.

I guess this is a case where the now-cast can actually be enlightening instead of just anxiety inducing.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 8:23 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's really more accurate to think of him as a fleshy portal into hell.

Y'know, I WAS contemplating watching Hellraiser last night. Mayhaps I'll see if there's any parallels to our current situation I can pull from the plot this evening.
posted by Existential Dread at 8:24 AM on October 13, 2016

It also seems like anyone, Conway included, who is brought into paid orbit of the campaign is immediately compromised and forced to give DJT dirt he can use as leverage on them.

Like Scientology! Do you think he made Chris Christie clean one of his yachts with a toothbrush, too?
posted by a fiendish thingy at 8:25 AM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

This morning a Peter Luger manager is staring at the bowl of after-dinner mints by the cash register, making double-sure they aren't Tic Tacs.
posted by Killick at 8:26 AM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

"I'm not a feminist but"

In case it helps anyone, my response to this is something, "Whoa, back up a second. You ARE a feminist. A feminist is a person that believes women deserve the opportunities as men. Are you saying that you think women deserve fewer opportunities as men?"

I'm not asking anyone to help burn bras or anything but it's silly to be afraid of that label.
posted by VTX at 8:26 AM on October 13, 2016 [37 favorites]

my point is, what is the joke here? Because I honestly don't get the joke.

The joke is about the paranoia that Clinton just kills people all day. So for example, there's one going around about Lincoln, with captions like "What did he know about Hillary Clinton?" It's patently ridiculous, just like the other claims of her murdering people are also patentelkg ridiculous.
posted by corb at 8:27 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

This morning a Peter Luger manager is staring at the bowl of after-dinner mints by the cash register, making double-sure they aren't Tic Tacs.

This campaign will be multiple chapters in someone's book Collateral Damage: What It Is and How to Avoid It some day.
posted by Etrigan at 8:27 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

So...I am fucking furious.

Add to the multiple whammy of feeling shat on by Trump as a Hispanic woman, the fact that he just apologized on behalf of the US for helping stop the Bosnian genocide.

Just because Hillary was involved? Hillary helped save thousands of Muslims and Catholics, including my husband, who was thirteen years old. People were tortured, raped, massacred. I can't think clearly now but I would like to point out that Serbia is pretty much Russia's little brother.

I am literally shaking with anger. Petty piece of shit.
posted by Tarumba at 8:28 AM on October 13, 2016 [137 favorites]

Eggs is currently only at a 3% chance of taking Utah. That feels so anticlimactic.

He has it by the yolk.
posted by vbfg at 8:29 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

One Trump supporter I just spoke to said three times in our interview that Clinton is going to make "Merry Christmas" - "a banned phrase."
— Sopan Deb @SopanDeb

"I don't care what Mr. Trump does in his personal life. That is not going to affect how we live. You have to focus in on three things. Open borders, the Supreme Court, and if Hillary gets in she's going to make 'Merry Christmas' a banned phrase."

[real]
posted by octobersurprise at 8:31 AM on October 13, 2016 [25 favorites]

mikelieman: Inside Donald Trump’s Total Meltdown

The call to gather went out Sunday morning, arriving on cell phones before many of the pastors had left their congregations. These 23 men and three women, all members of Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory council, had long ago signed on to pray for his vision for the nation. But now a scandalous recording from Access Hollywood was threatening to blow up the prayer circle.

...

And so the panel overwhelmingly stuck with the sinner, according to four people on the call. It was Hillary Clinton, not Trump, who worried them. “Can anybody say she is morally superior to Donald Trump? I don’t think so,” said Dallas megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, days later. “This election is not about Donald Trump’s past, it is about America’s future.”

This cold calculation induced cringes among many of their fellow church leaders. The editors of Christianity Today, a leading voice of evangelicals founded by Billy Graham, weighed whether it would profit the movement to gain the world at the cost of its soul. “Trump has been, his whole adult life, an idolater,” the magazine intoned, “and a singularly unrepentant one.”

(Emphasis mine) So 23 dudes decided "our guy, a self-proclaiming sexual abuser, isn't as bad as the mean liberal lady." I wonder what the three women thought, and how they felt about their place in such a male-dominated group. Are these the sort of people who think women don't have a place leading religious services?

And that's not cringing from fellow church leaders, that's a straight-up denouncement.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:32 AM on October 13, 2016 [30 favorites]

And just think: even if the republicans go down for a historic loss (still iffy), she (like Obama) is of the outlook she must be president for all even if it means working with people who supported Trump even while he was calling for her to be locked up, etc. It's mind boggling. Who among would not just have tapped out in rage? Who among us would be able to find it within ourselves to work with people who wrong us so directly? Because she did it before in the Senate and even made friends with many. I was raised Christian and it's amazing to see someone who has translated one of the messages of Christ in such an effective way.

Yes, this is what public service looks like when you are genuinely committed to public service.

If I had ever dealt with a millionth of the sheer vile hatred that Hillary Clinton has dealt with her entire adult life I would say screw you all and retire to a beautiful sanctuary far from human contact as soon as possible. But she actually went out of her way to invite more of it by running for President in a country where her name is for many people synonymous with evil.

Someone is reading this and thinking 'yeah, she's just power-hungry' and I want to say to that person she could have just as much power by hiding in the shadows and using her money, so not today, Satan.
posted by winna at 8:33 AM on October 13, 2016 [59 favorites]

“Can anybody say she is morally superior to Donald Trump? I don’t think so,” said Dallas megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, days later. “This election is not about Donald Trump’s past, it is about America’s future.”

Okay, I can see the latter. Whatever. You want to believe that he'll give up a life of lying, cheating, and stealing, and become a better person. That's very Christian of you, I guess.

But you don't get to pair that with the former part. You can't say literally consecutively that the candidates' morality matters, but it doesn't.

Fuck that guy. I hope he's got really good lightning rods on his megachurch.
posted by Etrigan at 8:36 AM on October 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

@ChristopherJM
"Earlier today, @RT_com tweeted & pubbed a story on fresh @wikileaks Podesta emails dump before WL posted them to the site & tweeted a link." (with screenshots showing proof)

Hmm, wonder how that happens.
posted by chris24 at 8:36 AM on October 13, 2016 [49 favorites]

[fake] Reagan: America is a shining city on a hill.
Trump: You know what that hill sort of looks like?
posted by drezdn at 8:36 AM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

But she actually went out of her way to invite more of it by running for President in a country where her name is for many people synonymous with evil.

For a lot of people, this is all part of the damning indictment against her. She could have sauntered off into a sunset of book royalties and winters in Palm Springs. But she wants power so badly, she stuck it out through all of the shit. This is filed next to "staying with Bill isn't the virtue of loyalty or just plain old foolish love, it's because she wants power and being married to Bill is how she got it." There is literally nothing she could do short of fucking off to retirement that would satisfy the people who have already decided that she is the epitome of evil.

My mom tried the "she stayed with Bill for power" thing on me and I said, "Okay, how do you know it was for that reason and not just that she loves him in the possibly foolish way that many women love flawed men? Do you have some evidence?" Mom had none, she just knows. (And honestly, this makes no sense. Divorce is not a big deal in this country any more, she already was well known and influential from being First Lady, if she'd decided to leave him after they finished their time in the White House, she'd be in exactly the same position she is in today. Being married to Bill post-2000 had nothing to do with it.)
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:40 AM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

A Right-Wing Truck Dispatcher Is America’s Fairest New Election Night Vote Counter [real]
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:40 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Where's THAT thinkpiece, goddammit?

I linked this here several threads ago, but the George Saunders piece Who Are All These Trump Supporters started to get at this. It was the first time I saw someone point out that, despite the major narrative, most of the supporters of Trump we can see in regular life are not low-income white men whose factory closed, but middle-class or even affluent suburban men and women. Still, I think there is more think piece to be written on this specific point, and maybe you, Sara C., should write it as an op-ed. Sometimes each of us really does put the pieces of a full narrative together and come up with something no one else has said in the major media yet.

In the Good Ol' Days

That was very powerful.
posted by Miko at 8:42 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

I Hereby Condemndorse Donald Trump (Daily Caller but stopped clock and all)

"It is with a heavy heart that I condemn the actions of GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, and I encourage you to vote for him on November 8.

As the allegations of sexual assault pile up, my conscience will not allow me to support the man I plan to vote for. No woman should ever live in fear of someone like Donald Trump, who is going to Make America Great Again.

Four more years with a Democrat in the White House could mean the destruction of our great nation, and it can only be prevented by electing the man I repudiate in the strongest possible terms.

Donald Trump is a disgrace to the Republican Party and to the United States of America, and I hope you’ll join me in supporting him on Election Day!"
posted by chris24 at 8:42 AM on October 13, 2016 [27 favorites]

Not sure if serious
posted by drezdn at 8:43 AM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

I honestly don't think there would be a need for Conway to be blackmailed into working for Trump. I have a strong impression that she is just absolutely amoral, that she lives in some kind of nihilistic mindspace where facts, opinions, and positions just don't matter—where all that matters is what makes Kellyanne money. She doesn't give a shit one way or another about Trump or his politics, so long as she gets paid.

She's found something that she's very good at and she doesn't care who she does it for. She would probably have been just as happy to spin for the Clinton campaign, if they'd been interested and willing to pay her price, and she'd likely be just as ruthlessly effective. Hell, if they want her (I seriously doubt it) she'll probably be perfectly happy to work for Hillary in 2020.

It's disgusting, but in a different way from how Trump, Christie, Giuliani, et al are disgusting. I really think it's 100% just business for her.

What that does mean, though, is that in theory she could be bought. It would have to be a high enough price to allow her to never have to work again—because it would be the end of her career—but if someone on the Clinton side was willing to pony up, I have no doubt that she'd turn on Trump in an instant.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 8:44 AM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

Let's be real, Hillary's emails are only of interest to those who already hate her. The "leaks" are cherry picked to confuse people with poor reading comprehension and little knowledge of how governments work. Wiki Leaks is only feeding the deplorables.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 8:44 AM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

As the allegations of sexual assault pile up, my conscience will not allow me to support the man I plan to vote for. No woman should ever live in fear of someone like Donald Trump, who is going to Make America Great Again.

This is sickening and infuriating. Sure, let's vote in a sexual predator because that is what will Make American Great Again (if you're white, and male, and straight).
posted by winna at 8:44 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Anchorweight", by Paul Ryan

Baby, you're an anchorweight
Without you we'd be doing great
I can feel you pulling down down down
'Cause of you we're gonna drown drown drown
posted by gurple at 8:45 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Quick update on the Trump Nazi
posted by OverlappingElvis at 8:45 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Hillary's emails are only of interest to those who already hate her

Eh, it's extra background Crooked-Hillary radiation, which I suspect feeds a lot of the they're-both-awful rhetoric that can only help Trump.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:46 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

She would probably have been just as happy to spin for the Clinton campaign, if they'd been interested and willing to pay her price, and she'd likely be just as ruthlessly effective. Hell, if they want her (I seriously doubt it) she'll probably be perfectly happy to work for Hillary in 2020.


Clinton has thousands of people as good or better than Conway. She's just the vaguely competent public face of things, she doesn't have some unique talent the Clinton campaign can't have.
posted by zutalors! at 8:46 AM on October 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

Evangelical Christians really are a moral void, aren't they? Particularly hilarious that unlike some megachurch pastor Trump doesn't beg forgiveness before before going out and doing it all again, so they are sort of having to do that part of the cycle themselves or just invent it in their heads.
posted by Artw at 8:47 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

She's found something that she's very good at and she doesn't care who she does it for. She would probably have been just as happy to spin for the Clinton campaign, if they'd been interested and willing to pay her price, and she'd likely be just as ruthlessly effective. Hell, if they want her (I seriously doubt it) she'll probably be perfectly happy to work for Hillary in 2020.

She's been working for Republicans all her life, including defending Todd Akin. She's not just amoral, she's a particularly nasty strain of amoral that has infected conservatives for decades, and seems to taken over the movement almost entirely.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:48 AM on October 13, 2016 [19 favorites]

That's a good point, zutalors! She's very good at her job, but she's not uniquely good at it. What's unique about her is that of the people who are as good as her or better at what she does, she's the only one that was mercenary enough to go all-in on fronting for the Trump campaign.

Honestly, I hope he stiffs her after the election. It would be poetic justice.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 8:48 AM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

And here we go...

@LeanneNaramore
Trump surrogate just brought up "Bill Clinton's illegitimate son" & @carolcnn shut that righhhht down: "That's just rubbish...I gotta go" (video)
posted by chris24 at 8:49 AM on October 13, 2016 [22 favorites]

Evangelical Christians really are a moral void, aren't they? Particularly hilarious that unlike some megachurch pastor Trump doesn't beg forgiveness before before going out and doing it all again, so they are sort of having to do that part of the cycle themselves or just invent it in their heads.

I grew up in an evangelical church and the misogyny is a large part of what made me realize I was an atheist so I am biased but run of the mill evangelical christians are to theologians as homebrew first edition AD&D players are to people who play tabletop Games Workshop products.
posted by winna at 8:50 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Well if his campaign can't deliver him an election they can't be very good, why should he pay any of them?
posted by Artw at 8:50 AM on October 13, 2016 [28 favorites]

I'm Not Sure Republicans Could Have Headed Off The Trumpocalypse

Trump is a sick bastard -- but what the hell is wrong with the Republican Party? Couldn't the GOP have figured out that this guy is really bad news, and made more of an effort to prevent him from seizing the reins of the party?

Ross Douthat thinks the party didn't have much choice: [...]

But why couldn't the party have tried to head Trump off long before he was headed to a first-ballot victory at the convention? It was obvious last fall, well before the Iowa caucuses, that Trump might seriously win the nomination. I know nobody in the GOP wanted to believe that, but why wasn't there a "one percent doctrine" regarding Trump -- if there was a one percent chance Trump could win, the party needed to prevent that, because he's so awful? Shouldn't the party at least have done some digging into Trump's past, to prepare for what might come out if Trump won the nomination? And in that case, couldn't the party itself have leaked some of the information that's coming out now, to damage Trump before he could damage the party?

But I wonder how that would have worked out. Think of everything that's come out this week, and imagine it coming out sometime between the late fall of 2015 and Super Tuesday. The revelations really might have irreversibly tarnished Trump's reputation -- with everyone except Republican voters. The public might have known about Trump's sexual predation (and tax dodges, and business scandals) a year before the general election, yet he still might have won the Republican nomination.

posted by tonycpsu at 8:50 AM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

I’ve known Hillary Clinton since my early childhood. She and my mother have been best friends since they were little girls growing up in Park Ridge, IL... [fb post]
posted by prize bull octorok at 8:51 AM on October 13, 2016 [53 favorites]

Trump surrogate just brought up "Bill Clinton's illegitimate son"

I was waiting for when they'd dip into that particularly stupid well.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:54 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

But why couldn't the party have tried to head Trump off long before he was headed to a first-ballot victory at the convention?

It took me much too long into this election cycle to realize it, but this isn't advanced social science: the reason the GOP could never head Trump off is that Trump's supporters are the Republican base: the one they've been cultivating, feeding, weeding, and watering since Nixon. You can't somehow suddenly drive a wedge between this solid base you've been building and the inevitable candidate willing to say right out what everyone else only referred to in code - those folks have always been R voters, because they signed on for these basic points of agreement. As if it's always been a coincidence almost the entire party was white...
posted by Miko at 8:55 AM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

Evangelical Christians really are a moral void, aren't they?

Let's not generalize too far.

"Not only is Donald Trump a bad candidate for president, he is actively promoting the very things that we as Christians ought to oppose."
posted by gurple at 8:55 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

Seen this point made elsewhere and not sure I've seen it so bluntly in this thread.

Trump's campaign would have us believe that women lie about sexual harassment for political reasons unless their harasser just happens to be Bill Clinton. Then we must believe the survivors!

The utter cynicism of their double standards is so massive that it Is sometimes hard to encapsulate in a simple way. But here is a debate or interview question that would be interesting to watch him or his brainwashed surrogates answer:

"Mr. Trump, do you agree that we should incline to believe survivors'/victims' plausible claims of sexual abuse instead of blaming and shaming and re-traumatizing its victims (of any gender or orientation)? You've suggested your accusers are lying, while promoting the accusations of Bill Clinton's accusers.

What criteria do you use to differentiate the two situations, given that you have established a public and confirmed pattern of bragging about your history of abusive conduct toward women?"
[fantasy]
posted by spitbull at 8:55 AM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

@brianstelter: Scoop: @SeanHannity was going to interview Trump today. But Trump just CANCELLED
posted by zombieflanders at 8:55 AM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

@PeterAlexander
.@realDonaldTrump just canceled his interview with Sean Hannity, scheduled to air tonight, per @FoxNews executive.

When you're scared to go on Hannity...
posted by chris24 at 8:55 AM on October 13, 2016 [32 favorites]

(which is just to say: not all Evangelicals are good with all of this)
posted by gurple at 8:56 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

For a lot of people, this is all part of the damning indictment against her. She could have sauntered off into a sunset of book royalties and winters in Palm Springs. But she wants power so badly, she stuck it out through all of the shit.

I think this is absolutely a big part of the hatred of her, and it drives me crazy. First of all, I don't think it's true that all she cares about is power, but more importantly, who cares if someone wants power? People running to be president by definition want power! Donald Trump clearly wants power! Why is that used as an indictment of her but not of him? Oh right, because we can't stand for women to have or want power. Ugh, this country!
posted by aka burlap at 8:56 AM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

I was waiting for when they'd dip into that particularly stupid well.

The thing is... If it's true that Clinton's DNA report is in the Starr Report, it seems like it would be easy to test. You'd just have to get the "illegitimate son" to consent to the test.
posted by drezdn at 8:56 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Evangelical Christians really are a moral void, aren't they?

Jim Bob Duggar is not an outlier.
posted by My Dad at 8:56 AM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

@SeanHannity was going to interview Trump today. But Trump just CANCELLED

Even Donald Trump won't call Sean Hannity
posted by EarBucket at 8:57 AM on October 13, 2016 [48 favorites]

To take a break from politics, I picked a film at random, and watched Fight Club. There were some eerie parallels to the blind rage Trump backers. No escape.
posted by Oyéah at 8:58 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

The thing is... If it's true that Clinton's DNA report is in the Starr Report, it seems like it would be easy to test. You'd just have to get the "illegitimate son" to consent to the test.

Per Snopes, it's already been tested and it's not his kid.
posted by kate blank at 8:58 AM on October 13, 2016 [23 favorites]

Let's not generalize too far.

I'd rather go with, let's not be so concerned about being "fair" that we allow a tiny, tiny minority dissent be seen as representative of the whole.

This election has shown pretty definitively that Evangelical Christianity is basically the GOP writ large -- they talk a lot about supposedly bedrock, inviolable principles, but they'll sacrifice any of them at the drop of a hat as long as it means promoting white male supremacy.
posted by tocts at 9:01 AM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

Chris Christie has been criminally summonsed over Bridgegate.
posted by mightygodking at 9:01 AM on October 13, 2016 [27 favorites]

Trump surely realizes by now that unless he is in front of a loud echo chamber, in a crowd; he can't afford close scrutiny. He must know what the next revelations will be. His victims must have not responded to his calls.
posted by Oyéah at 9:02 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

The local noon news' "both sides are bad report": Three women have accused Donald Trump of sexually assaulting them. And in a major scandal for his opponent, Wikileaks plans to release emails obtained by Russian hackers of her campaign chair.
posted by dirigibleman at 9:06 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I read the Daily Mail story about "Bill Clinton's illegitimate son" and look the kid has been dealt a not great hand so I don't wanna be mean or anything but all I could think of while reading his overly-earnest quotes about his "stepmom" and "sister" and his attempts to meet the Clintons at rallies or whatever was that episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force where Master Shake meets his illegitimate son
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:07 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Trump is apparently making a "major speech" in West Palm Beach. On the stream right now to see if there's any substance or more meltdown.
posted by Talez at 9:08 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

He must know what the next revelations will be. His victims must have not responded to his calls.

I believe that Trump truly does not understand what people would find wrong. I think he has zero barometer in that regard. In fact, I think he is probably bewildered by all this brouhaha about his leaked tapes, because I would still thinks it was charming and macho and damn straight I do.

If there were hideous allegations around the corner, he would probably think oh that, well I'm a big star and straight talker, no problem.
posted by argybarg at 9:08 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I never heard of Peter Luger's before last night but I am envisioning a place that still gives you little round croutons with your side salad
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:11 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'll just say Peter Luger's is great, except they kind of try to shoe-horn you into the "steak for however many" option...
posted by AJaffe at 9:12 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I am thinking back to being a much younger and very angry man at the anti-Bush protest in DC on Inauguration Day in January 2001. The protest was invigorating. It felt huge and it included significant violence I witnessed first hand. The next day it was barely reported on the news. Winter set in until 2008. Then spring, glorious and full of promise with the election of Obama, and then the hard rains of GOP intransigence fell. But then a hard killing frost with orange skin and ferret hair came across the hollers of my political heart.

Here comes summer. I will stake to the position that the GOP as we know it does not survive Donald Trump. It is an existential error overdetermined at the moment Nixon committed to a Southern Strategy approach to winning elections in service of military and corporate interests. Donald Trump is Nixon, the second time as farce. He is the anti-Regan.

Bye motherfuckers. Your politics will live on a few more generations but your hold on power will not survive the overreach.
posted by spitbull at 9:13 AM on October 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

I read the Daily Mail story about...

Hold it right there: The Daily Mail Song
posted by Mister Bijou at 9:16 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

So, the Tax Policy Center is holding a forum today discussing their analyses of the candidates' tax plans and apparently Trump's econ adviser is losing it (in tax/econ professional terms) - refuses to talk tax, will only talk trade, pacing all over the stage, picking fights with other panelists. Some tweets: [1] [2] [3] [4].

He also says that we don't have to worry about people gaming Trump's pass-through entity tax proposal, because "If DC tax lawyers can't figure out how to prevent people from exploiting gap between 33% and 15% tax rates, you should quit." [real] Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

It's ongoing - live feed here. A representative from the British embassy just asked Trump's advisers if Trump's policies would cause a trade war.
posted by melissasaurus at 9:17 AM on October 13, 2016 [39 favorites]

Yesterday I read more in a series of unconvincing thinkpieces about Trump's popularity and had yet another conversation with a friend bewildered by her family's support of him, and this morning I woke up and thought:

Well duh. Of course we've got the most openly racist and misogynist candidate in modern US history this year. This is the absolutely predictable and obvious backlash to the US's first black president and major party woman candidate.
posted by pocketfullofrye at 9:18 AM on October 13, 2016 [25 favorites]

Just gonna leave this here...

‘Trumpkins’ offer added fright factor this Halloween: Donald Trump’s image is appearing — in all of its round-faced orange glory — on the streets as Halloween approaches.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:19 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

The Trumpets are crowing that Jessica Leeds has the same phone number as the Clinton Foundation, with screen caps from her profile and a Wikileaks email with the CF number listed to prove the collusion. Except if you actually look at it, only the first six of ten digits are the same.

It's all emotion, no reason involved.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 9:19 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Clearly Donald Trump costumes are going to be selling like the proverbial hot cakes for this year’s Halloween.
posted by pharm at 9:20 AM on October 13, 2016

Here comes summer. I will stake to the position that the GOP as we know it does not survive Donald Trump. It is an existential error overdetermined at the moment Nixon committed to a Southern Strategy approach to winning elections in service of military an corporate interests. Donald Trump is Nixon, the second time as farce. He is the anti-Reagan.

Depends on what you mean by "the GOP as we know it," but in general I disagree. There are three major groups of people in this country:

* those who have money and/or power, and wish to keep them by any means necessary
* those who are economically fucked, and want to raise everyone up by pulling from the first group
* those who are economically fucked, and want to raise _only their group up_ because they blame the second group for why they're not the first group

The Republican Party in and of itself will undergo changes, but as long as they cater to both #1 and #3 they're not going anywhere. They will simply blame Trump as "not a Real Conservative" and find a calmer candidate for the next try.
posted by delfin at 9:20 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Of course we've got the most openly racist and misogynist candidate in modern US history this year. This is the absolutely predictable and obvious backlash to the US's first black president and major party woman candidate.

Millions of people absolutely could not believe that a Barack Hussein Obama got the controls of government, twice. The whole idea was so disgraceful, so distasteful to them. And his better-than-you Harvard style, and his liberal politics, ugh. And his general foreignness to basic customs, with his hip-hop mixtapes? It was everything they hated.

Do you think they loved the idea of us having to put up with a president that made our skin crawl? Of course they did. It's revenge.
posted by argybarg at 9:23 AM on October 13, 2016 [35 favorites]

Tax forum update: they want Trump's guy to answer why Kansas sucks now after it adopted Trump-like tax policies. The advisor refuses to discuss Kansas, pivots back to trade policy.
posted by melissasaurus at 9:23 AM on October 13, 2016 [25 favorites]

Greg Nog, right you are, but I meant if you're going there hell bent on steak. [end derail]
posted by AJaffe at 9:24 AM on October 13, 2016

Egg is now included in the 538 Utah forecast

Egg, I dreamed I was polled.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:24 AM on October 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

Kellyanne Conway is a 20 year veteran of the Clinton war, called for feminity over feminism, and literally defended the "legitimate rape" comment. She may be a political shark, but her brand of political war seems to be falling out of fashion.
posted by xyzzy at 9:25 AM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

This is the absolutely predictable and obvious backlash to the US's first black president and major party woman candidate.

Gee, it's almost as if the moment white guys have to share power with people who don't look like them, all sorts of totally normal political behavior is cast as an unconscionable affront to the public trust and the rules of the game mysteriously change overnight, with previously understood agreements about keeping the system functioning somehow becoming forgotten and sent down the memory hole.
posted by tocts at 9:25 AM on October 13, 2016 [48 favorites]

I'll just say Peter Luger's is great, except they kind of try to shoe-horn you into the "steak for however many" option...

Go for lunch! Get a burger instead of steak! Their burgers are excellent and affordable! That's my election lifehack advice to everybody

Peter Luger's is right down the street from me so this is extremely helpful!
posted by Brainy at 9:25 AM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

This election has shown pretty definitively that Evangelical Christianity is basically the GOP writ large -- they talk a lot about supposedly bedrock, inviolable principles, but they'll sacrifice any of them at the drop of a hat as long as it means promoting white male supremacy.

This is super unfair to how they actually think as far as I can tell (not sure, I was raised Catholic). They think millions of babies are being killed and any time they don't take the opportunity to install Supreme Court justices that will stop that, they are complicit in that murder. If you start from the idea that abortion is murder (and yes, obviously most people in this thread don't start from that and I'm not interested in defending the idea), then they are making what may be to them a terribly unpalatable choice in order to stop a massacre on the scale of a major war.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:26 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Sorry to add to the derail, but if you're getting the burger, GET THEIR BACON ON IT.
posted by Bookhouse at 9:27 AM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

They think millions of babies are being killed and any time they don't take the opportunity to install Supreme Court justices that will stop that, they are complicit in that murder.

Alternately, they are just using that as a reason to exert control on women's bodies.
posted by zutalors! at 9:28 AM on October 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

If you start from the idea that abortion is murder

If you start from the idea that abortion is murder, and that millions of them are happening a year, you should literally be in the streets with guns fighting an all-out war to stop it.

The fact that Evangelicals aren't doing that, by and large, should perhaps tell you how serious they are about the whole "murder" angle (as opposed to slut shaming).
posted by tocts at 9:28 AM on October 13, 2016 [59 favorites]

They think millions of babies are being killed

The thing is, Evangelicals didn't care about abortion until the GOP told them to. Being anti-abortion was always a Catholic thing, but is only quite recently an Evangelical thing. It was used in a very calculating way as a wedge issue by politicians to make sure they got and kept Evangelicals on side. So, they may think that now, but it is in no way a fundamental tenant of their faith. It's a political tool used to create a handy bloc of single-issue voters.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:29 AM on October 13, 2016 [62 favorites]

If you start from the idea that abortion is murder (and yes, obviously most people in this thread don't start from that and I'm not interested in defending the idea), then they are making what may be to them a terribly unpalatable choice in order to stop a massacre on the scale of a major war.

If they were actually interested in reducing the incidence of abortion, then they would support policies that have been proven to do that. They are interested in punishing women. Childbirth is women's punishment for original sin.
posted by melissasaurus at 9:30 AM on October 13, 2016 [88 favorites]

I was working on a joke comment about Peter Luger and Ashley Madison doing some kind of crossover promotion and hey did anyone ever check to see if there was a "John Barron" listed in their user file that got leaked?
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:30 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

If you start from the idea that abortion is murder (and yes, obviously most people in this thread don't start from that and I'm not interested in defending the idea), then they are making what may be to them a terribly unpalatable choice in order to stop a massacre on the scale of a major war.

If I start from the idea that gravity doesn't exist and then jump off a cliff, is it the truth right up until I hit the ground?
posted by Celsius1414 at 9:30 AM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

Trump "speech" so far is a round table of sycophants with softballs.
posted by Talez at 9:31 AM on October 13, 2016

Giuliani talking and he's low energy. Going through the motions.
posted by chris24 at 9:32 AM on October 13, 2016

If I start from the idea that gravity doesn't exist and then jump off a cliff, is it the truth right up until I hit the ground?

We call it Prosperity Gravity Gospel. If you were worthy of God's favor, he'd make you miss.
posted by delfin at 9:32 AM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

If I start from the idea that gravity doesn't exist and then jump off a cliff, is it the truth right up until I hit the ground?

It's true enough to get you to jump.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:33 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

> If every poll is wrong, then we're flying blind and there's very little to say or do about it except run around and flap our arms.

I've been doing that for months now.

...so tired...
posted by languagehat at 9:33 AM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

Tax Policy Forum update -- Bush tax cuts didn't hurt the economy. It was Bill & Hillary's fault because the Democrats didn't filibuster it and also it's China's fault. Growth in the 90s was just luck for the Clintons and anyone in the presidency then would have had same results. So, let's cut all taxes and regulations.
posted by melissasaurus at 9:33 AM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

Nobody can hear a damn thing at this round table because nobody is miced up and the press pool doesn't have a boom going. So whatever Trump is trying to push across is pretty much lost in the noise of camera shutters and the HVAC system.
posted by Talez at 9:35 AM on October 13, 2016

Sometimes, when watching Trump, I just think to myself, "Darmok and Jalad... at Tanagra."
posted by xyzzy at 9:35 AM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

If you start from the idea that abortion is murder, and that millions of them are happening a year, you should literally be in the streets with guns fighting an all-out war to stop it.

Some of them are.
posted by Sophie1 at 9:35 AM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

"The awful way the press treats our candidate."

And the crowd explodes.
posted by chris24 at 9:35 AM on October 13, 2016

It was Bill & Hillary's fault because the Democrats didn't filibuster it

If it's a legitimate tax cut, the legislative body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:35 AM on October 13, 2016 [34 favorites]

The press pool just got kicked out of the round table. Back to Ghouliani.
posted by Talez at 9:38 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

If you start from the idea that abortion is murder (and yes, obviously most people in this thread don't start from that and I'm not interested in defending the idea), then they are making what may be to them a terribly unpalatable choice in order to stop a massacre on the scale of a major war.

The thing is, there is literally no evidence that Trump can be trusted even to nominate a justice who will overturn Roe V Wade. He's was pro-choice in his earlier life, so it's not a high priority for him outside of getting him elected (and he flip-flops his positions on a dime). He's already at war with the Republican base, and proven that he won't be easily steered. And he's made it clear he wants to attack the laws governing the media (1st Amendment), due process (5th), the Federal reserve, the FDA and stop an entire religion from entering the country (1st amendment again).

He's also been very clear that he considers Putin, Assad, and even Kim Jong Un to be role models in how to govern effectively. What sort of justices to they prefer in their courts? People who rubberstamp their ruler's edicts. Why would anyone believe Trump will suddenly appoint what they consider to be reasonable people, given a choice between them and someone who will let him make unconstitutional policies? Why would anyone believe he cares about abortion at all based on his earlier life and opinions? Why is this the one issue he can be disciplined about?
posted by Mchelly at 9:40 AM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

> This is super unfair to how they actually think as far as I can tell (not sure, I was raised Catholic). They think millions of babies are being killed and any time they don't take the opportunity to install Supreme Court justices that will stop that, they are complicit in that murder. If you start from the idea that abortion is murder (and yes, obviously most people in this thread don't start from that and I'm not interested in defending the idea), then they are making what may be to them a terribly unpalatable choice in order to stop a massacre on the scale of a major war.

With regard to the part I've bolded:

No. they don't think that.

1. If they believed that, they wouldn't behave the way that they do. They would legitimately take up arms, rather than just talking about how they're so much better than the baby killers and voting every two years.
2. This is why the white fundamentalist evangelical protestant right gets so squirrelly when the topic of punishing women who have abortions comes up. As long as abortion being babykilling is either a doctrinal point or a way to feel better than the other — and doctors who perform abortions are safely other — they believe it's babykilling. Whenever it becomes a practical concern for one of their number, it suddenly becomes much more nuanced than that, since many white fundamentalist evangelical protestant women have themselves needed abortions.
3. Moreover, even the claim that abortion is babykilling is very, very new. Although white fundamentalist evangelical protestant churches claim that the abortion=babykilling idea is an ancient doctrine, it's younger than Scientology. As left evangelical Fred Clark has pithily observed, it's younger than the Happy Meal.
4. Historical Christian doctrine, as opposed to the novel American megachurch doctrine, tends to focus on quickening rather than conception as the start of life. Note: I would love to hear about Catholic ideas here. Most of what I've read concerns Protestant thought and Protestant law — most especially Blackstone, who is unambiguous about identifying the start of life as specifically quickening rather than conception. Catholic thought is sort of an undiscovered country for me.

posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:40 AM on October 13, 2016 [43 favorites]

Decided this morning that H is going to win and I want to see her inaugurated along with ms localhuman and my sister and her girlfriend. Airline tickets and hotels/airbnbs are still somewhat affordable, so nows a good time to strike-

I'm not going to say its time to start celebrating, but it might be time to have a contingency plan for having to celebrate.
posted by localhuman at 9:40 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

>If you start from the idea that abortion is murder

...but you oppose sex education and birth control, people will wonder what it is that you actually want.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 9:41 AM on October 13, 2016 [61 favorites]

Michelle Obama tearing it up in NH.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:42 AM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

> Sometimes, when watching Trump, I just think to myself, "Darmok and Jalad... at Tanagra."

Cleveland, when the GOP fell?
posted by Spathe Cadet at 9:42 AM on October 13, 2016 [25 favorites]

Ghouliani is just burning it all down and salting the earth of the public discourse.
posted by Talez at 9:43 AM on October 13, 2016

Mrs. Obama is speaking very personally about sexual assault. She sounds like she is on the verge of tears.
posted by xyzzy at 9:43 AM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

Decided this morning that H is going to win and I want to see her inaugurated along with ms localhuman and my sister and her girlfriend. Airline tickets and hotels/airbnbs are still somewhat affordable, so nows a good time to strike-

I hear rooms at Trump's hotel are cheap and available.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:43 AM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

Seriously, though. If someone would actually push back in a live interview or a debate on who Trump actually likes as a SC nominee - not his vague "someone like Scalia" but ask him to give real names based on his own opinions, I think that balloon would pop really fast. He'll name his cronies. Or his own lawyers. That's how this always starts.
posted by Mchelly at 9:43 AM on October 13, 2016

Should we infer anything from the change in Trump's hat colour from Red to White?
posted by Evstar at 9:44 AM on October 13, 2016

Tax policy forum update -- Clinton's guy Gene Sperling is on now and is killing it. Talking about how they wanted to incorporate things like how having a preexisting condition can act as a tax on your life, or paying for childcare, etc. That tax policy is about more than just revenue in and out of businesses. Now he's digging into Trump's policies and is not holding back.
posted by melissasaurus at 9:44 AM on October 13, 2016 [15 favorites]

Holy shit — Michelle Obama is killing it right now in New Hampshire. MSNBC's satellite feed is bit wonky, but check it out if you can.
posted by savetheclocktower at 9:45 AM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

I'll just say Peter Luger's is great, except they kind of try to shoe-horn you into the "steak for however many" option...

The important thing to remember is the Steak for 3 actually feeds 5-6 normal humans.
posted by Gaz Errant at 9:45 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I hear rooms at Trump's hotel are cheap and available.

I shudder to think about how private they are.
posted by heyho at 9:46 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

If someone would actually push back in a live interview or a debate on who Trump actually likes as a SC nominee - not his vague "someone like Scalia" but ask him to give real names based on his own opinions, I think that balloon would pop really fast.

Talking about your plans ruins the surprise.
posted by Etrigan at 9:47 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Should we infer anything from the change in Trump's hat colour from Red to White?

He wishes he was polling at his pre-labor day levels.
posted by cmfletcher at 9:47 AM on October 13, 2016 [20 favorites]

Should we infer anything from the change in Trump's hat colour from Red to White?
posted by Evstar at 9:44 AM on October 13 [+] [!]

He thinks he's Gandalf. And he thinks he's done falling.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:47 AM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

If they believed that, they wouldn't behave the way that they do. They would legitimately take up arms, rather than just talking about how they're so much better than the baby killers and voting every two years.

I think this goes overboard. I could easily say that if the Left really believed in the threat of global warming they'd drop everything to combat it rather than drive cars, fly, or whatever else. If they really believe it's an existential threat they sure aren't acting like it.

That isn't true of course and I don't think your supposition about most pro-lifers is either.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:47 AM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

Mrs. Obama is speaking very personally about sexual assault. She sounds like she is on the verge of tears.

Her voice is just straight-up breaking.
posted by zombieflanders at 9:47 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Lou Dobbs just doxxed one of Trump's accusers.
posted by argybarg at 9:48 AM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

My anti abortion HRC hating college student, in her paper about why she hated abortions, cited a documentary she saw in her Catholic high school in which the number of murdered abortion babies was equivalent in some way to the Holocaust.

I was like *what do I do with this fucked-up ness*
posted by angrycat at 9:48 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

>If you start from the idea that abortion is murder

...but you oppose sex education and birth control, people will wonder what it is that you actually want.

Good lord, this. We know what actually lowers rates of abortion -- sex education, access to birth control, etc.

Evangelical Christianity has consistently been given the choice between:

a. 100 million babies being murdered a year
b. A bunch of young adults having sex and not being "punished" for it

Without fail, they have chosen the former.

Forgive me for not thinking they actually give a shit about the supposed "murder" of fetuses.
posted by tocts at 9:48 AM on October 13, 2016 [56 favorites]

If you start from the idea that abortion is murder, and that millions of them are happening a year, you should literally be in the streets with guns fighting an all-out war to stop it.

Can we not do this? I at least lived through the 90s, when it seemed every other month or so that abortion doctors were being assaulted and sometimes killed, and abortion clinics were being bombed. I can really do without a return to that, and I'm deeply grateful they seem to have stopped that shit and are relying on the ballot box.
posted by corb at 9:48 AM on October 13, 2016 [57 favorites]

Seriously, though. If someone would actually push back in a live interview or a debate on who Trump actually likes as a SC nominee - not his vague "someone like Scalia" but ask him to give real names based on his own opinions, I think that balloon would pop really fast. He'll name his cronies. Or his own lawyers. That's how this always starts.

In rare moments of competence, he's released pandering slates of names twice already. Why anyone would trust he would follow through is of course a different question.
posted by vathek at 9:50 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Lou Dobbs just doxxed one of Trump's accusers.

Sorry not sorry about losing your job, Lou:
@Foxnews .@oreillyfactor: "Any journalist colluding with a political campaign should resign immediately, or be forced to resign. Period."
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:50 AM on October 13, 2016 [15 favorites]

If anyone has a few moments and can deal with how shitty a forum Twitter is for this sort of conversation, interesting thread started by Tim Miller (Jeb! comms guy) with a whole bunch of cogent replies (and very little trolling, which is refreshing) about who is to blame for oppo not getting out before it was too late:

I find it unendingly bizarre that senior editors/reporters send "where was the oppo" tweets and not "what were my reporters doing?" tweets

I'm on team It Was Out There Plenty But GOP Primary Voters Don't Give A Shit.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:51 AM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

The Trump campaign actually did put out a list of potential SCOTUS nominees. All of them (except one) are very conservative federal or state supreme court judges, and IIRC people who knew about this stuff said it was a fairly solid slate of Scalia replacements. The one exception was Senator Mike Lee, who recently called for Trump to leave the race. Some enterprising journalist ought to call the other names on that list.
posted by theodolite at 9:52 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Lou Dobbs just doxxed one of Trump's accusers.

Loud Obbs was filth when he turned his CNN show during the Bush years into a hatefest towards immigrants. He's grown even worse over time.
posted by holgate at 9:52 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Lou Dobbs just doxxed one of Trump's accusers.

Fuck him. The GOP deserve everything that's happening to them.
posted by chris24 at 9:52 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

"Strong men... don't need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful." -- Michelle Obama
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:53 AM on October 13, 2016 [69 favorites]

I told my gf last night about how a bunch of accusers against Trump had turned up last night, and in roughly the same sentence I said something about how much courage that must take.

Literally the first thing out of her mouth was, "Yeah, because you know they're going to get doxxed." And she was right. But she was thinking about Trump's legion of anonymous trolls.

Fuck you, Lou Dobbs. Fuck everything about you.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:54 AM on October 13, 2016 [35 favorites]

I can really do without a return to that, and I'm deeply grateful they seem to have stopped that shit and are relying on the ballot box.

They haven't stopped. Less than a year ago, a man walked into a Planned Parenthood and killed three people while using the words of Republican politicians, including at least one presidential candidate, and pro-choice health providers have seen a sharp rise in violence. We must acknowledge that in order to fight it.
posted by zombieflanders at 9:54 AM on October 13, 2016 [64 favorites]

I'm on team It Was Out There Plenty But GOP Primary Voters Don't Give A Shit.

I'd like to be on that team, but only if I can also play for team Every Other GOP Candidate Was So Spineless, They Wouldn't Have Used It Anyways Because It Might Lose Them A Vote From Their Base.
posted by tocts at 9:55 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

I have only seen some of the text of the FLOTUS speech on this showing up on Twitter and I can already tell that it is sending out shockwaves.
posted by maxsparber at 9:56 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Mod note: Let's not try and relitigate the "who does and doesn't really care about abortion" thing right now, it's an old argument here and one that can suck a lot of air out of the room really quickly.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:57 AM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

Actually, by the end of this election,* we'll likely have a Darmok-esque line for every conceivable situation.

Ted, his mouth at the telephone
Jeb!, in New Hampshire, pleading for applause
Marla, her pumpkins orange
Chris, his bridge obstructed
Michael and Jeanne, on CNN
Bill, with the balloons, in Philadelphia

*(end of election assumed but not guaranteed)
posted by Spathe Cadet at 9:57 AM on October 13, 2016 [29 favorites]

> I think this goes overboard. I could easily say that if the Left really believed in the threat of global warming they'd drop everything to combat it rather than drive cars, fly, or whatever else. If they really believe it's an existential threat they sure aren't acting like it.

Yes, but your analogy would be mortally flawed. No one claims to believe that abortion is a partial statistical contribution to fractional babykilling, and no one claims that each individual act of car-driving or plane-flying literally murders the planet.

The failure of this analogy does instructively point to why arguments for abortion reduction are rejected by white evangelical fundamentalist protestants, though. Climate change opponents really do believe that the way to slow and (god willing some day) reverse climate change is through harm reduction strategies that still admit to some CO2-generating activities. White evangelical fundamentalist protestant rhetoric, though, does not admit to the possibility of gradual reduction, because that rhetoric focuses on the idea that each individual act of abortion is coldblooded murder that must be opposed at all costs.

(white evangelical fundamentalist protestant practice is, as others have noted, specifically what you'd do if you wanted to increase the number of abortions that occur; this is because the abortion=murder rhetorical frame does not admit to the possibility of harm reduction in the same way that the "C02 production over certain levels=planetary disaster" frame does.)
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:57 AM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

For anyone interested at all in talking about the role boys and men have in confronting the language and actions of sexual violence, Michelle is giving a master class on how to do it right now.
posted by zombieflanders at 9:57 AM on October 13, 2016 [21 favorites]

Trump's increasingly shell shocked surrogates remind me of the old joke about playing goalie for a darts team.
posted by spitbull at 9:57 AM on October 13, 2016 [15 favorites]

I'd like to be on that team, but only if I can also play for team Every Other GOP Candidate Was So Spineless, They Wouldn't Have Used It Anyways Because It Might Lose Them A Vote From Their Base.

I think that's the same team. The press did have stories out there. Other candidates probably also had some oppo. They saw the stories the press put out and they saw that primary voters didn't care at all so they shelved it and didn't bother to put any money into searching for any more.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:58 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Actually, by the end of this election,* we'll likely have a Darmok-esque line for every conceivable situation.

Trump, his businesses bankrupted.

please?
posted by tocts at 9:59 AM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

Michelle Obama is amazing. Her very bearing repudiates everything Trump stands for.
posted by spitbull at 9:59 AM on October 13, 2016 [42 favorites]

Michelle Obama's speech is incredible. I was crying tears of relief that someone on such a large stage was able to so perfectly articulate what so many women feel every day. This is literally a rallying cry to all women.
posted by gatorae at 10:01 AM on October 13, 2016 [54 favorites]

I wonder if SNL has anything interesting from the times Trump hosted.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:02 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Also, FLOTUS is totally taunting Trump, which means that it's probably only a matter of time until he starts going after her in the same way he's gone after every other woman who's challenged him.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:03 AM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

“If the cap was white, the staff noticed, the boss was in a good mood. If it was red, it was best to stay away.”

He cancelled Hannity and now this? What is that radioactive pumpkin up to now?
posted by asteria at 10:03 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm on team It Was Out There Plenty But GOP Primary Voters Don't Give A Shit.

I'd like to be on that team, but only if I can also play for team Every Other GOP Candidate Was So Spineless, They Wouldn't Have Used It Anyways Because It Might Lose Them A Vote From Their Base.

I have my (admittedly unfounded and a touch misanthropic) suspicions that it's actually Team Avoid Sexual Miscounduct Oppo Because Pretty Much All The Dudes Have Their Own Skeletons In Closets On That Topic.
posted by Drastic at 10:03 AM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

Ha my 80 year old super progressive and very Christian mom just texted "R U watching Michelle Obama? if not turn it on!" at me.
posted by spitbull at 10:04 AM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

In rare moments of competence, he's released pandering slates of names twice already.

There was one judge on his short list I particularly remember.
posted by ckape at 10:05 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

NYT: Mark Burnett, ‘Apprentice’ Producer, Denounces Trump

OK then.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:08 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

FYI, someone hacked Clinton's wikipedia page and it is now very NSFW.
posted by melissasaurus at 10:09 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

“If the cap was white, the staff noticed, the boss was in a good mood. If it was red, it was best to stay away.”

He cancelled Hannity and now this? What is that radioactive pumpkin up to now?

Trump just walked out on stage in West Palm Beach. No hat. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 10:09 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Actually, by the end of this election,* we'll likely have a Darmok-esque line for every conceivable situation.

Clinton, her arms wide

Audience member, his vote decided
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:09 AM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

Putin really isn't interested in the job and probably does not qualify.
posted by Artw at 10:10 AM on October 13, 2016

"Nothing the political establishment will not do, no lie they will not tell to hold their political prestige at your expense".
posted by Talez at 10:10 AM on October 13, 2016

So Trump can go to hell. Dude is insulting many men just as much as all women.

We're not the ones he's assaulting, though, so we should probably suck it up and listen to those who are.

No but....so I have a female friend who has been the victim of assault and all this shit going down is causing her to have a PTSD flareup in a big big way. And thanks to the Don, pretty much anything I say or do is going to come across tainted to her in her hyper-vigilant state. So no, he hasn't physically assaulted me, instead he's undermined my fucking ability to act humanely.

I realize that my take a number for your turn to kick The Donald in the Crotch number has like seven or eight digits in it, that by time I get to the head of the line, everyone to whom he has done greater harm is going to have reduced him to a greasy taint on the asphalt, but I'm still willing to wait my turn.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 10:11 AM on October 13, 2016 [30 favorites]

This is going to be a massive speech ripping on the media.
posted by Talez at 10:11 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

someone hacked Clinton's wikipedia page and it is now very NSFW

That sort of thing is SOP during election campaigns, it seems like (during the 2008 election campaign some rude and unpleasant edits were made to Obama's Wikipedia page from IP addresses in the range used by the Hillary For President campaign offices in Arlington, for instance); they tend to be pretty good with rapid response and cleanup when things like this happen (but locking the page because of malicious edits, the way they do with things relating to Israel/Palestine and other contentious topics, might not be a bad idea).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 10:13 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

The thing is, Evangelicals didn't care about abortion until the GOP told them to. Being anti-abortion was always a Catholic thing, but is only quite recently an Evangelical thing. It was used in a very calculating way as a wedge issue by politicians to make sure they got and kept Evangelicals on side. So, they may think that now, but it is in no way a fundamental tenant of their faith. It's a political tool used to create a handy bloc of single-issue voters.

Moreover, it was used as a wedge in support of white supremacy.

The Real Origins of the Religious Right: "In fact, it wasn’t until 1979—a full six years after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools."
posted by joedan at 10:14 AM on October 13, 2016 [28 favorites]

Trump is going past full-Breitbart. He's going full-Alex Jones.
posted by Talez at 10:14 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

Is there any place where I can watch the full FLOTUS speech beginning to end?
posted by Tevin at 10:16 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

"Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control."
posted by anastasiav at 10:16 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

"Lock her up" being chanted.

TRUMP: "Honestly, she should be locked up."


...and then talk about hacked emails showing her getting debate questions early.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 10:16 AM on October 13, 2016

Sort of surprised editing on the Clinton article isn't permanently locked or at least semi-protected.
posted by Artw at 10:16 AM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

He just said that she has secret meetings with "international banks" who are planning "the destruction of global sovereignty." Leni Riefenstahl was more subtle than this.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:17 AM on October 13, 2016 [32 favorites]

The link to Michelle Obama's talk this morning in New Hampshire (and yes, she's killing it. I've never seen anyone speak with such power, such emotion): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ45VLgbe_E (on preview: starts around 24:30, thanks to Roommate, below for noting that.)
posted by math at 10:18 AM on October 13, 2016 [33 favorites]

Full Michelle Obama speech here (starts at 24:30)
posted by Roommate at 10:18 AM on October 13, 2016 [32 favorites]

wait what
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:18 AM on October 13, 2016

Honestly, I don't think my prediction for today was really all that far off.
posted by kyrademon at 10:18 AM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

Putin really isn't interested in the job and probably does not qualify.

Since we're apparently throwing out Constitutional Amendments willy-nilly now, I'm sure they'll have no problem revising the original Articles as well to make him qualify.
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:18 AM on October 13, 2016

"The Clintons are criminals, remember that. They're criminals."
posted by chris24 at 10:19 AM on October 13, 2016

Mod note: Reminder that line-by-line liveblogging of every Trump rally really blows up thread volume. Consider fewer, longer digest comments if you're specifically interested in sharing notes.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:19 AM on October 13, 2016 [28 favorites]

This isn't a speech. It's the unhinged ramblings of a failing authoritarian.
posted by Talez at 10:20 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

someone hacked Clinton's wikipedia page and it is now very NSFW

I refuse to look at it. But if anyone notices things like this it wouldn't hurt to drop the campaign an email asap. (I've never edited a wiki page - would her team get an automatic notice when the page has been edited, or in this case, tampered with?)
posted by NorthernLite at 10:20 AM on October 13, 2016

People actually start talking here if you're trying to watch Michelle Obama's speech from math's link above.
posted by ashirys at 10:21 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

The wikipedia page was fixed quickly.
posted by asteria at 10:21 AM on October 13, 2016

There's plenty of wikipedians who monitor recent changes and revert vandalism.
posted by cmfletcher at 10:21 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Hillary's page been fixed and change history also says "Changed protection level of Hillary Clinton ([Edit=Require administrator access", which I don't know exactly what it means but seems like the right move.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:22 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

One of the big damaging takeaway from the Wikileak release last week is that HRCs advisors, taking a page from Claire Mccaskill's book, wanted to elevate the worst, most beatable R candidates during the primary. Super-lefties are mad about this because it could have contributed to Trumps rise (though its not like minor media manipulation by Hillary's PR flacks forced DJT to go full El Douche). But how does Don spins this revelation?

"See! She helped elevate the worst, shittiest candidates that she thought would be easy to beat! Me especially! Because I'm garbage!"

Curiouser and curiouser.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:22 AM on October 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

Full Michelle Obama speech here (starts at 24:30)

"So I'm going to get a little serious here..."

Goosebumps.
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:23 AM on October 13, 2016

The Wikipedia hack was pictures of feet (I don't know either) and a banner stating that Clinton voters are "spineless, boring cucks" and that Bill is a rapist.

They seized control of a high-visibility platform and that was what they did with it. The alt right, ladies and gentlemen!
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:23 AM on October 13, 2016 [30 favorites]

Trump saying all the allegations about his behavior with women are "false smears" and that his team has evidence that will be released at an "appropriate time." That the NYT should have printed his demand for retraction.
posted by clever sheep at 10:24 AM on October 13, 2016

The way the crowd FREAKS THE FUCK OUT when Michelle Obama is announced at that NH rally is how I feel about her on the inside. (This speech is very, very good.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:24 AM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

Says the claims of inappropriate behavior with women is absolutely false. Pure fiction, lies.

Now slamming the accusers. "If you look at these people you'll understand."

'We'll make substantial evidence available contradicting these claims at the appropriate time." Wouldn't that be now?

And now saying again they're preparing a lawsuit.
posted by chris24 at 10:24 AM on October 13, 2016

I feel fucking sick. He is going to destroy these women's lives.
posted by gatorae at 10:25 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Wikipedia hack was pictures of feet (I don't know either)

Naked women bending over, from what I saw. The banner o' slurs blocked most of it.
posted by asteria at 10:25 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Talking about the People writer, "Look at her, look at her words, I don't think so."

Saying she's not hot enough to try to fuck.
posted by chris24 at 10:26 AM on October 13, 2016 [15 favorites]

He's saying it's unlikely that the People magazine writer wouldn't expose him, when he was "the biggest star on TV" and it would have been a huge story. Can he hear himself? Doesn't he realize that would make almost any quasi-normal person back down? Saying "these are horrible people, horrible horrible liars."
posted by clever sheep at 10:26 AM on October 13, 2016

Yay! Maggie Hassan is great! She was a great governor, and she will be a far better senator for the state of NH than Kelly Ayotte. My Army man little brother was there today (it's about a 10 minute walk from where I grew up)! He said it was great and he wants to be Michelle Obama when he grows up.
posted by ChuraChura at 10:27 AM on October 13, 2016 [24 favorites]

Reverse Tamburlaine

Ye jaded pampers of Asia?
posted by octobersurprise at 10:29 AM on October 13, 2016

Holly Bailey ‏@hollybdc
As Trump attacks press today, there is notably more security around media assembled here.

Holly Bailey ‏@hollybdc
There is a large gap between barriers dividing between press pen and supporters, in which security is standing

Jesus Christ this is so many layers of fucked up.
posted by Talez at 10:29 AM on October 13, 2016 [32 favorites]

Trump is going past full-Breitbart. He's going full-Alex Jones.

Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories are making his supporters paranoid—and dangerous

This is not a bug. This is a feature.
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:30 AM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

"Facts mean nothing," he says. "Third-rate journalism." & "I will not allow the Clinton campaign to turn this campaign into a discussion of their lies." Says he will remain focused on issues. "These attacks are orchestrated by the Clintons and their allies." Says Hillary "made a fool of herself" in the last debate. "This is not presidential material, believe me."
posted by clever sheep at 10:31 AM on October 13, 2016

"Polls are showing us in a dead heat," he says. Cites Rasmussen poll from this morning "shows Trump two points ahead."
posted by clever sheep at 10:31 AM on October 13, 2016

SEPT. 19, 1999

''I might do badly,'' he kids. ''They know me better than anybody else. Women are much tougher and more calculating than men. I relate better to women. I go out with the most beautiful women in the world. Certain guys tell me they want women of substance, not beautiful models. It just means they can't get beautiful models.''

He does not think Americans would mind a twice-divorced playboy in the White House. ''Actually, I think people like it,'' he says about his racy love life. ''It's a fantasy.

''Of course, if necessary, I could be married in 24 hours,'' he adds. ''It would be very easy. Believe me.''
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:32 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

"highly respected" Rasmussen poll.

My sides are in orbit.
posted by Talez at 10:32 AM on October 13, 2016

Facts mean nothing," he says.

Why, you can use facts to prove anything!
posted by entropicamericana at 10:33 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

FLOTUS is totally taunting Trump, which means that it's probably only a matter of time until he starts going after her in the same way he's gone after every other woman who's challenged him.

She knows Trump and his evil minions are going to come after her, and she says, metaphorically, "Bring it."

That's how to deal with a bully.
posted by Gelatin at 10:34 AM on October 13, 2016 [39 favorites]

I feel a sudden craving to revisit middle school reading list. Way back when I was reading Animal Farm and 1984 (just slightly pre'84, iirc), I don't think I foresaw. *this*.
posted by instamatic at 10:35 AM on October 13, 2016

I feel fucking sick. He is going to destroy these women's lives.

Not via the legal system though; through actions like Lou Dobbs' reprehensible doxxing. His quashing of these types of accusationss has been solely through the threat of lawsuits and associated legal bills. He doesn't have a legal case to succeed, particularly now that the big publications are involved. And those publications have the pockets to deal with any frivolous filings, while I'd predict the public profile and number of the accusations will ensure that the accusers will have defenders (Gloria Allred?) and legal defense funds available.

The doxxing and actions of Trumpists are dangerous, and I don't know how we can stop that.
posted by Existential Dread at 10:35 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

'We'll make substantial evidence available contradicting these claims at the appropriate time."

This is the behavior of a sociopathic abuser with a personality disorder. I know because I lived in this kind of hell for 17 years.

I've seen firsthand this week a good friend of mine with very real issues get extremely triggered by Trump during the debate on Sunday. It was deeply terrifying and his wife and I did our best to help him through it, but there's only so much you can do when he's driving a car over the bay bridge in heavy traffic and I'm in the backseat. Trump is a danger to people and needs to be quarantined from any more media exposure.
posted by Annika Cicada at 10:35 AM on October 13, 2016 [36 favorites]

"This is nothing more than an attempt to destroy our movement." Talks about how the world is in dire straits, cites cash payment to Iran ("cash, in cash!"). Says "our president is incompetent, all he wants to do is campaign."

Hah. "You've seen it, I've seen it and, we're all watching it together" as proof of corruption. Greatest hits time!
posted by clever sheep at 10:35 AM on October 13, 2016

Says the claims of inappropriate behavior with women is absolutely false. Pure fiction, lies.

I wonder, does that claim extend to his own admissions of inappropriate behavior to Billy Bush?
posted by Gelatin at 10:36 AM on October 13, 2016

"I take all these sling and arrows for you"

Would you like some wax for your cross, Trump? Now he's a martyr.
posted by Talez at 10:36 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

"They will allow radical Islamic terrorists to enter our country by the thousands." Definitely greatest hits time!
posted by clever sheep at 10:37 AM on October 13, 2016

Trump: the depths of their immorality is truly unlimited. [real]

Trump's Mirror strikes again.
posted by gatorae at 10:37 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

He's sure pissed that Obama is out there campaigning for Hillary.
posted by clever sheep at 10:37 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

All of this is making me think: maybe this whole internet thing wasn't such a good idea.
posted by Brainy at 10:38 AM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

Michelle Obama's speeches have all been highlights of the campaign. I think it was Jon Favreau who first said that she's better at public speaking than Barack, though more reluctant to give big speeches, and that this was acknowledged in the presidential campaigns.

There's a non-zero chance that Trump will go after her personally, and she wants that fight. Not saying the opponent's name is a standard trope in political speeches, but I think she's at the point where saying it disgusts her.

(Joe Biden has an event in Las Vegas this afternoon, so expect the primary author of the VAWA to have his own words.)
posted by holgate at 10:39 AM on October 13, 2016 [21 favorites]

NYT response to Trump: [15 fire emojis and a Sub-Zero FINISH HIM gif]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:39 AM on October 13, 2016 [64 favorites]

Josh Barro is just killing it on Twitter. He's also registering as a Democrat.
posted by My Dad at 10:40 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

The only thing missing from this speech is referencing "the jews".
posted by Talez at 10:42 AM on October 13, 2016

THAT. THAT is it. THAT is the idea. That is the MAIN RIGHT-WING IDEA. They don't have "no ideas", they don't have "no policy desires". They have one big-ass policy they want, above all else: Strength. Impenetrability. Dominance. Empire.

The thing is, what they actually go for is the appearance of strength, of cosplaying dominance.

That's how you get stuff like Iraq, where on paper it's invading a resource-rich, military poor nation because that's how you empire, when anyone with any sense sees that it's a quagmire that would bankrupt any other nation in human history. Where you use "shock and awe" and pyrotechnics and a fancy show and hope it works

That's why you've got people supporting a mouthy, rich brat who talks tough instead of anyone who's actually seen combat or had to tough it out through adversity. Almost no one I know who's actually been in combat or grown up in a rough place and been in fights talks that much shit because they know sometimes you screw up and sometimes you lose.

The greatest threat to American Empire is climate change. And it's not just environmentalists saying this, it's the military. And yet Republicans are still busy jamming their heads into the sand as deep as they can get.

