Our first Magic 8-Ball president.

November 25, 2016 10:00 AM

While book-reading president-elect Donald continues to tweet and finally speaks with the New York Times, he also generates news: property in Argentina, conflict of interests and the foreign Emoluments Clause, Foundation tax returns, NASA funding, New York protection costs and disruption, flip-flopping, the Climate Accord, a musical, ending the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and not attempting to prosecute Hillary. New appointments include DeVos as education secretary and Haley as U.N. ambassador, with Michael Flynn tapped as national security advisor. Beyond Trump Tower, the results in three states may be challengeable or challenged, and in the ongoing count, Hillary's popular vote lead exceeds two million (live spreadsheet).

To mod-quote: Don't go after each other, don't poke known sore points. Please check before commenting a link whether it's already been commented. Talk or "OMG!" text is maybe better on Chat. Alternately...

Take it to MetaTalk
* 2016 Election Prediction Contest results.
* MeFi in the time of Trump - managing news.
* What are YOU doing?
* Grief and Coping Thread: Election 2016.
* MeFites offering refuge for the holidays.

For legacy content see the many posts tagged with election2016. The election reference wiki explains some of the terminology used in comments on these threads. There are also recent election-related threads in Ask MetaFilter, such as How can I avoid You-Know-Who?

A few other recent posts
* We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
* How To Call Your Reps When You Have Social Anxiety.
* I Was a Teenage Nazi Wannabe.
* Overtime Exempt.
* History don't repeat, it rhymes.

Elsewhere, Obama's approval rating climbs, there are ongoing election shenanigans in North Carolina (more), early voting in the Louisiana Senate run-off starts tomorrow, Milo is banned from talking at his school, a former MeFite campervan passenger gets a new passport, the Republican victory is a good omen for some, and an ornament receives poor reviews.

Dark satire (everything below here NSFW)
* Watch the John Lewis Christmas Ad and then watch the 2016 US election parody (alternative).
* On the BBC, Frankie Boyle's American Autopsy (alternative).
* Local college professor in altercation with alt-right serviceman.
* Trump contextualised within The 2016 Song by Flo & Joan.

(Post title with permission, by a Mr J. Millard of the USA)

posted by Wordshore (2454 comments total)

Nineteen days since ZERO.

This is going to be a long four years.
posted by PROD_TPSL at 10:05 AM on November 25, 2016 [21 favorites]

Nineteen days since ZERO.

This is going to be a long four years.

Only about 70 more threads at this pace

Could be worse
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:09 AM on November 25, 2016 [21 favorites]

I'm trying to rebrand the alt-right as the Archie Bunker Party, or maybe just the Bunker Party for short.
posted by hippybear at 10:11 AM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm trying to rebrand the alt-right as the Archie Bunker Party, or maybe just the Bunker Party for short.

Perhaps at this party they can have a rousing game of Follow Your Leader.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:14 AM on November 25, 2016 [7 favorites]

What's the vibe that the 2 million 7 million Jill Stein recount fund is actually going to go for a recount and not the coffers of Jill Stein?
posted by Static Vagabond at 10:15 AM on November 25, 2016 [6 favorites]

What's the vibe that the 2 million 7 million Jill Stein recount fund is actually going to go for a recount and not the coffers of Jill Stein?

I'd say if she actually did it her political career would be over but...
posted by Talez at 10:16 AM on November 25, 2016 [6 favorites]

Someone on my twitter said something to the effect of "Please let Jill Stein, like Gollem, serve an unforeseen but required purpose..."
posted by hippybear at 10:18 AM on November 25, 2016 [132 favorites]

Dear US journalists: (Things are about to change) - Nic Dawes
posted by Golden Eternity at 10:18 AM on November 25, 2016 [16 favorites]

I am also doing a recount that I cannot guarantee, if anyone wants to send me seven million dollars. If a recount does not occur, I CAN guarantee that I will reform my system for storing seven million dollars (currently large cardboard box, but stretch goal is a much bigger cardboard box that i would paint some pokemon on the sides if i have time to swing by walmart and pick up some paint)

I know you're being facetious but you didn't appear on a ballot.
posted by Talez at 10:22 AM on November 25, 2016 [10 favorites]

Just stop. Please, please. Just stop.
posted by slogger at 10:27 AM on November 25, 2016 [9 favorites]

I'd like to carry across a link rory posted at the end of the last thread - "We Tracked Down A Fake-News Creator In The Suburbs. Here's What We Learned".

This is a very important story, because it demonstrates precisely how so much fake news appeared and why. It is an absolutely natural progression of the pay-per-click advertising model, which when combined with social media has resulted in a process capable of generating six-figure incomes for those prepared to put in the work.

In other words, it can be intensely profitable to comprehensively poison the national discourse, and you can do this at home. One weird trick...

This is going to be very difficult to counter, because it's only profitable if you target your fake news at the right. "Coler says his writers have tried to write fake news for liberals — but they just never take the bait."

Do read this. It covers a lot of ground and It explains a very great deal, and the comfort I get from knowing that my gut aversion to pay-per-click models turns out to have practical, ethical and democratic justifications is cold indeed.

It rurns out that, yes, it is all about ethics in journalism after all.
posted by Devonian at 10:27 AM on November 25, 2016 [182 favorites]

Not to be overwhelmingly impressed by Jill Stein, but look, she's a hippie. A rich hippie, and a hippie with overwhelmingly naive politics, but she's not a grifter. If you hang around movement circles, you'll meet Jill Stein-ish people fairly regularly. I mean, from a "what's wrong with America" standpoint and with the exception of temporizing with the anti-vaxxers in her base, Jill Stein doesn't even have particularly problematic politics, as far as I can tell - a lot of us here would agree with a lot of her concerns about capital, DAPL, etc. If she were a local retired, well-off activist, she'd be on various small boards, show up at every court hearing, hector policemen from the position of being an older white woman who probably won't get beat down, etc. She'd probably annoy the fuck out of a lot of activists by giving sort of curtain lectures about our behavior and politics, if my experience is anything to go by.

The problem with her is that she has terrible ideas about government, has no real government experience and she's not a policy person, and yet she thinks she'd be a great president. She has the kind of fool ideas about activism that only an affluent white person with a lifetime of being treated pleasantly by almost everyone can develop. But that's not nearly the same as being dishonest or wanting to see America in flames. She just genuinely doesn't understand social change - except, probably, at a very local, campaign-specific level - and genuinely thinks that once people see how bad Trump is, it will be totally sufficient for everyone to get their heads right and then utopia will arrive.

But I would be absolutely astonished if she does anything but her best to get these recounts rolling.

I think there's a mental habit that almost everyone falls into, where we fail to distinguish amongst out-groups - we lump the entire far right together even though it's full of divisions, the far right thinks everyone to their left is a red-hot communist, etc. It's difficult to see these distinctions and frustrating to try. But Jill Stein is a rich hippie and my genuine belief is that she has bad political ideas but actually believes them and tries to live by them.
posted by Frowner at 10:28 AM on November 25, 2016 [208 favorites]

Greg Nog: “I am also doing a recount that I cannot guarantee, if anyone wants to send me seven million dollars. If a recount does not occur, I CAN guarantee that I will reform my system for storing seven million dollars (currently large cardboard box, but stretch goal is a much bigger cardboard box that i would paint some pokemon on the sides if i have time to swing by walmart and pick up some paint)”

Talez: “I know you're being facetious but you didn't appear on a ballot.”

Exactly! That's another reason to view his as more trustworthy than other dubious vote-recount efforts.
posted by koeselitz at 10:34 AM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

> But I would be absolutely astonished if she does anything but her best to get these recounts rolling.

The fact that she's trying hard is not exculpatory. If you're shit at politics but are taking up space in the public sphere, then you need to go find something else to do with your life so someone else can step in. Even if the ever-increasing donation goals are a result of incorrectly estimating how much it would cost to do the recount (She didn't think about lawyer fees? And then she underestimated those fees by a factor of 2-3?) it shows terrible planning and execution.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:37 AM on November 25, 2016 [14 favorites]

She has the kind of fool ideas about activism that only an affluent white person with a lifetime of being treated pleasantly by almost everyone can develop.

Pulling this out because it's excellent and applies to a lot of people, possibly still including me.

I haven't donated to her recount not just because it was already hitting its goal when I heard about it, but because I suspected the money would largely end up being used for posters, yard signs and general spitting into the wind. I don't think Stein or the Green Party is running a con, not at all; I believe they're sincere. I just don't think they have the political nous to find their bottom with both hands. I would love and adore to be proved wrong. Lord knows I have been this year.
posted by Countess Elena at 10:37 AM on November 25, 2016 [21 favorites]

How do they recount in precincts with electronic voting and no paper backup?
posted by rabbitrabbit at 10:37 AM on November 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

I only just heard about Democrat Foster Campbell's run for the Senate in Louisiana, and I have no idea if he's got a serious shot at winning, but if you're looking for something concrete to do, consider donating to his campaign or volunteering.
posted by the thought-fox at 10:38 AM on November 25, 2016 [12 favorites]

Jill Stein is either a cynical grifter, or a politically gifted fool. Take your pick.
posted by My Dad at 10:39 AM on November 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

The problem with her is that she has terrible ideas about government, has no real government experience and she's not a policy person, and yet she thinks she'd be a great president.

Boy! What a unique President she would be!
posted by y2karl at 10:40 AM on November 25, 2016 [78 favorites]

I don't think any observers think a recount will matter even if it occurs (margins are too large, no signs of actual fraud/hacking of results). And the Electoral College is not going to overturn the election. Trump will be President.
posted by blahblahblah at 10:41 AM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

Jill Stein doesn't even have particularly problematic politics, as far as I can tell

I agree with her on a number of things, but she beat the "both sides are equally terrible" drum harder than anyone else this election. That was problematic. She should have been capable of seeing a difference between, say, a candidate who ran on raising the minimum wage and one who said he thought it was too high and/or shouldn't exist. I'm explicitly not saying she cost the Democrats the election, but she spent an awful lot of time poisoning the well against Clinton in a way that achieved nothing for herself.

Anyway, I'm struggling a bit to figure out how to fit something about Jill Stein and a recount into the Marco Rubio/Vice-Pres Potato melody, if someone here can maybe help with that.
posted by zachlipton at 10:44 AM on November 25, 2016 [29 favorites]

Trump will be President.

There are over 55 days till the inauguration. The president-elect is in his seventies and not in the best of health. He has made many enemies. 2016 is the most unpredictable of years.

There may be a few more twists in it yet.
posted by Wordshore at 10:45 AM on November 25, 2016 [45 favorites]

Our first Magic 8-Ball president

Make America Reply Hazy Try Again!
posted by oulipian at 10:47 AM on November 25, 2016 [48 favorites]

"Coler says his writers have tried to write fake news for liberals — but they just never take the bait."

As Matty Yglesias pointed out, isn't this the perfect quote for a fake news writer to give to a liberal audience to make his story go viral? This guy is talented.
posted by Golden Eternity at 10:48 AM on November 25, 2016 [129 favorites]

Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say
posted by MrVisible at 10:52 AM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

What's the vibe that the 2 million 7 million Jill Stein recount fund is actually going to go for a recount and not the coffers of Jill Stein?

The Green Party apparently did get recounts done before, particularly in Ohio in 2004, so the party itself has at least a little history with these kind of actions. I don't expect it to change anything this time except maybe to bring attention (again) to potential problems with touch-screen voting, though.
posted by dilettante at 10:55 AM on November 25, 2016 [9 favorites]

Steve Bannon’s Deep, Weird Adoration of Sarah Palin

...And, he continued, Palin would have the guts to radically shrink the federal government, including shuttering several agencies.

“Forget waste, corruption, and abuse, that’s all marginal stuff,” Bannon said. “This is about going through, shutting down entire agencies. This is about closing entire departments. This is about taking the HUD and closing it.”
Palin wasn’t just qualified for the presidency because she was tough enough to roll back federal housing programs. Another of her selling points, according to Bannon, was her willingness to push myths about the Affordable Care Act.
“She was the first one to get on the death panels,” Bannon said. “And the first one to really get the town halls rockin’ and rollin’.

Bannon is Deplorable.
posted by futz at 10:56 AM on November 25, 2016 [14 favorites]

N.Y. Tenement Museum: 'Unprecedented Number' of Anti-immigrant Comments by Visitors

“People will now share stronger opinions about whether or not they think immigrants are sort of bleeding [the country], they’re taking too much that other people should have, or they’re taking our jobs,” said Miriam Bader, the museum’s director of education.

The museum is located in the heart of the historic Jewish Lower East City of Manhattan. One of its key exhibits is the restored 1878 home of the German-Jewish Gumpertz family. A new exhibit on more recent waves of migrants from China and Puerto Rico is set to open in July 2017.

Museum officials told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that hostile remarks, previously infrequent, now occur every day. The museum’s management put in place the new compulsory training program in September. Since then, guides have begun meeting informally to address challenging remarks that have come up during tours.

Who the hell goes to the Tenement museum to bash immigrants? I mean, why would you even spend your time taking the tour?
posted by zachlipton at 10:57 AM on November 25, 2016 [131 favorites]

Yes, Jill Stein's a grifter. As soon as 5pm EST rolls around, she will board her hypocritical private jet and flee to Venezuela with the 5 million, which she will then proceed to spend on high quality weed, a fleet of Priuses, and the construction of an evil underwater Green Party lair from which to further her sinister ecological agenda. Mark my words.
posted by Sonny Jim at 10:58 AM on November 25, 2016 [20 favorites]

If that's your (outlandish) definition of a grifter, I guess that must be why Jill Stein seems perfectly acceptable to you.
posted by My Dad at 11:02 AM on November 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Jill "Lyle Lanley" Stein
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:03 AM on November 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Could we maybe stop trolling at each other? There's enough disinformation to go around without us adding to it.
posted by Candleman at 11:04 AM on November 25, 2016 [30 favorites]

Is this debate about whether Jill Stein is trying to enrich herself actually serious?
posted by Coda Tronca at 11:04 AM on November 25, 2016 [29 favorites]

Is there any way we can lay out as many of the possible timelines in which Trump does NOT become president as possible, and maybe bet on them?

Put me down for $5 on Electoral College Revolt, $5 on the Stein Recount, and $20 on Elaborate Joke by Andy Kaufman.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 11:05 AM on November 25, 2016 [12 favorites]

and $20 on Elaborate Joke by Andy Kaufman.

43 days from now, the chorus hook finally comes around and Andy jumps out of a cake to lip-sync "HEEEEERE I COOOOOME TO SAVE THE DAAAAAAY"
posted by cortex at 11:06 AM on November 25, 2016 [36 favorites]

Is this debate about whether Jill Stein is trying to enrich herself actually serious?

I figured it was just Metafilter's version of "FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: HILLARY CLINTON MURDERED VINCE FOSTER TO COVER UP HER LOVE TRIANGLE WITH HUMA ABEDIN AND A TIME TRAVELING LESBIAN VAMPIRE!!"
posted by indubitable at 11:08 AM on November 25, 2016 [21 favorites]

Since I posted this at the very end of the old thread not noticing the new one, a repost. This pisses me off. Clinton won TX32 by 5,300 votes.

@Redistrict:
Pretty amazing that Clinton carried GOP Rep. Pete Sessions's #TX32 but Dems didn't even field a congressional candidate.
posted by chris24 at 11:09 AM on November 25, 2016 [53 favorites]

Who the hell goes to the Tenement museum to bash immigrants? I mean, why would you even spend your time taking the tour?

I once had the misfortune of doing a tour of FDR's house with a Tea Partier in our group, who took every opportunity to bash the New Deal and anything the least bit Democrat. Not with anything substantive, mind you, just sloganeering. Dude, why are you even here? Why did you spend money on this? And shut up already -- we are all feeling for your cringing wife.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:09 AM on November 25, 2016 [25 favorites]

Is this debate about whether Jill Stein is trying to enrich herself actually serious?

Apparently. Which is exactly why we have a President Trump. We don't actually live in the Simpsons people, can we please move on to some substantive conversation? Like what will happen when they try to gut Medicare? Will the olds revolt? And how many of you have called your reps to express concern vs just chatting online? I had quite an interesting discucssion with one of my reps top aides the other day, they are Republican but not at all happy about being part of the crazy train. The aides might revolt soon, that would be interesting since they do all the work.
posted by fshgrl at 11:09 AM on November 25, 2016 [31 favorites]

I've got $5 on alien intervention
posted by angrycat at 11:10 AM on November 25, 2016 [9 favorites]

$5 on waking up to realize 2016 was just a bad dream all along.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 11:12 AM on November 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

With Bobby Ewing in the shower?
posted by hippybear at 11:14 AM on November 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

I don't think many people believe Stein is literally going to take the millions and buy herself a big yacht or something. I do think there are reasons to believe that the fundraising effort has not been run with a particular focus on transparency and integrity. When someone asks for $X to do Y and then turns around the very next day and says, "actually, that was just for this little bit of Y, we need 3X to do Y, which now includes these expenses that have increased dramatically," you tend to question whether they know what they're doing. That's most easily explained by a slapdash effort to put something together quickly rather than a nefarious plot, but the recount campaign has not been conducted in a way that inspires a ton of confidence thus far.

I still think the recount is generally a good idea, though I believe it is phenomenally unlikely to change anything, but I wish they were up front from the start about exactly how much money they needed and where it's going.
posted by zachlipton at 11:15 AM on November 25, 2016 [10 favorites]

With Bobby Ewing in the shower?

Facing towards the showerhead. Towards.
posted by Wordshore at 11:15 AM on November 25, 2016 [33 favorites]

$5 on Trump being late to his own inauguration and isn't aware of the 15-minute rule.
posted by perhapses at 11:15 AM on November 25, 2016 [13 favorites]

Who the hell goes to the Tenement museum to bash immigrants? I mean, why would you even spend your time taking the tour?

"...And ANOTHER thing about the Hispanics--"

"These buildings housed Irish immigrant sir"

*Bigot realizes he has red hair*
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 11:16 AM on November 25, 2016 [6 favorites]

Jill Stein...she's a hippie...but she's not a grifter.

I've been to two Grateful Dead shows and three Rainbow Gatherings, and I can assure you that these are absolutely not mutually exclusive categories.
posted by Cookiebastard at 11:17 AM on November 25, 2016 [57 favorites]

Facing towards the showerhead. Towards.

iunderstoodthatreference.gif
posted by Talez at 11:22 AM on November 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

For those of you who don't understand the showerhead reference see this piece of chatfilter.
posted by Talez at 11:25 AM on November 25, 2016 [6 favorites]

I think an audit is a good idea because quality control is a good idea, but I don't have evidence to convince me that the Green Party is especially responsible when it comes to spending money.
posted by tofu_crouton at 11:27 AM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

If Medicare is to be "voucherized," what would happen to the Veterans Administration medical care?
posted by kerf at 11:29 AM on November 25, 2016

Privatized, from what I've heard.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 11:29 AM on November 25, 2016

Who the hell goes to the Tenement museum to bash immigrants? I mean, why would you even spend your time taking the tour?


I got a taste of something similar to this when I went to the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

They had one of the random flying car prototypes out (bolted on side-wings), and some old dude walked over to me, made a comment about it, and then went on to a glorious rant about how big government stifled progress and robbed all of us of the flying car future.

I guess it's like that. Except racist.
posted by Lord_Pall at 11:34 AM on November 25, 2016 [23 favorites]

In other news, WSJ: Rudy Giuliani Lobbies to Be Secretary of State

The shamelessness of his public lobbying for a cabinet position seems pretty unprecedented.
posted by zachlipton at 11:34 AM on November 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

Giuliani's main life task since 9/11 has been trying to feel as relevant as he did in the month after the towers fell. The sense of his desperation has only grown stronger as the years have passed. His active lobbying for this doesn't surprise me; it only saddens me.
posted by hippybear at 11:37 AM on November 25, 2016 [28 favorites]

overheard on Facebook:

"Today, more Americans are shopping for shit they don't need than bothered to vote for a president they absolutely can't do without. Who/what owns you?"
posted by philip-random at 11:41 AM on November 25, 2016 [36 favorites]

% saying country on wrong track
China 10
India 25
Peru 45
US 62
Germany 70
France, Mexico 90 via @dinapomeranz

Germany!!
posted by Golden Eternity at 11:47 AM on November 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

% saying country on wrong track
China 10
India 25
Peru 45
US 62
Germany 70
France, Mexico 90 via @dinapomeranz

Germany!!

With people's largest concern being poverty and social inequality. France is unemployment. Mexico crime and violence and US, terrorism.
posted by Jalliah at 11:55 AM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

Secret Service Might Pay Donald Trump For Luxurious Digs In Trump Tower

TL;DR -- The secret service needs to rent space from the Donald in order to protect the Donald, using tax money the Donald doesn't pay. Or something.
posted by Capt. Renault at 12:03 PM on November 25, 2016 [24 favorites]

It's France that will deliver the next election shock - Le Pen next Spring.
posted by Coda Tronca at 12:03 PM on November 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

Conversation:

"I just feel like everyone thinks I'm some kind of huge asshole for voting for Trump. They're outwardly polite, but behind the small talk they're really thinking I'm some piece of garbage. "
(LONG PAUSE)
Me: "Your hair looks nice. Did you do something different with it?"
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:08 PM on November 25, 2016 [193 favorites]

TL;DR -- The secret service needs to rent space from the Donald in order to protect the Donald, using tax money the Donald doesn't pay. Or something.

I'm starting to wonder whether another aftermath of this election will be scores of people simply not paying / filing their taxes because Trump doesn't. For people buying his message on its sound-bite level, that makes you smart, right? I have a feeling they'll have more repercussions for it. Then again maybe that too is OKIYAR
posted by Mchelly at 12:08 PM on November 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

> $5 on waking up to realize 2016 was just a bad dream all along.

Some of us are still holding out hope for the giant meteor.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:09 PM on November 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

> Our first Magic 8-Ball president.

Outlook not so good
posted by farlukar at 12:10 PM on November 25, 2016 [28 favorites]

It's France that will deliver the next election shock - Le Pen next Spring.

I don't even know if Le Pen will be particularly a shock; lots of people seem to be talking about it as a possibility. Don't like the sound of Fillon tacking to the right here, either. If it has to be a conservative, Juppe sounds like a good choice. But anyone but the fascist, really. The only thing consoling me is the polls, and I'm not sure how much to trust those.
posted by Pink Frost at 12:11 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

So if I were the Russians, whether I had messed with the election or not, after inauguration I would definitely be leaking inconclusive but suggestive documents pointing to hacking the vote somehow.

Maybe fake emails leaked to wikileaks for example. Or a "rogue" official makes a slip of the tongue. Or some code shows up on BitTorrent. As an intelligence officer it would almost be malpractice not to do this. In fact, anyone could get in on the fun.

I guess this is a prediction ....
posted by Rumple at 12:11 PM on November 25, 2016 [10 favorites]

Laurie Penny, Against Bargaining:

Normalization is not just a thing people do because they secretly like fascism and want it to win. Well, not all of them. Normalization is also psychic armour. It is a way of making the intolerable tolerable. It is a survival strategy, and like many such strategies, it is largely available to those with least to lose. Most black and LGBT Americans, along with anyone else who grew up feeling unsafe in America, moved through the stages of grief for a culture that cared about their lives long ago. For everyone else, the same grief is sore and shocking, and it’s causing some strange behavior.

The trouble with the five stages of grief is that one of them is bargaining. . . .

posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 12:12 PM on November 25, 2016 [36 favorites]

France is unemployment. Mexico crime and violence and US, terrorism.
If your #1 fear is Terrorism, you're handing 'terrorists' a total victory. America just LOVES to feel terrorized.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:19 PM on November 25, 2016 [17 favorites]

I donated $29 towards the recount effort because even though I think overturning the election is extremely unlikely, I'm willing to forgo two pizzas to try. I would be willing to give up pizza for the entirety of Hillary Clinton's presidency, if that's what takes to get her there.
posted by double block and bleed at 12:24 PM on November 25, 2016 [45 favorites]

If you support the recount efforts in PA/MI/WI, volunteers are needed in all three states and PA also needs voters in each district to file affidavits requesting a recount. Click on the state name for more info. Let's make this happen -- it's a super long shot in terms of making any real difference to the results, but remember when Trump becoming president was a super long shot? And regardless of that, if recounts help make future election hacks less likely, they're more than worth it.
posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 12:30 PM on November 25, 2016 [31 favorites]

If your #1 fear is Terrorism, you're handing 'terrorists' a total victory. America just LOVES to feel terrorized.

I'm coming to the conclusion that everything Americans claim to be afraid of is bullshit because they are not acting like they are actually afraid of those things. Terrorism? So where is the massive move to address the culture of online recruitment for the cult of misogyny that is behind, oh, 90 percent of the mass violent attacks in this country? And probably 95 percent of the terroristic threats? And maybe you're a dude and so you're not so much afraid of getting caught up in misogynistic violence, which is selfish and short-sighted and won't protect you when a guy goes on a shooting spree after killing his girlfriend, but why aren't you worried about the growth of a violent right wing, which is responsible for a majority of the political violence in this country?