There is a part of me that loves empire, that is glad of vast and powerful armies whose side I am on. But that part of me even more than anything wants modern Republicans as far away from power as possible before they torch my country and sell it for scrap.
posted by Zalzidrax at 10:43 AM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

The only thing missing from this speech is referencing "the jews".

Well, if you count dogwhistles...

- secret meetings with "international banks" who are planning "the destruction of global sovereignty."
posted by chris24 at 10:44 AM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

The only thing missing from this speech is referencing "the jews".

I'm still expecting him to actually tell his supporters they were stabbed in the back before it's over.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:44 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

"I didn't need to do this people, believe me, believe me." Says he could have been living the good life instead of going through this "horror show." "I'm doing it because this country has given me so much and I feel so strongly that it is my turn to give back to the country that I love."

"Many of my friends and many political experts warned me that this campaign would be a journey to hell." But they're wrong, "It will be a journey to heaven" because of all the people he can help who are desperately in need.

"In my former life, I was as much of an insider as anybody else." "I still know what it's like to be an insider." "Now I'm being punished for leaving the special club." "Because I used to be part of the club, I'm the only one who can fix it."
posted by clever sheep at 10:44 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

The only thing missing from this speech is referencing "the jews".

OTOH, "Secret meetings with international banks who are planning the destruction of global sovereignty" is a dog whistle older than America itself.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:45 AM on October 13, 2016 [30 favorites]

The only thing missing from this speech is referencing "the jews".

I dunno, I think the one thing we really need to get to check off the Trump Bingo card is somehow, someway Trump has to actually vocalize the word "Cuck".
posted by selfnoise at 10:45 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

NYT response to Trump: [15 fire emojis and a Sub-Zero FINISH HIM gif]

Oh, man, that response is beautiful. It leads not with the standard mention that truth is an absolute defense, nor the fact that as a public figure, the Trump would have to prove actual malice.

No, the first point in the NYT's response is that the essence of a libel claim is protection of reputation, and Trump himself bragged about doing the kinds of things the Times story says he did.

Oh, snap!

Matt Pearse summarizes thus: NYT to Trump: See you in court!
posted by Gelatin at 10:46 AM on October 13, 2016 [50 favorites]

need a blockquote button for mobile!

DIY:

left angle ( < ) blockquote right angle ( > ) text left angle( < ) backslash ( / ) blockquote right angle ( > )

makes

text

like so...

or, with brackets for angles, thus:

[blockquote] text [/blockquote] >
posted by y2karl at 10:46 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oyéah: To take a break from politics, I picked a film at random, and watched Fight Club. There were some eerie parallels to the blind rage Trump backers. No escape.

Back in college, a friend and I had a list of anime music videos we wanted to make, but never did because we never even started. Still, every so often we'd hear a song and say "this would go well with [some anime series or movie]" and add it to the list.

In the last week or so, I've started doing this again, except for Trump clips. "Hey, this song really fits Donald's current narrative," I've thought a few times, even pacing out some of the lines. I'm right there with you and Fight Club - my mind is saturated with this.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:47 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

"No other very successful person will ever run for this office." Seriously, he said that, although with about eight nested parenthetical asides.
posted by clever sheep at 10:47 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

If Melania wants to plagiarize this Michelle Obama speech, I think I could support that.

"Be clear. This is not normal. This is not politics as usual. This is disgraceful. This is intolerable. And it doesn't matter what party you belong to...No woman deserves to be treated this way. None of us deserves this kind of abuse. I know it's a campaign, but this isn't about politics. It's about basic human decency. It's about right and wrong. And we simply cannot endure this or expose our children to this any longer. Not for another minute, and let alone for four years. Now is the time for all of us to stand up and say enough is enough. This has got to stop right now. Because consider this: if all of this is painful to us as grown women, what do you think this is doing to our children? What messages are our little girls hearing about who they should look like, how they should act? What lessons are they learning about their value as professions, as human beings, about their dreams and aspirations? And how is this affecting men and boys in this country? Because I can tell you that the men in my life do not talk about women like this. And I know that my family is not unusual."

This is an extraordinary speech. Donald Trump has traumatized this country. Michelle Obama is fighting back, and she's got a crowd cheering for the right side on this one.
posted by zachlipton at 10:47 AM on October 13, 2016 [117 favorites]

NYT response to Trump: [15 fire emojis and a Sub-Zero FINISH HIM gif]


"Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself."

Potomac Avenue's description is indeed legit.
posted by winna at 10:48 AM on October 13, 2016 [27 favorites]

I think one reason Trump is melting down is because he doesn't understand that the only reason all his previous threats and tricks worked was because he was the richest and therefore the most powerful, not because he himself is intrinsically threatening and clever.

Threatening a lawsuit when you're in the wrong works great when the other person is too poor to fight one; demanding sexual attention from women works great if you control their employment and reputation. But if someone can fight you or the women have other options, those things don't work.

That's the deal. All along, he thought that he himself could not lose when he threatened a lawsuit or leaned on a woman to cooperate, because of some quality intrinsic to him. Now he's threatening people and doesn't understand why it doesn't work.
posted by Frowner at 10:48 AM on October 13, 2016 [90 favorites]

re: nyt response to trump

i feel like mr creosote from the meaning of life, only instead of one more wafer-thin mint, i'm being offered one more buttery piece of popcorn

"Look. I couldn't eat another thing. I'm absolutely stuffed. Bugger off." -me, probably
posted by entropicamericana at 10:49 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

or, with brackets for angles, thus:

[blockquote] text [/blockquote] >

Just FYI if you use &lt; and &gt; and you'll get < and > instead of HTML tags.

And I only managed that by escaping the ampersands so, yeah, fuckin voodoo how does that work?
posted by Talez at 10:50 AM on October 13, 2016

He just said that she has secret meetings with "international banks" who are planning "the destruction of global sovereignty." Leni Riefenstahl was more subtle than this.

Is it just me or is much of this Trump speech Jew-baiting?
— Julia Ioffe @juliaioffe

posted by octobersurprise at 10:50 AM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

"Take a look, you take a look, look at her, look at her words, you tell me what you think, I don't think so (making "no" waving motions with his hands), I don't think so "

Trump is literally employing the "she is not gropeworthy" defense.
posted by 0xFCAF at 10:50 AM on October 13, 2016 [37 favorites]

"Our inner cities are at an almost all-time low" because they've been run by Democrats. Again with the "What the hell do you have to lose?" line. There's not a plan in sight, of course. I know he's reading off the teleprompter but it feels riffed. "I will deliver like you've never seen before."
posted by clever sheep at 10:52 AM on October 13, 2016

"Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself."


Am I miscounting the negations? Should it be "...has not already created for himself."
posted by kingless at 10:52 AM on October 13, 2016

"I'm doing it because this country has given me so much and I feel so strongly that it is my turn to give back to the country that I love."

As opposed to the past two decades or so when he paid no income tax?
posted by Gelatin at 10:52 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Is it just me or is much of this Trump speech Jew-baiting?

And the responses, of course, are a mix of "yeah, it's not just you" from seemingly normal people and a bunch of "I hope it is!" from the deplorables.
posted by zachlipton at 10:53 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Furthermore.... Click on 'Source' after clicking 'View' on the tooolbar when you are on a desktop to see further.

'View Source is your friend.' I think Bob Dylan said that. Or quonsar. What's the difference ?
Oh, right...
posted by y2karl at 10:53 AM on October 13, 2016

With these kinds of broadsides and totally unapologetic stance... why is he skipping Hannity tonight? Any guesses?
posted by clever sheep at 10:53 AM on October 13, 2016

"Our independence day is at hand." Jesus.
posted by xyzzy at 10:54 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Well, the Palm Beach County incompetency/guardianship papers can get another 6 pages of evidence.
posted by mikelieman at 10:54 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

This campaign might be the definition of a Pyrrhic victory. Trump's brand has been rendered toxic, and his sexual assaults, tax fraud, and other crimes are finally coming home to roost in a very public way, but at the expensive of normalizing white supremacy, misogyny, and antisemitism. I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.
posted by Existential Dread at 10:55 AM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

"Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself."

Am I miscounting the negations? Should it be "...has not already created for himself."

No, that's correct. It boils down to "Nothing... has had... effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump... has... created for himself."
posted by Etrigan at 10:55 AM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

"Many of my friends and many political experts warned me that this campaign would be a journey to hell." But they're wrong, "It will be a journey to heaven" because of all the people he can help who are desperately in need.

"In my former life, I was as much of an insider as anybody else." "I still know what it's like to be an insider." "Now I'm being punished for leaving the special club." "Because I used to be part of the club, I'm the only one who can fix it."

Journey to heaven... used to be on the inside... was punished for leaving...

Is... is Donald Trump literally the devil?
posted by J.K. Seazer at 10:55 AM on October 13, 2016 [23 favorites]

This morning, as of 7:25am, NPR has officially gone on my permanent wolf-in-sheeps-clothing list, as they aired, completely out of the blue, a highly-loaded hit-piece against Evan Bayh (in a fight for Indiana's open Senate seat.)
Fuck you NPR. Fuck. You.

I heard that piece too and I think you're mis-characterizing it. It is a fact that Bayh has not lived in Indiana since retiring from his last senate term in 2011, that he works for a DC lobbying firm now, that got the name of his street in Indianapolis wrong in an interview, and that these facts are being used against him in the campaign.

I think it's also almost certain that the story swayed no one away from voting for Bayh: his opponents wouldn't be listening to NPR and Indiana Democrats listening to NPR would almost certainly already be familiar with all this. It was a story for the rest of the country on what's happening in a big race in flyover country.
posted by aught at 10:56 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

"Split screen: As Trump says Hillary should be locked up, Ryan's in WI touting "Better Way" agenda pamphlet" --@cimarcos

Ryan's got a little pamphlet. How cute.
posted by zachlipton at 10:56 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

"Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself."


Am I miscounting the negations? Should it be "...has not already created for himself."

Naah. It won't have any effect on the reputation he made for himself. That's correct.
posted by bardophile at 10:56 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Our independence day is at hand."

He needs to pivot into the pre-battle speech from Independence Day.
posted by octobersurprise at 10:57 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Just started watching FLOTUS speech linked above. I love how she rolls up her sleeves when she reaches the podium (after hugs for everyone onstage).
posted by vverse23 at 10:57 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

"Our independence day is at hand."

imma need a [real] or [fake] tag that one pls
posted by entropicamericana at 10:57 AM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

Mr. Trump, you're no Bill Pullman.
posted by cmfletcher at 10:58 AM on October 13, 2016 [15 favorites]

soren_lorensen: The thing is, Evangelicals didn't care about abortion until the GOP told them to.

And abortion became an issue because Republicans were looking for a way to bolster their voting bloc, and saw Evangelicals as an opportunity after the IRS went after the tax-exempt status of "segregation academies" that sprang up following the Brown v. Board of Education decision drew Evangelicals together.

It's all an ugly, racist and sexist con for the GOP.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:59 AM on October 13, 2016 [38 favorites]

Sorry. [real] from his rally speech just now.
posted by xyzzy at 10:59 AM on October 13, 2016

New video of New York Times preparing for Trump lawsuit [real tweet, fake footage]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:59 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

"Our independence day is at hand."

Oh, he's said it before. Farage was fond of it, too.
posted by Devonian at 11:00 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Is it just me or is much of this Trump speech Jew-baiting?
— Julia Ioffe @juliaioffe

The replies to that Tweet are fucking revolting. I sure hope Jack Dorsey and company are proud of making Twitter a platform of violent hate speech.

Julia Ioffe, of course, is a hero.
posted by My Dad at 11:01 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

Huh. I had my big list of links that I posted earlier that make the a conservative case for Hillary/against Trump, and I've been trying to decide when to start sharing some of them on social media. Now I wonder if it doesn't make the most sense to start sharing them right around results are mentioned on the 8th - there's a lot of fear about Hillary, and maybe once the election is all said and done, there's something in trying to get people on board with her.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 11:01 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Jon Lovett @jonlovett
Well, Bannon wrote the first draft, then Kushner went through and removed the word "Zionist" where ever it popped up.
posted by Talez at 11:02 AM on October 13, 2016 [34 favorites]

Is... is Donald Trump literally the devil?

You'd think he'd be better at it, if he was.
posted by Archelaus at 11:02 AM on October 13, 2016 [20 favorites]

The independence day BS is Trump channelling Farage (RE: Brexit) channelling fucking ID4.

Welcome to Earth. Watch out for sexually abusive silverbacks.

EDIT: This is a better link for the actual Farage speech.
posted by defenestration at 11:02 AM on October 13, 2016

I have actually heard about a total of two paragraphs come out of Trump's actual mouth. I cannot abide looking at or listening to him directly--it gives my the fantods. I think, though, that I've read about 90% of his quoted statements, and on top of the purely vile ridiculousness, the "believe me!" verbal tic is really aggravating. Every time I see that, I somehow believe him less, though I would have thought that I'd already reached the bottom of that well a month ago.
posted by thebrokedown at 11:02 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Good summary here: https://twitter.com/aseitzwald/status/786622564995067905

"They" control:
- Media
- Banks
- The Dept. of Justice
- Polls
- Women accusing Trump
posted by clever sheep at 11:03 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Is there a surreal tag? I really need a surreal tag to put around the world after foolishly tuning into that Trump speech.
posted by herda05 at 11:03 AM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

localhuman: Decided this morning that H is going to win and I want to see her inaugurated along with ms localhuman and my sister and her girlfriend. Airline tickets and hotels/airbnbs are still somewhat affordable, so nows a good time to strike-

ChurchHatesTucker: I hear rooms at Trump's hotel are cheap and available.

Is it wrong of me to suggest you stay there and upon finding the facilities not to your liking, you challenge the charge on your credit card? You know, pull a Trump.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:05 AM on October 13, 2016 [23 favorites]

Long after this stupid campaign is over and that idiot is forgotten Michelle Obama's speech will be in text books and will inspire future generations.
posted by night_train at 11:07 AM on October 13, 2016 [38 favorites]

I am really curious how the shitheads square their Jews-are-secretly-controlling-everything narrative with the fact that Jared Kushner is one of the key actors of the Trump campaign despite having no official title.
posted by theodolite at 11:07 AM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

Ryan's got a little pamphlet. How cute.

Let me guess:

• massive tax cuts on the rich
• massive, but as yet unspecified, cuts to social services
• Increased military spending

The Republican Party, ladies and gentlemen, the party of new ideas!
posted by Gelatin at 11:08 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm still expecting him to actually tell his supporters they were stabbed in the back before it's over.

The Trump surrogate on National Review has already trotted out literal "stabbed in the back" rhetoric, in reference to Paul Ryan's waffly condembrace of Trump.
posted by Sauce Trough at 11:10 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I am really curious how the shitheads square their Jews-are-secretly-controlling-everything narrative with the fact that Jared Kushner is one of the key actors of the Trump campaign despite having no official title.

"He's one of the good ones."
posted by Etrigan at 11:10 AM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

Monmouth University is stomping our little Utah dreams. Back to your regularly scheduled election outcome.
posted by argybarg at 11:11 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

>i'd rather pay to sleep on the sidewalk

You're in luck if Trump wins; I think that's one of his planks.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 11:11 AM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

Is there a youtube link to Trump's recent paranoia speech? I'm a masochist and must suffer it.
posted by dis_integration at 11:12 AM on October 13, 2016

This campaign might be the definition of a Pyrrhic victory. Trump's brand has been rendered toxic, and his sexual assaults, tax fraud, and other crimes are finally coming home to roost in a very public way, but at the expensive of normalizing white supremacy, misogyny, and antisemitism. I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.

I would phrase this differently. Trump is going to lose in a landslide because, for the moment, two sides have coalesced and become motivated - the deplorables and almost literally everyone else. People who don't like Hillary, people who love Hillary, people who think the US is an imperialist tyranny, people who don't care either way, people who think the US is the greatest nation in the history of the world - all, all are going to pull that level for Hillary in one burst of collective sentiment.

I did not believe this until the past couple of days, but repulsion is a powerful force that unites people.

Basically, for the moment, we're united in our desire to reject Trump really, really hard, and our other differences can wait until after the election.

The deplorables have legitimatized themselves to themselves - they've named themselves to themselves as white supremacists, anti-semites, rapists and wanna-be rapists, and yes, that's bad. But they're also named themselves to us. Everyone who comes together to vote Trump down is going to have a...a molecular memory of how it felt to, for once, be united around a belief. They've named themselves to themselves, but they've also named us.

Mass movements are dangerous. I'm skeptical of left and right popular sentiment when it's organized around the virtuous family and the virtuous state together. Mass movements obscure important differences and put minorities within them at risk. But a mass movement to reject Trump is also naming and making visible our many experiences with different hatreds and forms of oppression, making those real to ourselves-as-the-public. That isn't victory, and it can be rolled back, but it will change how the mainstream speaks and thinks of itself.

Trump is going to get his ass handed to him, and a huge number of people are going to want to vote to be part of doing it.
posted by Frowner at 11:12 AM on October 13, 2016 [45 favorites]

God damn how good must it feel to be the lawyer who gets to write a response like the NYT's?
posted by scaryblackdeath at 11:12 AM on October 13, 2016 [38 favorites]

Kos: Cancel the last debate

I totally agree with this. And it has to come from the CPD, obviously, not Clinton. But what Trump is doing isn't even a presidential campaign at this point. When you start frothing about international banking conspiracies and vowing to imprison your opponent, it's time for every goddamn adult in the room to shut it the fuck down in any way they possibly can.

Some in the GOP will be tarred forever with their appallingly foolish decisions to support Trump through to this late date, and rightly so: none of them should ever be entrusted to hold public office ever again. The rest of them should get together and make an official unified endorsement of McMullin. Tell people to write his damn name in if it's not on the ballot. Instruct county registrars to count votes for "McMuffin" for him. They'll still lose big league, but they can at least lose with some humanity intact.
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:12 AM on October 13, 2016 [36 favorites]

I am really curious how the shitheads square their Jews-are-secretly-controlling-everything narrative with the fact that Jared Kushner is one of the key actors of the Trump campaign despite having no official title.

I'm even curiouser how Kushner squares it.
posted by soren_lorensen at 11:13 AM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

Jared Kushner

stabbed in the back

Ohh yeah I think I just figured out how they're going to explain losing
posted by theodolite at 11:14 AM on October 13, 2016 [42 favorites]

I really wish someone would do a real story on hacking and its chilling effect on privacy and elections. The very same people who tout "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" should take note of how the Podesta hack has been weaponized against him and the Clintons by using his words out of context. And I am really annoyed that the Obama administration pushed Apple on a backdoor. This is proof, guys. It is happening before your eyes. I really wish I felt more comfortable on twitter--I'd try to ping some reporters about it.
posted by xyzzy at 11:15 AM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

I have now horror-favorited a comment
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:15 AM on October 13, 2016 [24 favorites]

You know what we've been missing the past few days?

House and state republicans responding to the 12+ sexual assault victims coming forward. I haven't seen anyone jumping ship. Or even being questioned on it.
posted by Slackermagee at 11:15 AM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

I answered my own question. Here's the barbarian himself if you missed it and, like me, need more salt for your wounds: Trump in West Palm Beach, 10/13/2016
posted by dis_integration at 11:15 AM on October 13, 2016

♫ I have the honor to be
Your Obedient Servant,
NY Times ♫
posted by Metroid Baby at 11:16 AM on October 13, 2016 [80 favorites]

BTW, the other big takeaway (aside from the Dolchstoßlegende rhetoric, of course) should be that he's using these speeches to threaten any other women who haven't yet come forward. He's not even being subtle about it, he's pretty much saying out loud that he will destroy their lives and the lives of anyone they talk to.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:16 AM on October 13, 2016 [20 favorites]

I don't think the last debate should be canceled. I wish it could be, but I think that the best course of action is for everyone to follow ordinary election procedure, no deviations except those needed to protect participants.

The way it works now, the anti-Trump side is advocating for the rule of law against fascist subsumption of the state in the person of the leader. We're saying "law and procedure and boring shit, not torchlight parades". Letting Trump froth is just one more way of showing that - even if the deplorables enjoy torchlight parades - you can't run a country that way.
posted by Frowner at 11:17 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

Cancel away, I bet they wouldn't shake hands already. If there's a Debate = null outcome I still get paid.

Take that Election 2016.
posted by RolandOfEld at 11:18 AM on October 13, 2016

Basically, for the moment, we're united in our desire to reject Trump really, really hard, and our other differences can wait until after the election.

This reminds me of the last time so many Americans bridged their differences to oppose terrorism.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 11:18 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I really wish someone would do a real story on hacking and its chilling effect on privacy and elections.

Follow Zeynep Tufekci - she's been tweeting about it a lot and has been in a long thread/convo w/ Chris Hayes and Glenn Greenwald for a few days about the chilling effect of treating these nonsense process emails as newsworthy.
posted by melissasaurus at 11:18 AM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

Donnie Jr. doesn't seem aware that the Internet remembers everything you've said.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:19 AM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

Trump is going to lose in a landslide

At this point the question is will the discrepancy be:
A little vs almost no votes
Some vs very few
or A Lot vs yikes

turnout is everything from here on out imho.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:19 AM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

I personally am in favor of letting the third debate proceed as scheduled because I'm assuming that Hillary has some new bait for Donald, and I'd hate for it to go un-dangled.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 11:19 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

I don't think the last debate should be canceled. I wish it could be, but I think that the best course of action is for everyone to follow ordinary election procedure, no deviations except those needed to protect participants.

I wonder, can Donnie concede the election now? Early voting has started.
posted by mikelieman at 11:20 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

You know what we've been missing the past few days?

House and state republicans responding to the 12+ sexual assault victims coming forward. I haven't seen anyone jumping ship. Or even being questioned on it.

I was wondering what they would say if someone confronted them on the video with the 10 year old, where he said he'd be dating her in ten years.

Like how would they spin that? Joke? Locker room talk? just words?
posted by zutalors! at 11:21 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

MSNBC has Dr. Gina Loudon, a Trump surrogate on, who 1) doubled down on the "armrests don't move" argument, and 2) used her experience with working with sexual assault victims to say that a real victim wouldn't have said what the airplane victim did about above-the-waist touching not freaking her out as badly as the under-skirt touching.
posted by gatorae at 11:21 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

This campaign might be the definition of a Pyrrhic victory. Trump's brand has been rendered toxic, and his sexual assaults, tax fraud, and other crimes are finally coming home to roost in a very public way, but at the expensive of normalizing white supremacy, misogyny, and antisemitism. I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.

This shit was already normal, and derived much of its power from its secrecy. Sunlight is still a disinfectant; it's just that a lot of us were not prepared for the number and size of horrible things underneath that rock till we turned it over.

I say "a lot" because women are mostly unsurprised about the sexualized violence, and people of color about the racism. It was already normalized to those it was affecting.

You can't kill this stuff by burying it. You have to dig it out and face it.
posted by emjaybee at 11:21 AM on October 13, 2016 [27 favorites]

Yeah, cancelling the last debate just gives Trump's henchmen the opportunity to say that Hillary backed out because she fears his Righteous Manly Power. She should show up, ignore him, and talk about the $25 billion monument to stupidity that is the Mexico wall, or why rich people should pay taxes, and then lay out some actual policies, and let him fall on his face some more.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 11:22 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I just now got an email from Hillary's campaign about the "repeal the 19th Amendment" thing. These things that keep happening, at first you think they're just a flash in the pan, and then...

Trump's supporters are now tweeting that we should repeal the 19th Amendment because the data shows Trump would win in a landslide if only men were allowed to vote. Before I left the the office last night, their hashtag was trending number one across the country.

I don't know how anyone can watch this campaign season and still believe that women aren't treated like crap. (referring to a generic "anyone".) I genuinely hope that Hillary's presidency will start a national discussion on this, because damn. I too have lost all my evens.
posted by fraula at 11:22 AM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

This is a great fuvking week for Republican women with media ambitions and without souls.

Every new talking head is like next level gas lighting. "Well, as a woman..."

Is there a name for this sort of malevolent self-hatred directed outwards? Like it's a unique flavor of terrible, and somehow it hurts so much more.
posted by schadenfrau at 11:22 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

Is there a name for this sort of malevolent self-hatred directed outwards? Like it's a unique flavor of terrible, and somehow it hurts so much more.

Internalized sexism.
posted by fraula at 11:24 AM on October 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

what on earth did trump actually think would happen with that NYT stunt?

really. i wnat to know what the reasoning was. did he think they'd just say "oops sorry"?

He's used to getting his way by threatening to sue. It's worked before so many times that it's his goto tactic.
He also needs it to show his base (and himself) that he is fighting back.

He has no clue just how much the balance of power that he has wielded all his life has changed. He is incapable of understanding that his actions have not increased it (beyond his base supporters) and that he has lost power. He does not understand moral and social power beyond a bully's superficial understanding and is incapable of forming any strategy beyond beat them till they shut up or go away.

He also is incapable of understanding let alone admitting that what he has done to women is wrong. That's the crux of it really. It's all other peoples problem that they think it's wrong. Donald is always right, has done no wrong and he will scream it to the world in any way he thinks he can.
posted by Jalliah at 11:24 AM on October 13, 2016 [24 favorites]

I can't believe we have a little less than a month to go. That's... I can't reload that much, you guys. Right now the feeling of surreality and suspense is like... I don't want to jinx things, but okay, do you guys remember the news coverage of OJ Simpson's White Bronco crawling up the emptied out 405, with 20 cop cars and a swarm of helicopters behind him? We knew the man in that car was crazy and dangerous and at the end of his rope. We knew he was on the verge of doing something terrible. We knew that, especially for residents of Los Angeles, the extent to which normal society had been put on pause to let him slowly roll to his end was unprecedented and bizarre. The absolute trainwreck that you can't look away from, that weirdly fear-tinged suspense, wondering what the fuck this guy was going to do with every camera in the city on him. It's familiar. I don't know how I'm going to mentally deal with 26 days of this but I'm glad you're all here with me.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 11:24 AM on October 13, 2016 [20 favorites]

This reminds me of the last time so many Americans bridged their differences to oppose terrorism.

Yeah, actually, in a way. Mass movements coalescing around sentiment are always double-edged.

My feeling, though, is that there's a very clear end-point to this - if Hillary wins, everyone will start fighting again over policy. Also, with the War on Terror, we had a good choice ("let's deal with the messy, non-feel-good problem") and a bad choice ("let's get together for some unifying torchlight parades against the terrorists"). Here we have a terrible choice ("let's elect Donald Trump through inaction and division") and an imperfect but much better choice ("let's unite, obscuring difference, and vote him down").
posted by Frowner at 11:24 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

I love the brushoff inherent in the NY Times response. They didn't bring in big guns from a white shoe firm or write a five page document with case citations laying out why Trump is wrong. They just sent a three paragraph response from an assistant general counsel (because the boss is far too important to waste time on something as stupid as this) saying essentially "you have no reputation to defame" and "also, we're right and how dare he try to silence these women?" I'm pretty sure that's the legalese equivalent of a middle finger emoji.

Marc Kasowitz is a real lawyer though. Why is he doing this?
posted by zachlipton at 11:25 AM on October 13, 2016 [31 favorites]

Is there a name for this sort of malevolent self-hatred directed outwards?

In this case.... does schadenfrau fit? I'll see myself out.
posted by RolandOfEld at 11:26 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Marc Kasowitz is a real lawyer though. Why is he doing this?

Billable hours.
posted by Etrigan at 11:26 AM on October 13, 2016 [21 favorites]

clever sheep: "Polls are showing us in a dead heat," he says. Cites Rasmussen poll from this morning "shows Trump two points ahead."

Here's that poll

The latest Rasmussen Reports White House Watch national telephone and online survey shows Trump with 43% support among Likely U.S. Voters to Clinton’s 41%. Yesterday, Clinton still held a four-point 43% to 39% lead over Trump, but that was down from five points on Tuesday and her biggest lead ever of seven points on Monday.

Oh, you wacky pollsters. Reminder: 538 rates Rasmussen as C+ with a R+2.0 means-reverted bias. Polls-only on 538 puts HRC at 49.4% over DJT at 42.7% for popular vote, but 343.3 vs 194.3 electoral votes.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:26 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

_{DIY Blockquote is tedious and requires many many keyboard switches. I'm going to TRY to program a shortcut on this stupid banana phone but seriously why not add one more button to the UI?}
posted by tilde at 11:28 AM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

This kind of feels like a high stakes mash up of Murder on the Orient Express and Wicker Man. Like all these people he has hurt are rising up, and we're gonna burn his ass.

I bet he didn't know he was signing up to be the White Male Supremacy effigy.
posted by schadenfrau at 11:28 AM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

Video: In the middle of the meeting, Associated Press reporter John Lemire started to ask the businessman, “Mr. Trump, can you deny, have you ever touched or kissed,” before being cut off and escorted out of the room as he was booed by others in the meeting.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:30 AM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

Is there a name for this sort of malevolent self-hatred directed outwards?

In this case.... does schadenfrau fit? I'll see myself out.
posted by RolandOfEld at 11:26 AM on October 13 [1 favorite −] Favorite added! [!]

Oh goddammit
posted by schadenfrau at 11:30 AM on October 13, 2016 [70 favorites]

Baldwin's next face meme is just popped up when Andre Bauer called Angela Rye "darlin".

Then Angela Rye said "she's [Hillary] not talking about grabbing any guy by the nuts
posted by Talez at 11:30 AM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

man though now that dueling is illegal everywhere (even in New Jersey), there's pretty much no method whatsoever for Trump to respond to that sick burn from the NYT.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:32 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

need a blockquote button for mobile!

Just set them in autocomplete. I map them to bq and ebq.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:32 AM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

In this case.... does schadenfrau fit? I'll see myself out.
posted by RolandOfEld at 11:26 AM on October 13 [1 favorite −] Favorite added! [!]

Oh goddammit
posted by schadenfrau at 2:30 PM on October 13 [6 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]

I'm. so. happy. right now.
posted by RolandOfEld at 11:33 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

@jbarro:

A woman on MSNBC is now lying and saying there were no operable armrests in first class in the 1970s. And yet:

Included are pictures of 70s airline bench seats and moveable armrests. When your defense rests not on the unimpeachable character of your candidate, but rather whether or not the mechanical barrier could move allowing your candidate to molest an unsuspecting woman, well, this is what yer gonna get.
posted by Existential Dread at 11:35 AM on October 13, 2016 [66 favorites]

They just sent a three paragraph response from an assistant general counsel (because the boss is far too important to waste time on something as stupid as this)

That's incorrect -- David McCraw is the NYT's newsroom lawyer, and this is his job. There is no "boss" over him. His title is "assistant general counsel" because there's another lawyer with the same title who take care of the business end, while McCraw deals with libel suits and the like.
posted by neroli at 11:36 AM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

NYTimes responds to Trump's cease and desist letter. (Twitter link with letter.)

@moryan: from the law firm of Oh & Snap
posted by lalex at 2:07 PM on October 13 [7 favorites +] You hit your favorite limit for the day. [!]

Goddamn it. Can we raise the favorite limit again?
posted by rabbitrabbit at 11:36 AM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

What's happening with women now reminds me of something that happened when I was a teenager. I was 15 years old, smoking cigarettes at the State Fair with some friends. For our own amusement, we were hanging out at the end of the haunted house ride watching people get the shit scared out of them at the end of the ride by human "ghosts" wearing white sheets with eyeholes cut out.

We watched a bunch of kids and adults scream and then laugh while we chuckled. Then came a car with some black kids in it. They screamed all right. They screamed and leapt out of the car, madly scrabbling at the door to let them out. I remember remarking how horrible it must be to go through life with a constant low-level sense of self-preservation that is so pervasive a stupid Halloween joke can represent an existential threat.

I think all of this election nastiness is not only reminding women of all the little and big threats they've faced in their lives, but also reminding them that they've lived their lives at Defcon 3, in a constant state of low-level readiness to defend themselves physically and emotionally from the society in which they live. And as a 15 year-old girl, I didn't recognize that defensiveness in myself even as I remarked upon it while I watched those kids run for their lives.
posted by xyzzy at 11:37 AM on October 13, 2016 [70 favorites]

They just sent a three paragraph response from an assistant general counsel (because the boss is far too important to waste time on something as stupid as this)

That's incorrect -- David McCraw is the NYT's newsroom lawyer, and this is his job. There is no "boss" over him. His title is "assistant general counsel" because there's another lawyer with the same title who take care of the business end, while McCraw deals with libel suits and the like.

He's also a professor at NYU law.
posted by melissasaurus at 11:40 AM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

I didn't mean to suggest that McCraw was a bad person or insignificant or anything, but was just saying that the NYT response felt like a total brush off.
posted by zachlipton at 11:42 AM on October 13, 2016

_{since I usually paste blocks of text to quote, I just made an auto complete of xxx to be the open and close with a space inbetween.}

Don't cancel the third debate. Secretary Clinton should stride out, hands in her pockets and she pulls one out to wave. She can half-tip-a-head-nod in Mr Trump's direction, but no movement to shake or to check the auto-response to shake. If she finds her self starting to reach to shake, pull out the other hand and raise her clasped hands over her head or do a double hand wave to the audience and mods.
posted by tilde at 11:42 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oh fuck Andre Bauer and his drunk-driving, airplane-crashing, closeted ass.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:43 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Can we please not do the tiny text? It's very hard to read. Thanks!
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:44 AM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

@DKElections: It's really happening: New poll shows Sheriff Joe Arpaio down 10 points—and it's from a Republican http://dkel.ec/2e8LaYU
posted by chris24 at 11:46 AM on October 13, 2016 [33 favorites]

This headline in the Washington Post must have been designed to hit every one of Trump's hot buttons:

Facing new charges of groping, Trump lashes out in self-pity and impotent rage
posted by msalt at 11:48 AM on October 13, 2016 [88 favorites]

the NYT response felt like a total brush off

Oh it is, but it's one crafted by the NYT's number one black-belt brusher-offer, not some random underling.
posted by neroli at 11:48 AM on October 13, 2016 [15 favorites]

OK guys, what do we think the actual outcome of this is going to be, post Nov 8th?

-- Trump loses and goes to court for the multiple criminal charges that have been exposed and piled up during his candidacy, incl child rape, sexual assault, charity fraud, Trump University fraud, tax evasion, etc. We have a long wretched trial at which he continues to be center of national attention, Trumpers protest, and Trump is finally sent to jail.

After this shit show, or maybe after he's acquitted like OJ and goes home,

-- Trump starts an alt right political party/media outlet and becomes a screaming demagogue like Rush Limbaugh

-- Trump ends up like Vojislav Seselj in Serbia-- war criminal who rots in the Hague and has a devoted following of psychopaths who welcome him with open arms once he returns from prison

-- Trump dies in jail or on trial and Ivanka/Don/Eric rise up from his ashes like Marine LePen

-- ????????????????
posted by moonlight on vermont at 11:50 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

msalt: Facing new charges of groping, Trump lashes out in self-pity and impotent rage

Holy eff, so good. Below the belt and right where it hurts. I mean, they could have added '... of groping with his tiny little baby hands', but they probably ran out of space.
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:51 AM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

Have they decided what they would acronymize Bill if Hillary Wins?

Lord? Keeps the same letters, FLOTUS
Husband? FHOTUS is not quite pronounceable as a word..
Man? FMOTUS, I feel this one is more pronounceable.
Spouse? FSOTUS, I feel like this would be the best change going forward, as it eschews the gendered nature of the position. One day, I would hope, we'll have a gay president.
posted by INFJ at 11:51 AM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

Clinton absolutely should not back out of the third debate and she absolutely should make this expression for the entirety of the event.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:51 AM on October 13, 2016 [36 favorites]

i'd rather pay to sleep on the sidewalk than stay in a trump hotel for free [for the inauguration].

So would I, mainly because I would imagine that most of the people staying there that night would be there to vandalize it. Not exactly restful.
posted by gurple at 11:52 AM on October 13, 2016

Dammit every time I see “Andre Bauer” I parse the name as Andre Braugher and I’m like, “how could anybody talk smack about Pembleton?”
posted by nicepersonality at 11:53 AM on October 13, 2016 [32 favorites]

Even Lady MacBeth never vied to be King.

And Hue and Cry went out, “this woman breaks the contract, she is wriggling when we would have her still”, and so many were stirred to engage: conjuring scandals about her businesses (for what woman deals in those?), her husband (what powerful man – JFK aside, God bless and protect – would stray, and what woman would drive him to it/put up with it/ever forgive it?) (Jackie aside, God bless and protect, she took up with that Greek but she never made us think…) scandals about her… wait a minute… murders? Gosh. They pitch at her, drunk with unease.

Excerpt from Joss Whedon. Blessed be.
posted by Sophie1 at 11:53 AM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

FGOTUS (first gentleman of the US)

cthulhu fgotus!
posted by saturday_morning at 11:53 AM on October 13, 2016 [29 favorites]

Since the armrest argument doesn't seem to be working, what's next? I'm thinking even odds on: get one of the accusers to say "that man is the one who assaulted me," then say "ah ha! That's Trump's identical twin brother. That, ladies and gentlemen, is reasonable doubt." </perrymason>
posted by zachlipton at 11:53 AM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

-- ????????????????

Trump loses, his fans dissipate like a stink blasted by Febreeze and he tries to return to being a regular businessman, fails, fails and fails some more and dies mostly forgotten holed up in Long Island like Tom Buchanan.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:54 AM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

It stays FLOTUS. Bill has indicated that he'll accept First Laddie.
posted by delfin at 11:54 AM on October 13, 2016 [32 favorites]

Dear fellow U.S. Citizens:

You realize this looks bad on all of us right?

I mean, it's cool to point at the source of the wheezing pus, but it's spraying all over us.
posted by Annika Cicada at 11:55 AM on October 13, 2016 [23 favorites]

I would imagine that most of the people staying there that night would be there to vandalize it

The question is, how do you do this to a painting?
posted by uncleozzy at 11:55 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

You realize this looks bad on all of us right?

it would look worse if he was actually elected to the presidency.

I'm going for "net win" if Trump loses.
posted by INFJ at 11:57 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Hey, visitors from the future! Either the distant future, or from a few hours from now. I'm breaking in here to both advise you and give you permission to pause right here at this point in a very fast-moving thread, do a ctrl-f search for Full Michelle Obama speech, and watch it right now. Seriously, this thread will be here when you get back. And that speech is ... you need to see that speech. Immediately and repeatedly.
posted by penduluum at 11:59 AM on October 13, 2016 [37 favorites]

I found the #NextFakeTrumpVictim /pol/post.

It's archive.is but TW:pol is not a nice place and I wouldn't browse it from work.
posted by Talez at 12:00 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Since the armrest argument doesn't seem to be working, what's next? I'm thinking even odds on: get one of the accusers to say "that man is the one who assaulted me," then say "ah ha! That's Trump's identical twin brother. That, ladies and gentlemen, is reasonable doubt."

It's already out there. It's the 'Look at them. They are too ugly and gross so thats proof I would never have done it."

See Talez's comment above.
posted by Jalliah at 12:00 PM on October 13, 2016

You realize this looks bad on all of us right?

Hell yes I do.

That said, I'm trying to look at the bright side: this shit doesn't get to hide anymore. He doesn't get to hide anymore. And putting his mark on yourself, whether by sticker or hat or sign or magnet or t-shirt, is tantamount to warning the world that you're a racist misogynist homophobic transphobic asshole with delusions of adequacy.
posted by Mooski at 12:04 PM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

I sympathize with the First Lady's wish to GTFO of public life when this is done, but damn.
posted by whuppy at 12:06 PM on October 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

Try traveling overseas as an American during this election. It's incredibly embarrassing.
posted by zachlipton at 12:06 PM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

My prediction is that after losing in November, Trump spends the next several years having his ass handed to him in civil court. When he's lost everything there, then the criminal prosecutions will begin. His "political prosecution" defense will be laughable, and he won't have a platform to amplify it. Any of his die-hard followers that haven't turned on him for being a weak loser won't have the attention span to follow the years of legal proceedings.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 12:06 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

> Try traveling overseas as an American during this election. It's incredibly embarrassing.

If you want to swap for a bit I'm open to offers.

- A Brit
posted by vbfg at 12:08 PM on October 13, 2016 [39 favorites]

Oh my god

A good friend in Serbia read about his remarks about Kosovo and was like "jesus christ please tell me this is him ignorantly lashing out at the Clintons and not some precursor to fleeing the country and setting up shop here, with his Slovenian wife, and buying a casino and running a couple of small cities into the ground, or meeting with his shitty Putin-ass-kissing ilk and getting into local politics."

and I'm pretty sure he's just ignorantly flinging any poo he can think of at the Clintons

but, like. Is that outside the realm of possibility at this point???
posted by moonlight on vermont at 12:10 PM on October 13, 2016 [21 favorites]

Robby Mook press call going on right now:
-Mook says Clinton campaign set to break “vote by mail records in Florida”
-“Really strong numbers in Florida”
-Hispanic ballot requests in NC are up 33% compared to 2012. White requests are down.
posted by melissasaurus at 12:15 PM on October 13, 2016 [21 favorites]

WaPo: The Closing Argument Against Donald Trump, a multimedia editorial on why Donald Trump cannot be President, starting with Mexican rapists and murderers from last June through "you'd be in jail" on Sunday, in case you want all the worst outrages (not counting this week's yet) all in one place.
posted by zachlipton at 12:15 PM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

One day, I would hope, we'll have a gay president.

It is a fantasy beyond even mentioning that we might one day have a president with no spouse at all.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 12:16 PM on October 13, 2016 [46 favorites]

J.K. Seazer: Is... is Donald Trump literally the devil?

Archelaus: You'd think he'd be better at it, if he was.

Instead, he's some half-assed demon of braggadocio and insults. Or maybe just some sort of ornias, a demon who would take half of someone's wages and drain their energy.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:17 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

I, for one, admire Donald Trump's election-long argument in favor of confiscatory estate taxes that prevent dopes like him from rising to positions of prominence or importance on the virtues of daddy's money.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:17 PM on October 13, 2016 [35 favorites]

but, like. Is that outside the realm of possibility at this point???

The only scenario where Trump would abandon his gilded cage penthouse is if he was about to go to prison, so that doesn't seem likely to me.
posted by dis_integration at 12:17 PM on October 13, 2016

The Trump campaign claims the interview in the Serbian magazine was a hoax. I have no idea who’s lying.
posted by nicepersonality at 12:18 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

You don't even have to go overseas. I just went back home to middle Canada for a wedding, and everyone wanted to talk about Trump -- my cousins, my mom, my friends, the guy at my dad's senior center who found out I lived in the USA -- everyone speaking in the tsk-tsking way that my particular Canadians use when commenting on American trainwrecks.
posted by Sauce Trough at 12:18 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

God damn how good must it feel to be the lawyer who gets to write a response like the NYT's?

It's always nice when you have primary source documentation of the precise moment when a person or institution's final fuck has been duly distributed.

I reached my own moment of no longer being willing to fight with people who move right along from one lie to the next on Facebook the other day; apparently, I get a bit Wordsworth-ish when I run out of fucks--

Observe with what grace and poise the Clinton hater can flit from one insinuation to the next; alone in factless space they soar. How freeing it must feel to be so unencumbered by any sense of responsibility to the truth! How exhilarating to pass through the valleys of life borne aloft on a breath of unceasing outrage!

So I'm just gonna cut and paste that whenever I see liars lying on Facebook for the next month
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:18 PM on October 13, 2016 [48 favorites]

TPM has the transcript on Trump's conspiracy theory speech, freshly translated from German:

"It is a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put the money in the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities. Just look at what the corrupt establishment has done to our cities like Detroit, Flint, Michigan and rural towns in Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, and all cross our country. Take a look at what is going on. They've stripped away the towns bare and raided the wealth for themselves and taken our jobs away, out of our country, never to return unless I'm elected president," he said.

“The Clinton machine is at the center of this power structure,” Trump continued. “We have seen this in the WikiLeaks documents in which Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends, and her donors."

The crowd chanted “Lock her up!” in response. Trump said "she should be locked up.”

Trump called the media reporting on his personal life “horrible people.”

“The most powerful weapon deployed by the Clintons is the corporate media: the press. Let's be clear on one thing, the corporate media in our country is no longer involved in journalism. They're a political special interest, no different than any lobbyist or any other financial entity with a total political agenda and the agenda is not for you, it’s for themselves,” Trump said.

posted by zachlipton at 12:19 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

It is a fantasy beyond even mentioning that we might one day have a president with no spouse at all.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 2:16 PM on October 13 [+] [!]

Epi...aww, you know.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 12:19 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

"Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself."

It's fun to read this as snark but it's a fairly boilerplate tenant of libel law that there exist people who, by dint of their reputations and past actions, are pretty much unable to be libeled. Calling someone a murderer would be libel per se in pretty much any jurisdiction but you could be fairly cavalier in your article about Charles Manson and not need to worry about losing a suit. Heidi Fleiss or Larry Flynt can't mount a successful suit about sexual indiscretion, etc.

(I am merely a fake internet took-media-law lawyer; actual lawyers feel free to clarify the above into something more coherent)

So I suspect the NYT feels pretty comfortable with the stance that someone who has spent hours on Stern talking up his sleaze behavior isn't going to get far with a suit on sexual assault. I'd wager they'd be a little more cautious with a rape charge - though in the case of the minor, where it's already been charged, they can fall back on immunity for quoting from government documents - but given Trump's other admitted behavior he's not going to get far with a basic moral turpitude suit.
posted by phearlez at 12:19 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

It is a fantasy beyond even mentioning that we might one day have a president with no spouse at all.

James Buchanan! Grover Cleveland was unmarried when he was elected, but married while in office.
posted by amarynth at 12:19 PM on October 13, 2016 [29 favorites]

Mexican rapists and murderers

See, I still remember when I first heard this excerpt on NPR while driving home from work. I was heading past Gasworks Park, the sun was low in the west and everything was a beautiful golden hue. This nauseating racist comment comes on, and I think, "welp that's the end of that candidacy." And yet here we are.
posted by Existential Dread at 12:22 PM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

It is a fantasy beyond even mentioning that we might one day have a president with no spouse at all.

I actually think this is more likely to happen before a gay president, TBH.
posted by INFJ at 12:23 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Donald Trump's Attacks on the Rights of Minority Voters: If supporters carry out his directive to monitor the polls, the election could turn out to be the perfect test case for voter-intimidation lawsuits.
posted by homunculus at 12:24 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

And that speech is ... you need to see that speech. Immediately and repeatedly.

It's killing me, but I'm waiting until I get home tonight to watch it because I don't want to spend the rest of the workday having to answer coworkers' questions about why I'm weepy.
posted by mudpuppie at 12:24 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Looks like SOMEONE finally got around to reading that copy of My New Order he kept by the bed!
posted by theodolite at 12:25 PM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

So I suspect the NYT feels pretty comfortable with the stance that someone who has spent hours on Stern talking up his sleaze behavior isn't going to get far with a suit on sexual assault.

They also have a ton of polling done over the past year by multiple agencies that clearly demonstrates Trump's reputation among the American public prior to the NYT publishing the piece. You couldn't find an easier libel case to win.
posted by melissasaurus at 12:25 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I actually think this is more likely to happen before a gay president, TBH.

Again, James Buchanan.
posted by nicepersonality at 12:28 PM on October 13, 2016 [21 favorites]

Some comic relief from Aaron Blake at The Washington Post: “29 maps that don’t really explain the 2016 election”
posted by Going To Maine at 12:28 PM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

Try traveling overseas as an American during this election. It's incredibly embarrassing.

Not overseas exactly but I spent much of September in Nova Scotia and the folks there were very kind and sympathetic, though almost everywhere I went people wanted to discuss the whole Trump insanity with (understandable) horrified fascination.
posted by aught at 12:28 PM on October 13, 2016

This nauseating racist comment comes on, and I think, "welp that's the end of that candidacy." And yet here we are.

I had exactly that thought.
posted by zutalors! at 12:28 PM on October 13, 2016

It is a fantasy beyond even mentioning that we might one day have a president with no spouse at all.

James Buchanan!

In some afterlife or other, the shade of James Buchanan suddenly started crying happy tears, exclaimed "at last, I'm somebody's fantasy!"
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:29 PM on October 13, 2016 [35 favorites]

Lou Dobbs just doxxed one of Trump's accusers.

@annehelen: Lou Dobbs tweeting a Trump accuser's address/phone # is precisely why all of his victims have kept silent this long
posted by zombieflanders at 12:30 PM on October 13, 2016 [64 favorites]

The malevolent darkness Trump is spinning is, of course, unprecedented — but now it gets worse. Where does it go from here? He has to escalate; it's in his nature. How much darker can you get than this?
posted by argybarg at 12:31 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

I don't know, he's already encouraged his supporters to attack HRC with violence - twice.
posted by zutalors! at 12:32 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

How much darker can you get than this?

Casually suggesting second amendment solutions against his accusers, or the press that cover his rallies?
posted by Existential Dread at 12:34 PM on October 13, 2016

So I think Hilz should do the last debate, of course, but just let Donald rant and stand there with a bemused, patronizing smile on her face the whole time unless she has a clear floor to speak her own points. In response to everything he says she should say, "Please proceed, Donald."
posted by spitbull at 12:35 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

After reading this Atlantic article about Trump repeatedly encouraging racial intimidation at the polls, I just applied to be a polling place worker for my county. I'm too introverted to canvas (and, honestly, am too worried about exposing myself to the hatred of his supporters), but I can glower at the glowerers with the best of 'em.

(I hope it's not too late and they still have some upcoming orientations scheduled.)
posted by mudpuppie at 12:35 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

-Hispanic ballot requests in NC are up 33% compared to 2012.

I'm telling y'all: Landslide. Expect us.
posted by joedan at 12:35 PM on October 13, 2016 [26 favorites]

> You realize this looks bad on all of us right?

And a damn good thing, too. The older I get and the more I learn about America's long and continuous history of violence and hatred ("America was built, understand/By stolen labor on stolen land"—Brother D), the more sick I get of the "city on a hill" fantasy of goodness and godliness. America needs its collective nose rubbed in its sexism and racism so there's some hope of repudiating it and moving on.
posted by languagehat at 12:35 PM on October 13, 2016 [23 favorites]

> How much darker can you get than this?

Given that there is nothing Trump does without telegraphing it first, my guess is that he's going to

1. walk out onto 5th avenue,
2. pull out a pistol,
3. and start shooting at random.

posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:36 PM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

Try traveling overseas as an American during this election. It's incredibly embarrassing.


Try living overseas this election season in a country where a lot of people are sick of being lectured by the US on democracy, civil liberties, and human rights.
posted by bardophile at 12:36 PM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

So what are the actual chances of the debate getting canceled for real? Because the damn thing is on my birthday and I would rather have actual fun that evening.
posted by dnash at 12:36 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Grover Cleveland was unmarried when he was elected, but married while in office.

And was elected despite accusations he fathered a child out of wedlock!
posted by Gelatin at 12:36 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Committee to Protect Journalists issued a denouncement of Trump, saying "This is not about picking sides in an election. This is recognizing that a Trump presidency represents a threat to press freedom unknown in modern history."
posted by melissasaurus at 12:37 PM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

There has been so much minimizing of minority opinion and power in this campaign that I really hope that there is unprecedented turnout for Clinton by those groups.
posted by zutalors! at 12:37 PM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

In response to everything he says she should say, "Please proceed, Donald."

More like "Please pro--" "OH I'M GONNA KEEP GOING. WHY DO YOU JUST LET HER INTERRUPT LIKE THAT?"
posted by Etrigan at 12:37 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

NY Republican plans to offer black voters Kool-Aid, watermelon, and KFC [real]

New York State Senate candidate Jon Girodes told NBC4 about the event in an email he exchanged with the network about a month before Election Day.
“Ps I’m hosting an event in Harlem which will be in front of the state building in a few weeks," he wrote in the email.

"We will [donate] Kool Aid, KFC and watermelons to the public on 125th street in Harlem. Please join us to help the community."

The district in which Girodes is running includes the historically black communities of Harlem and East Harlem.

posted by melissasaurus at 12:40 PM on October 13, 2016 [55 favorites]

when Donald loses I want his secret service detail to do like the Unsullied and spin around on their heels and be like 'okay you need to come with us now, you are a danger to the president-elect and the country at large'
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:42 PM on October 13, 2016 [33 favorites]

I just want the Secret Service to be like "well, Donald, we're gonna bounce..." and they all go to White Castle or something.
posted by zutalors! at 12:44 PM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

They just sent a three paragraph response from an assistant general counsel (because the boss is far too important to waste time on something as stupid as this) saying essentially "you have no reputation to defame" and "also, we're right and how dare he try to silence these women?" I'm pretty sure that's the legalese equivalent of a middle finger emoji.

Allow me to emphasize the point that zachlipton made, and to expand on it slightly.

The Republican nominee for president of the United States sent in a demand for retraction to the NY Times, his hometown newspaper.

The Times not only responded with the legal equivalent of 15 flame emojis and a Sub-Zero FINISH HIM gif, with that incredible finisher of "we welcome the opportunity to have a court set him straight,"

they

didn't

even have

their general counsel

or outside counsel respond

when you know the NYT's standard outside counsel were fucking salivating at the chance, and probably called up mccraw being like LET US AT THESE FUCKERS. no, they had the assistant general counsel who is not even a vice president according to his linked in, let alone an executive vice president, put together a letter that his assistant probably scanned and then sent back by a secretary via e-mail with a little header of "At the request of David McCraw, Esq., please find the attached letter," because that is what VIA ELECTRONIC DELIVERY usually means.

this didn't even merit the courtesy of certified copy, return receipt requested, or even a paper copy of the actual letter itself

it's entirely possible, in fact, that kasowitz actually sent them a real letter, and the times just e-mailed back.

I'M CRYING
posted by joyceanmachine at 12:44 PM on October 13, 2016 [79 favorites]

"We will [donate] Kool Aid, KFC and watermelons to the public on 125th street in Harlem. Please join us to help the community."

I do not understand how this election cycle can still manage to surprise me.
posted by madmethods at 12:45 PM on October 13, 2016 [51 favorites]

"We will [donate] Kool Aid, KFC and watermelons to the public on 125th street in Harlem. Please join us to help the community."

Huh, so is this like an massive escalation of those Affirmative Action Bakesales the college republicans are always hosting, or what
posted by Existential Dread at 12:45 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Gina Loudon on CNN quotes Gateway Pundit as a source.

Jesus Christ why won't the stupid stop? WHY?
posted by Talez at 12:47 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

I have heard back from my sibling (see above, 1 and 2), and, pretty much what I was afraid of.

Mom's takeaway was that Trump's not a nice man, which she already knew, but she maintains that Hillary is worse. Dad declined to see the tape in its entirety, on the grounds that he had already seen parts of it (more "yeah, I know" than "it's not important"), then pivoted to "but Benghazi / e-mails / Supreme Court!"

Both parents say they don't want to throw their vote away on a third-party candidate with no chance to win. Both are convinced that neither Trump nor Clinton are Christians.

Conclusion (directly quoted from sibling e-mail):

In the end, they view Trump as a shitty sleazeball who never should have survived the primary (and for what it's worth, they caucused against him), but see Hillary as a literal monster. Voting for any old "not-Hillary" isn't going to cut it, because there's only one "not-Hillary" who stands a chance of stopping her.

So, there's my day ruined. I don't feel particularly surprised, but on the other hand I'm crying, so I'm clearly feeling fucking something.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 12:47 PM on October 13, 2016 [32 favorites]

"We will [donate] Kool Aid, KFC and watermelons to the public on 125th street in Harlem. Please join us to help the community."

*blink*
posted by soren_lorensen at 12:47 PM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

I just want the Secret Service to be like "well, Donald, we're gonna bounce..." and they all go to White Castle or something.

On Tuesday night, Mr Romney rode in a 15-car motorcade to give his concession speech at the Intercontinental Hotel in Boston.

He was later seen riding in a single-car motorcade back across the Charles River to his home in Belmont. His son, Tagg, acted as driver.

posted by Etrigan at 12:47 PM on October 13, 2016 [24 favorites]

@davidfrum: “My client only forces himself on 9s and 10s. Maybe 8s when he’s really hard up. This lady? A 7 at most.” - Novel legal defense strategy.
posted by melissasaurus at 12:47 PM on October 13, 2016 [52 favorites]

for reals though the only reason I watched the second debate was that I thought there was a chance that Trump might do something that would provoke the secret service to tackle him.

(I'm not going to watch the third debate, because the second debate reminded me on a deep, visceral level of being four years old and watching my dad after he had been drinking.)
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:48 PM on October 13, 2016 [15 favorites]

This is outrage overdose.

What we need is for some charitable soul to put up a website chronicling all this shit with sources, including "small" crap that gets overlooked , so when Trump and his children start gaslighting us 2 weeks after they lose there will be a thorough encyclopedia of their deplorability, cataloged by family member and by subject.
posted by Tarumba at 12:48 PM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

Friends, please talk me down from this frightening thought I just had: As a gesture of reconciliation and bipartisanship President H Clinton gives Dernald a full and unconditional pardon (a la Nixon / Ford).
posted by DanSachs at 12:48 PM on October 13, 2016

when you know the NYT's standard outside counsel were fucking salivating at the chance, and probably called up mccraw being like LET US AT THESE FUCKERS. no, they had the assistant general counsel who is not even a vice president

NY Times: "Check this out, you motherfuckers know what time it is, I don't know why I'm even on this track. Y'all ain't even on my level, I'm going to let my little homies ride on you." [fake]
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:48 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

"We will [donate] Kool Aid, KFC and watermelons to the public on 125th street in Harlem. Please join us to help the community."

This... this is real? I... what? I can't even... I just can't anymore.

I... I gotta go.

Gotta find a fresh supply of "can't-evens".

Have you ever had a moment where a ton of dark and serious shit has been on your mind for a while and it's permeating your life and all of a sudden some switch in your head flips and you just start laughing hysterically at the absurdity of it all until tears are streaming from your eyes? I think this just happened to me.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 12:49 PM on October 13, 2016 [27 favorites]

Friends, please talk me down from this frightening thought I just had: As a gesture of reconciliation and bipartisanship President H Clinton gives Dernald a full and unconditional pardon (a la Nixon / Ford).

Good luck in civil court and in state criminal court.
posted by melissasaurus at 12:50 PM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

The Committee to Protect Journalists issued a denouncement of Trump, saying "This is not about picking sides in an election. This is recognizing that a Trump presidency represents a threat to press freedom unknown in modern history."

It says much about Trump's followers that I doubt very much they care.

They have grievances about not letting their racist and sexist freak flags fly, but it would seem we need another public discussion of how fascism is un-American.
posted by Gelatin at 12:51 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

you should literally be in the streets with guns

They would legitimately take up arms

"One of the most difficult concepts for some to accept, especially in nations where the transition of power has historically taken place at the point of a gun, is that of the "loyal opposition." This idea is a vital one, however. It means, in essence, that all sides in a democracy share a common commitment to its basic values. Political competitors don't necessarily have to like each other, but they must tolerate one another and acknowledge that each has a legitimate and important role to play. Moreover, the ground rules of the society must encourage tolerance and civility in public debate.

When the election is over, the losers accept the judgment of the voters. If the incumbent party loses, it turns over power peacefully. No matter who wins, both sides agree to cooperate in solving the common problems of the society. The opposition continues to participate in public life with the knowledge that its role is essential in any democracy. It is loyal not to the specific policies of the government, but to the fundamental legitimacy of the state and to the democratic process itself."

From "What is Democracy?", a U.S. Department of State publication.


Although State apparently felt the need to educate and evangelize against more seductive alternatives elsewhere, the vast majority of Americans consider these beliefs to be literally life-and-death founding principles rather than "difficult concepts". Even those Americans with strong religious beliefs consider themselves able and even permitted to balance those beliefs against what is effectively another strong religious belief.

However, these beliefs are under attack in America too. Even if nobody is crazy enough to try to get away with "go to war against a legitimate election result", the loophole of "stop assuming election results are legitimate" is being floated. Democracy itself is being undermined and needs support. It is not supportive to use arguments which assume, not only that the principles of democracy are morally incorrect, but that they are so grossly unbelievable that Americans who behave accordingly must really be using democratic principles as a front to conceal some other more sinister motivations.
posted by roystgnr at 12:52 PM on October 13, 2016 [23 favorites]

The Committee to Protect Journalists issued a denouncement of Trump, saying "This is not about picking sides in an election. This is recognizing that a Trump presidency represents a threat to press freedom unknown in modern history."

It says much about Trump's followers that I doubt very much they care.

Care, hell. They'd wear it proudly if it fit on a T-shirt.
posted by Etrigan at 12:53 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I did a quick news search and couldn't find anything so I'm appealing to the hivemind: has Ivanka made any kind of comments about the tapes or the sexual assault allegations against her father?
posted by Tevin at 12:55 PM on October 13, 2016

I hope the jeers from Harlem can be heard from space
posted by angrycat at 12:55 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

> Grover Cleveland was unmarried when he was elected, but married while in office.

And was elected despite accusations he fathered a child out of wedlock!

....I can speak to this! I had to do a whole lot of research into political sex scandals in 2001 (and I can go into why later if you want), and Cleveland's story stuck out because it was, like, so different from how it usually shakes down.

The child-out-of-wedlock was when he was a younger man and he was in a sort of "bro" phase; the woman was one of the girls he and his buddies hung around with; a big drinker, big partier. And when his opponent found out about that, he tried to spin a scandal out of it, getting his followers to turn up at Cleveland's rallies chanting "Ma! Ma! Where's my pa?"

And Cleveland finally addressed it - and owned it. Basically the same way Hillary owned the private server issue - by saying "yep, I admit I did it. But here are the circumstances, here is what I did to fix it, and I learned my lesson." In Cleveland's case, he paid to take care of the woman during her pregnancy, arranged for a private adoption, and also helped the woman get into a sanitarium to dry out from alcoholism, and by all reports she was also doing better. And everyone reacted to that with "wow, that's....a stand-up guy." And so his supporters started chanting back at the "ma ma where's my pa" stuff with, "He's going to the White House, ha ha ha!"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:56 PM on October 13, 2016 [102 favorites]

has Ivanka made any kind of comments about the tapes or the sexual assault allegations against her father?

I did a fairly extensive search and didn't find anything.
posted by cell divide at 1:00 PM on October 13, 2016

. . . "Blacks for Trump"??

Did you check out the web site?

(it's not exactly readable, but seems to be this guy's latest project)
posted by effbot at 1:00 PM on October 13, 2016

New NBC/WSJ Marist polls conducted entirely after the debate.

NC: Clinton 45, Trump 41, Johnson 9.
Ohio: Trump 42, Clinton 41, Johnson 9, Stein 4.

WTF Ohio? Get a hold of yourself.
posted by Justinian at 1:02 PM on October 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

Trump foreign policy adviser bashes the United States for disregarding Russia’s interests

"Carter Page, a former investment banker whose views on Russia have caused controversy in the past, made the comments in an opinion piece for Russia’s state-controlled Sputnik news agency that was published on Thursday.

“From Syria to Ukraine to world energy policy, Russia remains an essential piece in the puzzle for solving many of Washington’s most pressing geostrategic challenges,” Page wrote in the article.

The U.S. government had shown a “complete disregard for Russia’s interests”, Page said, saying this had fueled a sharp deterioration in bilateral relations."
posted by chris24 at 1:03 PM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

> has Ivanka made any kind of comments about the tapes or the sexual assault allegations against her father?

I did a fairly extensive search and didn't find anything.

I think Ivanka is going to turn on Donald and up voting blue before the election is over.
posted by Tevin at 1:04 PM on October 13, 2016

Gina Loudon on CNN quotes Gateway Pundit as a source.

Jesus Christ why won't the stupid stop? WHY?

Because stupid is all they have.
posted by Gelatin at 1:04 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Just talked a Republican co-worker into checking out Egg McMuffin! Hillary wasn't an option for her as she is very much a Republican but we live in a blue state anyway. She hated Trump already but didn't know what her options were so I told her about MeFi's adopted.
posted by asteria at 1:04 PM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

Is there any reason to believe that Ivanka isn't a terrible person just like all the other non-Tiffany Trumps? She's pretty and eloquent... but that doesn't make her a good person.
posted by Justinian at 1:05 PM on October 13, 2016 [21 favorites]

Ohio: Trump 42, Clinton 41, Johnson 9, Stein 4.

Fucking what? Ohio, naw.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 1:05 PM on October 13, 2016

Oh, Barron may turn out okay. Good luck, Barron.
posted by Justinian at 1:05 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

In her third event today, Ivanka acknowledges the realities of the campaign, calling it "bizarre and vicious

"this is a blood sport."
posted by melissasaurus at 1:05 PM on October 13, 2016

I hope the jeers from Harlem can be heard from space

technically sound doesn't travel in space i'm just saying that you'll only be able to hear it on the other side of the planet
posted by OverlappingElvis at 1:06 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

Trump foreign policy adviser bashes the United States for disregarding Russia’s interests

And here I can remember when conservatives routinely used to accuse Democrats and liberals of being Commie traitors.
posted by Gelatin at 1:09 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

My thesis is not that Ivanka is a "good" person, only that she is opportunistic and intelligent, and her record (as I understand it) until recently puts her more left than her father. I think she has serious political and business aspirations and, if she is as intelligent as I think she is, knows that she cannot stay beside her father and hope to have a future as anything more than a Trump News Network mouthpiece.

Maybe she won't go so far as to vote blue, but I could absolutely see her voting for McMuffin. A business woman who stood up to Trump would stand very tall in the rubble heap of the post-election GOP.
posted by Tevin at 1:09 PM on October 13, 2016

Ivanka looks like a kind princess from fairy tales, there is nothing to suggest she has any attributes that would connote kindness or generosity. Yes, she recommended parental leave for married people, but she doesn't offer it to her own employees.
posted by readery at 1:12 PM on October 13, 2016 [19 favorites]

This might explain why Trump's staff has been caught so flat-footed by these groping allegations:

Donald Trump Barred Campaign From Researching His Past - Bloomberg Politics
posted by msalt at 1:12 PM on October 13, 2016 [20 favorites]

> Try traveling overseas as an American during this election. It's incredibly embarrassing.

If you want to swap for a bit I'm open to offers.

- A Brit

I went to England and Ireland for a bit over a week in early September, and literally the Brits would go out of their way to avoid bringing up politics with me and the Irish would just say "Well at least you're not gonna fuck up as bad as England did."
posted by DynamiteToast at 1:14 PM on October 13, 2016 [21 favorites]

Is there any reason to believe that Ivanka isn't a terrible person just like all the other non-Tiffany Trumps? She's pretty and eloquent... but that doesn't make her a good person.

Misogyny. Same reason for all this cutting slack to Kellyanne above.
posted by phearlez at 1:15 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

A business woman who stood up to Trump would stand very tall in the rubble heap of the post-election GOP.

She'd lose whatever inheritance she might get. Reminder, Trump cancelled the insurance and cut off the medical treatment of his nephew's child who suffered from a neurological disorder that produces violent seizures and brain damage when the nephew disputed Fred Trump's will.
posted by chris24 at 1:16 PM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

Re: Bosnia, here is Trump's statement denying there was an interview with a Serbian magazine at all.

Here is the interview for Nedeljnik magazine, still up

""Bombardovanje Srba, koji su bili naši saveznici u oba svetska rata, bilo je velika greška. Srbi su veoma dobri ljudi. Nažalost, Klintonova administracija nanela im je dosta zla, ali i čitavom Balkanu, od kojeg su napravili haos", rekao je Tramp za Nedeljnik."

This roughly translates to

""The bombing of the Serbs, who were our allies in both world wars, was a big mistake. The Serbs are very good people. Unfortunately, the Clinton administration made a mess of the Balkans" said Trump for the magazine".

Trump wants to gaslight a whole damn country.
posted by Tarumba at 1:17 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

> Is there any reason to believe that Ivanka isn't a terrible person just like all the other non-Tiffany Trumps?

Who here believes that?
posted by Tevin at 1:18 PM on October 13, 2016

Marketplace has a new poll/economic anxiety index thing, which found:

-One quarter of Americans completely distrust the economic data reported by the federal government, including statistics like the unemployment rate, the number of jobs added and the amount of consumer spending.

-Almost half of Donald Trump supporters (48 percent) completely distrust the economic data reported by the federal government, compared to only 5 percent of Hillary Clinton supporters.

-Sixty-six percent of Trump supporters say the economy is rigged for people who receive government assistance, compared to 32 percent of Clinton supporters; 62 percent of Clinton supporters say the economy is rigged for whites, while only 21 percent of Trump supporters say so.

[full results pdf]
posted by melissasaurus at 1:18 PM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

A business woman who stood up to Trump would stand very tall in the rubble heap of the post-election GOP.

She's at the center of the blast radius. How could she make a political career outside of it? She might do very well for herself as the pretty face of Trumpism, the one we are all afraid of next time, but it's too early to speculate on that.
posted by Countess Elena at 1:19 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Is there any reason to believe that Ivanka isn't a terrible person just like all the other non-Tiffany Trumps? She's pretty and eloquent... but that doesn't make her a good person.

I keep thinking of the Northern Pikes song "She Ain't Pretty (She Just Looks That Way)"
posted by nubs at 1:19 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

@Acosta: A Trump supporter left behind this sign on media table in press pen. Shows swastika with word "media"

I guess they felt the need to make the implicit explicit.
posted by zombieflanders at 1:19 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

>literally the Brits would go out of their way to avoid bringing up politics with me

I was also in the UK a few weeks ago and my mentioning Trump seemingly made my English friends more comfortable bringing up Brexit. Our shared political horrors made for great pub conversation. We were pissed, and pissed.
posted by theraflu at 1:20 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

zombieflanders: "@Acosta: A Trump supporter left behind this sign on media table in press pen. Shows swastika with word "media"

I guess they felt the need to make the implicit explicit."

my assumption is that it was stormfront's table
posted by boo_radley at 1:20 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Marketplace has a new poll/economic anxiety index thing, which found [25% of the population is batshit]:

tl;dr: I reject your reality and substitute it with my own.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:21 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

"total brush off" That's the spirit! But remember, wash the brush off after, and check for cooties.
posted by Oyéah at 1:21 PM on October 13, 2016

Donald Trump Barred Campaign From Researching His Past

Dang I guess the idea of using the google before going to work for someone and especially if your employer forbids you to do it is cutting edge magic science technology that only the most effete liberal trash would employ.
posted by winna at 1:21 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

She and Jared are doing ok without needing to kiss up for inheritance. Jared had a bid to buy the LA Dodgers back in 2012.
posted by cmfletcher at 1:22 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

You know, I've mostly been silent during this whole debacle, but i feel the need to get something off my chest as a person of color, and i am by no means speaking for my entire race, just for myself as a black woman.

As a black woman, who is a survivor of multiple sexual assaults/rape as well as an attempt on my life (by both black and white perpetrators), I am sad to say that i have become numb to this. It actually surprises me that this has become a big deal, and by this i mean the whole Trump playbook - from the admitted sexual assaults to attacks on the disabled/blacks/Latinos etc - . This is my lived experience. In my 40 some odd years on this planet, from aged about 5 till the present, this has been life story. From the day a black kid from the Caribbean told me to take my black ass back to Africa because i wasn't the right kind of "black", to the time my white ex husband poured lighted fluid on me and threw a match at me to teach me that we may be married but he is the boss of me...i could go on, but it's not about that. It's about me being weary and numb. This is me wondering why everyone is suddenly making a fuss. Why are you all so shocked that this is happening? This has happened, IS happening, and judging by the number of Trump supporters out there, WILL continue to happen.
I just worry for my 3 black daughters.

Hillary gives me hope. But then again, i also despair, because electing a woman isn't going to fix this, the same way electing Obama didn't fix racism. I will lick that stamp so hard (we vote by mail over here, so it's the best i can do) in repudiation of all that has happened to me and countless other women and minorities. But i'm cynical enough to understand and accept that it's mostly symbolic because in the eyes of the world, me and my black daughters just aren't good enough. I can deal with it, after all I've dealt with it forever - It's my daughters that i weep for.

tl;dr Trump/supporters are triggering my ptsd!
posted by ramix at 1:22 PM on October 13, 2016 [167 favorites]

We will [donate] Kool Aid, KFC and watermelons to the public on 125th street in Harlem.

Oh come the fuck on.
posted by corb at 1:23 PM on October 13, 2016 [39 favorites]

David Fahrenthold has a new Trump Foundation tweetstorm:

1/I've been looking back in files of @realdonaldtrump's Fdn, trying to figure out when it went wrong, and started violating charities law...

2/Answer seems to be: 3 months after it started. These are the first-ever "grants" made by the @realDonaldTrump Fdn in 1987...

[more tweets w/ the proof]

posted by melissasaurus at 1:23 PM on October 13, 2016 [27 favorites]

Fahrenthold w/new info on Trump Foundation: it started breaking the law 3 months after its founding, when it bought a two person membership to an art museum (presumably for DT and a +1)
posted by a fiendish thingy at 1:24 PM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

Thank you ramix. That's... I honestly wish there was something to say, but nope. I guess I'm going to go watch Michelle Obama again.
posted by zachlipton at 1:25 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

David Fahrenthold has a new Trump Foundation tweetstorm:

IIRC, the demand letter from the NY AG was on 9/30... Plus fifteen days... Tomorrow or Sunday, depending on how you count. Anyone hear that he's gotten right with the NYS Charities Bureau?
posted by mikelieman at 1:26 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

So you're saying Trump has three more wives to go?
posted by drezdn at 1:27 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

New NBC/WSJ Marist polls conducted entirely after the debate.

NC: Clinton 45, Trump 41, Johnson 9.
Ohio: Trump 42, Clinton 41, Johnson 9, Stein 4.

WTF Ohio? Get a hold of yourself.


FWIW, 538 rates the Marist poll as R +0.7, so if you trust that bias, Trump/Clinton are effectively tied in OH in a four way. But yeah, wtf.
posted by dis_integration at 1:27 PM on October 13, 2016

Anyone hear that he's gotten right with the NYS Charities Bureau?

The registration type is still listed as EPTL (rather than 7A or Dual) and there are no new documents uploaded, so if they've corrected it, it hasn't hit the NYS charities database yet.
posted by melissasaurus at 1:28 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Don't freak out about individual polls.
posted by dfan at 1:29 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

538 Said Trump by 85% in Utah, today. What??? Who are these people?
posted by Oyéah at 1:30 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Brand loyal misogynists.
posted by vbfg at 1:32 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

538 Said Trump by 85% in Utah, today. What??? Who are these people?

That's the probability, not the vote share. If polls hold it might split between Clinton, Trump, Johnson and McMullin, and whether Trump or Clinton come out the winner is anybodies guess, but likely Trump.
posted by dis_integration at 1:33 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

My ballot is here! And I've seen everything I need to know.
posted by Soliloquy at 1:35 PM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

Newt Gingrich: “Look, first of all, let me just say about Trump, who I admire and I’ve tried to help as much as I can. There’s a big Trump and a little Trump,” Gingrich said on Fox Business Thursday morning in a comment that evoked Trump's slam on Marco Rubio as "Little Marco." “The little Trump is frankly pathetic. I mean, he’s mad over not getting a phone call?”
posted by xyzzy at 1:35 PM on October 13, 2016

Come on, NYT, no "We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram"? You'll never get a better chance!
posted by wenestvedt at 1:36 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

I haven't seen this paragraph from today's rally posted yet:

“Their agenda is to elect crooked Hillary Clinton at any costs, at any price, no matter how many lives they destroy,” he continued. “For them, it's a war. And for them, nothing at all is out of bounds. This is a struggle for the survival of our nation. Believe me. And this will be our last chance to save it.”

That's some scary shit.
posted by diogenes at 1:36 PM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

We will [donate] Kool Aid, KFC and watermelons to the public on 125th street in Harlem.

Oh come the fuck on.

I'm wishing so hard that Luke Cage actually existed right about now.
posted by lord_wolf at 1:37 PM on October 13, 2016 [35 favorites]

Oh come the fuck on.
posted by corb

I feel like this has been your default reaction for a while here, and I'm sorry you're stuck with that. Thanks for your comments. [real]
posted by RolandOfEld at 1:39 PM on October 13, 2016 [24 favorites]

Goodbye, freedom of speech

@joshfoxfilm producer ABSURDLY charged with conspiracy for shooting North Dakota protests; max penalty 45 years
posted by Tarumba at 1:40 PM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

As a reminder, Egg is only on the ballot in 11 states, plus a write-in candidate in 23 states (and, in terms of people I want seeking the Presidency, ex-CIA is not high on my list of criteria). No sense in talking him up to people who can't vote for him.
posted by zachlipton at 1:40 PM on October 13, 2016

Donald Trump Barred Campaign From Researching His Past - Bloomberg Politics

Opposition research on yourself is Politics 101. So of course he barred them from conducting it.

Trump really has no one to blame but himself for this. Idiot.
posted by zarq at 1:42 PM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

Remarks by the First Lady at Hillary for America Campaign Event in Manchester, NH

Southern New Hampshire University
Manchester, New Hampshire

12:34 P.M. EDT
posted by mikelieman at 1:42 PM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

We will [donate] Kool Aid, KFC and watermelons to the public on 125th street in Harlem.

See what i mean? This.
posted by ramix at 1:42 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

Seeing the Kool Aid / KFC / watermelon thing right after watching FLOTUS' speech has "when they go low, we go high" ringing through my head. I assume the recommendation is to go as high as they go low, which means we're gonna need one of them space elevator thingies ASAP.
posted by tonycpsu at 1:44 PM on October 13, 2016 [27 favorites]

It seems to me that Limbaugh is now claiming that Trump had/has consent:

So Michelle Obama's in New Hampshire, and she's commenting on Trump's locker room talk, and she says, "It's not locker room talk. I don't know men who talk that way. Decent men do not talk that way. What Trump was talking about was sexual assault," she said. "Donald Trump was acting out sexual assault, and it is intolerable." Something... You know, Trump said... If you go back to this audiotape, he said, "When you're a celebrity, they let you do anything." How can there can be assault if somebody's granting permission?

How can it be assault if they let you do anything?

posted by tilde at 1:44 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Egg doesn't need to win. If he makes a strong showing in Utah the message will be that the religious conservatives and alt-right do not have the same values.
posted by cmfletcher at 1:45 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

No sense in talking [Egg] up to people who can't vote for him.

Who's doing that?
posted by Spathe Cadet at 1:45 PM on October 13, 2016

Watch Donald Trump’s Reaction After Being Called a ‘Sexual Predator’ in 2006

"In a newly unearthed video from 2006, Donald Trump was referred to as a sexual predator on Howard Stern’s show. Trump smiled, laughed, and appeared to silently say the word “true” two times in response. The video emerged shortly after several women accused Trump of sexual assault."

Can we just believe him yet?
posted by chris24 at 1:46 PM on October 13, 2016 [82 favorites]

I would rather Hillary won in Utah, thank you very much. I don't need a statement vote, and the real statement by voting for McMullin, is that no way will you vote for a woman. That is the statement.
posted by Oyéah at 1:47 PM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

Donald Trump's Honorary Sign Taken Down Outside His Chicago Tower

The brown sign honoring the controversial developer/presidential candidate is gone from north Wabash Avenue. The sign disappeared shortly after 47 aldermen and Mayor Rahm Emanuel moved to take it down last week.

"We'll put the sign back up when he releases his taxes," Emanuel, a Democrat and supporter of Trump opponent Hillary Clinton, joked last week.

Ah, Chicago.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:48 PM on October 13, 2016 [29 favorites]

C-SPAN version of Michelle Obama's speech in Manchester, NH

Though I assume that's not as well-edited as the one linked above.

I didn't hear about the event until late this morning, in a message without a place or time... stopped by the Manchester campaign headquarters and there was a sign on the door that at least had the location... but got there to find people streaming out the doors. :^(

I think I'll fudge the timing a little bit though and some day tell my grandchildren that I was standing in the parking lot during the final applause!
posted by XMLicious at 1:50 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

New video of New York Times preparing for Trump lawsuit [real tweet, fake footage]

Okay so let me clarify that I only ask because calibrating exactly how happy and proud I should be to be a member of the same species as Viola Davis is important to me, because she is awesome.

But has she always had those guns, or is this newish?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:51 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Somebody needs to tell Limbaugh that the women "let him" assault them, the way that schoolyard victims "let" bullies take their lunch money--out of fear that resisting will lead to worse consequences.

Limbaugh and every other apologist for that sorry sack of shit know this perfectly well.

Republican women need to go full Lysistrata on the bunch of them.
posted by Sublimity at 1:52 PM on October 13, 2016 [20 favorites]

Trump Faces Another Accusation — This Time, He Looked Up Models’ Skirts

"Lisa Boyne, a health food business entrepreneur, described a disturbing episode in the mid-1990s: While at a restaurant with her and others, she said Trump paraded women in front of their table, looked under women’s skirts, and commented on whether they were wearing underwear.

“It was the most offensive scene I’ve ever been a part of,” Boyne told The Huffington Post on Thursday. “I wanted to get the heck out of there.”"
posted by chris24 at 1:52 PM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

This is my favorite description of the NYT response to Trump's letter so far:

The New York Times’ response to Trump’s attempted cease-and-desist letter is literally just NYT attorney David E. McCraw slammin 2 shots of scorpion vodka, leaping onto a table w/ a death’s-head grin & eyes ablaze and yelling “Do it, my guy!!! Haha, DO IT!!!!!” as X Gon Give It To Ya thumps over the sound system and I for one couldn’t be happier

Anyway, same.
posted by yasaman at 1:54 PM on October 13, 2016 [24 favorites]

“Their agenda is to elect crooked Hillary Clinton at any costs, at any price, no matter how many lives they destroy,” he continued. “For them, it's a war. And for them, nothing at all is out of bounds. This is a struggle for the survival of our nation. Believe me. And this will be our last chance to save it.”

Honestly, I wish this was true. Because if this is their last chance, it would mean that, if we win, it really would be the last chance for all the white supremacists, racists, Islamophobes, anti-Semites, sexists, and other assorted deplorables who want to drag us backward. And I have very little faith in that. The people I share a country with who want to start demanding papers from anybody who they think looks Latino, ban all Muslims from the country, claim sexual assault is a good thing or tweet pictures of gas chambers at reporters, they're not going to stop. Win or lose, they've already traumatized a good portion of the country just through this campaign. This isn't their last chance to do serious harm. It's not going away.
posted by zachlipton at 1:55 PM on October 13, 2016 [19 favorites]

Hey I'd love for Hillary to have 400+ in the electoral college, but I also have relatives who despise trump but will never vote for any Democrat. If they vote Egg and the Republicans have to deal with the rift in their party, I'll take it.
posted by cmfletcher at 1:57 PM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

So Jon Girodes, Mr. Bringing KFC and Koolaid and Watermelon to Harlem, responded to NBC4's request for comment by failing to show up for the prearranged interview (he eventually gave a phone interview) and texting a shirtless selfie to the reporter. Apparently he got the message from his would-be constituents, because his campaign website and social media accounts have disappeared.

It's one thing when real life makes satire redundant. It is another, scarier thing when real life makes Dada redundant.
posted by bakerina at 1:58 PM on October 13, 2016 [66 favorites]

and texting a shirtless selfie to the reporter.

Classy to the very end, I see.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:58 PM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

No sense in talking [Egg] up to people who can't vote for him.

Who's doing that?

Me, I guess. But luckily I know how to read and knew he was on the ballot here in my incredibly-blue-Trump-will-never-win-cause-we-didn't-even-vote-for-Reagan-state-of-Minnesota.
posted by asteria at 1:59 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Welp. Another Trump rally tomorrow for my job. This will be in Charlotte, NC, where they have switched the venue two days out. It will be in the same venue as the Michelle Obama rally I was at last week. I'll be interested to see what the difference in crowd size is.

Because I am working for a nonpartisan organization, I have tried to trick myself into being objective and impartial at these events. It's getting more and more difficult, and now that Trump is "unshackled" it will probably take all of my willpower to stay through the event. At past events I've seen "Bikers for Trump" with Iron Cross and "88" tattoos on their arms, and "Deplorable Lives Matter" t-shirts. That was all before this second debate and the tape of his bragging about sexual assault. I guess now thy're maybe printing up pro-rape shirts or something. God.

The difference in tone at these political rallies is amazing. I've been at dozens, maybe over a hundred political rallies, for Democrats and Republicans in my career.

This year's Democratic Party rallies are impressive. In North Carolina and in Florida anyways, the coordinated campaigns really have their act together from the top of the ticket on down. The music is super-positive and high-energy and invigorating. The speeches almost all contain a good field pitch, and are all on-message with their talking points. They build a thematic arc that culminates in tremendous enthusiasm by and for the main speaker. When Michelle Obama spoke last week, you've probably seen the often-played footage where she taps the mic to mock Trump's first-debate mic "problem," she was preceded by NC Congresswoman Alma Adams, who called him "Trump the Chump" and said "bless his heart." Gubernatorial candidate Roy Cooper tied Trump and Pence in with NC's notoriously awful HB2 and Governor Pat McCrory. What I saw was a Democratic Party united from top to bottom. That old Will Rogers joke about the Democratic Party not being an "organized political party," does not apply this year. This year, the Democratic Party is a well-oiled machine. I am in awe.

The Trump rallies have been a shitshow. The music: they're still playing "You Can't Always Get What You Want" along with a few other slow Rolling Stones songs. The speakers: whoever the fuck they can get to come out, with long waits in-between. And Trump's speeches have been, as you're all pretty aware, incoherent verbal disasters with no theme beyond self-aggrandizement and vilification of others.

Hopefully tomorrows rally will be relatively boring and without incident. These creepy fuckers are getting bolder and bolder, for instance the "media swastika" incident above. They're holding this rally downtown in a city that has had recent Cop-on-Black Man bloodshed. I'm praying that these shitweasles don't get all riled up and take to the streets.
posted by Cookiebastard at 1:59 PM on October 13, 2016 [72 favorites]

"'The bombing of the Serbs, who were our allies in both world wars, was a big mistake. The Serbs are very good people. Unfortunately, the Clinton administration made a mess of the Balkans' said Trump for the magazine".

Wait, what? I mean, we know this already but Donald Trump has no idea how incredibly nuanced a high-ranking American official (and by virtue of his major-party nominee status, he does to some extent speak for the US in the eyes of the world-- how sensitive he has to be, how much people will pick apart his words and draw meaning from them and act based on...

I mean, did he think at all about what this offhanded remark might mean to Sarajevo, or Pristina, or... ugh. The mind boggles.

I hope Paul Ryan and the rest of the assholes running the GOP never sleep well again.
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:59 PM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

If you go back to this audiotape, he said, "When you're a celebrity, they let you do anything." How can there can be assault if somebody's granting permission?

Hmm, since first hearing the audio I've always assumed the "they" Trump referred to were other people—advisors, peers, fans, the media, the law—not the women he assaults. As in, "I do what I want to women, and nobody does shit about it, because I'm a star."

I'm perfectly happy to be on the other side of Rush Limbaugh's take on this matter.
posted by Rykey at 2:03 PM on October 13, 2016

It's been sixteen months since the Trump declared
Mexicans are rapists and white folks should all be scared.
Fifteen months since he dissed a POW saying
He only likes the ones who didn’t get captured now.
Fourteen months since he said that blood
Came from the wherever in a bigly and unending flood.
Yesterday he was lying still,
And a cold day in hell ’til he says I'm sorry ...

He got his start campaigning as a birther,
Like a flat earther
He tweets out every dumb conspiracy.
He plays on fears to the cheers
Of all the masses with bent gears
Inside their heads who see all argument as heresy.

He can’t remember what he didn’t see
On the TV --
No celebrations when the towers fell.
Later he invented an Iran drop,
Because he can’t stop,
And all his surrogates agree as well.

He lies about his cash and then he lashes
Out at night until he crashes
On the bed but still he won’t release his taxes.
Hiding all the details of his wealth
And using stealth
To hide reports about his health;
Only his “doctor” has access.

How can we help it if we think he’s scary when he’s mad?
Trying not to get too freaked out though we feel bad.
He's the kind of guy who laughs at your funeral.
Can't understand what I mean?
Well, you soon will.
He has a tendency to wear his mind on his hat.
He has a history of groping at a skirt.

It's eleven months since he first made fun
Of a disabled reporter and we all hoped that he was done.
Ten months since his big decision
To ban a whole group just based on their religion.
Eight months since his torture talk,
And a cold day in hell ’til he says I'm sorry …

Feel like we’re drowning, but he’s still swimming,
Insulting “the blacks” and degrading women --
We're watching his speeches with no lights on,
Getting the fright on,
It’s all word salad and digression.
Like some kind of madman he’s so frantic,
We watch his antics,
Try not to fall into depression.

Like Mussolini he can shout loud,
Which makes him so proud.
He thinks that bigger must be better.
The fire marshals all "conspire"
Better hope there’s not a fire
At a rally or he’ll be an abettor.
Totally in tune with all the Moon
Lawyers and soon his blackshirt goons at the polls
Will try to put the “frauds” in fetters.

How can we help it if we think he’s scary when he’s mad?
Trying not to get too freaked out though we feel bad.
He's the kind of guy who laughs at your funeral.
Can't understand what I mean?
Well, you soon will.
He has a tendency to wear his mind on his hat.
He has a history of groping at a skirt.

It’s been eight months since he had to say
That he don’t know about this so-called “KKK”.
Seven months since we all got spooked
When he said that Japan should maybe get nukes.
Five months since he burned Ted Cruz,
And a cold day in hell ’til he says I'm sorry …

Barack Obama will never hear “sorry” …
Heidi Cruz will never hear “sorry” …
Judge Curiel will never hear “sorry” …
Ghazala Khan will never hear “sorry” …
Alicia Machado will never hear “sorry” …
Nancy O’Dell will never hear “sorry” …
Cassandra Searles will never hear “sorry” …
Mariah Billado will never hear “sorry” …
Bridget Sullivan will never hear “sorry” …
Tasha Dixon will never hear “sorry” …
Jill Tarth will never hear “sorry” …
Jessica Leeds will never hear “sorry” …
Temple Taggart will never hear “sorry” …
Mindy McGillivray will never hear “sorry” …
Rachel Crooks will never hear “sorry” …
Natasha Stonyoff will never hear “sorry” …
I DIDN’T EVEN GET THROUGH EVERYTHING, I’m so sorry ...
Like his "secret plan" for ISIS, and oh God, I'm so sorry ...
There's the Trump Foundation stuff and so one, I'm so sorry ...
And his man-crush on Putin, there's more, I'm so sorry ...
And calling for Clinton to be shot, I'm so sorry ...
I could basically go on forever, I'm sorry ...
posted by kyrademon at 2:06 PM on October 13, 2016 [49 favorites]

Hmm, since first hearing the audio I've always assumed the "they" Trump referred to were other people—advisors, peers, fans, the media, the law—not the women he assaults. As in, "I do what I want to women, and nobody does shit about it, because I'm a star."

No, I don't think that's it at all. Him saying "they let you do it" does refer to the women, and he's making the very common mistake of assuming that a woman not really know wtf to do and laughing it off out of a sense of self-preservation is them "letting" him assault them. It's the same as an armed robber telling a pal, "I just take whatever I want and they let me do it!"

Women have developed a whole host of coping strategies to deal with continual sexual harassment and assault. To a misogynist with zero empathy, these strategies look a whole lot like "letting him do it."
posted by soren_lorensen at 2:07 PM on October 13, 2016 [130 favorites]

Women have developed a whole host of coping strategies to deal with continual sexual harassment and assault. To a misogynist with zero empathy, these strategies look a whole lot like "letting him do it."

Q.F.T.
posted by tilde at 2:08 PM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

The Trump campaign denies that the "pro-Serbian" interview took place and have said that these statements to not reflect the candidate's views.
posted by humanfont at 2:10 PM on October 13, 2016

Och, I misspoke. It wasn't a selfie that Jon Girodes sent, just a regular old shirtless picture. He claims he sent it to the reporter because he was angry at her for "stalking" him.

So projection. Much victim. Wow.
posted by bakerina at 2:14 PM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

trump campaign is apparently being run by baghdad bob at this point
posted by entropicamericana at 2:14 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Hilary Clinton: Good for People and for Cats

(I'd quote the whole excerpt here but it's not text, it's a jpeg)

She's got my vote.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 2:18 PM on October 13, 2016 [37 favorites]

@Acosta: A Trump supporter left behind this sign on media table in press pen. Shows swastika with word "media"

Does this indicate the Trump supporter considers the media to be Nazis or does the Trump supporter self-identify as a Nazi?

I mean ... ?
posted by sebastienbailard at 2:18 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Rasmussen's general polling is back to +2 Trump. I thought they'd wait another few days before pulling this bullshit.
posted by Justinian at 2:19 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's getting to the point where I too might need to step away for my own self care. My abuse and assault all happened quite a long time ago and I've led a pretty charmed life as a woman since then, so it takes a lot to genuinely upset me (I don't want to say trigger because I don't have PTSD, just deep mental scars). But these assault stories, and Trump World's reactions to them are getting me there pretty fast.
posted by soren_lorensen at 2:20 PM on October 13, 2016 [23 favorites]

That was my thought too. "The media are Nazis... just like meeeee!"?
posted by saturday_morning at 2:20 PM on October 13, 2016

Hilary Clinton: Good for People and for Cats
(I'd quote the whole excerpt here but it's not text, it's a jpeg)

"Clinton's failure to mention dogs raises questions" lol

Also:
She's got my vote.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 14:18 on October 13 [+] [!]

Perhaps unsurprising.
posted by rp at 2:21 PM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

So Jon Girodes, Mr. Bringing KFC and Koolaid and Watermelon to Harlem, responded to NBC4's request for comment by failing to show up for the prearranged interview (he eventually gave a phone interview) and texting a shirtless selfie to the reporter.

Is he wearing a Make America Great Again hat in the shirtless pic? It's a red hat of the same style that seems to have four words, though I can't make them out. Sure looks like one. Another deplorable.
posted by zachlipton at 2:26 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

TIME: Total Meltdown
posted by nathan_teske at 2:26 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

zachlipton: Mark of the Beast.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:28 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I went to England and Ireland for a bit over a week in early September, and literally the Brits would go out of their way to avoid bringing up politics with me and the Irish would just say "Well at least you're not gonna fuck up as bad as England did."

In a clip of Trump speaking in Ohio just now on the news he said, "It's gonna be like Brexit but even bigger!"
posted by XMLicious at 2:30 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

cmfletcher: Egg doesn't need to win. If he makes a strong showing in Utah the message will be that the religious conservatives and alt-right do not have the same values.

And as long as he splits the vote, HRC can win with less than a majority, as LePage got elected, twice, in Maine with support in the 30s (Samantha Bee's coverage).
posted by filthy light thief at 2:31 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Just FYI if you use < and > and you'll get < and > instead of HTML tags.

Well, a href="ahem," Mr. HiTech Smartypants, I try to put it into Internet that, if not cats and dogs, at least plankton and sponges like myselves can maybe understand.
posted by y2karl at 2:31 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

TIME: Total Meltdown

Weird, the animation stops for me before it turns into a melty orange swastika.
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 2:32 PM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

“It was the most offensive scene I’ve ever been a part of,” Boyne told The Huffington Post on Thursday.

Musta been the only time she spent with Trump then. I feel like that's just the appetizer to his usual displays of awful.
posted by phearlez at 2:33 PM on October 13, 2016

Hilary Clinton: Good for People and for Cats

@ABCLiz (Liz Kreutz): For those interested: Clinton said gifs with a hard “G”
posted by Going To Maine at 2:33 PM on October 13, 2016 [43 favorites]

"It's gonna be like Brexit but even bigger!"

Our currency will crash harder than any currency has ever crashed before. BELIEVE ME. You'll be taking dollar bills to the store in wheelbarrows made of SOLID GOLD.
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 2:33 PM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

@ABCLiz: Clinton on Trump's comments: "It makes you want to unplug the internet or just look at cat gifs."

For those interested: Clinton said gifs with a hard "G"

The un-endorsements are rolling in as we speak.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:33 PM on October 13, 2016 [39 favorites]

@ABCLiz (Liz Kreutz): For those interested: Clinton said gifs with a hard “G”

That clinches it for me!
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 2:34 PM on October 13, 2016 [43 favorites]

Hilary Clinton: Good for People and for Cats

Is Clinton trying to remind people about "pussy" without saying the word?
posted by peeedro at 2:37 PM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

She's got my vote.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 14:18 on October 13 [+] [!]

Perhaps unsurprising.

#ImWithPurr
posted by lefty lucky cat at 2:38 PM on October 13, 2016 [66 favorites]

Well, a href="ahem," Mr. HiTech Smartypants, I try to put it into Internet that, if not cats and dogs, at least plankton and sponges like myselves can maybe understand.

Write &lt; and watch it turn magically turn into < in the preview box.

That way instead of saying "[blockquote] text [/blockquote] >" and thoroughly confusing everyone you can write <blockquote>text</blockquote> and not confuse them.
posted by Talez at 2:39 PM on October 13, 2016

What I really need to know in order to make an informed vote is whether Clinton uses tabs or spaces.
posted by theraflu at 2:39 PM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

@ABCLiz (Liz Kreutz): For those interested: Clinton said gifs with a hard “G”

SHE'S A MONSTER, I'M STAYING HOME ELECTION NIGHT
posted by entropicamericana at 2:39 PM on October 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

Curt Schilling is as dumb as a post.
posted by My Dad at 2:39 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

Written presumably to cater specifically to the "reads Metafilter" demographic: 538: How Evan McMullin Could Win Utah And The Presidency
posted by Kybard at 2:40 PM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

SHE'S A MONSTER, I'M STAYING HOME ELECTION NIGHT

If you download JIFs then it's you who are the monster.
posted by Talez at 2:41 PM on October 13, 2016 [37 favorites]

Fahrenthold is doing journalism in real-time on Twitter again, thanks to people who track down decades-old material and send it to him in about five minutes:

1/So here's the answer...
2/in 1989, remember, @realDonaldTrump's Foundation gave what is still the biggest gift in its history, $264K to the Central Park Conservancy
3/Back then, landowners near Grand Army Plaza, site of Trump-owned Plaza hotel, were asked for a "window tax" to restore Pulitzer Fountain. [ed. based on previous tweets, this was a voluntary thing, not an actual government tax.]
4/So, in 1989, did Central Park Conservancy say it had received $264K from Trump Foundation, a charity?
5/No. Instead, it listed two gifts from Trump's for-profit businesses. One, for $250K and above, from Trump Organization... [photo of their annual report]
6/And one between $10K and $25K from Trump Ice, the ice rink that @realDonaldTrump operated as a business in Central Park.
posted by zachlipton at 2:41 PM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

Anybody else having previously repressed memories come up this week? If you'd asked me last week, I totally would have said I was one of the lucky women not to have any sexual assault in my past, and shrugged it off. And still, that's mostly true. Except for over the weekend when my husband reminded me of a conversation with an old boss that left me shaking and in tears. (WTF, an off-color conversation from the depths of my past? This is nothing, why am I shaking?) And then reading this thread earlier today, I was reading along with xyzzy's state fair story, and jolted halfway through, because, that's not how it ends, it ends with a dunking booth and a drunk middle aged guy in boots and a ball cap and OMFG WTACTUALF ARE YOU DOING BRAIN?!?

BRB, off to stock up on bleach. Or maybe a shovel to rebury these memories, because you know what? I was doing JUST FINE without them. And I have restarted this post at least 4 times now, because I am reallynotok with all of this jumping back into my head and this is very much NOT how I think of myself and oh just FUCK.
posted by instamatic at 2:41 PM on October 13, 2016 [73 favorites]

That 538 article about Egg is exactly why I'm over them this election. He could win Utah and Hillary still has over 300 EVs. It's pointless disaster porn for stressy nerds and, again, creating the illusion of a close race when all the evidence says otherwise.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 2:44 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

If you download JIFs then it's you who are the monster.

I download GIFs while drinking gin once I get home from the gym and feeding my giraffe.
posted by entropicamericana at 2:44 PM on October 13, 2016 [42 favorites]

Bloomberg reports that Trump forbade his campaign from researching his past, thus every new (old) skeleton that pops out of the closet is just as much a surprise to them as it is to us.
That's marvelous. I wonder if everyone over there is just chain smoking Luckys like a Gatling gun right now.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 2:45 PM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

It seems to me that Limbaugh is now claiming that Trump had/has consent

Whenever I start seething at something Limbaugh said, I just remind myself: saying nasty, fucked-up shit is what he does every day. It's his job. It's his business model. So whenever I read "Rush Limbaugh said [some crazy shit] today," I just substitute "Rush Limbaugh showed up for work today."

For some reason, it calms me down.
posted by PlusDistance at 2:46 PM on October 13, 2016 [31 favorites]

It's getting to the point where I too might need to step away for my own self care. My abuse and assault all happened quite a long time ago and I've led a pretty charmed life as a woman since then, so it takes a lot to genuinely upset me (I don't want to say trigger because I don't have PTSD, just deep mental scars). But these assault stories, and Trump World's reactions to them are getting me there pretty fast.

I'm with you about recognizing that tuning out for the next four weeks (and closing this tab, dammit) is probably the healthy choice and the one most conducive to my increasing need for self-care. At the same time, I am honestly too frightened to turn away from it, kind of like how when you encounter a bear while hiking you're not supposed to take your eyes off of it, because it's when you're not looking that it will pounce. (Bears? Or is it mountain lions. Or maybe it's tigers, except I've never hiked anywhere with real tigers, so I don't think that's it.)

This one is scaring me, beyond the state of hyper-vigilance I'm in because of the prevalence and the volume of the sexual assault conversations (and the descriptions of the allegations). It's doing me harm -- I know that, and I feel it, and it would probably be best just to hide from it -- but hiding from it also feels dangerous.

Those are the choices -- hide from it, or listen to it while it literally has an effect on the way you feel physically. And those are two sucky choices, I tell you what.
posted by mudpuppie at 2:48 PM on October 13, 2016 [26 favorites]

@ABCLiz (Liz Kreutz): For those interested: Clinton said gifs with a hard “G”

Hard G? Get out of here.
All you out there who don't speak Dutch wouldn't know a hard G if it danced on a grand piano in a purple tutu, singing 'I'm a hard G, I'm a hard G'.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:50 PM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

I download GIFs while drinking gin once I get home from the gym and feeding my giraffe.

Giraffes make terrible jraphic designers though. All hoof. No heart.
posted by downtohisturtles at 2:50 PM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

New footage of breaking events just outside Trump's closet... [fake]
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 2:51 PM on October 13, 2016

I call them GrInFos, myself.
posted by Existential Dread at 2:52 PM on October 13, 2016

NPR reporter Asma Khalid (@asmamk):
1/ And I would say - for me one of the most helpful indicators in understanding a political climate is how I'm treated by folks around town
2/ That's something white journos don't get to experience. And it's powerful.
3/ Generally, I'm treated kindly by Rs and Ds, once we get to talking, but first impressions aren't always kind.
4/ And on this latest trip to OH, I was out with a canvasser - recording door knocking interactions. Something I've done before other places
5/ And something that has never ever happened before -- a woman started yelling at me - said she didn't want any MUSLIMS on her property.
6/ Her daughter seemed apologetic and the canvasser continued talking to her daughter. I was recording - and have it all on tape.
7/ But the point is. This has NEVER happened before. Not like this. And I share - cause it's helpful in understanding the political climate
posted by melissasaurus at 2:52 PM on October 13, 2016 [93 favorites]

She's got my vote.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 14:18 on October 13 [+] [!]

Perhaps unsurprising.

#ImWithPurr
posted by lefty lucky cat at 2:38 PM on October 13 [2 favorites +] [!]

I'm sorry, I had to.
posted by ultranos at 2:53 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

I download GIFs while drinking gin once I get home from the gym and feeding my giraffe.

And giggling, I giddley download GIFs while wearing gingham and keeping an eye on my gieger counter, drinking a gimlet and eating turkey gizzards.
posted by newpotato at 3:00 PM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

GIF rhymes with "knife," right?
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:00 PM on October 13, 2016 [37 favorites]

Maybe we can stop clogging up the thread with GIF jokes, amusing as they are? It's already lo-o-o-ong.
posted by languagehat at 3:02 PM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

♫ You can't always gif what you want ♪
posted by localhuman at 3:07 PM on October 13, 2016 [50 favorites]

It is a fantasy beyond even mentioning that we might one day have a president with no spouse at all.

FBFFOTUS
posted by salix at 3:15 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

New Fox News national poll:

Clinton 45
Trump 38
Johnson 7

In head-to-head, Clinton leads 49-41 [tweet; link; full results]

I officially hate 41% of likely voters.
posted by melissasaurus at 3:15 PM on October 13, 2016 [28 favorites]

Hypervigilance. Thanks mudpuppy, it's the word I've been searching for all week.
posted by Sophie1 at 3:15 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

FFWBOTUS
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:20 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

Need to tune out for a while, give me a heads-up when the Trump followers open a gate and try to wake the sleeper in the pyramid.
posted by strange chain at 3:21 PM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

Field report: calling local Ds again. I'm considered a vet at this point so they had me working on partially completed lists that might confuse newbies. I managed two new volunteers for a total of eight. It's striking how almost everyone is supporting Hillary strongly. "Have you seen Trump on TV?!" one gentleman asked me. Yes, sir, yes I have.

Side note, I'm comfortable enough now I can read these threads while the phone rings.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 3:26 PM on October 13, 2016 [40 favorites]

If you don't think this is the face of the Trump movement, you're deluded. This shit is only going to get worse. (tw, anti-Semitism)
posted by OverlappingElvis at 3:28 PM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

If any of you are looking to support a downticket dem, please PLEASE Jason Kander. He's running against incumbent Roy Blunt who hasn't denounced Trump and a lot of Missouri doesn't really seem to mind.
posted by asockpuppet at 3:36 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

In my class tonight:

(My laptop sometimes makes a really loud and long beeping noise when it starts up)

Me: "Sorry all my laptop may make an awful sound when it's starting up. Just a warning"

Classmate: "No problem. As long as it doesn't sound like a certain gross blowhard politician it's okay".

He's everywhere!! There is no escape.
posted by Jalliah at 3:36 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

> If you don't think this is the face of the Trump movement, you're deluded. This shit is only going to get worse. (tw, anti-Semitism)

So Pax Dickinson is still a terrible person, and proud of it. Good to know.
posted by rtha at 3:37 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Tweet: Vanity Fair: Donald Trump’s Advice for Seducing Women in 2010 - “Move Forward, Even if You Get Smacked“ (article) (1:34 YouTube video). 'Move forward, even if you get smacked, move forward' is at around 1:25.

In an appearance on Fox and Friends in 2010, Trump boasted that the best way to win over a woman is to “move forward, even if you get smacked”.

posted by cashman at 3:40 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

[Chicago] Tribune archive: Trump once told 14-year-old girls, 'In a couple of years, I'll be dating you'
posted by zombieflanders at 3:41 PM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

And for people who cannot watch the video at the moment, Trump's words are better transcribed as "Move. Forward. Even if you get smacked - Move. Forward."
posted by cashman at 3:42 PM on October 13, 2016

So Pax Dickinson is still a terrible person, and proud of it. Good to know.

You mean I attracted the baleful gaze of a hate celebrity? Well that's certainly something.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 3:44 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Pax Dickinson is still a terrible person, and proud of it.

He's working with (also) profoundly nasty person Chuck Johnson, and raised $10k for Kathy Shelton to fly to the debate. So yeah, human garbage.
posted by holgate at 3:46 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I wonder what the events of the last week are doing to the likely voter models.
posted by humanfont at 3:53 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

I storified Todd Zwillich's tweet storm about Trump's FL speech.
posted by Talez at 3:53 PM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

similar samples looped.

"Those females are strong as hell"
posted by Annika Cicada at 3:53 PM on October 13, 2016 [22 favorites]

Newt Gingrich: “Look, first of all, let me just say about Trump, who I admire and I’ve tried to help as much as I can. There’s a big Trump and a little Trump....”

Great, now I've got the mental image of Newt and Trump both naked in a locker room together slapping each other's asses with towels or something.

Yes I went for the dick joke I am sorry I cannot always go high when they go low
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:56 PM on October 13, 2016 [15 favorites]

What's in your wallet? [real]
posted by OverlappingElvis at 3:56 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

He's working with (also) profoundly nasty person Chuck Johnson

The Rage Furby. The Rage Furby is working with the Trump scampaign. IIRC, he was involved with getting Broaddrick et al. to the last debate.
posted by octobersurprise at 3:58 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

What's in your wallet? [real]

That tweet says $49, yesterday it was $35. What kind of scam is this now?

For comparison, the Woman Card could be yours for a $1 donation if you wanted.
posted by zachlipton at 4:00 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

I wonder what the events of the last week are doing to the likely voter models.

I'd expect that the soft Trump support is plummeting - some of them are going to vote Johnson or write-in a nominee, but many are going to stay away in disgust.

Trump could have had a real shot, if he had been able to keep up his post-convention pivot to acting like a normal candidate for more than 5 days. It's scary to consider where the polls would be now if he had. Would the revelation of the grabbing comment had such an effect? Would leadership have been afraid to desert him? Would victims have felt empowered to speak?
posted by thelonius at 4:02 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Reminder to NYC residents - tomorrow is the last day to register to vote in the general election AND it is also the deadline to declare a party preference if you want to vote in the mayoral primary next year.
posted by melissasaurus at 4:02 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Canadian court rules Trump can face claims in Toronto tower case:

In the Court of Appeal for Ontario ruling published on Thursday, Justice Paul Rouleau dismissed claims against Trump and two associates for misrepresentation and breach of a ruling by a securities regulator.

However, the judge said it was unfair for the original ruling to dismiss claims "based on oppression, collusion, or breach of fiduciary duties," and said these can still be heard in court.

Trump "is still a defendant in this action...and he can still be held liable to these people for damages," said Mitchell Wine, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

"This court said you're still very much part of this thing, and you still have to answer to all of these allegations other than the two that the court considered in this decision."

The ruling also said Talon must pay damages to one buyer for "negligent misrepresentation" and another sale must be rescinded.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:05 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm trying to select words other than "trump" in all of the circumstances I'd have used that word. Anyone else experiencing this? What words are you using? "Edges" and "frustrates" are the main ones I choose.
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:06 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Defeats, outweighs, matters more than, farts...
posted by saturday_morning at 4:09 PM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

538 seems pretty clearly to be outlining an edge scenario, and I think it's just having fun with it at this point. Nobody thinks seriously that Evan McMullin is going to win. But I love that we are getting shamelessly pandered to.
posted by corb at 4:09 PM on October 13, 2016 [15 favorites]

I know I mentioned it upthread, but my PTSD is getting all riled up though some of it may have to do with current life circumstances ( going to my hometown, seeing parts of my family I cut off years ago because I was too messed up to even try to parse safe from unsafe, trying to avoid seeing perpitrator funzies because while I think these people are okay hypervigilance is a piece of shit).

The part that gets me and chills me to the bone is that Trump defines everything through his own experiences. It has absolutely nothing to do with anyone else, thoughts opinions or fact. He can't obtain consent because he is not even remotely concerned enough with others to even try, and his thoughts are his own justification of 'concent' for others, not what the survivors of his encounters think, feel, lived, said, or did. It never even remotely mattered.

My abuser went to great lengths to create concent in his head for me, and will not see anything he did as wrong. When his mental hullahooping cold not find an excuse, he'd 'ask' me- a child for permission- to do whatever it was. Saying no was justification for punishment until I changed my mind, saying yes meant I wanted it and everything was perfect in his mind. To me it was all the same- terrifying, and dehumanizing.
posted by AlexiaSky at 4:11 PM on October 13, 2016 [35 favorites]

I think all of this election nastiness is not only reminding women of all the little and big threats they've faced in their lives, but also reminding them that they've lived their lives at Defcon 3, in a constant state of low-level readiness to defend themselves physically and emotionally from the society in which they live. And as a 15 year-old girl, I didn't recognize that defensiveness in myself even as I remarked upon it while I watched those kids run for their lives.

This. So much this.

Thank you xyzzy for identifying part of why I feel like I've been in a near constant panic attack since Sunday. It's like realizing that the air you have been breathing isn't just a little stinky, but fucking toxic, killing you just a little bit at a time. And now you know, but you still have to keep breathing.
posted by The Shoodoonoof at 4:15 PM on October 13, 2016 [40 favorites]

Katy Tur tying to square the Trumpists circle and coming up empty.

"They say 'everyone says stuff like this,' and then when I ask them if they've ever said anything like what Trump said, they say 'of course not, don't be stupid.'"

And then she just looks so bewildered.

I'm so sorry for everyone who's beentriggered by this flaming shitnado of a candidacy.
posted by schadenfrau at 4:18 PM on October 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

It is a fantasy beyond even mentioning that we might one day have a president with no spouse at all.

President Andrew Shepherd was a widower.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:18 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

One of the few good things about this campaign is going to be the complete reversal of the use of “trumped” in playing cards, from meaning the best to meaning the absolute worst.

One of the bad things, surely? “Trump” is a perfectly cromulent word that’s getting ruined one day at a time.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:22 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I just realized that we did have a single person as the head of the executive once. Virginia's named after her
posted by tivalasvegas at 4:22 PM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

Melania's lawyers sent a retraction demand to People magazine. [link to tweet w image of letter]
posted by melissasaurus at 4:23 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Cory Booker isn't married! I have high hopes for him.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:23 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

ADL comes out against Trump's international global banking conspiracy talk.

@JGreenblattADL: .@TeamTrump should avoid rhetoric&tropes that historically have been used ag. Jews & still spur #antisemitism. Lets keep hate out of cmpgn

The tweet and quote in question:

@TeamTrump: "@HillaryClinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich" her donors. - DJT
posted by chris24 at 4:23 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

If you need a little fun in your life, this weeks Ciquizza podcast features David Fahrenthold. It is a topical news/trivia game show and it turns out that Fahrenthold is not only a damn fine journalist he is also a trivia god.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:28 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

>Melania's lawyers sent a retraction demand to People magazine. [link to tweet w image of letter]

[link to tweet w image of letter and top comment which includes the phrase "your husband is an adulterous hamglob"]
posted by Sing Or Swim at 4:29 PM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

Melania's lawyers sent a retraction demand to People magazine. [link to tweet w image of letter]

This makes no sense. It's not Trump's lawyers demanding a retraction on the claims he assaulted People's reporter, but Melania's lawyers demanding a retraction on the claims that she ran into the reporter on the street and said hi. Even if that part of the story was made up out of whole cloth, and there's no reason to think it was, how can that be defamatory?
posted by zachlipton at 4:30 PM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

Lets keep hate out of cmpgn

Well the horse is a little bit out of the fucking barn on that one, ADL
posted by saturday_morning at 4:30 PM on October 13, 2016 [20 favorites]

It is a fantasy beyond even mentioning that we might one day have a president with no spouse at all.

You misspelled "religion".
posted by madmethods at 4:32 PM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

erm, why is Biden saying that some senators talk the way Trump does w/r/t sexual assault. I mean, maybe he's doing the best to unveil aspects of the rape culture, but it seems that saying "senators do it" I don't know, dignifies, the conduct even if he says "and it's wrong for them to do so" after it.
posted by angrycat at 4:32 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

NOT FRIENDS

NEVER FRIENDS

NOT EVEN FRIENDLY

that letter is savage!
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:32 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

And Melania's lawyer is Thiel-funded Gawker-slaughterer Charles Harder. I hope People's counsel simply Arkell vs Pressdram's him. (Harder is arguing that an encounter between Melania and Stoynoff after the alleged assault by Donald Trump did not take place, not that the assault itself never happened.)
posted by holgate at 4:33 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

In news that is awesome and not terrible, looks like Ana Navarro will be on the Daily Show tonight.
posted by corb at 4:34 PM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

Dark post-election thoughts from Chris Arnade:

Prepare for this: 80% chance Trump won’t accept loss and will incite his voters with claims of fraud with blacks/immigrants as scapegoats. What becomes of this on election night is hard to exactly know. There is no tradition in US of violence following an announced outcome, and there is little reason to believe there will be.
Yet the longer consequences of all of this is truly damning.

posted by gwint at 4:34 PM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

erm, why is Biden saying that some senators talk the way Trump does w/r/t sexual assault. I mean, maybe he's doing the best to unveil aspects of the rape culture, but it seems that saying "senators do it" I don't know, dignifies, the conduct even if he says "and it's wrong for them to do so" after it.
posted by angrycat at 4:32 PM on October 13 [+] [!]

Um why isn't he telling us which senators
posted by schadenfrau at 4:35 PM on October 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

It's not Trump's lawyers demanding a retraction on the claims he assaulted People's reporter, but Melania's lawyers demanding a retraction on the claims that she ran into the reporter on the street and said hi. Even if that part of the story was made up out of whole cloth, and there's no reason to think it was, how can that be defamatory?

Yeah, I'm not seeing any allegation that the "false" statements actually caused any actual harm - and can't really think of how those statements could cause harm (other than w/in Melania's own marriage). If anything, it praises Melania - she's nice and friendly and cares for her child, even though her husband is a depraved racist sexual predator.
posted by melissasaurus at 4:37 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Woooo... my ballot came today.

I'm torn - I can vote now and get it over with, but there's a part of me that - for Presidential elections likes to vote in person. What to do.. what to do.
posted by drewbage1847 at 4:37 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

This makes no sense. It's not Trump's lawyers demanding a retraction on the claims he assaulted People's reporter, but Melania's lawyers demanding a retraction on the claims that she ran into the reporter on the street and said hi. Even if that part of the story was made up out of whole cloth, and there's no reason to think it was, how can that be defamatory?

Well Hillary has been vilified for doing exactly the same thing with Juanita Broaddrick...
posted by acidic at 4:37 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

TPM has put together a timeline of sexual misconduct allegations against Trump with everything in one place.
posted by zachlipton at 4:38 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

Melania’s lawyers sent a retraction demand to People magazine. [link to tweet w image of letter]

@MatthewKatz: This was mailed to the wrong address - we (Time Inc.) moved downtown in November
posted by Going To Maine at 4:38 PM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

Just look at what the corrupt establishment has done to our cities like Detroit, Flint, Michigan

you fucking idiot bastard, donnie. that's your boy ricky republican that did that shit to flint, you lying piece of orange condom
posted by pyramid termite at 4:39 PM on October 13, 2016 [15 favorites]

Has someone asked Pence why his running mate's speech sounds like Golovinski with the word "zion" edited out?
posted by Talez at 4:40 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

such a fool i was, i thought this election was exhausting during the conventions.

my poor parasympathetic nervous system cannae take much more o this, cap'n
posted by murphy slaw at 4:41 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I think that Trump won't actively contest the election results once it's over (assuming it's not close). The reason for this is that his 'arrest-proof' status mostly goes away if he loses by enough to convince most people he's really done, so if he keeps making threats and inciting violence after that point, there's little reason not to arrest him (the people that would upset are the same ones he's inciting anyway). I think he either knows that or will be told that by someone, and isn't personally dumb enough to do it regardless.
posted by Mitrovarr at 4:42 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

President Andrew Shepherd was a widower.

Wait what *googles* ohhhh a movie, I thought I had stumbled into a different timeline again. Either that or had a way worse memory for American history than I thought.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 4:42 PM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

Adam Steinbaugh: "This is the southern strategy that led to NYT v. Sullivan: pick minor, irrelevant errors and use it to grind journalists with legal process."
posted by holgate at 4:44 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm torn - I can vote now and get it over with, but there's a part of me that - for Presidential elections likes to vote in person. What to do.. what to do.

I spent half my volunteer time trying to get people to request and return mail in ballots.

Just sayin'.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:46 PM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

Prepare for this: 80% chance Trump won’t accept loss and will incite his voters with claims of fraud with blacks/immigrants as scapegoats.

I think this is the second-best thing about Trump starting his civil war with the Republican establishment (after, of course, Paul Ryan squirming in his own soiled diaper) -- now there's a chance that it's the GOP that ends up bearing the brunt of the "stabbed in the back" repercussions instead of immigrants and minorities.

Less likely to result in street violence; more likely to result in a few cycles of electoral Nirvana for Dems.
posted by saturday_morning at 4:46 PM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

PEOPLE we need a hashtag.

Prepare for this: 80% chance Trump won’t accept loss and will incite his voters with claims of fraud with blacks/immigrants as scapegoats.

We post, twit, and / or 'gram something along the lines of:

"I, a fully qualified citizen, voted today in [two letter state abbreviation]. I did not vote Trump. #appropriatehashtag"

#toolegit
#numbersdontlie
#votednevertrump
#dumpedthetrump
#itsoverdonald
#firedonald
#pussyvoted
posted by tilde at 4:47 PM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

Columbia Journalism Review interview w/ Lucia Graves (Guardian reporter who broke the Jill Harth story months ago):

Were you frustrated your story didn’t receive more attention?

Extremely frustrated. I think that a lot of reporters, a lot of places in journalism, are maddeningly tone deaf on this issue. I think there’s a dismissiveness, generally, that is upsetting.

I was also upset that, when the story came out, I received zero media requests about it. Even the radio segment that I was booked on didn’t really want to spend too much with me on it because it “hadn’t gotten traction,” as the host put it.

Why do you think people are willing to listen now in a way that they weren’t during the summer?

Because a man said it. Because Trump came out in leaked video and said, in so many words, that sexual assault is something that he does regularly. He was bragging about it on the record. And that is what it took.

It wasn’t any woman saying it; it was a powerful man running for president saying it that got people to take it seriously, which is remarkable. It’s the same thing that happened with Bill Cosby. When you had not just one woman accusing him of rape, you had many, many accusations out there. But it took a male comedian standing up on stage, and joking about it with other men, for people to get mad and take it seriously.

posted by melissasaurus at 4:47 PM on October 13, 2016 [104 favorites]

AND we mail him a postcard at Trump Tower, too. I. And put my I voted sticker on it.
posted by tilde at 4:48 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Woooo... my ballot came today.

I'm torn - I can vote now and get it over with, but there's a part of me that - for Presidential elections likes to vote in person. What to do.. what to do

Because you'll get a sticker! And you can wear it all day and peacock around like I'M A GOOD CITIZEN and then put it on your fridge later and you can point it out to other people like I WAS A GOOD CITIZEN AND VOTED IN THAT ELECTION
posted by asockpuppet at 4:49 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

"Raise your hand if you want to lose weight/drink less/exercise more/get offline but until this election is over YOU CAN'T PROMISE ANYTHING." --Jami Attenberg.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:49 PM on October 13, 2016 [32 favorites]

And Fahrenthold (the good Fahrenthold) is still plugging away

Another find: in 1989, @realDonaldTrump's Fdn listed a $5,328 "charitable contribution" to...its own lawyers.
posted by saturday_morning at 4:50 PM on October 13, 2016 [37 favorites]

Donald Trump once told 14-year-old girls, 'In a couple of years, I'll be dating you'

When asked if baby Tiffany takes after him or Marla, he talks about her future breasts.
When he sees a group of 10 year old girls, he talks about dating them in 10 years.
When he sees 14 year old girls, he says he will be dating them in a couple of years.
When he talks about Ivanka, he says if she wasn't his daughter he would be dating her.
When he meets a 12 year old Paris Hilton, he describes her as stunning but too young. Later though when she is older he watches her sex tape.