No, when these people say "terrorism," they mean "Muslim terrorism," and, increasingly on Social Media they also mean Black Lives Matter, who they are convinced are tearing up American cities.

So its not terrorism you're afraid of, is it, you liars? It's brown people.

I am so sick of this shadow puppet game that people play to pretend they aren't raging racists. It makes it impossible to address racism, because they put it in a veneer of reasonableness that fractures the moment it is examined, but they refuse to be in the company of those that force them to examine it, and, when they are, they become belligerent and start relying on closed loop arguments, like refusing to accept any news that doesn't come from a hyper-partisan source that they already agree with.
posted by maxsparber at 12:31 PM on November 25, 2016 [130 favorites]

The only recount Jill Stein is going to fund is the recount of her bank balance as she watches it go up and up and up.

Prove me wrong, Jill.
posted by Justinian at 12:31 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

If you don't think recounts are a good idea that's one thing. If you think they're a good idea but still oppose them because you don't like the person who's leading the effort, well, welcome to the American left I guess.
posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 12:35 PM on November 25, 2016 [39 favorites]

@WI_Elections A recount petition has not yet been received by @WI_Elections from Jill Stein campaign. Deadline 5pm. We will issue press release when filed
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 12:38 PM on November 25, 2016 [7 favorites]

It's not that we don't think they are a good idea, it's that we don't think Jill Stein has any intention to follow through. At least I don't.

see also: WI_Elections
posted by Justinian at 12:40 PM on November 25, 2016

Who the hell goes to the Tenement museum to bash immigrants? I mean, why would you even spend your time taking the tour?

people who are hella nostalgic for the time when immigration to the US was mostly white europeans, like their own ancestors, and when federal laws existed to specifically exclude certain races/nationalities.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:43 PM on November 25, 2016 [14 favorites]

There's a lot of space between (a) skepticism toward Stein's motives and ability to deliver on her promises, and (b) opposing the recount itself. I'm less frustrated by Stein than I am frustrated that other folks, including Clinton and her team, decided to take a pass, leaving the door open for perhaps the worst possible messenger to assume the mantle.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:44 PM on November 25, 2016 [8 favorites]

Yeah, the kind of person who shits up a visit to the tenement museum doesn't think of white people as immigrants, or their own ancestors as immigrants. It's another flavor of fuck you, got mine. It's a side effect of turning the word immigrant into a thinly veiled slur, as well.
posted by palomar at 12:46 PM on November 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

@kwelkernbc Two PEOTUS staff positions today: Kathleen McFarland for Dep. Nat. Security Adviser and Don McGhan, WH Counsel. Neither need senate conf.

Reuters Trump names Washington lawyer McGahn White House Counsel

McGahn, a partner at Jones Day, one of the world’s largest law firms, served as counsel to Trump during his presidential campaign.

A former chairman of the Federal Election Commission and considered a top elections lawyer, McGahn may be charged with untangling the thicket of potential conflicts of interest that Trump, a real estate mogul with holdings all over the world, presents.

Trump has said that as president, he will try to separate himself from running his company, turning it over to his children, but has resisted calls to place his assets in a blind trust.

Trump may also look for a legal means by which to bring his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, onto his White House staff, circumventing a law that prevents federal officials from hiring family members.

Gee how will he get around that pesky nepotism law. Stay tuned and find out.

McFarland, who served in three Republican administrations and was an aide to Henry Kissinger in the 1970s, will work with Lt. General Michael Flynn

I'm beginning to believe his idea of draining the swamp is you turn over every rock and find the creature wriggling underneath and install them in the White House.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 12:47 PM on November 25, 2016 [21 favorites]

I'd say if she actually did it her political career would be over but...

Hey, the scheme worked for Kucinich... Who I voted and prosthelytized for as presidential candidate for years before I figured out that scam.

But I figure: A) Stein will use some of the money for the recount and B) If there was fraud, the Republican machine is better at scheming then the Green party is at winning. And that's coming from somebody who C) voted for Stein in 2008.
posted by formless at 12:50 PM on November 25, 2016

Put me down for $5 on Electoral College Revolt, $5 on the Stein Recount, and $20 on Elaborate Joke by Andy Kaufman.

I'd take the other side of those wagers.
posted by jpe at 12:50 PM on November 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm feeling a little bad for my proud Trump supporter student. The day after the election I went into class wearing all black and saying I was grieving she innocently said *why* like I think she really thought my mom died or something.

Two days before, on election day, she told me she had voted for Trump and me, looking 538, Sam Wang, I was all, okay, you voted for Trump, you know I'm a pinko, and together, knowing Trump is going to lose, we exist in harmony.

I have 100% not baited her post election but I have seen her get more and more and more surly. Not towards me, but just like *I hate everybody*. Dollars to donuts she's repeatedly heard that she's a dumb hick and, you know? I get why dumb hicks get sad when they're called dumb hicks. I was a dumb hick for a long time myself, and that would make me sad to know that a large portion of the country thinks that I'm a piece of shit.

And this little microcosm of an interaction is one of the reasons why each day since the election I've woken up with the thoughts *war is coming no don't be stupid no I really think war is coming*. Every day I tell myself, look, I'm being a paranoid stoner stop it the sky is not falling and then I read Krugman or Blow to be all it is not end times and then those dudes are kind of like, nope, we're not here to reassure you, things are fucked.

It's just so easy to see:

Stupid Trump whatever bombed in wherever
Trump decides to bomb the shit out of whatever
The left is like HELLS NO NOT AGAIN
Shit goes down in the U.S.

I mean that's before we get to whatever monsters the Sec of Ed and Paul Ryan let out of the cage on the domestic front.

I mean I keep looking at this and being all, no no no, everybody will calm down, angrycat you are stoned and paranoid.

And it's like, but I'm really sober right now. In my coldest sober moments, I look at this shit and I feel war coming, I feel it in my bones.
posted by angrycat at 12:56 PM on November 25, 2016 [85 favorites]

The Hill Report: Trump team wants Romney to apologize

Fox News is reporting that Donald Trump’s transition team wants Mitt Romney to publicly apologize for railing against the president-elect during the campaign.

A transition official told Fox’s Ed Henry that some in Trump’s inner circle want the former Massachusetts governor to apologize in order to be seriously considered for the secretary of State.

Trump is reportedly considering whether to pick Romney or former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for the coveted cabinet position.

Giuliani is the preferred choice of Trump’s loyalists and grassroots supporters, while Romney is a favorite of establishment conservatives.

This is sickening and I don't even like Romney. It is Authoritarianism in all its shitty glory. Romney must first humble himself to the Dominant silverback and then he may or may not be offered the position. Any decent President would stand next to Romney and announce "I know we have had our differences in the past but I have convinced Mitt to work together for the good of the country." No prostration required.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 12:59 PM on November 25, 2016 [115 favorites]

This is sickening and I don't even like Romney. It is Authoritarianism in all its shitty glory.

Authoritarianism? Bullying. Not that I have much respect for Romney at this point, either.
posted by Capt. Renault at 1:04 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

$5 on a divorce for Jared and Ivanka to get around nepotism laws.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 1:08 PM on November 25, 2016 [8 favorites]

I may not be a huge fan of Romney, but Russia seems pissed at the prospect of him, so I'll take it.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 1:09 PM on November 25, 2016 [9 favorites]

@angrycat, yeah. I think the last time I remember feeling like this was, actually, 9/11. Highschool. People were screaming about wanting to carpet bomb Afghanistan back to the stone age, I started screaming back; the thought of more innocent people being killed after the brutality of the towers was sickening and inevitable. Elected officials were having a patriotic sing-along on the Senate floor, the same herd of trucks roaring around the street with US flags and a lot of anger. That ugly flare of mob rule. That very sober, very quiet but very deep feeling of "people will die for this." I feel you.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 1:10 PM on November 25, 2016 [32 favorites]

Kathleen McFarland for Dep. Nat. Security Adviser

Jesus he can pick them...here is TPM from March 2006 carrying a story first published in the New York Post:

A Republican challenger to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is bizarrely claiming that the former first lady has been spying in her bedroom window and flying helicopters over her house in the Hamptons, witnesses told The Post yesterday.

Former Reagan-era Pentagon official Kathleen "KT" McFarland stunned a crowd of Suffolk County Republicans on Thursday by saying:

"Hillary Clinton is really worried about me, and is so worried, in fact, that she had helicopters flying over my house in Southampton today taking pictures," according to a prominent GOP activist who was at the event.

"She wasn't joking, she was very, very serious, and she also claimed that Clinton's people were taking pictures across the street from her house in Manhattan, taking pictures from an apartment across the street from her bedroom," added the eyewitness, who is not involved in the Senate race.

And she is going to be the Deputy National Security Advisor. I think Trump Tower must have a side entrance labeled: Wingnuts apply here.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 1:11 PM on November 25, 2016 [44 favorites]

I mean I keep looking at this and being all, no no no, everybody will calm down, angrycat you are stoned and paranoid.

And it's like, but I'm really sober right now. In my coldest sober moments, I look at this shit and I feel war coming, I feel it in my bones.

It's like the whole thing about "hope for the best but plan for the worst" is something I could maybe do if the entire window of the possible best hadn't shifted so dramatically away from the best I might hope for... I don't even know what the low redefined-best bar is I should be hoping for, because all my imagination overshoots what is conceivable to happen now.
posted by hippybear at 1:14 PM on November 25, 2016 [13 favorites]

Secret Life of Gravy: " I think Trump Tower must have a side entrance labeled: Wingnuts apply here."

Successful applicants soon to be relabeled the "West Wingnuts."
posted by Riki tiki at 1:16 PM on November 25, 2016 [35 favorites]

The Greens are live broadcasting their filing and WI_Elections aren't tweeting about it. COME ON HIPPIES, GET IT TOGETHER.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 1:17 PM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

Daddy, Will the Fallout Shelter have WiFi? Alison Bechdel sees the future (and it's murder).
posted by Rumple at 1:20 PM on November 25, 2016 [10 favorites]

This is going to be very difficult to counter, because it's only profitable if you target your fake news at the right. "Coler says his writers have tried to write fake news for liberals — but they just never take the bait."

I'd love to believe that this was true, but I suspect what they mean is, it's more difficult, so they don't bother. Fake news is all about pandering to peoples' prejudices, and isn't really different in any important regard to tabloid journalism, which has at best a casual and uncommitted relationship to the truth, anyway.

Ironically "Liberals never share fake news, we tried and only the reactionary idiots on the right do" would make a pretty good piece of left-leaning fake news. Hmmm.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 1:25 PM on November 25, 2016 [7 favorites]

Who the hell goes to the Tenement museum to bash immigrants? I mean, why would you even spend your time taking the tour?

The same people who go to Starbucks and spend money just to hear the barista say "Trump." In other words, people who are permanently aggrieved, and who feel the rest of the country now owes them, paid in humiliation and suffering.
posted by krinklyfig at 1:27 PM on November 25, 2016 [13 favorites]

I've seen plenty of fakeish liberal news, it tends to fall in the magic vitamins/magic cancer cure range though.
posted by emjaybee at 1:28 PM on November 25, 2016 [18 favorites]

Cognitive linguist George Lakoff has a long analysis of the election results in terms of conceptual frames, political language, and metaphor: A Minority President
posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 1:33 PM on November 25, 2016 [14 favorites]

Cards Against Humanity is digging a giant hole in the earth. This makes more sense to me than American politics at the moment.
posted by localhuman at 1:33 PM on November 25, 2016 [38 favorites]

DirtyOldTown: “Me: "Your hair looks nice. Did you do something different with it?"”

See, that's why Thanksgiving was MST3K and quesadillas for me. (Crujido de Caballero to be precise. A Croque Monsieur, but on a tortilla. I did make them with turkey instead of ham in a concession to the holiday.) The nicest possible thing I might say to such a… person … is, "God might forgive you, but I NEVER will."
posted by ob1quixote at 1:36 PM on November 25, 2016 [9 favorites]

Authoritarianism? Bullying. Not that I have much respect for Romney at this point, either.

The word "bully" always sounds like a label used for children. The more accurate labels for this kind of adult would be "abuser," "narcissist," and "authoritarian," or "autocrat." Maybe "tinpot dictator."
posted by krinklyfig at 1:37 PM on November 25, 2016 [26 favorites]

Successful applicants soon to be relabeled the "West Wingnuts."

It could be the lead-in to Stephen Colbert's Late Show and his newest segment: "Better Know a Wingnut". [fake :(]
posted by Talez at 1:37 PM on November 25, 2016

The WI recount petition has been filed.
posted by zachlipton at 1:39 PM on November 25, 2016 [46 favorites]

@WI_Elections: The Commission has received the Stein and Del La Fuente recount petitions. Details and news release posted soon at http://elections.wi.gov .
posted by threeturtles at 1:40 PM on November 25, 2016 [20 favorites]

Anyone dusted off the old "Surely this..." generator? Or do we need to build a new version?
posted by fungible at 1:42 PM on November 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

Wow, I really thought they would take the money and run.
posted by Justinian at 1:43 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Is this debate about whether Jill Stein is trying to enrich herself actually serious?


Jesus, the smug attitude on this site, sometimes.
posted by My Dad at 1:44 PM on November 25, 2016 [13 favorites]

I've seen plenty of fakeish liberal news, it tends to fall in the magic vitamins/magic cancer cure range though.

Yes, but it's decidedly on the fringe, sometimes becoming talking points and platform positions for the Green Party. The problem with the Republican Party is that the fringe has become the base, and in the meantime the existing base has been otherwise trained not to trust the "MSM" in favor of Fox and other conservative media.
posted by krinklyfig at 1:46 PM on November 25, 2016 [7 favorites]

I never thought they would take the money and run -- good grief, there'd be huge consequences to that. Stein may be politically naive and unqualified for the Oval Office, but she's perfectly capable of understanding the principle and aims of a recount, and she's doing the right thing here. Thank heavens for her.
posted by orange swan at 1:47 PM on November 25, 2016 [70 favorites]

So is the recount push happening because it's close in general and people would like to be sure, or because of stuff like this? (a tweet referenced).

"It’s worth noting that these three precincts only got caught because the extra votes they gave to Donald Trump just happened to push the presidential vote totals above the overall vote totals in those precincts, making it easily spotted by online gawkers."

(Not sure if I'm being suckered in by something I desperately want to be true or there's something to this. I didn't see this specific piece linked yet.)
posted by ODiV at 1:48 PM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

Trump would have taken the money and ran.
posted by maxsparber at 1:48 PM on November 25, 2016 [7 favorites]

So is the recount push happening because it's close in general and people would like to be sure, or because of stuff like this?

As I said in the last thread, I personally donated because, even if we don't flip a state, we keep the news cycle narrative about questioning the legitimacy of Trump's win for several more weeks. Everything we can do during his (hopefully short) term to keep the media from falling into a cycle of regurgitating whatever is currently dribbling out of the racist yam's mouth is a minor victory.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 1:51 PM on November 25, 2016 [33 favorites]

From the Wisconsin Election Commission site:

The Stein campaign will be required to pay for the entire estimated cost of a statewide recount before a recount will be ordered. We need your help in determining how much it will cost for you and your municipal counterparts to conduct this recount. It is recommended that you start looking at figures from the 2011 Supreme Court recount and cost projections that you or your predecessor put together for the Associated Press. One option is to look at the number of ballots that were recounted in 2011 and to extrapolate based upon the number of ballots counted in the presidential election.

So if the Wisconsin Election Commission has only just directed the counties to determine how much this will cost, it's probably worth cutting the Greens some slack over those inflating estimates. It's a lot easier to understate the cost of something like this than to overstate it.
posted by Mothlight at 1:52 PM on November 25, 2016 [54 favorites]

To be fair, the magic vitamins/cancer cure stuff targets conservatives, too, at least in my observation. After all, look what doctor Donnie chose to tell the world how healthy he (Trump) was on the campaign trail.

It seems that, by and large, it's easier to lead conservatives down a rabbit hole of blatantly fake news. As I said in one of the earlier election threads, it's as if the High Weirdness By Mail cranks are now leading the country.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 1:54 PM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

Why does the responsibility for paying fall on a third party? Doesn't the government have a vested interest in a functioning democracy?
posted by Yowser at 1:55 PM on November 25, 2016 [26 favorites]

The word "bully" always sounds like a label used for children. The more accurate labels for this kind of adult would be "abuser," "narcissist," and "authoritarian," or "autocrat." Maybe "tinpot dictator."

Possibly, but I always prefer bully because it underscores and reinforces the continuity of our adolescent social behaviors and "adult" ones. We do act like children a lot of time, even as adults. I think we tend to compartmentalize our bullying behaviors as adults in ways that cleverly delude is into feeling self righteous and justified about it, but the basic mechanics of our social politics aren't much different than life on the playground; we just become more competent sneaks as we gain experience... /cynicalmoment
posted by saulgoodman at 1:55 PM on November 25, 2016 [7 favorites]

I've seen plenty of fakeish liberal news, it tends to fall in the magic vitamins/magic cancer cure range though.

Back when I used to hang out at Daily Kos regularly, I'd see a lot of fake-ish news. Probably none of it was from a concerted effort to mislead anyone, but rather the rumor mill going amok from the sheer paranoia of the Bush years. One example I remember well, because I was naive enough to repost it here, was of a change of orders to a carrier group which allegedly would put it in position to bomb Iran within a few days. I also remember a lot of stuff surrounding Cheney, even after he was sidelined by Bush in the second term, and how he was going to ensure the Bush Administration would somehow cancel elections or start imprisoning bloggers, etc.

That's the sort of fake news I expect to see on the left in the next four years. When reality itself is weird and paranoid, and the administration shadowy and secretive, it's going to be difficult to parse out what's real and what's not.
posted by honestcoyote at 1:56 PM on November 25, 2016 [17 favorites]

Why does the responsibility for paying fall on a third party? Doesn't the government have a vested interest in a functioning democracy?

It varies by jurisdiction, but many states or counties have rules that say if the difference of the vote falls within a narrow margin, it triggers an automatic recount paid for by the government. Recounts that fall outside that margin are allowed, but the requesting party has to pay for it. It is a policy that makes sense to me. Pay for close vote recounts because a close vote could be a counting error either direction, but larger margins are usually a fishing expedition.
posted by hippybear at 2:00 PM on November 25, 2016 [7 favorites]

So hypothetically. The recounts end up showing that someone's been fiddling with votes. What happens?
And what happens if the votes are unfiddled and it points towards Clinton getting more?

Complete and utter hell breaks loose?
posted by Jalliah at 2:02 PM on November 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

To me, a big chunk of it is also that we need to retain the idea that voting matters. That the actual count of the vote matters. That this isn't just a popularity contest that you can win by having a slight edge when the earliest unreliable totals are posted. I'd really like to get away from the idea that winners and losers should actually be announced that night, or even the following morning, at all. The actual correct number of votes ought to matter more than the number of votes as reported at the end of voting on Election Night, but we've gotten very used to treating it like those details don't matter.

I'm seriously starting to think that a huge chunk of the American population now is getting used to thinking of democracy as an obsolete and largely ceremonial thing. People are getting used to the idea that money controls government and that government controls us and it might as well be Trump because it's all shit no matter what. That kind of lack of faith in the legitimacy of the government is something that's been keeping me up at night on a regular basis now.
posted by Sequence at 2:03 PM on November 25, 2016 [74 favorites]

What happens?

You know the scene in Airplane when the stewardess asks if anyone can fly a plane?
posted by maxsparber at 2:04 PM on November 25, 2016 [21 favorites]

Donald Trump's national security chief 'took money from Putin and Erdogan', says former NSA employee. The former general will not require Senate approval to take up the senior security position

Russian propaganda helped spread 'fake news' during Donald Trump's election victory, say experts. Putin, a former KGB officer, has previously announced his desire to 'break the Anglo-Saxon monopoly on the global information streams'
posted by homunculus at 2:04 PM on November 25, 2016 [17 favorites]

Why does the responsibility for paying fall on a third party? Doesn't the government have a vested interest in a functioning democracy?

States pay the cost for recounts when it's within a set percentage where there's a decent chance of a realist change. And the recount is automatic. When it's not within that percentage, the appealing party pays.

EDIT: Or what hippybear said.
posted by chris24 at 2:05 PM on November 25, 2016

Possibly, but I always prefer bully because it underscores and reinforces the continuity of our adolescent social behaviors and "adult" ones.

Well, I don't think the word "bully" fully explains the type of behavior involved. Abuse and narcissism isn't adolescent behavior for most adolescents; they describe patterns of behavior that are common to many adults, and which affect other adults, sometimes in a manner that will affect the health and well being of the victim. I mean, just ask people who have PTSD from abuse, like myself, how much Trump triggers them. I wasn't sexually abused, but his narcissism is so obvious that he sets off all my alarms and red flags. I can't listen to his voice for too long without feeling the pain familiar to my PTSD creep into my body. These are adult problems (although for many of us, the abuse occurred before we were adults).

Anyway, this kind of extreme narcissism is common in authoritarian leaders and dictators. These aren't children either. They may have developed these problems as children, but their behavior as leaders causes suffering, death and destruction.
posted by krinklyfig at 2:05 PM on November 25, 2016 [6 favorites]

The Hill Report: Trump team wants Romney to apologize

@GossiTheDog: Mitt's book title was great. (jpeg)
posted by Golden Eternity at 2:05 PM on November 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

Someone upthread said Trump was in poor health. Do we have anything factual on that? He's a very overweight man in his 70s with a grifter as an MD but beyond that we know nothing. If he were to drop dead in 2016 there's a bottle of very good Scotch that's going to get consumed and I ain't pouring out a drop for the fucker. But I need something to base this dream upon.
posted by Ber at 2:08 PM on November 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

Recount request sent to Wisconsin...
posted by A Terrible Llama at 2:09 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

WaPo: Trump isn't interested in daily intelligence briefings. Anyone surprised? We're in for yet another lesson, courtesy of the Republican Party, in what happens when the US goes without a chief executive for four or eight years.
posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 2:11 PM on November 25, 2016 [26 favorites]

Doctors see a new condition among immigrant children: fear of Trump. Pediatricians serving undocumented immigrants report a spike in anxiety and panic attacks after the US election, as children live with threat of deportation
posted by homunculus at 2:11 PM on November 25, 2016 [11 favorites]

There's a Dec 13 deadline by which states have to certify their vote in order to be sure their electors will be able to participate in the EC vote. There's a chance this recount could drag on past that, meaning the WI electors would have to separately meet before Jan 6, and then it would be up to the House to decide whether to count WI electors I think (obviously Paul Ryan will make sure they're counted).

At this point, I'm hoping for endless lawsuits.
posted by melissasaurus at 2:11 PM on November 25, 2016 [11 favorites]

I think Jill Stein demanding the recount is actually kind of genius because it takes the pressure totally off the Clinton team, for whom demanding a recount could be really bad optics. I hope a bunch of wealthy Clinton donors are funneling money in that direction.
posted by en forme de poire at 2:12 PM on November 25, 2016 [98 favorites]

Sequence: I'm seriously starting to think that a huge chunk of the American population now is getting used to thinking of democracy as an obsolete and largely ceremonial thing. People are getting used to the idea that money controls government and that government controls us and it might as well be Trump because it's all shit no matter what. That kind of lack of faith in the legitimacy of the government is something that's been keeping me up at night on a regular basis now.

Another "if only I had a million favorites to give" comment. I agree with you. It's something that has been worrying me for some time, and it honestly has been keeping me awake at nights (and helping me profit the Ambien manufacturers) since the election. There is a basic lack of civic investment and literacy I am seeing, and where it really sticks out is at the state and local level. Democrats and progressives need, I hate to say this, something that would work like the Tea Party movement, on a grassroots level. (And no throwing anyone under the bus, either. LGBT people, POC, women, are all as worried as the much-vaunted Working Class White voter about economic security. They're all more likely to be poor! Black unemployment is twice that of whites! Trans people have a sky-high level of unemployment and poverty! "Economic security for all" is a big big tent!)

This is what I want to focus on in my going forward with what I'm going to actually do about The Looming Orange.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 2:12 PM on November 25, 2016 [31 favorites]

He's a very overweight man in his 70s with a grifter as an MD but beyond that we know nothing.

The very rich don't die. Cheney has been without a heartbeat since 2010 and he's still doing whatever he does.

Oh, playing sports, apparently.
posted by maxsparber at 2:13 PM on November 25, 2016 [9 favorites]

PSA: there is no Clinton team.
posted by Yowser at 2:13 PM on November 25, 2016

People are getting used to the idea that money controls government and that government controls us and it might as well be Trump because it's all shit no matter what.