First of all I think "dating" actually means screwing. Second of all he is totally incapable of looking at a female of any age and not evaluating her in terms of her sexuality in relationship to him. There are women in his life like Kellyanne Conway who work for him in a nonsexual capacity but if, for example, Kellyanne was 20 years younger and sexually attractive to him I have no doubt that he would be pressuring her to "date" him.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:50 PM on October 13, 2016 [42 favorites]

Donald Trump’s D.C. Hotel Shows His Brand Is Sinking Along With His Poll Numbers

Last weekend bankers and dignitaries from around the world descended on Washington for the annual World Bank–IMF meetings. But just a few days before the conference, rooms were not only still available at Trump International, they were heavily discounted. On October 2, a deluxe room, with a rack rate of $805, could be had for as low $445 a night on Hotels.com. All other five-star D.C. downtown hotels were sold out. By Wednesday, October 5, weekend stays in the deluxe rooms were marked down to $404 per night on Trump International’s own website. The more luxurious 500-square-foot executive rooms, with a city view and marble bath, were only $484. By comparison, at the Ritz-Carlton in Georgetown, the only available rooms were $1,139 per night, according to Hotels.com.

For a five-star hotel in downtown Washington to have vacancies during major IMF meetings is a little like having empty rooms when the Super Bowl is in town. “The reason why there were vacancies is the political atmosphere. People don’t want to go there for fear that they would be asked, ‘Why are you staying here?’” says Ada Pena, a travel agent with ABA Travel in Washington, D.C.
...
New York has also learned of allegations that the hotel is breaking labor laws by forcing some employees to speak English only, which the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission considers illegal discrimination. Hotel managers are forcing some workers whose native tongue is not English to speak English at all times, even in casual conversations among themselves, says Brent Wilkes, executive director of the Hispanic advocacy group LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens).

$404/night is still ridiculous, but they bid so high on the project that they need to fill the place at sky high rates just to break even, so here we are.
posted by zachlipton at 4:51 PM on October 13, 2016 [22 favorites]

Hey all - the Hillary call tool (phone bank from home) just added a Teams option where you can create a phonebanking team. I created MeFites United - they say they have to approve team names, so I should get an email within a day letting us know if we're approved. Once I hear back, I'll share the info so we can all call together!
posted by kristi at 4:52 PM on October 13, 2016 [63 favorites]

And he's made it clear he wants to attack the laws governing the media (1st Amendment), due process (5th), the Federal reserve, the FDA and stop an entire religion from entering the country (1st amendment again).

Plus, "one god" (1st). Also having a defense attorney (6th), birthright citizenship (14th), income tax (16th), and those pesky women voters (19th).
posted by kirkaracha at 4:53 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

$404/night

Room not found.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:53 PM on October 13, 2016 [61 favorites]

#approriatehashtag

#nofuturefortrump
posted by octobersurprise at 4:54 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm torn - I can vote now and get it over with, but there's a part of me that - for Presidential elections likes to vote in person. What to do.. what to do.

Please mail it in! If you are on a list in your state as a likely Dem voter, resources will be going towards contacting you to remind you to mail your ballot, either phone calls or in person. When your ballot is received, the lists are updated, and those resources can be directed towards getting other voters to turn out.
posted by danielleh at 4:55 PM on October 13, 2016 [38 favorites]

NY Daily News EXCLUSIVE: City Controller Scott Stringer investigation reveals Donald Trump may have repeatedly lied about giving money to 9/11 charities

Republican nominee Donald Trump claims he gave generously to help his city in the dark days after the deadly terrorist attacks. But new records show a pledged promise to donate $10,000 to a major 9/11 charity must have somehow slipped his mind.

City Controller Scott Stringer conducted a review of hundreds of pages of previously sealed records of the two main 9/11 charities at the request of the Daily News, and found that Trump and his charity hadn't donated a dime in the months after 9/11.

"For the periods covered by the audits, we did not find any record of a donation from Trump himself or a Trump entity to either the Twin Towers Fund or the New York City Public/Private Initiatives Inc.," Stringer's office said in a statement to the Daily News in response to a Freedom of Information Law request.

Of course he didn't. He is the master of pretend philanthropy.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:55 PM on October 13, 2016 [60 favorites]

It would be ironic if Trump's hotel only broke even during Hillary's inauguration.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:58 PM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

I can see that being its emptiest time of all.
posted by vbfg at 4:59 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

I have the stream going from Ohio, against my better judgement.
posted by vrakatar at 4:59 PM on October 13, 2016

Please mail it in! If you are on a list in your state as a likely Dem voter, resources will be going towards contacting you to remind you to mail your ballot, either phone calls or in person. When your ballot is received, the lists are updated, and those resources can be directed towards getting other voters to turn out.

Additionally, you'd be helping the line at your polling place move that much quicker. Also, it eliminates any chance of encountering vigilante "poll watchers."
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:59 PM on October 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

Donald Trump’s D.C. Hotel Shows His Brand Is Sinking Along With His Poll Numbers

I’ve seen this noted elsewhere, but much of Trump’s brand is currently tied up with luxury that the demographic he’s courting can’t afford. In order to monetize his new base, he’ll need to introduce products that they can buy. (The “Trump Inn Express”, etc.)
posted by Going To Maine at 4:59 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

Write < and watch it turn magically turn into < in the preview box.

Is this.something I would need a 12 year old son to understand ? Or, at least 16 neurons ?
posted by y2karl at 4:59 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I got my California Absentee Ballot today (and it will be going out tomorrow) and found an interesting not-really-surprise on it. California recognizes 6 political parties, Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Peace and Freedom ('60s hippy throwback; still somehow active) and American Independent ('60s racist party founded by George Wallace, still semi-active).

The President/Vice-President choices (in randomly selected order):
Gary Jonson/Bill Weld Libertarian
Jill Stein/Ajamu Baraka Green
Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine Democratic
Gloria Estella La Riva/Dennis J. Banks Peace And Freedom
Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence Republican, American Independent

That's right, Trump/Pence are recognized in California as the candidates of the George Wallace Party.
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:00 PM on October 13, 2016 [24 favorites]

The school I work at is a wonderful place. We've adopted a number of core policies that embrace incivility, mutual respect and careful listening to address difference of opinion. Its more than just a set of policies - its who we really aspire to be as a community. I'm really, really proud of this and couldn't be happier to be a part of this place.

In the past, my faculty members have been very balanced (in the genuine sense of that word, not the FOX sense) in how they address elections. In general, we've been able to address the differences between candidates on a level of "these are people with different ideas - let's explore what those ideas mean." We try hard not to take sides and to let students work out for themselves what the outcomes of various policies might be and to determine if those outcomes are in line with their own personal belief systems.

This year, however, Trump is running a campaign that directly contradicts the values of our school. Both as a public figure and as a political candidate, he lives his life in direct opposition to most of our core values. The teachers here have been struggling with how they address this and here is what I've been telling my compatriots.

Our institutional values have to take priority over an appearance of balance. We believe in respecting people no matter who they are. If a candidate is not respecting people, its all right to point that out to students and say "this isn't how we, as a school, behave." If a candidate is behaving in a way that demonstrates sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, religious bigotry or any other prejudice, its all right to point out to students that that's the opposite of what we value as an institution. If a candidate bullies and threatens people or gaslights or behaves in any other way that is abusive, its all right to tell students "we don't do that and we don't think its right when people do."

I don't believe most parents want us encouraging their children to be disrespectful, prejudiced or abusive. We, as a school, will not condone that behavior in our kids and, thus, we have a responsibility to point out when a person in the public eye (who is a potential role model whether we want him to be or not) is behaving in a way that we reject entirely from the perspective of our values.

We leave it to the students to determine if a person who behaves in such a shameful way should get any votes at all. I'm sure some believe he does (I know many of their parents believe he does) but that doesn't change the fact that we must insist on a higher standard of behavior for them.

2016, man.
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:01 PM on October 13, 2016 [28 favorites]

When the traveling press corps walks into a @realDonaldTrump rally and gets this reception:

I'm never going to forgive 2016. This year sucks. I will be celebrating New Year's this year just to fuck this year off into the ether.
posted by Talez at 5:01 PM on October 13, 2016 [19 favorites]

He sounds tired.
posted by vrakatar at 5:02 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

@Fahrenthold Another find: in 1989, @realDonaldTrump's Fdn listed a $5,328 "charitable contribution" to...its own lawyers.

I'm sure they appreciated the "charity."
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:02 PM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

My wife and I saw Hillary Clinton live in San Francisco today! Amanda Peet MC'd, Senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein spoke, and Andra Day did a set and introduced Hills. The cat GIF riff! She also did a shoutout to Michelle Obama's speech. It was awesome.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:04 PM on October 13, 2016 [20 favorites]

Donnie just claimed Hillary made 13 iphones vanish with a hammer.
posted by vrakatar at 5:09 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Too-Ticky:

Hard G? Get out of here.
All you out there who don't speak Dutch wouldn't know a hard G if it danced on a grand piano in a purple tutu, singing 'I'm a hard G, I'm a hard G'.

Oh please PLEASE tell me that in the Netherlands, GIF is pronounced CH-CR-CH-IF. It would make me unspeakably happy.

Another thing that makes me happy is that no matter the level of existential angst and national crisis/disgrace, MeFites will find a way to instead, and at some length, disagree on the pronunciation of GIF, the most inconsequential, arcane, and debatable of things (except of course everybody knows it's pronounced "GIF"). Anyway, consider my cockles warmed.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 5:09 PM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

I can't believe you people are worried about how Hillary pronounced GIF when Trump wants to disband NahTO.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 5:12 PM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

Donnie just claimed Hillary made 13 iphones vanish with a hammer.

Whoever holds this hammer, if she be worthy shall possess the power of... THOR
posted by davros42 at 5:13 PM on October 13, 2016 [15 favorites]

I can't believe you people are worried about how Hillary pronounced GIF when Trump wants to disband NahTO.

Humor is a natural response to trauma.
posted by Talez at 5:13 PM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

Chants of "lock her up" by the crowd met with Trump: "She should be locked up. She should." Is his embrace of that exact phrasing new?
posted by zachlipton at 5:14 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Republican absentee ballots in North Carolina are down significantly from this point in 2012
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:15 PM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence - Republican, American Independent

I was like, "Wait, what?" and just looked at my CA absentee ballot...and you're right! (It's called electoral fusion and I am, I guess, shocked but not surprised to see it here.)
posted by psoas at 5:15 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ok he's said "lock her up is right" before.
posted by zachlipton at 5:15 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

New since Debate #2. Not new today.
posted by saturday_morning at 5:16 PM on October 13, 2016

Donnie just claimed Hillary made 13 iphones vanish with a hammer.

donnie makes a box of hammers seem smart
posted by pyramid termite at 5:16 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

"Hey Trump talk dirty to me!!!"
posted by porn in the woods at 5:17 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Chris Hayes has no more fucks left to give tonight to his Trump surrogates.
"He really wants to empower women"
"Do you think running beauty pageants is the way to do that?"
"He's not a man who has spent his life running for office"
"No, he's spent his life running beauty pageants"
posted by zutalors! at 5:19 PM on October 13, 2016 [39 favorites]

Chants of "lock her up" by the crowd met with Trump: "She should be locked up. She should." Is his embrace of that exact phrasing new?

We're you listening to NPR? There was a segment that said his response previously was "No, vote!"

Except that was Obama's response to similar chants.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:20 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I suppose there's a chance that the timing of BatLabels' latest Vine is just a coincidence.
posted by ckape at 5:21 PM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

Obama is on stage now, live feed here. He is going hard on the GOP downticket.
posted by melissasaurus at 5:25 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Companies that leave Ohio shall be punished.
posted by vrakatar at 5:25 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Obama is eviscerating the Rs now.

Caption: "Obama: This is the guy you nominate?"
posted by Talez at 5:25 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

Chris Hayes has Steve Cortez on and said that the speech today was anti-Semitic. When the Steve pushed back, Chris basically said that most of it could be pulled directly from the Protocols of the Elders of Zionsville. Directly said that. Now Michelle Goldberg is on who believes that because of the rhetoric such as this, she fears a"spasm of violence" after DJT loses, and though, she said, Jews will not have the most to lose, and Muslims and Latinos and African Americans will, what does he think he is doing by creating an atmosphere where Jews, Latinos, Muslims and African Americans are blamed for the loss? Especially when there are people who fully believe that he would only lose due to a rigged election.
posted by Sophie1 at 5:25 PM on October 13, 2016 [44 favorites]

Trump back on Clinton's stamina again: "If she goes down in Tiananmen Square, they'll just leave her there. These are tough people. They're not going to help her up."
posted by zachlipton at 5:26 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Hey Trump talk dirty to me!!!"

People are also wearing "Fuck your feelings" shirts. Good work, Donnie. You should make those shirts the new mottoes of the Trump brand after you lose. "Trump: fuck your feelings buy my crap."

Also, he promising Ohioans that he'll bring back their miners.
posted by octobersurprise at 5:26 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I love give no fucks Obama. He just gives no fucks.
posted by Talez at 5:27 PM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

If you need a break and want something else to watch, the Blues home opener is on FSMW. BTW we beat the Hawks in their home opener last night and Duncan Keith scored a goal into his own empty net LOLLO.
posted by asockpuppet at 5:27 PM on October 13, 2016

"Negative is euphemism... Crazy!"
posted by Talez at 5:27 PM on October 13, 2016

Chris Hayes has Steve Cortez on and said that the speech today was anti-Semitic. When the Steve pushed back, Chris basically said

It's the little things like this, MetaFilter. It's the little things like this why I love you.
posted by saturday_morning at 5:27 PM on October 13, 2016 [60 favorites]

My wife and I saw Hillary Clinton live in San Francisco today!

This is also conclusive proof that she practices witchcraft, because I had to drive from downtown SF to San Jose and back in the middle of the workday - and for those of you not from the area, traffic will back up for hours if anything (a special event, a mistimed light, a busted meter) disrupts street flow here - and somehow I made it both ways in record time.

A WITCH!
posted by psoas at 5:27 PM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

Protocols of the Elders of Zionsville

The Elders of Zionsville
posted by OverlappingElvis at 5:28 PM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

Dear Mr. Trump:

Attached is a letter that we received on October 13, 2016. I feel that you should be aware that some asshole is signing your name to stupid letters.

Very truly yours,

The New York Times
posted by kirkaracha at 5:30 PM on October 13, 2016 [49 favorites]

oh i found their protocols too
posted by OverlappingElvis at 5:30 PM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

Zionsville

Fucking autocorrect.
posted by Sophie1 at 5:30 PM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

Caption: "Obama: This is the guy you nominate?"

Is that CNN?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:31 PM on October 13, 2016

if you think that's bad, you should see the protocols of mishawaka ...
posted by pyramid termite at 5:32 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

First of all I think "dating" actually means screwing.

Yep.
posted by holgate at 5:34 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

I literally wrote President Obama a thank you note today.
posted by bq at 5:35 PM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

Is that CNN?

MSNBC.
posted by Talez at 5:36 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

So. I've consulted my sanity levels.

They are dangerously low.

Like not in a "ha ha I cannot get off the internet this is so funny lols" way. But in a "jumping at shadows" way. Like in a "continual mild panic that feels like mania" way. Like in a "plz show me where the benzodiazepines are" way. Like in a "modern media allow humans to see much more and much farther than human brains can cope with, and taking it in too much too quickly too indiscriminately can result in bad decisionmaking and/or paralysis" way.

Knowing everything that Donald Trump is doing does not help anyone thrive, or at least not anyone who is not in a central role in campaign/political work or in political media. Like, I don't do PR for Clinton, I don't write for Jon Oliver, I don't write for Rachel Maddow, I don't write for Samantha Bee, and I do not need to know everything that this particular hateful powerful abuser does. There are an untold number of hateful powerful abusers in this world, and it is terrible that they exist, but I don't need to know what they do minute-by-minute, and if I were to know about what they do minute-by-minute it wouldn't help me do anything to stop them, and knowing what they do minute-by-minute would make me want to hide under my bed forever, and I must (must must must) throw Donald J. Trump on the "abusers that I don't need to know about in detail" pile.

He has no power over me. He's not looming in the corner of the room, thank god — he is thousands of miles from me, and deep respect to Clinton for having enough icewater in her veins to stay calm with him literally looming behind her, and with the knowledge that she'll have to be in the same room with him again for the third debate.

Knowing every little thing he does does not do anything to keep him from becoming President (not that he's ever gon' be President). He does not deserve the space he's occupying in my head. Moreover, his creepy followers do not deserve the space they occupy in my head. Out, out, out. Far, far too many of the words I've been reading the past few weeks have been about Donald Trump, and I'm kind of a person who primarily exists through text — even when I'm not putting on a weird Internet persona that literally only exists through text — and so that means my whole universe has been Trump-flavored for a good long while.

I might as well have not got out of bed today. If I had laid in bed today and read a novel instead of being awake and out of the house and trying to work — but really just obsessively checking this thread and google news and 538 and then playing stupid repetitive old flash games to try to calm myself down and then for some reason looking at /r/the_donald to try to understand the alternate universe they live in and then checking this thread, lather, rinse, repeat — I would be healthier and I would be happier and I would be better equipped to do good things.

If you need me I'll be reading N.K. Jesimin novels and maybe working on my own writing or maybe running around Lake Merritt in order to work off the adrenaline from the continual flight-or-fight response I've got going.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 5:37 PM on October 13, 2016 [86 favorites]

I only recognize the Protocols of the Elders of IANA.
posted by humanfont at 5:37 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Jessica Leeds is on CNN. She's doing an interview with Anderson Cooper about when Trump assaulted her on a flight.
posted by cashman at 5:38 PM on October 13, 2016

Anyone else seen this revolting sponsored tweet?

The Trump Black Card Membership is only $49 today! Donate NOW to join the big league!
posted by porn in the woods at 5:39 PM on October 13, 2016

Jeb Bush's comms director, Tim Miller: The fact that we let POTUS have the moral high ground and rub it in our face and be *right* really sucks.
posted by Talez at 5:39 PM on October 13, 2016 [35 favorites]

I’ve seen this noted elsewhere, but much of Trump’s brand is currently tied up with luxury that the demographic he’s courting can’t afford. In order to monetize his new base, he’ll need to introduce products that they can buy. (The “Trump Inn Express”, etc.)

Ah, so that's what they'll call the new Hoovervilles?
posted by Catblack at 5:40 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Field report, supplemental: got a call-back (we use our own phones, and at this stage don't leave messages, so it occasionally happens.) Woman was on her honeymoon, I was at the local pub at this point. I explained why I had called and she tried to get me to call back in a week. I admired her measured priorities, and had marked her "Not Home", so it should work out.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:41 PM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

"Are you a complete idiot?"

"No, but I did stay at a Trump Inn Express last night."
posted by mmoncur at 5:41 PM on October 13, 2016 [19 favorites]

"wait, wait, i wanted that card to be WHITE" (fake)
posted by pyramid termite at 5:41 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

When the election is over and the threads are done can we get a book published of them? I'm not kidding. I would love for my children to be able to read these. The links could be footnoted for ease.
posted by gucci mane at 5:42 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

Where Republicans in Competitive House and Senate Races Stand on Donald Trump: Handy infographic showing whether Republicans running for reelection are Still Supporting Trump or Not Supporting Trump.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:43 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm torn - I can vote now and get it over with, but there's a part of me that - for Presidential elections likes to vote in person. What to do.. what to do.

I don't know how it works in your state, but in mine if you request an absentee/mail ballot, but instead decide to go to your assigned polling place on Election Day, you must vote a provisional ballot.
posted by zakur at 5:44 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trumpkins on CNN saying that "this really needs to be litigated in a court of law".
posted by Talez at 5:45 PM on October 13, 2016

Watched the whole rally hoping for a flame out, he came close but not quite. I got a sick weekend at work, I might just tune out for 3 or 4 days. Stay frosty people. Go vote. Stop this monster at the ballot box in the event he does not withdraw or end up in the ER before election day.
posted by vrakatar at 5:45 PM on October 13, 2016

I'm sure someone could knock together a script to convert the threads to LaTeX or something, and upload 'em to an on-demand printing service. If we're gonna discuss that, it should probably go in MeTa though.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 5:45 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

As horrifying as it is, I'm actually thankful to Trump for opening up the Republican party to serious scrutiny. While most of us have known about the Southern Strategy and Dog Whistles, their inherent racism, misogyny etc. for forever, most people aren't that aware. This stuff is NEWS to them. They won't respond immediately...because of pride, identity, tribalism.

The fact that those things are being discussed now is a very big deal. These are things that need to been seen in the light of day! Trump's base, that we keep worrying about, will catch on eventually...that they've been duped and manipulated and fucked over by self-serving pricks for decades.* It will take time, but they will come around when they see the prosperity developing around them when Hillary kicks everyone's ass and makes stuff happen. And she will.

*I've been converting very hard R's by inviting them to visit me in SoCal since the 80s. A carne asada plate or some Jollof rice will turn anybody pretty quickly.
posted by 1980sPunkersForHillary.com at 5:46 PM on October 13, 2016 [21 favorites]

The Clinton surrogate on CNN is giving Corey Lewandowski a dressing down.
posted by Talez at 5:47 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

When the election is over and the threads are done can we get a book published of them?

eBook? Not a problem.

Otherwise it'll be a literal coffee table book.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:48 PM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

I remain hopeful that the names "Republican Party" and maybe even "GOP" won't survive me. I keep telling myself that they can't survive this, but we'll see.
posted by rhizome at 5:49 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I am literally about to write a letter to Nordstrom's about carrying Ivanka's branded Trump clothing line because when I'm trying to relax and do some online window shopping I really don't need to see symbols of misogyny, racism, and xenophobia.

Zappos carries it too, just while you've got your stationery out.
posted by zutalors! at 5:49 PM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

There's a certain look behind the eyes of Corey Lewandowski that I also see behind the eyes of Rahm Emanuel (among many others) that seems to say "I will actually murder you right now" all the time. A lifetime of being a political operative for any party must eat your soul.
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:51 PM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

I am hoping for a low voter turnout in my state (North Dakota). It's going to go Trump, there's no doubt about it. And the statewide races will likely be all Repub wins. But there's a chance that some just won't bother because they think it's sewn up and that might make the difference in legislative races.

We've also got a medicinal marijuana measure on the ballot. If the 55+ stay home, it might actually have a chance. (Crossing my fingers, wife with glaucoma and clinical depression - a prescription for the former might help the later as well).
posted by Ber at 5:51 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Jeb Bush's comms director, Tim Miller: The fact that we let POTUS have the moral high ground and rub it in our face and be *right* really sucks.

Yes, yes, the tears of delicious sadness
posted by saturday_morning at 5:51 PM on October 13, 2016 [19 favorites]

First of all I think "dating" actually means screwing.

Yep.
posted by holgate at 8:34 PM

The relevant paragraph:

The women I have dated over the years could have any man they want; they are the top models and most beautiful women in the world,” he wrote in 2007 in Think Big. “I have been able to date (screw) them all because I have something that many men do not have. I don’t know what it is but women have always liked it. … Beautiful, famous, successful, married—I’ve had them all, secretly, the world’s biggest names … The one thing I have learned with women over the years—they want it (sex!) more than we do.”

I've always found that line of thinking morally repugnant, "women want sex more than men" because usually the speaker uses that line to justify his unwanted attentions. "Relax, you know you want it." In every case I most certainly did not want it.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:52 PM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

When the election is over and the threads are done can we get a book published of them? I'm not kidding.

"All posts copyright their original authors." See also previous discussion about unauthorized reproduction of MetaFilter comments re the emotional labor post.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 5:54 PM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

Write < and watch it turn magically turn into < in the preview box.

Is this.something I would need a 12 year old son to understand ? Or, at least 16 neurons ?

I think what was intended here is "Write &lt; and watch it turn magically into <" but escaping the & in &lt; was forgotten. To do that, you need to use &amp;lt;—which to display I actually typed as &amp;amp;lt;—which is itself actually...well, I think you get the point.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 5:55 PM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

Well, this is giving me life right now: Hillary Clinton's Locker Room Talk

Ben Carson looked desperately at Paul Ryan, wanting him to do something, anything. Paul just shrugged. What could he do? She was the president now. If she wanted to hang out in congressional locker rooms and “inspect the goods” (as she liked to say), how could anyone stop her? “Ben,” Paul Ryan whispered. “You know that if you’re in charge, you get to do whatever you want to the people beneath you. That’s what we believe.” Ben nodded. Of course that was right. How could that not be right?

Ben Carson just stood there and tried to smile as she took a deep sniff of his kneecaps. “Ohhh, I want to take a ride on these kneecaps. I want to make these kneecaps my pony. Feed them a carrot. Teach them how to dressage,” Hillary said in a deep, lustful voice as she rubbed the side of her face on Ben Carson’s leg. Ben was confused, and he whispered to Paul Ryan, “Why would a woman want to ride a man’s kneecaps? Is that a new thing women are doing?”

posted by palomar at 5:55 PM on October 13, 2016 [23 favorites]

I was at a jr high concert and pta meeting yesterday. I've mentioned that I live in a part of Texas that was all ranches until a few years ago when dallas started creeping towards the lakes. It's hard core republicans here. I'm the token leftist in this area. There were a fair number of trump hats in evidence, and I was in my usual Stevie nicks black hippie garb, but with my big ol Hillary button standing out by virtue of being color. Many men gave me dirty looks, but I had five different women whisper that they were with her too, but we're too afraid to openly campaign. I talked to three women, who like many of us are dealing with repressed memories and past traumas and new panic attacks. I gave my contact info to all of them, and I'm now planning a coffee clatch so we can form our own underground support group.

This fucking year, man. This. Fucking. Year.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 5:56 PM on October 13, 2016 [170 favorites]

@jaynordlinger - "I am siding with the New York Times over the Republican nominee. Or as Shakespeare said, Birnam Wood has come to Dunsinane."
posted by corb at 5:58 PM on October 13, 2016 [19 favorites]

Trump on being in Hillary's space during the debate: he reiterates his claim that it was really her in his space, then says "But we have another debate coming up and we’ll do the same thing to her."

So maybe he is coming to the next debate, but I'm pretty sure that's going to be podium style, not town hall, which means that him leaving his podium to physically confront her would be a huge breach of decorum.
posted by zachlipton at 6:00 PM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

. A lifetime of being a political operative for any party must eat your soul.

In the final episode of The Thick of It (which for anyone not already in the know is a UK show by the makers of Veep with a summary premise and style but- - as good as Veep is- - better) the head Downing Street enforcer has a pretty amazing, expletive- filled speech where he literally says this.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:00 PM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

Trump's base, that we keep worrying about, will catch on eventually...that they've been duped and manipulated and fucked over by self-serving pricks for decades.

as long as they get a piece of the action, they're going to be ok with it - because many of them are self-serving pricks themselves

this is where we see what part of this country is really like - and i don't mean geography - you know those jerks who used to persecute the nerds and minorities in high school?

trump voters

you know those people who don't want "them" in their neighborhood?

trump voters

you know those small time business owners and managers who cheat their employees out of overtime, are total assholes to them and might even take sexual advantage of them?

trump voters

this is your classic main street - these are the people who run many of the small towns and suburbs of america along with those who support them - they run our shitty little factories and businesses, our crappy school boards and governments, they thrive on petty tyranny during the week and pat themselves on the back every sunday in their moribund churches about what good people they are for allotting the crumbs of their hearts to the less fortunate for profit

they've been here all along, but you know how it is with rabies - eventually it becomes obvious and they start biting people ...

i'm seriously beginning to think they deserve the kind of enemies they think they have ...
posted by pyramid termite at 6:00 PM on October 13, 2016 [22 favorites]

Donald Trump Called Deaf ‘Apprentice’ Marlee Matlin ‘Retarded,’ Three Staffers Say
posted by kirkaracha at 6:02 PM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

So maybe he is coming to the next debate, but I'm pretty sure that's going to be podium style, not town hall, which means that him leaving his podium to physically confront her would be a huge breach of decorum.

That worked out great for Rick Lazio.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:04 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Ugh, you guys. It's been a tough day. I saw several cars today with insane anti-Hillary screeds on them, including statements like "Hang the bitch." I got my campaign swag in the mail yesterday, but I'm afraid to put my "Stronger Together" sticker on my car because there are so many vocal and angry Trumpsters in my town. I made an off-handed comment to a coworker that I respect about the election news being scary, and she responded with "Oh, I know. Both sides are awful. At least Pence is a smart guy." I was feeling so bummed when I got home.

Then I got my vote by mail ballot. And I'm watching Michelle's speech right now, with real human tears, which is a rare event for me. And I have you guys, who have been helping me stave off the despair that comes from the casual cruelty Trump inspires. I'm so fucking with her. And I'm so grateful for everyone else who is with her too.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 6:04 PM on October 13, 2016 [72 favorites]

Anybody else having previously repressed memories come up this week? If you'd asked me last week, I totally would have said I was one of the lucky women not to have any sexual assault in my past, and shrugged it off. And still, that's mostly true. Except for over the weekend when my husband reminded me of a conversation with an old boss that left me shaking and in tears. (WTF, an off-color conversation from the depths of my past? This is nothing, why am I shaking?)

Wow, I kind of thought I would never catch up to these threads again. But I had to, to confirm to instamatic that yes, these events have brought up memories that I evidently preferred to forget.
posted by slenderloris at 6:06 PM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

Donald Trump Called Deaf ‘Apprentice’ Marlee Matlin ‘Retarded,’ Three Staffers Say

Lou Ferrigno has some major hearing loss and was on the show, but I bet only a woman gets called "retarded" for something like that.
posted by peeedro at 6:06 PM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

TPM The Hate Comes Home To Roost

There's a new conspiracy theory rapidly gaining traction among Trump supporters about the origin of the 'Access Hollywood' Trump tape which triggered days of new allegations about Donald Trump's alleged history of sexual abuse. The conspiracy theory is rapidly taking on an explicitly anti-Semitic character. As far as I can see it has not been pushed by the Trump campaign itself, at least not publicly. But it's catching fire with numerous supporters and surrogates - most notably Jerry Falwell Jr, a key Trump supporter among evangelicals and President of Liberty University, the school founded by his father. [...]

The claim is that Dan Senor, a prominent GOP political operative, who is Jewish and married to former television reporter Campbell Brown, is behind the tape disclosure and part of a plot of "GOP elites" to destroy Donald Trump. In other words, in this conspiracy theory, Senor is now cast as the Jewish "traitor" working for the conspiracy of political elites, international financiers and the media who Trumped railed against today in his speech.

Jerry Falwell, Jr. is another guy who needs to lose everything-- his position, his pulpit, his following. He has aligned himself very closely with Trump and I hope he goes right off the cliff with him. "Man of God" indeed. It is leaders like Falwell who give American Evangelicals such a bad reputation.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:06 PM on October 13, 2016 [35 favorites]

I saw several cars today with insane anti-Hillary screeds on them, including statements like "Hang the bitch."

I'd be half tempted to call that in to the secret service and give them a plate number.
posted by Mitrovarr at 6:07 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

Barack Obama has become his own anger translator... and it is glorious.
(Link is to tweet with embedded video)
posted by saturday_morning at 6:07 PM on October 13, 2016 [39 favorites]

I'm torn - I can vote now and get it over with, but there's a part of me that - for Presidential elections likes to vote in person. What to do.. what to do.

Please mail it in! If you are on a list in your state as a likely Dem voter, resources will be going towards contacting you to remind you to mail your ballot, either phone calls or in person. When your ballot is received, the lists are updated, and those resources can be directed towards getting other voters to turn out.
posted by danielleh at 7:55 PM on October 13 [14 favorites −] [!]

Quoting this for emphasis, folks - if you're a Clinton supporter and you have the ability to vote early, DO IT. Every guaranteed vote for her is another "maybe", "I dunno", "I haven't really thought about it yet" voter that can be contacted, because the campaign is trying to maximize the staff and volunteer GOTV resources.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:08 PM on October 13, 2016 [42 favorites]

Dutch pronunciation of "gif".

Note however that there is considerable variation between dialects.
posted by shenderson at 6:09 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

@jaynordlinger - "I am siding with the New York Times over the Republican nominee. Or as Shakespeare said, Birnam Wood has come to Dunsinane."

MACDRUMPF: But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,
           Brandish'd by man that's of a woman born.

posted by [expletive deleted] at 6:11 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

Reporting back from protesting tonight's Trump rally in Cincinnati. A few observations:

Overall the experience was pretty benign - got a middle finger and a vigorous headshake from a lady who looked like she sucked on a lemon. Other things:

1. The most Trump-ish moment of the night happened when my male friend and I were leaving. A dude hawking "Hillary sucks but not like Monica/Trump that bitch" shirts told him "hey you got a beautiful woman there, man" (in reference to me). My friend and I have known each other for at least 15 years now, and I just kept walking and lifted up my middle fingers while he was like "Uh, that's my friend" So very fucking Trump-ian to assume that any woman hanging out with a man is in an Relationship with him and that she doesn't deserve to be talked to, but commenting about her appearance is fair game.

2. Like I said, most people were pretty chill - Cincinnati is not really a confrontational place. Like, middle-aged men with terrible Trump That Bitch shirts (who, by the way, had teenagers with them) literally walked giant circles around the protesters to avoid any encounter with them. But in a way that scares me more - that they can so easily act like you don't exist. Which is the whole point of why Trump scares the shit out of me, because it's all about acting like no one exists outside of an aggrieved white bubble.

3. Several young men were there with young women, and the latter looked like they were dressed up for a fancy restaurant while, of course, the former looked like scrubs. This dynamic always pisses me off in general, but it was weird to see people dressed up for a hot date to a fascist rally.

I can't wait for this fucking election to be over.
posted by mostly vowels at 6:11 PM on October 13, 2016 [64 favorites]

Hey all - the Hillary call tool (phone bank from home) just added a Teams option where you can create a phonebanking team. I created MeFites United!

I'm in! I've been to chicken to do canvassing or phone banking. But, y'all are literally keeping my sanity in tact during this thing, and the one way I can bring myself to do it is if it's part of a MetaFilter support group.

When this comes about, kristi, please MeMail me. And, thanks for doing this!
posted by mudpuppie at 6:12 PM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

The claim is that Dan Senor, a prominent GOP political operative, who is Jewish and married to former television reporter Campbell Brown, is behind the tape disclosure and part of a plot of "GOP elites" to destroy Donald Trump.

Thing is, Occam's Razor says "duh!" You think you're going to ascend the political ladder in 16 months without political-industry people trying to take you out? Turns out it's kinda hard for anybody to be President. You don't need to tease out the details, the entire political system is the scorpion in this telling.
posted by rhizome at 6:13 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

If you are on a list in your state as a likely Dem voter, resources will be going towards contacting you to remind you to mail your ballot, either phone calls or in person. When your ballot is received, the lists are updated, and those resources can be directed towards getting other voters to turn out.

On this note, is there a way for an individual voter to check whether his/her absentee ballot has been received and counted? I'm thinking of Michigan specifically but am also curious in the general sense.
posted by Juffo-Wup at 6:13 PM on October 13, 2016

Donald Trump Called Deaf ‘Apprentice’ Marlee Matlin ‘Retarded,’ Three Staffers Say
posted by kirkaracha at 9:02 PM

“Watching him in the boardroom making sexual comments to Marlee Matlin, to all of the women on The Apprentice, it was obvious that that’s just a part of who he is,” Hatch told People magazine this week. “It was obvious and it was grotesque. It was blatant and it was frequent. He did it with Lisa Rinna; he did it with Marlee Matlin. He did it with whomever happened to be there at the time… He did it in front of Ivanka [Trump, his daughter]. That was not just uncomfortable for me. It was weird.”

[my bold]

She knows exactly who her father is and what he is like-- never forget it. She is in it for the money and has made her choice to support him in all his choices and actions.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:14 PM on October 13, 2016 [54 favorites]

NY Magazine on Michelle Obama's speech:

We needed it because this week has been awful. It has been demoralizing and depressing. Yes, the still largely male, mostly white media population has chewed over horse-race predictions and barely hidden its glee at the sudden unpredictability of the electoral map. But to be a woman this week, even to be a Clinton-supporting woman this week, has not involved the Saturday Night Live–imagined victory-dancing performed by Kate McKinnon. For many women, recent events have recalled trauma, forced us to relive moments of degradation or shame, and brought back that utterly unfair feeling of responsibility, as if provoking an assault or ugly comment was something we had done, something we should feel bad for.

For many of us, the experience of watching Donald Trump’s physically unnerving behavior toward Clinton during the debate, of hearing his predatory words caught on tape, of reading about his octopus hands and probing tongue and insistent grabs at unwilling women, has felt way too familiar. It has returned to us the memories of the guys who stood too close, who loomed menacingly, who made us feel foolish for having been scared, who spoke cruelly or aimed to embarrass us when we didn’t please them, who touched or slipped or rubbed against us without invitation. For many of us, the view of Clinton during the debate — gripping her microphone tightly as an angry man squinted at her from behind, clearly working to stay subdued and keep any sign of anger or fear or humiliation under control — was all too resonant.
...
As many have pointed out, while Trump has trafficked in racism and sexism throughout the campaign, the breaking point — the point of recognition for many in the media and many in the Republican Party — was in response to instances of abuse of white women, women who the white Republican men who distanced themselves from Trump last weekend could identify with as worthy of their concern. But a discussion of sexual coercion with white women at its center provides a perniciously incomplete view of America, where the bodies of women of color have always been more vulnerable to assault, and where women of color have found it harder to get help or report assault thanks to unequal treatment by the criminal-justice system and medical Establishment.

It mattered that Michelle Obama, who is not a white woman, was making sure that it was not just the voices of white women that were being heard and registered on this subject; it mattered that she was describing sexual inequities, harassment, and assault as central to the experience of all women in America.

posted by zachlipton at 6:16 PM on October 13, 2016 [121 favorites]

I now live in a country where People Magazine breaks major political stories.
posted by rhizome at 6:17 PM on October 13, 2016 [26 favorites]

Trump: No man can kill me.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 6:17 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

Worried they might feel left out, Trump goes after the Jews.
Next week he'll train his sights on the only group that has so far been spared his fury: the left handed.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 6:18 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

Looks like you Michigan voters check their absentee ballot status here.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:19 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

In that video linked way upthread from earlier today, from the Howard Stern show, when Robin calls Trump a sexual predator and he laughs and agrees, Ivanka is sitting right next to him, laughing uproariously and patting him on the shoulder. Trump Jr. is seated next to her but is not in the shot.

She knows what her father is. She approves. She chose a husband just as craven and morally bankrupt as her father. There is no reason to think she has even a shred of morality or decency.
posted by palomar at 6:19 PM on October 13, 2016 [39 favorites]

On this note, is there a way for an individual voter to check whether his/her absentee ballot has been received and counted? I'm thinking of Michigan specifically but am also curious in the general sense.

https://webapps.sos.state.mi.us/MVIC/
posted by zakur at 6:22 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Everything you need to know about absentee voting in Michigan.
posted by gingerbeer at 6:23 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

She knows what her father is. She approves. She chose a husband just as craven and morally bankrupt as her father. There is no reason to think she has even a shred of morality or decency.

To paraphrase someone: Abused children often grow up to do the same.
posted by jferg at 6:23 PM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

3. Several young men were there with young women, and the latter looked like they were dressed up for a fancy restaurant while, of course, the former looked like scrubs. This dynamic always pisses me off in general, but it was weird to see people dressed up for a hot date to a fascist rally.

Saw this a lot when I protested a Trump rally too. The dudes were dumpuses and the women were dressed for a nice date.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 6:23 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Everything you need to know about absentee voting everywhere (scroll down to see info for each state.)
posted by gingerbeer at 6:24 PM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

My fantasy film version of this involves a Hamilton-like approach to the casting of Trump's campaign featuring Trump and everyone important to him played by actors from groups he has insulted or threatened during the campaign. With this in mind, I want Trump to be played by Elizabeth Peña in my fantasy movie.
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:25 PM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

Can we keep Michelle Obama as First Lady during the Hillary Clinton Administration?
posted by humanfont at 6:25 PM on October 13, 2016 [45 favorites]

Re: checking your absentee ballot status - your Secretary of State website and/or county's BOE website would be the best places to check.
posted by zakur at 6:25 PM on October 13, 2016

You see the schlubby dude/fancy lady dynamic most often in the social groups that really lean hard into gender essentialism.
posted by palomar at 6:26 PM on October 13, 2016 [34 favorites]

Michelle Obama: First Lady Emerita
posted by Sublimity at 6:26 PM on October 13, 2016 [38 favorites]

Saw this a lot when I protested a Trump rally too. The dudes were dumpuses and the women were dressed for a nice date.

This was just the basic dynamic when I lived in the south. It made me feel weird to wear an Oxford shirt.
posted by dis_integration at 6:28 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

This is a shirt --@Bencjacobs

I found a really old moldy even in the couch cushions, but now I can't that one too.
posted by zachlipton at 6:28 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

If you're tired of Hamilton references, scroll by...

If not, here's a (NSFW) pretty well-done pastiche of "The Reynolds Pamphlet".

Lyrics, if you can't listen right now.
posted by carrienation at 6:30 PM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

its almost like some of these people are deplorable
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:31 PM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

NYT: Cut Ties to Donald Trump, Big Donors Urge R.N.C.

Several of the Republican Party’s most generous donors called on the Republican National Committee on Thursday to disavow Donald J. Trump, saying that allegations by multiple women that Mr. Trump had groped or made inappropriate sexual advances toward them threatened to inflict lasting damage on the party’s image.

To an elite group of Republican contributors who have donated millions of dollars to the party’s candidates and committees in recent years, the cascade of revelations related to Mr. Trump’s sexual conduct is grounds for the committee to cut ties with the party’s beleaguered standard-bearer, finally and fully.

“At some point, you have to look in the mirror and recognize that you cannot possibly justify support for Trump to your children — especially your daughters,” said David Humphreys, a Missouri business executive who contributed more than $2.5 million to Republicans from the 2012 campaign cycle through this spring.

I mean thanks for finally coming to the party, David, but why "especially your daughters?" How can you justify it to your sons? Or to yourself as a human being?
posted by zachlipton at 6:31 PM on October 13, 2016 [37 favorites]

In case you skimmed past it, Obama's guest essay for Wired is the pick-me-up we all need.

This kind of progress hasn’t happened on its own. It happened because people organized and voted for better prospects; because leaders enacted smart, forward-­looking policies; because people’s perspectives opened up, and with them, societies did too. But this progress also happened because we scienced the heck out of our challenges.

and somehow I didn't even know he started the White House Science Fair, man hell yeah that's my president
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 6:34 PM on October 13, 2016 [32 favorites]

Cut Ties to Donald Trump, Big Donors Urge R.N.C.
Warning: this just supports the Trumpists' absurd claim that Despicable Donald is the only one fighting "the elites" of both parties.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:36 PM on October 13, 2016

played by Elizabeth Peña in my fantasy movie.

Hate to break it to you
posted by asockpuppet at 6:37 PM on October 13, 2016

Mike Pence asked to respond to an 11-year-old girl concerned about her self image in intvw w/ @ScottLight10TV tonight:
posted by porn in the woods at 6:37 PM on October 13, 2016 [38 favorites]

These women Trumpers who insist that these women should have come forward 10/20/30 years ago... I just don't understand it. Have they themselves never experienced any kind of unwanted advance? Do they just not care? I'm so flabbergasted at how another woman can not understand why a woman wouldn't have run to the press in 2005 to say that Donald Trump kissed them against their will. Women don't even report rape - now we are expected to report a kiss? And 'report' what, anyway? It seems pretty clear that Trump has openly bragged about acting this way over the course of his entire adult life, so this isn't revealing some giant secret. If someone had "come forward" 10 years ago to say he groped them, wouldn't he have just laughed about the hysterical lady on Howard Stern?

I know the answer is misogyny/internalized misogyny/society sucks, but goddamn I am frustrated.
posted by gatorae at 6:38 PM on October 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

Hate to break it to you

Oh no! I think I knew that and even commented on her obituary here. I loved her acting.
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:40 PM on October 13, 2016

Rachel Maddow is replaying Michelle Obama's speech right now, without commercials.

Damn, I am going to miss the Obamas.
posted by SisterHavana at 6:41 PM on October 13, 2016 [25 favorites]

Mike Pence asked to respond to an 11-year-old girl concerned about her self image in intvw w/ @ScottLight10TV tonight:

"Well that's a tough question where I might be expected to show compassion or leadership or vision or at least respond like a human being or something like that, so instead I won't do any of those things and talk about 'feckless foreign policy' because that's what 11-year-olds with low self image are really worried about." [fake]

Pence is a father. Did he lecture his kids on feckless foreign policy when they had problems?
posted by zachlipton at 6:46 PM on October 13, 2016 [26 favorites]

I know the answer is misogyny/internalized misogyny/society sucks, but goddamn I am frustrated.

I'm male, so I cannot and should not speak to misogyny except to agree it exists, apologize for it, and confront the hell out of it when I see it.

That said, I don't know that a woman or a man who votes for Trump even at this late hour is doing so out of misogyny, internalized or otherwise - I agree that's the result, but maybe not the cause. I think they have simply chosen a side, and that side must now win. They may not have had the opportunity to truly choose, any more than a family chooses the high school football team they cheer for. But having taken a side, the other side - they're the enemy. It's not about what Trump believes, or says, or might do, it's about winning, and rubbing the loser's nose in it when the victory comes. And if victory does not come, it's because the game was rigged, or the referee made a bad call or was bought off.

For these people, this is no different than a Florida/Georgia game.

The only real question left for me is how many of them there are, and how I'll know them when I see them coming.
posted by Mooski at 6:51 PM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

saturday_morning: "Barack Obama has become his own anger translator... and it is glorious.
(Link is to tweet with embedded video)"

Oh, that was awesome. He's just not interested showing the republicans any mercy.
posted by octothorpe at 6:51 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Pence is a father. Did he lecture his kids on feckless foreign policy when they had problems?

He probably gave them a pack of smokes or sent them off for behavioral modification.
posted by Artw at 6:52 PM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

If you're tired of Hamilton references, scroll by...

To paraphrase my sister circa middle school in reference to Guns and Roses,

I WILL NEVER STOP LOVING HAMILTON!
posted by cmfletcher at 6:52 PM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

Have any Black women written about FLOTUS' speech? A lot of the articles linked here are by White women, which is fine, but I am more interested in what women from a similar background to Michelle have to say.
posted by pxe2000 at 6:53 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

These women Trumpers who insist that these women should have come forward 10/20/30 years ago... I just don't understand it. Have they themselves never experienced any kind of unwanted advance? Do they just not care?

I think it's their way of coping with their own fear of speaking up themselves.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:53 PM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

My alternate theory is that they're bad people supporting a monster.
posted by Justinian at 6:57 PM on October 13, 2016 [19 favorites]

HuffPost Pollster shows McMentum in its Utah tracking chart!
posted by kirkaracha at 6:57 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Pence is a father. Did he lecture his kids on feckless foreign policy when they had problems?

Did you mean: Pence is an asshole
posted by kirkaracha at 6:59 PM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

I knew this was going to be a Traister piece: It has returned to us the memories of the guys who stood too close, who loomed menacingly, who made us feel foolish for having been scared, who spoke cruelly or aimed to embarrass us when we didn’t please them, who touched or slipped or rubbed against us without invitation.

"It hurts. It hurts." Michelle Obama.

I keep going back and forth between "oh my god I took women's studies and went to take back the night and everything and I never even realized all those times I was groped and grabbed and touched and brushed up against and pinned down and kissed etc were sexual assault oh my god I'm a victim of sexual assault" and "I'm being silly and attention-seeking, it's not like I was raped, it could be worse" and "how do I get through today without crying" and "wow how demoralizing that nearly every woman I know is having this same realization."

It really hurts.
posted by sallybrown at 6:59 PM on October 13, 2016 [98 favorites]

#WhyWomenDontReport is trending on Twitter. Heartbreaking truths being shared. Trump supporters have started to hijack the tag and harass the people sharing their experiences, proving exactly #WhyWomenDontReport.
posted by erisfree at 7:00 PM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

He sued innocent people he defrauded. He's rich and powerful and angry. After watching the hell Monica Lewinsky went through for a consensual affair that involved a power imbalance, who would volunteer to be the focus of not just Trump, but the GOP and right-wing machine?
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 7:01 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

I recently learned about 'smash cake' - basically a cheap colourful birthday cake for toddlers to faceplant into so the nice cake remains suitable for consumption for other guests.

I think there should be a 'smash ballot' in addition to the real ballot - a brightly-coloured piece of heavy-duty paper issued at the polling station in addition to the formal ballot, so voters have someplace they can scrawl HILLZ YEAH F U TRIMP!!! without spoiling their vote.
posted by um at 7:02 PM on October 13, 2016 [44 favorites]

He probably gave them a pack of smokes ...

Oh it was a banner fucking year at the old Pence family ...
posted by octobersurprise at 7:04 PM on October 13, 2016 [30 favorites]

Hey so I'm still getting pretty awful anti semitic etc abuse on Twitter from the tweets I linked upthread and it's started escalating into actual threats from strangers with Pepe avatars. I reported it to Twitter but any advice?
posted by OverlappingElvis at 7:05 PM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

My favorite part of Obama's Luther-the-anger-translater-inspired appearance in Ohio tonight was right before the video in that tweet where he talked about the hatred and bile that's been stewing in the GOP for so long and how so many Republicans "who should know better" have stood by while it's boiled over. My something-close-to-a-transcript of the best part.

"Donald Trump, as he's prone to do... he didn't build the building himself, he just slapped his name on it and took the credit for it. And that's what's happened in the Republican Party. All that bile, all the exaggeration, all the stuff that wasn't grounded in fact just kind of bubbled up, started surfacing." That's a point that can't be repeated often enough -- this was always there in the GOP, Trump's just been the one to build it into a brand.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:06 PM on October 13, 2016 [49 favorites]

Women don't even report rape - now we are expected to report a kiss? And 'report' what, anyway

I never even considered before this week that I could have reported any of the things men did to me. If it had been Trump, instead of a guy in my dorm, who pinned me down on his bed and forced his tongue down my throat (and in my ear - who even does that eugh), I would never have reported it either...I wouldn't have even pondered whether I could. That's just been how life is. And that's what's made me cry all week.
posted by sallybrown at 7:08 PM on October 13, 2016 [44 favorites]

I love — I mean truly love — that that clip of Obama represents "anger" to us. The man is supremely controlled, making arguments, pausing to breathe. All as opposed to the pro wrestling gassy explosion that is a Trump speech. We got the right guy on our side.
posted by argybarg at 7:08 PM on October 13, 2016 [62 favorites]

Hey so I'm still getting pretty awful anti semitic etc abuse on Twitter from the tweets I linked upthread and it's started escalating into actual threats from strangers with Pepe avatars. I reported it to Twitter but any advice?

Mute the tweet so you don't get notifications anymore.
posted by rhizome at 7:09 PM on October 13, 2016

Earlest Johnson (he of the glare at Trump's creepiness), undecided voter at the last debate, has decided.

He is voting for Hillary Clinton.
posted by cashman at 7:11 PM on October 13, 2016 [67 favorites]

where he talked about the hatred and bile that's been stewing in the GOP for so long and how so many Republicans "who should know better" have stood by while it's boiled over.

Mark Halperin straight fainted at that
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:12 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

I love — I mean truly love — that that clip of Obama represents "anger" to us. The man is supremely controlled, making arguments, pausing to breathe. All as opposed to the pro wrestling gassy explosion that is a Trump speech. We got the right guy on our side.

I had a similar reaction to this and to Michelle Obama's speech today. After watching so much Trump, I couldn't believe how refreshing it was to hear complete, coherent, rational thoughts.
posted by PlusDistance at 7:12 PM on October 13, 2016 [23 favorites]

@jbarro
The lesson of this campaign is not that Dems were too mean to pre-Trump Republicans. It's that they were right all along about Republicans.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 7:13 PM on October 13, 2016 [86 favorites]

You guys know Hamilton is going to burn out like To The Extreme if you don't pace yourselves
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:18 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Is it better show show some mercy and forgiveness to those Republicans who standup now and say enough and loudly condemn Trump and state they will not vote for him? I am undecided. If there isn't an out for them, then they might decide to rally round this asshole in a desperate attempt to survive. If instead we show some mercy perhaps it encourages them to stand up sooner in the future. On the other hand maybe if we reject their eleventh hour plea for mercy the survivors will learn the lesson to stand up to these bullies sooner.
posted by humanfont at 7:19 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Is it better show show some mercy and forgiveness to those Republicans who standup now and say enough and loudly condemn Trump and state they will not vote for him?

"Better" isn't the issue. It's, can you stomach that? This is not a rhetorical question - we all hit points of both, "well, X is a scumbag but X is trying to improve, and I've got enough energy left for a bit of encouragement and hand-holding," and "X is a scumbag and I have no evens left to give; X can bugger off and wallow in the aftermath of X's actions."

Whether to offer forgiveness, whether to be sympathetic and merciful, is going to be an individual choice related to both our personal energy resources and the exact situations we face with former Trump supporters.

Neither is an objectively better approach. Some people learn better with sympathy; others are not going to accept that they screwed up unless people they trust tell them, no, no take-backs, you're stuck with this one.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 7:25 PM on October 13, 2016 [15 favorites]

No. He was losing decisively before they all came around Friday afternoon. That's too late. The time for repentance and forgiveness was this summer, or after the convention at the latest.

No credit. No mercy. No forgiveness.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:27 PM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

"What to do.. what to do."

Vote twice, obs

Didn't you get your instructions from the Clinton Machine?
posted by Tarumba at 7:27 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

hi, so, sorry for this derail but does anybody have a sense of sizing on the HRC shirts? It says women should consider sizing down since the shirts are unisex ... I'm 5'4", women's size 10-12ish, but pretty large-busted. Should I be looking at a large? Medium?

PS -- We (my husband and I) sent in our absentee ballots today! I wanted to vote in person, but our first child is due three days before the election so I feel like we might be, uh, busy. I've been oscillating between this sort of constant, low-level sickness in my stomach that I could be bringing a baby into the kind of world that would choose Trump, and everything that's implied by that choosing, and a ... kind of joyful giddiness that I could be bringing a baby into a world where we elected the first black president and the first female president, back to back! And it's not like everything's all-good yet, but I'm happy to report that these days the giddiness is slowly winning. I'm so glad to have had this community and these threads to help me grapple with and get through everything that's happening.

PPS -- It's a girl. I'm getting her an HRC onesie, too.


posted by alleycat01 at 7:28 PM on October 13, 2016 [39 favorites]

WTF Ohio? Get a hold of yourself.

Don't freak out about individual polls.

Indeed. Both 538 & PEC currently have Ohio going blue.
posted by zakur at 7:31 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Oh god, all #hamiltrash politics nerds, go listen to "The P---y Pamphlet" RIGHT NOW, you will not regret it. Paul Ryan sings Angelica's part.
posted by corb at 7:33 PM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

Everyone's convinced me (and hey, I get a sticker anyway in this year's CA ballots).

I'm filling it out now to mail in the morning!
posted by drewbage1847 at 7:33 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

I bought my husband this shirt a couple of days ago, and it arrived yesterday. It is EVEN MORE GLORIOUS IN PERSON.
posted by KathrynT at 7:34 PM on October 13, 2016 [34 favorites]

No credit. No mercy. No forgiveness.

Easy there, Billy Zabka.
posted by Atom Eyes at 7:36 PM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

I'm still trying to get over this comment yesterday on NPR's On Point from former NY Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, apparently a Trumpist. In defense of the pu##y grab video, she butts in with what she obviously thinks is a huge gotcha that everyone has overlooked, and says,

"Everyone one is ignoring the VERY next thing he said... 'THEY LET ME DO IT.' This is consent."

The other commentators were pretty shocked at her interpretation but steered clear of the rabbit hole rather than trying to call her on this.

But seriously, this is a professional woman with a PhD? How disingenuous and depraved do you have to be to start thinking like this? Words like "ask for" or "invite" describe consent, not "let" or "tolerate." And even if DJT had used the former, the women involved should be trusted a lot more than the Donald here.
posted by p3t3 at 7:42 PM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

I have been focused on getting my habitual non-voter and/or asshole friends to vote or vote for HRC instead of Stein or Johnson. One of these asshole friends is basically a blue-collar hippie and is currently working as a livery driver. He was all in for Bernie, and has taken to spewing various BoB/right-wing media BS anti-HRC talking points, but concerted derision from, oh, ALL OF OUR FRIENDS has convinced him to vote Clinton in November.

The other day he found himself picking up a quite wealthy man from the airport. The first 3/4 of their conversation touched on football, fantasy football, and music. My friend was like, this dude is a good fare, good guy. BUT THEN!

The fare asked him whom he was voting for. My friend demurred, tried to loop the conversation back to football, music, anything. The fare then asked him three more times. By the fourth ask, my friend felt pretty worn down and sensing trouble, so he said something along the lines of 'Eh, I'm just writing in Bernie, both candidates are terrible.'

At this point his fare tried to convince him that, while both candidates are terrible, it is essential to vote for Trump because of the Supreme Court. My friend, speaking unwisely from the heart, said something like 'that's why it's okay for Hillary to take Michigan.' The fare went largely silent for the rest of the drive. Then he did not tip.



...and for my friend, some rich suburban Trump asshole stiffing him on his tip FINALLY tilted him into definitely voting for Hillz no matter what. Because he wants to make sure Trump and his asshole fans suffer a historically embarrassing defeat in November.


i also suggested that any time a fare is a trump guy, he should agree that he is a trump voter so he can a) get a tip and b) collect their batshit ramblings to share with me
posted by palindromic at 7:43 PM on October 13, 2016 [68 favorites]

I bought my husband this shirt a couple of days ago, and it arrived yesterday.

There are some excellent reviews on the beautiful Trump-on-a-tank shirt by the same vendor.

I opened the box and my eyes instantly melted as a catastrophic flood of pure patriotism and freedom smashed into my body knocking me unconscious. When I awoke I found myself transformed into a bald eagle. 11/10 I plan to buy another 5 just encase they get lost or damaged.
—
The question is 'why do you like or dislike this product'. This item is not a 'product' so much as it is a way of life. Upon receipt of said life changer, it took a chainsaw to open up the packaging, as this ray of light could not easily be shipped via basic carrier; this came via air drop by the marine corps. Once the container was broached, I was overcome with pride, not easily explained in words. I was immediately called on my cell phone by Trump himself, who made me pledge an oath to his message of force, power and will. I admirably accepted, and wasted nay in time thrusting this work of art upon my proud chest! Automatically, I can bench press 485 pounds, squat 650 pounds, and deadlift my F-750 duelly truck. This is no product. This is no shirt. This is hell and heaven woven into a tapestry of art provided only for those carrying balls large enough to support its (the 'products') ego! I think Amazon limits the option to 5 stars because, if allowed, this shirt would garner infinity times infinity stars!!!!
—
I bought this shirt for my husband and it has done wonders for him and our marriage. He immediately finished building a fence around the South side of our yard, cleaned out the filth in our gutters, and deported all the unwelcome rats that have been hiding in the shadows of our crawlspace for years. On top of making him more productive he also grew 1.5 inches in the man zone and it has made our marriage GREAT again!
—
After putting it on, I felt a wall of freedom rise up and an eagle immediately perched on my shoulder while singing the national anthem. The fit is as good as sensible government based on constitutional freedom and the images are as sharp as the cutting edge of liberty and justice for all. In other words, good shirt.

posted by kirkaracha at 7:44 PM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

Hey so I'm still getting pretty awful anti semitic etc abuse on Twitter from the tweets I linked upthread and it's started escalating into actual threats from strangers with Pepe avatars. I reported it to Twitter but any advice?

So I'm not going to say how I've just learned this but apparently if you report one Tweet from a persistent troll, and when Twitter asks what you're reporting it for, when you get to the menu where you have the option of selecting "targeted harrassment", if you click that then you later get brought to a screen where you have a whole list of tweets from the same person and you can select up to five in all in that one report which is quite efficient I must say

never mind how I know this, I just happened to, er, learn it somehow
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:45 PM on October 13, 2016 [34 favorites]

I hate this election so very much.

As I've said before in this thread, I come from Trump country. I just lost one of my oldest friends, probably for good, because I wouldn't stop posting "propaganda" about Clinton and Trump on my Facebook timeline. He followed up his goodbye message with incoherent anger and threats about nobody to defend me when the eventual war with Russia follows: "I won't forgive and I won't forget. Goodbye."

This was a kid who as a 14 year old football player invited me to the prom because he knew I was way too unpopular to have anyone else ask me, and he thought I was nice and funny. He was a secret geek himself, and liked romcom movies instead of action films. I made him mixed tapes and introduced him to XTC. He took me to a Journey concert to try to convince me that Steve Perry was actually cool. He had rough friends, but he was just nice-- you know? He was a really nice boy.

Today he lives in Texas with his wife and three kids. And I know him as a good and honourable man. And I know perfectly well that on the larger stage, the racism and the hatred of the Republican party has many bigger victims than him. But on a personal level, I hate Fox news and Trump and talk radio and this kind of fake news industry with a seething awful passion. All the Trump voters I know are like Eric-- they came from poor backgrounds and pulled themselves up a rung or two. They have nice lives, but they always feel marginal too. They don't have the education or connections to be really sure of their jobs or to be really wealthy. College for their kids will put them in debt they can't afford. Their social lives revolve around the churches they attend. They are easy prey for people profiting on their fears, and they are surrounded by a constant message of hate which makes them feel like the real majority which is somehow being suppressed by big media.