I can't really see how anyone could disagree with the first two concepts, if not more.
posted by Coda Tronca at 2:18 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think we just hope if that happens that Trump realizes he could make a hell of a lot of money being the guy that Clinton "stole" the election from and making a lot of noise about that for the next decade or so.
posted by dilaudid at 2:21 PM on November 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

He would definitely prefer that.
posted by Coda Tronca at 2:26 PM on November 25, 2016 [6 favorites]

Democrats were pretty responsible and didn't jump on this election rigging story. And their reward was Dem voters gave Stein $5mm.
posted by My Dad at 2:27 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Like what will happen when they try to gut Medicare?

We got these huge ice floes, they're just tremendously big, the best in hundreds of years. Not disappearing at all.
posted by bonehead at 2:27 PM on November 25, 2016 [7 favorites]

Sequence: I'm seriously starting to think that a huge chunk of the American population now is getting used to thinking of democracy as an obsolete and largely ceremonial thing. People are getting used to the idea that money controls government and that government controls us and it might as well be Trump because it's all shit no matter what. That kind of lack of faith in the legitimacy of the government is something that's been keeping me up at night on a regular basis now.

No. Trump won because he opposed free trade, and Clinton had a long history of supporting it. As Michael Moore correctly pointed out, the states which put Trump over the top were the exact same states which twice supported Obama. That's a brutally depressing point, but also very revealing. Trump "winning" is karma for Democrats (especially the Clintons) supporting free trade, an absolute betrayal of the working class. This is why it's crucial for the Democratic Party to double down on job protection, even going as far as making it their number one priority going forward.
posted by Beholder at 2:28 PM on November 25, 2016 [25 favorites]

she beat the "both sides are equally terrible" drum harder than anyone else this election. That was problematic

"Problematic" isn't the word for it.

Which is a horse I've beaten into the ground, so I'll focus on another aspect of the Explaining Jill Stein motif.

Awhile back, I happened to look up the Unitarian Jihad satire from 2005. I remember it as being funny, and it kind of still is. But the point it emphasizes is one that I don't think most social liberals are willing to subscribe to anymore (though maybe we should), which is that (to quote it) sincerity is not enough. Just because you believe something doesn't make it true, and even if it's true, that doesn't make pursuing it a morally neutral act.

We're willing to reject claims that Trump voters are good but misguided people, but I think we need to apply that same level of scrutiny to the extreme left. Believing in a cause isn't enough when the choices it justifies are harmful. I'm sick of sincerity, and I'm sick of coddling the very sincere people who damage due to their overwhelming naivety.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 2:37 PM on November 25, 2016 [23 favorites]

Trump won because he opposed free trade, and Clinton had a long history of supporting it.

Hardly. Trump won because he was willing to talk shit about brown people. It turns out almost nobody gives a shit about free trade. However, in railing against free trade, Trump was able to repeatedly paint a portrait of an America humiliated by China and Mexico, playing on the racial unease of his audience.
posted by maxsparber at 2:37 PM on November 25, 2016 [94 favorites]

A Jeb! op ed in the WSJ

Where Republicans Go From Here

Republicans should support convening a constitutional convention to pass term limits, a balanced-budget amendment and restraints on the Commerce Clause, which has given the federal government far more regulatory power than the Founders intended.[...]

What will this mean? The GOP should use its power in Congress and state capitals to test ideas to transform education, limit burdensome regulations, accelerate innovation and unleash our economy. Republicans should stand behind emerging technologies that are helping people customize their lives in new and dramatic ways. This is our chance to contrast our approach, which trusts people to make good choices, with the failed Democratic and progressive top-down approach, which prefers government to decide almost everything.

Most critically, Republicans should reverse the Obama-era policies that have made America weaker, both here and abroad. We need to repeal and replace ObamaCare, eliminate business-killing regulations, and reverse the massive expansion of government. While we protect our borders and our laws, we should also take on the hard work of reforming legal immigration and affirming the role that immigrants play in building up our economy and our nation.

More of that voodoo shit. Unleash businesses from regulation and watch our economy grow! Shrink the feds and everyone's* life will be so much better.

Everyone = does not include anyone who is poor, sick, not of the majority race, not of the majority sexual persuasion, not of the majority way of thinking/religiosity.


No. Trump won because he opposed free trade, and Clinton had a long history of supporting it. As Michael Moore correctly pointed out, the states which put Trump over the top were the exact same states which twice supported Obama. That's a brutally depressing point, but also very revealing

You know what else that Trump and Obama (and G. Bush) had in common? They were fresh on the scene. My life did not immediately become better so let's try someone new. Oh, and they were all male. But you already knew that.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 2:38 PM on November 25, 2016 [28 favorites]

Oh goody. If we're in for another round of leftist circular firing squad I'll just check back out of the Thread and go work on some more activism.
posted by threeturtles at 2:38 PM on November 25, 2016 [24 favorites]

WaPo: Trump isn't interested in daily intelligence briefings. Anyone surprised? We're in for yet another lesson, courtesy of the Republican Party, in what happens when the US goes without a chief executive for four or eight years.

I'm okay with this. Let Sir Humphrey deal with it.
posted by ocschwar at 2:43 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

So hypothetically. The recounts end up showing that someone's been fiddling with votes. What happens? Complete and utter hell breaks loose?

As opposed toooooo . . . ?
posted by petebest at 2:46 PM on November 25, 2016 [11 favorites]

Hardly. Trump won because he was willing to talk shit about brown people. It turns out almost nobody gives a shit about free trade.

But the only surprises were rust belt states. Michigan and Ohio just magically flipped for Trump, and trade had nothing to do with it? It was all immigration rhetoric? Well, Romney also supported border security and deportations, yet he lost those states. Again, those are states which were solid victories for a Black President with a foreign sounding last name.

It's too convenient to blame this on immigrant bashing. Yes, that was part of it, but that is no excuse for Democrats not to come full circle on trade and acknowledge the devastating impact it has had on the American working class. Democrats must embrace job protection or they risk losing this issue to Republicans.
posted by Beholder at 2:51 PM on November 25, 2016 [22 favorites]

Re: Trump appointments: You know that moment in an old school RPG where you're in the last dungeon and on your way to fight the Big Boss you have to fight all the shitty lesser bosses that you already defeated in previous dungeons? And you're just like, for real? This dude is back again?

Yeah that.
posted by supercrayon at 2:51 PM on November 25, 2016 [53 favorites]

HUD Is Essential to the Fight Against Poverty. Ben Carson Will Lobotomize It.
posted by Golden Eternity at 2:52 PM on November 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

The Hill Report: Trump team wants Romney to apologize

Fun thing from that article: Trump's surrogate is Mike Huckabee, who takes pains to call out Mitt's dissent as the "Salt Lake City" speech. Huckabee also might well be the only politician to make hay over Mormon theology while facing Romney as opposition.

Mormons sooo want to believe they're cultural allies with Evangelicals and the rest of the Christian world. It's almost funny. Just about as funny as the working chunk of the country that really genuinely thinks that Republicans are their tribe.

Of course it's not a religious dig, right Mike? Wouldn't be a Christian thing to do.
posted by wildblueyonder at 2:53 PM on November 25, 2016 [9 favorites]

So hypothetically. The recounts end up showing that someone's been fiddling with votes.

Any recount is virtually certain to return slightly different numbers than the original election, if only because the small smattering of inevitable, basically-random errors in the recount will be different from those in the original election. This won't mean anyone was "fiddling" with anything.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:55 PM on November 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

HUD Is Essential to the Fight Against Poverty. Ben Carson Will Lobotomize It.

Where is my button for "Thanks for posting this but it makes me sad."
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 2:57 PM on November 25, 2016 [11 favorites]

Ctrl-alt-right-delete
posted by chavenet at 2:59 PM on November 25, 2016 [26 favorites]

Has anyone said "The Producers, but with America" yet?

(on preview, yes)
posted by ODiV at 3:00 PM on November 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

From the HUD link:

Carson’s appointment is par for the course for a GOP administration. “Modern GOP presidents have relegated the HUD secretary to an affirmative-action posting, a spot where Republicans like to demonstrate their alleged commitment to diversity in the cabinet, while giving those people authority for all the programs Republicans don't care about, or would like, ideally, to get rid of,” Stephanie Mencimer wrote in Mother Jones in 2008. Ronald Reagan once mistook his own HUD secretary Samuel Pierce, the only black member of his cabinet, for a mayor at a White House reception. Pierce, whose tenure was characterized by corruption and graft, also used his post to staunchly defend cuts to HUD’s housing subsidies.

I...ugh. Words fail me. I think what I am feeling is just sad sadness.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 3:03 PM on November 25, 2016 [12 favorites]

Well if the general election recount does happen to result in a Democratic victory-from-jaws-of-defeat, I would like to propose that Mitt be charged by the country to put Trump in a crate, tie him to the top of his car, and drive him back to New York City where the former president-elect can spend the rest of his miserable existence in a pillory outside Trump Tower having rotten fruit and polyglot invective hurled at him every day.
posted by Celsius1414 at 3:04 PM on November 25, 2016 [23 favorites]

This whole Stein thing feels pretty bananas (but I'm not complaining). Anyone have predictions on what will happen? If there were irregularities found and if the results were changed in even one state, it feels like it would have a pretty massive impact on the way we talk about Trump.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 3:06 PM on November 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

This whole Stein thing feels pretty bananas (but I'm not complaining). Anyone have predictions on what will happen?

If Wisconsin flips? The shitshow continues for another couple of weeks. If it doesn't life goes on pointlessly as before.
posted by Talez at 3:10 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

As to the value of HUD, possibly worth noting that Kiefer Sutherland's character now-President Tom Kirkman on Designated Survivor was the designated survivor (that is, not welcome at the State of the Union) because he was the HUD secretary who was about to lose his job.
posted by Bringer Tom at 3:10 PM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

Michigan and Ohio just magically flipped for Trump

He won by 10,704 in Michigan. Ohio went Republican in 2000 and 2004, and they had a big bailout in Obama's second turn. These are battleground states with relatively thin margins every year, so I don't think we can point to free trade as being necessarily the reason they flipped, or even the particular reason they flipped.
posted by maxsparber at 3:14 PM on November 25, 2016 [8 favorites]

If Wisconsin flips? The shitshow continues for another couple of weeks. If it doesn't life goes on pointlessly as before.

So shitshow either way, great, thanks!
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 3:14 PM on November 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

Anyone have predictions on what will happen?

The recounted results will differ from the original ones by 500-1500 votes.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:17 PM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

Could we maybe stop flinging "brown people" around just because it's how we imagine the median Trump voter talking?
posted by Etrigan at 3:19 PM on November 25, 2016 [17 favorites]

So shitshow either way, great, thanks!

Yes but in the case of the second shitshow we know we're fucked. In the first scenario we have false hope for another couple of weeks that we can avoid this disaster.
posted by Talez at 3:19 PM on November 25, 2016

Any recount is virtually certain to return slightly different numbers than the original election, if only because the small smattering of inevitable, basically-random errors in the recount will be different from those in the original election. This won't mean anyone was "fiddling" with anything.

I know the count won't be the same. 'Fiddling' in that the it's not just slightly different but counts that point in the direction of out and out rigging it so Trump would win.
posted by Jalliah at 3:24 PM on November 25, 2016

Yes but in the case of the second shitshow we know we're fucked. In the first scenario we have false hope for another couple of weeks that we can avoid this disaster.

So you're not in favor of a recount?

False hope or no, if there were irregularities exposed it would have a massive impact on the 2020 elections--either institutionally or in terms of a narrative about Trump as a candidate. Shitshow where republicans sneer about having won the game fair and square (which is what my republican relatives are saying) when there may or may not be vote tampering or fudging that happened seems like the worst timeline to me.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 3:26 PM on November 25, 2016 [9 favorites]

Could we maybe stop flinging "brown people" around just because it's how we imagine the median Trump voter talking?

I can not in any way imagine that the median Rump voter would use the term brown people.
posted by ethansr at 3:26 PM on November 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

it's really only been 19 days? I'm so over this. STOOOOOOOOOOP
posted by yueliang at 3:30 PM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

The Lakoff article posted above is good. It's reliant on some background of what he always talks about so it's longish and remedial to start, but it answers my continuing question regarding wtf was up with the polls.

Tl;dr: polls measure issues via demographic data, voters vote values which aren't the same thing at all.

Also, the HRC campaign approach, re: ads

If a conservative says, “we should have tax relief,” she is using the metaphor that taxation is an affliction that we need relief from. If a liberal replies, “No, we don’t need tax relief,” she is accepting the idea that taxation is an affliction. The first thing that is, or should be, taught about political language is not to repeat the language of the other side or negate their framing of the issue.

The Clinton campaign consistently violated the lesson of Don’t Think of an Elephant! They used negative campaigning, assuming they could turn Trump’s most outrageous words against him.

And (vis á vis Nurturing Parent / Strict Father view of liberal/conservative)

What a Strict Father Cannot Be

There are certain things that strict fathers cannot be: A Loser, Corrupt, and especially not a Betrayer of Trust.

Trump lost the popular vote. To the American majority, he is a Loser, a minority president. It needs to be said and repeated.

Above all, Trump is a Betrayer of Trust. He is acting like a dictator, and is even supporting Putin’s anti-American policies.

And lastly:

Right now the majority is fighting back, pointing out what is wrong with Trump day after day. In many cases, they are missing the message of Don’t Think of an Elephant!

By fighting against Trump, many protesters are just showcasing Trump, keeping him in the limelight, rather than highlighting the majority’s positive moral view and viewing the problem with Trump from within the majority’s positive worldview frame. To effectively fight for what is right, you have to first say what is right and why.
posted by petebest at 3:32 PM on November 25, 2016 [22 favorites]

To be fair, Jeb! is kind of right about the commerce clause. The view that almost all sorts of activity, commercial or not, can have an "indirect" effect on interstate commerce, and thus falls under federal purview is a pretty huge power grab, and is why the DEA can come and take your pot plants even if you grow them in your own garden for your own use, for instance.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 3:39 PM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

No. Trump won because he opposed free trade, and Clinton had a long history of supporting it.

Remember all those folks that are not getting unemployment insurance but are also not included in the great "full employment" stats? May not have steady jobs (if any) but they are around to vote.
posted by sammyo at 3:49 PM on November 25, 2016

I've seen plenty of fakeish liberal news, it tends to fall in the magic vitamins/magic cancer cure range though

Yes, but it's decidedly on the fringe, sometimes becoming talking points and platform positions for the Green Party. The problem with the Republican Party is that the fringe has become the base, and in the meantime the existing base has been otherwise trained not to trust the "MSM" in favor of Fox and other conservative media.


I don't know that I would call this stuff "fringe" - it's very popular. However it's also not actually strictly popular on the Left.
posted by atoxyl at 3:53 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

If Jeb! wants to talk about increasing the power of the states, it cuts both ways. The blue states - which voted for Clinton, who want to expand rather than curtail rights for LGBT people, who have more ethnically diverse populations, who are less conservative Christian, who want to legalize pot or at least OK it for medical use - are the economic powerhouses. California, the land where same-gender couples can get married and blaze up at the reception, is an economic powerhouse with a GDP larger than many actual countries.

Jeb! might think that lessening the power of the federal government would universally push the US back to being white and Christian. Nope. Not on California's watch, or Massachusetts' either. And these are the states with the wealth.

I really do not want another constitutional convention on the Republicans' terms, but I don't think it's going to be as easy as Jeb! might think to bring the blue states in line with his vision of White!Christian!'Murika!
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 3:53 PM on November 25, 2016 [7 favorites]

To be fair, Jeb! is kind of right about the commerce clause. The view that almost all sorts of activity, commercial or not, can have an "indirect" effect on interstate commerce, and thus falls under federal purview is a pretty huge power grab, and is why the DEA can come and take your pot plants even if you grow them in your own garden for your own use, for instance.

Except you'd kiss goodbye federal minimum wage laws, federal healthcare regulation, the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 and there's probably enough states to bring in the pot equivalent of the 18th amendment anyway.

So yeah, just gonna throw the baby out with the bathwater on that one.
posted by Talez at 3:56 PM on November 25, 2016 [9 favorites]

Mormons sooo want to believe they're cultural allies with Evangelicals and the rest of the Christian world. It's almost funny.

Between R-Money finding his principles and Evan McMullin and Mindy Finn going relentlessly hard against the alt-right on twitter, I am honestly wondering if this election is going to have the creation of Social Justice or Reform Mormons as a side effect.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 4:16 PM on November 25, 2016 [20 favorites]

Ronald Reagan once mistook his own HUD secretary Samuel Pierce, the only black member of his cabinet, for a mayor at a White House reception.

ok that's just funny
posted by mannequito at 4:35 PM on November 25, 2016 [13 favorites]

I got really rip-roaring wasted on beet vodka of all things last night. I have a blurry memory of bellowing, *9/11, now that, that I could get my head around. of course people want to blow up the World Trade Center. But this, man, this, we okay, we go from Obama to this fucking mess. What the fuck? Why? 9/11, that was reasonable, in hindsight*

And then upon hearing that a relative had a) announced his vote for Trump on FB and b) urged everybody to come together post election via FB post, I was all *FUUUUUUUUUUCK THAT GUUUUUUYYY*

My SIL usually tries to shut me down when I start swearing like a sailor in front of my little niece, maybe she tried and I was just sort of flailing.

But beet vodka, man. Watch out.
posted by angrycat at 4:44 PM on November 25, 2016 [20 favorites]

ronald reagan probably once mistook his cat for his secretary of defense
posted by indubitable at 4:50 PM on November 25, 2016 [25 favorites]

Also, liberal academics, say hello to your Liberal Professor Watch list
posted by angrycat at 4:50 PM on November 25, 2016 [12 favorites]

For one last time, I think the racism vs. economic anxiety debate is a false dichotomy. One inflames the other. And having rational fear in one thing doesn't excuse bigotry and persecution. It's sort of like this.
posted by Apocryphon at 5:08 PM on November 25, 2016 [9 favorites]

WaPo: Trump isn't interested in daily intelligence briefings. Anyone surprised? We're in for yet another lesson, courtesy of the Republican Party, in what happens when the US goes without a chief executive for four or eight years.

He has a server receiving encrypted GRU reports that are way better
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:12 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Historic Cash-in Continues

"We've got another. A long-stalled Trump building project in Georgia (the country) is back on track and ready to go just days after Donald Trump's election. That's major new nugget in a WaPo round up of how Trump's election less than three weeks ago is already turbocharging Trump building projects around the globe."
posted by chris24 at 5:16 PM on November 25, 2016 [9 favorites]

So, it seems that Jill Stein's approach to democracy is the same as my approach to writing term papers.
posted by schmod at 5:18 PM on November 25, 2016 [6 favorites]

I would love to see a clear, solid anti-free trade stance become a core democratic principle.

You could probably win an election with it, and as soon as people realised that their wages hadn't increased enough to match the increased cost of cheap consumer goods, you'd be turfed out on your arse.
posted by holgate at 5:18 PM on November 25, 2016 [12 favorites]

It's notable how most of the Organization's co-branded property projects are in countries that one doesn't associate with stable or transparent government, but instead have ruling parties and personalities who cultivate their own favourites in private enterprise.
posted by holgate at 5:20 PM on November 25, 2016 [8 favorites]

Also, liberal academics, say hello to your Liberal Professor Watch list

Turning Point USA. I wonder if they'll eventually become the Trumpenjugend.

You could probably win an election with it, and as soon as people realised that their wages hadn't increased enough to match the increased cost of cheap consumer goods, you'd be turfed out on your arse.

Exactly. Wait until all the shit in Walmart goes up by 35% c/o Herr Trump. It doesn't solve the essential problem in that unskilled service positions are paid too low a wage. The pendulum of profit distribution has swung way too far towards executives and shareholders and that's the crux of the issue. Telling Mexicans to fuck off and stop making air conditioners is a band-aid for gangrene.
posted by Talez at 5:23 PM on November 25, 2016 [28 favorites]

Telling Mexicans to fuck off and stop making air conditioners is a band-aid for gangrene.

It's more telling Mexicans to fuck off and stop picking all the non-machine-harvestable food in our fields to feed us, but yeah. Band-aid.
posted by hippybear at 5:25 PM on November 25, 2016 [8 favorites]

(And that's actually legal labor brought here through a visa program. I'm not even trying to make a racist or undocumented immigrant statement when I say this.)
posted by hippybear at 5:26 PM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

How should Trump protesters organize themselves, from NY Mag. There are three general themes:

1. Focus on policies more than personality:

The Times offered a vivid example of the limitations of focusing one’s ire on a big, audacious personality just a few days ago: “Mr. Berlusconi was able to govern Italy for as long as he did mostly thanks to the incompetence of his opposition,” wrote Luigi Zingales on Friday. “It was so rabidly obsessed with his personality that any substantive political debate disappeared; it focused only on personal attacks, the effect of which was to increase Mr. Berlusconi’s popularity. His secret was an ability to set off a Pavlovian reaction among his leftist opponents, which engendered instantaneous sympathy in most moderate voters. Mr. Trump is no different.”

2. Be more inclusive:

Munson took that critique even further. “This has historically been one of the differences between the left and the right,” he said, “and it’s one of the things the left can learn from the right. What my research has found is that the right has far fewer ideological purity tests for activism than the left does. So they’re taking all comers and they’re converting people in action. Just come, and just do it. By contrast, there’s a whole language you need to know from some of the left groups — your ability to be involved often depends on already having a healthy résumé of doing other lefty things. I think that that basically makes it a kind of echo chamber, and it doesn’t allow you to bring in new blood.” The right, he said, has historically been more inclusive. “The anti-abortion folks are the ones that I know the best, but the right, they set up internships and they have summer programs and they organize these campaigns, and anyone who shows up they just take. And you’ll either be turned off and leave or you’ll become one of them.”

3. Be committed to nonviolence.

“There’s a lot of evidence showing that violent protests do trigger backlash,” said Rojas. “For example, my research on campus protests shows that student activists are less likely to get what they want if they use violent protest.” Rojas also pointed to the work of Omar Wasow, a politics professor at Princeton, who has written papers arguing, as Rojas put it, that “riots in the 1960s helped trigger the law-and-order backlash of that era” — an argument other political scientists and sociologists have made as well.
posted by triggerfinger at 5:29 PM on November 25, 2016 [34 favorites]

Speaking as an Oaklander, it's great to say "be committed to nonviolence" (I've taken a 2-day "introduction to Kingian nonviolence" training, as far as which way I lean), but nobody seems to have practical suggestions for how to deal with the black-clad crew who come in at the end of otherwise-peaceful protests to get their smashy-smashy on. Photographing them doesn't work. It's starting to seem like the only way for the peaceful folks not to get blamed for the people who come to the protests with the explicit intention of vandalism is to preemptively take them down... at which point that's not too peaceful, is it?
posted by Lexica at 5:38 PM on November 25, 2016 [26 favorites]

I'm happy about the recounts (especially happy that Stein appears not to be a scammer about the funds she raised). Not because I think a surprise victory is likely, but because any sand we can throw in the gears is good.

I do think not focusing on Trump as a person is good advice. If only because our long game isn't just to get him out, but all his Tea-Party/crony buddies too. He also hates being ignored, so it's win-win to focus on policies, not the person.
posted by emjaybee at 5:44 PM on November 25, 2016 [7 favorites]

ronald reagan probably once mistook his cat for his secretary of defense

Well . . .
posted by petebest at 5:45 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

"but instead have ruling parties and personalities who cultivate their own favourites in private enterprise."

Harold Lloyd dolls would be cool.
posted by clavdivs at 5:49 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

How should Trump protesters organize themselves, from NY Mag. There are three general themes:

Note that none of them were "quit using the Republican's framing language".

I think Lakoff really has a point there.
posted by petebest at 5:53 PM on November 25, 2016 [8 favorites]

I've taken a 2-day "introduction to Kingian nonviolence" training

I misread that as "introduction to Klingon nonviolence" and dismissed it right away.
posted by Servo5678 at 5:54 PM on November 25, 2016 [52 favorites]

Okay, if this has been theorized forgive me- but if the recount reveals even a shred or nugget of evidence of tampering, maybe Russian tampering, this empowers the electors to be that last line of defense Hamilton was talking about in Fed 68. So, how do we lobby them?
posted by vrakatar at 6:07 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

No. Trump won because he opposed free trade, and Clinton had a long history of supporting it.

I honestly feel that anything Trump reflexively and loudly rails against is something we should take a very close and careful look at it before completely tossing into the trash. I don't think it takes a genius to say there's a problem with trade, but it does require more of a brain to fix it, and that includes being able to observe and learn from other globalized countries that have been more successful in keeping competitive in manufacturing, while still participating in free trade. The very same countries that Donald loves to demonize (yet he still says they're winners!).
posted by FJT at 6:07 PM on November 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

I misread that as "introduction to Klingon nonviolence" and dismissed it right away.

Introduction To Klingon Nonviolence 101

IN THIS CLASS WE INSTRUCT IN THE MANY GLORIOUS AND NEARLY NON-LETHAL COMBAT USES OF THE WOODEN BIT OF THE BAT'LETH
posted by Jon Mitchell at 6:12 PM on November 25, 2016 [42 favorites]

It's more telling Mexicans to fuck off and stop picking all the non-machine-harvestable food in our fields to feed us

I keep telling people that if you remove illegal immigrants, every restaurant shuts down, Day One. My husband is desperate to hire more cooks, but starting pay is $8.00/hr regardless of experience (He can't raise it, it's a chain restaurant.) American citizens are not beating down the door to work those jobs. The only people willing to do it are illegal immigrants (who are working several jobs under different names, which is something I wasn't aware was a normal thing), people on drugs (who tend not to be the best cooks or most reliable employees), or teenagers (who move on quickly.)

I mean, yes, I think the pay needs to be raised, but if that happens it's not going to be possible to go get a steak for $12.99 anymore. Any the working class people who want to go out are going to be mighty upset when they can't afford food. And that doesn't even touch agricultural workers.

Like with trade and goods manufacture, a hard line either way is going to likely to make the system crash. We have to strive for a middle ground where wages are better and fewer workers are being exploited but there is enough flexibility that goods and food are still affordable to those same workers.
posted by threeturtles at 6:17 PM on November 25, 2016 [29 favorites]

It's more telling Mexicans to fuck off and stop picking all the non-machine-harvestable food in our fields to feed us
...

I keep telling people that if you remove illegal immigrants, every restaurant shuts down

Alabama and Georgia passed strict laws cracking down on undocumented immigrants in 2011. It devastated their farming industries because non-immigrants didn't want those jobs.
posted by chris24 at 6:22 PM on November 25, 2016 [54 favorites]

The only people willing to do it are illegal immigrants (who are working several jobs under different names, which is something I wasn't aware was a normal thing), people on drugs (who tend not to be the best cooks or most reliable employees), or teenagers (who move on quickly.)

In F and B you get burnouts, retreads, and has beens. Usually with a drinky/druggy nexus.
posted by vrakatar at 6:22 PM on November 25, 2016

Alabama and Georgia passed strict laws cracking down on undocumented immigrants in 2011. It devastated their farming industries because non-immigrants didn't want those jobs.

Apparently Vermont's new Republican governor has gone off to a meeting with other New England Republican governors about what to do about Trump's anti-immigration posturing/policy. Because guess who's powering the dairy industry?
posted by hoyland at 6:33 PM on November 25, 2016 [13 favorites]

Seems about right.

Many in Florida Count on Obama’s Health Law, Even Amid Talk of Its Demise

"Dalia Carmeli, who drives a trolley in downtown Miami, voted for Donald J. Trump on Election Day. A week later, she stopped in to see the enrollment counselor who will help her sign up for another year of health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

“I hope it still stays the same,” said Ms. Carmeli, 64, who has Crohn’s disease and relies on her insurance to cover frequent doctor’s appointments and an array of medications."
posted by chris24 at 6:39 PM on November 25, 2016 [21 favorites]

nobody seems to have practical suggestions for how to deal with the black-clad crew who come in at the end of otherwise-peaceful protests to get their smashy-smashy on.

Not just them but the well-meaning socialist or other predominantly white political group that uses every protest as their personal education in how to use a megaphone.

In my city, I've come to recognize the repeat offenders and can probably find them on Facebook. Im wondering if pointing out to them with evidence that they hurt the cause would work at all.
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:46 PM on November 25, 2016 [6 favorites]

ronald reagan probably once mistook his cat for his secretary of defense

Grab 'em by the secretary of defense?
posted by mochapickle at 6:49 PM on November 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

Yes, that was part of it, but that is no excuse for Democrats not to come full circle on trade and acknowledge the devastating impact it has had on the American working class

It actually hasn't though. NAFTA was a huge boon to the US economy, creating an order of magnitude more jobs than it lost, and lowering prices for all consumers. Trade displaces jobs, of course, but if your job was lost due to a trade agreement, you can get money from the feds! Moreover, no one gives a shit about free trade, preferences over free trade arent driven by what job you have or if you work in an industry vulnerable to free trade, and when people lose their jobs they become more supportive of welfare.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:49 PM on November 25, 2016 [11 favorites]

What to do about the dairy industry and undocumented? Well just raise the wages and voila.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 6:58 PM on November 25, 2016

As far as I can tell, arguments on free trade are largely arguments of faith since the data and supposition can be made to support differing views on the strengths and weaknesses of it. There is little clear overall agreement on free trade's ultimate value as a whole, though in some smaller areas of effect more agreement can be found. I'm sure there are some voters for whom free trade is a huge deal as they believe it to be a job killer, for themselves or generally, but I have a hard time believing there are huge numbers of people who are fully versed in the subject, since that would go against pretty much all other complex understandings people exhibit, and that it is a signal issue upon which the presidency is won or lost, though, sure, vague slogans about immigrants, jobs being shipped overseas and the like make for nice scare quotes, but the connection between the quotes and enacted policy is something different.

None of that is to say there aren't things that can be improved or that free trade is an unvarnished good, but that it seems a lot more complicated than just opposing it would justify.
posted by gusottertrout at 7:00 PM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

It's my understanding that while NAFTA is seen as a net positive for US jobs by economists, China has been shown to be a net negative. Of course, I'm pretty sure no economist has ever lived lost their job as the result of a trade agreement.
posted by Slothrup at 7:02 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

'cat' Weinberger.
posted by clavdivs at 7:03 PM on November 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

The same would go for raising wages too I'd suggest, the impact of wage increases would likely not be evenly distributed for good and bad, and could cause real harm in some communities even as they would benefit others.
posted by gusottertrout at 7:04 PM on November 25, 2016

'Prison for woman who helped Michigan farms get illegal labor'
posted by clavdivs at 7:11 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't think we're saying "Yay underpaid immigrants, let's keep that!" more "Republicans seem not to understand that by cracking down on immigrants, they are going to have to deal with things being more expensive." It's about not understanding the consequences of your policies.

I feel confident in this because my Trump voting brother, who builds houses, complains every time I see him how much harder it is to get "workers" (i.e. undocumented Mexican workers) and how the white guys he hires are a. thin on the ground b. don't work as hard c. flake off frequently.
posted by emjaybee at 7:15 PM on November 25, 2016 [55 favorites]

Even looking past food service and agricultural jobs, today is Go To The Mall and Buy Something Made In SE Asia Day. However you choose to define "middle America", it's never reported as if this festival of buying stuff is a bad thing (aside from the fights and stampedes and shootings, which seem to have declined from their peak in recent years). It is a done thing. Stuff that is already cheap in relative terms compared to times past gets sold for even less.

So there's a huge framework of cultural expectations around consumption that keeps humming along -- in part because US media depends on advertising, in part because Americans like consuming -- while being detached from the question of who's doing the work on the production side.
posted by holgate at 7:16 PM on November 25, 2016 [7 favorites]

I keep telling people that if you remove illegal immigrants, every restaurant shuts down

The undocumented also have also put about $13 billion into social security they will never take out.
posted by srboisvert at 7:17 PM on November 25, 2016 [34 favorites]

The undocumented also have also put about $13 billion into social security they will never take out.

That $13b is annually, not total.
posted by chris24 at 7:19 PM on November 25, 2016 [72 favorites]

today is Go To The Mall and Buy Something Made In SE Asia Day.

The holidays are here, and everything in America is going really well. To celebrate Black Friday, Cards Against Humanity is digging a tremendous hole in the earth.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 7:20 PM on November 25, 2016 [13 favorites]

Or are we the party of I really like those unlimited breadsticks so underpay someone to bring them to me and when they get caught by immigration just replace them with someone else?

I think we all know what the answer is to that.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 7:22 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

But do you see not how there are a lot of different issues referenced directly and indirectly in this paragraph, that there are a variety of different solutions that come to mind, and that maybe continuing to exploit illegal immigrants at 16K per year (you know they aren't getting overtime) is not really an acceptable solution.

Do YOU not see the very next line of my post that you quoted where I said "I think wages need to be increased?" But I also accept that prices of consumer goods and especially food have been kept extremely low through reliance on foreign workers and immigrants and a suddenl astronomical jump in price is going to do great harm to those of us living around the poverty line. Yes, I have applied for food stamps in the last year, thanks. (It took too long to get approved by which point my husband was working two jobs and making too much.)

It's easy to say "Just raise all the prices, I'm willing to pay more" if you're making six figures. Personally I can't spend any more on food or I'd have to stop paying for medication or housing or transportation. My husband is one of the food industry workers working 60 hour weeks and getting no overtime (thanks to the recent court injunction), though as a manager he's making more income, but divided hourly it's less than $15/hour.

People don't want to work hard jobs for $8/hour and they don't want to pay what goods would cost if everyone made $15/hour. That's reality and you can say "people should be different" but that's not going to get anyone anywhere.

Saying "kill all free trade" and "raise all wages" is one thing, but if you don't somehow have a plan for how that economic hit is going to come from the 1% instead of the bottom 30% I'm not going to take you too seriously.
posted by threeturtles at 7:23 PM on November 25, 2016 [42 favorites]

The Cards Against Humanity hole FAQ is excellent.

What’s happening here?
Cards Against Humanity is digging a holiday hole.

Is this real?
Unfortunately it is.

Where is the hole?
America. And in our hearts.

Is there some sort of deeper meaning or purpose to the hole?
No.

What do I get for contributing money to the hole?
A deeper hole. What else are you going to buy, an iPod?

Why aren’t you giving all this money to charity?
Why aren’t YOU giving all this money to charity? It’s your money.

Is the hole bad for the environment?
No, this was just a bunch of empty land. Now there’s a hole there. That’s life.

How am I supposed to feel about this?
You’re supposed to think it’s funny. You might not get it for a while, but some time next year you’ll chuckle quietly to yourself and remember all this business about the hole.

How deep can you make this sucker?
Great question. As long as you keep spending, we’ll keep digging. We’ll find out together how deep this thing goes.

What if you dig so deep you hit hot magma?
At least then we’d feel something.
posted by fomhar at 7:27 PM on November 25, 2016 [59 favorites]

Something else that the article pointed out - trying to round up undocumented immigrants in Alabama took a tremendous amount of legwork and police power. The cops hated doing it, and the public hated that the police were devoting so much time trying to ferret out the undocumented at the expense of other, needed police work. Lose-lose all around.

Trump's coming war on sanctuary cities: “The first question that comes to mind when you are talk about deporting two to three million people is: Who are the bodies that are going to do that?” For mass deportations to actually happen, the local police departments and the immigration authorities are going to have to present a united front - and, in California sanctuary districts at least, local police departments are not willing to do so.

I might add, it's going to be the same with state-legal pot: No matter what Trump or Sessions or whoever does become Attorney General wants, if the local po-po don't buy into Prohibition, or they don't want to arrest affluent white people, Trump is SOL.

Unless the federal government wants to hire and train an enormous number of new law enforcement in ICE and the DEA, this is another area where Trump's mouth wrote a check his ass can't cash.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 7:43 PM on November 25, 2016 [35 favorites]

nobody seems to have practical suggestions for how to deal with the black-clad crew who come in at the end of otherwise-peaceful protests to get their smashy-smashy on.

I asked my husband, who's an anarchist but not the smashy sort, and he was reluctant to assist with tactics.

The longer answer I drug out of him is that the perception on the anarchist side is a strong distaste for liberals' abhorrence for property violence and perceived relative comfort for state violence, so short of having established anarchists lead your protests or do negotiations with the community likely to engage in it, , it may be an unsolveable solution.
posted by corb at 7:43 PM on November 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

Saying "kill all free trade" and "raise all wages" is one thing, but if you don't somehow have a plan for how that economic hit is going to come from the 1% instead of the bottom 30% I'm not going to take you too seriously.

Tax the shit out of the top 5% (not just income, get capital gains, dividends and wealth) and hand it back via higher welfare, the child tax credit and a childcare benefit.

Hand money back to the people who will actually fucking spend it not just leave it in a bank account to see how many zeros they can accumulate.
posted by Talez at 7:47 PM on November 25, 2016 [34 favorites]

Even looking past food service and agricultural jobs, today is Go To The Mall and Buy Something Made In SE Asia Day. However you choose to define "middle America", it's never reported as if this festival of buying stuff is a bad thing (aside from the fights and stampedes and shootings, which seem to have declined from their peak in recent years). It is a done thing. Stuff that is already cheap in relative terms compared to times past gets sold for even less.

Yep. Most Americans have gotten used to being surrounded by such excess (whether we can afford much of it or not) in the last few decades that we can't even imagine anything less. Some stuff on Amazon is so cheap it offends me. The free shipping on these dirt cheap items also offends me. In general there is way too much stuff that is available for so cheap that people just think of it as replaceable garbage. But how do we get away from that when our way of life increasingly depends on this economic model?

One of my fears about Trump bringing manufacturing jobs back to America, coupled with his lack of interest in environmental protection, is the environmental destruction and severe pollution that would bring to our country if production in general keeps up at the pace it's been at for the last decade or so. Maybe more people need to see it firsthand in order to appreciate how bad it is. Or maybe in general people just don't care as long as they are comfortable in their own homes.
posted by wondermouse at 7:57 PM on November 25, 2016 [8 favorites]

I've been rebuilding my house since April, as has everyone in about a three town radius. I would guess that about 80 percent of the labor is done by Spanish speaking workers. my point is that there is zero chance these three towns could have rebuilt without the Latinx crews. There is a non zero chance that some of the crews are undocumented. But man, I have never seen a crew of white boys climbing on roofs when it's 110 outside, and I've seen dozens of Latin crews doing just that.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 8:08 PM on November 25, 2016 [15 favorites]

Unless the federal government wants to hire and train an enormous number of new law enforcement in ICE and the DEA, this is another area where Trump's mouth wrote a check his ass can't cash.

See I'm worried that that's where armed right-wing militias will come in. With police in major cities saying they won't do this work, I doubt Trump and his axis of evil cronies are going to go WELP okay then plan's off guys! I think they are going to start getting 2nd amendment Well Regulated Militias (wink) to do what they do best - ie bear arms and terrorize the vulnerable.
posted by supercrayon at 8:10 PM on November 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

When I saw Roots as a kid, I thought a lot after, about what it must have been like to live in a time where there were slaves. An entire culture of humans, simply property, able to be disposed of at will. What would I have done had I seen that? Would I have fought and died to help keep those people free?

Years later I began to see the people who cut lawns, who make food, the ones with the leaf blowers, and I can see this entire culture, not enslaved by evil per se but fighting and loving and trying for a better life than where they were before. But they keep their heads down, in this city, they don't make eye contact. Their "betters" are all around them and they don't know which are going to offer a job and which are just going to steal from them once more. What have I done, now I've seen this? Would I fight and die to help keep these people, these human beings here beside me, keep them free?

I want the answer to be yes, but I'm human and frail, so who knows?

How this relates to Trump: I think one day someone is going to point out to him that slavery is still legal, if you sentence someone to it for a crime. This provides an entire workforce that can basically be hucked over the wall with a trebuchet when he's done with them. And before that, you can lease them to good American citizens.

(Why yes I do think Josh Marshall's Trump's Razor puts too much emphasis on the clown and not enough on the Antichrist. Trump can be both.)
posted by bigbigdog at 8:13 PM on November 25, 2016 [13 favorites]

Have you seen the prison labor system? There's already a workforce in there, some getting sub-third-world wages. Expanding that is entirely foreseeable.
posted by zachlipton at 8:21 PM on November 25, 2016 [8 favorites]

Ava DuVernay's documentary 13th is excellent on these points.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:26 PM on November 25, 2016 [8 favorites]

I might add, it's going to be the same with state-legal pot: No matter what Trump or Sessions or whoever does become Attorney General wants, if the local po-po don't buy into Prohibition, or they don't want to arrest affluent white people, Trump is SOL.

I remember when the Feds raided Oaksterdam University back in 2012.

OPD were not pleased and didn't go out of their way to assist. My husband and I were doing a "citizen journalism" livestreaming thing at the time and had watched OPD officers at numerous protests before that. It seemed clear that they were doing the bare minimum necessary and unless there was obvious cause to arrest somebody, they wanted nothing to do with it. The gray-haired guy with the "US Marines" jacket jamming his walker into the front wheel of the Fed vehicle to keep it from driving away? *yawn* said OPD, guess that's your issue to deal with.

But at the same time, that was in one of the most cannabis-friendly cities in a cannabis-friendly state. This was 16 years after Californians voted to legalize medical cannabis under Proposition 215 and eight years after Oakland passed Measure Z, which directed the city and the cops to "Make investigation, citation and arrest for private adult cannabis (marijuana) offenses the City’s lowest law enforcement priority". Despite that, and despite the Obama Administration's statement that the DOJ would stop raids on medical cannabis, the Feds still came in, and OPD still assisted when required.

It's not safe to rely on "our local cops won't cooperate with the Feds", I think.
posted by Lexica at 8:30 PM on November 25, 2016 [12 favorites]

I am honestly wondering if this election is going to have the creation of Social Justice or Reform Mormons as a side effect.

I think we will see a growth of liberal/left folks who identify as very religious and explicitly connect their social justice politics to their faith. Pope Francis Catholicism + rise in power of evangelical women against Trump + anti-Trump Mormonism + religious communities standing together against potential unconstitutional behavior targeting faith (Muslim) and the rise of neo-Nazism.

I predict we'll also see a revival of explicitly patriotic messaging from the left, especially if the stories of "Russia-loving Trump" and "Trump puts global private business over presidency" and "China steps into trade role abandoned by the US" continue.

This piece by Ross Douthat captures something that makes me keep coming back to it even though I disagree with most of it:

The contemporary college student lives most fully in the Lennonist utopia that post-’60s liberalism sought to build, and often finds it unconsoling: She wants a sense of belonging, a ground for personal morality, and a higher horizon of justice than either a purely procedural or a strictly material politics supplies.

Thus it may not be enough for today’s liberalism, confronting both a right-wing nationalism and its own internal contradictions, to deal with identity politics’ political weaknesses by becoming more populist and less politically correct. Both of these would be desirable changes, but they would leave many human needs unmet. For those, a deeper vision than mere liberalism is still required — something like “for God and home and country,” as reactionary as that phrase may sound.

And this from Mark Shriver, on Pope Francis:

Francis . . . . challenges us all to not just provide support to the poor but to learn from them as well, to listen to them, to be with them.

And by poor, he does not mean only those who are struggling financially. He means those who have physical and psychological and spiritual problems. In other words, he means all of us. He is calling upon each of us to be truly merciful with one another, in real and meaningful ways. Not just being a bit nicer or writing checks to charity; no, he is challenging us to intimacy with one another, and with God. . . . When he says that “life grows by being given away, and it weakens in isolation and comfort” and goes on to ask us to “leave security on the shore and become excited by the mission of communicating life to others,” he is telling us to get out of our comfort zones. He is saying to me, a supposedly progressive Catholic who works on behalf of poor kids and families: Don’t be isolated and content, enter the chaos and the pain and the joy of others’ lives.

Pantsuit Nation has in a lot of ways reflected this desire for community on the left and an emphasis on reaching out affirmatively - even though people are acting out their beliefs there less than perfectly, it's an absolute deluge of well-meaning-ness.

And what the Dalai Lama wrote earlier this month:

This helps explain why pain and indignation are sweeping through prosperous countries. The problem is not a lack of material riches. It is the growing number of people who feel they are no longer useful, no longer needed, no longer one with their societies. . . . Indeed, what unites the two of us in friendship and collaboration is not shared politics or the same religion. It is something simpler: a shared belief in compassion, in human dignity, in the intrinsic usefulness of every person to contribute positively for a better and more meaningful world. The problems we face cut across conventional categories; so must our dialogue, and our friendships.

Facebook facilitated the spread of fake news like wildfire this election season, but it also facilitated these secret communities of people coming together to offer support, and (in the wake of the election) to connect and begin to plan.
posted by sallybrown at 8:37 PM on November 25, 2016 [31 favorites]

Have you seen the prison labor system? There's already a workforce in there, some getting sub-third-world wages. Expanding that is entirely foreseeable.

Colorado tried to abolish slavery as punishment (WaPo) in November and lost. It's unclear whether this is because Amendment T was too confusingly written for people to understand. I'm still gobsmacked by the result.
posted by mochapickle at 8:40 PM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

Pope Francis Catholicism

The Pope was one of those single individuals who could have tipped the election and he made a few tepid and oblique statements that were ignored. He could have stood against the concept of the ostensible leader of the free world not being something who openly embraced torture and murder, hated and deceit, and meekly backed off.

Yes, there would have been consequences, but that's what people on the side of good are supposed to be willing to risk.

Don't count the Pope to save us.
posted by Candleman at 8:51 PM on November 25, 2016 [16 favorites]

Colorado tried to abolish slavery as punishment (WaPo) in November and lost. It's unclear whether this is because Amendment T was too confusingly written for people to understand.

Yeah, I'm a college professor (i.e., pretty high reading level) and I couldn't make heads or tails of it. I left it blank because I had no idea what it was trying to do. I wouldn't read too much pro-slavery support into this outcome.
posted by forza at 8:53 PM on November 25, 2016 [6 favorites]

This isn't a question of party: Americans collectively have chosen unlimited breadsticks, and the political position is either to be honest about the repercussions of a high-skill, high-wage economy, or to lie about them. This year suggests that lying is a winner.

And I think bigbigdog touches on something: the growing visibility of that invisible workforce is perceived as disruptive. If you're in a somewhat hard-up NC town, you don't want to think too much about the hundreds of indigenous Guatemalans brought in to slaughter chickens as long as they keep among themselves and you have your cheap chicken. It's when they have kids old enough for school or branch out into lines of work that don't involve slaughtering chicken that they get noticed, and not necessarily in a good way.
posted by holgate at 8:54 PM on November 25, 2016 [17 favorites]

I left it blank because I had no idea what it was trying to do.

I think a lot of people felt the same way. I had to go look it up on ballotopedia. And perhaps people thought slavery was already abolished. It's a shame it wasn't written more clearly.
posted by mochapickle at 8:56 PM on November 25, 2016

Don't count the Pope to save us.

The Pope's job, and role, is so much staggeringly larger and different than a U.S. election, and he most certainly has a far different idea of what "saving us" entails than you do.

And frankly, as someone who adores this Pope in comparison to any other Pope I've experienced, I still do not want him explicitly interfering in our politics. The morals he champions and values he seeks to encourage in American Catholics? Yes, I want those to play a role. But a religious figure himself? No. Just like I disdain the showboaty bishops who threaten to withhold communion from pro-choice politicians.
posted by sallybrown at 8:58 PM on November 25, 2016 [33 favorites]

I think a lot of people felt the same way. I had to go look it up on ballotopedia. And perhaps people thought slavery was already abolished. It's a shame it wasn't written more clearly.

This discussion and the linked Denver Post article has me slightly less ready to want to fight everyone I pass on the street here in the Denver metro area.

wtf is wrong with people
oh they don't read
I guess that's better than wanting to sentence criminals to slavery
posted by deludingmyself at 9:32 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

And while the reality-based community debates whether or not the pope should have made a clearer statement on the election, the far-right fake news machine assured the teeming millions that Francis endorsed Trump months ago.

A lie can travel around the world while the truth is putting its pants on.
posted by Rhaomi at 9:46 PM on November 25, 2016 [15 favorites]

Tax the shit out of the top 5% (not just income, get capital gains, dividends and wealth) and hand it back via higher welfare, the child tax credit and a childcare benefit.

Yes. But use more different word things.

Let's encourage the top 5% to give care for those who, like all of us, need support as children. Through wealth creation, market expansion, and shared value.
posted by petebest at 9:46 PM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

Let's encourage the top 5% to give care for those who, like all of us, need support as children. Through wealth creation, market expansion, and shared value.
posted by petebest at 11:46 PM on November 25

You forgot elimination of troublesome regulations that inhibit growth.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 9:49 PM on November 25, 2016

Fidel always had an impeccable sense of timing.
posted by holgate at 10:24 PM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

Damn, and I modge podged my last Cohiba.
posted by clavdivs at 10:37 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Romeo y Julieta petit corona or bust, clav.
posted by holgate at 10:49 PM on November 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

ronald reagan probably once mistook his cat for his secretary of defense
posted by indubitable at 0:50 on November 26 [12 favorites +] [!]