As Trump goes down, the messages and the madness are getting louder and there are people sitting in the middle of Trump country who believe every word. They believe the 4th estate is in a conspiracy to defeat their champion. They believe that HRC is in the pocket with the devil. They believe that there will be war with Russia if we don't elect a strong man. They believe that Putin wants Trump to be elected because he respects him. They believe that illegal immigrants are their biggest threat to safety and security. And you cannot change their minds. The Big Lie is too effective.

Anyhow, I know that there are bigger reasons to be angry at Trump than guys like Eric. But you know, in the middle of that 41% of Trump voters there are some honestly good people who are trying to navigate the world in the face of a barrage of lies and hate. And I'm angry at Trump for them too.

I don't have anything else I can do in this election except post as much information and perspective as I can. I have never used Facebook for a political platform and I have been doing so lately because I can't stand all the disinformation and lies.

But speaking to what I believe cost me one of my oldest friends today. So fuck you, 2016. And when Trump/Pence are gone, I will dance on their graves.
posted by frumiousb at 7:48 PM on October 13, 2016 [152 favorites]

Oh, guys, I forgot to tell you, when I voted, I got to vote for an ALL-FEMALE FEDERAL SLATE for the first time in my life! Hillary Clinton for president, Tammy Duckworth for Senate, and Cheri Bustos for the House. It felt so good! Three progressive women, in downstate Illinois!

(Cheri Bustos doesn't have a super-high national profile but she's awesome, y'all. She's got a pretty progressive voting record and does awesome constituent service -- she helped a friend of mine who's a DV victim who divorced her abuser clear a bunch of red tape so she could get federal student aid to go to college -- and she has incredible charisma in person. She's the Rep who started (illegally!) broadcasting John Lewis's gun violence sit-in on Snapchat after Paul Ryan shut the C-SPAN cameras off. She took the seat from a Tea Partier -- support long-shot progressives, they can win it!)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:53 PM on October 13, 2016 [120 favorites]

Donald Trump Jr. on his father's bragging about sexually assaulting women:

I’ve had conversations like that with plenty of people where people use language off color. They’re talking, two guys, amongst themselves. I’ve seen it time and time again. I think it makes him a human. I think it makes him a normal person, not a political robot.

I hate these people so much.
posted by zakur at 7:56 PM on October 13, 2016 [50 favorites]

I spent half my volunteer time trying to get people to request and return mail in ballots.

What's your boilerplate for dealing with people like my wife who will not let go of the idea that they don't count mail/absentee votes unless the number of them is within the margin of error for in-person votes?

I can tell you from experience that "if it wouldn't sway the win either way then who gives a shit?" is not a winning approach :)
posted by phearlez at 7:57 PM on October 13, 2016

Today I posted a thing about Hillary Clinton to facebook and one of my high school friends who I was almost certain was Republican liked it. I'm flirting with the following three options:

- She usually votes Republican but pussygate got to her.

- She's always been a very very quiet possibly secret Democrat but has literally never posted anything about politics or even engaged with anything about politics on social media until right now for some reason.

- She actually is a Trump supporter but something about what I posted resonated with her in the same kind of bizarro opposite day brain-breaking manner as all the "OMG WHAT'LL THEY THINK OF NEXT, MAKING RAPE ILLEGAL?" Rush Limbaugh stuff.
posted by Sara C. at 7:58 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

OverlappingElvis, in addition to the fine advice you've gotten, I would suggest that you scrub any location or other potentially identifying information from your profile. If you've linked to a website in your profile, I would remove that link for now. I'm sorry you're enduring this.
posted by Silverstone at 8:00 PM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

The Idaho Statesman: Hillary Clinton’s experience makes her the right choice for president: The Idaho Statesman is endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.

We recognize a lot of you are not going to like our choice of a Democrat in this Republican state — where Sen. Ted Cruz won the GOP primary in a landslide and where Sen. Bernie Sanders soundly defeated Clinton in the Democratic caucus. But our hope is that you will consider our reasoning before critiquing our conclusion. At this critical time in our nation’s history, we need, more than ever, to listen to each other with respect.

posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:01 PM on October 13, 2016 [38 favorites]

So seriously other than a video of Trump actually assaulting someone I don't know how much more evidence we can get.

And confirmed, Ivanka is a POS

[short, creepy AF gif where Howard Stern literally calls Trump a predator and Trump and Ivanka think it's just HILARIOUS ]
posted by Tarumba at 8:03 PM on October 13, 2016 [15 favorites]

> short, creepy AF gif where Howard Stern literally calls Trump a predator and Trump and Ivanka think it's just HILARIOUS

And then Trump just ducks his head in that "Aw shucks, she got me there" way as he mouths "That's true".

Yeah. Hilarious.
posted by RedOrGreen at 8:06 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

short, creepy AF gif where Howard Stern literally calls Trump a predator and Trump and Ivanka think it's just HILARIOUS

That's not my read on it in terms of Ivanka. To me it looks like she's performing finding it hilarious because she knows that's what her dad wants her to do.

Then again I'm starting to feel like, by not distancing herself from him decades ago, she is in fact a POS.
posted by Sara C. at 8:09 PM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

So, both candidates have video ads on Twitter using the "You'd be in jail" clip from the debate. That's kind of ridiculous to begin with, but sure, I can see that each campaign thinks it will fire up their base.

But the really dumb part is that the Trump campaign is paying money to promote their version on Twitter, and their targeting is so bad that it's all over my Twitter timeline, and a bunch of other people I know. (Also, a bunch of promoted Trump tweets begging for money.) So the Clinton campaign doesn't even need to spend any money to remind us how terrible Donald is. He's doing it himself, hopefully at great expense.
posted by mbrubeck at 8:13 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Thanks all. Muted, reported, and now I'm out for my health.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 8:13 PM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

I have been torn about talking politics to people, too.

There is a support group that meets every Wednesday at my house, and most of the attendees are liberal, though a few are not. We all talked this week about the various incidents of assault we had experienced. It was a good conversation to have, I think. The one lady I know to be a Trump supporter didn't come last week because she had argued with one of her kids about politics and just couldn't even.

Anyway, I didn't argue with her about anything, just pointed out good places to get neutral information (ballotpedia, League of Women Voters) so she could make some informed decisions. She is smart, and I hope she will make good decisions.

I would love to tell other people how to vote, but as I pointed out to her, I think it's really important to vote whether you agree with me or not. I feel good that I could help her. It would have been much harder for me to hold my tongue if the race were razor edge close, though. I want to be better than the party that has been campaigning to disenfranchise voters.
posted by annsunny at 8:15 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Y'all might enjoy this catchy tune about Making America Great Again.
posted by Sublimity at 8:16 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

Trump leads Clinton by only 4 points in TEXAS, per a new poll. [real]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:18 PM on October 13, 2016 [37 favorites]

Clinton is within the margin of error in Texas in this new poll. Pertinent facts:

SurveyUSA conducted the poll between Monday and Wednesday of this week – after both the 2005 video in which Trump used lewd comments describing women and the second presidential debate in St. Louis on Sunday night.

In recent weeks, two other statewide polls showed Trump up by six and seven points, respectively. . . . For perspective, Mitt Romney won Texas by 16 points in 2012, John McCain won this state by 13 points in 2008, George W. Bush carried his home state by 23 points in 2004, and 22 points in 2000 when he was elected to his first term. . . .

Regionally, Trump leads by eight points in North Texas, which includes Dallas and Fort Worth and 41 surrounding counties. In Houston and 59 surrounding counties making up east and southeast Texas, Trump leads Clinton by six points. Trump has his strongest support in west Texas, including El Paso and 87 counties – leading his Democratic challenger by 15 points.

But Clinton is ahead in Austin, San Antonio and Central Texas. She also leads by nine points in the Rio Grande Valley.

posted by sallybrown at 8:19 PM on October 13, 2016 [37 favorites]

NYTimes, by the Editorial Board: Donald Trump vs. a Free Press: In his opinion for the court, Justice William Brennan Jr. wrote that “public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.” Such discussion “may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”

In Donald Trump’s view, these principles shouldn’t exist. “I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money,” he said in February. Never mind that as president, he would have no power to alter state libel laws.

Of course, Mr. Trump’s threat to sue may be an empty one, as so many of his previous threats — intended mainly to energize his angry base — have been. But it is yet another frightening reminder of what a Trump presidency could bring.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:21 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

Clinton winning Texas would be amazing. I'm doubtful but wow it would be so amazing. If that happened I think I'd pass out from all the schadenfreude vapors. Or I would just run around the house laughing and screaming 'Ha ha you %&^%&^%.' Heck I'm in the country I could just run outside and laugh manically.

Yeesh. This election is getting to me and it's not even mine.
posted by Jalliah at 8:24 PM on October 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

For fuck's sake. Crazy Trump Guy down the street has a North Korean flag up today, because trolling is fun or whatevs, but also a handmade sign reading Hillary C***ry.

There was a big gun rights flag up too and I misread the sign as Hillary Guntry. I was hurrying my kids to school and not paying much attention and I thought hm, I guess that's supposed to be witty? And then someone posted a picture of it on NextDoor tonight and my husband flipped the fuck out and I realized what it actually said and goddamn, it is like someone slapped me in the face.

I can't handle it anymore. This campaign needs to be burned to the ground and the earth salted behind us.
posted by gerstle at 8:27 PM on October 13, 2016 [27 favorites]

Sublimity wrote: Y'all might enjoy this catchy tune about Making America Great Again.

This is the best thing. Click through to YouTube so you can watch it fullscreen.
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:29 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Donald Trump, Jr. in 2013 -

“If you have a guys’ place you have a guys’ place,” Trump Jr., the candidate’s eldest son and executive vice president at the Trump Organization, said, describing himself as a “guy’s guy.”

A host interjected that women “complain, ‘it’s harassment’ — that’s why we hate having them around. They stop us from doing what we want to do.”

“I’m of that mindset — and I’ll get into trouble, I’m sure I’ll get myself in trouble one of these days,” Trump began, “if you can’t handle some of the basic stuff that’s become a problem in the workforce today, then you don’t belong in the workforce. Like, you should go maybe teach kindergarten. I think it’s a respectable position.

“You can’t be negotiating billion-dollar deals if you can’t handle, like, you know,” Trump said, without elaborating. “But listen — there’s a place where you have to draw the line — but today the stuff you get in trouble for …”

The hosts then joked about pulling up pictures of naked women on the computer screen in their recording studio.

“Wouldn’t it be funny if we showed tits and then Donald sued?” one asked.

“I’d feel harassed!” Trump, Jr. joked. “This is my get rich quick scheme. I’m now suing you guys because I feel uncomfortable.”

“And by the way, that’s what happens in the world. I can play along, I can be fine, and then i can decide randomly — ‘uh oh, you now have crossed the line, even though I’ve been going with it.’”

posted by sallybrown at 8:29 PM on October 13, 2016 [19 favorites]

Gerstle, is that legal? I can't believe it!
posted by Tarumba at 8:30 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I really like how it's something a Man has Done, rather than what a Woman who has Built an amazing GOTV machine, backed by the Obama and Biden arms of the party, in gleeful lockstep against no-kidding Fascism.

Here's the best part. The house is Gerrymandered to hell and gone... but once Ryan is voted out, for being too "Whaddafa? Rilly?" - what House Leader can command the respect of the majority of Reps?

Here's a hint. She has her own goddamn party under control. Vote for Her, and she will usher your bil to the floor to delight your constituency as a deep R in a safe district, as the Dems do not have the Child Molester I Mean Hastert Rule.

Hillary and Nanci. Nice.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:31 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

Can we keep Michelle Obama as First Lady during the Hillary Clinton Administration?

No. Michelle Obama gets to do whatever the fuck she wants. She's earned that and then some.
posted by holgate at 8:32 PM on October 13, 2016 [67 favorites]

The Idaho Statesman: Hillary Clinton’s experience makes her the right choice for president: The Idaho Statesman is endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.

Aw, as a resident of Boise, that makes me happy. The governor came out in support of Trump a bit ago, but he's a 'real piece of work' so no surprise here.
posted by Mitrovarr at 8:33 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

So my addiction to this shitshow probably isn't healthy, but: any podcast recommendations? I get to the end of the MeFi threads, I run out of new podcast episodes, and then I end up fruitlessly refreshing Google News forever.

I already listen to Trumpcast, FiveThirtyEight Elections, and Keepin' It 1600. I tried Sam Wang's Woocast, but it didn't really grab me.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 8:35 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

never mind how I know this, I just happened to, er, learn it somehow

That I am spending more time on Twitter reporting filth -- lots of shitposting, but also deep abusive bastardry -- than following my carefully curated timeline says a lot about Twitter. I am so saddened.
posted by holgate at 8:38 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I get to the end of the MeFi threads

Who are you and how many hours are there in a day on your planet
posted by gerstle at 8:40 PM on October 13, 2016 [45 favorites]

Crazy Trump Guy down the street has a North Korean flag up today....

So, somehow, I have to assume the sets "Crazy Trump Guy" and "Vexillologist" don't have a lot of overlap. So, like, did he actually order a North Korean flag with like money? Paint his own up? Or what?
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 8:40 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

"A host interjected that women “complain, ‘it’s harassment’ — that’s why we hate having them around. They stop us from doing what we want to do.”"

You also can't harass women if there aren't women around, you weapons-grade imbecile.
posted by Tarumba at 8:41 PM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

These women Trumpers who insist that these women should have come forward 10/20/30 years ago... I just don't understand it.

Oh, it's an old easy trick. A smart, honest woman would report such a terrible thing right away. I am a smart, honest woman, and tough, too, as you can tell by my Trump support. I have never reported such a terrible thing. Therefore, such a thing must never have happened to me. QED. You can live with a lot if you never look at it, and forcing oppressed people to look their oppression in the face is never going to make them like you.

I forgive nobody who votes for Trump, but on the other hand, the way that people can talk out of both sides of their mouths about Republican women knowing full well what kinds of men they live among is enraging on its own. They should "go full Lysistrata," said somebody a billion comments ago, and I let it lie until I thought I could say something that might possibly not get deleted. let's see if I waited long enough:

in the context of pervasive sexual assault, which you can have no doubt that Republican women live in as much as or more than anyone, to tell them just don't fuck bad men, it only encourages them -- in the explicit context of pervasive sexual intimidation that women live in, to tell Republican women that all they have to do is say No -- is so nasty and tone-deaf it makes me almost feel compassionate towards them. and that is a feeling nobody should ever have to feel.
posted by queenofbithynia at 8:43 PM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

In my ideal universe of things I'd like to exist without people spending time making them happen, there'd be a nightly podcast 7 minutes or less that sums up the day's MeFi election thread.
posted by zachlipton at 8:43 PM on October 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

It's a real flag. I had to google around to figure out what the hell it was.
posted by gerstle at 8:44 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

I can't imagine North Korean flags are big sellers at the flag shop.
posted by Flashman at 8:45 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

@mjblair: "Weird how all these women waited to come forward until they realized they weren't alone, it wasn't their fault, and we might believe them."
posted by chris24 at 8:45 PM on October 13, 2016 [105 favorites]

Please let's not curse Ivanka and assume what she is thinking. She is a women who accordibg to Trump's first wife grew up in a home of abuse, is tied to major financial decisions, whose body is ridiculed by her father publicly on the regular and that's what happens when the cameras are on. I don't know the decisions she's making or why, but I chose to believe she hasn't escaped a serious domestic violence relatiinship and is doing the best she can.
posted by AlexiaSky at 8:47 PM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

The governor came out in support of Trump a bit ago, but he's a 'real piece of work' so no surprise here.

While I appreciate the restraint on your part to avoid identifying Butch Otter by name, Butch Otter is how I know we live in a Philip K. Dick novel, so.
posted by palindromic at 8:47 PM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

it feels weird to try and deny a 34-year old woman her full agency and say she's not responsible for the bulk of her actions.
posted by rotten at 8:51 PM on October 13, 2016 [33 favorites]

zachlipton: In my ideal universe of things I'd like to exist without people spending time making them happen, there'd be a nightly podcast 7 minutes or less that sums up the day's MeFi election thread.

Hmmm. Identify most favorited comments within the past 24 hours of the thread, start voice recording, have the computer read them from the top ("say" on OS X), stop where the clock runs out, publish to a podcast feed. This could be a few dozen lines of Python. MeFI Projects, anyone?

(I'm not 100% sure that I'm kidding. I'd subscribe.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 8:52 PM on October 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

short, creepy AF gif where Howard Stern literally calls Trump a predator and Trump and Ivanka think it's just HILARIOUS

There is no read I can possibly have on any of the ways Ivanka has chosen to respond to her father, after growing up in a home where her mother testified under oath that she was raped by her husband, with Ivanka herself being subjected as a child and adult to what is AT MINIMUM covert incest, that doesn't make me feel like my chest is caving in with sadness and horror. I don't know what's going on in her mind and while I doubt it's ever as simple as "she's also a piece of shit" no matter how dangerous and abusive she gets on a personal level and as a public figure, it's always going to be gut wrenching to watch. IDEK.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 8:52 PM on October 13, 2016 [22 favorites]

palindromic: While I appreciate the restraint on your part to avoid identifying Butch Otter by name, Butch Otter is how I know we live in a Philip K. Dick novel, so.

Partly it's because I hate being reminded of how badly written reality is, and partly it's because I miss the beer.
posted by Mitrovarr at 8:53 PM on October 13, 2016

Local NPR today: voter registration in Travis county TX (Austin) is the highest ever, and not including lots of possible last-minute registrations before midnight.
posted by rp at 8:53 PM on October 13, 2016 [22 favorites]

it feels weird to try and deny a 34-year old woman her full agency and say she's not responsible for the bulk of her actions.

Yes, but we allow for the agency of women who wait decades to go public about their own abuse. I'm not saying that applies to Ivanka, even though all of those posed photos of her teenage years set off alarms, but I think the basis of the ongoing MeFi '#FreeTiffany' strand owes a lot to how Marla Maples GTFO of New York as soon as the divorce permitted.
posted by holgate at 8:58 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

Donald Trump may have lied about donating to 9/11 charities -- NY Daily News
posted by spitbull at 8:59 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

@BenjaminHarvey: Trump speech intro: "We live in a fatherless nation... Our nation needs a father." https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g5p2YKCEyd0

So a father for this land? Fatherland. Has a certain ring to it.
posted by chris24 at 8:59 PM on October 13, 2016 [38 favorites]

escape from potato planet: So my addiction to this shitshow probably isn't healthy, but: any podcast recommendations? I get to the end of the MeFi threads, I run out of new podcast episodes, and then I end up fruitlessly refreshing Google News forever.

I already listen to Trumpcast, FiveThirtyEight Elections, and Keepin' It 1600. I tried Sam Wang's Woocast, but it didn't really grab me.

I listen to The Weeds, which is an insightful podcast about policy and the election. It's thoughtful and wonky. I also listen to Slate's Political Gabfest, W Kamau Bell & Hari Kondabolu's PHENOMENAL Politically Reactive, NPR's excellent politics podcast, the Axe Files (it's kind of like if Marc Maron toned his colorful language waaaay the fuck down and spoke exclusively about politics) and Dan Carlin's Common Sense.
posted by orangutan at 9:03 PM on October 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

You ever watch movies where the villain has this big army with strong loyalties to him for some reason, and you're like, how the hell did he win these guys over? Like he's obviously a bad guy! Hell, in some of these movies (or comics or whatever), the bad guy is plainly not even competent, and yet they've got all these mooks! Where the hell did these guys come from?

That's really what I feel like we're seeing now with Trump supporters. These people actually feel like they're the good guys. They've got every brand of sputtering evil right in their face -- racism, misogyny, sexual predation, blatant corruption and dishonesty, fascism, bullying, breathtaking selfishness and greed, and oh yeah complete incompetence. All that, and they're ready to throw down for the dude. They piss away their time and money and energy and dignity for him. It's like a bad movie.

I've said often that the original GI Joe comics were very different from the cartoon everyone remembers, and they are. One of the things Larry Hama (the writer) invested a lot of time in was how Cobra Commander could build up such a giant army of batshit believers. He leveraged propaganda, paranoia, all of that.

I look at Trump and his followers and I think, "Man, Larry Hama worked way harder than he needed."
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:04 PM on October 13, 2016 [48 favorites]

@imilhiser:

So basically what we've learned is that Trump bought a beauty pageant because he wanted to abuse his power over a stream of young women.

The first reply to this tweet mirrored my thoughts on reading it; it reminds me of nothing so much as Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky had his Second Mile Foundation, in which he groomed children to molest, and Trump has his beauty pageants which he purchased in order to ogle and molest young women. A predator through and through.
posted by Existential Dread at 9:06 PM on October 13, 2016 [34 favorites]

phearlez: "What's your boilerplate for dealing with people like my wife who will not let go of the idea that they don't count mail/absentee votes unless the number of them is within the margin of error for in-person votes?"

I don't think that sounds right. Here's the relevant part from Section 24.2-712(D) of the Code of Virginia (emph. added):

As soon as the polls are closed in the county or city the officers of election at the central absentee voter precinct shall proceed promptly to ascertain and record the vote given by absentee ballot and report the results in the manner provided for counting and reporting ballots generally in Article 4 (§ 24.2-643 et seq.) of Chapter 6.

It's "shall" (not "may") and there's not conditional on it. The first part of this section specifies that the absentee vote count cannot start until polls close.
posted by mhum at 9:06 PM on October 13, 2016

From Don Jr. in 2013:

“I’m of that mindset — and I’ll get into trouble, I’m sure I’ll get myself in trouble one of these days,” Trump began, “if you can’t handle some of the basic stuff that’s become a problem in the workforce today, then you don’t belong in the workforce. Like, you should go maybe teach kindergarten. I think it’s a respectable position.

So not only does he think women should accept harassment in the workplace or get out, he thinks kindergarten teachers aren't "in the workforce," but concedes that job would be "respectable," as if one might think it wasn't. Let's add "kindergarten teachers" to the list of groups the Trump family has insulted.

I'm just imagining how this is going to work in every Trump Organization sexual harassment lawsuit going forward. Every complaint will be full of this stuff along with allegations that the culture of harassment starts at the top, which makes it that much easier to argue that the company is responsible. What kind of insurance company is going to want to be responsible for paying these sorts of claims after this?
posted by zachlipton at 9:07 PM on October 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

Ultimately harmless I think.
posted by rhizome at 9:10 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Hillary Clinton was wrong to complement Trump's children at the debate.

Yeah. I super didn't like that moment. She tried, but holy hell.
posted by rp at 9:11 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

OverlappingElvis & other Twitter peeps: BlockTogether is an imperfect but useful tool for Twitter harassment. Nazi Blocker is a good starter blocklist subscription; suggestions for others?
posted by nicebookrack at 9:12 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

> Hillary Clinton was wrong to complement Trump's children at the debate.


"Tiffany is pretty nice"
posted by mrzarquon at 9:13 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

"What's your boilerplate for dealing with people like my wife who will not let go of the idea that they don't count mail/absentee votes unless the number of them is within the margin of error for in-person votes?"

Not sure about other states, but in California you can actually hand-deliver your vote by mail ballot to your polling place on Election Day, if you'd rather. They're also not called "absentee ballots" here, they're called vote by mail, despite being identical to the concept of an absentee ballot. They are absolutely counted. It's not a "just in case the race is close" kind of thing, at all.

CA also has a website where you can see whether your ballot was counted, which is pretty rad, and in my opinion an important feature if you're going to encourage voting by mail.

Maybe have your wife look into this for your jurisdiction?
posted by Sara C. at 9:14 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

phearlez: "What's your boilerplate for dealing with people like my wife who will not let go of the idea that they don't count mail/absentee votes unless the number of them is within the margin of error for in-person votes?"

In California, that would make no sense - the ballots include voting on multiple bond measures and bits of legislation, in addition to local elections for school boards and the like. They're not going to go to the effort of counting all the in-person ballots, determine the count and margin of error for each candidate and measure in each district, and then count the number of mail-ins from each district separately to decide whether or not to go the the hassle of adding them in.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:16 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

These women Trumpers who insist that these women should have come forward 10/20/30 years ago... I just don't understand it.

I think for a lot of these women, it's along the lines of anger that THEY never made a big deal of all the times they've been grabbed, so everyone should just shut up and deal the way they did. It's the same gripe about unfairness that people use on the subject of welfare. If I didn't need something, it's not fair for someone else to get special treatment. If I have to put up with something, so should you.
posted by threeturtles at 9:32 PM on October 13, 2016 [24 favorites]

Also, this is me after saying I was going to take a break from the thread and do something else. I can't quit this fucking election.

Also, I kinda deeply want this shirt, because it speaks to my soul, but I'm not sure if I'd have the guts to wear it in public.
posted by threeturtles at 9:35 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

Republicans are as deeply in thrall to their alternative reality as Trump is in denial about what kind of man he is.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:35 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Fucking autocorrect.

...is Occam's or Onan's Anti-Christ ?

Hillary Clinton was wrong to complement Trump's children at the debate.

Ah, but those tiny fingers transmit the pustulent sewage of his grandiloquent vainglory with such an elfin grace.
posted by y2karl at 9:36 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Random Thought. Michelle Obama is a lawyer. We have a vacancy on the US Supreme Court. That is all.
posted by mikelieman at 9:37 PM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

Qualifications for a lifetime appointment to nation's highest court perhaps a smidgen higher than "is a lawyer"...
posted by modernnomad at 9:40 PM on October 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

In California, at least in SF, the absentee/vote by mail ballots that have been received before Election Day are counted and reported FIRST, before the rest of them. The first dump of votes on election night is only the early votes/ VBM ones in. It may work differently where you are, but here, those are the first votes counted and reported.
posted by gingerbeer at 9:46 PM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

I think there should be a 'smash ballot' in addition to the real ballot - a brightly-coloured piece of heavy-duty paper issued at the polling station in addition to the formal ballot, so voters have someplace they can scrawl HILLZ YEAH F U TRIMP!!! without spoiling their vote.

Can we please, please do this, but also have them available for those who are unable to vote but are living through this mess?
(The how-to-vote information booklet landed in my mailbox today and made me sad).
posted by une_heure_pleine at 9:52 PM on October 13, 2016

Mod note: A few comments deleted. mikelieman, please chill out on the Michelle Obama thing.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:52 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

But we have a job to do and it'll be good for people and for cats.
posted by y2karl at 9:53 PM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

Qualifications for a lifetime appointment to nation's highest court perhaps a smidgen higher than "is a lawyer"...

That didn't stop Bush from trying to nominate Harriet Miers.
posted by tclark at 9:56 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

You'll note there's no such thing as "Supreme Court Justice Harriet Miers."
posted by dersins at 9:59 PM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

Well, it should have, and even Little Boots' allies in Congress seemed to find her nomination insulting to the legal profession.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:01 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

(that was in response to tclark's comment)
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:02 PM on October 13, 2016

Trying being the operative word, of course.
posted by tclark at 10:04 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Qualifications for a lifetime appointment to nation's highest court perhaps a smidgen higher than "is a lawyer"...

You don't have to be a lawyer to be a Supreme Court Justice.
posted by rhizome at 10:08 PM on October 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

gerstle:

[The North Korea flag of a Trump supporter is] a real flag. I had to google around to figure out what the hell it was.

I read that as "I had to google around Hell to figure out what it was." It still makes perfect sense, given how many abysses we've been forced to look into, online and offline both.

(Abysses? Abyss? Abyssi?)
posted by seyirci at 10:08 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

> “if you can’t handle some of the basic stuff that’s become a problem in the workforce today, then you don’t belong in the workforce.

Exactly! Nowadays, chasing your secretary around the desk, squeezing someone's butt at the copy machine, etc. are considered problems, and so if you cannot keep from doing those things, you should stay the fuck out of the workforce. Asshole.
posted by rtha at 10:20 PM on October 13, 2016 [59 favorites]

Welcome to the spotlight, Ken Bone.
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 10:30 PM on October 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

Lawrence O'Donnell reminded everyone about how former Breitbart writer Michelle Fields accused Corey Lewindowski of grabbing her and Trump shamed her even after video proved her right and police filed charges against him.

CNN, are you really cool with that?

We live in a fatherless nation... Our nation needs a father."

This is less horrifying if you imagine this is something Tobias Funke said.
posted by Room 641-A at 10:32 PM on October 13, 2016 [29 favorites]

> Oh, Barron may turn out okay. Good luck, Barron.

I hope the Writers of 2016 are kinder to Barron (so good, just unbelievable at The Cyber) than Esmail is to Elliot Alderson. DJT would be an even more terrifying Mr. Robot. (Uncle Eric: "Bonsoir, nephew.")
posted by Fiberoptic Zebroid and The Hypnagogic Jerks at 10:34 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Welcome to the spotlight, Ken Bone.

Oh. Well. Glad I put off shopping for those Halloween costume pieces after all.
posted by EatTheWeek at 10:38 PM on October 13, 2016

And.that cat's name.was Boopsie.Grace Booth.
posted by y2karl at 10:46 PM on October 13, 2016

When the election is over and the threads are done can we get a book published of them?

Ran a quick script to count all the words in all the posts tagged "election2016". There were 8,171,653 at last check, or about 32,000 pages. And that doesn't even count all the words in linked articles.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 10:54 PM on October 13, 2016 [19 favorites]

Oh Ken Bone. You AMA'ed from your actual Reddit account. Such noob. Now we know that you think that George Zimmerman was within his rights to shoot Trayvon Martin. Goodbye, Ken.
posted by xyzzy at 10:56 PM on October 13, 2016 [93 favorites]

Always, ALWAYS create a new throwaway account for the AMA, Ken Bone! That's Reddit Rule #1!

Bone's porn comments screenshotted on Gizmodo are surprisingly less horrible than I expected, but then I frequent /r/CreepyPMs.
posted by nicebookrack at 11:02 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

We live in a fatherless nation... Our nation needs a father."

This is less horrifying if you imagine this is something Tobias Funke said.

♫ ...a discipline daddy... ♫
posted by jason_steakums at 11:09 PM on October 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

Fanfic Update, for the benefit of future historians: in the lyrics to Red-sweater Kenneth Bone, please mentally substitute in the line "There’s a million posts I wish I never made." Also strike "A bit of ridicule" and insert "A lot of ridicule." Adventurous readers may imagine their own verse in which Joy Reid does not approve of this Trayvon Martin business one bit.
posted by zachlipton at 11:14 PM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

It's been more than an hour without a post and I'm starting to get worried. Is everyone okay?
posted by clorox at 12:24 AM on October 14, 2016 [18 favorites]

Politico has an article about McMuffin.
posted by annsunny at 12:24 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Ben White: Trump tomorrow is going to blame reports of his sexual assaults on a Mexican. I am not making this up.

He then links to this article on Trump's insane plan: Donald Trump Prepares New Attack on Media, Clinton
posted by guiseroom at 12:26 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

So, I wrote a thing. I actually wrote it in response to Facebook people pissing me off, not you guys, but I'm not sure I can post it there, where my family and people I work with would read it. I needed to get it off my chest, though, so here it is. (Trigger warning: (maybe) rape)

In college, I was in an abusive relationship. He never hit me or anything, but if you go down the checklists for psychological or emotional abuse, he basically checked every box. I was with him for two years, two months, one week, and one day.

One of the things we fought about most often was sex. Namely, he wanted to have it all the time; I didn't. (He was my first; at the time I thought I just didn't like sex. Turns out I didn't like sex with him. But that's a whole other story....) Around four or five nights a week, he'd make a move and I'd make up some excuse why I couldn't that night. Then, he would get mad and we'd argue. He'd call me selfish, or cold, or say that I "didn't love him enough." He'd threaten to break up with me. He'd threaten to throw me out of his dorm room, naked. He'd browbeat me until, eventually I'd just get so tired that I'd let him fuck me, just to get it over with. (Of course, he wouldn't be hard anymore, because I'd "ruined the moment," so I'd have to give him a blowjob to "fix it." Which I would do, often through tears.) Sometimes, I'd just let him from the very beginning, because I knew that that's what would eventually happen anyway and I just didn't have the energy to fight.

Mornings were worse. He liked to wake up and have morning sex. I didn't. If he would sleep late enough, there wouldn't be time before class and I wouldn't have to do it, so when I would wake up in the morning (spooning with him behind me) I'd be so very still and so very quiet and if I just stayed still and quiet enough, maybe he wouldn't wake up until we had to get going to get to class. And that sometimes worked. The worst mornings were when it didn't and he woke up. The first sign that he was conscious was his hand snaking up to fondle my breast. I'd try to pretend that I was still asleep, but after groping my breast for a few seconds, his hand would head south. At that point, I'd either have to claim that we didn't have time (if I had stalled enough, or had somewhere I could "have to be") or just get it over with.

I don't know if any of that was rape, or sexual assault, or anything. I've never told anyone all the details, and I'm not really sure myself. In the end, every time, I did eventually say yes. I "let him." I'd read those campus pamphlets they pass out that tell you that you always have the right to say no, even if you're in a relationship; even if you've had sex with him before, and I'd just laugh, because that was clearly a reality that I did not live in. And now, there's a man who's a hairsbreadth away from being the president of the United States who thinks he can do whatever he wants to women's bodies, to kiss them or grope them, whatever he wants, and it's okay because they "let him." There's a man who raped his wife, had his lawyer tell everyone that it's "impossible to rape your own wife", may have raped a 13 year old girl, who gropes and fondles whatever woman he wants to, regardless of her will, and he's on tape, BRAGGING about it, and he might be our next president.

And I can deal with all of that. I can deal with listening to the Access Hollywood tape, and I can deal with Limbaugh and Banon and all of the vile crap coming out of the alt-right. I can deal with watching his rallies and seeing all those people yell hateful things. I can even deal with the fact that 41% of the country is still (still!) voting for him.

What I can't deal with, the thing that's had me nauseous and stressed and randomly crying these past several days, is the fact that, at this point, there's really only one thing that any of us can do to stop him from being president. And some of my friends, people who I like and respect and care for, who ostensibly care about me, just refuse to do it. Because they "just don't like either one of them." And I can't even. That's just not fucking good enough. One of the two people who might be president thinks he can do whatever he wants to/with my body. One of them doesn't. And you want to take a chance on voting for Gary Fucking Johnson? Because you don't like the two party system? If they actually hand this thing to Trump with their protest vote, I don't know how I'm going to deal with some of the people I really care about, because I'll blame them.
posted by Weeping_angel at 12:34 AM on October 14, 2016 [199 favorites]

Sorry for your pain. Thanks for sharing. It's cold comfort, but take some solace in the fact that Hill's pretty much got this in the bag.
posted by OHenryPacey at 12:44 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm nowhere near caught up, but I'm tired of people giving Melania and Ivanka a pass on their deplorable behaviour.

They're all awful, folks. Why are you giving these two a pass? Melania's lawyer today is Peter Thiel's democracy destroyer. Ivanka has been to three events today defending her dad.

I'm sick of their apologists here.
posted by Yowser at 12:45 AM on October 14, 2016 [27 favorites]

Thanks, Weeping_angel. I was also in an emotionally abusive relationship in college with some issues around sex, though different ones. And yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head about why I'm SO FREAKING PISSED at the people who are still saying they're both the same or equally bad or talking about third parties.
posted by threeturtles at 12:54 AM on October 14, 2016 [10 favorites]

Mefi's favourite sockpuppet, Scott Adams, weighs in with who will be to blame when Clinton is elected.
posted by PenDevil at 2:20 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

A note for people who are feeling overwhelmed, upset, triggered, stressed, and are having difficulty with focus or sleeping - it's really important for you to give yourself a break from this if it's negatively affecting your life. Especially if this is reminding you of past traumas, it's really important you give yourself opportunities to relax and feel safe. We've got you, we're still watching; you can rest for a while.

There is the Calming Manatee ready for reloads to comfort you.

TinyKittens has two batches of kittens on camera right now. First, the Hayloft Flyers are sometimes visited by another set of four kittens who were rescued along with their feral mama and are being taken care of by people who love them. Second, Starling and her six (six!) kittens have hit the scampy age and go from fast asleep to tackling each other with adorable regularity.

You can remake yourself into a Gem using the Steven Universe Gemsona Creator. The site has a bunch of other doll options, all of which can be screen captured and enjoyed.

Buzzfeed gives us animals; I watch Drunk Women Get Surprised by Puppies at least once a month.

Mark is reading through the Young Wizards and Discworld Series and has a huge backlog of books he's read where he responds in a variety of entertaining ways. Mark also Watches things, and is on a Star Trek binge.

There's a host of YouTube famous cats and cat-adjacents: 10 Cats; Bikke the Chip; Big Cat Rescue; Cole and Marmalade; Little Darling; Lofty Pursuits (candy, not cats); Maru; Parole de Chat; Simon's Cat; and Sloth TV.

And finally, if you must remain political, #CatsforHillary is a wonder.

Take care of yourself, please. You are wonderful, valuable, and important.
posted by Deoridhe at 2:22 AM on October 14, 2016 [136 favorites]

Or go watch a baby otter in Vancouver.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:26 AM on October 14, 2016 [12 favorites]

Ugh, I am never going to catch up with this thread. But I wanted to say thanks to everyone who keeps posting relevant news and comments.

As terrible as this timeline is, it is gratifying to know it's so much worse for Donald Trump and the GOP.
posted by ryanrs at 2:34 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm definitely one of those Ivanka/Melania. "apologists" and I think the difference in perception of these womens' situation comes down, I hope, to whether or not you think someone like Trump is willing to only abuse strangers, or if he's likely to go after the women in his own circle and striking range. Are abused women who defend and enable (yes, #TrumpsMirror) a danger to society and anyone in their paths? Absolutely. Is pointing out that they do not deserve abuse apologism? If so, what is the righteous non-apologist alternative? Saying that Melania knew what she was getting into so she deserves to be raped like Ivana was raped? Saying Ivanka was almost certainly a victim of some level of incest, but is still in a bizzare relationship with her primary abuser and defends him, so she can go to hell? These women are enablers not just of a fascist monster but of a serial rapist with a history of preying on his own family, so the dismissive "fuck her" becomes, quite literally, "fuck her" in its most crude and real form, and that is something I can't countenance. I think it's possible to point out their complicity in Trump's campaign and Melania's lawsuit are unacceptable, to want to tank Ivanka's political aspirations because they're probably as toxic as her father's. To hold out the possibility that they're psychopaths too etc. But I don't think saying Ivanka's domestic situation is horrifying is "apologism" or excuses her political actions. YMMV.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 2:58 AM on October 14, 2016 [20 favorites]

PenDevil: Mefi's favourite sockpuppet, Scott Adams, weighs in with who will be to blame when Clinton is elected.
That's... even sillier than I expected.

So just because y'all are getting a female president, from now on women will be to blame (whatever that really means) for everything? Well then, logically that means that up until that moment, men have been to blame.
With me so far? Okay, then who is to blame for Benghazi, Hillary's email server, and Bill's missteps?
Whoever it is, it can't be Hillary. So why do you (Scott, not generic you) hate her so much? Nothing was her fault after all.
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:04 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

But I don't think saying Ivanka's domestic situation is horrifying is "apologism" or excuses her political actions. YMMV.


Sure, but Donald Jr. and Eric were raised in that same environment, and Donald himself, from what we hear had an asshole for a father, so their situations are, in some sense, "understandable" too from the perspective of background influence. At some point though I don't think environment is enough of a justification for actions to be worthy of real sympathetic defense. Keeping it in mind as a way to understand people who are in conflict with your values is always a plus, and having general empathy for other humans in whatever situation too is undeniably a good thing, but people also need to be held to account for their actions as adults, particularly those who certainly have other paths open to them like all the Trumps have had.

I think this election is proving that there are many things we all still need to address and come to terms with, and while most of the immediate harm and blame is coming from white males right now, the history of the country and our culture too has made their positions in some ways understandable as far too many of the things being brought to light didn't start with the Trumps but have been here all along, culturally accepted as "the way things are" in some sense, even as we also sometimes deign to notice a long, long line of victims of "that way" being the result of our actions.

Holding people to account for their actions is important and necessary, but keeping in mind the kind of empathy that speaks to understanding is just as important in order to make the US a better place. So I'm okay with calling Ivanka into account just like her father, but I do agree that we need to keep in mind these actions aren't coming from a vacuum and deal with that too.
posted by gusottertrout at 3:32 AM on October 14, 2016 [17 favorites]

but I do agree that we need to keep in mind these actions aren't coming from a vacuum and deal with that too

...which in turn could bring us to imagine, and shudder about, the treatment Donald Trump himself suffered in his youth through parents and/or other people who had power over him... which makes me think "I don't give a beeep." Grownups are (to be held) responsible of their actions, even if we allow for some understanding of "how it all began," or empathy.
posted by Namlit at 4:00 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

If you start from the idea that abortion is murder, and that millions of them are happening a year, you should literally be in the streets with guns fighting an all-out war to stop it.

The fact that Evangelicals aren't doing that, by and large, should perhaps tell you how serious they are about the whole "murder" angle (as opposed to slut shaming).
posted by tocts at 9:28 AM on October 13 [52 favorites]

Finally caught up, and was disappointed in the lack of response to this because I feel that this is the primary aspect of the Evangelical movement and its role in this election that Metafilter fundamentally fails to understand. As the only atheist from a large family/church network of Evangelicals, I find it worrying that on this one topic Metafilter feels as...sheltered, maybe, as my family does regarding so much of the outside world. They don't represent all Evangelicals - probably not even the majority - but as serious medical & engineering professionals with most having logged at least a few years of overseas missionary work they hew extremely closely to the Christianity Today mindset, which as we saw upthread just repudiated Trump. One or two have written for Christianity Today, come to think of it.

First to the fundamental point: yes, many Evangelicals including most of the several hundred I've talked to about this consider abortion to be murder, period, in all cases including rape and incest. To them this is an active and state-sanctioned second Holocaust they are horrified to be complicit in just in terms of national identity. They are not "in the streets with guns fighting an all-out war" because they believe "Thou shalt not kill" means precisely that, and that they are forbidden from breaking express commandments under any circumstances.

What they can do while remaining consistent with their beliefs is peacefully protest outside abortion clinics (without vocally harassing women, mind, unless you count silent prayer for their salvation as harassment), financially supporting pro-life "counseling" centers aka guilt-based-adoption-clinics with 10% of their pre-tax salary, and unfailingly advocating for pro-life politicians. A few of the more desperate were once arrested for welding themselves into triangular metal collars made of 1" thick steel rebar, and then welding the collars together and chaining them to lamp posts at a Planned Parenthood clinic. Nothing came of those tactics and after a couple years they stopped protesting entirely in favor of more effective/constructive methods.

A vote for Hillary or really any Democrat candidate is not in the cards. They are keenly aware this election determines Roe vs Wade for the next thirty years or quite likely more.

On the subject of this year's election they have been almost completely silent. Not one of the 120 or so family members and friends from back home that I have on Facebook has posted a single link in support of Trump in all this time. One remains a "Cruz was right!!" dead-ender, two have gone full-on fire-breathing Libertarian, and one cousin who came back from a brutal six month mission in a Nigerian field hospital with eyes opened a little wider posted the NPR fact-check of the first debate, which was incredibly courageous of her.

Otherwise: utter silence.

When I asked their views, the responses have all taken some form of "sitting this one out, I don't believe Jesus would vote for Trump OR someone who supports abortion."

People, as it has been noted in the locker-room debate in the previous election thread, tend to self-sort. Not all - and judging from polling numbers not even most - Evangelical groups are like the one I grew up in. And on that note I never once heard anything like what Trump has said in that community's locker rooms, not even close. On the other hand in different communities - both extremely religious and Cambridge-liberal - I have heard talk that was on par with Trump's, so I know that it absolutely exists.

My point is this: every such group has a unique ethos and culture, which changes for good or ill over time, and those specific beliefs about abortion most certainly do exist for a substantial percentage of Evangelicals. While I may disagree strongly with my family's views and actions I think the basic existence of their qualitatively less-toxic and more Christ-like attitude merits some acknowledgement, however tacit.

Oh, and FWIW the David Wong article rings very, very true to me. I strongly believe that Wong was raised in one of the more feral and much nastier pockets of the same culture.
posted by Ryvar at 4:02 AM on October 14, 2016 [38 favorites]

Seen on Gizmodo: Harambe died so Ken Bone could live.
posted by spitbull at 4:05 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

@LATSeema: Press at Trump evening rally getting escorted to motorcade under watch of cops in riot gear, per pool. This is getting increasingly scary.
posted by zombieflanders at 4:06 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

You ever watch movies where the villain has this big army with strong loyalties to him for some reason, and you're like, how the hell did he win these guys over? Like he's obviously a bad guy!

Growing up, I lived near a store that sold used comics. I used to love looking through the older ones -- the really hokey ones from the 50s and 60s.

One of the plotlines they repeated every couple of years was that the main villain -- the Joker or Lex Luthor -- would run for mayor or president against Superman/Batman, and would get seriously close to winning.

Even as a kid, I thought that was ridiculous. Who in Gotham City would vote for the Joker? I mean, they know him! He just doused them with deadly Joker gas, like, a month ago! How is that believable, even in an old cheesy comic book?

Well, now I know.
posted by PlusDistance at 4:10 AM on October 14, 2016 [109 favorites]

Is anybody here like *huh. We're going to have our first women president. And I happen to love HRC. Trump is imploding. So why do I feel this dread that is like the smell of something dead, only it's not a smell but rather sort of an anticipatory fear?*
posted by angrycat at 4:23 AM on October 14, 2016 [64 favorites]

I remain hopeful that the names "Republican Party" and maybe even "GOP" won't survive me.

I quit using "GOP" to refer to Republicans some time ago, and I wish the media would do the same. There's nothing grand about the Republicans any more.
posted by Gelatin at 4:24 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

Is anybody here like *huh. We're going to have our first women president. And I happen to love HRC. Trump is imploding. So why do I feel this dread that is like the smell of something dead, only it's not a smell but rather sort of an anticipatory fear?*

Yeah I wouldn't say I feel all that great about the state of things.

On the other hand, lol ken bone
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:26 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Angrycat, you're not alone. The crazy people will still be here after the election and the damage that man is doing to our country is real and immense.
posted by Sublimity at 4:27 AM on October 14, 2016 [17 favorites]

So I just realized that the pussy tape was only a week ago, right? It seems like months ago and we've got three and a half more weeks of this crap to get through. I know that this has been going on for a year and a half but 24 more days seems like forever.
posted by octothorpe at 4:34 AM on October 14, 2016 [29 favorites]

I think the best outcome we can hope for is that the craziest of the Trumpets fuck off to, like, northern Idaho to figure out exactly how mythical the concept of self - sufficiency really is for a few years. I mean, they blatantly live in a different reality, I'd be happy if they could just decide to stop trying to drag the other 75% of us into it as well. You got your own reality, bully for you, now go somewhere else and enjoy it.

This is a cult. The next logical step is a compound in the ass end of nowhere, right?
posted by soren_lorensen at 4:39 AM on October 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

I bet that even the ass end of nowhere has people living there who don't want to be bothered by a basket of fucktrumpets.
posted by Too-Ticky at 4:43 AM on October 14, 2016 [26 favorites]

Yeah, last night I found myself reading through an election thread from August 3. It was a window into a barely-remembered past. How young we all were!
posted by penduluum at 4:43 AM on October 14, 2016 [42 favorites]

I think the best outcome we can hope for is that the craziest of the Trumpets fuck off to, like, northern Idaho to figure out exactly how mythical the concept of self - sufficiency really is for a few years

Major Idaho newspaper endorsed Clinton though.
posted by tilde at 4:50 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

Trumpism won't go away because it's not really a belief in a person but rather a hatred of something. Specifically, hatred of liberals -- hatred of elites, minority ascendance, equal rights for women, snobby academics, PC culture. They like Trump because he hates those things as much as they do. A new leader will emerge, one who likely won't have the baggage of Trump. You feel anxiety because you know that the worst is yet to come; things will continue to escalate no matter who wins this election.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 4:51 AM on October 14, 2016 [22 favorites]

Amazing that I already have two white men spinning hypotheticals equating the possible treatment of Trump's two male sons, or Trump's upbringing, with his incessant public misogyny, history of raping and committing sexual transgressions against women and (at minimum) talking sexually about his daughter. This thread is 2,000 comments long, and systemic violence against women is one of its major discussion points, and you guys still don't fucking get it.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 4:56 AM on October 14, 2016 [14 favorites]

Serious question: what do you do when people are not willing to interact with reality on a factual basis anymore? I have made the mistake of reading the responses to some of the linked twitter messages, youtube videos, and articles, and I invariably get short "discussions" of this type:

A: Trump is a horrible choice because XYZ.
B: That is a lie, he never did that, he never said it, and Hillary did UVW!
A: This Hillary UVW stuff has been debunked, here is a Snopes link for that, and here is an independent review; and here are three independent sources supporting the link between Trump and XYZ.
B: These are all lies, media and science are lying to us, I do not accept this!

From then it usually descends into name calling. I get that most online media services and belief communities form a bit of an echo chamber, MeFi included, but how do you argue against someone that is at war with, well, reality? If they do not accept anything beyond information that supports their own viewpoints, how do you get someone like that to even question their position?

I keep thinking back to the debates, and Trump and Pence simply going "wrong", "nope", "nuh-uh", even when confronted with evidence to the contrary. As a linguist I see this as actions against the cooperative principle, and I do not understand how they communicate in normal life like that.

(Disclaimer: not American, but I do have vested interest in the continuing existence of civilization, so I'd prefer a Hillary win.)
posted by PontifexPrimus at 4:57 AM on October 14, 2016 [44 favorites]

Hmmm... bottom of the ocean, then? I hear there's a failed state down there somewhere that'd be perfect if you can just rid it of a few of the more troublesome former inhabitants.
posted by soren_lorensen at 4:59 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

I keep thinking back to the debates, and Trump and Pence simply going "wrong", "nope", "nuh-uh", even when confronted with evidence to the contrary. As a linguist I see this as actions against the cooperative principle, and I do not understand how they communicate in normal life like that.

This being the 21st century, I truly hope that by the next election, they decide to go high tech and include a giant screen with all possible clips of the participants' statements loaded up to play at a moment's notice. This should not be that difficult, and would eliminate all the "he said/she said" bullshit that we're seeing from the debates this year.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:03 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

I just googled "Hillary UVW", came back and reread the comment. I hate getting old. Or twitchy, or whatever.
posted by klarck at 5:04 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

There's nothing grand about the Republicans any more.

Well they are old, at the median. And man is that a hell of a party they've got going on.

Everyone I know has watched Michelle Obama's incredible speech all the way through in the last 18 hours, it seems. Some with their kids. I think she broke through the noise yesterday and the bomb is still going off slowly.

I dread that today Trump will attack her, but am comforted by my sense that that's the damn plan and she is hardened by 8 years of sexist, racist hate coming her family's way already. And I think that if he does go after her, he is headed below 35% in a few weeks.
posted by spitbull at 5:07 AM on October 14, 2016 [23 favorites]

Hmmm... bottom of the ocean, then? I hear there's a failed state down there somewhere that'd be perfect if you can just rid it of a few of the more troublesome former inhabitants.

They're trying to build that here, only with more Coors ads and reality television. I'm not sure if I'm joking.
posted by middleclasstool at 5:09 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Serious question: what do you do when people are not willing to interact with reality on a factual basis anymore?

Relax. Breathe. Remember that what you're hearing at this point from supporters is the 27% Keyes Constant, and that IF WE ALL SHOW UP AND VOTE, it'll be HRC 73 - 27.
posted by mikelieman at 5:14 AM on October 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

Yeah, last night I found myself reading through an election thread from August 3. It was a window into a barely-remembered past. How young we all were!

How is tehhund doing? Did you say hi? The last time I popped in to say that here in the future under Hillary we now all have jetpacks, kittens, and have solved most of the world's problems but I don't think he entirely believes me. Please don't tell him about the undersea habitat with Coors ads and reality television, it would break his heart.
posted by sebastienbailard at 5:18 AM on October 14, 2016 [19 favorites]

As a linguist I see this as actions against the cooperative principle, and I do not understand how they communicate in normal life like that.

As an lingusitic anthropologist, I would say that prevarication (which is found even in some animal communication systems) simply depends on the presumptive faith the speech community necessarily has in the efficient and instrumental relationship of language to reality and experience. Prevarication entails an antisocial intention to harm the group that believes you, at the extreme, but all humans "lie" all the time in normal communication too, often to enhance solidarity or smoothe social conflicts or hurt feelings or to boost their own status or self-esteem. Humans are not normally fully truthful. But a sociopathic prevaricator like Trump plays on this, exactly like a gaslighting abusive spouse does. He makes his victims doubt their own relationship to reality by building a structure of lies that construct an alternate version of reality and refuses to acknowledge contradictory evidence.

In the best cases, that catches up to the sociopathic liar as reality has a way of not caring whether you acknowledge it or not.

TLDR: sociopathic liars rely on the cooperative principle having some essential flexibility and tolerance to get their foot in the door. Then they gaslight you.

Look at how many comments in these threads are "can't evens" and expressions of stunned disbelief.
posted by spitbull at 5:23 AM on October 14, 2016 [25 favorites]

I can't believe we made it to Friday again.

"Stay tuned. There’s more information that’s coming out that supports his claim that this is false." @GovPenceIN on Trump accusations
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:23 AM on October 14, 2016

Please proceed, Governor.
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:24 AM on October 14, 2016 [34 favorites]

> Hillary Clinton was wrong to complement Trump's children at the debate.

Maybe she should have said "I hear your steaks were not too bad."

Or "Some of your ex-wives are interesting people."

Or "As far as I know, none of your hotels has had bedbug problems."
posted by emjaybee at 5:25 AM on October 14, 2016 [26 favorites]

The White House has apparently already issued a warning to Trump not to come after Michelle
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:27 AM on October 14, 2016 [11 favorites]

I can't believe we made it to Friday again.

"Stay tuned. There’s more information that’s coming out that supports his claim that this is false

So it is still early and my brain didn't initally parse the two sentences as distinct thoughts. So I was left wondering for a second if you were implying that we were caught in some Groundhog Day-esque loop where we are forced to relive the election over and over again.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 5:27 AM on October 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

Woke up, caught up, and as First Lady Extraordinarie put it yesterday, it hurts. It hurts.

I share the helpless rage of so many women here towards "both sides as bad," and of course none of us have anything left to say to those actually voting for him. I (so far) have been lucky enough that my own experiences never went past public harassment from strangers—

—yeah I had to use the word "lucky" because it fits because the world is a mess—

—so don't have the deep-seated trauma, even the PTSD, of so many. But I understand the pain. So many, even just here in this thread.

So many times, reading through this thread, I clicked on usernames to see where the posters were. And I was disappointed that I couldn't meet them for a drink and a hug if they wanted it.

And the rage builds. We're all aghast at torture (in the """"enhanced-interrogation"""" sense), and all aghast at abuse and abusive relationships, a huge component of which is typically gaslighting.

From the stories pouring out here, this is psychological torture for so many of us, i don't mean only women but the press, POC, ethnic minorities, the religiously-different, immigrants (oh hai, self); and I don't have to point out that gaslighting is SOP for one side.

How dare they!? I mean, how dare they?

How do we make it clear that this doesn't fly? Or walk, or even crawl?

No, November 8 will not be the end of this.
posted by seyirci at 5:27 AM on October 14, 2016 [21 favorites]

There’s more information that’s coming out that supports his claim that this is false

At this point, it'll just be a picture of Hillary campaigning in Williamsburg with a newspaper somewhere in the frame. And they'll say, eh?...eh?...see?
posted by uncleozzy at 5:27 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sure, but Donald Jr. and Eric were raised in that same environment, and Donald himself, from what we hear had an asshole for a father, so their situations are, in some sense, "understandable" too from the perspective of background influence. At some point though I don't think environment is enough of a justification for actions to be worthy of real sympathetic defense. Keeping it in mind as a way to understand people who are in conflict with your values is always a plus, and having general empathy for other humans in whatever situation too is undeniably a good thing, but people also need to be held to account for their actions as adults, particularly those who certainly have other paths open to them like all the Trumps have had.

I think of this as the Explanation is not an Excuse principle.

That you can construct a causal chain doesn't excuse a moral actor for not breaking the chain.
posted by srboisvert at 5:28 AM on October 14, 2016 [15 favorites]

(Wasn’t Clinton’s exact compliment that Trump’s children were “able” and “loyal”? It was a lawyerly bit of precision.)
posted by nicepersonality at 5:30 AM on October 14, 2016 [25 favorites]

Michelle Obama is baiting Trump with that "warning." Fantastic!
posted by Yowser at 5:30 AM on October 14, 2016 [23 favorites]

a short video breaks down Clinton's "compliment" of Trump

it appears that she did call them "incredibly able," which was a huge mistake(and obviously inaccurate), I agree.
posted by Yowser at 5:40 AM on October 14, 2016

Amazing that I already have two white men spinning hypotheticals equating the possible treatment of Trump's two male sons, or Trump's upbringing, with his incessant public misogyny, history of raping and committing sexual transgressions against women and (at minimum) talking sexually about his daughter.

I can see why you might think that was what I was doing, but it wasn't. You're starting your assumption from a base that doesn't fit that I was suggesting, so the difference of thought here seems to come from that.

My intent wasn't to stand up for Trump's sons, and it's only by taking it as a given that Ivanka doesn't have the same level of responsibility for her actions they do would make the rest of the comment fit. I start with the belief that Ivanka does in fact have the same level of responsibility at this point as her brothers, and brought up their upbringings only to highlight how our histories influences our present, but doesn't forgive it.

Understanding how history affects us is an important set to rectify those kinds of problems by giving us an avenue to address them. It shouldn't act as a substitute for personal responsibility however. Ivanka's history, whatever it may be, surely would mean little to any Mexican detained in a internment camp, Muslim deported, or woman attacked by supporters of Trump she has helped encourage. Those are the people I'm most concerned about right now.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:41 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

Hillary Clinton was wrong to complement Trump's children at the debate.

Clinton's Cozy Relationship With Adversary's Inner Circle Casts A Shadow, Some Say
posted by condour75 at 5:41 AM on October 14, 2016 [18 favorites]

I don't know, if I were forced to suddenly think of a nice thing about Donald Trump to say on national television I would probably have said something stupid too.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 5:44 AM on October 14, 2016 [96 favorites]

Regarding Trump's kids support of their father I think we should remember the words of Kimya Dawson in her song My Heroes "Having been fucked is no excuse for being fucked up ".
posted by pseudodionysus at 5:44 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Did we all see Erick Erickson tearing apart the Christian right this morning?

Here's some highlights:

When Christians argue that we should, in the future, have a moral leader, who will take us seriously after you so quickly whored yourselves to Donald Trump?

When Christians argue for a moral basis of law, who will take us seriously? You, the media adorned face of Christianity in America, rallied to a man who revels in sin. You dismissed sexual assault claims because you did not want to harm your chances of getting secular, worldly power.

Christians should be known by our love, but you have sown division, hatred, and apologies for sin. You have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator. You have made an idol of your politics and worship it as a religion. You have allowed bad company to corrupt your good morals.

I mean holy shit. He's just laying into them.
posted by Talez at 5:46 AM on October 14, 2016 [133 favorites]

GOP strategist Steve Scmidt on the future of the party:

I got in touch with him for his thoughts on what’s happened since, and he unloaded on Trump (“manifestly unfit in every conceivable way”), Republican Party leadership (“political cowardice on a massive level”), and evangelical leaders standing by the nominee despite everything (“literally the modern-day Pharisees”).

>
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:46 AM on October 14, 2016 [32 favorites]

The White House has apparently already issued a warning to Trump not to come after Michelle

The White House has figured out they can make Trump do anything they want just by saying "Don't do X, Mr. Trump!"
posted by EarBucket at 5:47 AM on October 14, 2016 [31 favorites]

It's like trying to get a toddler to eat. "Don't you eat that broccoli, don't you dare. No, don't eat it!"
posted by uncleozzy at 5:48 AM on October 14, 2016 [13 favorites]

Donald Trump is so easily manipulated into doing the stupidest things that it's a miracle he's such a successful busin... oh wait.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 5:49 AM on October 14, 2016 [28 favorites]

NY Public defender: For perspective, when my homeless, black, schizophrenic client kissed and groped a woman, the DA suggested a 6-year prison sentence.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:51 AM on October 14, 2016 [115 favorites]

it appears that she did call them "incredibly able," which was a huge mistake(and obviously inaccurate), I agree.

But she didn't specify what they are able to do.
posted by amarynth at 5:51 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Trump mains Hanzo and complains about team comp in chat. Also with website.
posted by argybarg at 5:53 AM on October 14, 2016 [23 favorites]

But she didn't specify what they are able to do.

Yes without qualification that's like saying 'Hmm yes. That's interesting."
posted by Jalliah at 5:54 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

I've fought the need to pass judgement on trump spawn. they're definitely complicit in trump's deplorableness, but they're not on the ballot, and if it wasn't them spewing the same untruths as trump it would be someone else.

for me, whenever i feel the need to judge and hate i need to ask myself to try and grant them the same sympathy i would a sick friend or family member. i'm fairly certain they've been heavily abused ( sexually or otherwise ) in their upbringings, and that they are spiritually sick in the same way their father is. if i can't at least try to see them in the light of sympathy then i will have trouble forgiving anyone who is the victim of such abuse, and that's not a moral position i want to hold.

unfortunately for me i can't fend off the hate in my heart for DJT himself. of course he's hateful and deserving of scorn, but it is bad for me to carry hate in my heart. it makes me a less full person. and i hate him even more for that.
posted by localhuman at 5:54 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

You dismissed sexual assault claims because you did not want to harm your chances of getting secular, worldly power.