Finally, I know what angrycat is named after. The slightly random 80s military engagements also now make a lot more sense.
posted by jaduncan at 11:03 PM on November 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

dribbling out of the racist yam's mouth

"Mr. Berlusconi was able to govern Italy for as long as he did mostly thanks to the incompetence of his opposition. It was so rabidly obsessed with his personality that any substantive political debate disappeared; it focused only on personal attacks, the effect of which was to increase Mr. Berlusconi’s popularity. His secret was an ability to set off a Pavlovian reaction among his leftist opponents, which engendered instantaneous sympathy in most moderate voters." - via NYTimes
posted by fairmettle at 11:13 PM on November 25, 2016 [18 favorites]

Electoral College must reject Trump unless he sells his businesses, top lawyers for [G.W.] Bush and Obama say.
posted by bryon at 11:20 PM on November 25, 2016 [50 favorites]

Mr. Berlusconi was able to govern Italy for as long as he did mostly thanks to the incompetence of his opposition.

But owning most of the non-state-owned TV stations and leaning on the state-owned ones helped.
posted by holgate at 11:27 PM on November 25, 2016 [17 favorites]

Another reason illegal immigrant farm labor is preferred, beyond low wages, is that illegal immigrants don't complain about safety violations because they don't want to get deported. Sometimes it's your usual corner-cutting grain silo safety stuff that some farmers do regardless and risk for themselves too. But other times -- my law school had a clinic that was working on a couple dozen cases of illegal immigrant laborers in NC who had been kept working in the fields while the fields were crop dusted which is hella illegal. Tons of pesticide violations with farmers literally spraying workers in the face rather than having them stop work for 30 seconds. And lots of them were locked in at night.

They were generally not allowed to speak with doctors even when clearly suffering from poisonings. Locking them in helped prevent it. They had to buy their own groceries and sometimes these were stolen from them when they left bunkroom to work.

They had the right to speak to attorneys, although their employers forbade it. Most didn't know that, and were too scared to anyway. (Priests and ministers were often the secret vector for talking to them.)

It'll be interesting if there actually is a crackdown and some farms (and some big box stores, and some ag processing plants) not only lose their illegal immigrant workforce but are expected to comply with ultra basic worker safety because now their workers feel secure in reporting being sprayed with poison or locked overnight in a firetrap or robbed of food by their employer. There's a big chunk of mostly-GOP leaning agribusinesses who have zero interest in complying with the law, and pay is the least of it. Be interesting to see how they react to a GOP administration that's actually serious about cracking down on undocumented immigrants in a way that hurts profits.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:56 AM on November 26, 2016 [117 favorites]

And frankly, as someone who adores this Pope in comparison to any other Pope I've experienced, I still do not want him explicitly interfering in our politics. The morals he champions and values he seeks to encourage in American Catholics? Yes, I want those to play a role. But a religious figure himself? No. Just like I disdain the showboaty bishops who threaten to withhold communion from pro-choice politicians.

Once significant figures in your organization have taken a side, remaining silent is not the same as remaining neutral.

I don't want the Church interfering in American politics either, but I'm afraid they already are exerting considerable influence.

At the very least it would have been appropriate for his holiness to explicitly disavow the fake news story Rhaomi's link mentions if Catholic leadership were aware of it, which, given how these things spread through social networks, it seems as though they probably ought to have been.
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:05 AM on November 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

There's a big chunk of mostly-GOP leaning agribusinesses who have zero interest in complying with the law, and pay is the least of it. Be interesting to see how they react to a GOP administration that's actually serious about cracking down on undocumented immigrants in a way that hurts profits.
posted by Eyebrows McGee 13 minutes ago [3 favorites +] [!]

This is the most tedious part of the 'Republican' worldview - follow many of their 'social' initiatives out to their logical conclusions and you run into a dead end in the form of a corporation resisting because of lost revenues or local gov nor willing to shell out for soc.services.

Because that, of course, would be the ramifications of the whole 'no more illegals!' Oh, ok, so you're gonna pay a living wage now? Of course you aren't - that average joe on the street doesn't see this very simple connection always always always surprises me.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:17 AM on November 26, 2016 [10 favorites]

so. much. arizona is red. who's gonna cut the fucking grass in 2017? to a fair, here in blue colorado, who's gonna be roofing and framing?
posted by j_curiouser at 1:22 AM on November 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say

William Gibson @GreatDismal has been trying to articulate the post-election sensation of Trump's "win": "It feels a like a coup, but the way Uber feels like a cab company. Neither is either, legally. 'Disruption', as in [entrepreneur]-speak"
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:01 AM on November 26, 2016 [16 favorites]

From an outsider's perspective, cheap labor is a huge part of what has undone parts of the US. Not because of immigrants stealing jobs, but because of a lack of incentive for improvement.
Some 15 years ago, I visited two sister plants, one in Tennessee, one in Denmark. The one in Tennessee was huge, incredibly dirty and messy and had no structure to their production. The workers were unionized and had healthcare, but still their wages were less than half of those at the Danish plant. The Danish plant was small, as clean as a hospital (well cleaner..) and most of the work was done by robots in structured processes. Recently the Danish owners called me and told me they had taken over all the production and the Tennessee plant had been closed down. So yeah, people lost their jobs to globalization, but not to underpaid Chinese workers: to highly skilled Europeans with good wages and free healthcare.
Similarly: in the EU, there are very strong regulations on agriculture, protecting the animals and the land, not at all perfect, but way stricter than in the US. Also, even though most farmhands are migrant laborers in Europe too, most of them still get better pay than illegal immigrants in the US. This makes it difficult for European farmers to compete with American farmers on the global market and even within Europe in spite of tariffs. But more and more farmers are discovering that they can compete on quality, rather than price, and are changing to organic farming and smaller scale farming.
A decade ago, 9 out of 10 apples in my supermarket would have been American. Now there is rarely one box of American Granny Smith, even in Aldi. Instead there is a huge variety, and many organic choices, as well as many types of apple juice and cider. Even in poor neighborhoods and small towns. High costs have forced the manufacturers to develop high quality products or give up.
In Asia, where people worry a lot about the safety and quality of their food, organic products from Europe are selling more and more.
We still have a lot of bad industrial agriculture in Europe, and the VW scandal and inhuman labor-camps for tomato harvest in Southern Italy, and flaming racism, and there are strong forces trying to use that racism as a force to change Europe into something much more like the US, as in Brexit; but the point is that there is an incentive for change and improvement built into the rights for workers and high taxes, and that is a good thing which is acknowledged even by a lot of the big capitalists.
But also: the whole point of the EU is that all of this needs to be regulated on an international scale through trade agreements. A trade agreement can help secure workers rights as does the common market in Europe. This is the argument between Brussels and London right now: London wants a free market without free movement, and Brussels says no: workers need equal rights and protections throughout the market. I'm happy that TTIP is probably dead on arrival, because American policies seem to be dominant in the actual deal, but theoretically, a TTIP could mean a huge boost to American workers and to food and drug safety regulation. Global trade agreements are not per definition a bad thing. A new TTIP after Brexit, and when Trump is gone would have a much more European approach.
posted by mumimor at 3:36 AM on November 26, 2016 [52 favorites]

Clearly the solution is for all those struggling Rust Belt and Coal Country folks to move to the cities and take the jobs that will soon be vacated by undocumented immigrants when the mass deportations begin. I'm sure they'll get right on that.

More realistically, what we'll get a is TV Show version of many of these policies, coupled with a barrage of fake news claiming big, real successes. Look for occasional, high-profile "raids"by ICE with little real followup (both in terms of general impact and in terms of sorting who is and isn't actually undocumented). Expect social media to light up with false statistics and claims about X% or X million deportations after the Big Raid, the one Obama wouldn't authorize.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of undocumented workers will continue being hired for sub-minimum wages by the usual suspects, and Trump's people will quietly assure the governors of various staters that there'll be no real impact on the labor supply or the wage structure that props up agribusiness. People, will be happy to hear of deportations, real or false, and happier when it's "proven" that mass deportations don't *really* have any of the predictable effects on food prices or the labor supply.
posted by kewb at 4:15 AM on November 26, 2016 [19 favorites]

The Pope was one of those single individuals who could have tipped the election and he made a few tepid and oblique statements that were ignored. He could have stood against the concept of the ostensible leader of the free world not being something who openly embraced torture and murder, hated and deceit, and meekly backed off.

I have family in two different archdioceses who are catholic. The word that came down through the pulpit from the archbishops was to vote for trump. The main reason given was the supreme court and abortion. I should also add that these family members voted Hillary. Their takeaway from the message was that the church doesn't give a shit about the already living.

Although he should be at the top of the decision chain, the pope doesn't seem to wield much power with American church leadership as you might expect.
posted by SteveInMaine at 4:52 AM on November 26, 2016 [17 favorites]

As part of my personal bit of protest I wrote: The Strange Case of Donald Trump and Mr. Hyde.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 5:26 AM on November 26, 2016 [32 favorites]

Cannot sufficiently favorite the above, this is outrageous, must have larger and more profound favorites.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:30 AM on November 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump's coming war on sanctuary cities: “The first question that comes to mind when you are talk about deporting two to three million people is: Who are the bodies that are going to do that?” For mass deportations to actually happen, the local police departments and the immigration authorities are going to have to present a united front - and, in California sanctuary districts at least, local police departments are not willing to do so.

California sanctuary districts? Sounds familiar. Where have I heard that before?
posted by Servo5678 at 5:33 AM on November 26, 2016 [10 favorites]

But owning most of the non-state-owned TV stations and leaning on the state-owned ones helped.

I'm presuming at this point that with the effective dissolution of the FCC, Trump will make sure his friends can buy up the terrestrial broadcasters, while removing any rules that prevent them becoming propaganda arms. And those who don't like NPR will soon have nothing to worry about.

Some helpful reading.
posted by Devonian at 6:11 AM on November 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

> "Mr. Berlusconi was able to govern Italy for as long as he did mostly thanks to the incompetence of his opposition. It was so rabidly obsessed with his personality that any substantive political debate disappeared; it focused only on personal attacks, the effect of which was to increase Mr. Berlusconi’s popularity. His secret was an ability to set off a Pavlovian reaction among his leftist opponents, which engendered instantaneous sympathy in most moderate voters."

Grimes: Can you believe that guy? He's in his office making a pathetic attempt to look professional.
Carl: Hey, what do you got against Homer, anyway?
Grimes: Are you kidding? Does this whole plant have some disease where you can't see that he's an idiot? Look here. [points out a chart tacked to the bulletin board] Accidents have doubled every year since he became safety inspector, and, and meltdowns have tripled. Has he been fired? No. Has he been disciplined? No, no.
Lenny: Eh, everybody makes mistakes. That's why they put erasers on pencils.
Carl: Yeah, Homer's okay. Give him a break.
Grimes: No! Homer is not okay. And I want everyone in this plant to realize it. I would die a happy man if I could prove to you that Homer Simpson has the intelligence of a 6-year-old.
Lenny: [to Carl] So, how are you doing?
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:19 AM on November 26, 2016 [24 favorites]

Can we stop acting as if Catholics follow the Pope/the Church round like ducklings? The USCCB is forever trying to interfere politically (remember when they wanted to refuse John Kerry communion?). American Catholics have a lifetime of experience ignoring things the Church says.

If Francis came out hard against Trump, yes, it might make a difference in turning out politically disengaged Catholics for whom Catholic social teaching has some resonance. And, yes, if those people are in the right states, that matters. But that's a far cry from Francis commanding millions of votes, which seems to be where this thread is, as if it's 1960 and god forbid Kennedy kissed someone's ring.
posted by hoyland at 6:28 AM on November 26, 2016 [12 favorites]

I was listening to a podcast this morning (Interrobang) in which the host tried to explain how she felt as a Jew when she saw a Nazi flag. She explained how it opened a file in her head and all the grotesque results of Hitler's regime came tumbling out: pictures of the starving children in the ghettos, piles of skulls, gay men being torn from their family and thrown in the ovens, and so on. It made me think about we how we have grown accustomed to the term and overused it (Grammar Nazi, Soup Nazi) and we have lost the visceral impact the word should invoke. Tia Tequila dressed up in a Nazi uniform and giving the salute should be hounded out of society as a monster but we just grimly accept that she is trolling us and we move on.

It also made me wonder if any of these modern day Nazis can be reached. If you sat them down and forced them to watch documentary footage of the Holocaust would it make them rethink their ideas or would they be hugging themselves in glee at the thought of being allowed to treat other human beings like vermin? I guess I am wondering if these guys are theoretical Nazis or do they actually want to bring on another Holocaust?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:49 AM on November 26, 2016 [38 favorites]

> Between R-Money finding his principles and Evan McMullin and Mindy Finn going relentlessly hard against the alt-right on twitter, I am honestly wondering if this election is going to have the creation of Social Justice or Reform Mormons as a side effect.

> I think we will see a growth of liberal/left folks who identify as very religious and explicitly connect their social justice politics to their faith.

It blows me away, but I've been using faith & patriotism to fairly strong effect when countering my Trump-supporting friends & family. My roots are upper-middle class, suburban, mainline protestants & catholics - all very active Republicans, a close friend of the family even has GOP on their vanity license plate. I am the black sheep liberal. My faith was also greatly shaped by my Quaker boarding school experience - which further drives my faith-based political activism, which is on the liberal side for reasons I've never fully comprehended... how/why in the heck are peace and equality liberal ideals?

A decade or so ago, I was in South Africa with mom and the church I grew up in. We were traveling throughout the country looking at various groups & organizations doing various things so that we could come back to the States and speak to local organizations wanting to send funds over. Much of the trip was truly inspiring - great people doing great things with poverty, education, and AIDS. One stop, however, shook my faith like nothing else had before or, until the election, since.

We were in a rural farming community visiting a mission that seemed to be mostly about providing wealthy white high school & college students from Cape Town a nice couple months out in the country. I paired up with a few of the kids as we went to a day care center of some sort. Lots of little kids (4-8), all poor and undereducated, getting a boost to help get them ready for school. We pulled up with trunks filled with food and warm clothes. During recess an adorable little boy came up to us and asked for an orange. The girl I was with said, "I can give you an orange, but if you tell me you've accepted Jesus Christ in your heart, I can give you this bag of food, too." My reaction was less then kind. When I returned to the Mission and met up with my mom, I told her what happened and added "and you wonder why I don't go to church or say that I am a Christian. I want nothing to do with it."

I've held that disgust for years, but was able to compartmentalize it - to say, in modern ways, #NotAllChristians. This election has shaken me in a very similar way. So many Christians spitting on the qualities (acceptance, equality, and love) of the man they've named their faith after in order to, somehow, prove their faith and make their religion stronger.

In some ways, I feel like my discussions and debates have gone backwards - instead of arguing that Pro-Choice is, actually, the Pro-Life stance (for my friends who are near single issue voters for the rights of the unborn), I'm now focused on the very basics of love & equality. But in other ways, I feel like I am now, finally, patching up the crumbling foundation. Tensions are a bit high post election, but I think the work here will have a much stronger, longer lasting effect.

Or, well, I hope so.

> I don't want the Church interfering in American politics either, but I'm afraid they already are exerting considerable influence.

The Church, for better and worse, has always had a massive influence on American politics. It's not all bad - providing a safe place for Blacks to come together, being a driving force in the abolition movement, and changing the way we treat mental illness are but a few good things. It's not about getting the Church out of our political sphere (that's an impossible task), it's about understanding how & why the church is involved, and then working to make sure it's doing more good than harm in the political realm.
posted by imbri at 6:54 AM on November 26, 2016 [43 favorites]

@EvieN:

This is the worst fucking verse of We Didn't Start the Fire ever.
posted by Wordshore at 7:04 AM on November 26, 2016 [32 favorites]

I wonder if Billy Joel would do an entire verse of We Didn't Start The Fire using Trump's cabinet appointees?
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:13 AM on November 26, 2016 [8 favorites]

Clearly the solution is for all those struggling Rust Belt and Coal Country folks to move to the cities and take the jobs that will soon be vacated by undocumented immigrants when the mass deportations begin. I'm sure they'll get right on that.

These folks are already, in large part, moving to metro areas. Especially the rust belt areas, where rural counties have been losing population for a while. A lot of them are absolutely bleeding young people; if you look at their population pyramids there's a major drop-off as soon as people hit 18, especially for men.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:16 AM on November 26, 2016 [7 favorites]

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Fidel Castro is dead!

Ladies and Gentlemen, your President-Elect of the United States.
posted by Talez at 7:17 AM on November 26, 2016 [37 favorites]

It also made me wonder if any of these modern day Nazis can be reached.

I suspect so. I have seen reports that the same de-radicalization techniques designed for muslims work on white supremacists. But it's tricky because messing up the process can cause them to double down on their hatred. And of course all this requires infrastructure dedicated to the effort.

I wonder if there is too much baggage associated with the term Nazi for people to to the mental legwork of saying "oh yes, that is happening here." Maybe if we flip the tables and use the language the right uses against Muslims, it will resonate more. I want news stations across the land asking "What is the President Doing About the Radicalization of White Youth??"
posted by C'est la D.C. at 7:17 AM on November 26, 2016 [9 favorites]

You forgot elimination of troublesome regulations that inhibit growth.

No that's the Strict Father language that that goatf--ker Paul Ryan wants us to use. It'd have to be "growing together to overcome outside challenges".

Or something.
/Lakoff
posted by petebest at 7:30 AM on November 26, 2016 [3 favorites]

A good summary of the situation, actions and thoughts of the Clinton campaign on the vote and recounts by the campaign's election lawyer Marc Elias.

TL;DR They have done a lot of investigation and analysis of the results to see if there was suspicious activity and didn't see any which is why they didn't file for recounts. But they will participate in the the recounts now that Stein has filed.

Listening and Responding To Calls for an Audit and Recount
posted by chris24 at 7:35 AM on November 26, 2016 [10 favorites]

A Scottish comedian's view from before the election "He wants to be the President, place would be a toilet if he became President." Skip to about the 2 minute mark if you want to skip the Chicago architectural tour. Also do watch the John Lewis ad and parody linked at the top of the thread.
posted by epo at 7:36 AM on November 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

rise in power of evangelical women against Trump

Yeah, I think that one is a non-starter. White evangelical women embraced Trump with near unanimity. They think he's fine. There's no reason to think they're going to reject him.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:40 AM on November 26, 2016 [26 favorites]

White Evangelical women love them some Strict Father, amirite St. Teresa's?

Unless they lost the popular vote like a Loser, and Betrayed their Trust by forgetting to fix everything, day 1.
posted by petebest at 8:05 AM on November 26, 2016

My white evangelical mother doesn't consider Trump a Christian but voted for him anyway because of the Supreme Court, abortion and the gays.
posted by Slothrup at 8:19 AM on November 26, 2016 [6 favorites]

One of the NPI speakers did an election demographics post mortem. His claim was Trump killed Clinton with the evangelicals for absolutely free when he said in my White House we will be saying Merry Christmas.
posted by bukvich at 8:20 AM on November 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

holgate: "It's notable how most of the Organization's co-branded property projects are in countries that one doesn't associate with stable or transparent government, but instead have ruling parties and personalities who cultivate their own favourites in private enterprise."

I'm not sure if this is a direct reflection on the brand or if like a pyramid scheme where Trump has grabbed the low hanging, high profit fruit and now has to keep moving to more distant and less profitable suckers markets to keep the scheme going.
posted by Mitheral at 8:21 AM on November 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

C'est la D.C.: Maybe if we flip the tables and use the language the right uses against Muslims, it will resonate more. I want news stations across the land asking "What is the President Doing About the Radicalization of White Youth??"

@AkilahObviously: Donald Trump won't say "radical white nationalists."
posted by deludingmyself at 8:27 AM on November 26, 2016 [31 favorites]

His claim was Trump killed Clinton with the evangelicals for absolutely free when he said in my White House we will be saying Merry Christmas.

Here was his pledge:

If I become president, we're gonna be saying Merry Christmas at every store ... You can leave happy holidays at the corner.

So not just in the White House, but at every store. It is such a ridiculous claim that I'm surprised anyone would believe it. Just another one of his many promises that will never be fulfilled.
posted by zakur at 8:50 AM on November 26, 2016 [17 favorites]

So not just in the White House, but at every store. It is such a ridiculous claim that I'm surprised anyone would believe it. Just another one of his many promises that will never be fulfilled.

Oh believe me this was a Hot Topic! at our house, we chewed on this endlessly. For example, "So in the land of Freedomz we will force Business owners to say Merry Christmas. How exactly?" However when confronted on this topic our religious family members deflected it so easily. "Businesses want to say Merry Christmas but some customers get offended and they are afraid of being sued." "Most Americans are Christians, why doesn't Liberals understand that? We live in a Democracy yet you never let the majority decide." Blah blah blah. Nobody's mind was changed.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 8:57 AM on November 26, 2016 [6 favorites]

A friend with some skin in the crypto game has just sent me a long document about the inter-relationships between power structures in America and the legal and constitutional framework that defines their abilities (grim reading indeed). I'll doubtless get back to this once I've digested it and worked out whether it's being paranoid or realistic, but this rather caught my attention:

"We note in passing that the President has been granted the authority to call out the military for domestic policing purposes at his sole discretion, simply by virtue of declaring an “emergency.” (The most authoritative look at these matters to date can be found in William Arkin’s oddly incomplete and strangely unhelpful book “American Coup.”) To put the point bluntly, the President has been granted dictatorial authority without either checks and balances or oversight also being put into place."

Is this accurate?
posted by Devonian at 8:58 AM on November 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

At least we learned how little you have to promise in order to get evangelical Christians to compromise their alleged beliefs.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:59 AM on November 26, 2016 [45 favorites]

zakur: "So not just in the White House, but at every store."

Can't wait till the synagogue gift shop employees start saying Merry Christmas.
posted by Mitheral at 9:02 AM on November 26, 2016 [25 favorites]

You forgot elimination of troublesome regulations that inhibit growth.

It's much simpler if you just say "pro-cancer".
posted by srboisvert at 9:03 AM on November 26, 2016 [12 favorites]

I think that corporations are pretty easily bullied, and they'll say Merry Christmas if the assholes put enough pressure on them to say Merry Christmas. I've personally witnessed assholes chewing out minimum-wage-earning sales people for saying Happy Holidays, and frankly I'm willing to let the Christian supremacist trash have that one to spare retail workers their abuse. I don't really understand why anyone would want to make their holiday greetings into hate speech, but I've come to the conclusion that there are a lot of things about Christians that I'm never going to understand.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:04 AM on November 26, 2016 [8 favorites]

The evangelical Trump voters I know get way more upset about "Happy Holidays" and Starbucks cups than the children living in poverty in their towns. That tells me all I need to know about their beliefs and morals.
posted by melissasaurus at 9:07 AM on November 26, 2016 [130 favorites]

Businesses want to say Merry Christmas but some customers get offended and they are afraid of being sued."

I'm bad a dog whistles but I assume they mean it's the Jews who want to sue?
posted by Room 641-A at 9:08 AM on November 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

I have family in two different archdioceses who are catholic. The word that came down through the pulpit from the archbishops was to vote for trump. The main reason given was the supreme court and abortion.

In my experience, there's near perfect overlap between the archbishops, bishops, and parish priests who freely lecture their congregations about how they should or shouldn't vote and those who grumble about Pope Francis (and Jesuits in general). They also tend to be um...poor emissaries of the faith and especially bad at retaining young people in their parishes.
posted by sallybrown at 9:11 AM on November 26, 2016 [5 favorites]

Oh believe me this was a Hot Topic! at our house, we chewed on this endlessly. For example, "So in the land of Freedomz we will force Business owners to say Merry Christmas. How exactly?" However when confronted on this topic our religious family members deflected it so easily. "Businesses want to say Merry Christmas but some customers get offended and they are afraid of being sued." "Most Americans are Christians, why doesn't Liberals understand that? We live in a Democracy yet you never let the majority decide." Blah blah blah. Nobody's mind was changed.

Majority rules is not a particularly strong argument right now, but sure, let's do it, I'll gladly trade them Merry Christmas for a Hillary Clinton presidency.
posted by jason_steakums at 9:13 AM on November 26, 2016 [39 favorites]

I'm bad a dog whistles but I assume they mean it's the Jews who want to sue?

No. This time it's godless liberals. In reality nobody gives a shit. Like if you go to Dubai and someone says As-salamu alaykum once a transaction finishes you'd have to be a complete dick to take it personally.
posted by Talez at 9:14 AM on November 26, 2016 [11 favorites]

I took a Psych 101 class in college, as part of which we had to volunteer for experiments being put on by the grad students in the Psych program. For mine, I showed up and was ushered into a small room with the lights off and a TV playing. The TV alternated 2 or 3 minute clips of historical footage of Nazis with the little Jerry Seinfeld comedy bits that opened episodes of Seinfeld. I was asked to rate my feelings and general vibe at the time and about two hours after the experiment ended. At the time I was grossed out. Two hours later my feelings of disgust and horror had grown substantially, and I was filled with dread. It was like the clips had poisoned my mood, and there was something about the bits of banal comedy in between them that just amped up the horror.

(Thinking of this in retrospect, especially with the connection between Bannon and Seinfeld, is so creepy and weird.)
posted by sallybrown at 9:18 AM on November 26, 2016 [14 favorites]

I found this Anne Helen Peterson piece on The New Evangelical Woman vs. Trump really interesting. Glennon Doyle Melton, whom she writes about, just came out.

I get why so many are dubious, but I think there could be some coalition-building opportunity with young evangelical women in the next four years...
posted by sallybrown at 9:21 AM on November 26, 2016 [6 favorites]

Guys evangelicals (mostly) don't think Trump will actually force businesses to say "Merry Christmas." It's just social signaling. "The thing you are pissed off about? I too am pissed about it! Or at least I understand your concerns!" It's just pandering and they know it, but it's the sort of pandering they require to get on board with the candidate. Liberals have their own required pandering stuff that you have to say to signal your group sympathies but follow-through is understood to be limited.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:27 AM on November 26, 2016 [32 favorites]

Evangelical Christians are not an organized, monolithic group. I grew up as one and have many relatives who still consider themselves Evangelical. Many voted for Clinton or didn't vote for a presidential candidate at all.

Exit polls suggested that upwards of 80% of white evangelicals voted for Trump. Hillary Clinton got a lower percentage of the white evangelical vote than Obama did in 2012. White evangelicals actually were pretty monolithic on this one, and your relatives are apparently outliers.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:30 AM on November 26, 2016 [26 favorites]

Post death, Trump condemns Castro as "brutal dictator"

from the article, Trump used to not hate Cuba so much and then he got accused of violating the 1990s embargo and voila

Ha ha ha ha ha sob we are so fucked.
posted by angrycat at 9:31 AM on November 26, 2016 [10 favorites]

Post death, Trump condemns Castro as "brutal dictator"

Glass half-full view: at least Trump still disagrees with Putin on something.

(The White House's statement was so anodyne...strange to find myself more in agreement with Trump, even if I think his statement is over-the-top and has more to do with optics than any informed opinion.)
posted by sallybrown at 9:34 AM on November 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

I swear half the political conversation online recently has read like people are trying to predict what happens in the next episode of LOST
posted by beerperson at 9:38 AM on November 26, 2016 [35 favorites]

Here is Nancy Pelosi's statement, which I think is much better than the White House's or Trump's.
posted by sallybrown at 9:38 AM on November 26, 2016 [5 favorites]

Thinking back to the glory days of the Cold War, I'm surprised that nobody's used the term 'domino effect' to describe how Brexit emboldened Trump, and Trump will embolden Le Pen.

It seems a suitable time to revive the idea. (Somebody probably has, and I missed it.)
posted by Devonian at 9:38 AM on November 26, 2016 [10 favorites]

The White House's statement was so anodyne..

But that's what international politics is. It's about holding your tongue and being diplomatic. Trump could learn a lesson about being a statesman here but is apparently still running for president. You don't walk into a room with your biggest rival, fart in their face and walk out flipping the bird with both hands without looking back.
posted by Talez at 9:39 AM on November 26, 2016 [27 favorites]

Clinton campaign: We are taking part in the recount
posted by XtinaS at 9:39 AM on November 26, 2016 [12 favorites]

The TV alternated 2 or 3 minute clips of historical footage of Nazis with the little Jerry Seinfeld comedy bits that opened episodes of Seinfeld.

So, what's the deal with fascism? Everyone marching around, saluting, yelling the same slogans. It's kind of like the government has taken some lessons from Apple, except the government doesn't give you a shiny new phone - they give you a shiny new ultranationalism.
posted by nubs at 9:46 AM on November 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

Eyebrows McGee's comment on pandering reminded me of Mark Lilla's turn on NPR's Morning Edition yesterday [transcript] and I wanted to reach through the radio and punch him in the voice box to get him to shut. up.

LILLA: To take one example, I mean, the whole issue of bathrooms and gender - in this particular election, when the stakes were so high, the fact that Democrats and liberals, more generally, lost a lot of political capital on this issue that frightened people. People were misinformed about certain things, but it was really a question of where young people would be going to the bathroom and where they would be in lockers. Is that really the issue we want to be pushing leading up to a momentous election like this one? It's that shortsightedness that comes from identity politics.

INSKEEP: I'm just imagining some of your fellow liberals being rather angry at you saying such a thing.

LILLA: Well, those are the liberals who don't want to win. Those are the liberals who are in love with noble defeats, and I'm sick and tired of noble defeats. I prefer a dirty victory to a noble defeat. The president who did the most for black Americans in 20th century history was Lyndon Johnson, and he got his hands dirty by dealing with Southern senators, Southern congressmen, horse trading with them, cajoling them, learning what not to talk about. And he got civil rights passed and Great Society programs. That should be the model. Get over yourself.

Get over myself? No. I don't think so. The right says a lot of stuff that scares me, and no one is telling them to be quiet about abortion rights, voter disenfranchisement, or climate change conspiracies because it might make this baby liberal cry. I do get the whole idea of winning at any cost and I can even sympathize with it to an extent, but I don't want to belong to a party that's too cowardly to do the right thing with respect to the civil rights of minority groups just because they'll scare people and lose elections. It's time to fight dirty, but they should take the fight to the Republican members of government, not just zip their lips because scared conservatives might have to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple or use a bathroom that a transgender person might have used once.
posted by xyzzy at 9:52 AM on November 26, 2016 [51 favorites]

Seriously, Tom Cotton?

"Fidel Castro created hell on earth for the Cuban people. He will now become intimately familiar with what he wrought."
posted by box at 9:53 AM on November 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Jokes on you, Ton Cotton! There's no afterlife and he's just dead. Sometimes the bad people win. C.f. Trump.
posted by Joey Michaels at 9:58 AM on November 26, 2016 [8 favorites]

heh, someone tweeted back that the location of hell on earth was actually Arkansas
posted by angrycat at 10:01 AM on November 26, 2016 [13 favorites]

Shorter Lilla: The "under the bus" idiom is great, but what if Democrats could win an election by literally driving a bus back and forth over its core constituencies? Why, who among us wouldn't sign up to be the drivers?
posted by tonycpsu at 10:05 AM on November 26, 2016 [8 favorites]

Tom Cotton, the perfect person to lecture us about dictatorial, hateful, authoritarian impulses and restricting the rights of others.
posted by sallybrown at 10:06 AM on November 26, 2016 [3 favorites]

When Trump calls someone a brutal dictator, I'm pretty sure he does so with admiration, and a grim resolve to be more brutal than that dead chump.
posted by bigbigdog at 10:06 AM on November 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

> You don't walk into a room with your biggest rival, fart in their face and walk out flipping the bird with both hands without looking back.

Based on what I've read, I wouldn't be flabbergasted to learn that Lyndon Johnson did, in fact, do this.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:12 AM on November 26, 2016 [25 favorites]

Could we save the Castro stuff for the Castro thread?
posted by corb at 10:23 AM on November 26, 2016 [3 favorites]

The Recounts Are Far More Likely To Help Trump Than Hurt Him

Here’s the thing: the chances that the outcome in the three decisive states will be overturned are almost nil. The odds are against Trump losing the Electoral College votes of even one state. And when the recounts validate his Electoral College in his victory, this will serve to legitimize his presidency. There might good-government reasons to do the recounts anyway. But contrary to a lot of arguments I’ve seen, one thing these recounts are not is good hardball politics. They will almost certainly work to Trump’s benefit by suggesting that the election was on the square and serving to mask the many ways in which the election was, in fact illegitimate. [...]

But, of course, it is nearly impossible for an election to be rigged in the way that Trump and Republican vote suppressors claim that Democrats rig elections. The recounts are not going to reveal a lot of voter-impersonation fraud or ballot-stuffing.  But this isn’t the point. The 2016 election was, in fact, a massive fail for American democracy: [...]

Focusing on one, narrow element of the election that probably wasn’t severely dysfunctional is a great way to conceal and stifle discussion about what really went wrong. Trump will get to trumpet that the election was fair when it was anything but. If this is hardball anti-Trump politics it couldn’t be any more illogical.

To be clear, for once I don’t think Stein is trying to help Republicans here. Given that she’s a sucker for conspiracy theories, she may well think there’s a real chance that this will help Clinton. But, as usual, she’s wrong. The recounts will almost certainly help to legitimize Trump rather than undermining him.

posted by tonycpsu at 10:26 AM on November 26, 2016 [25 favorites]

Yeah. If anything they need an audit not a recount.
posted by Golden Eternity at 10:29 AM on November 26, 2016 [6 favorites]

From the Wisconsin Election Commission:

A recount is different than an audit and is more rigorous, Haas explained. More than 100 reporting units across the state were randomly selected for a separate audit of their voting equipment as required by state law, and that process has already begun. Electronic voting equipment audits determine whether all properly-marked ballots are accurately tabulated by the equipment. In a recount, all ballots (including those that were originally hand counted) are examined to determine voter intent before being retabulated. In addition, the county boards of canvassers will examine other documents, including poll lists, written absentee applications, rejected absentee ballots, and provisional ballots before counting the votes.
posted by Mothlight at 10:45 AM on November 26, 2016 [7 favorites]

in this particular election, when the stakes were so high, the fact that Democrats and liberals, more generally, lost a lot of political capital on this issue that frightened people

Whatever tiny morsel of truth this might contain, and it would be tiny, is just swamped by his refusal to consider that there are also lots of voters that actually like trans people and homosexual people and will actually turn out to the polls to defend them. That this "identity politics" stuff is something that motivates liberal voters.

The president who did the most for black Americans in 20th century history was Lyndon Johnson, and he got his hands dirty by dealing with Southern senators, Southern congressmen, horse trading with them, cajoling them, learning what not to talk about. And he got civil rights passed and Great Society programs.

This is just pig-ignorant nonsense. He got civil rights passed because nonsoutherners were disgusted by Jim Crow and there were enough of their representatives in Congress to force it into law over the opposition of southern MCs. He didn't work with southern senators and representatives -- or if he did, he did a really size-extra-shit job of it because almost none of them voted for it -- he just had enough support elsewhere to make them not matter.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:47 AM on November 26, 2016 [25 favorites]

examined to determine voter intent before being retabulated.

Oh hi, hanging chads, I missed you. Said no one ever.
posted by corb at 10:50 AM on November 26, 2016 [7 favorites]

My white, evangelical, very southern mother called Trump a "bigot and pig" and Pence a "creep". From a southern lady, those are very strong words. I don't think I've ever heard her call anyone a bigot with the exception of David fucking Duke when he was running for something back in the 90s and lived in our town.

Pretty sure my mother has voted straight Republican her entire life but would tell anyone who would listen this time around why she was voting Clinton. Same with my fiscal-conservative deacon father. Neither of them "liked" Clinton but they were highly motivated to vote against Trump, and they live in a battleground state now.

Among the younger, Christian southerners I know on facebook I do not see a single one pleased about the election. I see an awful lot of hand wringing actually about the state of American Christianity.

The NPR article linked about pollster definitions of what an "evangelical" is kind of mirror my own confusion every time this gets talked about in the news. What IS an evangelical? Are my parents? My old church friends from the deep south? Some of the definitions used seem to range from "culturally Christian" to specific groups like the SBC. It really makes no sense to me and I grew up in that culture.
posted by bradbane at 10:53 AM on November 26, 2016 [10 favorites]

Welp here is Kellyanne Conway's take on the recount:

@kevcirilli First comment from Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway on Clinton joining Wisconsin recount: "What a pack of sore losers."

The link takes you to her full statement that continues

After asking Trump and his team a million times on the trail, "Will HE accept the election results? it turns out Team Hillary and their new BFF Jill Stein can't accept reality. Rather than adhere to the tradition of graciously conceding and wishing the winner well, they've opted to waste millions of dollars and dismiss the democratic process. The people have spoken. Time to listen up.

1. Nice bit of sexism there. Compare "Trump and his team" vs. "Team Hillary."
2. Dismissive bit of sarcasm "BFF" describing the relationship which was a move instigated by Stein and interested party being interested.
3. The reason why Conway's candidate was asked a "million" times if he would accept the results is because he indicated he would not if he lost.
4. Hillary Clinton did adhere to the tradition of graciously conceding.
5. "They" have opted to waste millions. Who is "they"? Not Clinton. And I would argue that the money is not being wasted.
6. The charge of "dismissing Democracy" is really rich because Democracy means everyone's vote is counted. Which is why a recount is valuable.
7. I would suggest that since millions more people voted for Hillary Clinton than DJT, perhaps Conway et al need to listen up. Just a thought.

Man she is able to pack a whole lot of disagreeableness in one short paragraph. I can't wait for her to become press secretary! (said SLofG with a massive eyeroll.)
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 11:13 AM on November 26, 2016 [25 favorites]

The president who did the most for black Americans in 20th century history was Lyndon Johnson, and he got his hands dirty by dealing with Southern senators, Southern congressmen, horse trading with them, cajoling them, learning what not to talk about. And he got civil rights passed and Great Society programs.

This is just pig-ignorant nonsense. He got civil rights passed because nonsoutherners were disgusted by Jim Crow and there were enough of their representatives in Congress to force it into law over the opposition of southern MCs.

Yeah, Johnson also had Democratic majorities in both the house and senate for the first half of his term, and Democratic supermajorities in both the house and senate for the second half of his term.
posted by galaxy rise at 11:23 AM on November 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's just social signaling.

like a dog pissing on every upright thing it encounters.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 11:23 AM on November 26, 2016

The Times just posted a long deep dive on Trump's global businesses and conflicts of interest, Potential Conflicts Around the Globe for Trump, the Businessman President, involving 12 credited reporters and researchers around the world:

“It is uncharted territory, really in the history of the republic, as we have never had a president with such an empire both in the United States and overseas,” said Michael J. Green, who served on the National Security Council in the administration of George W. Bush, and before that at the Defense Department.

The globe is dotted with such potential conflicts. Mr. Trump’s companies have business operations in at least 20 countries, with a particular focus on the developing world, including outposts in nations like India, Indonesia and Uruguay, according to a New York Times analysis of his presidential campaign financial disclosures. What’s more, the true extent of Mr. Trump’s global financial entanglements is unclear, since he has refused to release his tax returns and has not made public a list of his lenders.

posted by zachlipton at 11:34 AM on November 26, 2016 [16 favorites]

The Last Democrat Left Fighting - If Foster Campbell can win a run-off for Louisiana’s Senate seat, the Democrats will be that much closer to stopping Donald Trump.
posted by Golden Eternity at 11:40 AM on November 26, 2016 [8 favorites]

Another article about how Trump's many businesses outside the United States will impact American Foreign Policy

NYTimes Potential Conflicts Around the Globe for Trump, the Businessman President

In Ireland and Scotland, executives from Mr. Trump’s golf courses have been waging two separate battles with local officials. The most recent centers on the Trump Organization’s plans to build a flood-prevention sea wall at the course on the Irish coast. Some environmentalists say the wall could destroy an endangered snail’s habitat — a dispute that will soon involve the president of the United States.

And in Turkey, officials including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a religiously conservative Muslim, demanded that Mr. Trump’s name be removed from Trump Towers in Istanbul after he called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. More recently, after Mr. Trump came to the defense of Mr. Erdogan — suggesting that he had the right to crack down harshly on dissidents after a failed coup — the calls for action against Trump Towers have stopped, fueling worries that Mr. Trump’s policies toward Turkey might be shaped by his commercial interests.

These tangled ties already have some members of Congress — including at least one Republican representative — calling on Mr. Trump to provide more information on his international operations, or perhaps for a congressional inquiry into them.

“You rightly criticized Hillary for Clinton Foundation,” Representative Justin Amash, Republican of Michigan, said in a Twitter message on Monday. “If you have contracts w/foreign govts, it’s certainly a big deal, too. #DrainTheSwamp”

Starts with an overview of the situation (including the question of who provides security for Trump businesses in the Middle East) and then gives particulars on a country by country basis.


Ack! Zachlipton beat me to the post but I will just leave this here as I have chosen different quotes.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 11:43 AM on November 26, 2016 [12 favorites]

The Recounts Are Far More Likely To Help Trump Than Hurt Him

You know what? I've made the mistake of wading into comments sections and red state Facebook pages, and every last Trump supporter out there that I've read anything from believes as absolute fact that the 2 million and growing lead for Clinton in the popular vote is entirely attributed to the fact that there are "3 million illegal aliens" in the US. Who voted, apparently. Anything at all that finally goddamn proves--at least for the historic record, since none of the hardcore Trumpites will believe it anyway--that there was no such showing at the polls of those ineligible to vote, at least in the sample size of a handful of states, is fine by me.
posted by blue suede stockings at 11:46 AM on November 26, 2016 [25 favorites]

The Guardian is reporting that the Russians were attempting a military coup in the capitol of Serbia

Serbia has deported a group of Russians suspected of involvement in a coup plot in neighbouring Montenegro, the Guardian has learned, in the latest twist in a murky sequence of events that apparently threatened the lives of two European prime ministers.

The plotters were allegedly going to dress in police uniforms to storm the Montenegrin parliament in Podgorica, shoot the prime minister, Milo Ðjukanović, and install a pro-Moscow party.

Fuckin Putin. I think I have read more about Russia in the past 2 months than I have in the past 20 years. I can't wait for them to be booed at Eurovision again.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 11:47 AM on November 26, 2016 [20 favorites]

Anything at all that finally goddamn proves--at least for the historic record, since none of the hardcore Trumpites will believe it anyway--that there was no such showing at the polls of those ineligible to vote, at least in the sample size of a handful of states, is fine by me.

I agree, but the folks spreading that stuff are just going to say "but California" and it will start anew.
posted by zachlipton at 11:51 AM on November 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Donald Trump Has Broken the Constitution - The President-Elect is a figure out of authoritarian politics, not the American tradition
posted by Golden Eternity at 11:53 AM on November 26, 2016 [8 favorites]

Anything at all that finally goddamn proves--at least for the historic record, since none of the hardcore Trumpites will believe it anyway--that there was no such showing at the polls of those ineligible to vote, at least in the sample size of a handful of states, is fine by me.

I agree, but the folks spreading that stuff are just going to say "but California" and it will start anew.

Yup, that's why I clarified it's not for their sake, it's for the historic record. We've lost the truth war with that portion of the population but goddamn if I don't want to etch into stone the truth somewhere for the future, whatever that "future" even looks like now.
posted by blue suede stockings at 11:54 AM on November 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oddly enough I was thinking about California (and New York's) state of blueness and wondering how we can bottle that up and sprinkle it around the rest of the United States. Is it just living cheek by jowl with a more cosmopolitan crowd? In other words the city vs. the rural vote? Or are Californian rural voters also more inclined to vote Democrat? What is the difference between Pennsylvania or Florida and California? Why is California more reliably Blue? Both Senators have been Democrats since 1992 and the last time CA voted for a Republican President was 1988, George H. W. Bush.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 12:07 PM on November 26, 2016

'My blood ran cold': Christiane Amanpour on Trump media comments
posted by Golden Eternity at 12:16 PM on November 26, 2016 [5 favorites]

Why is California more reliably Blue?

I would guess generally speaking, the prevailing divide is urban/rural. California is one of the more urban states. Further divide between suburban/exurban/city might help explain differences between states with similar urban/rural divide.
posted by cell divide at 12:16 PM on November 26, 2016

Statement from President-Elect Donald J. Trump on the Ridiculous Green Party Recount Request
posted by zachlipton at 12:17 PM on November 26, 2016

It certainly wouldn't hurt for some of the big tech corporations to spread their facilities out to more states, set up a big Google HQ in Michigan, for example, or if some relatively progressive company moved some jobs to other midwest states, then the economies there would do better as more retail and entertainment options grew and more people moved there to work or support those who worked for the companies. Spread the wealth like the military supply companies do and more states will support policies attractive to the company and their workers. It also helps diversify the populations and the production capabilities for the areas, which is good for longer term local stability.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:17 PM on November 26, 2016 [13 favorites]

I swear that Tulsi Gabbard has been discussed in this post but CTRL F came up with zilch. I am not going to link but david duke is thrilled that she might be SOS.
posted by futz at 12:18 PM on November 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

set up a big Google HQ in Michigan

It exists already in Ann Arbor.
posted by cell divide at 12:19 PM on November 26, 2016

Trump's people may be right about Stein, this will be the most attention she ever gets and is getting a lot of money for doing it to likely little end of note. Still, people in desperate times seeking desperate measures in hopes of a better alternative sin't surprising either.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:20 PM on November 26, 2016

There is also a correlation between education level and being "Blue," especially when you get to people with post-graduate degrees. Cities like NYC and San Fran are very expensive and very competitive work-wise, and I would guess they have higher ratios of people with post-grad degrees than more conservative areas do. That and people flock to be with like-minded others, increasing the divide. You also see this kind of a deep-deep blue pocket in DC and its burbs, also very high-education areas.
posted by sallybrown at 12:22 PM on November 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

It exists already in Ann Arbor.

Ah, the pain of not fact checking comes home. Nonetheless, further spreading the wealth, in theory, could still be a help, even if my chosen example wasn't too keen.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:24 PM on November 26, 2016

The point still stands, but I don't think it will happen for political reasons, it will happen for economic reasons. Ann Arbor is becoming a knowledge and autonomous vehicle hub, mainly because of the excellent (state-funded) University. It also happens to be a very "Blue" city in more ways than one. There are other places around the country which are trying to develop knowledge and technology hubs in "Red" states, and if they succeed other powers in Silicon Valley and New York will surely take notice.
posted by cell divide at 12:30 PM on November 26, 2016 [3 favorites]

Now, this is interesting. Trump comes out swinging (twitter) against the recount but against Jill Stein, very deliberately painting this as a Green Party effort: "This recount is just a way for Jill Stein . . . to fill her coffers with money, most of which she will never even spend on this ridiculous recount . . . . This is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded . . . ."

I disagree with Ben Jacobs that this is "taking the high road," but am not sure what it is. Trump wanting to portray himself and Clinton as a united front? Playing down the number of people unhappy with the result?
posted by sallybrown at 12:32 PM on November 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

I would have to think many workers would, eventually, find such locations more attractive too just for affordability reasons if nothing else.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:33 PM on November 26, 2016 [3 favorites]

There are other places around the country which are trying to develop knowledge and technology hubs in "Red" states, and if they succeed other powers in Silicon Valley and New York will surely take notice.

I think that when that happens, though, it tends to create or exacerbate political and social divisions *within* states. People benefit really unequally: there are those who have the skills and education (and proximity) to get the new, good jobs, and there are other people who feel left behind or hurt by things like rising property prices. And the people who feel left behind can sometimes resent taxes funding things like public universities or infrastructure improvements that help the cities and college towns that benefit. I'm 100% in favor of more tech investment in red and purple states, but it's not going to be a panacea.

Anyway, I think a lot of the difference between states is just straight-up demographics. Something like 45% of Californians and 60% of New Yorkers identify as non-Hispanic and white. In Pennsylvania, it's more like 80%. In Iowa, where I live, it's close to 90%. New York and California are also much more urban than Pennsylvania, let alone Iowa. I don't think there's any reason to think that future elections will follow the same demographic voting trends as this one, but I think it would have been hard for Trump to overcome the demographic factors that worked against him in New York and California.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 12:58 PM on November 26, 2016 [6 favorites]

I think that when that happens, though, it tends to create or exacerbate political and social divisions *within* states.

It does exacerbate tensions between urban and rural areas, but it also can increase diversity within the populations, which is the best way to spread tolerance and understanding between groups. There simply is no way back to 1950s America, so anyone wanting that is going to be disillusioned anyway. The best we can do is spread the wealth more evenly so others can take advantage in both material and non-material ways, and of course hope that it isn't too late for that to happen given the rise in authoritarianism, desire for isolation, and to stop time. Slowing the rate of change would be nice, but probably unlikely, so better acclimatizing people to it and inoculating people from its worst effects might be our only way to keep things together.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:12 PM on November 26, 2016

From that "more likely to help Trump than hurt him" article: "Wikileaks hacked one campaign and released the material to its stooges in the American media."

No Wikileaks didn't. Russian intelligence did, as confirmed by the NSA, the Director of National Intelligence, and the independent security firm CrowdStrike, who discussed their evidence in detail.

It may be hard to believe because it is so unprecedented, but it really happened.

It's because of this unprecedented involvement of a foreign government in this year's election that I agree with J. Alex Halderman:

"Were this year’s deviations from pre-election polls the results of a cyberattack? Probably not. I believe the most likely explanation is that the polls were systematically wrong, rather than that the election was hacked. But I don’t believe that either one of these seemingly unlikely explanations is overwhelmingly more likely than the other. The only way to know whether a cyberattack changed the result is to closely examine the available physical evidence — paper ballots"
posted by OnceUponATime at 1:13 PM on November 26, 2016 [13 favorites]

"This is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded . . . ."

and the yam knows a scam when see one, because he has the biggest, best scams, believe me... yooge scams
posted by entropicamericana at 1:21 PM on November 26, 2016 [3 favorites]

Andrew O'Hehir in Salon It is happening here...Whose side are you on?