This from the dude that founded a site called 'Redstate', which was all about getting secularly, worldly power.
posted by PenDevil at 5:54 AM on October 14, 2016 [13 favorites]

Yowser: it appears that she did call them "incredibly able," which was a huge mistake(and obviously inaccurate), I agree.

Maybe she meant it as shorthand for able-bodied. Which they seem to be. *shrug*
She had to say something, and she did not have a lot of time to think about it... I think it's pretty cool that she basically said 'there's absolutely nothing about you personally that I can respect even a little bit, so here's something about people who are not you'.
posted by Too-Ticky at 5:55 AM on October 14, 2016 [17 favorites]

Trump mains Hanzo and complains about team comp in chat. Also with website.

Is this English?

/old
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:55 AM on October 14, 2016 [31 favorites]

The very real possibility that Bannon creates an official alt-right party scares the shit out of me.

I don't know how Zoe Quinn can stomach staying in the United States.
posted by Yowser at 5:55 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

it appears that she did call them "incredibly able," which was a huge mistake(and obviously inaccurate), I agree.

What was she supposed to say? "No, there's literally nothing good I can say about Donald Trump." Her answer was on-brand, refrained from complimenting him for any particular personal quality, and appeals to the many people (some evident in this very thread!) who have an oddly starry-eyed view of Ivanka despite their hatred for Trump.
posted by vathek at 5:56 AM on October 14, 2016 [21 favorites]

When I see all the things Ivanka says and does to defend/identify with her dad, I think Stockholm Syndrome.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 5:57 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

Legally armed protester stands outside Dittmar campaign offices for hours

2A wingnuts have been doing this to mosques for a long time now, so I guess it's only natural that they're expanding to anyone they oppose. It's a blatant threat to pretty much every freedom outlined in the 1A, and it's both disappointing and scary that the supposedly level-headed and reasonable 2A supporters have abdicated their moral responsibility by keeping quiet on this.

It's the NRA's America, the rest of us are just living in it.
posted by zombieflanders at 5:59 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

Honestly, I have a special species of rage for Ivanka Trump. She represents a type: she's certainly not the first slick young woman who has taken upon itself to humanize fascism. But she's the first one I can think of who has done it after converting to Judaism, and she provides a lot of ideological cover for the antisemitism of her father's campaign. And I find that repellent: I find it to be a betrayal of my community, which welcomed her as a member and which she is now harming.

Having said that, I am also hypersensitive to the misogyny of left-leaning men, and I honestly don't know how much of my rage at Ivanka is fueled by my own internalized misogyny. I don't want to talk about Ivanka, in part because I don't want to hear the violent language that many left-leaning men hurl at women whom they think it's safe to abuse. And she's not the candidate.

I literally can't think of any good reason to care about Melania at all.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:59 AM on October 14, 2016 [35 favorites]

DTJr tries to scrub a sexual harassment tweet, but The Wayback Machine never forgets.
posted by tomierna at 6:00 AM on October 14, 2016 [18 favorites]

"I'll take that as a compliment" as if he won that point.
posted by whuppy at 6:01 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

I have no problem passing judgement on his kids. They're helping running his campaign, and are very visible in an outsized way (witness that stunt where they shook Bill Clinton's hand at the second debate, violating all protocol and human decency)
posted by Yowser at 6:03 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

The very real possibility that Bannon creates an official alt-right party scares the shit out of me.

I'd say he's already done it. The stuff that came out of Trump's mouth yesterday was pure Bannon. I'm sure Trump thinks it's all his great and best thoughts buts that's Bannon talking in his ear.
posted by Jalliah at 6:04 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

DTJr tries to scrub a sexual harassment tweet, but The Wayback Machine never forgets.

Mark McGrath from Sugar Ray? What fucking year is it? What is going on?
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:05 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

. Other people who are a little worried to speak out because of possible persecution," he said.

OMFG GET OUT OF HERE WITH YOUR GROSS PERSECUTION FETISH. No one is persecuting you people, unless friends telling other friends they disagree with them in forceful terms is now 'persectuion.'

These people and their stupid fucking personal mythology. It's projection all the down every time they complain about "safe spaces" and "special snowflakes." They are desperate for a safe space to spew their BS with no consequences, and they think they are the specialest snowflakes that ever rained from the sky and only they can save us from something something with their unique special conspiracy knowledge and WAKE UP SHEEPLE nonsense.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:09 AM on October 14, 2016 [58 favorites]

What fucking year is it?

@donaldjtrumpjr: .@rudolphvalentino can kiss all the starlets he can catch! lololol [fake]
posted by uncleozzy at 6:09 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

Mark McGrath from Sugar Ray? What fucking year is it? What is going on?

"Shut the door babe, don't say a word"
posted by Talez at 6:10 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Atlantic Trump Goes to War

"The leaders," Trump complains, are "not putting their weight behind the people." He had, in his view, won the last presidential debate, and yet the House speaker, Paul Ryan, had not called to congratulate him. "Wouldn't you think maybe Paul Ryan would call and say, 'Good going'?" Trump asks. "You'd think they would say, 'Good going, Don! Let's beat this crook! She's a crook! Let's beat her, we've got to stop it!’ No, he doesn't do that."[...]

The Republicans appeased Trump, thinking that placating him would stave off chaos. But the chaos came anyway, and now it has taken over.

"I always figure things out, folks," Trump says. "There's a whole sinister deal going on."

As the campaign enters its gruesome, death-rattle phase—yes, there are three and a half more weeks of this to endure—Trump is refusing to go down without a fight. He intends to drag them all with him if he can, down into the swirling chaos. Scary clowns have been popping up all over the country, and somehow this does not seem like a coincidence.

WaPo These women plan to vote for Trump, despite his lewd comments

They know Trump has said crude things about women. He may even have behaved like a lout. But when forced to weigh Trump’s behavior against their disdain for Clinton, the women at Granny’s say it’s not even close.

“She couldn’t care less about me,” said Brenda Vaughn, 62, wearing a “Women for Trump” shirt at a rally at this landmark restaurant, home to Friday night gospel gatherings and a reputation for the best fried chicken in these Blue Ridge foothills.[...]

“When I see her, all I see is plastic — all fake. He might have said things people don’t agree with, but he is real,” said Vaughn, who helped distribute 400 Trump signs around neighboring McDowell County.[...]

As Lloyd rang up Carol Smith’s bill at the register, the scheduler for a local orthodontist group said she is worried that Trump could kill Obamacare. She said that would be bad news for those with preexisting conditions, including her husband, who has heart disease.

“It would devastate us,” Smith, 48, said.

Yet she still plans to vote Trump.

Wow so Hillary is plastic but Donald is real. Hillary "couldn't care less" about them but somehow Donald is going to be their Savior. It is jaw-dropping and I can't help feel that if Hillary was to show up and talk to these women that somehow they might discover she is not the devil but a person they can relate to.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:10 AM on October 14, 2016 [57 favorites]

A little on the nose, Soren. Yikes.
posted by Yowser at 6:10 AM on October 14, 2016

Top of Google News right now ...

Donald Trump puts the ‘con’ in ‘conspiracy theory’

yesterday was something quite different. This was Trump hitting rock bottom, droning incoherently about “our civilization” being in jeopardy unless he’s elected to take “them” on. Who are “they”? The Republican candidate didn’t say, exactly, but Trump is nevertheless certain they’re up to no good, and they want to crush our “sovereign rights as a nation.”

posted by tilde at 6:12 AM on October 14, 2016 [10 favorites]

The Latest: Clinton Accuses Trump of Debate 'Stalk' Attempt

Hillary Clinton says Donald Trump was trying to "stalk" her on the debate stage last weekend. She says it was "really weird."

Clinton says in an interview on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" that her Republican rival tried to "dominate" the debate stage.

The Democratic presidential nominee says "you could just sense how much anger he had" in the aftermath of the revelation of a video showing Trump making vulgar comments about women more than a decade ago.

He has already said that she walked in front of him and that at the next debate he plans to do the same thing to her-- which is weird threat since they will be seated at a table, but I really feel for her. It must have been so distracting yet she never let on.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:14 AM on October 14, 2016 [10 favorites]

One thing I keep wondering about... I don't have any real Trump voters around me besides a few people who I suspect are alt-right bros. For the sort of "bedrock" conservatives, do they think Obama destroyed America? What specifically did he do if so? Because Obama was supposed to destroy America eight years ago and now Hillary is supposed to destroy America, and yet somehow America is still here?
posted by selfnoise at 6:17 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

Mike Pence: "I don't understand" Michelle Obama's critique of Trump

“Look I have a lot of respect for the first lady,” Pence told “CBS This Morning” early Friday. “But I don’t understand the basis of her claim.”

“You don’t believe his language was ‘sexually predatory?’” co-host Norah O’Donnell asked Pence, quoting Obama’s words when she slammed Trump for “bragging about sexually assaulting women.”

[...]

When asked if there was a “red line” Trump could cross that would lose him the support of his running mate, Pence guaranteed that he would weather the storm with the GOP nominee.

posted by tilde at 6:17 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

If I had one wish for this thread it is that we could stop our weird obsession with deciding how much to judge DJT's children.

The adult children involved in his campaign? I'm judging.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:17 AM on October 14, 2016 [56 favorites]

What's the over/under on a Friday afternoon oppo drop?
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:18 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

What's the over/under on a Friday afternoon oppo drop?

I'm not sure about an oppo drop, but something bad always seems to happen to Trump on Fridays. I mean, that includes him opening his mouth, though.
posted by selfnoise at 6:19 AM on October 14, 2016 [26 favorites]

somehow America is still here?

Did you see that Marketplace poll upthread that says that a large percentage of Republicans don't actually believe that all of the economic indicators that are reported are true? They reject the reality that the country has not been destroyed and replace it with their own invented dystopia.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:21 AM on October 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

something bad always seems to happen to Trump on Fridays

Donna Moss: What's take out the trash day?
Josh Lyman: Friday.
Donna Moss: I mean, what is it?
Josh Lyman: Any stories we have to give the press that we're not wild about, we give all in a lump on Friday.
Donna Moss: Why do you do it in a lump?
Josh Lyman: Instead of one at a time?
Donna Moss: I'd think you'd want to spread them out.
Josh Lyman: They've got X column inches to fill, right? They're going to fill them no matter what.
Donna Moss: Yes.
Donna Moss: So if we give them one story, that story's X column inches.
Josh Lyman: And if we give them five stories...
Josh Lyman: They're a fifth the size.
Donna Moss: Why do you do it on Friday?
Josh Lyman: Because no one reads the paper on Saturday.
Donna Moss: You guys are real populists, aren't you?

posted by tilde at 6:23 AM on October 14, 2016 [15 favorites]

It's the weekend, there's no Sunday event. No one's dropping anything.
posted by Yowser at 6:24 AM on October 14, 2016

Did you see that Marketplace poll upthread that says that a large percentage of Republicans don't actually believe that all of the economic indicators that are reported are true? They reject the reality that the country has not been destroyed and replace it with their own invented dystopia.

Or the crime stats. Trump literally said yesterday the murder rate is the highest its been in 45 years. It's not, it's close to the lowest, although up minusculely from 2015. They don't care, because they reject official statistics in favor of whatever FOX and Trump tells them.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:25 AM on October 14, 2016 [17 favorites]

If I had something big to drop, I'd wait until tomorrow evening so it would dominate the Sunday morning shows.
posted by EarBucket at 6:26 AM on October 14, 2016

Did you see that Marketplace poll upthread that says that a large percentage of Republicans don't actually believe that all of the economic indicators that are reported are true?

I'd like to see how that is phrased in the poll, though. Depending on the wording I'd agree with that ... but I'm also married to an economist and it's less "don't believe" and more "don't agree with the methodology used to determine the quantification of the reality I see outside my window".
posted by tilde at 6:26 AM on October 14, 2016

Because Obama was supposed to destroy America eight years ago and now Hillary is supposed to destroy America, and yet somehow America is still here?

The reason you can't understand this mentality is that it makes no logical sense. This has been the GOP's playbook for decades

10 IF CRISIS = "YES" PRINT "IT'S A CRISIS!" ELSE PRINT "IT'S A CRISIS!"
20 GOTO 10

Electing anyone but the GOP is always going to destroy the world, but thankfully if that happens the destruction won't occur before the next election, so remember in that next election you're supposed to support the GOP again because not doing so will destroy the world, but thankfully if that happens the destruction won't occur before the next election, so ...
posted by tocts at 6:27 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

I honestly don't get the sentiment that complimenting his children was such a huge mistake. How? It was as anodyne of a response as possible in that situation, mentioning kids who by his own admission were not raised by him. How does that negatively impact her election at all? And if it does somehow, you think it's worse than if she had done the fanfic version and said "Nothing , there nothing I respect about him" or the functional equivalennt to that? It would've ended the debate on a note that left people calling her a harridan and worse. And given him the opportunity to claim the high ground.

And she got him to basically cut an ad for her in his response, refuting one of his own major lines of attack against her.
posted by chris24 at 6:28 AM on October 14, 2016 [33 favorites]

The new standard on oppo drops is: You have to have concrete, irrefutable evidence of Donald Trump having done something illegal or obviously shameful.

His campaign and supporters agree that saying horrible things is no problem because, you know, he's Tony Stark or Quint or whatever irascible hero he's supposed to be this week. So if they have more horrendous statements they'll just say it was a joke, or that what matters is what people do. It's pure gaslighting, of course, but the sad thing is that 24 days is long enough for people to adjust to that new standard.

So there needs to be actual physical expressions of cruelty or depravity for it to work as an "oppo drop" any more. And even that can be normalized with enough time or effort.

My prediction: The remaining oppo drops are paperwork that would appall any reasonable person — serious collusion with Russian interests or organized crime, or money to child slavery rings, or undeniable workplace discrimination — but will require thought and a common standard of truth to process. So no go.
posted by argybarg at 6:30 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National Polling Averages
posted by Artw at 6:30 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

In case you were still wondering: This is the best "If only Men Could Vote Map." Check out Maine.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:31 AM on October 14, 2016 [13 favorites]

something bad always seems to happen to Trump on Fridays

Nobody reads the paper on Saturday, but boy do they read Twitter. We're not living in the West Wing universe anymore.
posted by dis_integration at 6:32 AM on October 14, 2016 [11 favorites]

I mean, to be fair on the "I don't trust the numbers" thing, we all know that states tend to cook the numbers and that some things don't get reported - consider that there's no national official database of police violence, for instance, or what a huge percentage of sexual assaults don't get reported. Or how the Clinton administration willfully avoided any official process for tracking what became of people after being "reformed" off welfare.

I think the predominant problem is an ideological one. Let's just imagine that I, a left-wing person, believe that crime is through the roof because I live in a poor neighborhood with lots of crime (which is actually where I do live, although I do broadly believe most crime statistics). I would say "hm, crime is up, probably because people are miserable and don't have jobs or ways of feeling control over their lives - what can we do about that?" I wouldn't say, "It's the fault of people of color because [racism], let's lock everyone up!"

If someone thinks the country is going to hell in a handbasket, they don't have to think that it's the fault of immigrants, women, etc. I mean, I think the country is going to hell in a handbasket, and I think it's because of racial, gender and class inequality.
posted by Frowner at 6:32 AM on October 14, 2016 [11 favorites]

@soren_lorenson

The Hanzo/team comp thing is a reference to Overwatch. "Team comp[osition]" is an important facet of the game, with the various characters filling specific roles. Hanzo is one of the characters, an archer who has the potential to do a lot of damage but who is very, very hard to use effectively and requires a lot of skill to aim with. He's also extremely popular, particularly among players who think of themselves as "the best" and who think they will "carry" the team. However, he is almost never used at the highest levels of play because there are other characters who can do as much damage without the need for being perfect every shot.

Picking Hanzo means you're probably not helping and should be doing something more useful for your team. Criticizing "team comp" in chat means you're then whining about the losing that you caused.
posted by Scattercat at 6:33 AM on October 14, 2016 [26 favorites]

Meanwhile, in the German press, the important questions are being asked.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:37 AM on October 14, 2016 [51 favorites]

something bad always seems to happen to Trump on Fridays.

Might have to do with Shabbos, as either a direct or indirect cause. Ivanka is definitely one of the few people who can moderate Trump's more self-destructive aspects. I'd venture that either the biggest bombs are deliberately dropped when she's out of contact, or it just turns out that the moment she turns her cellphone off nobody's holding Donald's leash and so even deflectable attacks end up becoming big clusterfucks.
posted by jackbishop at 6:37 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

The Anti-Clinton Brigade’s Four-Letter Word Obsession
posted by Artw at 6:40 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Trump down to a lead of 4 in SurveyUSA poll of Texas.
posted by argybarg at 6:40 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

The question on the Marketplace poll is pretty basic:

How much do you trust the data about the economy that is reported by the federal government?

The responses are a 4-point Likert scale (+"don't know"), though so there's a bit more nuance than just "yes" or "no." About a quarter of the respondents give the lowest trust response ("Don't trust it at all"). There's a racial breakdown to it as well, with 29.1% of white respondents saying "Don't trust it at all" and 15.2% and 12.1% respectively of AA and Hispanic respondents giving the same answer. So white people are more than twice as likely to not trust government economic data at all. It also breaks down by age as well with people over 45 being more heavily in the "don't trust at all" zone, and the older they get, the higher those numbers go.

40% say "Somewhat trust it" which is probably what I would say. I know there's massaging of the numbers that goes on and I know enough about stats to know you can definitely lie with them, but I also don't believe they are utterly made up.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:43 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Potomac Avenue: Meanwhile, in the German press, the important questions are being asked.

Contrary to what non Germanophones may think, this is actually an environmental piece: "Slammachlacht" refers to a theory of mind in which tiny fragments of fiberglass -- presumably from that awful, wispy hairpiece -- penetrate the Dura mater and interfere with Synaptic Transmission in the neurons.

See the grimace? That's involvement of the nerves that actuate the big Temporalis, Masseter and Pterygoid muscles.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:44 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

@AliVitali In which Ben Carson repeatedly asks for @KattyKayBBC's mic to be turned off & says "it doesn't matter" if Trump's accusers are lying or not

It's an excerpt from Morning Joe and Ben Carson actually seems to be losing it. He asks repeatedly for her microphone to be turned off and then when pushed by Scarborough he says, "It doesn't matter if they are lying or not. what matters is that the train is going off a cliff." Sounds a little desperate-- I think Carson maybe waking up to the fact that he has hitched a ride on the wrong train.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:45 AM on October 14, 2016 [12 favorites]

Quick, someone find a recording of Trump dissing Texas.
posted by fings at 6:49 AM on October 14, 2016 [17 favorites]

I'm going to Houston in February for a conference. If Clinton wins Texas, I will personally bow down and kiss the ground when I get there. And I promise not to be stingy with my per diem dollars.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:49 AM on October 14, 2016 [11 favorites]

Oh, man. If Clinton wins my state you're all invited to my house for brisket.

Man, don't tempt me with brisket; I'll be in cuffs for stuffing ballot boxes.
posted by Mooski at 6:51 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

Trump likes salsa from New York City [fake].
posted by peeedro at 6:51 AM on October 14, 2016 [25 favorites]

If Clinton can get the Latino vote out at the same percentage as European and African Americans, she wins Texas. GOTV people, GOTV.
posted by PenDevil at 6:52 AM on October 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

@NPRinskeep
"RCP 4-way average gives Trump 39.1%. No major party candidate finished that low since GHW Bush got 37.4% in 1992."

@ThePlumLineGS
.@PaulBegala, to me in July: "Trump wants to build a wall. I want to build a ceiling."
posted by chris24 at 6:55 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Quick, someone find a recording of Trump dissing Texas.

BREAKING: Trump says Taco Bell better than Taco Cabana. [fake]

edit to add [fake].
posted by Groundhog Week at 6:55 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

> "Trump likes salsa from New York City [fake]."

[Real], actually.
posted by kyrademon at 6:57 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Just for the files, no, the flies, "Schlammschlacht" is a mud fight. Nothing about salsa so far.
posted by Namlit at 6:59 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

Hey you guys, Human Anagram has the sads.

"For all Mr. Priebus’s public expressions of loyalty, he has been deeply shaken by revelations about Mr. Trump and the rifts within the party, seeing years of Republican organizational work potentially being undone, according to multiple people who described private conversations with Mr. Priebus on the condition of anonymity. He has said he feels adrift, fearing that Mr. Trump is headed for disaster, and told one longtime associate that he was having sleepless nights. Mr. Priebus did not respond to requests for comment."
posted by chris24 at 6:59 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

BREAKING: Trump says Taco Bell better than Taco Cabana. [fake]

Weeping from the land of No Taco Cabana and no Whataburger (Not driving to Jacksonville ...)
posted by tilde at 7:00 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Trump down to a lead of 4 in SurveyUSA poll of Texas.

Oh, man. If Clinton wins my state you're all invited to my house for brisket.

That is definitely in the range where a good GoTV operation in the Hispanic community can win Texas for Clinton.
posted by Francis at 7:00 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

Poor Ben Carson didn't realise that U.K. interviewers have this annoying tendency to expect their interviewees to answer the question asked.
posted by Yowser at 7:00 AM on October 14, 2016 [35 favorites]

Here's a video of the Ben Carson interview. If you could generate electricity from anger and contempt, Ben would have powered a city.

The Katty Kay portion starts around 3:20.
posted by cmfletcher at 7:01 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

>Contrary to what non Germanophones may think, this is actually an environmental piece: "Slammachlacht" refers to a theory of mind in which tiny fragments of fiberglass -- presumably from that awful, wispy hairpiece -- penetrate the Dura mater and interfere with Synaptic Transmission in the neurons.

Ah, now, people are forgetting their [fake] tags again.

In case anyone is interested in the [real] translation: Schlamm = mud and Schlacht = battle/fight, so Schlammschlacht might be translated as something like mud wrestling, mud-slinging, muckracking, etc depending on exact context.

Altogether, the Bild headline reads something like:

Mud slinging in the U.S. election: Is Donald Trump a sex monster? [real]
posted by flug at 7:01 AM on October 14, 2016 [13 favorites]

pharm: Clearly Donald Trump costumes are going to be selling like the proverbial hot cakes for this year’s Halloween.

This election year, costume shops are declaring an early victory (Chicago Tribune, Sept. 28, 2016)

Political costumes aren't generally hot sellers, and Chicago Costume was caught a bit flat-footed by the demand for Donald Trump masks last year.

"A lot of people thought (his candidacy) was a joke, so there wasn't a lot of merchandise," Hickey said.

But this year, Halloween and costume shops are ready with extra election-themed accessories.

Chicago Costume's website lists four Trump masks, including a $29.99 "Billionaire Buffoon — Tanned" option and four Trump wigs. For those dressing as Hillary Clinton, there are two mask and wig options. Chicago Costume also carries "Make America Great Again" hats, tanning products and miniature false hands.

Related: Move over, princess. This year's most popular Halloween costumes are … superheroes.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:02 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

I am thinking the [fake] tags will soon be superfluous because stuff starts coming up that's so absurd that nobody could have thought of them as being real.
posted by Namlit at 7:03 AM on October 14, 2016

I guess Clown costumes are already taken this season...
posted by Namlit at 7:04 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

But I think this will be the year to defy prior years where Halloween mask sales served as an election prognosticator. (Time Magazine, 2008)
posted by filthy light thief at 7:04 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Human Anagram

I suppose. I've long thought that Reince Priebus sounded like the Latin name for a body part, deep in the nether regions:

Doctor 1: It seems the patient slipped, fell on a sharp object, and has suffered multiple contusions to his Reince Priebus.

Doctor 2: Goodness! That must hurt a lot.

Doctor 1: Very much indeed. As we know, the Reince Priebus is fragile, easily damaged and often becomes swollen and painful.
posted by Grangousier at 7:04 AM on October 14, 2016 [28 favorites]

I am thinking the [fake] tags will soon be superfluous because stuff starts coming up that's so absurd that nobody could have thought of them as being real.

Except 40% of the American electorate.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:05 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Fortune telling All-Seeing Trump/Zoltar stalks NYC street corners.
posted by ursus_comiter at 7:07 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

I think Carson maybe waking up to the fact that he has hitched a ride on the wrong train.

It's never been clear to me whether Carson is actually unfathomably dim or just putting on a devout and dim persona when he is as opportunistically venal as everyone else.

I mean, he always seemed sincere, and incomprehensibly blind to the fact that his campaign (and several previous activities) were fairly obvious scams. Trump was unmistakably aware of and inside of his grift. Carson, even as it enriched him, was convincingly unaware that he was participating in a con.

Pretty much every other major Trump spokesperson seems to be well aware of who they're backing and have made their peace with it. Carson, if he is as stupid as he has seemed, might be in for a shock.
posted by jackbishop at 7:08 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

Clearly Donald Trump costumes are going to be selling like the proverbial hot cakes for this year’s Halloween.

For people who can pull off the Melania look, there's always Jemima Khan's costume from the UNICEF halloween ball the other day.
posted by effbot at 7:08 AM on October 14, 2016 [15 favorites]

> Check out Maine.

Alaska has an unusual patch going for Hulk Hogan.
posted by Westringia F. at 7:09 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

He has said he feels adrift, fearing that Mr. Trump is headed for disaster, and told one longtime associate that he was having sleepless nights.

Is it time to start sending the good Mr. Priebus bottles of Bailey's and boxes of cornflakes?
posted by jackbishop at 7:10 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm going to get Pollyannish here, but the system is working. As more and more people see Trump for what he is, he is being rejected, to about the extreme extent that anyone has been rejected in American two party politics. The ugliness of Trump is going to continue driving down his vote right up to election day.
I'm going for a prediction: I predict Hillary will bring in 57% to 34% Trump. 450 plus electoral votes. I really believe Trump is going to lose all but the states where he has a 15% or more current margin.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:12 AM on October 14, 2016 [11 favorites]

WaPo: Donald Trump is right: The GOP is utterly pathetic

"In the interest of fairness, I wish to raise an issue on which Donald Trump has been consistently and resoundingly right: The Republican Party is utterly pathetic.

During a decade of commentary, and in a career of government service before that, I have often argued that the GOP is better than its liberal stereotypes. It is a case I can no longer make, at least when it comes to presidential politics.

The Trump ascendancy is the triumph of anti-reason — of birtherism, of vaccine denialism, of suggestions that Justice Antonin Scalia was smothered with a pillow and that Hillary Clinton may have been involved in the death of Vince Foster. It is the triumph of nativism — of a political appeal based on hatred against migrants and Muslims. It is the triumph of white nationalism, which has moved inward from the fringes of Republican politics. It is the triumph of misogyny, demonstrated with words that require a disinfectant shower after hearing. It is the triumph of authoritarian impulses. Since the Constitution is “broken,” argued Maine Gov. Paul LePage, “we need a Donald Trump to show some authoritarian power in our country.”

...This much is clear: Republican leaders offered no effective resistance to the ideological and political demolition of their party. Which may, in the worst case, give George W. Bush the distinction of being the final Republican president."
posted by chris24 at 7:12 AM on October 14, 2016 [32 favorites]

#WhyWomenDontReport is trending on Twitter. Heartbreaking truths being shared. Trump supporters have started to hijack the tag and harass the people sharing their experiences, proving exactly #WhyWomenDontReport.

Lewis' Law: "the comments on any article about feminism justify feminism."
posted by Gelatin at 7:12 AM on October 14, 2016 [70 favorites]

I'm going to get Pollyannish here, but the system is working. As more and more people see Trump for what he is, he is being rejected, to about the extreme extent that anyone has been rejected in American two party politics. The ugliness of Trump is going to continue driving down his vote right up to election day.
I'm going for a prediction: I predict Hillary will bring in 57% to 34% Trump. 450 plus electoral votes. I really believe Trump is going to lose all but the states where he has a 15% or more current margin.

I'm not letting my guard down until election day. I'm not going to tempt the fates. I'm not going to get complacent. I'm not going to declare or acknowledge that Hillary has won until 8pm on election day. Until then it's a full court press.
posted by Talez at 7:17 AM on October 14, 2016 [21 favorites]

Re costumes, I am seriously considering pracowity's terrifying suggestion from the last thread (warning: link opens 4000+ comment election thread).
posted by Westringia F. at 7:17 AM on October 14, 2016

Man, don't tempt me with brisket; I'll be in cuffs for stuffing ballot boxes.

Obviously, I would NEVER encourage any sort of election hijinks.

**WHEN** HRC wins, I'll toss in a NY Braised Brisket for the party.

That is all.
posted by mikelieman at 7:19 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Which may, in the worst case, give George W. Bush the distinction of being the final Republican president.

And he was such a good one.
posted by Artw at 7:19 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

The best tweet to the report that Trump is going to blame Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim today for the conspiracy against him:

@Clare_OC
Literally nothing, not even decades as a self-proclaimed sexual predator, he won't blame on Mexicans.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-angrily-denies-allegations-of-groping-points-finger-at-media-and-clinton-campaign-1476384833
posted by chris24 at 7:21 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

That WSJ article is paywalled. :(
posted by tilde at 7:24 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm going for a prediction: I predict Hillary will bring in 57% to 34% Trump. 450 plus electoral votes. I really believe Trump is going to lose all but the states where he has a 15% or more current margin.

Winning Utah, Texas, Missouri, Georgia, Alaska and Indiana on top of every other plausible swing state only gets her to 427. Any higher than that you're talking about states like South Carolina, Louisiana or West Virginia. I can't even predict which of the core block of inner Trump country would be the next to fall.

I don't think she gets any more than 375. Trump is holding fast at 40%, even now. This is pretty much his floor already, and we need to acknowledge the Republican party is not going away.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:26 AM on October 14, 2016 [13 favorites]

WSJ:

As early as Friday, Mr. Trump is planning to claim that [Carlos] Slim, as a shareholder of New York Times Co. and donor to the Clinton Foundation, has an interest in helping Hillary Clinton’s campaign, according to a Trump adviser.

Attacking the Mexican billionaire would allow Mr. Trump to hit several targets. He could slam the “failing” New York Times, which he says had to be “rescued” by a “foreigner”—Mr. Slim, the adviser said.

posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:28 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

CNBC has a summary of it. Or you can google "charging that Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim is part of a biased coalition" and click the WSJ article from the search. Should be the first result.
posted by papercrane at 7:29 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Greg Sargent: Obama’s new message about Donald Trump: The GOP built that

[N]ow that Trump is in full meltdown mode, and beating him looks easier, Democrats are shifting hard into an effort to hold the GOP responsible for Trumpism’s rise — in order to translate Clinton’s gains into more support for Democratic Senate and House candidates. At a rally in Ohio last night, Obama sounded the new message, per reporter Sahil Kapur:

“The problem is not that all Republicans think the way this guy does. The problem is that they’ve been riding this tiger for a long time. They’ve been feeding their base all kinds of crazy for years, primarily for political expedience.”

Obama accused Republicans of relentlessly feeding a “swamp of crazy,” adding that they looked the other way while many base voters descended into delusions about Obama himself (birtherism) and about his presidency (claiming he founded ISIS and wanted to take away everyone’s guns).

Obama noted that GOP lawmakers had a choice — they could have differed with him on the issues while simultaneously telling their voters a more balanced story about the Obama years. Instead, Obama suggested, they decided it was their interests to keep the base as riled up as possible, so they looked the other way while the conspiracy-mongering took deep root. And Obama sought to pin this right on down-ballot Republicans (in this case, Ohio Senator Rob Portman, who’s being challenged by Dem Ted Strickland), by arguing that they are only distancing themselves from Trump out of political expedience:

“People like Ted’s opponent, they stood by while this happened. And Donald Trump, as he’s prone to do, he didn’t build the building by himself, but he slapped his name on it and took credit for it. And that’s what’s happened in their party. All that bile, all the exaggeration, all the stuff that was not grounded in fact just kind of bubbled up, started surfacing. They know better, a lot of these folks who ran, and they didn’t say anything. So they don’t get credit.”

First of all I want to thank Barack for using my line from the beginning of a previous election thread. It's all yours, dude. Second of all, this message really needs to be hammered home. Conservatives really do have to start admitting to themselves and the rest of us that they fed this beast for years, if not decades, before they can start taking credit for anything else. They can't take up the mantle of "personal responsibility" when they're denying any responsibility at all for creating this mess, especially not if they're willing to continue the policies that gave rise to it in the first place.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:29 AM on October 14, 2016 [52 favorites]

What are the odds that Trump calls him Carlos Danger at a rally?
posted by uncleozzy at 7:30 AM on October 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

@jbarro
The lesson of this campaign is not that Dems were too mean to pre-Trump Republicans. It's that they were right all along about Republicans.

QFT. I hope the false-equivalence media gets the message.

Though it does appear, at least for now, that the "Trump tailspin" narrative is in the driver's seat.
posted by Gelatin at 7:35 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

Any higher than that you're talking about states like South Carolina, Louisiana or West Virginia. I can't even predict which of the core block of inner Trump country would be the next to fall.

South Carolina from that list - you can already see it in the polls. :) But I can't see anything else swinging.
posted by Francis at 7:36 AM on October 14, 2016

Hilariously [fake] document listing "donations" from the Clinton Fdn, not actually from Wikileaks being circulated by conservative author Janie Johnson.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:37 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Alexandra Petri at WaPo: The hideous, diabolical truth about Hillary Clinton
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:40 AM on October 14, 2016 [20 favorites]

argybarg: Trump down to a lead of 4 in SurveyUSA poll of Texas.

It'll be interesting to see how well polling reflects reality, what with problems in identifying the percentage of minority voters who will turn up at the polls and the secret Hillary supporting women.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:41 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Hilariously [fake] document listing "donations" from the Clinton Fdn, not actually from Wikileaks being circulated by conservative author Janie Johnson.

No doubt she's also discovered Barack Obama's birth certificate.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:41 AM on October 14, 2016

ACORN?

Is JJ a Low-information... author?
posted by Yowser at 7:42 AM on October 14, 2016

> Hilariously [fake] document listing "donations" from the Clinton Fdn

Aw, no highlighter love for the Black Panthers?
posted by Westringia F. at 7:42 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Political sign update:

So I was on the West side of Cincinnati yesterday, which is a conservative enclave. I didn't see any Clinton/Kaine signs but I did see several Trump/Pence signs.

WAIT.

Before you get all sad...

Every other election has seen TONS AND TONS AND TONS of Republican candidate signs on the West side. Like, littered with them. Practically WEEDS.

I maybe, MAYBE, saw ten? total signs.
posted by cooker girl at 7:44 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Latest from WikiLeaks: "Check out our new novelty Bill Clinton bimbo poll tee." (real)
posted by effbot at 7:44 AM on October 14, 2016

The Trump ascendancy is the triumph of anti-reason

There is an old world of a life based on feeling and tradition, of tribal belonging and a sense of place, that is being swept away at an accelerating pace. I don't think it's only good that the digital knowledge-based economy is taking over. I don't think that the constant saturation of digital media is necessarily making us wiser.

There was something great about the world in which people worked with their hands on things that were close to them — fixing cars, working on a farm, doing odd handyman work, even working in a factory that made things end-to-end. You could have a job without having to go to college and master user interfaces and move to the city during your 20s and maintain social connections.

A lot of people don't know how to negotiate that transition. A lot of people hate technology and what it has done to their trade. A lot of people would rather just hear from someone they trust, someone who speaks to them in a recognizable style. They don't want to hear from the person from out of town who is running the diversity training at their new job.

I'm not excusing racism or conspiracy theorists. But I do think what we're seeing is not really concentrated race hatred in most cases. I think we're seeing the manifestation of dread at an indifferent world of outsiders who are demolishing the world a lot of people were raised in, and replacing it with hostile digital artifacts and unappealing promises.
posted by argybarg at 7:45 AM on October 14, 2016 [20 favorites]

Hilariously [fake] document listing "donations" from the Clinton Fdn,

Egg.
posted by mikelieman at 7:46 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Potomac Avenue: Hilariously [fake] document listing "donations" from the Clinton Fdn, not actually from Wikileaks

Can we start calling Wikileaks "Wikifakes" now?


ACORN?

Is JJ a Low-information... author?

No necessarily, as of August 2016, 40 Percent of Trump Supporters Think (Nonexistent) ACORN Will Rig the Election for Hillary (reminder: ACORN is approaching six years of being closed)
posted by filthy light thief at 7:46 AM on October 14, 2016 [16 favorites]

Which goes to Obama's point that the republicans have been fostering this environment of lies and nonsense for their own benefit.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 7:49 AM on October 14, 2016

Texans who need a break from the Texas Red, come on over to New Mexico and bask in our cooling, blue light. Or take in the fall colors and enjoy some green chile on, well, everything. (Really, this is an invitation to y'all - come on over, we'd love to have you.)
posted by filthy light thief at 7:50 AM on October 14, 2016 [10 favorites]

Latest from WikiLeaks: "Check out our new novelty Bill Clinton bimbo poll tee." (real)

Classy. Those guys sure are warriors for truth and liberty!
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:50 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

I've been having Trump nightmares all election season. Last night, I dreamed that I was Kellyanne Conway's personal assistant. The two of us went to the sub-basement of Trump Tower to meet with Donny's secret first wife -- a hard-bitten, chain-smoking Minnie Mae Presley type. She was concerned that the media was about to find out about her, and wanted to know how Kellyanne would respond. I just sat there trying not to get bitten by her pet tiger cub, wishing I could just quit and work for Hillary, knowing it was too late.

So yes, this is what the inside of my head looks like now. Help?
posted by ourobouros at 7:50 AM on October 14, 2016 [18 favorites]

I thought Obama's painting all Republicans with the same brush was interesting in contrast to Hillary's consistent message that Trump is an outlier, uniquely unqualified for the presidency. HRC's surrogates attack along the entire Republican front, while Hillary pierces the weakest point. Teamwork.
posted by klarck at 7:51 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

A lot of people don't know how to negotiate that transition. A lot of people hate technology and what it has done to their trade. A lot of people would rather just hear from someone they trust, someone who speaks to them in a recognizable style. They don't want to hear from the person from out of town who is running the diversity training at their new job.

That's fine, but they are listening to a slick-talking snake-oil salesman from the big city who is exploiting their fears and anxiety to further his own interests instead of raising them up.
posted by entropicamericana at 7:51 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

A new interview from ABC's Primetime Live in 1994 surfaces:

Why in 1992 did you tell a writer for New York magazine, Marie Brenner, that ‘You have to treat women like shit” — ultimately pouring a bottle of wine down her back?

I didn’t say that. The woman’s a liar, extremely unattractive, lots of problems because of her looks.

That statement is exactly why women think you’re a chauvinist pig.

They’re right — and not. People say, "How can you say such a thing?" but there’s a truth in it, in a modified form. Psychologists will tell you that some women want to be treated with respect, others differently. I tell friends who treat their wives magnificently, get treated like crap in return, “Be rougher and you’ll see a different relationship.’ Unfortunately, with people in general, you get more with vinegar than honey.
posted by chris24 at 7:53 AM on October 14, 2016 [21 favorites]

Johnny Wallflower: Alexandra Petri at WaPo: The hideous, diabolical truth about Hillary Clinton

Before Time, Before the Earth Was Made, Before Matter and Being and History: Hillary Clinton (Lucifer, Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies, Prince of Darkness, Satan, She Whose Many Names the Cats Scream in the Night) is cast out of heaven for overweening hubris. She is condemned to lie in eternal torment in a lake of fire surrounded by her fallen angels, or, alternatively, to run for a major office while female. For thousands of years she lies outside time, smelling of sulfur, before deciding to undertake the second option.

Oct. 26, 1947: Hillary Clinton, a robot, is constructed by Saul Alinsky, then slipped into a bassinet and delivered to the Rodham house, where it stores its Six Human, Relatable Memories of squeegeeing, family life and honest toil.

Get your stories straight! Is she a demon or a robot? Gasp! Or is she a ... demonic robot?
posted by filthy light thief at 7:53 AM on October 14, 2016 [15 favorites]

That's fine, but they are listening to a slick-talking snake-oil salesman from the big city who is exploiting their fears and anxiety to further his own interests instead of raising them up.

Of course.
posted by argybarg at 7:53 AM on October 14, 2016

From the Primetime transcript: "I tell friends who treat their wives magnificently, get treated like crap in return, 'Be rougher and you’ll see a different relationship.'"
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:55 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

Unfortunately, with people in general, you get more with vinegar than honey.

So...how's that vinegar feel, Mr. Trump? Enjoying it?
posted by nubs at 7:55 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

Gasp! Or is she a ... demonic robot?

El Diablo Robótico!
posted by EarBucket at 7:56 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

So...how's that vinegar feel, Mr. Trump? Enjoying it?

I have an anecdote about the use of BBQ sauce for sensual purposes. That I won't share.

tl;dr: Don't.
posted by mikelieman at 7:57 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

There was something great about the world in which people worked with their hands on things that were close to them — fixing cars, working on a farm, doing odd handyman work

...you can still do these things?
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:58 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

From the Primetime transcript: "I tell friends who treat their wives magnificently, get treated like crap in return, 'Be rougher and you’ll see a different relationship.'"

Jesus god.

Consider Ivana Trump's memoir. Here he is virtually confessing to the violence she describes there. I bet he saw a different relationship all right. I'd be different too if I was getting beaten.
posted by Frowner at 7:59 AM on October 14, 2016 [28 favorites]

A lot of people don't know how to negotiate that transition. A lot of people hate technology and what it has done to their trade. A lot of people would rather just hear from someone they trust, someone who speaks to them in a recognizable style. They don't want to hear from the person from out of town who is running the diversity training at their new job.

I'm not excusing racism or conspiracy theorists. But I do think what we're seeing is not really concentrated race hatred in most cases. I think we're seeing the manifestation of dread at an indifferent world of outsiders who are demolishing the world a lot of people were raised in, and replacing it with hostile digital artifacts and unappealing promises.

I'm sorry, what? Look, if that dread manifests as spreading white supremacist memes, harassing and intimidating and in many cases actually assaulting people of color, asking for them to be put in camps, I can't even think of what else Trump's supporters have done at this point, IT IS STILL RACIST. I don't care what anxieties are in their hearts, you do not behave like that.

Also they're upset at TECH and are taking it out on people of color? Tech is like the whitest of white industries. I'm a person of color in San Francisco - don't complain to me about tech. This city has gone from around 10 percent African American when I was young to like 3 percent today, the lowest of any major American city. So yeah, nice choice of scapegoat there.

Like I get what you're saying and I don't deny it's a factor in some cases, but any attempted explanation of that dynamic needs to not include the words "it's not really racism."
posted by sunset in snow country at 7:59 AM on October 14, 2016 [62 favorites]

Michelle Obama is basically actual American royalty,

Well thanks for ruining my love of Michelle Obama.
posted by phearlez at 8:00 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Fanfic Update, for the benefit of future historians: in the lyrics to Red-sweater Kenneth Bone, please mentally substitute in the line "There’s a million posts I wish I never made." Also strike "A bit of ridicule" and insert "A lot of ridicule."

If Hamilton is no longer appropriate, perhaps Pearl Jam will do.

@OhNoSheTwitnt
[To the tune of Even Flow]
🎶 Kenneth Bone. Undecided sweater guy. He's racist though so we're chasing him away 🎶
posted by bibliowench at 8:01 AM on October 14, 2016 [12 favorites]

The other thing he fails to mention in that Primetime interview is that the reason he had such a big problem with Ivana running part of the business isn't that she wanted to talk shop at night or didn't have dinner on the table (like, I'm sorry, what? you don't have a personal chef?), it's because SHE DID IT BETTER THAN HIM. He couldn't stand it.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:01 AM on October 14, 2016 [37 favorites]

> ...you can still do these things?

Not if Clinton wins. Working with your hands is going to be outlawed, along with family, and being lazy.
posted by fragmede at 8:03 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

Ran a quick script to count all the words in all the posts tagged "election2016". There were 8,171,653 at last check, or about 32,000 pages. And that doesn't even count all the words in linked articles.

On the plus side, that's the kind of tome-length which may tempt Peter Jackson to purchase the film rights for a staggering amount of money, keeping MetaFilter and the mods happy and swimming in maple syrup / MacBook computers for the next 50 years.
posted by Wordshore at 8:04 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

Not if Clinton wins. Working with your hands is going to be outlawed, along with family, and being lazy.

Glad I finished building my new chicken coop last week, then. Phew, just under the wire!
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:05 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

if that dread manifests as spreading white supremacist memes, harassing and intimidating and in many cases actually assaulting people of color, asking for them to be put in camps, I can't even think of what else Trump's supporters have done at this point, IT IS STILL RACIST

Absolutely. And even the more indifferent Trump supporters, whom I would guess outweigh the dedicated racists 10:1, have rightly been put in the position of saying: Are you really vouching for this? And I think many of them are not. I think Trump support among the general population, as opposed to the likely voters, is far more fainthearted than many of us are estimating.

I didn't say people's response to their changing world is noble. I think some people begin with hateful, stupid thoughts and proceed from there. But I think the more general explanation is that many people feel adrift in a low-quality world in a harsh transition and are easy marks.
posted by argybarg at 8:05 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm not excusing racism or conspiracy theorists. But I do think what we're seeing is not really concentrated race hatred in most cases. I think we're seeing the manifestation of dread at an indifferent world of outsiders who are demolishing the world a lot of people were raised in, and replacing it with hostile digital artifacts and unappealing promises.

Industrial and technological change has been a factor for as long as these people have been alive. In many cases, it was what enabled many of them to be as successful as they were by being more productive, or giving them the leg up compared to the generation of workers that came before them. They don't get to cry foul when they're the ones who have to respond by retraining or in some cases changing careers, and they certainly should not be excused, in however nuanced a fashion, from blaming others for their bad luck.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:06 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

On the plus side, that's the kind of tome-length which may tempt Peter Jackson to purchase the film rights for a staggering amount of money, keeping MetaFilter and the mods happy and swimming in maple syrup / MacBook computers for the next 50 years.

Knowing my luck I'll get Zach Galifianakis playing me.
posted by Talez at 8:06 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

Life is what you do while you’re waiting to die — for men, statistically, that is 73.2 years

See, he planned on letting Pence run things all along.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:10 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Poll: Mich. church goers shift from Trump to Clinton

"Two polls of likely Michigan voters — on Sept. 27-28 and Oct. 10-11, during a tumultuous period in the presidential election — show a 15-percentage-point swing in Democrat Hillary Clinton’s favor among voters who attend church each week.

Two weeks ago, Trump led Clinton among frequent churchgoers, 45 percent to 34 percent, in a poll conducted after the first presidential debate.

Trump now trails Clinton 41 percent to 36 percent among these typically more conservative voters in a poll conducted Monday and Tuesday after revelations of a decade-old recording of Trump’s boasting that his celebrity allows him to grope women."

Evidence that while he won't lose Trumpsters, he can be damaged among his voters.
posted by chris24 at 8:10 AM on October 14, 2016 [29 favorites]

Friday news dump: Gloria Allred is having a press conference in Los Angeles at 2:30pm EST with who she says is a new Trump accuser.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:12 AM on October 14, 2016 [16 favorites]

There is an old world of a life based on feeling and tradition, of tribal belonging and a sense of place, that is being swept away at an accelerating pace.

I think this is very true, and is the root of the backlash against modernism all over the world -- the root of fundamentalist Islam as well as Trumpism, actually. And it's not just urban versus rural (as that Cracked article suggested) but really is something like "Multigenerational households with each person having a well defined duty to the family" vs "Individuals who are free to pursue their own ambitions and are tied to their families only by bonds of affection, not duty."

We need shorthand names for these. The closest I can come is "Patriarchy" vs "Individualism" but those don't quite have the right connotations. I often think about it in terms of CP Snow's "Two Cultures" which he labeled in terms of the sciences vs. the humanities, but which he really describes in terms of "feeling and tradition" on the one side, vs. "technology and statistics" on the other. I think about how thoroughly the latter has dominated the contest since Snow's time...

And of course, in rural areas, despite the rhetoric about self-reliance, "individualism" in this sense really, really does not work well. Extended families can be self sufficient, individuals really can't. But all the young people are moving away, and the clans are falling apart, and the old people have no one to take care of them. And the young people who don't move away have no real future.

Of course "IT IS STILL RACIST. I don't care what anxieties are in their hearts, you do not behave like that."

But "racist" is not "ireedemable." ... Racism is one of many common human faults, to which we are all susceptible if we aren't constantly vigilant against it. Like greed or envy, like taking our anger out on the wrong person. All of those can lead to violence and destruction. But none of them is limited to just one certain type of person.
posted by OnceUponATime at 8:13 AM on October 14, 2016 [19 favorites]

Kristin Schaal still has time to learn to play the ukulele so she can play me.
posted by pxe2000 at 8:14 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

a staggering amount of money, keeping MetaFilter and the mods happy and swimming in maple syrup / MacBook computers

Don't forget the fucking banjos ukuleles.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:14 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm not excusing racism or conspiracy theorists. But I do think what we're seeing is not really concentrated race hatred in most cases. I think we're seeing the manifestation of dread at an indifferent world of outsiders who are demolishing the world a lot of people were raised in, and replacing it with hostile digital artifacts and unappealing promises.

I dunno. If they're raging at the replacement of factory jobs with automation, then they're raging at software developers. I'm a software developer, and I haven't had much spleen vented my way. Wonder if it has something to do with the fact that I'm a big ol' white guy.
posted by Mayor West at 8:14 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Not if Clinton wins. Working with your hands is going to be outlawed...

Well then what the hell are we supposed to do in the FEMA camps?
posted by PlusDistance at 8:16 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

Notwithstanding my comment above and my other comments sympathetic to the plight of Trumpists who are experiencing delusions as the suffer withdrawl from their white male privilege (the less sympathetic way to describe what is happening to them as the traditional /patriarchal order falls apart) I have to say that Washington Post piece is right on about the party leadership, though...
posted by OnceUponATime at 8:16 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Hillary Clinton was wrong to complement Trump's children at the debate.

To be fair to Clinton, Trump is so desperate to paint her as a liar that if she would have complimented the beauty of Trump tower he probably would've smashed a few windows and painted it pink and then disparaged her judgment for appreciating it.
posted by DynamiteToast at 8:17 AM on October 14, 2016

Clinton has a great new ad out already with Michelle's speech from yesterday.

"If we let Hillary's opponent win this election, then we are sending a clear message to our kids."
posted by chris24 at 8:19 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

Armed Trump Supporters 'Protest' Outside Virginia Dem's Campaign Office
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:20 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

CNN Has A Trump Surrogate Problem
posted by zombieflanders at 8:20 AM on October 14, 2016 [11 favorites]

To expand on my comment above, let's look at the numbers. These are from 538 which has a conservative bent (conservative with a small c, as in not acknowledging change until it is doubly proven). (The numbers below are fluid and are likely to change with each new poll that comes in and as older polls age).

Let's start off with Trump's safe havens.

These are Trump's best states by percent margin. (State, poll margin percentage, electoral votes)
Wyoming, 30%, 3
West Virginia, 21.1%, 5
Alabama, 20.2%, 9
Oklahoma, 18.9%, 7
Idaho, 18.9%, 4
North Dakota, 16.2%, 3
Nebraska, 15.8%, 2 statewide (2 more near guaranteed Trump, 1 guaranteed Clinton)
Arkansas, 15.6%, 6

That's 41 electoral votes.

There are four more probably safe havens.
Kentucky, 13.0%, 8
Tennessee, 12.1%, 11
Mississippi, 11.7%, 6
Louisiana, 11.4%, 8

That's 33 more for 74 electoral votes.

Then we get to the areas that can succumb to a relentless drop in the polls and a much (much) superior GOTV.
Montana (until recently two Democratic Senators) 9.5%, 3
South Dakota, 9.0%, 3
Kansas, 8.7%, 6
(this is the breaking point for 450 electoral votes:)
Utah, 8.1%, 6

These next states should be strong Republican but are vulnerable Trump.
Indiana, 7.1%, 11
South Carolina!, 6.4%, 9
Texas, 6.2%, 38
Alaska, 5.2%, 3
Missouri, 4.9%, 10
Georgia, 3.7%, 16
Arizona, 1.7%, 11

And those are all that are Trump or leaning Trump. Now, let's look at some of the weaknesses of the above numbers. I don't have time to go through this thoroughly, but to give an example, Kansas has Trump given an 8.7% lead in the polls according to 538's way of averaging polls.

538 helpfully describes how much weight they give to individual polls (based on how recent, how reliable the pollster is and their methodology. The top two polls for Kansas with by far the highest weight are from August 22nd and September 11th. A lot has happened since. This does not make the more recent polls correct (Google Survey, for example, with a heavy Clinton lead), but it does mean there is a void in solid recent polls from Kansas.

The bottom line for that is that if you do have momentous shifts, recent polls become much more significant and should be weighed more heavily.

One more aspect. I don't think anyone on the Hillary side will grow complacent. One in a thousand chance of Trump is frightening enough. I think a lot on the Trump side will grow despondent. Trump is like a predatory payday loan site. They are being set up as suckers (again) and they'll feel it.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:24 AM on October 14, 2016 [12 favorites]

I am walking outside to put my vote by mail ballot in the mailbox. So, the election is over for me. it feels good.
posted by wittgenstein at 8:26 AM on October 14, 2016 [38 favorites]

Pat Toomey's Donald Trump Campaign Ad
posted by tonycpsu at 8:27 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

"he didn’t build the building by himself, but he slapped his name on it and took credit for it. And that’s what’s happened in their party."

This is almost correct. Trump slaps his name on things other people built -- and gets them to pay him for the privilege. That is also what's happening with his campaign, from the sexism and racism, all the way to getting the party to pay him for it.
posted by Dashy at 8:30 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

I want to see Donald Trump's 2016 tax returns come January, so we can find out exactly how much money he grifted from the RNC.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:32 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

We're never going to see any of his tax returns.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 8:33 AM on October 14, 2016 [15 favorites]

Friday news dump: Gloria Allred is having a press conference in Los Angeles at 2:30pm EST with who she says is a new Trump accuser.


Holy hell I hate this election so much. My first reaction to reading this was 'Yay. More bad news for Trump to cancel out the BS he is trying to dump today. Yay!"

Then horror because @$##@$@ I just cheered the fact that their is another woman who more then likely has been assaulted by this man and now in stepping forward her life is going to be hell and wtf Jalliah... omg please end this thing....
posted by Jalliah at 8:34 AM on October 14, 2016 [36 favorites]

Racism is one of many common human faults, to which we are all susceptible if we aren't constantly vigilant against it.

To partially rebut my own point there... Many of Trump's supporters aren't ashamed of their racism and sexism the way people are ashamed of their greed when it is exposed. They are proudly racist and sexist. And that makes it a lot less forgivable.

But I still don't think we can or should just write these people off with a "fuck 'em, they deserve what they get" attitude. There are too many of them for that, and besides, they're still people.

I wonder if a different kind of populist movement could reach them, directing their anger against "the 1%" instead of racial minorities. Sanders did so well in those regions compared to Clinton in the primaries, and he did it without being racist or sexist, and while being Jewish and born in Brooklyn. All of that, and yet people still responded to something about his message. Even my Trump supporting cousin still approvingly quotes Sanders. Because, I think, he's seen as being anti-elitist.

Trump already broke conservative orthodoxy. What if the next guy breaks it even more? What if two or three cycles from now, the Republicans end up being the party of unions (law enforcement unions already support Trump, and a lot of union miners and steel workers...) and $15 minimum wage (marketed as an alternative to welfare, even as a way for men to support their families?) and anti-free trade (Trump is already there, obviously)... That seems almost plausible to me.

(Sorry, I couldn't participate in the "whither the Republican party?" discussion while it was happening, but I've been thinking about it a lot...)
posted by OnceUponATime at 8:36 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is a good Twitter thread to follow: Most men have a blind spot for the issue of sexual abuse. It can be intentional, but typically it is simply experiential.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:37 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

> "What's your boilerplate for dealing with people like my wife who will not let go of the idea that they don't count mail/absentee votes unless the number of them is within the margin of error for in-person votes?"

My personal motivator was the nightmare that I would blink open my eyes woozily, a distant ache somewhere in my head, to the sight of my spouse, teary-eyed above me, saying, "Oh God, you're awake, you're finally awake, it's been two days since the car accident," and I would say, my tongue feeling thick and slow to respond, "What ... what day is it?", and she would say, "It's Wednesday -- the ninth; November ninth," and I would say, "November ninth? Wait, who, who's the president?" and then there would be a moment of hesitation, a moment of reluctance to tell me, and in that moment I would know.
posted by kyrademon at 8:38 AM on October 14, 2016 [54 favorites]

We have a young neighbor, a multiracial boy, who likes to come by our house in the afternoons to play with my daughter. Yesterday, he saw me open a package with my Hillary Clinton coloring book enclosed. He was very happy that my family is working to make sure Trump does not win, because 'he calls girls the p-word.' (He has also in the past told me that Trump would blow up America and arrest everyone in his family, which makes me so, so angry that a 6 year old child would feel that way.) I told him I was very sorry that he had to hear such language from a political campaign. He looked alarmed and said 'I heard that word on the news! I never called a girl that!' and I told him that I know, and that's what I was sorry for.

It's been said before, but it bears repeating: harm is already being done by this fucking guy.
posted by palindromic at 8:38 AM on October 14, 2016 [107 favorites]

Mahna Mahna (he makes much more sense this way)
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:40 AM on October 14, 2016 [40 favorites]

But I still don't think we can or should just write these people off with a "fuck 'em, they deserve what they get" attitude.

This is some kind of magical straw man that just keeps coming back after it's repeatedly torched.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:40 AM on October 14, 2016 [19 favorites]

I've been crying a bit this morning. One of my aunts, who has always been a very compassionate person, but sorta locked into being a republican for a lot of reasons, posted this:
I heard it on the news last night,Michelle Obama's speech. It isn't even about politics. I have been treated like this from the 'Good ole boys' club. I was too young and naive to know that I was being Sexually Harassed in the work place. How about the times we have said, "No," and it still happens? That is called rape. I was too young and naive to know that is sexual assault. I really think the young men at the time thought it was o.k. too. That is how everyone talked, acted, laughed at women's bodies. It doesn't make it right though. It is very, very wrong.

She's a wonderful woman, educator, is made of steel and DOES NOT speak out about politics publically, really ever.

I'm crying again because I don't really know how to process how much I hate so many people right now and how angry I am that we had to come to this point/glad that she's feeling open to recognizing what has happened to her/horrified that what has happened to her has happened/on edge waiting to rip the throat out of the first person to comment to reject her experience. I just don't know how to process my feelings. I just don't know.

This fucking election cycle, huh? Quite the fucking thing.
posted by neonrev at 8:42 AM on October 14, 2016 [90 favorites]

This is a good Twitter thread to follow: Most men have a blind spot for the issue of sexual abuse. It can be intentional, but typically it is simply experiential.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:37 AM on October 14 [+] [!]

Did you not think it went off the rails at the end where he implores women to have higher standards and pick better men?
posted by asockpuppet at 8:44 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

From that WaPo piece in Icard:

this landmark restaurant, home to Friday night gospel gatherings and a reputation for the best fried chicken in these Blue Ridge foothills.

I've always been curious about that place when driving along I-40, but now I don't need to be curious any more, though at least the cashier has some degree of savvy.

Patrick Bateman Jr was nearby yesterday as well, talking to "a little less than 100" people whose average age also appears to have been a little less than 100.

"Trump will win without any trouble," said Horse Shoe resident Wayne Sloop

In his social circles, he said, "I haven't talked to anybody who will admit that they're voting for Hillary, and yet (polls) are saying she's winning."

"These polls is phony," Sloop said. "I've never seen a run scored or a touchdown scored ... before the game starts."

posted by holgate at 8:44 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

I got my HRC coloring book in the mail yesterday too! It's rad. I was moved by the page with the little girl looking in the mirror and seeing herself in a pantsuit. Felt like an idiot crying over a coloring book, but damn it brought up feelings.
posted by beandip at 8:45 AM on October 14, 2016 [19 favorites]

swimming in maple syrup / MacBook computers for the next 50 years.

Pro tip: I know from personal experience that maple syrup and MacBook Pros are two great tastes that taste like $1000 in repairs together.

Don't ask.

This from the dude that founded a site called 'Redstate', which was all about getting secularly, worldly power.

Erickson has done some foul and creepy stuff, but he has been consistently anti-Trump on grounds of moral fitness since the start of the primaries, so maybe he has actually had a come to Jesus moment literally. Redstate has also opposed Trump vigorously and consistently since the early primary days. But many people don't know that Erickson himself has no more editorial or ownership role in the site.

No need to trust him but he's been on the right side this year.
posted by spitbull at 8:46 AM on October 14, 2016 [14 favorites]

As Lloyd rang up Carol Smith’s bill at the register, the scheduler for a local orthodontist group said she is worried that Trump could kill Obamacare. She said that would be bad news for those with preexisting conditions, including her husband, who has heart disease.

“It would devastate us,” Smith, 48, said.

Yet she still plans to vote Trump.

I'm doing the bad thing and responding to this before going through the rest of the the thread because


ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh why why how

"My husband might die as a direct result of a Trump presidency but I'm still voting for him" [technically fake, but a pretty fair paraphrase]

ahhhhhh why
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:50 AM on October 14, 2016 [50 favorites]

> Mahna Mahna (he makes much more sense this way)

Y'all. Follow this link. I cannot stop laughing. I think this will be my new "I am fucking sick of this whole election I need something to blow away the existential despair" vewing.
posted by jammer at 8:51 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

Ultimately it's about where you're going to punch when you get angry, up or down. That's the difference between an abuser and a revolutionary.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:52 AM on October 14, 2016 [18 favorites]

You know, even the little people have to sacrifice to help Make Murka Great Again.