Farce, failure and incompetence are among the better possible outcomes of a Trump administration. The worse outcomes — which come more clearly into focus with every noxious new appointment, and every new report of a hate crime that the president-elect hasn’t heard about or blandly disavows — are almost too much to think about.

posted by kingless at 1:30 PM on November 26, 2016 [10 favorites]

It does exacerbate tensions between urban and rural areas, but it also can increase diversity within the populations, which is the best way to spread tolerance and understanding between groups.

I certainly hope you're right, speaking as a lefty Jewish transplant to Iowa. But I think that's a long-term project, and in the short-term, it just means that the places where people like me move end up being cast as a mini version of New York or L.A.: 'elite', un-Christian, non-white, commie, not really America, etc. And that can lead to people electing state governments that do some very weird and counterproductive things like declaring war on public higher education, which is not in anyone's best interest but can sometimes appeal to voters who don't like feeling left behind in the shift to a knowledge economy. You'd think that people would vote for better funding for higher ed, which would open opportunities to everyone, but sometimes the opposite happens. You can see that in Wisconsin, for instance, which seems to be hellbent on gutting their excellent university system for basically no good reason.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:35 PM on November 26, 2016 [20 favorites]

From kingless' link: Trump is too lazy and stupid to be a good Führer

Yes, we're reduced to hoping our President is too much of a shiftless imbecile to do as much harm as he might.
posted by Justinian at 1:35 PM on November 26, 2016 [67 favorites]

But I think that's a long-term project, and in the short-term, it just means that the places where people like me move end up being cast as a mini version of New York or L.A.: 'elite', un-Christian, non-white, commie, not really America, etc.

Yes, there does seem to be some real difficulty in any initial growth stage, where the first signs of diversity and change are noted, but before that growth can fully take hold. I'm not sure what to make of that since there definitely can be concerted efforts to stop change or shift a state economy early on. In states with big cities, the resentment of the more rural areas is pretty strong, some of that due to the cities getting more attention due to population, and some just due to opposition to the diversity in city life.

Many or most college towns at least lean towards acceptance of more liberal ideals, so even red states do have blue areas and can develop further along those lines with people from the state and from outside, and that's the hope, but getting past the resentment is tough. My own brother-in-law, who I rarely see, evidently didn't want my nephew to attend college purely because he didn't go so he didn't think my nephew should either. Whether out of pride or spite or fear, who knows? But the dynamic is a real one.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:46 PM on November 26, 2016 [3 favorites]

It certainly wouldn't hurt for some of the big tech corporations to spread their facilities out to more states, set up a big Google HQ in Michigan, for example, or if some relatively progressive company moved some jobs to other midwest states, then the economies there would do better as more retail and entertainment options grew and more people moved there to work or support those who worked for the companies. Spread the wealth like the military supply companies do and more states will support policies attractive to the company and their workers. It also helps diversify the populations and the production capabilities for the areas, which is good for longer term local stability.

It absolutely would hurt those companies.

One of the strongest effects of cities is that they concentrate talent and multiply its effects. I could pretty much go to a programming talk and eat free food every night of the work week (and a few lunches too) in Chicago. I am pretty sure this is even easier in SF or NYC.

I am surrounded by smart people who do what I do and who I can talk to if I choose to. I learn from them. I compete with them.

If I lived in Michigan there would be far less of that.

So if a company worked for wanted me to move to Michigan or any economically depressed red state area my answer would be "Next Job Please".
posted by srboisvert at 2:57 PM on November 26, 2016 [9 favorites]

Now Stein is attacking Clinton again for no reason: Why would Hillary Clinton—who conceded the election to Donald Trump—want #Recount2016? You cannot be on-again, off-again about democracy.

The Clinton folks pretty clearly stated that, if there's going to be a recount, they will participate to ensure their side is represented. If they explicitly wanted a recount, they would have asked for one and paid for it themselves.
posted by zachlipton at 3:01 PM on November 26, 2016 [10 favorites]

Not sure about this source but he does cite.

Ahead of recount, Wisconsin has already wiped out 5,000 imaginary Donald Trump votes

"Donald Trump has gone from originally having 1,409,467 votes to now having just 1,404,536 votes in Wisconsin. In other words, a total of 4,931 votes were reported for Trump on election night that never existed. In contrast Hillary Clinton has gone from 1,382,210 votes down to 1,382,011 votes, a difference of less than two hundred votes. In other words, Wisconsin essentially had Clinton’s vote total correct all along, but is now acknowledging that nearly five thousand of the supposed votes for Trump simply never existed. Where did these votes come from? Who originally padded his numbers and how? If this was indeed due to an organized effort to pad Trump’s voting totals in various precincts across the state, the recount should fully expose it.
posted by futz at 3:05 PM on November 26, 2016 [9 favorites]

Futz - can you update the link? It's broken right now.
posted by samthemander at 3:11 PM on November 26, 2016

http://www.palmerreport.com/news/ahead-of-recount-wisconsin-has-already-wiped-out-5000-phony-votes-for-donald-trump/234/
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 3:13 PM on November 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

There's an update to that article (which Joy Reid literally just tweeted three minutes ago) claiming, if you trust the Palmer Report anyway, that one "reporting unit" initially had its results counted twice due to a problem with a modem (yes, really).
posted by zachlipton at 3:17 PM on November 26, 2016

KKSSHHHHEEEEEEEWHAAAAAAEEEEWHAAAAAEEE
CCKCKCKCKCKCKCKCKZZZSXZSXZS

modems have always been a problem. A joyous cacophonous problem. And now, the sound of a paper ballot being counted.

.
posted by petebest at 3:30 PM on November 26, 2016 [7 favorites]

Not that I think the explanation should just be accepted at face value, but it does make sense to me as a plausible explanation that a modem-related process could function successfully, but produce behavior that the user interpreted as a failure, and then the user re-started the process and hence accidentally submitted the same value twice.

It's like how some old credit card handling web sites would display the message "ABSOLUTELY DO NOT PRESS THE ‘SUBMIT’ BUTTON AGAIN NO MATTER WHAT" in the final step. Ideally the system would be designed to cope with that sort of problem without recording duplicates, but we do not live in a perfect world.
posted by XMLicious at 3:36 PM on November 26, 2016

Padding? Really? WTF is going on?

Ok moving on....

Hours later and I am still angry about that Conway statement. She sounds so belligerent and spiteful-- hardly the tone you would expect from the winning Presidential team. When she says "listen up" all I hear is "sit down and shut up." It is part and parcel of the authoritarian message. The leader speaks and the followers obey without question. The winning team gets to talk and the losers must shut up. The parent speaks and the children obey, cheerfully and without dissent.

Ugh. I put up with that shit when I was a kid, I do not have to put up with it now.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 3:39 PM on November 26, 2016 [14 favorites]

Mod note: Deleted a couple -- trolling and a response that quoted the trolling comment. Please repost your excellent comment (just without the troll-quote included), Thella!
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 3:45 PM on November 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Somebody has to say it:
Donal Trump's statement about Stein's recount campaign is the EXACT SAME argument about "just a fundraising scam" that many MeFites have made. When you're agreeing with Dishonest Donald about ANYTHING, you need to sit back and do some soul searching.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:46 PM on November 26, 2016 [34 favorites]

From The Guardian article linked above

...In requesting the recounts, Stein is acting on behalf of a loose coalition of academics and election experts. Her Wisconsin petition features an affidavit by J Alex Halderman, the director of Michigan University’s Center for Computer Security and Society, who has for years detailed vulnerabilities in electronic voting machines used in the US.

One of the leaders of the coalition, John Bonifaz, founder of the National Voting Rights Institute, expressed frustration that critics were accusing Stein of exploiting disappointment over the election result to collect money and gather contact details from liberal activists.

“This was all driven by the nonpartisan election integrity community,” said Bonifaz, a constitutional attorney, in his first interview about the recount effort. “I’m the one who asked Jill Stein to file these petitions.”

Bonifaz also defended Stein’s decision to increase her fundraising target from its original $2.5m, which led to more criticism. Bonifaz said the coalition had retained the New York law firm Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady, which has extensive experience in election disputes and had advised them to budget $7m for the effort.

“This is going to be a very costly campaign,” said Bonifaz, adding that the average contribution from the tens of thousands of supporters who had donated was about $42. “But it is something that a lot of people clearly want.”
... ...
The coalition had approached the Clinton campaign but received no official response, according to Bonifaz.

In his online posting, Elias said: “Because we had not uncovered any actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology, we had not planned to exercise this option ourselves.

It is very important for the integrity of democratic processes in this time of high cynicism, that it becomes widely known that the push for a recount came from concerned experts and not a political party. That they turned to political parties for support is how the representative process works. At stake is not the presidential election this year, but the integrity of the whole electoral system in years to come.
posted by Thella at 3:54 PM on November 26, 2016 [84 favorites]

On the topic of the distribution of jobs and political implications thereof, I found this new article to be excellent:
Fuck Work: What if Jobs are Not the Solution, but the Problem?
posted by kaibutsu at 4:29 PM on November 26, 2016 [19 favorites]

SLoG: The Guardian is reporting that the Russians were attempting a military coup in the capitol of Serbia

Important to note that although the plotters were based in and deported from Serbia, they were planning to assassinate the prime minister and overthrow the government in Montenegro, since 2006 a neighboring sovereign country.

According to Wikipedia and that article, for the last year Montenegro has been in the final stage of joining NATO, against strong opposition from Russia.
posted by XMLicious at 4:42 PM on November 26, 2016 [11 favorites]

Now Stein is attacking Clinton again for no reason:

Twist ending: the scorpion in that poem Trump kept reading was Jill Stein all along.

I never thought she was trying to billk anyone out of money. I just think she was a toxic presence in the campaign with her "Clinton is worse than Trump" noise. Seeing her now question the results seems like buyer's remorse to me

Of course, this mirrors the response of many of my "too pure for Clinton" Friends who are now publicly gnashing their teeth and rending their garments over Trump. Well, guys, this is what happens when you split the vote. Congratufuckinglations. You have your morals we all have a troll doll as president.

I'm lukewarm on the recount. I think it's wishful thinking at best. Both hope I'm proven wrong, but I'd rather spend my money supporting Standing Rock or PP just at the moment. Godspeed to everyone who is working to make it happen but Stein could have helped more by withdrawing from the race.
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:06 PM on November 26, 2016 [19 favorites]

On the topic of the distribution of jobs and political implications thereof, I found this new article to be excellent:
Fuck Work: What if Jobs are Not the Solution, but the Problem?

Labor is a pretty fundamental thing to being-human, I think. Anyone who's ever been unengaged in labor for an extended period knows that even if your situation is such that you are financially secure, you do need to find ways to "keep busy", or engage in productive labor, whether that be dedicating time to job hunting, volunteerism, labor outside the formal labor market (child care, housework, projects that produce some tangible outcome), etc.

When the Industrial Revolution happened, we saw a similar thing happen. Humans had to transition from an economy where nearly everyone was engaged in subsistence farming/husbandry or direct secondary work to the great task of making sure there was food, clothing and shelter like smithing and tailoring, to an economy where labor-saving devices could produce goods incredibly cheaply, and those benefits might accrue to the owners of those machines or might be passed to ordinary workers in the form of a living wage and restrictions on working hours.

What we need now is a second movement toward, maybe, a 20-hour workweek. There's not enough work to go around post-Information Revolution, and the work has to be divided relatively equally among people or we will face structural unemployment.

(Did I say "will face"? I should have said, we have been facing this problem for at least 20 years and have been papering over it with bubble after bubble because there isn't the political will, either at the US national level or at the global level, to address this crisis.)
posted by tivalasvegas at 5:18 PM on November 26, 2016 [19 favorites]

Of course, this mirrors the response of many of my "too pure for Clinton" Friends who are now publicly gnashing their teeth and rending their garments over Trump. Well, guys, this is what happens when you split the vote. Congratufuckinglations. You have your morals we all have a troll doll as president.

I feel like we're being forced into their position: in a moment where no one to the left of Paul Ryan has any real leverage, are we all unwilling accelerationists now?
posted by tivalasvegas at 5:20 PM on November 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

A look at Steve Bannon and his years at Harvard Business School
posted by Golden Eternity at 5:24 PM on November 26, 2016

look at Steve Bannon and his years at Harvard Business School

Huh, I grew up in a white-working class Midwestern neighborhood and went to Christian school all the way through university.

Can I call him a coastal elite now? Pretty please?!?
posted by tivalasvegas at 5:29 PM on November 26, 2016 [8 favorites]

en forme de poire: I think Jill Stein demanding the recount is actually kind of genius because it takes the pressure totally off the Clinton team, for whom demanding a recount could be really bad optics. I hope a bunch of wealthy Clinton donors are funneling money in that direction.

Hillary: *holding a Netgear router to Jill Stein’s head* "File for a fucking recount or I swear to Christ I’ll turn this thing on." [Fake]
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 5:32 PM on November 26, 2016 [21 favorites]

Some Fake News Publishers Just Happen to Be Donald Trump’s Cronies

Laura Ingraham, a close Trump ally currently under consideration to be Trump’s White House press secretary, owns an online publisher called Ingraham Media Group that runs a number of sites, including LifeZette, a news site that frequently posts articles of dubious veracity. One video produced by LifeZette this summer, ominously titled “Clinton Body Count,” promoted a conspiracy theory that the Clinton family had some role in the plane crash death of John F. Kennedy, Jr., as well as the deaths of various friends and Democrats.

The video, published on Facebook from LifeZette’s verified news account, garnered over 400,000 shares and 14 million views.

posted by Western Infidels at 6:04 PM on November 26, 2016 [18 favorites]

@saladinahmed: cool I thought america was a late capitalist racist dystopia in catastrophic meltdown but it turns out we were just hacked by the russians
posted by Golden Eternity at 6:28 PM on November 26, 2016 [15 favorites]

Washington Post Disgracefully Promotes a McCarthyite Blacklist From a New, Hidden, and Very Shady Group
posted by bukvich at 6:36 PM on November 26, 2016 [10 favorites]

America is a late capitalist racist dystopia in catastrophic meltdown AND it turns out we might have been hacked by the Russians.
posted by OnceUponATime at 6:57 PM on November 26, 2016 [24 favorites]

3 California mosques threatened in letter praising Trump

Local Islamic leaders are asking for increased police protection after at least three California mosques received a letter that threatens Muslims and praises President-Elect Donald Trump.

Over the past several days, Islamic centers in Long Beach, Claremont and San Jose all received the same photocopy of a handwritten letter addressed to “the Children of Satan.” The letter calls Muslims “vile,” “filthy” and “evil.” It then states that Trump – who, during his campaign, proposed making Muslims register and blocking people of faith from entering the country – is going to “cleanse America.”

“He’s going to do to you Muslims what Hitler did to the Jews,” the letter reads. “You Muslims would be wise to pack your bags and get out of Dodge.”

The letter is signed “Americans for a Better Way.”

Despicable & Deplorable and makes me want to cry. I had a conversation with my (very receptive) Thanksgiving guests about not letting the smallest slight slide when you observe it whether it is an offhand comment in the line at the grocery store or a shouted slur from afar etc. There are small and large ways that you can show support. Speak up if you are able and feel safe. Some guests were elderly and I wouldn't expect them to take the same measures that I would but there are little things that they can do or say. I explained the safety pin and what it meant (touched briefly on the issues surrounding it) and just asked them to be aware of what was going on around them and to think about what they could or might do if a situation arose.

More eyes, more ears, more action.
posted by futz at 7:02 PM on November 26, 2016 [14 favorites]

I would like to request an update to the "surely this" of the Cheney Crime Gang years.

While others continue to stay current via mainstream outlets, I will endeavour to not. Can't. Y'feel me. But back then, a good "surely this" had some stuff on it - this was the step too far, this will wake everyone up to what a travesty the latest GOP flatulentia is, etc.

I realized today that for me, that started with Reagan. But now we've smashed the surely this. Maybe there never was a surely this. And since there are no evens, not even any just evens or f--king evens, even - I'd like to ask the writers of 2016 for some new surely this that might actually help.

A wish for wings that work, as it were.
posted by petebest at 7:06 PM on November 26, 2016 [8 favorites]

Is it possible that Clinton team DID see shenanigans in Wi, MI and PA but thought the optics would be better for stein to carry that torch? Are they possibly in cahoots?
posted by ian1977 at 7:15 PM on November 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

There's a story that Jerry Falwell Jr. told the AP he was offered Secretary of Education but he turned it down.

Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. says president elect-Donald Trump offered him the job of Secretary of Education, but he turned it down for personal reasons.

Falwell told The Associated Press on Saturday that Trump offered him the job last week during a meeting in New York. He says Trump wanted a four- to six-year commitment, but Falwell says he couldn’t leave Liberty for more than two years.

Falwell says he couldn’t afford to work a cabinet-level job in Washington for longer than that and didn’t want to move his family, especially his 16-year-old daughter.

Trump announced Wednesday he had selected charter school advocate Betsy DeVos for the job.

Falwell says he thinks DeVos is an “excellent choice.”

An "excellent choice" who he thought he'd trash by telling everyone she was a second choice. Also note the "couldn't afford" bit; cabinet secretaries make $205,700/year.

And also, holy shit, he thought Jerry Falwell Jr. was qualified to be Secretary of Education?
posted by zachlipton at 7:19 PM on November 26, 2016 [6 favorites]

It's gonna be a new thing for various shitbags to brag 'yeah I was offered a cabinet position too' kinda like the new 'yeah I remember when I had my first beer'
posted by ian1977 at 7:22 PM on November 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

scoop d'etat?

No? Okay, just spitballing.
posted by petebest at 7:24 PM on November 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

If this hasn't been posted yet... it's a pretty good summary of Trump's connections to white ethno-nationalism to share with those who haven't been paying attention:

Trump Still Navigating White Supremacists' Support

'Spencer's group, the National Policy Institute, drew headlines for their recent gathering where some attendees mimicked the Nazi salute as they feted Trump. Spencer told The Associated Press the salutes were "ironic exuberance" that "the mainstream media doesn't get."'
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:25 PM on November 26, 2016 [5 favorites]

various shitbags to brag 'yeah I was offered a cabinet position too

In this post-fact world who even knows if it is true. If it is, fuck that noise hard.
posted by futz at 7:27 PM on November 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm going to put this here because I don't know where else to, I've tried raising it elsewhere and gotten no response or attention. I am not a statistician or political scientist, but early after the election Sarah Kendizor on twitter was raising questions about the validity of the Missouri vote. I decided to see if there was any method of determining the likelihood of hacking. It turns out there is.

It's called Benford's Law and it states that in many naturally occurring collections of numbers, the leading significant digit is likely to be small. However, in election results, it's actually the SECOND digit that matters and that it should follow a regular pattern as shown here.

So I took the county-by-county election results for the state of Missouri, copied down all the second digits and ran a correlation test to that chart. I got a correlation of 0.5225890493, which if my very brief study of statistics in grad school is right, means a pretty good correlation - no fraud.

I was feeling like Wisconsin seemed odd, though, even before the letter from the experts. I ran the same test on the Wisconsin county-by-county data. The correlation this time was NEGATIVE. -0.1575801778. I would really love for someone who knows something about poli sci and statistics to let me know their thoughts.
posted by waitingtoderail at 7:31 PM on November 26, 2016 [22 favorites]

Interesting. Can you dumb that down a titch waitingtoderail?
posted by ian1977 at 7:34 PM on November 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

Your here link just leads to the cover of a book?
posted by ian1977 at 7:35 PM on November 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'd like to ask the writers of 2016 for some new surely this that might actually help.

I think George R. R. Martin is kind of busy right now figuring out what to do with that Ice and Fire series thingy.
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:38 PM on November 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

Can you dumb that down a titch waitingtoderail?

Heh, I don't know that I can, I hardly understand myself. Basically the numbers should follow a regular pattern. In Missouri's case they do, if not STRONGLY, but in Wisconsin's case they are actually slightly reversed from what they should be. That is my understanding, anyhow.

Your here link just leads to the cover of a book?

Sorry, not sure how to get a good link. It's page 165-166 of that book.
posted by waitingtoderail at 7:51 PM on November 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Basically the numbers should follow a regular pattern.

Which numbers? The preview isn't showing pages 165-166.
posted by wondermouse at 7:54 PM on November 26, 2016

Which numbers?

Well, in theory, any list of statistical data. In this case, the county-by-county vote totals, specifically, the second digit in each of them.

The preview isn't showing pages 165-166.

That's odd, it does on mine. Basically, the lower the number, the more often it should show up.
posted by waitingtoderail at 7:56 PM on November 26, 2016

Benford's Law and Elections

PDF on the topic
posted by Rumple at 8:04 PM on November 26, 2016 [7 favorites]

The Democrats, when they incorrectly thought they were going to win, asked that the election night tabulation be accepted. Not so anymore!

--@realDonaldTrump

This recount business seems to be getting to him.
posted by zachlipton at 8:09 PM on November 26, 2016 [9 favorites]

So I took the county-by-county election results for the state of Missouri, copied down all the second digits and ran a correlation test to that chart. I got a correlation of 0.5225890493

You wouldn't do it that way. Flipping around in the bits of the book available online, you would need precinct-level data and do meow meow math meow ending up with a chi2 test.

I don't mean to be harsh about this, but let's take Column A: Rural whites in the midwest really liked the racist shit Trump was spouting -- crap so awful and direct that nobody had really dared to say shit like that since George Wallace -- and showed up for him in droves. And in Column B, we have a conspiracy to alter the vote. By the nature of the voting process in the US, it would have to be large and decentralized, involving people in hundreds to thousands of polling places, including Democratic poll workers and observers. None of whom have blabbed while drunk or put it in their suicide notes or whatever. It really can't be any more centralized than the polling places because poll workers and observers will have recorded and remember what the vote totals from their polling place were. Column A is... more likely.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:09 PM on November 26, 2016 [11 favorites]

On a cursory glance those appear to be dismissive of the method, this is completely possible. This is why I've tried to turn to those in the know. Thanks!
posted by waitingtoderail at 8:10 PM on November 26, 2016

This recount business seems to be getting to him.

Good.
posted by emjaybee at 8:12 PM on November 26, 2016 [23 favorites]

Column A is... more likely.

Sure. Knowing that Russia was meddling around in the lead-up to the election, though, would indicate that maybe we should be making sure they didn't go further?
posted by waitingtoderail at 8:13 PM on November 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

The Democrats, when they incorrectly thought they were going to win, asked that the election night tabulation be accepted. Not so anymore!

"Incorrectly" doesn't sound like a word that he would use. Is that an iPhone tweet?
posted by indubitable at 8:13 PM on November 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

Thanks for explaining the math a bit more.
posted by waitingtoderail at 8:17 PM on November 26, 2016

Sure. Knowing that Russia was meddling around in the lead-up to the election, though, would indicate that maybe we should be making sure they didn't go further?

Also, Scott Walker is still the governor and I basically wouldn't put anything past him at this point.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 8:17 PM on November 26, 2016 [10 favorites]

"Incorrectly" doesn't sound like a word that he would use. Is that an iPhone tweet?

Android.
posted by chris24 at 8:19 PM on November 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

If it gets under trumps skin it's priceless.
posted by ian1977 at 8:21 PM on November 26, 2016 [13 favorites]

I don't mean to be harsh about this, but let's take Column A: Rural whites in the midwest really liked the racist shit Trump was spouting -- crap so awful and direct that nobody had really dared to say shit like that since George Wallace -- and showed up for him in droves. And in Column B, we have a conspiracy to alter the vote. By the nature of the voting process in the US, it would have to be large and decentralized, involving people in hundreds to thousands of polling places, including Democratic poll workers and observers. None of whom have blabbed while drunk or put it in their suicide notes or whatever. It really can't be any more centralized than the polling places because poll workers and observers will have recorded and remember what the vote totals from their polling place were. Column A is... more likely.

The only thing I can think of that seems doable for column B would be absentee ballot fraud.
posted by jason_steakums at 8:31 PM on November 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Benford's Law is used all the time in detecting financial and other kinds of fraud. If WI precinct data is giving odd results, then something fishy is most likely going on.
posted by localhuman at 8:32 PM on November 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

"How might a foreign government hack America’s voting machines to change the outcome of a presidential election? Here’s one possible scenario. First, the attackers would probe election offices well in advance in order to find ways to break into their computers. Closer to the election, when it was clear from polling data which states would have close electoral margins, the attackers might spread malware into voting machines in some of these states, rigging the machines to shift a few percent of the vote to favor their desired candidate. This malware would likely be designed to remain inactive during pre-election tests, do its dirty business during the election, then erase itself when the polls close. A skilled attacker’s work might leave no visible signs — though the country might be surprised when results in several close states were off from pre-election polls."