Maybe that lady doesn't like her husband.
posted by spitbull at 8:52 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

I got my HRC coloring book in the mail yesterday too! It's rad. I was moved by the page with the little girl looking in the mirror and seeing herself in a pantsuit. Felt like an idiot crying over a coloring book, but damn it brought up feelings

Damn you beandip, I was going to wait but now I need this NOW
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:53 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

Damn you beandip, I was going to wait but now I need this NOW

Ha, me too. I waffled on ordering one the other day, but I just pulled the trigger. Bonus to the campaign site for supporting Apple Pay.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:55 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Peter Edelman, who resigned from the Clinton administration over welfare reform, praises Clinton's new poverty plan.

A Plan That Can Help Millions: Hillary Clinton’s new plan for poor people isn’t huge, but it’s reasonable and practicable and would improve millions of lives.
posted by chris24 at 8:56 AM on October 14, 2016 [20 favorites]

"But I still don't think we can or should just write these people off with a "fuck 'em, they deserve what they get" attitude."

This is some kind of magical straw man that just keeps coming back after it's repeatedly torched.

There's this cycle in these threads where someone (sometimes me) posts something trying to explain this election from the point of view of a Trump supporter and then a few people say "Stop trying to get me to feel sympathy for them! They're my enemies! They're trying to hurt me and people like me!"

And, okay, but what is the alternative to feeling sympathy and trying to understand their point of view and figuring out how to address their grievances? I would say that if you don't want to do those things, you're writing them off. And dismissing their grievances as either imaginary or deserved.

But I don't think we can fix our broken politics that way. I think we have to try to understand them even if they are our enemies. Even if they are trying to hurt us.

And I feel like I can say "us" because even though I'm white, I'm also a woman and I married into a Jewish family, so I don't feel immune to their hate and ignorance. I just really want to understand what's happening to them so that we can fix it, and hopefully fix our culture and our government in the process.
posted by OnceUponATime at 8:57 AM on October 14, 2016 [19 favorites]

"My husband might die as a direct result of a Trump presidency but I'm still voting for him"

Hey, freedom isn't free
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:57 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

Ultimately it's about where you're going to punch when you get angry, up or down. That's the difference between an abuser and a revolutionary.

Also, in my analogy, the one punching themself in the face repeatedly is the Democrat.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:01 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

> But I don't think we can fix our broken politics that way. I think we have to try to understand them even if they are our enemies. Even if they are trying to hurt us.

Yup. I've given up trying to beat that drum, but I'm deeply grateful to the people who keep pushing back against the "fuck 'em, they're evil" mentality that is the worst thing about (some of) the good progressive folk of MeFi. Putting a bunch of other people in a bag and treating them as subhuman and not worthy of respect is doing exactly the same thing as the people you hate. Oh, but you know you're right? So do they.
posted by languagehat at 9:01 AM on October 14, 2016 [17 favorites]

What it’s like to survive an assault by a man like Donald Trump: But does he even recognize any of it as sexual assault? Did my study partner recognize his attack as assault? When Trump’s tape became public last week, it was widely described as “lewd.” But it wasn’t lewd—it was violent. “I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. I just kiss. I don’t even wait,” Trump said. “You can do anything.” Except you really can’t. For too long, men have felt entitled to steal women’s bodily autonomy—to claim what they like for the taking. Enough is enough.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:03 AM on October 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

On MSNBC just now, Pence saying an "info dump" doxxing of Trump's accusers coming in a matter of hours.
posted by Room 641-A at 9:03 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Ben Carson melts down on air, demands female journalists mic get cut off.

Meanwhile, the local noon news still spends way more time on Clinton's email "scandal" than Don's rapism.
posted by dirigibleman at 9:04 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

zombieflanders, I can't favorite your comment hard enough. If I never have to watch any of the Trump surrogates again in my whole entire life, I will be eternally grateful. Why CNN thought it was a good idea for their anchors to play nicely with the surrogates and not force them to actually answer the question, I will never know. All I know is that when Trump surrogates appear, I switch the channel. I don't mind calm, reasoned arguments over policy, but that is not at all what the surrogates present.
posted by Silverstone at 9:05 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Get your stories straight! Is she a demon or a robot? Gasp! Or is she a ... demonic robot?

It's difficult to keep track of Republican eschatology, isn't it?
I bet that's why churchgoers are trending towards Clinton now.
posted by sour cream at 9:09 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

And people wonder why I say that an openly displayed firearm is **ALWAYS** a threat and an intimidation tactic.

Armed people engaging in political protest is nothing more or less than a threat from the armed person that if they don't get their way they might just feel the need to kill someone. You cannot engage in peaceful protest if you are armed, it's impossible, any protest conducted while armed is, by definition, not peaceful.
posted by sotonohito at 9:10 AM on October 14, 2016 [40 favorites]

But I don't think we can fix our broken politics that way. I think we have to try to understand them even if they are our enemies. Even if they are trying to hurt us.

Understand maybe but in my experience there comes a point in any relationship where one just has to say 'no, enough'. It up to the other person to step up. There is only so much empathy and emotional labor that can be put out and if that is constantly thrown back with no willingness to compromise then it ends.

In this case what a good many Trump supporters support not only hurts people on and individual but all the way to group policy level. Like really hurt. Like treating people as sub human levels of hurt. This isn't something you compromise on as much as it is painful and shuts down a relationship. This is not something where you let people feel that they've got some sort of wiggle room. Compromise in these sorts of situation barely ever ends well for the people trying to be the understanding and empathetic ones. I'm not going to empathize with someone or any group that thinks it's fine to assault me. There is no wiggle room here. There is no such thing as a little bit of assault. Sure I can understand how the might have come to the conclusion that it is okay but before any fixing can happen they actually have to stop. Otherwise who is the one who keeps getting hurt while the fixing is happening?

Just no.
posted by Jalliah at 9:10 AM on October 14, 2016 [36 favorites]

Jeph Jacques of popular webcomic Questionable Content has produced a shirt we can all relate to.
posted by palindromic at 9:10 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

> "On MSNBC just now, Pence saying ..."

So the amazing "proof none of it happened" is going to be the same bullshit "we've got literally nothing to say in our own defense so we're going to defame our accusers with whatever bullshit we could dig up on them real or imagined" that we've seen Every. Single. Time. this kind of thing occurs?

What a surprise.
posted by kyrademon at 9:11 AM on October 14, 2016 [17 favorites]

Welp, I think the chances of a Trump N-word tape coming out just went to 100.

@reidepstein
Trump told @ChairmanBorges that he's "never used the N-word in his life," per @HenryJGomez

http://www.cleveland.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/10/the_donald_trump_whisperer_her.html
posted by chris24 at 9:12 AM on October 14, 2016 [25 favorites]

Ultimately it's about where you're going to punch when you get angry, up or down. That's the difference between an abuser and a revolutionary.

posted by soren_lorensen at 8:52 AM on October 14 [3 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]

This needs more favorites.
posted by schadenfrau at 9:13 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

Danny Elfman musically scores Trump stalking Clinton.
posted by tilde at 9:13 AM on October 14, 2016 [15 favorites]

Rolling Stone (Taibbi) The Fury and Failure of Donald Trump

Keeping up with Trump revelations is exhausting. By late October, he'll be caught whacking it outside a nunnery. There are not many places left for this thing to go that don't involve kids or cannibalism. We wait, miserably, for the dong shot.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 9:13 AM on October 14, 2016 [13 favorites]

Trump on Lindsay Lohan in 2004: 'Deeply troubled' women are 'always the best in bed' (CNN)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:15 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

There's this cycle in these threads where someone (sometimes me) posts something trying to explain this election from the point of view of a Trump supporter

The implicit assumption you're making is that people haven't already tried to understand them and to reason with them -- that none of us has Trump supporters among our family, friends, and neighbors. I would venture to say most if not all have, but the assumption of good faith is a finite resource that can often be abused. At some point, people are right to put their guard back up.

"Stop trying to get me to feel sympathy for them! They're my enemies! They're trying to hurt me and people like me!"

To the extent that these feelings have been expressed, they're a far cry from "fuck 'em, they deserve what they get." Tiring of special pleading on behalf of a particular group does not equate to wishing that group harm or feeling they deserve their fate.

And, okay, but what is the alternative to feeling sympathy and trying to understand their point of view and figuring out how to address their grievances?

In politics? Defeating them, then using the power of effective governance to directly alleviate their suffering.

Look, the alliance of the Trump dead-ender faction and centrist/establishment Republicans has had a good run, and they never once tried to expand their tent to include progressives, because they didn't have to. Now, it looks like progressives plus the non-batshit contingent of Republicans and independents may well be a governing coalition. Efforts to bring the remaining faction into the tent, while noble, create a problem in maintaining cohesiveness of the platform. We want to help them, but among the remaining holdouts, there is very little in the way of compromise available, and it's not because our hands haven't been out the whole time.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:16 AM on October 14, 2016 [40 favorites]

The deepest irony being the that Trump's sole basis for linking Hillary to Bill's sexual history is by accusing her of going after his partners and victims (alleged) "viciously."

No sense of irony is sufficient. I really wish the media were going after the basic contradiction here in running a serial sexual predator's campaign against Bill Clinton's failings and Hillary's supposed enabling of them.

Although it was good hearing Anderson Cooper go after Conway over why they say a settled lawsuit with Paula Jones (with no admission of guilt) is absolute proof of Bill's guilt, while Trump's many settled lawsuits mean no such admission has happened. Cooper is doing good work lately.

The double standard here needs meme-ification somehow.
posted by spitbull at 9:19 AM on October 14, 2016 [10 favorites]

Trump told @ChairmanBorges that he's "never used the N-word in his life," per @HenryJGomez

Holy crap
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:20 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Famed anti-discrimination attorney Gloria Allred, who frequently represents women accusing famous men of sexual abuse, says she’s representing a new woman accusing Trump of sexual misconduct. The two will hold a press conference Friday afternoon.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:20 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

Want to Know Julian Assange's Endgame? He Told You a Decade Ago.

Assange: “The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive ‘secrecy tax’) and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaptation.”

posted by xyzzy at 9:20 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

And, okay, but what is the alternative to feeling sympathy and trying to understand their point of view and figuring out how to address their grievances? I would say that if you don't want to do those things, you're writing them off. And dismissing their grievances as either imaginary or deserved.

Yeah, that's what you do with an abuser. You can have empathy for them, as humans caught in their own web of trauma, but I don't think anyone is required to sympathize with or validate their abuser. That's how you end up with more abuse.
posted by schadenfrau at 9:20 AM on October 14, 2016 [15 favorites]

That Assange quote needs some more Bwaahahahahahahahahaaaaaa!

Also, sounds a lot like Bill Ayres.
posted by spitbull at 9:23 AM on October 14, 2016

Efforts to bring them into the tent, while noble, create a problem in maintaining cohesiveness of the platform

I don't really want to bring them into the Democratic party... I just want to bring them into our democracy.

There is only so much empathy and emotional labor that can be put out and if that is constantly thrown back with no willingness to compromise then it ends.

I don't really want to compromise with them either. Sympathizing is not the same as compromising. Like a parent saying "I know what she said hurt your feelings, but hitting is not okay." You can still set a boundary. I'm happy if they get a "time out" from government imposed by the not-delusional majority of voters in this country.

But like a misbehaving kid, punishment is not going to end the bad behavior by itself in most cases. You have to set a firm boundary but also try to figure out what's at the root of the behavior, and address that.

(So now in "defending" Trump supporters I've compared them to drug addicts and badly behaved preschoolers. I'm not sure how much they would appreciate my defense... But that's the kind of sympathy I have for them.)
posted by OnceUponATime at 9:23 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

Ugh, Philadelphia may have a transit strike starting Nov 1st.
posted by cmfletcher at 9:24 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Who said they're not really at fault?
posted by OnceUponATime at 9:24 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

In this case what a good many Trump supporters support not hurts people on and individual but all the way to group policy level. Like really hurt. Like treating people as sub human levels of hurt. This isn't something you compromise on as much as it is painful and shuts down a relationship.

Once you see the gap between what they say they want and what they actually want, that's the point where you have to walk away. That cashier in Icard who says "she finds herself questioning if there isn’t more to Trump than she realizes, because he had done so many offensive things and yet his support holds." She's being gaslighted into believing that there's something worthy about Trump that she just can't see from his words and actions, when it's the supporters meeting up in her workplace who have contorted their personal beliefs and circumstances.

The model here is not political empathy, but cult deprogramming.
posted by holgate at 9:24 AM on October 14, 2016 [18 favorites]

Who the fuck cares why they're doing it?

Well, I care. Probing the cause of an action may give you tools to decrease or eliminate it.
posted by xyzzy at 9:25 AM on October 14, 2016 [12 favorites]

Understand maybe but in my experience there comes a point in any relationship where one just has to say 'no, enough'. It up to the other person to step up. There is only so much empathy and emotional labor that can be put out and if that is constantly thrown back with no willingness to compromise then it ends.

The thing is that there's this exact same sentiment on the other side. They've been sitting there in their communities waiting for the benefits of free trade to flow through to them. They see people in other communities living it up as higher paying service jobs come up for educated people but in general they've been left completely behind. The market isn't investing in them. The government isn't investing in them. Wealth has flown out of their communities for the last few decades.

Look at Wyoming for instance, reddest state in the union. Here are the top five non-government employers:

Rio Tinto Energy America,1,795
Powder River Coal Co., 1,459
Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, 1,324
Thunder Basin Coal Co., 1,100
Wyoming Medical Center, 946

Three out of five are fossil fuel energy companies. The other two require you to be highly educated to get a reasonable paying job with benefits. Worse case (usual) scenario, the menial jobs are contracted out and offered at minimum wage. When Hillary says she's going to close down coal mines and bring in clean energy we know that it's all going to be a wash. But for these people, who are going to see a few thousand jobs of coal and gas disappear while there's not even a guarantee that they're going to bring things like solar panel manufacturing to a place like Wyoming, it's going to massacre what's left of their communities.

I don't think every uneducated worker in Wyoming looks at it that way but the rust belt is already feeling those after effects and they're living their jobs being taken away (as a result of the creative disruption of free trade) but no investment for higher paying service economy jobs or higher margin innovative manufacturing jobs replacing them. We can point out that you can walk into Walmart and pick up a 50" LCD for $270 but it doesn't help when they struggle to feed their families.

They want to feel like they can survive. They're sitting there going "somebody for the love of god help us!" and we've been saying what they (fairly) hear as "things are better! Shut up!. Trump comes along, specifically recognizes their their plight and promises to fix it.

So I can understand it. And I have empathy for them like I try to have empathy for everyone. There's not a limited supply. But these people feel like they've been given a bum deal and things improving incrementally in aggregate aren't good enough for them even though that's what everyone's been getting.
posted by Talez at 9:25 AM on October 14, 2016 [16 favorites]

The deepest irony being the that Trump's sole basis for linking Hillary to Bill's sexual history is by accusing her of going after his partners and victims (alleged) "viciously." No sense of irony is sufficient. I really wish the media were going after the basic contradiction here in running a serial sexual predator's campaign against Bill Clinton's failings and Hillary's supposed enabling of them.

It's just the Trump Mirror again, no deeper than that really.
posted by Dashy at 9:28 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

And, okay, but what is the alternative to feeling sympathy and trying to understand their point of view and figuring out how to address their grievances?

Defeating them, crushing their political power, and governing effectively without them. That's the nice thing about a democracy, you don't need unanimity you just need a majority.

Either they'll eventually come around or they won't. But we shouldn't be pandering to them, or trying desperately to somehow abandon all the principles of our party to make it appealing to them.

We are never, ever, going to have universal agreement. If that's your ambition give up now. What we **CAN** do is try to explain matters and let the saner ones come in out of the cold. We can keep a door open for them when they're willing to abandon their hatred and vileness. We can forgive them when they've changed their wicked ways (not an instant before). Butt what we can't do, what we can never do, is compromise our own values, goals, and ambitions in an effort to try to persuade them to join our party.

"Stop trying to get me to feel sympathy for them! They're my enemies! They're trying to hurt me and people like me!"

Pretty much, yes. I'm not declaring that they're subhuman, but they have chosen to hurt me and people I care for. I have only a limited amount of caring I can do, only a limited amount of shit I can put up with, I'm not perfect. And my limits are stretched to the max just with my family and friends. I can't spare any fucks to give about people who hate me and wish to do me harm.

Maybe you're a better person than me.

The only reason I even try to understand them is so I can fight them more effectively. But a scumbag racist misogynist who has lost their job and feels he need to lash out at women and minorities? I'll support policies that help their situation, welfare, unemployment, basic income, etc, but I'll be damned if I'll waste one second of my precious time trying to pat them on the head and tell them I understand how the mean ole black people and women took all their stuff in hopes that if I'm just nice enough, if I just agree with them enough, they'll somehow come around.

They want me to be nice to them? They want me to be friendly or sympathetic? Then they have to stop trying to hurt me and the people I care about, that's a non-negotiable precondition. Until they stop trying to hurt me, I don't feel bad for them.
posted by sotonohito at 9:28 AM on October 14, 2016 [45 favorites]

Seriously, the constant call for sympathy for the white Trump supporter is rising to the level of microaggression.


"Stop trying to get me to feel sympathy for them! They're my enemies! They're trying to hurt me and people like me!"

This is so condescending. They're not my enemies. But if any attempt to have sympathy for them requires me to acknowledge that yes, my very presence in this country is scary and threatening to them and I'm supposed to acknowledge that as a real fear, fuck that very much.
posted by zutalors! at 9:28 AM on October 14, 2016 [46 favorites]

Well, I care. Probing the cause of an action may give you tools to decrease or eliminate it.

I'm not sure where you go once you establish the root cause is, "The world is full of assholes."
posted by mikelieman at 9:29 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

I just started watching the Michelle Obama speech again. One of the underrated aspects of the Obama administration is that it's created such an enormous positive association for me with the song "Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours" that all I have to do is hear the opening sitar and drums to get this warm, powerful, righteous feeling. Really dispels the darkness. Thanks Obama(s and Stevie Wonder)!
posted by penduluum at 9:30 AM on October 14, 2016 [23 favorites]

You know it's really possible to have complex explanation for historical causality that doesn't require the binary attribution of blame or excusal to particular social groups or actors. An explanation is not necessarily an excuse.
posted by spitbull at 9:31 AM on October 14, 2016 [20 favorites]

@sahilkapur
.@POTUS in full YOLObama mode. "Y'know that saying? House always wins. Unless he owns the house. Then it loses a billion dollars."

Totally stealing YOLObama.
posted by chris24 at 9:32 AM on October 14, 2016 [49 favorites]

Early ballots and voter-registration numbers show Democrats surging in Florida: “They’re lying sacks of shit,” Wilson said. “There is no real Republican ground game in Florida. There wasn’t then when he wrote this memo. And there really isn’t now.”
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:33 AM on October 14, 2016 [17 favorites]

I'm not excusing racism or conspiracy theorists. But I do think what we're seeing is not really concentrated race hatred in most cases. I think we're seeing the manifestation of dread at an indifferent world of outsiders who are demolishing the world a lot of people were raised in, and replacing it with hostile digital artifacts and unappealing promises.

I see this as roughly correct. The racism is real and virulent, but it isn't necessarily the root cause or maybe more accurately the sole root cause of Trump's support. Racism is of course endemic throughout the US systemically and sometimes more in more direct fashions from everywhere, but the level of racism and outright misogyny we see in this campaign is not simply an innate reaction, but a culturally driven phenomenon that found a home in certain segments of the population that seem to largely share some commonalities surrounding the type and amount of information they have.

They deeply fear cultural change and that fear comes from not understanding where that change is coming from or why they are feeling as anxious as they are. They blame the change on the things they notice that are different from what they've been used to, so seeing women and minorities expressing themselves, to them is that kind of difference. Seeing that while feeling stress from less clearly identifiable changes like technology and declining interest in familiar activities or locations, meaning certain kinds of jobs, for example, or increasing urban migration, and changes in popular culture, music, tv, and the world online, builds a sense of imagined causation due to the correlation between the stress and the "different".

There seems to be the belief that they are, in essence, being replaced, that the world they know isn't as solid as they believed it to be so they attack those they blame for this change. Since many of these people are "low information" voters, they aren't researching their beliefs and don't necessarily have the background knowledge even to know how to do so, they instead rely on smaller networks of "trusted" correspondents, people they know, FOX news, and so on that tell them largely what they already believe while giving explanations that fit their prejudices.

Racism in this context is like a smoldering fire, in good times there may be no visible flame, just some smoke from the larger systemic context and some "harmless" joking", but when a big wind like Trump comes along those smoldering embers can reignite into raging fires due to the failure to even begin to accept the premises of what bias is all about. Pointing at racism as a root cause of Trump's popularity is true to the extent that racism is always a part of US culture with some areas are less willing to even recognize its existence than others, but the level of racism among Trump supporters right now is coming from not just that "normal" history, but from the linked root of culturally sanctioned or even culturally rewarded ignorance of the wider world and events. Placing the blame or labeling the root as only one or the other can't fully explain the disparities between different communities regarding this election. Neither hatched from the other, they've evolved together.

To "fix" things, these people are pretty much going to end up getting what they fear if they don't actively work to understand the real problems they're facing. Clinton, I'm sure, will help their communities as best she can, because that;s who she is. If we're lucky, those flames of racism will die back down to embers after a while and maybe some will come to see what's been done for them and some younger people will surely grow into seeing the world more clearly, but for the rest they may never find their solution because they simply don't want to believe they should ever have to change, we can only minimize their influence by continuing to provide better information and better help to all.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:33 AM on October 14, 2016 [16 favorites]

Get your stories straight! Is she a demon or a robot? Gasp! Or is she a ... demonic robot?

Don't be silly everyone knows Los Hermanos Número defeated El Diablo Robótico we learned that in season five of Angel.
posted by winna at 9:34 AM on October 14, 2016 [12 favorites]

chris24: [Trump said] "Unfortunately, with people in general, you get more with vinegar than honey."

Oh great, now Big Honey and Big Vinegar will have to provide comments that "our fine products should not be used to lure people, because you shouldn't lure people. We provide good [food stuff], not a product to support poor treatment of women, or people in general."
posted by filthy light thief at 9:34 AM on October 14, 2016 [12 favorites]

Defeating them, crushing their political power, and governing effectively without them.

AKA "writing them off." Look, everybody keeps saying "It's not Trump that scares me now, it's his followers. At this point, it's almost certain he's going to lose, but they will still be around."

And that's the thing. That's the problem. They will still be around. We have to live with them. And we have to stop them from trying to burn it all down when they can't get their way at the ballot box. From forming militias and shooting up government offices. This is a very real possibility. Does anyone think it's not? Because give me an hour and I'll find a ton of incidents to cite to support that statement.

Even if you are all out of fucks to give about them, you should give a fuck about the people who are going to be their victims if we can't bring them back from that brink. Ignoring them is not going to work.
posted by OnceUponATime at 9:36 AM on October 14, 2016 [12 favorites]

Trump on Lindsay Lohan in 2004: 'Deeply troubled' women are 'always the best in bed' (CNN)

She was 18 at the time.
posted by chris24 at 9:37 AM on October 14, 2016 [14 favorites]

Burning Down the House (SL NYT Op Ed)

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!
[...]
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.
posted by infini at 9:38 AM on October 14, 2016 [52 favorites]

What hit me hard in the video I watched of Michelle Obama's speech was something most people probably didn't even notice. She's talking about the effects this will have on our daughters, the camera settles on a woman with a young girl on her shoulders, and in the background some men are chit-chatting and laughing. Whatever they were joking about was more important than listening to *this* woman talk about *this* subject at *this* time in our history? Their causal disregard was all too familiar, and is something men like Trump depend on.

(Finally paid $5 to vent my steam; I've been reading here long enough that I remember the dark pre-moderator days and I don't need to read the clue sheet on inside jokes.)
posted by ruetheday at 9:38 AM on October 14, 2016 [196 favorites]

You know it's really possible to have complex explanation for historical causality that doesn't require the binary attribution of blame or excusal to particular social groups or actors. An explanation is not necessarily an excuse.

No but this is always followed by some sort of scolding about how we "can't write these people off." Meanwhile the people who are being scolded are minorities.

Like, you can't say it's not racism because the racism has some cause besides "I don't like their skin tone." It doesn't matter the cause, it's racism.
posted by zutalors! at 9:39 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

Whatever they were joking about was more important than listening to *this* woman talk about *this* subject at *this* time in our history? Their causal disregard was all too familiar, and is something men like Trump depend on.

I've been bummed about this in my own life, seeing many men laugh and talk and be casual during the debates. While women watch intensely, with pain in their stomachs and hearts.
posted by agregoli at 9:41 AM on October 14, 2016 [22 favorites]

Early ballots and voter-registration numbers show Democrats surging in Florida

Obama beat Romney by less than 1% in Florida. And we called that a safe race. This is going to be...something else.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:41 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

One thing I really wish the talking heads would say is tha violence against women is an important issue. Every time a Trump backer gets on TV they talk about how this isn't an important issue and we need to talk about the important issues facing this country. That is nonsense. Violence and bullying of women and children is a huge and important issue.
posted by humanfont at 9:44 AM on October 14, 2016 [32 favorites]

Talez They want to feel like they can survive. They're sitting there going "somebody for the love of god help us!" and we've been saying what they (fairly) hear as "things are better! Shut up!. Trump comes along, specifically recognizes their their plight and promises to fix it.

Has anyone on the left been saying "things are better, shut up"? Because that sounds like a massive strawman to me.

I'll agree that the Democrats aren't doing enough to attack the plutocrats. One of my massive areas of disagreement with Clinton is that she is one of the plutocrats, of the nicer variety, and therefore has plutocratic interests as her center.

But fuck, look at some of the resident Republicans here and their visceral recoiling a the mention of event the most basic, low level, concepts of economic justices expressed in the phrase "make the rich pay their fair share".

You can't help a person who is being economically abused by the plutocrat class if they're busy declaring that any mention of class, any mention of economic abuse, that even the tiniest, smallest, baby steps towards rectifying the situation is somehow Evil Communism.

There's a reason why they're lashing out at women and minorities: because they're ideologically forbidden from even admitting who is actually harming them.

So yeah, their economic situation sucks, and I'd love to enact policies that help them. But you know what? I'm all out of fucks to give for a person who actively opposes the help, who actively fights against being helped, because they want to blame women and minorities instead of addressing the real problem.

guess what? Women and minorities didn't take away their jobs, the plutocrats did that.

Guess what: they love the plutocrats.

So yeah, all out of fucks to give about their pathetic and ever more convoluted justifications for why they hate women and minorities so much.

I'll work as hard as I can to get policies enacted that help them, even if hey fight every step. But I'll be damned if I'll waste a nanosecond feeling all sorry for them and trying to pat them on the head and say it's ok.

Trying to help someone who hates me, and who fights viciously against being helped, is too damn exhausting to leave me with any energy left for being super sympathetic. I'm helping them, if that isn't enough then it isn't enough
posted by sotonohito at 9:44 AM on October 14, 2016 [60 favorites]

There's a reason why they're lashing out at women and minorities: because they're ideologically forbidden from even admitting who is actually harming them.

This is so perfectly phrased.
posted by zutalors! at 9:46 AM on October 14, 2016 [69 favorites]

Sounds like we're definitely going to not figure out the answer to this question that comes up every single thread in this thread either! Maybe let's try something else other than arguing about whether empathy is traitorous?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:47 AM on October 14, 2016 [10 favorites]

whether empathy is traitorous?

I also could have phrased that "Whether the right special hug will cure fascism?"
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:49 AM on October 14, 2016 [15 favorites]

That is nonsense. Violence and bullying of women and children is a huge and important issue.

Don Lemon silenced Scottie on this very thing, revealing his own history of sexual abuse. For one second her half-smile disappeared, but she immediately returned to dismissiveness as Lemon cut her off for commercial.
posted by xyzzy at 9:49 AM on October 14, 2016 [16 favorites]

Re the Trumpkins: this is a "collect your people" moment for white straight men. It's not the job of POC, or the job of queer and trans people, or the job of women, or the job of immigrants to work with the Trumpkins, because they hate us and wish us harm. If any of us wants to go and work with them, or if we want to have patience for retrograde old Uncle Fred, sure, fine, but it's not our job to be "responsible" for them or to feel sympathy for people who routinely advocate for literally killing, raping or jailing us.

So, collect your people, white straight guys - you are the ones who are safest in working with the Trumpkins, you are the ones who are the most likely to be listened to and you are the ones who will find it easiest. No one should be asking the rest of us to make nice with them.
posted by Frowner at 9:50 AM on October 14, 2016 [85 favorites]

Maybe let's try something else other than arguing about whether empathy is traitorous?

And maybe the calls for ending the debate don't need to phrase the point of contention in such a way as to caricature one side of it.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:50 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

Ignoring them is not going to work.

Don't you think we don't know that? But I'm at a loss, truly, because the people in this basket of deplorables are not living with the rest of us in a reality-based community. I can't keep holding out my hand only to see it slapped at and bitten and told "that's not a hand at all, it's the foul grip of Satan!!!!!!"

I'm not a cult deprogrammer, and at this point, I'm afraid that's what they need.
posted by yasaman at 9:50 AM on October 14, 2016 [19 favorites]

maybe the calls for ending the debate don't need to phrase the point of contention in such a way as to caricature one side of it.

Apologies, was trying to be facetious, came off just dumb. Sorry!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:51 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

She's talking about the effects this will have on our daughters, the camera settles on a woman with a young girl on her shoulders, and in the background some men are chit-chatting and laughing.

I caught that too on a re-watch and I was so furious I was practically frothing.
posted by _Mona_ at 9:51 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

Has anyone on the left been saying "things are better, shut up"? Because that sounds like a massive strawman to me.

Yes. When Obama gets up on stage saying how good the stock market is as evidence of a recovering economy. When he gets up and says the economy is growing. When he gets up and says that wages are up X%. Don't get me wrong, all these things are both entirely correct, accurate, and good for the economy in aggregate.

But the practical benefits aren't feeding through to a lot of these rural communities. Wealth has had a massive bias towards cities and their suburbs for a long time now.
posted by Talez at 9:51 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

And that's the thing. That's the problem. They will still be around. We have to live with them. And we have to stop them from trying to burn it all down when they can't get their way at the ballot box. From forming militias and shooting up government offices. This is a very real possibility. Does anyone think it's not? Because give me an hour and I'll find a ton of incidents to cite to support that statement.

Even if you are all out of fucks to give about them, you should give a fuck about the people who are going to be their victims if we can't bring them back from that brink. Ignoring them is not going to work.

You're not *wrong,* but I do feel compelled to point out that you're essentially asking us to treat the national election like it's an active shooter situation. Maybe we promise them a getaway truck and a helicopter so they don't start shooting hostages, but at some point you've got to put your foot down and send in the SWAT team, y'know? They're emboldened because they've been getting away with it for fifty years. This is the moment where we've finally pulled the mask off the machine and exposed exactly who makes up the Republican base. Let's make sure they know they can't get away with it any more.
posted by Mayor West at 9:52 AM on October 14, 2016 [26 favorites]

Demographics are not in Rs favor going forward:

@jensmanuel
% increase in eligible voters, 2012-16
17% Hispanic
16% Asian
6% Black
2% White
http://pewrsr.ch/208FXvE

Which feeds the thesis of this article from the Atlantic about why some Rs are going for Trump; they know the tide has turned against them with the electorate, so the Supreme Court is really their last chance to stem the tide.

Why the Supreme Court Matters More to Republicans than Trump: Conservative justices might be the party’s final bulwark against a changing electoral landscape
posted by chris24 at 9:54 AM on October 14, 2016 [13 favorites]

There are plenty of people (and data!) showing that things are better than 2008; they simply are, by most indicators.

At the same time, the message is not "shut up"; that is indeed a strawman. HRC's response is that we understand that not everyone has shared in that version of better, and we need policies (and taxes) to reflect that.

The "shut up" part can be applied to the racism and sexism, however.
posted by Dashy at 9:55 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

I've been bummed about this in my own life, seeing many men laugh and talk and be casual during the debates. While women watch intensely, with pain in their stomachs and hearts.

You don't have to be directly at risk from the consequences of a Trump presidency to be transfixed by this election. You just have to believe that other people are equally real—even when they don't look like you. Once you have that, it's impossible not to feel a visceral horror at the threat that Trump represents.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 9:55 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

I think that the feeling that we are being overtaken by overwhelming and terrifying forces of destruction beyond comprehension or control is incredibly common right now, and it absolutely crosses party lines. Whether those forces are the environmental consequences of climate change, the counterfactual and rage-driven support for Trump, the rapid social changes driven by the internet and social media, the evolution of our culture and norms away from the familiar, increasing globalization, recurring economic crises at home and abroad, the many-headed hydra that is terrorism... the list goes on and on. Republicans, Democrats, Trump supporters, Independents - they are all capable of being sad, scared, and unsure how to cope with the powerful changes they observe in the world and in society.

So I understand the call for sympathy, and I understand that many Trump supporters find themselves in challenging circumstances, feel let down, and want to be seen, heard, validated, and championed. But they aren't the only ones trying to find a way to cope with disorienting change in a world that isn't turning out as promised. And if the coping mechanism they have chosen is white nationalism, bigotry, and a rejection of the institutions that hold our country together, I don't have sympathy for their choice.
posted by prefpara at 9:56 AM on October 14, 2016 [24 favorites]

At the same time, the message is not "shut up"; that is indeed a strawman. HRC's response is that we understand that not everyone has shared in that version of better, and we need policies (and taxes) to reflect that.

The message isn't said as "shut up". My point was (if you go back and read it) is that they hear it as "shut up".
posted by Talez at 9:57 AM on October 14, 2016

You're not *wrong,* but I do feel compelled to point out that you're essentially asking us to treat the national election like it's an active shooter situation. Maybe we promise them a getaway truck and a helicopter so they don't start shooting hostages, but at some point you've got to put your foot down and send in the SWAT team, y'know?

What is the SWAT team for a Supreme Court with only 8 justices, and endless filibusters of, say, zika funding?
posted by Dashy at 9:58 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

Yes. When Obama gets up on stage saying how good the stock market is as evidence of a recovering economy. When he gets up and says the economy is growing. When he gets up and says that wages are up X%. Don't get me wrong, all these things are both entirely correct, accurate, and good for the economy in aggregate.


Can you point to where the "shut up" comes in in Obama's remarks about how the economy is improving? Because I totally see where the "things are better" is ieeing when you say this is a "things are better, shut up" speech designed to shut up voters.
posted by palomar at 9:58 AM on October 14, 2016

Let me rephrase: We've gone around and around this, I think it's a very very important issue with a lot to parse out. But again, we're 300,000k words deep into this thread. It can get very contentious because of the two extreme positions that I characterized which either actually pop or or are perceived to pop up. This will be one of the key issues going forward from this year for the Democratic party and for the left as a whole. Fundamentally as a culture we need to decide what approach to take to the increasingly marginalized white people who make up Trump's base. Trick them? Ignore them? Fight them? Appeal them? Many options will be pursued. But right now during this election, we just need to beat them. So let's talk about that instead, and save the meta-strategy for January 1.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:00 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

Haha. Today's fun fact: the only legislator to vote no from both houses on Bill Clinton's articles of impeachment is Chuck Schumer.
posted by xyzzy at 10:00 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

Can you point to where the "shut up" comes in in Obama's remarks about how the economy is improving? Because I totally see where the "things are better" is ieeing when you say this is a "things are better, shut up" speech designed to shut up voters.

I'm not saying that Obama is saying it. Again, it's what people in these depressed areas are hear it as. I mean, I hang out in some pretty unsavory places specifically to try and figure out this sort of stuff. You can believe me or not. But these people are tired of being told the economy is improving when they're quite clearly still in a heap of shit.
posted by Talez at 10:00 AM on October 14, 2016

OnceUponATime AKA "writing them off."

AKA winning and letting the dead enders seethe until they die of old age and their kids and grandkids are ashamed of their views.

We didn't win on Civil Rights by being super duper sympathetic and nicey nicey to the racists, we won by crushing them politically and ignoring their wails of anguish. We left a door open for them to come in after they'd decided to pretend that somehow they hadn't really been racist after all, we didn't just declare them permanently evil or whatever.

But and this is the important part, we won without them. Because if you demand that we win only by converting them to the cause then we'll never win. You win by assembling 50.01% of the votes and enacting laws that get the problems solved even if it makes the minority of losers and haters scream that Baby Jesus is crying at our evil liberal agenda. You win by getting the Courts to find that that their hate is illegal and unconstitutional.

From forming militias and shooting up government offices. This is a very real possibility. Does anyone think it's not? Because give me an hour and I'll find a ton of incidents to cite to support that statement.


They can have a cell right next to the Bundys if they want to go that route. We can't let fear of evil scumbags with guns stop us from doing what is right.

And I doubt many will follow the Bundys to prison. They didn't after the Civil Rights Act passed, they just yelled a lot about how we liberal bad people made Baby Jesus cry and a few decades later they're just a bunch of embarrassments at a family reunion.

We've extended lots of hands their way, and they've done nothing but give us the bird and fight to help those who are actually responsible for their pain.

At a certain point you have to recognize that the person in question is simply not going to be fixed and you have to move into harm mitigation rather than letting them keep hurting you.

When they decide to abandon their delusions, when they decide that maybe getting the plutocrats to pony up a bit of cash for needed programs isn't Evil Communism, then they can come in and join the rest of us. The hand is extended their way. If they don't take it, I can't help that.
posted by sotonohito at 10:01 AM on October 14, 2016 [44 favorites]

And, okay, but what is the alternative to feeling sympathy and trying to understand their point of view and figuring out how to address their grievances?

Cynically, use sympathy/empathy/understanding to figure out how to 'push' people - basic psychops.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:01 AM on October 14, 2016

(Finally paid $5 to vent my steam; I've been reading here long enough that I remember the dark pre-moderator days and I don't need to read the clue sheet on inside jokes.)

I always love it when this happens. Welcome ruetheday!

Also: you owe MeFites ~5000 favorites, so get to clicking.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:02 AM on October 14, 2016 [34 favorites]

What is the SWAT team for a Supreme Court with only 8 justices, and endless filibusters of, say, zika funding?

A 400-EV, 15-point popular vote victory for the Dems, forever shattering this godawful party and everything it now stands for.
posted by Mayor West at 10:02 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

I just want to say that all I said is that these people are RACIST. Which is demonstrably true. I understand that in the white imagination calling someone racist is tantamount to calling them an irredeemable demonic babykilling Satan-humping black hole of pure evil, but that's not really my problem? POC understand that racism is pervasive and absolutely mundane, and certainly not incurable. I didn't say anything about writing these people off. I am simply saying that their current behavior is unacceptable. Because it is. Jesus.
posted by sunset in snow country at 10:03 AM on October 14, 2016 [44 favorites]

Mahna Mahna (he makes much more sense this way)

Especially given its unsavory origins (Wikipedia)
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:03 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

>> Defeating them, crushing their political power, and governing effectively without them.

> AKA "writing them off." Look, everybody keeps saying "It's not Trump that scares me now, it's his followers. At this point, it's almost certain he's going to lose, but they will still be around."

No, and, again, the uncharitable assumptions about what's being asked for aren't helping. In our Glorious Two-Party Federal Presidential Constitutional Republic, defeating political enemies doesn't mean they're rounded up and sent to work camps until the next election. It just means they don't get to set the agenda, or get less of a say in the agenda, depending on the scale of the electoral victory.

Governing without them doesn't mean not listening to them. Believe me, these people have been listened to. Many of them are the same people who brought about the 2010 Tea Party wave election. They've had their say, their candidates have had their chance. In all likelihood, they'll still have a very strong say in at least one chamber. Their grievances are not in danger of being ignored.

They essentially have ownership of the most watched cable news network and many of the top talk radio programs. Donald Trump probably isn't going away after the election if he loses, and if he does, there are plenty of like-minded figures who could lead his movement.

They will also be listened to in their communities. They're among the most politically active demographics because they skew older, whiter, and, lest we forget, more wealthy than the opposition. They have plenty of resources, and very few axes of privilege on which they don't score well.

I think this debate is very germane to the problems our country is dealing with, and much more interesting to me than the horse-racey stuff or the "what stupid shit did Donald say in the last ten minutes" updates. I just wish people arguing for being more charitable and understanding weren't so intent on mischaracterizing what the ask is. All we want to do is win some electoral power and get some policy passed to help everyone, including our enemies.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:04 AM on October 14, 2016 [17 favorites]

And, okay, but what is the alternative to feeling sympathy and trying to understand their point of view and figuring out how to address their grievances?

The main grievance is they no longer maintain their privileged position in a white supremacist system. They have, are, and will reject any "solution" that does not restore and protect white supremacy. By arguing that "grievances" must be "addressed," you are arguing for restoring, maintaining and expanding white supremacy.

How Trump Happened - "It’s not just anger over jobs and immigration. White voters hope Trump will restore the racial hierarchy upended by Barack Obama.", Jamelle Bouie. ON twitter:
This column is actually a great example of something I encountered today: Refusal to consider what Trump would mean for people of color.
&
The most interesting thing I have witnessed this year is the open argument that Trump voters essentially lack agency.

others:
HOW WHITE RACIAL BACKLASH BROUGHT US DONALD TRUMP

So the election of Obama provoked a backlash, not just because black people demonstrated their power at the voting booth, but because the president that they used their power to elect was black? If a white Democrat had gotten the same margin and percentage, would that have provoked a reaction?

Anderson: I'll come at that differently. Would we have had a birther movement for a white president?

Obviously not.

Saving Conservatism From Trump's GOP

Of the various explanations that have been advanced in such quarters to explain Trump’s hostile takeover of the GOP, Roy’s may be the most explosive. Although he was originally drawn to the party for its emphasis on economic freedom and self-reliance, he now believes that a substantial portion of Republicans were never motivated by those ideas. Rather than a conservative party that happens to incorporate cultural grievances, today’s GOP is, in his view, a vehicle for the racial resentment, nationalism, and nostalgia of older white voters. The element of the party that he once dismissed as a fringe, in other words, now seems to form its core.

“When you’re used to preferential treatment, equal treatment feels like discrimination.”
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:05 AM on October 14, 2016 [33 favorites]

You know, I keep thinking about something Matt Yglesias said months ago about Trump support, criticism of Black Lives Matter etc. Vox, where Yglesias works, has had multiple pieces about the myth that Trump supporters are acting out of economic anxiety rather than racism.

He said basically that it's insulting to them to not take them at their word, that race is the problem. That we should engage on that level with Trump and his supporters.

He said that seriously, in this country it is a national discussion about whether or not police officers should be able to shoot black people based on vague suspicion of criminal intent. We should consider this something we are seriously discussing as a nation, because that's where we are, and that's what a significant portion of the population is proposing.

So also a significant portion of the country is seriously proposing National stop and frisk, ideological purity tests, a wall with Mexico to keep out undesirables, and so on. That's what's on the table for discussion, not economic policy. So why try to condescend to the Trump voter and just take them at their word? And every word leans back to racism, sexism and xenophobia.
posted by zutalors! at 10:07 AM on October 14, 2016 [63 favorites]

So I understand the call for sympathy, and I understand that many Trump supporters find themselves in challenging circumstances, feel let down, and want to be seen, heard, validated, and championed. But they aren't the only ones trying to find a way to cope with disorienting change in a world that isn't turning out as promised. And if the coping mechanism they have chosen is white nationalism, bigotry, and a rejection of the institutions that hold our country together, I don't have sympathy for their choice.

Yeah, simply put, they're wrong and we can't accept any response other than the acknowledgment of that.
posted by gusottertrout at 10:08 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

And, okay, but what is the alternative to feeling sympathy and trying to understand their point of view and figuring out how to address their grievances?

As others have noted, the most obvious alternative is just to defeat them. And then to worry about how they feel about it after they're safely relegated to an enduring minority.

But I don't think we can fix our broken politics that way.

We don't have a broken "politics." That's more both-sides-to-it-ism. What we've had for a little while now is a broken Republican Party, one that's shockingly unconcerned with policy, one that's willing to engage in truly shocking and harmful tactics.

The most I will give you in this respect is that we can sort of understand why so many anglos are succumbing to xenophobia, racism, and the darkest kinds of misogyny this year, and know that at some level Trump supporters are mostly decent enough folks who got sucked into a bad movement.

But it's not on progressives to figure out why they're so angry and give them some sort of hug and move in their direction. Honestly, it's on Republican elected officials and Republican candidates and Republican surrogates and Republican outlets to stop offering xenophobic, racist bullshit to people, because people will respond to it when it's on offer. It's on their candidates and surrogates and outlets to stop treating outlandish conspiracy theories as reasonable, to stop treating policymaking as a distant afterthought, and so on. To paraphrase VO Key, peace be upon him, if we don't like how Americans react to a steady diet of bullshit, then the people feeding them bullshit should stop doing that.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:08 AM on October 14, 2016 [25 favorites]

What if the Trumpistas stole all the agency from Ivanka
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:08 AM on October 14, 2016

I finally catch up with the thread, and pathetically, in the amount of time it took to get here, there's already a new accuser. WaPo: Woman says Trump reached under her skirt and groped her in early 1990s. I'm pretty creeped out just reading the first paragraph.

“It’s a sexual assault issue, and it’s something that I’ve kept quiet on my own,” Anderson said. “And I’ve always kept quiet. And why should I keep quiet? Actually, all of the women should speak up, and if you’re touched inappropriately, tell somebody and speak up about it. Actually go to the authorities and press some charges. It’s not okay.”

And there'll be another one soon with Gloria Allred. I feel such pain that so many victims feel they have no choice but to do the emotional labor and go through the hell of coming forward, but I'm grateful that they finally have a chance to do so.
posted by zachlipton at 10:10 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

Guys I hate to say this but - this whole "defeating them" versus "writing them off" would benefit from a more nuanced discussion than is maybe possible in this fast moving and creaky thread. It's hard to preserve any sense of context to these thoughtful comments with all the other traffic.

Maybe a topical thread, or take it to Meta? (Or not. I'm not a mod. Just my suggestion.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 10:10 AM on October 14, 2016 [13 favorites]

They didn't after the Civil Rights Act passed, they just yelled a lot about how we liberal bad people made Baby Jesus cry and a few decades later they're just a bunch of embarrassments at a family reunion.

Respectfully, a portion of the Democratic Party peeled off and the Republicans created the Southern Strategy, concentrating these assholes into the Trumpists we have today. The Trumpists who even now form a real threat to this country. Fobbing them off as drooling uncles at the family reunion denies the reality of the current situation.
posted by xyzzy at 10:11 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

Politico (Oct 2015): How Norman Vincent Peale Taught Donald Trump to Worship Himself

The magnate’s biographer [Gwenda Blair] explains the spiritual guide behind his relentless self-confidence.

Known as “God’s salesman,” Peale merged worldliness and godliness to produce an easy-to-follow theology that preached self-confidence as a life philosophy. Critics called him a con man, described his church as a cult, and said his simple-minded approach shut off genuine thinking or insight. But Peale’s outlook, promoted through his radio shows, newspaper columns and articles, and through Guideposts, his monthly digest of inspirational messages, fit perfectly into the Trump family culture of never hesitating to bend the rules, doing whatever it took to win, and never, ever giving up.

“Believe in yourself!” Peale’s book begins. “Have faith in your abilities!” He then outlines 10 rules to overcome “inadequacy attitudes” and “build up confidence in your powers.” Rule one: “formulate and staple indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding,” “hold this picture tenaciously,” and always refer to it “no matter how badly things seem to be going at the moment.”

Subsequent rules tell the reader to avoid “fear thoughts,” “never think of yourself as failing,” summon up a positive thought whenever “a negative thought concerning your personal powers comes to mind,” “depreciate every so-called obstacle,” and “make a true estimate of your own ability, then raise it 10 per cent.”

Apparently this was eagerly lapped up by the Trump family, and seems to explain some behaviors.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:13 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

Talez I'm not saying that Obama is saying it. Again, it's what people in these depressed areas are hear it as. I mean, I hang out in some pretty unsavory places specifically to try and figure out this sort of stuff. You can believe me or not. But these people are tired of being told the economy is improving when they're quite clearly still in a heap of shit.

I'm 100% with you there. I actually feel an irrational spurt of anger every time NPR or whatever radio station even mentions the Dow Jones Average. Who the fuck cares? It has nothing to do with me, and "the economy" seems to be all but entirely separate from my situation.

As I noted earlier, my only real place I disagree with Clinton is that she's not willing to even try to lay this at the feet of the plutocrats and argue that their fat purses need to be deflated a bit so the rest of us can benefit from "the economy" improving.

But when the Trump voters see their shitty economic situation and declare that in order to fix things women, minorities, gay people, etc must be harmed I lose my sympathy.

Until they can give up the Cold War bullshit and admit that they are poor because the rich are hoarding all the money, what path forward exists other than writing them off and moving on without them?

They're hurting, yes. "The economy" is totally disconnected from their daily struggle, absolutely. The plutocrats are feasting on the corpse of the system that employed them and they aren't even getting table scraps, no doubt.

But instead of joining me on the barricades at Occupy Wall Street, instead of joining us in trying to get some political party, **ANY** political party, to tax the motherfucking shit out of the rich bastards and get us back some of the wealth they stole from us, they're busy trying to hurt my trans friends by passing bathroom bills. Instead of doing anything useful they're busy trying to hurt women and minorities, and if I dare mention that maybe, possibly, we could fix their economic woes by enacting a somewhat more socialist economic system they attack me like rabid dogs because I'm a "Communist".

Hell, they're actively working to undo the only reason most of them have health insurance, because some con artist on AM hate radio told them Obamacare was Communist.

What, exactly, am I supposed to do to persuade them to stop trying to attack the only people interested in helping them?

We on the left have spent the past 100 years trying to persuade them that the problem is plutocracy, not the existence of women and black people and gay people. And it's gotten us nothing but a never ending stream of attacks and insults.

If you're willing to keep putting your hand back in that grinder, more power to you. I won't say you're a bad person for trying. But I'm 41 and I'm tired. I've spent too much of my energy trying and getting nothing but pain for my trouble. You have a go at it and see if you can do better.

But I'll thank you to stop scolding those of us who have decided our energy is better directed elsewhere.
posted by sotonohito at 10:13 AM on October 14, 2016 [41 favorites]

I think there's a lot of ugliness coming, the same way there was a lot of ugliness during the civil rights movement (which, I predict, will be called the first civil rights movement in a couple decades) - people who have been used to having their way oppressing others have been dragged into the sunlight by one of their own who didn't realize the landscape had changed around him while he was in his gold clad formica tower.

That ugliness is going to be triggering for some and dangerous for many more, but I think it will eventually result in a better status quo. There are always going to be assholes and people who think it was better when they had someone to look down on, and it does indeed suck.

But we're moving forward, goddammit. I can feel it.
posted by Mooski at 10:15 AM on October 14, 2016 [21 favorites]

What we've had for a little while now is a broken Republican Party, one that's shockingly unconcerned with policy, one that's willing to engage in truly shocking and harmful tactics.

Worst political party response to changing demographics ever. /comicbookguy

This is what happens when you gerrymander your districts to death. You get a 10 year reprieve from demographics, and in exchange you utterly destroy the credibility of your party by getting primaried by racists shoving the Overton Window to white nationalism and fascism.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:15 AM on October 14, 2016 [13 favorites]

Since I restarted this, I want to clarify: I see Trumpism as a malignancy. I want to understand its causes.

There are dozens of other demographic, social, political behaviors at work in our society. I don't feel urgent about understanding them, because they are not malignancies.

Just as cancer proceeds from inherent biological processes with an error or two, I think Trumpism and its antecedents follow from explicable social changes and long-term patterns, paired with destructive influences. That does not make any of the malignant views of behaviors justifiable and doesn't get the individual off the hook.

I do think Trumpism needs to be whacked directly and forcefully. I also want to understand where and why and how it springs up. That does not mean my analysis is correct. I'm just trying.
posted by argybarg at 10:15 AM on October 14, 2016 [10 favorites]

Guy Angrily Staring at Trump During the Debates Was Thinking Exactly What You Thought He Was
posted by zombieflanders at 10:19 AM on October 14, 2016 [30 favorites]

Yeah, listen, this is a job for Republicans, conservatives, and/or straight white dudes. They have trashed their house and it is on them to clean it the fuck up.

I'm just so furious because for years, we've been hearing that this is the party of family values, of upright morals, of Christian tenets, and here is a man and a campaign that is antithetical to all of those things and they're still supporting it. The hypocrisy's always been there in the steady drip drip of sex scandal after sex scandal to the point where it's become a cliche that any virulently anti-LGBT politician is probably engaged in some sexual misconduct, nevermind the extremely un-Christian results of their legislation. But now the hypocrisy is screamingly loud and I'm just so goddamn disgusted.

I'm cheered that some Evangelicals have indeed noticed and are speaking out. Because it is in fact on them to do so, because we've been saying it for years and it's fallen on deaf ears. So like Frowner said, collect your people, straight white dudes and Republicans. The deplorables aren't going to listen to the rest of us, given that even saying the likes of "2 + 2 = 4" is going to be shrieked down with "math is an elitist lie!!!!!!!"
posted by yasaman at 10:20 AM on October 14, 2016 [41 favorites]

Re: Trump and positive thinking,
1) that explains affirmations-believer Scott Adams's inexplicable faith in Trump - he believes Trump literally has reality-altering powers.
2) I hope there's footage of Trump talking to his reflection like Stuart Smalley.
posted by knuckle tattoos at 10:24 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

BREAKING: Indiana (!)
DJT 45 (+4)
HRC 41
GJ 9

Come on Hoosiers. You elected Obama once; I believe in you. Put Bayh and Gregg in while you're at it.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:25 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

...my only real place I disagree with Clinton is that she's not willing to even try to lay this at the feet of the plutocrats and argue that their fat purses need to be deflated a bit so the rest of us can benefit from "the economy" improving.

Actually, Clinton is very much on record saying that she thinks the very rich need to "pay their fair share" and that she intends to increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans, i.e. the plutocrats. You can certainly argue that she's not going nearly far enough, but it's not fair to say that she's unwilling to acknowledge that the ownership class needs to do more and that the benefits of a rising economy should be spread more evenly.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 10:25 AM on October 14, 2016 [18 favorites]

Wealth has had a massive bias towards cities and their suburbs for a long time now.

Since prehistory. That's what cities do.

Even then, much of the American political superstructure is set up to preserve rural communities, from agricultural subsidies to $4 local produce at farmers' markets to light-touch regulation of extractive industries. Some of that's expedient, but a lot of it is because of the history of the Jeffersonian property-owning (and slave-owning) gentleman-farmer as the model citizen.
posted by holgate at 10:25 AM on October 14, 2016 [16 favorites]

I'm going to get Pollyannish here, but the system is working. As more and more people see Trump for what he is, he is being rejected, to about the extreme extent that anyone has been rejected in American two party politics.

I missed this earlier and just wanted to vent.

Goddamn it America, Walter Mondale was not a worse candidate than Donald Trump! Crush this guy already!
posted by gusottertrout at 10:28 AM on October 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

Is that woman from the WaPo article the same as the one Gloria Allred is supposed to be representing? If not, looks like we've got more accusations coming up later today again. Obviously it's not something to be gleeful about, since every accuser is another victim of assault, but again, keeping in mind that many Americans vote as if bad news about a candidate = points scored by the other side, we have to be really grateful that these women are speaking up down, hopefully crushing any chance that this dude has of recovering in the polls or anywhere else.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:30 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

People on Facebook keep posting about these Wikileak Podesta emails, is there anything of substance in them? Most of the time I read some of these and they come off like those Climategate emails about "tricks" and I feel like everyone is taking them the wrong way.
posted by gucci mane at 10:32 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

These fucks want a race war so bad, don't they? Why should I sympathize or even empathize with that?

Don't. But think of the most vulnerable, marginalized sections of not only US society, but the planets.
posted by infini at 10:32 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Which ones specifically gucci? They are real, they've been out for a while. Are these released today?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:33 AM on October 14, 2016

Update: Gloria Allred announcement of new accuser is at 3:30 EST. Media circus commencing.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:34 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

she intends to increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans, i.e. the plutocrats. You can certainly argue that she's not going nearly far enough, but it's not fair to say that she's unwilling to acknowledge that the ownership class needs to do more

But also she needs a Democratic Congress to do it. A point that I think seems to get lost on a lot of progressives who seem to think trashing the entire system is the only way to get lefty/liberal policies. The kind who like to trash Clinton for being too much "a part of the system" and "she won't do anything but help rich people." Well, unless we give her a strong Dem majority Congress, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
posted by dnash at 10:35 AM on October 14, 2016 [12 favorites]

Guy Angrily Staring at Trump During the Debates Was Thinking Exactly What You Thought He Was

Kinda wish we'd been focusing on making Earlest Johnson be America's Patronus, rather than Ken Bone.
posted by middleclasstool at 10:35 AM on October 14, 2016 [51 favorites]

Obama [real]: Donald Trump, as he’s prone to do, he didn’t build the building by himself, but he slapped his name on it and took credit for it. And that’s what’s happened in their party. All that bile, all the exaggeration, all the stuff that was not grounded in fact just kind of bubbled up, started surfacing. They know better, a lot of these folks who ran, and they didn’t say anything. So they don’t get credit.

Besides quite rightly holding Republicans responsible for cultivating the fever swamps from which Trump shambled forth, I just love how Obama obliquely references his "you didn't build that" line that produced such outrage from said fever swamps (dutifully reported by the national stenographer corps, of course).
posted by Gelatin at 10:36 AM on October 14, 2016 [12 favorites]

The fact that Clinton is within the margin of error in Texas, of all places, overjoys me.

I didn't think anything could push Texas blue this cycle, and while a Trump victory is still the most likely outcome in Texas, Clinton being within spitting distance of a win here makes me very happy.

The fact that it has taken Trump being an admitted sexual predator to get us to this point makes me a bit less happy, but I'll take what I can get at this point.

And I'll do whatever I can to nudge Texas to Clinton.
posted by sotonohito at 10:36 AM on October 14, 2016 [13 favorites]

Apologies for responding to a topic way upthread, but: Any kids who show up to my door on Halloween dressed as Donald Trump get no candy. Zero.

If I'm feeling charitable, I won't tell them to get better parents.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:36 AM on October 14, 2016 [14 favorites]

I have a pretty high tolerance for reading about this man's loathsome behavior without coming apart, but this discussion between DJT and Howard Stern about taking sexual advantage of an emotionally damaged teen due to her desperation for love just utterly broke me this morning. How is this not getting more publicity?
posted by HotToddy at 10:38 AM on October 14, 2016 [11 favorites]

Update: Gloria Allred announcement of new accuser is at 3:30 EST.

I'm just gonna take a guess here that to Trump supporters, probably their second most hated woman behind Clinton is Gloria Allred. So whatever this new story is, it won't change anything.
posted by dnash at 10:39 AM on October 14, 2016

...announcement of new accuser, Trump announces old accusers "will be discredited" what a nasty roundabout. There's a Dutch expression closest translating as "wiping up while the tap is open". That tap (pun intended) has apparently been open for years, so, happy wiping guys.
posted by Namlit at 10:40 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

I still have a FB friend clinging hard to his "only the middle is ethical" ideals, meaning he has to take ridiculous email non-scandals seriously or else he can't keep his skeptic, unbiased self-image as a person who "sees through" both sides.

He keeps urging us to hold her feet to the same fire, but dude; she is just a better person than Trump. That's an admittedly low bar, I'll grant you, but this fear of liking one side better and Being a Partisan is leading to a lot of weird overreaction to her every trivial action to try to balance out the outrageousness of the other side.

Turns out, being devoted to staying in the middle no matter what is no less partisan than picking a side.
posted by emjaybee at 10:40 AM on October 14, 2016 [28 favorites]

Any kids who show up to my door on Halloween dressed as Donald Trump get no candy.

On that same note: Any kids of Donald Trump that show up to my door on Halloween get no candy either. A damn fine lecture, and some questions, let me tell you. But no candy.
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:40 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

In that Indiana poll, more good news for Dems:

#INSen
Bayh 48 (+6D)
Young 42

#INGov
Gregg 50 (+12D)
Holcomb 38
posted by chris24 at 10:40 AM on October 14, 2016 [17 favorites]

or is it a pun...nah. well you know what I mean
posted by Namlit at 10:40 AM on October 14, 2016

probably their second most hated woman behind Clinton is Gloria Allred

Once they're told who she is, anyway, yes.
posted by penduluum at 10:40 AM on October 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

Op-Ed Why Muslims don’t need Trump to tell them when to report criminal activity. It starts by pointing out that Muslims already do report suspicious behavior (my favorite example, not in the article, involved a particularly outrageous FBI informant, Craig Monteilh, who alarmed the people he was supposed to be informing on so much with his talk of violence that the Islamic Center reported him to the FBI and got a restraining order against him).

During Sunday’s debate, Donald Trump called on Muslims who come into the United States to “report when they see something going on.” As Niasse and Rahami illustrate, and as the FBI has attested, Muslim immigrants have already stepped up as allies to law enforcement. Newcomers to this country from the Middle East and South Asia, many of whom fled violence and tyranny when they came here, are especially aware of the threat posed to America and to Islam by terrorism.

Yet paradoxically, even as immigrants and refugees are invaluable in the fight against terrorism, they are subject to anti-Muslim bias and stereotypes that see all Muslims as potential terrorists. That image is projected on refugee and immigrant communities by violent extremists in the Middle East and xenophobes in the United States, and it is based on a false narrative — that Islam and the West are at war, and always will be.

Muslim immigrants and refugees — as well as native-born Muslims — shouldn’t be viewed as a security risk. The Koran, like biblical scriptures, tells us to protect life, not to destroy it. Like every good American and person of faith, when we see criminal activity, we report it to the authorities. Everyone appreciates the effectiveness of neighborhood watch programs; they aren’t about spying on each other but collective protection.

What threatens America isn’t the arrival of more Muslim immigrants or refugees from Syria but rather the alienation of immigrant communities. Marginalization and stigmatization of particular populations endangers us all, not only because we lose invaluable allies in the fight against homegrown terrorism, but also because these very factors create disaffection and exacerbate anti-social behavior.

posted by zachlipton at 10:41 AM on October 14, 2016 [16 favorites]

One thing that I'm surprised I've not seen mentioned more is just how delightful it is that we're not (fingers crossed) going to tokenize Obama as the only non-white-male president ever by going right back to electing white dudes after his two terms are over. We're about to go straight from America's first black president to America's first female president. Not a bad start!

Of course, we could easily go back to the past and elect another dozen or so white male presidents after Hillary is done, but I hope not. I hope what we're seeing is a dam breaking, and that American politics starts to look a lot more diverse. I know it won't just happen on its own and that there's much, much more work to be done (just look at how ugly this election is, for evidence) but maybe, just maybe, we are about to turn a corner.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 10:43 AM on October 14, 2016 [15 favorites]

@normative
"Hey, it's just my word against hers & hers & hers & hers & hers & hers & hers & hers & hers & hers & hers & hers & ... uh... mine."
posted by chris24 at 10:43 AM on October 14, 2016 [66 favorites]

Yeah, listen, this is a job for Republicans, conservatives, and/or straight white dudes. They have trashed their house and it is on them to clean it the fuck up.

And it's not just about making them clean up their own messes, it's about effective use of scant resources. I'm not saying it's easy for moderate conservatives to reason with alt-righters and other elements of Trump's base, but they've got many more inroads than do the targets of Trump's hatred do, so their efforts are much more likely to bear fruit.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:44 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Here are some round ups of the "juiciest" email bits. CBS news, USA Today

There was another (smaller) one earlier today, the biggest scandal seems to be a question about whether they needed to turn over her email exchanges with POTUS. They did turn them over, so nothing happened.

If you search them on twitter, there is a LOT of taking screenshots out of context. It would be maddening if it was at all effective.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:44 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

@Potomac Avenue: I'm not sure, the ones I just saw posted said they were the 7th released dump. All of them seem really typical but I can't explain to people why for lack of language in describing why they've seem bullshit.
posted by gucci mane at 10:45 AM on October 14, 2016

These fucks want a race war so bad, don't they? Why should I sympathize or even empathize with that?

Don't. But think of the most vulnerable, marginalized sections of not only US society, but the planets.

Yeah, I mean, they do want a race war... Are we going to give them one? Because they won't be the only ones who get hurt.


So also a significant portion of the country is seriously proposing National stop and frisk, ideological purity tests, a wall with Mexico to keep out undesirables, and so on. That's what's on the table for discussion, not economic policy. So why try to condescend to the Trump voter and just take them at their word? And every word leans back to racism, sexism and xenophobia.

Oh, I take them at their word. They are definitely racists and sexists. No question about it. They're proud of it. So what? I mean they are racists and sexists therefore ... What? We should just ignore them and try to govern with out them? We should punish them? I mean what do we do with racists and sexists? That's the question. That's it. These people have behaved terribly. They've said and done horrible things. Now what?

I also don't deny that I'm being condescending.... Like I said, the only way I can understand their behavior in terms of the behaviors of a drug addict or a four year old. (Though I've also compared them to cult members, terrorists, and the victims of con artists) All of those analogies are condescending as hell. But while no one likes being pitied (and I wouldn't use these descriptions to anyone's face) I think pity is a more constructive response than fury, when you have to actually live with these people. Which we do, as a nation.
posted by OnceUponATime at 10:46 AM on October 14, 2016

Any kids who show up to my door on Halloween dressed as Donald Trump get no candy. Zero.

Give them a Hillary coloring book, at least.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:47 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

What if they're holding baby doll arms in their hands with their jacket sleeves pushed up so it looks like the baby doll hands are their hands
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:48 AM on October 14, 2016 [72 favorites]

Is Trump The Great Pumpkin?

He's orange.
His faithful believe he is going to rise around Halloween.
His believers expect him to bring gifts for all.
He disappoints them.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:49 AM on October 14, 2016 [35 favorites]

He said that seriously, in this country it is a national discussion about whether or not police officers should be able to shoot black people based on vague suspicion of criminal intent. We should consider this something we are seriously discussing as a nation, because that's where we are, and that's what a significant portion of the population is proposing.

This one hundred times.

Also, I just want to say that people who don't know any Muslims should just shut up about how Muslims are as citizens and neighbors. I live on a street with many Muslim families, in a neighborhood with many Muslim families. I work in a building with many Muslim colleagues at virtually all levels. This fucking garbage about how Muslims are not doing a good enough job as Americans, basically - people need to shut the fuck up when they have probably never even met an actual Muslim in their lives. News flash, geniuses: having Muslim neighbors is pretty much identical to having any other kind of neighbors, having Muslim businesses on your block is pretty much identical to having any other businesses on your block. We're all different from each other, yes, but the ways in which my Muslim neighbors and I differ have pretty much zero effect on our collective lives as citizens.
posted by Frowner at 10:49 AM on October 14, 2016 [62 favorites]

"We wait, miserably, for the dong shot." New Matt Taibbi piece; definite trigger warning. for illustration at beginning of article, though.
posted by emjaybee at 10:51 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

I can't explain to people why

Much as I hate to admit it, the Intercept is the best immediate in-depth source on parsing these ass packets. They haven't posted about this 7th round of leaks. They are probably going through them to find the most "incriminating" bits. If they are anything like the others, they will be nothing but campaign strategy taken as treachery and corruption. So ask for a real news source on putting the screen shots in context, and see what happens I guess?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:51 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Apologies for responding to a topic way upthread, but: Any kids who show up to my door on Halloween dressed as Donald Trump get no candy. Zero.

I apologize too if I missed a joke here, but could we please not be mean to kids? Trump is a buffoon and a monster and a kid is likely to pick up on that and decide he'd make a good costume. Being singled out by a stranger as unwelcome is unlikely to make him think kindly of Democrats in the future. It's not on the level of dressing up as Hitler, although perhaps in the future it should be.
posted by Countess Elena at 10:52 AM on October 14, 2016 [19 favorites]

I have a neighbor who at 84 is a competitive pool player. He was telling me about this bar where he competed in Salt Lake City. There is a sign on the ladies room door that says something to the effect of Around Here, Sexual Harassment is A Privilege.
posted by Oyéah at 10:52 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

If you search them on twitter, there is a LOT of taking screenshots out of context.

That always bothers me so much. It's annoying as hell to see things and have to do the old thing where you chase down sources and keep finding it's untruths again and again. Whether it's family members doing it and I have to send back a snopes link, or people online, or Hugh Hewitt a week or so ago trying to spin up the audio of Hillary sympathizing with supporters of her primary opponent. It's just frustrating. It happened all the time during Obama's campaigns. We'd see some new horrible thing and your stomach drops and then you learn it isn't true at all. And I had to tell myself that was going to happen with Hillary's campaign now, and it keeps happening. Maybe people have always been this way and I was just a sucker to believe otherwise, but it sure is maddening when people push obvious falsehoods in a time on earth where we should be the most informed, not the least. I mean you have almost free access to some incredible amount of human history, and the ability to actually learn the truth of any situation, and yet you've still got people pushing lies and trying to find better ways to hide the reality of a situation.
posted by cashman at 10:52 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Any kids who show up to my door on Halloween dressed as Donald Trump get no candy.

Aw, that kid might not have had much choice and almost certainly won't grok the implications.

I wouldn't want some 7-year-old walking away from my house thinking I'm picking on him, then have his shithead parents explain that that's how Democrats do. I plan on something like 'Ooh, that is the scariest costume I've seen all night' with a gesture that leads the eye to the 'Love trumps hate' sign in my window, then the usual allotment of candy for neighborhood kids and a disappointed, contemptuous headshake for the parents.

Such parents suck for politicizing trick-or-treat, not me. Asshole parent shitheadery will not be allowed to change me or the way I do the most wonderful time of the year, damn it.
posted by palindromic at 10:52 AM on October 14, 2016 [21 favorites]

Any kids who show up to my door on Halloween dressed as Donald Trump get no candy. Zero.

Alternately, give them a 100 Grand Bar, and explain it's really worth 60¢.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:53 AM on October 14, 2016 [11 favorites]

A lot of unexpected things have happened this year but I was still not prepared for Matt Taibbi's glowing review of private Hillary Clinton speeches to Goldman Sachs employees.
posted by theodolite at 10:53 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

And the war really begins: Republican National Committee woman Diana Orrock

@DianaOrrock
Here's a list of the GOPe rats that have jumped ship & abandoned @realDonaldTrump. Vote them out! #Trump2016
http://www.traitorstotrump.com/traitors
posted by chris24 at 10:53 AM on October 14, 2016 [16 favorites]

We don't operate government by consensus. (Arguably, we already require too much consensus -- a supermajority of Senators, a majority of the majority in the House [1] and the executive to get any major legislation passed.) And this system is directly related to the need for white supremacists to maintain control of the levers of government or at the very least, to regulate the change of social progress.

Honestly, I no longer care to hear another Trump supporter's sob story. I no longer care to listen closely, to discuss in good faith, to answer objections and dig up fact-check articles and dispute narratives with people -- not because I don't care about them or their story but because I already have heard it. Asked and answered. The story that made me lose my marbles above, great example: I've been working to implement the ACA for three years now and have heard hundreds of people's stories about health insurance -- good, bad, heart-wrenching, all of it. But if you come to me and say "Yeah, I know this is the only thing keeping my loved one alive but I'm okay with voting for someone who wants it to go away" -- What do I do with that? Do I have to listen to this idiocy until the person agrees with me before I can move on? That's nuts.

If we spend all our time making sure every last deplorable gets heard or represented by someone who "looks like them" or drinks their favorite beer or whatever, we're doing them as well as everyone else a disservice. They will never be satisfied and all that will happen is that, well, nothing will happen. Sorry you got propagandized into believing stupid shit but we're not going to build a wall and that won't work anyway, if you don't want to listen to the explanation that's cool but we're just going to back away slowly now. The alternative is another four years of stasis and that is how we slouch toward fascism.

We should just ignore them and try to govern with out them? We should punish them? I mean what do we do with racists and sexists? That's the question. That's it. These people have behaved terribly. They've said and done horrible things. Now what?

At some point it doesn't bloody matter for the purpose of politics whether someone is a racist or a misogynist or a dupe or a troll or economically anxious or whatever. Their motivations don't matter; what matters is their policy solutions. This is supposed to be an election, not a group therapy session for sad conservatives and unless you have some policy solutions [2] that we can actually talk about like grownups then sorry, we're just going to go ahead and use the ground game that actual political professionals have constructed to GOTV for a winning coalition that a positively brilliant candidate and her top-notch campaign team have assembled and we will see you at the polls.

After that, we'll continue to look at scientifically conducted surveys and analysis to determine what the nation's problems are, what potential solutions there might be and how best to implement them. And by we I mean conservatives too, if they care to join the conversation.

But let's not pretend that liberals and Dems don't listen. We do. And not just listening to anecdotes, although that's important -- you also have to gather information through policy experiments, case studies, data analysis....

The time for listening to people's incessant moaning about inevitable change is over. It's time to get to work fixing shit up.

[1] If there's a Republican House - thanks to the Hastert rule excuse

[2] Solutions that could have been plausibly drawn from a Wile E. Coyote cartoon do not count as "policy", sorry
posted by tivalasvegas at 10:54 AM on October 14, 2016 [34 favorites]

I mean they are racists and sexists therefore ... What? We should just ignore them and try to govern with out them?

Yes. Exactly this.
posted by schadenfrau at 10:54 AM on October 14, 2016 [17 favorites]

Watching Paul Ryan use Bernie Sanders as a boogie man to push voters to keep the Senate in GOP hands makes me laugh. I want every BoBer to see that clip.
posted by xyzzy at 10:56 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

My wife and I are part of the local arts community. The other day, an estranged member of the community that used to be close with her reached out to reconnect. He was feeling isolated and really needed a friend.

He suggested they go for a walk and "bitch session." Red flags there for my wife - her depression is pretty severe and experience has shown that angry talk really messed with her. She said she's not really comfortable with that but she'd be happy to walk with him.

He then said what he really needed was to talk about why he was voting for Trump and, since the local art community is pretty left, there was nobody he could talk to about this.

"You don't even need to say anything - just let me talk about Trump. "

My wife declined. She told him there was no way this would go well. She told him either she wouldn't say anything and she'd be furious or she'd say something and he'd be furious. Either way, it wouldn't be a healthy thing.

This dude identifies as queer and is a Pacific islander. There's probably very few people out here in either of those communities that are big Trump supporters. The world is a strange place.

Anyhow, I just thought a man saying "I'll talk you listen" to a woman serves as a kind of perfect metaphor for Trump's campaign.
posted by Joey Michaels at 10:56 AM on October 14, 2016 [86 favorites]

I'm just gonna take a guess here that to Trump supporters, probably their second most hated woman behind Clinton is Gloria Allred. So whatever this new story is, it won't change anything.

Allred's involvement is not intended to impress Trumpkins. It signals to Trump (and his attorneys) that they can't force women to keep silent with the threat of spurious litigation; they will lose and will be forced to pay.
posted by Existential Dread at 10:56 AM on October 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

Of course, we could easily go back to the past and elect another dozen or so white male presidents after Hillary is done, but I hope not. I hope what we're seeing is a dam breaking, and that American politics starts to look a lot more diverse. I know it won't just happen on its own and that there's much, much more work to be done (just look at how ugly this election is, for evidence) but maybe, just maybe, we are about to turn a corner.

Your mouth to fate's actions. I'm afraid that no sane person is ever going to want to run for any public office ever again.
posted by beaning at 10:58 AM on October 14, 2016

Two years ago I may have chased a kid down the street dressed as Obama in order to give him more candy.

Last year he showed up dressed as Batman and asked me if I remembered him and I said, "Yes sir, Mr. President. I still think you deserved extra candy for being so awesome." He said that a couple of houses down the street, the lady told him he shouldn't get any candy because he was "ruining America."*

I gave him double handfuls of candy.

*This is extra shitty because our neighborhood used to be largely white and has been gradually integrating. People still get pissy when kids who are "obviously" not from the neighborhood (i.e. black) "invade" our Halloween.
posted by teleri025 at 10:59 AM on October 14, 2016 [38 favorites]

If they want one, if they start one, what do you want us to do. Forgive them? Understand them? Tell me how well that works against bullets and bombs.

It's the only goddamn thing that ever works. What ends wars? I mean, okay, I grant you nuclear weapons ended the one in 1945, but we aren't going to use nuclear weapons on Wyoming, okay? We're just not.

All the wars since 1945? They end when people get tired of fighting. When people decide to maybe forgive and try to understand.

I want to end this war before it begins. And I am not being metaphorical or hyperbolic. I think we're getting really close to IRA-style violence in the US from the right wing. I think it's already started, and the only question is will it peter out or gain momentum. Tell me, what stops violence like that? More bullets and bombs? Or forgiveness and understanding?
posted by OnceUponATime at 10:59 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Does anyone have any links or sources that rail against the Clinton-haters that are claiming Hillary is "just as bad" as Donald for threatening to "destroy" or "crucify" Bill Clinton's accusers?

All over facebook, I'm seeing friends post great stuff about Michelle Obama's speech, etc, and then some fucking goober chimes in with a "Hillary is just is bad - she wanted to destroy Bill's rape victims!" comment. From there it's a "you're a sheep and a hypocrite and both candidates are actually the same" thread of pure diarrhea.

The words "Bill Clinton is not running for president" doesn't seem to register with these people; they genuinely believe that Hillary is complicit in trying to "destroy" her husbands victims so she is therefore just as big a scumbag as Donald Trump.

Not looking to change their mind, but I feel like I have to say SOMETHING - if only not to let their shit-views run unchallenged and unencumbered in front of a bunch of other undecideds.
posted by windbox at 11:00 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

@SteveKornacki:

Arizona (Data Orbital; 10/11-12)

Clinton 43%
Trump 42%
Johnson 5%

posted by zombieflanders at 11:01 AM on October 14, 2016 [17 favorites]

http://www.traitorstotrump.com/traitors

What is this thing at the bottom of the page about? Why does it feel so much like it has an apostrophe error even though it doesn't???

Despite its impressive length, it's a nimble navigator, and some can be highly venomous

Just like the tarantula it's killing, the centipede has two curved, hollow fangs that inject paralyzing venom

This centipede is a predator

posted by theodolite at 11:02 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

I want to end this war before it begins. And I am not being metaphorical or hyperbolic. I think we're getting really close to IRA-style violence in the US from the right wing. I think it's already started, and the only question is will it peter out or gain momentum. Tell me, what stops violence like that? More bullets and bombs? Or forgiveness and understanding?

Armed Donald Trump supporters caught menacing Democratic campaign office


*Hums Kumbaya*
posted by infini at 11:02 AM on October 14, 2016 [10 favorites]

These women are clearly making up these accusations just to taste the thrill of constant public multimedia humiliation and scornful misogynistic reaction.
I mean, who wouldn't want to get in on some of that sweet action?
posted by Senor Cardgage at 11:03 AM on October 14, 2016 [31 favorites]

Yeah, I'm against the punishing kids for their costumes. Kids don't buy them, they probably don't get it and are already mad that their parents won't let them dress as sparkle pony star wars bat man.

All kids at my house will get a chocolate bar and a coloring book, but the parents of trumpetts do not get a glass of witch brew, and in my neighborhood, my witch brew is legend.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 11:04 AM on October 14, 2016 [13 favorites]

zombieflanders: CNN Has A Trump Surrogate Problem

Over the course of the 2016 election, CNN hired four Trump supporters -- Kayleigh McEnany, Scottie Nell Hughes, Jeffrey Lord, and Corey Lewandowski -- to act as full-time Trump surrogates and defend their candidate on-air. CNN has defended its hirings by suggesting that surrogates like Lewandowski are needed to provide “balance,” especially after several of CNN’s traditional Republican commentators expressed their opposition to the GOP presidential nominee.

Emphasis mine -- CNN has a Trump Surrogate problem because Trump has a Republican problem: Republicans don't support him, at the upper levels of journalism and the GOP as an organization.

Anyway, why bother with balance? Saint Ronnie didn't think it mattered:

Ronald Reagan is regarded by most Republicans as one of the greatest presidents to come out of the GOP, but because he vetoed the Fairness Doctrine, he’s also the reason why news stations are permitted to have a political bias.

The Fairness Doctrine was “an FCC regulation that required owners of broadcast licenses to present both sides of controversial issues considered to be in the public interest,” according to the Huffington Post’s Nancy Graham Holm.

In August of 1987, the doctrine was dropped as Reagan vetoed it. His new FCC Commissioner at the time, Mark. S. Fowler thought broadcasters should be marketplace participants.

The article is about GOP complaints about the 3rd GOP debate a year a go, saying that CNBC and its moderators were "contributing to the liberal agenda in the media, illustrating distasteful bias," but looks back to the actions of Ronald Reagan and his cronies.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:04 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

Here's a good reference about the accusations of viciousness on Hillary's part toward Bill's abusers.

But be warned... Right wingers don't trust Politifact. The last few things I've shared from them have gotten these sites linked in response.
posted by OnceUponATime at 11:04 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

This centipede is a predator

Sampled in the song Centipede by Knife Party. This election is weird.
posted by peeedro at 11:04 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ken Bone leaves seedy comment trail on Reddit
posted by futz at 11:05 AM on October 14, 2016

I want to end this war before it begins. And I am not being metaphorical or hyperbolic. I think we're getting really close to IRA-style violence in the US from the right wing. I think it's already started, and the only question is will it peter out or gain momentum. Tell me, what stops violence like that? Bullets and bombs? Or forgiveness and understanding?

What stops violence like that -- and I agree, it's happening -- is good governance. That's what we need now, otherwise things will continue to fall apart (literally, in the case of infrastructure; and metaphorically, the bonds that unite Americans as one people).

I'm a Christian and I believe in forgiveness and loving your enemies. I suppose I will have to start praying specifically for the deplorables. But that doesn't mean letting them hurt other people, or even letting them continue to hurt themselves.
posted by tivalasvegas at 11:05 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Among Donald Trump’s Biggest U.S. Fans: Hindu Nationalists

Your typical Trump rally this was not.

First there was the ritual Hindu fire, a yagna, which burned in his honor. Then there were the posters, standard Donald J. Trump head shots except for a touch of artistic interpretation: a tilak, the red dot symbolic of the spiritual third eye in Hindu culture, smudged on his forehead.

This celebration of Mr. Trump in New Delhi in May, and others like it in India this year, are the work of a small, devoted and increasingly visible faction of Hindu nationalists in India and the United States who see Mr. Trump as the embodiment of the cocksure, politically incorrect, strongman brand of politics they admire.
...
What Mr. Trump should probably not expect is the kind of fawning reception he has gotten from his small bands of followers in New Delhi. There was the time in June when a right-wing group known as the Hindu Sena decided to celebrate his 70th birthday. Absent Mr. Trump, who was in North Carolina that day, they improvised and fed a life-size Trump cutout a piece of cake.

(Yes, my life does now mostly consist of bringing things from Sopan Deb's Twitter feed over to this thread. If this is supposed to be my coping mechanism, it's not helping.)
posted by zachlipton at 11:05 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

Not looking to change their mind, but I feel like I have to say SOMETHING - if only not to let their shit-views run unchallenged and unencumbered in front of a bunch of other undecideds.

I would issue a general announcement on your Facebook that from now on, you will be exercising your 1st Amendment right to curate your threads so that the content is what you want it to be (that's a fancy way of saying you're going to delete stuff you don't like). And then you can just go ahead and delete things, but leave a note saying "I am exercising my first amendment right by curating my thread. You are free to exercise your own 1st Amendment right on YOUR threads."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:07 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

And the war really begins

God, they're really calling it "Traitors to Trump?" Not to the party, the country, whatever ... I mean, I really thought my capacity to be fucking mortified and nauseated by this election had hit a local nadir when Donald started saying "our nation needs a father" but nope, new low.
posted by penduluum at 11:07 AM on October 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

You know what? This year I'm going to make some real effort for Halloween, maybe get some full-sized candy bars or something, carve a couple of pumpkins. Usually we just have a big bowl of mini candy bars and are pretty generous with them, but teleri025's comment upthread reminded me how shitty white people often are to Black kids (or other POC kids, or any poor kids if the neighborhood is a rich one) when they trick or treat, and as a white person in a majority POC neighborhood I feel like I want to redress the balance a little bit.
posted by Frowner at 11:09 AM on October 14, 2016 [26 favorites]

[CNN] Is Paying Professional Trump Supporters To Derail Negative Segments About Trump
posted by Mister Bijou at 11:09 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Unwanted pity can alienate people just as much as fury.

Pity can be taken as a lack of respect. Which is fine,I don't think anyone owes a Trump voter respect. But if the whole push back at the anger many people who have been directly harmed by the politics of a Trump voter (or at least reasonable belief that they'll be exposed to harm if he's elected) is because it may make them less cooperative then pity won't get you any farther. At best they'll be insulted. At worst they'll use that against you.

After 8 years of unapologetic obstructionism, I don't think we can hope to do anything but drag them forward. Anything else and we're negotiating with terrorists holding our fellow Americans hostage (some of whom unfortunately stuffer from Stockholm syndrome).
posted by ghost phoneme at 11:10 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump on dating: Beautiful, famous, successful, married—I’ve had them all, secretly, the world’s biggest names … The one thing I have learned with women over the years—they want it (sex!) more than we do.”

His experience proves it! Every time he finishes, the woman is still unsatisfied, wanting more.
posted by msalt at 11:10 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

@RightWingWatch
Glenn Beck says that yesterday's @FLOTUS speech was "the most effective political speech I have heard since Ronald Reagan."
posted by chris24 at 11:10 AM on October 14, 2016 [45 favorites]

All the wars since 1945? They end when people get tired of fighting. When people decide to maybe forgive and try to understand.

I'm all for forgiveness and giving them an opportunity to save face when they're ready to put down their arms. I'm very much against appeasement and validation when they're still tooling up. The former is indeed a sensible plan for ending wars, the latter is often what starts them.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:11 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

savage Assange shade from John Podesta [risotto]
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:11 AM on October 14, 2016 [19 favorites]

I'm very much against appeasement and validation when they're still tooling up.

Again, you don't have to actually appease or validate them to understand them.
posted by OnceUponATime at 11:12 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

[CNN] Is Paying Professional Trump Supporters To Derail Negative Segments About Trump

In fairness to CNN they are terrible at it, and provide just as much fodder for people like Ana Navarro to chew up and spit out into viral blue-base-rallying video than they do actual justifying.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:13 AM on October 14, 2016

And another groping victim comes out.

That's the Wapo article linked above. (Saved you a click)
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:13 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Anyone else read the phrase "Podesta emails" and immediately think it has to do with a scandal at a food oil company? No? Just me?
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:14 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Any kids who show up to my door on Halloween dressed as Donald Trump get no candy.

I get this impulse but I think it would nudge the kid closer to lifelong Trumpism, not away from it. Maybe find a middle ground? Those kids will get candy if they come to my house, but I won't let them grab from the bowl directly.
posted by EatTheWeek at 11:15 AM on October 14, 2016

The Olestra Leaks is a totally different thing please do not google
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:15 AM on October 14, 2016 [39 favorites]

I usually read it as "polenta emails," even though I know they're about risotto.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:16 AM on October 14, 2016 [27 favorites]

I wouldn't punish kids who come dressed as Trump, but teens or anyone also cradling a cat doll might get a stink-eye.

Here's a pretty good Clinton coloring print out. I'll print out a bunch of these in half sheets so the kids can take if they want.

Clinton coloring links from She Knows (I don't know who She Knows is .... but it looks positive in content for coloring books)
posted by tilde at 11:16 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

@BenjySarlin
"Here's a comforting thought for Republicans: Trump, now railing against cruel betrayal by GOP leaders, could always run as an Indy in 2020"

Yep, I bet he could sit on his couch and tweet, raise money online and do the occasional rally and get 20% of the vote, all coming from the R side.
posted by chris24 at 11:16 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

I can't explain to people why for lack of language in describing why they've seem bullshit.

Ask them to release their own email archives.

The Wikileaks model is that "if we got it through a hack then it must be important." It is parasitic on a press trained to treat leaks as inherently valuable. As Zeynep Tufekci has written over the past few days, this suppresses dissent and generates chaff. It subjects private professional conversations to the mob. "Censorship works by info glut, distraction, confusion and stealing political focus & attention." Like Twitter itself, it's "freedom-of-speech" and "freedom of information" on the cheap.
posted by holgate at 11:17 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

Traitors To Trump looks like the greatest gift the Trumpists could give to the Democratic Party. Without Disgusting Donald's hard-core base (essentially the GOP's hard-core base), they'll lose both houses of Congress and a few state houses. I really am hopeful that the Trumpists are successful in taking over the party, because that will make it a permanent minority party immediately (we won't have to wait for 10 more years of demographic change).

And I remain convinced that Assange has been promised political protection and a suite at a Trump building if Donnie wins.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:18 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

My kids are going as Trump and Hillary because they both look a lot like each. Halloween costumes are not political endorsements, and by acting huffy about it you are making yourself look like a rude humorless pedant.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:19 AM on October 14, 2016 [16 favorites]

In March 2015 the US Census projected that the United States will be a majority-minority in 2044. The train's leaving the station, and you can be on the train, stay on the platform and let time pass you by, or jump under the train. Trump and his supporters are jumping under the train.

We're about to go straight from America's first black president to America's first female president. Not a bad start!

My daughter's four, and she lives in the future. Kids under five already live in a majority-minority country. For her we're about to elect our first president who's not black, and electing a woman is no big deal. She likes to look at pictures of all the presidents, and when I point out they've all been men and ask her if a woman should be president she says, "of course."

She also points at each president and asks "did he die?" because she's at the age where kids know there's a thing called death and are trying to figure that out.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:20 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

Hey people, can we maybe not contribute to the politicization of fucking Halloween? Let's not get all self-righteous about the costumes that little kids turn up in, and let's also avoid handing out pro-Clinton propaganda to little children. Gross.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 11:20 AM on October 14, 2016 [28 favorites]

People have now posted three different links to the story about the armed Trump protestors outside Jane Dittmar's campaign office. Here's the link to her website -- in case you feel inspired to respond to that kind of intimidation with financial support. She's running to represent my hometown, and my dad makes a brief appearance in one of her campaign videos.
posted by gingerbeer at 11:20 AM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

Armed Intimidators of Democrats Are the Real Victims Here

What I can't help noticing in this is the way Parks describes Trump voters as the true victims here. They're people who are scared to tell anyone they back Trump! They're in the "closet"! They fear "possible persecution"!

The notion that there are a lot of "closet Trump supporters" who are too intimidated to state their true electoral preference is widely accepted in Trump circles, and taken more seriously than it deserves to be by the mainstream media.

Which leads me to wonder about the way this meme could work after Election Day. Trump is likely to lose badly, and we know his supporters are going to think the election was rigged. They're going to say there were voting irregularities in urban areas. They're going to say that Democrats, establishment Republicans, and the media conspired to defeat Trump.

Are they also going to say that Trump supporters were just too scared to vote for him?

Remember: these people absolutely believe the Clinton Body Count. They think Bill and Hillary hire goons to intimidate and kill their enemies.

After November 8, are they going to say that Trump would have won if his (heavily armed) voters hadn't been too terrified to turn out for him?

posted by tonycpsu at 11:20 AM on October 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

Srsly, since when is it wrong to dress up as a monster for Halloween?
posted by whuppy at 11:20 AM on October 14, 2016 [41 favorites]

My kids are going as Trump and Hillary because they both look a lot like each.

This seems poorly thought out.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:20 AM on October 14, 2016 [10 favorites]

EmpressCallipygos: I would issue a general announcement on your Facebook that from now on, you will be exercising your 1st Amendment right to curate your threads so that the content is what you want it to be (that's a fancy way of saying you're going to delete stuff you don't like). And then you can just go ahead and delete things,

I was referring more to other people's threads. The trend I'm seeing is usually:

Friend posts: "Michelle Obama is amazing! A vote for Trump is truly a vote against all women. [link to speech]
Comment 1: Preach! [1 Like]
Comment 2: She's amazing. Going to miss her so much. [2 Likes]
Comment 3: ACTUALLY THIS IS HYPOCRITICAL SINCE HILLARY PROMISED TO DESTROY BILL CLINTON'S
ACCUSERS. DON'T GET ME WRONG I THINK TRUMP IS AWFUL TOO, BUT PRETENDING BOTH CANDIDATES AREN'T EQUALLY AWFUL IS JUST PLAIN IGNORANCE. YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT A WOMAN WHO SAID SHE WOULD CRUCIFY BILL'S ACCUSERS. ALSO I'M REALLY THOUGHTFUL AND FAIR AND BALANCED BECAUSE I SEE BOTH SIDES, UNLIKE HILLARY SUPPORTERS WHO SEE WHAT THEY WANT TO SEE [7 Likes]

(Commence radio silence as Idiot goes unchallenged for all to witness)
posted by windbox at 11:21 AM on October 14, 2016 [11 favorites]

In March 2015 the US Census projected that the United States will be a majority-minority in 2044. The train's leaving the station, and you can be on the train, stay on the platform and let time pass you by, or jump under the train. Trump and his supporters are jumping under the train.

The swing portion of the electorate has the same memory as a goldfish. The GOP won't have any trouble competing in 2044 when they disavow their anti-hispanic past and start courting Catholic values.
posted by Talez at 11:22 AM on October 14, 2016

Yes, would you turn away kids dressed as Dracula because he's a bad influence?
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:22 AM on October 14, 2016

I don't know what to make of that information.>

That someone should have paid the extra money to have his registration info made private?
posted by Jalliah at 11:24 AM on October 14, 2016 [10 favorites]

“It’s a sexual assault issue, and it’s something that I’ve kept quiet on my own,” Anderson said. “And I’ve always kept quiet. And why should I keep quiet?

This is something I've been thinking a lot about. If my assailant was running for public office, would I speak up?

I don't know. I'm not sure that I would. Not because he didn't hurt me. Not because what he did wasn't wrong. Not because it wasn't criminal. Not because he doesn't deserve to be held accountable, and not because other people deserve to know (and have deserved to know for nearly 30 years). I'm not sure I'd speak up because I'm not sure I could handle the fallout. I couldn't handle it then (so I didn't speak up) and I don't think I could handle it now.

The reason I didn't say anything then was because I didn't think people would believe me, I thought they'd blame me, I thought they'd judge me, I thought I'd be asked why I let him do it. (And I've always, always wonder if I did. Let him.) Everything we've seen in the past week sort of proves that that instinct was -- well, if not right, valid.

I am so amazed at the bravery of the women who are coming forward. Also, grateful. Very, very grateful. Without them we wouldn't have the counter-narrative, and by god do we need it right now. If anything good comes out of this, it will be a better awareness and understanding of what it's like to be a victim of sexual assault in this culture.
posted by mudpuppie at 11:24 AM on October 14, 2016 [37 favorites]

I just need to report that I followed ZeusHumm's link to the Wikipedia for MaNaMaNa (MahNahMahNah is a new spelling on me) and happened upon this paragraphh in a description of the song's version history:

A sketch in the final episode of Jam in 2000 features a scene where two strangely dressed characters, one carrying a clarinet, sing the song where and when police are trying to find a dead body. When the police find the corpse and are still examining it, the two characters continue to sing the song at the corpse, whilst the clarinet carrier puts the clarinet into the corpse's mouth, who "plays" it out of key.

It made me think of this election.
posted by spitbull at 11:24 AM on October 14, 2016

Daily Kos: Boom goes the dynamite! DCCC drops $1 million into Kansas House seat to help our endorsed candidate

The DCCC has just reserved over $1 million in TV time on behalf of Democrat Jay Sidie, who seems to have thrown a real scare into GOP Rep. Kevin Yoder. Polls—even those from Republicans—show Hillary Clinton hammering Donald Trump in this suburban Kansas City seat, despite the fact that Mitt Romney carried it by double digits in 2012.

Please proceed, Mr. Trump.
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:24 AM on October 14, 2016 [29 favorites]

I can't help but see the headline "Announcement Of A New Accuser" as a Culture ship name. Probably needs a ",The" at the end...
posted by Devonian at 11:24 AM on October 14, 2016 [22 favorites]

Yes, would you turn away kids dressed as Dracula because he's a bad influence?

No, but I would turn away kids dressed as as monsters who claim to be Dr. Frankenstein.

(Fortunately for everyone, I don't get trick-or-treaters.)
posted by zachlipton at 11:25 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Are they also going to say that Trump supporters were just too scared to vote for him?

This is the most dangerous theme of the Trump campaign. eg Scott Adams asking for examples of people attacked for wearing trump gear. It's exactly the same justification cops use to kill unarmed black drivers. Fear motivates violence. The first step in turning someone into a violent stooge is to make them thinkk all strikes are preemptive.

Meanwhile, protestors have been walking unarmed into Trump events calmly and with purpose. Often they are assaulted. But they keep going back to show those cowards how freedom is actually protected. We will defeat them as long as we respond with that kind of posture. Be vigilant, but do not be afraid.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:26 AM on October 14, 2016 [10 favorites]

Wyoming's new state slogan should be:

GIVE WYOMING BACK TO THE BUFFALO!
posted by Oyéah at 11:26 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

One important detail in the WaPo story and several of the others is that these women told friends and family what happened soon after the assaults. Not that victims shouldn't be believed if they don't do this, but it adds a great deal to their stories that they can point to people who knew well before a Trump Presidential campaign was ever in the cards. These are not all just strangers coming out of nowhere; these are women who told the people close to them and have been living with seeing the man who assaulted him hailed by thousands of screaming fans on national TV. And every one of them has the support of Trump's own words to back them up. It's "he said he did it, she said he did it, her friends/family say she said years ago that he did it;" that's extremely persuasive.
posted by zachlipton at 11:27 AM on October 14, 2016 [14 favorites]

People on Facebook keep posting about these Wikileak Podesta emails is there anything of substance in them?

NPR tried to fry up a nothingburger this morning about some draft speech on the email server issue that "contradicted what she was saying at the time." Basically it ended up being almost exactly the position has publicly expressed for months now (it was a mistake, I wouldn't do it again, I'm sorry) so I was giving my radio some serious side-eye.
posted by Preserver at 11:28 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

There was another (smaller) one earlier today, the biggest scandal seems to be a question about whether they needed to turn over her email exchanges with POTUS. They did turn them over, so nothing happened

The next WikiLeaks scandal will be leaked emails from the dems freaking out about the previous email hack.

Latest from WikiLeaks: "Check out our new novelty Bill Clinton bimbo poll tee." (real)

The Russian sense of humor does not always translate well.
posted by sebastienbailard at 11:28 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Remember: these people absolutely believe the Clinton Body Count.

Back in the 1990s, there were 81 Dead Friends of Bill and Hillary. Now it's down to 42.

Apparently, her demonic powers include raising the dead. No doubt she's raising a zombie army to carry out further killings.
posted by msalt at 11:28 AM on October 14, 2016 [19 favorites]

Srsly, since when is it wrong to dress up as a monster for Halloween?

It depends. Do you think SS Officer is a good costume?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:30 AM on October 14, 2016 [13 favorites]

Earlier today I watched the "mahna mahna" debate video linked above. Truth be told, it made me LOL and was a decent Friday morning work procrastination. I thought about sharing it, and then stopped short. This isn't meant to throw shade at the Mefier who posted it, but by the end of it I had reached peak something. Can't even laugh at the Republican presidential candidate, even when he's the butt of a well-aimed joke. This is too serious, and he is too disgusting. IIRC correctly, Michelle Obama did not once identify him by name in her incredible speech yesterday, and I'm feeling that at a molecular level. It's the same reason why I don't think I'll ever be able to listen to once-beloved Bill Cosby routines ever again.

This is not me speaking as the son of a mother or husband of a wife or father of a son who will someday date girls. As a sentient being, I'm consumed by a righteous and permanent disgust.
posted by vverse23 at 11:30 AM on October 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

Yes, would you turn away kids dressed as Dracula because he's a bad influence?

If this happened during a Halloween where Vlad the Impaler was trying to rise to power then yeah, maybe. If there are Baron Trumpkonnen Halloween costumes available in 2416 then great, soylent caramel bars all around.
posted by EatTheWeek at 11:30 AM on October 14, 2016 [15 favorites]

If someone thinks the country is going to hell in a handbasket, they don't have to think that it's the fault of immigrants, women, etc. I mean, I think the country is going to hell in a handbasket, and I think it's because of racial, gender and class inequality.

My favourite moment of this was a nice hot summer day when I went for a jog on the lakefront. At the start of my run I go along a lightly wooded gravel park path and there was a quite elderly man in a motorized scooter having a nap in the partial shade on the path. About 60 minutes later on my return he was still there but in full sun so I stopped asked him if everything was okay.

"No! Everything is going to hell" he replied.

Having just taken an hour long nap in the park on a fine summer day in one of the largest cities in USA.

( I ratted him out to the staff at the retirement home across the street where he probably lived because I figured he was going to get a really nasty sunburn.)
posted by srboisvert at 11:31 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

Important breaking news!

TODAY IS WORLD EGG DAY
posted by ckape at 11:31 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

The new Election FPP is live.
posted by Wordshore at 11:32 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

> (Finally paid $5 to vent my steam; I've been reading here long enough that I remember the dark pre-moderator days and I don't need to read the clue sheet on inside jokes.)

Welcome, ruetheday, and let me say you have a great username!
posted by languagehat at 11:32 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

I would really like everyone with a positive or neutral opinion of Assange and Wikileaks to read the article I posted earlier in the thread.
posted by xyzzy at 11:32 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Yeah Greg's right there's no way these leaks are fake so far.

1. Why would they bother to fake such unimpressive results? Especially her speeches, they could put all kinds of incriminating promises and lies in there. Instead, it's a commencement speech about following your dreams or whatever. Zzzz.

2. If there was any way to prove they were fake, the Clinton campaign would do so ASAP. They good at the cyber.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:32 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Wikileaks update: Someone I went to law school with (and didn't know but have some overlapping Facebook friends with) apparently won dinner with John Podesta at a charity auction and reports that he made risotto and it was excellent.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:33 AM on October 14, 2016 [20 favorites]

Apparently, her demonic powers include raising the dead. No doubt she's raising a zombie army to carry out further killings.


*adds to list of supposedly bad things about Hillary Clinton that make me even more excited to vote for her*
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:33 AM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

msalt: "Back in the 1990s, there were 81 Dead Friends of Bill and Hillary. Now it's down to 42."

42 by responsible estimates — not those wackos on the lunatic fringe of the “the Clintons are mass murderers” community. Like, if Chelsea murders someone after she turns 18, obviously that should be a separate tally.
posted by savetheclocktower at 11:33 AM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

I don't think this was posted, and I can't find video, but back in September Chris Hayes had U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce's Javier Palomarez on his show and he called Trump a payaso (clown).

A few days ago Palomarez was back on with Chris Hayes and he was on fire railing against Trump as a racist. At the end he paused and he said "And I want to say something to your viewers, the last time I was on your show I called Trump a payaso. That was wrong of me and I sincerely apologize . . . [exactly perfect beat length for a "WTF?"] to hardworking clowns everywhere."
posted by spitbull at 11:33 AM on October 14, 2016 [12 favorites]

The new Election FPP is live.

Thank you. My laptop appreciates it. One of the fans busted last night and I need to baby this thing till I can get it fixed. :D
posted by Jalliah at 11:34 AM on October 14, 2016

I think a lot of folks in this thread are kind of talking past each other.

I don't want compromise with the Trumpists. Full stop. Racism and sexism are not okay and they never will be.

However, ignoring the racists/sexists isn't going to make them go away. So I think that what's being advocated here is that, rather than meet anger with anger, we should meet anger with compassion and understanding.

I understand why they're angry, I understand the racism and sexism too. I want to give them all a swift kick in the ass and tell them to knock it off, but that just makes them dig in their heels harder. I've found that, if I'm polite but firmly stand my moral ground and actually try to get someone to engage in good faith, I can chip away at the ignorance just a little bit. It's exhausting and unfair but the alternative doesn't result in any progress. This is a case where you can be right or effective, not both.

Mostly I end up just spinning my wheels so once I've given it a good-faith effort, I just view them as a obstacle to be overcome. But some people do start to see the light.

In either case, I have a heavy bag in my basement that gets a lot of use after those interactions.
posted by VTX at 11:35 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm betting cortez has a deal with Verizon for a cut of the data overages. JK!
posted by spitbull at 11:35 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

God, they're really calling it "Traitors to Trump?"

WHOIS shows the domain registered to a Jason Paul, who appears to be a former Democratic state-level candidate who lost a primary in Connecticut. Perhaps it's chum for Trumpkins. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by holgate at 11:37 AM on October 14, 2016

Here's a good reference about the accusations of viciousness on Hillary's part toward Bill's abusers.

But be warned... Right wingers don't trust Politifacts

FTFY. See also: Conservapedia, "Wiki encyclopaedia with articles written from a Christian fundamentalist viewpoint."
posted by filthy light thief at 11:40 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Speaking of rage inducing.

Pence dodges a question about body image issues raised by an 11 year-old, saying he and Trump are the only ones who can keep her and other American children safe.

I think he was just pivoting to the usual talking point, but that sure as hell feels like "Sit down and shut up."

I think it's more enraging that he isn't even conscious of what the implication is, because it's that unimportant.

And if you pointed it out to him, he'd just be offended that you're putting words in his mouth, not that a bunch of young girls feel like they just need to shut up and keep feeling crappy.
posted by ghost phoneme at 11:44 AM on October 14, 2016 [10 favorites]

Someone (not gonna link to this) is actually making Sexy Trump Halloween costumes. In case you needed a thousandfold more sexism in your sexism because it wasn't sexist enough.
posted by mubba at 11:44 AM on October 14, 2016

A lot of posts here today are just link churning the same things that were posted 12 hours ago. Please try to do a cursory search before you post something. There's a search bar in the top right for that purpose.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:47 AM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

Former Apprentice contestant coming forward right now on MSNBC. Summer Zervos.
posted by gatorae at 11:48 AM on October 14, 2016

ignoring the racists/sexists isn't going to make them go away.

I think it does, to a degree. Not many people who openly admit to being rabidly pro-Iraq War these days, though if you were politically engaged in 2002-3, you know who they were. Arguably, their basic desire to hurt people in the Middle East has transmuted into support for nuking ISIS and deporting Muslims, but that's because the GOP made it possible for Trump to cut through its ranks.

Disempower the mob leaders, and the mob will dissipate, at least until the next leaders show up. But next time, you'll know the signs.
posted by holgate at 11:49 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

THIS WAY -->
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:56 AM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

> The new Election FPP is live.

I made a whimpering noise when I saw this just now. Then I clicked over and added it to my recent activity.

help
posted by rtha at 11:57 AM on October 14, 2016 [32 favorites]

If you can stand wading through the swamp of misogyny and ignorance, there is some hilarious anti-Trump trolling going on at r/theDonald at the moment.

• ISIS withdraws Donald Trump endorsement after seeing Trump sex tape: "We can no longer in good conscience endorse this depraved man."
• What are we gonna do about Hillary hiring the gestapo?
• Trump fails to understand cameras can see him

posted by Coventry at 11:58 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Believe me, she would not be my first choice." - Donald Trump just now at rally in Greensboro, NC talking about woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her on airplane.

"Why doesn't some woman say about [Obama] what they say about me?" - inciting women to make false allegations against POTUS. Swell.

Fuck this guy.

I'll be seeing him live in Charlotte in a couple hours. Swell.
posted by Cookiebastard at 12:00 PM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

"The leaders," Trump complains, are "not putting their weight behind the people." He had, in his view, won the last presidential debate, and yet the House speaker, Paul Ryan, had not called to congratulate him. "Wouldn't you think maybe Paul Ryan would call and say, 'Good going'?" Trump asks. "You'd think they would say, 'Good going, Don! Let's beat this crook! She's a crook! Let's beat her, we've got to stop it!’ No, he doesn't do that."[...]

RYAN: That was a good thing you did, Donnie.

TRUMP: Don't I know it! Now why hasn't Billy congratulated me?

RYAN: You sent his cousin to the cornfield, Donnie, and you cost him his job. He was real upset.

TRUMP: Are you saying I shouldn't have sent him to the cornfield?

RYAN: No, it was good that you sent him to the cornfield, real good. And we're going to have a real good election, too!

[fake]
posted by ckape at 12:02 PM on October 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

"Why doesn't some woman say about [Obama] what they say about me?" - inciting women to make false allegations against POTUS. Swell.

...because he never assaulted anyone?

I mean, I'm just guessing.
posted by chonus at 12:05 PM on October 14, 2016 [11 favorites]

Sigh.
The Halloween costumes post was a joke, guys. C'mon.

Although their parents will get all possible stinkeye if they're in sight.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 12:09 PM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm just so furious because for years, we've been hearing that this is the party of family values, of upright morals, of Christian tenets, and here is a man and a campaign that is antithetical to all of those things and they're still supporting it. The hypocrisy's always been there in the steady drip drip of sex scandal after sex scandal to the point where it's become a cliche

No kidding. Democrat Gary Hart withdrew from the presidential primary after stories of an affair surfaced in the media, way back in 1988. Newt Gingrich, just to name one, had an affair, divorced his first wife and married his lover, had an affair again, divorcing is second wife to marry her. But not only did Gingrich run for President in 2012, but he also is welcomed as a pundit and Trump surrogate. Probably because he literally wrote the memo on how members of his party should control the language about bear false witness against his political opponents.

Republicans have had decades to prove that they walk the walk and not just talk the talk when it comes to claiming the mantle of morality, but they have failed ever since they abandoned Jimmy Carter. It's nice that Trump is, at long last, a bridge too far for some of them, but it'll be some time before I accept the claims of so-called "values voters" at their word.

But who encourages and benefits from such hypocrisy? Look at the talk about repealing the Johnson Amendment that prevents churches from advocating for specific candidates on pain of losing their tax-exempt status. Many voters have been fed a lot of hogwash by their pastors. I hope they wake up and realize it.
posted by Gelatin at 12:23 PM on October 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

Then you forgive and understand them. Don't demand all the rest of us do the exact same thing you're comfortable doing.

I think you're right about the IRA-style violence. I don't think the solution is to win them over with kindness, because I think they're way beyond that point.

I am not sure what you are even advocating.

If you look at every single internal conflict of this sort they have always either ended with forgiveness and understanding or they have never ended.

Part of civilization is addressing the issue of having to live with monsters.
posted by srboisvert at 12:32 PM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

I have a neighbor who at 84 is a competitive pool player. He was telling me about this bar where he competed in Salt Lake City. There is a sign on the ladies room door that says something to the effect of Around Here, Sexual Harassment is A Privilege.

Yeah. A male privilege.
posted by Gelatin at 12:39 PM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Newt Gingrich, just to name one, had an affair, divorced his first wife

Almost all of the members of Trump's inner circle are serial philanderers, if not abusers. Bill O'Reilly has been I think arrested for domestic assault, for example, as has Bannon. Ailes and Giuliani have equally revolting histories.
posted by My Dad at 1:01 PM on October 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

Trump conspicuously says not “all" but “just about all” cases against him are made up.

--------------------

>>>>Trump camp: staffers still preparing material to refute latest sexual assault allegations - "Doing it strategically" source says

"The videotaped confession does complicate things"
posted by My Dad at 1:04 PM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

>>Then you forgive and understand them. Don't demand all the rest of us do the exact same thing you're comfortable doing.

>I think you're right about the IRA-style violence. I don't think the solution is to win them over with kindness, because I think they're way beyond that point.

I am not sure what you are even advocating.

If you look at every single internal conflict of this sort they have always either ended with forgiveness and understanding or they have never ended.

Part of civilization is addressing the issue of having to live with monsters.

As far as I know, the most relevant example of an official, institutionalized process of national reconciliation is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission established after apartheid. This process wasn't perfect, of course, and South African society isn't perfect either -- but I think it offers some practical ways forward for the US.

Its purpose, as laid out in the enabling legislation (.pdf), was (emphases mine):

To provide for the investigation and the establishment of as complete a picture as possible of the nature, causes and extent of gross violations of human rights committed... the granting of amnesty to persons who make full disclosure of all the relevant facts relating to acts associated with a political objective committed in the course of the conflicts of the past during the said period; affording victims an opportunity to relate the violations they suffered; the taking of measures aimed at the granting of reparation to, and the rehabilitation and the restoration of the human and civil dignity of, victims of violations of human rights; reporting to the Nation about such violations and victims; the making of recommendations aimed at the prevention of the commission of gross violations of human rights; and for the said purposes to provide for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission...

Forgiveness does not, itself, solve this kind of problem. The truth has to be told -- not just told, but confessed. We have to work not just toward forgiveness but toward justice, restoration, reparation, reconciliation. And we have to commit to finding ways to stop this from happening again.

I don't know how that gets translated to the US context. I wish I did.
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:19 PM on October 14, 2016 [10 favorites]

DJT, 1999

“People want me to [run for president] all the time … I don’t like it,” Trump said on CNBC’s “Hardball.”

“Can you imagine how controversial I’d be? You think about him [Clinton] and the women. How about me with the women? Can you imagine?”

[real]
posted by farlukar at 1:31 PM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

Grover Cleveland was unmarried when he was elected, but married while in office.

If I understand rightly, he got married on two non-consecutive occasions. It complicates the numbering a bit.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:52 PM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

So here is a semi-hopeful thing which is also sort of relevant to the "how to engage with Trump supporters" topic.

For the past several months, my Dad (early 70s white guy, retired) has been making public posts on his Facebook page about the election, mostly links to articles but writing the occasional post himself. He believes the most important thing is to stop Trump-- not just to defeat him, but decisively, by a credible margin, so he can't rise again. So he's doing his best to get people to vote for Hillary.

And when Trump supporters comment, he answers them reasonably, doing his best to persuade, talking to not talking at, never getting derogatory or combative. I swear he has not used one insulting term, despite many being used against him by these commenters. He shows far more patience than I would.

He's been keeping this up for months now. It's the damnedest thing.
posted by Pallas Athena at 1:53 PM on October 14, 2016 [25 favorites]

The previous New Thread notices have scrolled up out of sight, so to reiterate:

-{[ NEW THREAD ]}-
posted by nicepersonality at 2:02 PM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

when Donald loses I want his secret service detail to do like the Unsullied and spin around on their heels and be like 'okay you need to come with us now, you are a danger to the president-elect and the country at large'

Given the apparent gap between how much money The Donald has and how much he claims to have, the fate of Xaro Xhoan Daxos might be more fitting.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:05 PM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

For the past several months, my Dad (early 70s white guy, retired) has been making public posts on his Facebook page about the election...doing his best to get people to vote for Hillary....He's been keeping this up for months now. It's the damnedest thing.
posted by Pallas Athena at 10:53 PM on October 14 [+] [!]

Zeus is one persistent fellow...
posted by Namlit at 2:11 PM on October 14, 2016 [22 favorites]

Not caught up with the thread for today, but I have to sound off about something and this is really the only place I can...

I'm really disturbed by women I know, who would call themselves feminist activists, like that is their whole main THING, and they haven't said word one about the Trump tape or allegations or taken part in the conversation at all.

Like we have all kinds of conservative women speaking out about how this is intolerable, and women are having this incredible painful conversation where they tell the men around them just how much they have been abused and assaulted, and yet, these friends of mine are SILENT.

I'd say they've just checked out, but they are still online, still posting about the Dakota Pipeline and other things here and there, but it's like they've just written off the entire election as Not Relevant.

Has anyone else see this? The women I would expect to have my back in this kind of discussion are just...absent. Or even posting funny memes about how both sides suck. Have we gotten to a point where somehow mainstream politics is off limits for self-labeled "activists"?

In what world does Michelle Obama's speech yesterday NOT inspire feminists to even say "Damn right!"
posted by threeturtles at 2:15 PM on October 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

For the past several months, my Dad (early 70s white guy, retired) has been making public posts on his Facebook page about the election...doing his best to get people to vote for Hillary....He's been keeping this up for months now. It's the damnedest thing.
posted by Pallas Athena at 10:53 PM on October 14 [+] [!]

Zeus is one persistent fellow...
posted by Namlit at 16:11 on October 14 [3 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]

Yes.
posted by ZeusHumms at 2:23 PM on October 14, 2016 [12 favorites]

threeturtles, that's a great comment, and I'd love to hear others thoughts on it, so maybe you could post it in the new thread?
posted by peacheater at 2:23 PM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Ooo, new thread, I'm even more behind than I thought. (But I had to SLEEP.)
posted by threeturtles at 2:28 PM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

In what world does Michelle Obama's speech yesterday NOT inspire feminists to even say "Damn right!"

My world! Believe me, merely participating in this thread would get me all the side eye in the world from almost everyone I know.

And I mean, I have some sympathy. Liberal feminism isn't going to stop the pipeline, and that pipeline (and the accompanying disregard for Native people, and the oil economy itself) make women's lives worse all around the world. It's like, the needs at the base of the pyramid aren't being met, things are actively getting worse there - so why care about the top layers of the pyramid? And when, eg, Michelle Obama is talking about women's rights but not talking about the women whose lives are devastated by the drone program and military interventions, what good is her speech? What good was liberal feminism to Berta Cáceres?

I don't even disagree with that.

It's a cognitive dissonance thing - in order to live in the world around us, we have to take Hillary Clinton and the Obamas at face value rather than considering the powerful global effects of their policies. We have to think about them as social people - Michelle Obama as a woman who gets harassed on the street; Hillary Clinton as a woman who has been the target of vile misogynist lies her whole adult life; Barack Obama as a man who has been targeted by racists in vile ways for the past eight years. And that's all true - but to place emphasis on this requires us to de-emphasize these things that are also true about foreign police, security, drones, the pipeline.

It's like, the easiest way to respond to all this is to pick one view - the social view or the foreign policy view. Hillary is either a woman among women or Secretary of State winking at attacks on indigenous Honduran activists. We here take the social view, and that's not trivial - social racism and misogyny are real things that really happen and impact everyone. But there's this other view which is also real and also serious.

I genuinely believe that in many respects Hillary Clinton and the Obamas are good individuals, and I genuinely believe that they feel that their foreign policy (and their domestic policy) work for the greater good. I don't think they're just out for themselves and their cronies. But I think they're dead wrong about the world in many respects, and those are very destructive respects which cause suffering among people all around the world who can't even vote for them.

Trying to hold both those views in my head at the same time is what's so hard for me about this election. It's impossible to do, really.

But I don't blame anyone for not feeling excited about the presidency. I don't think this means they are not feminists or don't care or whatever. I am just happy if people acknowledge that we really, really need not to elect Trump and that now the choice is only Trump and Clinton - nothing else is really on the table.
posted by Frowner at 2:39 PM on October 14, 2016 [15 favorites]

The Trump campaign has decided to refute Jessica Leeds' accusation of sexual groping by Trump with a witness who states that it never happened and was all Jessica Leeds' fault because she totally wanted it.

Also, said witness is a self-admitted pimp of underage sex workers.

to quote The Whelk, OH SNAP Z: AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE ZOMBIE SNAPS!
posted by mightygodking at 2:44 PM on October 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

"shrill". Riiiiight.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 2:48 PM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Vox interview with Republican strategist Steve Schmidt:

...the defense of Trump, the cowardice of so many Republican elected officials who won’t confront this — what it exposes is political cowardice on a massive level. It exposes a political class in the Republican Party that simply is unfit to lead the country.
...
You have a massive reckoning coming due that will play out over years on the serially putting party above country. We’ve reached the moment in time that George Washington warned about in his farewell address with the danger of factions. You have basically warring tribes that subordinate the national interest to their tribal interest.

There’s no higher value obviously for most — though not all — Republican elected officials than maintaining fidelity to Donald Trump. What’s extraordinary about that is that in America, we don’t take an oath to a strongman leader; we take it to the Constitution of the United States. And Donald Trump is obviously manifestly unfit in every conceivable way to occupy the office of the American head of state.

Schmidt also compares the Trump campaign to kamikaze attacks.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:28 PM on October 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

Henry Giroux: Trump’s Return to the Good Old Days and the Specter of Mass Terror

Giroux on Democracy Now: Is Trump's Rise a Result of America Declaring War on Institutions That Make Democracy Possible?
posted by homunculus at 3:28 PM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

I know this thread is all warm and cozy and none of us want to go, but the new thread is our Hamilton-less home now.
posted by zachlipton at 3:39 PM on October 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

Obviously it's not something to be gleeful about, since every accuser is another victim of assault

Be gleeful. The assaults have already happened, and nothing's going to change that; celebrate that the victims now have the courage and media support to come forward. Cheering publicity is not the same as cheering the original event.

Any kids who show up to my door on Halloween dressed as Donald Trump get no candy.

Halloween costumes come in two main flavors: Heroes and monsters. I'm going to avoid politicizing Halloween by refraining from publicly commenting on which category I think which real-people costumes belong to.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 6:24 PM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

New theead... every time I read it it feels like "The Princess is in another castle", so hard to keep up.
posted by coust at 8:25 PM on October 14, 2016 [15 favorites]

I DON'T CARE ABOUT A NEW THREAD I JUST GOT TO THE END OF THIS ONE AND I'M NOT READY TO LEAVE
posted by um at 8:54 PM on October 16, 2016 [11 favorites]

Does anyone read the posts down here?
posted by grouse at 4:30 AM on October 17, 2016 [5 favorites]

I would If I could get here. But it's so far down it's almost up again.
posted by Namlit at 6:40 AM on October 17, 2016

Halloween costumes come in two main flavors: Heroes and monsters.

This is not relevant to your comment at all, but Heroes and (Scary) Monsters would make a great group costume theme this year, with each person dressed as a different Bowie persona.
posted by knuckle tattoos at 11:18 AM on October 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of a thread
Where I read and I favorite everything that's been said
Till I get to the bottom and I comment again
Yeah yeah yeah yeah

posted by Westringia F. at 11:22 AM on October 17, 2016 [12 favorites]

Threadster, readster
*guitar* Ba na na na na na na na
Threadster, readster
*guitar* Ba na na na na na na na
You may be a dumpster but you ain't no Trumpster.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:56 PM on October 19, 2016

I love wikileaks. There is zero chance they'll derail Clinton's election, but they just happily jab anyone powerful who they can get dirt on, including the next president of the U.S. lol

Appears someone found "names of concealed U.S. intelligence officials on [Clnton's] unprotected email system".

Ain't surprising in itself, but maybe it'll prompt the GOP pass laws requiring the president's emails be processed through some system, that incidentally must be properly archived or something, unlike say when Bush made them mysteriously vanish.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:03 PM on October 23, 2016

that's got nothing to do with wikileaks, has it? they are "identifying" intelligence officials because their names were redacted. which means these are official docs released, presumably, in the email investigation.
posted by andrewcooke at 4:26 PM on October 23, 2016