Apparently this infection of physical media bit is how StuxNet worked. So it's not completely theoretical.
posted by OnceUponATime at 8:41 PM on November 26, 2016 [13 favorites]

If WI precinct data is giving odd results, then something fishy is most likely going on.

I was using county level data, maybe not so accurate? I'd like to see what someone who knows what they're doing comes up with.
posted by waitingtoderail at 8:48 PM on November 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

more, re: berlusconi...

Populists as snake oil sellers - "four points of similarity between snake oil salesmen and populist politicians"

First, patent remedies weren’t entirely ineffective. They often contained alcohol or opium which gave people at least a short-term pep. As Ran Spielger shows (pdf), if people mistake this short-term boost for a genuine cure (which is especially likely if their ailment would have cleared up anyway) then demand for quacks will grow. In this tradition. Trump is mixing harmful anti-globalization policies with a helpful fiscal stimulus.

Secondly, the very fact that patent medicines failed to eradicate chronic ailments meant that the market for them grew over time as more people got ill. And ill people are desperate, and willing to take risks... people who feel they are losing out from the existing order gamble on change.

Thirdly, patent medicine sellers devoted huge efforts to marketing – an effort which consisted of gross over-hype, claiming their products to be “most efficacious in every way.” ... Genuine doctors were powerless against this sales drive, because ill-informed customers could not distinguish between quality and quackery...

There’s a direct parallel between this [and] the inadequacy of the media today. The BBC’s decision to become impartial between truth and lies means that the “independent authority” that might help people distinguish between quacks and experts is indeed absent.

Finally, quacks succeeded by denying that proper doctors had any genuine expertise – a denial aided by the fact that their expertise was indeed limited...

And the methods work. Liberals like to think that in the marketplace for ideas, good ideas will beat bad ones, just as in the marketplace for products good ones will displace bad ones. History, however, warns us that in both cases, it isn’t necessarily so.

The consent of the governed: The hole at the heart of economics - "Institutions are organisations or patterns of behaviour built by societies to help solve social or economic problems which the law or private markets cannot fully address... And the fact that such dynamics are woolly and defy easy efforts at modelling or measuring cannot be an excuse for continuing to ignore them. Economists will never understand the world if they cannot explain how institutions work and why they sometimes fail us."

American Democracy Is Dying, and This Election Isn’t Enough to Fix It - "The foundation of our political system is broken. And repairing it will take more than just your vote."

also btw...
-Steve Bannon and the Last Crusade
-This Man Is the Most Dangerous Political Operative in America
-Trump’s Top Fundraiser Eyes the Deal of a Lifetime
-Exclusive Interview: How Jared Kushner Won Trump The White House
posted by kliuless at 9:06 PM on November 26, 2016 [46 favorites]

Finally, quacks succeeded by denying that proper doctors had any genuine expertise – a denial aided by the fact that their expertise was indeed limited...

This persists with the "miracle cures they aren't telling you" informercial template. It persists with the huge supplement/para-medical industry, particularly in the awful US healthcare non-system, because supplements don't require a prescription.

And the con merchant as we now know it is a pure product of America, a nation where you could change your identity and your marks for the next grift.
posted by holgate at 9:40 PM on November 26, 2016 [5 favorites]

Serbia has deported a group of Russians suspected of involvement in a coup plot in neighbouring Montenegro, the Guardian has learned, in the latest twist in a murky sequence of events that apparently threatened the lives of two European prime ministers.

I have a co-worker from Serbia and one with family ties to Montenegro. The one from Serbia is pretty leftist, but hates Nato and insisted that Russia has no interest in invading any countries - and wouldn't accept any push back.

The one with ties to Montenegro is a Bernie or Bust Jill Stein Russia Today quoting hardliner. I finally decided to hide this one's posts on facebook after a story that the Clintons were running a pedophile ring.

I'm really curious if they bring this up at all. We do talk about politics quite a lot at work.
posted by maggiemaggie at 11:42 PM on November 26, 2016 [3 favorites]

Actually I see the date on The Guardian article is Nov 11, which is before our discussion about Russia and NATO.
posted by maggiemaggie at 11:47 PM on November 26, 2016

And the con merchant as we now know it is a pure product of America, a nation where you could change your identity and your marks for the next grift.

I believe the modern nomenclature is 'microtargetted messaging'.
posted by jaduncan at 11:49 PM on November 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

I had an interesting interaction with some pro-Trump guy on twitter who referred me to a video of Obama telling "illegals" they can vote. After I pointed out that's not what he said, he continued to insist it was.

He must know that's not what Obama was saying. I'm left wondering what is going on with him. Is he a troll? Is he just engaging in "information war?" If so, why are liberals so scary and considered such a big enemy? Obviously he got it from conservative media and it's probably shared around in conservative circles; I guess without anyone doubting it. Why would he want to believe it? Does he have a deep-seated fear of immigrants? Anyway, there is little possibility for continuing a conversation if we can't agree on what was actually said I guess.
posted by Golden Eternity at 12:54 AM on November 27, 2016 [8 favorites]

Transcribe the words from Obama's speech and attribute them to Giuliani. Once he says he agrees with Giuliani, point out those were actually the words to Obama's speech. I have done something like that nine times just to watch the words meaning miraculously transform into the opposite of their meaning depending on who said them. It's satisfying if entirely unsuccessful at changing minds.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:19 AM on November 27, 2016 [54 favorites]

I just remembered why mention of Montenegro was tickling my memory-bone: in the previous politics thread someone linked to a picture of a billboard featuring a photo of Trump and a photo of Putin, with the caption "Let's make the world great again — together", which turned out to be in Montenegro.
posted by XMLicious at 2:05 AM on November 27, 2016 [6 favorites]

He must know that's not what Obama was saying. I'm left wondering what is going on with him. Is he a troll? Is he just engaging in "information war?" If so, why are liberals so scary and considered such a big enemy? Obviously he got it from conservative media and it's probably shared around in conservative circles; I guess without anyone doubting it. Why would he want to believe it? Does he have a deep-seated fear of immigrants? Anyway, there is little possibility for continuing a conversation if we can't agree on what was actually said I guess.

Probably either a paid flack or an idiot who can't acknowledge when he's wrong and back down gracefully. The latter seems more likely, although it's awfully cheap to pay people per comment. English language articles criticising Putin or Assad also have an impressive amount of comments defending them. If you're looking in Russian or Chinese language sites, the volume of bullshit Kremlin driven and "50 cent army" comments will (often actually salaried propagandists, these days) comments will astound you if you haven't been there before. Harvard have an interesting linked study on this in the Chinese context, abstract follows but the headline figure is a guess of 448 million paid for comments a year from the CCP:

The Chinese government has long been suspected of hiring as many as 2,000,000 people to surreptitiously insert huge numbers of pseudonymous and other deceptive writings into the stream of real social media posts, as if they were the genuine opinions of ordinary people. Many academics, and most journalists and activists, claim that these so-called “50c party” posts vociferously argue for the government’s side in political and policy debates. As we show, this is also true of the vast majority of posts openly accused on social media of being 50c. Yet, almost no systematic empirical evidence exists for this claim, or, more importantly, for the Chinese regime’s strategic objective in pursuing this activity. In the first large scale empirical analysis of this operation, we show how to identify the secretive authors of these posts, the posts written by them, and their content. We estimate that the government fabricates and posts about 448 million social media comments a year. In contrast to prior claims, we show that the Chinese regime’s strategy is to avoid arguing with skeptics of the party and the government, and to not even discuss controversial issues. We infer that the goal of this massive secretive operation is instead to regularly distract the public and change the subject [emphasis mine], as most of the these posts involve cheerleading for China, the revolutionary history of the Communist Party, or other symbols of the regime.

We discuss how these results fit with what is known about the Chinese censorship program, and suggest how they may change our broader theoretical understanding of “common knowledge” and information control in authoritarian regimes.

I have little assumption of good faith left in most places, it's too easy to pay for bullshit and/or attempt to break the usability of the comment thread via bots. It was very notable on the Clinton campaign twitter feed, for example, and it's unsurprising to me that Russia in particular might be extending the same model into what is clearly a prolonged attempt to influence politics across the Western world.
posted by jaduncan at 3:08 AM on November 27, 2016 [15 favorites]

Bah, I copy-pasted the wrong part of that Halderman article. Meant to include this:

"It doesn’t matter whether the voting machines are connected to the Internet. Shortly before each election, poll workers copy the ballot design from a regular desktop computer in a government office, and use removable media (like the memory card from a digital camera) to load the ballot onto each machine. That initial computer is almost certainly not well secured, and if an attacker infects it, vote-stealing malware can hitch a ride to every voting machine in the area. There’s no question that this is possible for technically sophisticated attackers. (If my Ph.D. students and I were criminals, I’m sure we could pull it off.)"

I guess Halderman is saying that there is no evidence of this actually having happened, but that it would be hard to find such evidence without manually counting paper ballots as a check.

I am interested in hearing the people in MeFi with more expertise than me in computer security weigh in on the feasibility of such a scenario.

It's different than "rigging" in the sense that a political party might be accused of or that might have been possible 50 years ago (counting dead people's votes, etc.) It's just straight up hacking, and it really does seem conparable to the Stuxnet worm, to me, which is not something script kiddies could have pulled off, but which really worked to sabotage supposedly highly secure and not internet-connected machines... with the resources of a national intelligence appartus to help deploy it.
posted by OnceUponATime at 3:35 AM on November 27, 2016 [18 favorites]

What is missing in all the discussion around 'hacking' the vote is a sense of proportion - and by that I mean on the one hand it would take a lot of organizing to do and a lot of man power and some real tricky stuff and you would need to enlist a lot of people to do it and... But think about doing anything hard, just because you can't think of how to do it, or you think it would be 'really hard!' doesn't mean it hasn't been done or that it would be, for someone used to operating in that capacity, difficult.

I don't think the Russian's hacked the vote. I do think some enthusiastic Trump/Cheeto Jesus supporters did pad things in as many ways as they could imagine. That said, I would not be as surprised as I was by Trump's win if it turns out to be true that Russia messed around. (Where Russia = anyone, really, though Russia will get the blame, who ever is might be behind it.) Also, I want Trump to lose. So I'm biased. Because holy fuck the idea of that megalomaniac running the country makes my heart run fast and shallow.
posted by From Bklyn at 4:05 AM on November 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

In particular I am wondering if it would be possible to do this in a way that would not jump out as an anomaly in demographic analysis like they did at FiveThirtyEight. My understanding is that the places in, eg, Pennsylvania that overperformed for Trump were demographically similar to places in upstate NY that overperformed for Trump without winning him NY. Ditto Wisconsin (which he barely won) and Minnesota (which he lost, but with similar pattern of overperforming in areas similar to the ones where he did so well in Wisconsin.)

It seems like it would be possible to just barely increase the winning margin in counties Trump was already winning? Like a pretty simple "IF he's winning this county, THEN add 2% to his margin in this county" piece of code could preserve all the demographic trends and make it hard to detect the tampering through demographic analysis? But how many states would this have to have happened it, for it to not jump out as unusually high over performance in just, say, Wisconsin's results? Would you really have to attack Minnesota and New York too? And how hard would it be to pull off attacks like this in more than a handful of states, given the differences in voting systems?

It does still seem unlikely, but not impossible. Like it would take years of work by a highly sophisticated team (probably more sophisticated than Halderman's grad students, even) to make the effect subtle enough and widespread enough to be undetectable with a simple statistical analysis and yet still sufficient to win. But Russia is pretty damn sophisticated and seems pretty motivated. Under this scenario, all the DNC and Podesta hacks and so on would just be an effort to keep the race close enough for a plausible swing. And all the talk of not accepting a loss would have been bait to get Democrats to definitely commit to accepting a loss.

And then there is the fact that intrusion attempts were detected in a lot of states, actually... More than 20, with successful intrusions detected in at least two (Arizona and Illinois.) It's hard to count the successful intrusions that aren't detected. But how many would it take to yield consistent demographic patterns?

Sorry to keep posting about this, but it's really bothering me. I hope Stein gets the recount going in all three states (maybe I'll kick in again). I personally will have an easier time accepting this result once the paper ballots are counted. And as damaging as a Trump presidency will be, I think if these rumors got going after it was too late to count ballots, they would be impossible to put to rest, and might completely undermine the legitimacy of our government. Better to count the ballots now while we still can.
posted by OnceUponATime at 4:32 AM on November 27, 2016 [21 favorites]

(Incidentally, FiveThirtyEight seems to misunderstand Halerman's argument, even though they link to it. You can't cross the whole state of Michigan off as a hacking target just because they use paper ballots, if the paper ballots are never manually counted. Halderman is saying the optical scan machines that read the paper ballots could have been targeted. Still, they and others make a pretty persuasive case that the hacking would have to be very widespread in order to not produce anamolies in the demographic data.)
posted by OnceUponATime at 4:47 AM on November 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

That's impossible, even for a computer!

/womprat
posted by petebest at 5:08 AM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

From the African American Intellectual History Society, a brief discussion of race and elections in the US.

Slaveholding states’ artificial advantages in the House of Representatives and Electoral College combined with a two-party system that wanted to discuss any issue other than the one that threatened to split their coalitions cleanly in half. Antislavery activists made headway, but the pervasive racism around them made building a movement challenging.

posted by kingless at 5:14 AM on November 27, 2016 [12 favorites]

Sorry for referencing Arrival; that should have gone in the Fanfare thread. Really good movie, though.

Anyhoo, can anybody be like a narcissists do this for me with a regard to Trump's latest barrage of tweets w/r/t the recount, because, Jebus, the first time I really started paying attention was when he got upset. My limited reading suggests that the recounts are not going to change the result, are we all still on that same page?

But instead we get Conway doing things like blah blah sore loser blah #YesMyPresident? Yes My President? How about Yes My Foot in Your Ass? I mean I am really not agitating for civil war here but I hope I am not being a shitty white person by borrowing this metaphor from a Palestinian relative: you put a cat in a corner, sooner or later it's going to scratch you. Why are they sticking fingers in eyes, to mix my metaphors?

So I guess my basic question is there an endgame in here aside from weird dysfunctional impulses. Because it kind of seems like some of these shits really don't care if the world burns or don't know that the world can burn or really want it to burn, I don't know.
posted by angrycat at 5:54 AM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

I just learned something yesterday - this happened, of course, during the Obama administration but it is a foretaste of things to come as well.

A friend of a friend's cousin - a fairly young guy - had fled here from [country redacted] to escape gang activity. He was deported three weeks ago and was immediately killed on his return. He was sent back and killed! Right away! They tell you about this in news articles and it seems remote, but it actually happened to the family of someone I've had conversations with. They just sent him back to die, just like that, and he did die! It's just horrible. It was horrible of the Obama administration, and if deportations are stepped up under Trump, more people will die in this way.

There's another Duluth case where they want to send back this Cambodian guy who has been here all his life - he fired a bb gun at a car in 2010, which means he's a criminal alien. Since then he has "turned his life around" (from doing some stupid bullshit, admittedly, but it was just stupid bullshit) and has several little kids and a wife. It's not even "sending back", since he's never lived in Cambodia.

And of course, people flee these places because the US - either through military operations or through trade wars and installing bad regimes - has destabilized them.
posted by Frowner at 6:04 AM on November 27, 2016 [41 favorites]

They tell you about this in news articles and it seems remote, but it actually happened to the family of someone I've had conversations with.

This was not a good comment for me to make. I was trying to express how terrible and shocked I was feeling, but of course, for many people this does not "seem remote" at all, because it's people' daily reality. I apologize for writing such a fool thing in my shock - it was privilege talking.
posted by Frowner at 6:11 AM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

@TedMcClelland
Donald Trump will replace Fidel Castro as the most prominent Russian-backed leader in the Western Hemisphere.
posted by chris24 at 6:12 AM on November 27, 2016 [65 favorites]

Wow he is on a twitter rant this morning--7 tweets quoting HRCs concession speech.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:20 AM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

He's nervous? Or offended? Or outraged? Or all 3?
posted by ian1977 at 6:31 AM on November 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

Maybe he will get so mad and nervous that he will tweet 'wouldn't it be nice to get along so well with Russia that they helped un-rig our crooked election?'
posted by ian1977 at 6:33 AM on November 27, 2016

Honestly I don't think the recount will find anything but the more Trump freaks out I'm beginning to wonder.
posted by chris24 at 6:38 AM on November 27, 2016 [18 favorites]

Trump's like a pet, though, he might be freaking out because there's reason to, or maybe because he's Trump
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 6:39 AM on November 27, 2016 [9 favorites]

Or it might be the coke
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 6:40 AM on November 27, 2016 [10 favorites]

Bernie Sanders meets Spike Lee: ‘Where do we go? Where is the hope?’

"It would be hard to suggest that the people of this country were enthusiastic about the Clinton campaign. There was not the energy we have seen in the Obama campaign, and what ended up happening was voter turnout was low. She won the black community overwhelmingly, but turnout was low. She lost a lot of white, working-class people. That’s just the fact."

Actually, not the fact. Turnout will be higher than than 2012. So fuck off Bernie.

Oh, and enthusiasm? Per 538:

"The latest ABC News survey reveals that, in fact, Clinton’s voters feel about as positively about their candidate as any candidate’s supporters have felt about their own preferred candidate since 1980. Trump voters are less enthusiastic about him: Since 1980, no group of supporters has been less affirmative in its support for its candidate."
posted by chris24 at 6:49 AM on November 27, 2016 [46 favorites]

He might be freaking out because there's reason to, or maybe because he's Trump.

Schrödinger's Trump
posted by C'est la D.C. at 6:51 AM on November 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

God I'm so grossed out by Trump's recent tweetstorm and Conway's spin. Clinton didn't request a recount! You're making a stupid point using stupid quotes for stupid purposes!

Your paper gets an F.

I'm amazed I can still get outraged by this sort of thing, but this kind of straw(wo)manning makes me furious.
posted by dis_integration at 7:07 AM on November 27, 2016 [12 favorites]

@BraddJaffy:
On #MTP, @KellyannePolls tells @chucktodd Trump & Obama have been talking regularly; "They talked just yesterday ... about 40 to 45 minutes"
posted by chris24 at 7:37 AM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

They talked just yesterday ... about 40 to 45 minutes Trump Inc's acquisition of America Inc.
posted by Mister Bijou at 7:44 AM on November 27, 2016

Hi, I'm Bernie Sanders, and I'm trying to find a way to make every actually reliable group of Democratic voters as unreliable as old racist working-class whites in the midwest! Jackass.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:46 AM on November 27, 2016 [30 favorites]

2016 is still counting, but it seems to me that turnout of Democratic voters was lower than in 2012. An article at PBS notes that WI turnout was down 3% and OH down 4%, and black and Latino minorities did not turn out like they had for Obama. Clinton also pulled in a lower share of voters between ages 18 and 29. (article is seven days old however)
posted by scrowdid at 8:15 AM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Trump : Burn, Mittens, Burn!!!!


posted by PROD_TPSL at 8:15 AM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh, I agree with you, Burhanistan. And part of me is screaming that Romney should tell Trump to fuck right off, while another part of me would weep hot tears of gratitude if an actual adult sacrificed his pride to try to keep US-international relations from getting exponentially worse. Even if that adult was Romney.
posted by GrammarMoses at 8:16 AM on November 27, 2016 [15 favorites]

We have to resist normalization, but also engage in harm reduction. It's a nearly impossible needle to thread.
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:48 AM on November 27, 2016 [46 favorites]

It's easier to needle this thread than to thread that needle.
posted by Too-Ticky at 8:50 AM on November 27, 2016 [29 favorites]

Quite.
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:53 AM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

In "On taking the Electoral College literally", Adam Kotsko argues that the EC can only continue to function as long as it is possible to pretend that it is a pro forma mechanical process, not the product of a set of conscious choices by the actual electors themselves:

If this fact became vividly undeniable, then the EC would suddenly be intolerable. Actualizing the EC as “originally intended” would immediately delegitimate it — which shows that it is de facto illegitimate right now. Taking it literally breaks the spell. From a Schmittian perspective, breaking that spell is indeed a risky move, and I don’t pretend to know what would happen if, for instance, the Electoral College did choose Hillary Clinton. Maybe it wouldn’t be worth it. Maybe it would break a much bigger spell. But the fact is that the Electoral College is a ticking timebomb, a standing affront to all common sense democratic instincts. All that allows it to keep happening is a constant charade that it isn’t happening — that it’s an impersonal mechanism, that it fulfills some valuable function, that it isn’t 538 individual flesh-and-blood human beings who have the privilege of choosing the president every four years.

This point has been made before in the thread, but it can't be said enough: talk about Trump having "broken" American democracy misses the point. It was always broken at its core. Having seen the casual recklessness with which Republicans shredded all the informal norms that held the system together, coupled with the accelerating loss of public confidence in government and the erosion of commitment to the democratic ideal itself, it's hard not to view this crisis as the start of the final unraveling.
posted by informavore at 9:29 AM on November 27, 2016 [47 favorites]

2016 is still counting, but it seems to me that turnout of Democratic voters was lower than in 2012. An article at PBS notes that WI turnout was down 3% and OH down 4%, and black and Latino minorities did not turn out like they had for Obama.

Both Ohio and Wisconsin passed strict vote restrictions since 2012. Wisconsin passed the notorious Voter ID law that could've disenfranchised as many as 300,000. Ohio passed a law requiring those without ID to cast provisional ballots. Data from previous elections show that only 10 to 15% of those who cast provisional ballots end up certifying their eligibility through the local registrar in time for their votes to be counted.

Regarding minorities, this was the first election since the demise of Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act. 900 polling stations in minority neighborhoods were closed. Poll hours were greatly reduced, and in places like North Carolina, the traditional last Sunday before the election Souls to the Polls was eliminated. Plus sundry other voter suppression.

Also, expecting anyone to match the first black president, and the greatest politician of our generation, in turnout from blacks is a bit unfair. And it's a really rich complaint coming from Bernie who lost the black vote by 40 points to Clinton in the primary. He has no basis to argue anything about enthusiasm from the black community.
posted by chris24 at 9:31 AM on November 27, 2016 [90 favorites]

My only hope for the recount efforts is I think they have to go look at provisional ballots, which will hopefully result in some light shining on why people have to cast them which hopefully will cast light on voter suppression efforts in general. The real scandal in this election is that hundreds of thousands of people couldn't vote who should have been able to. That those voters were overwhelmingly non-white (or poor and white) and thus exactly the turnout expected for a Democratic candidate makes "enthusiasm" criticisms hilarious.

Or what chris24 said while I was typing this.
posted by R343L at 9:35 AM on November 27, 2016 [25 favorites]

I think it's generally more in Russia's interest to spread FUD and cause people to doubt the integrity of all institutions, including elections, than to actually manipulate vote totals.

If a recount can focus attention on voters suppression, which is an area Clinton's team can be effective, then it will well be worthwhile though.
posted by zachlipton at 10:49 AM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Meanwhile, here's Kellyanne Conway saying that Trump has been "incredibly gracious and magnanimous" to Clinton (re not prosecuting her, as if that's something he could do) as her team joins the recount effort.
posted by zachlipton at 10:52 AM on November 27, 2016 [6 favorites]

Not taking the time out of his busy schedule of graft and preening to figure out how to prosecute someone before he has any actual executive power doesn't seem to balance the grace and magnanimity seesaw away from flying in a bunch of women her husband fucked.
posted by Etrigan at 10:54 AM on November 27, 2016 [30 favorites]

I don't know if the recounts are going to demonstrate anything shady or not, but the more Trump and Conway whine about it, the more I think it's an excellent idea and money well spent. Assuming we're stuck on Mr. Bones' Wild Ride, I just hope we can continue to find things to do to keep these assholes bitching and whining for the duration.

It's not a good look for a president, which is why it's an excellent look for Trump.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 11:11 AM on November 27, 2016 [14 favorites]

It's back in abusive partner mode: "I've been so gracious to you, now don't go let your lawyers protect the interests of millions of voters as part of a standard legal process or I might have to hurt you."
posted by zachlipton at 11:11 AM on November 27, 2016 [43 favorites]

Is there any way to collectively support the people in the remaining 74 odd lawsuits? By covering legal fees if they lose or protecting them from intimidation so we actual drag Trump into court repeatedly instead of letting him coerce them into setting the rest?
posted by C'est la D.C. at 11:22 AM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm slightly disappointed that the Forbes cover article on Kushner (posted by kliuless) hasn't generated any discussion here, because it's one of the most enlightening explanations of the election outcome that I've come across. Essentially he invented the idea of harnessing social media data mining to identify people's fears and xenophobic/fascistic leanings, and using artificial intelligence to microtarget individual cognitive biases and deficiencies. He quite literally employed Silicon Valley technology/methodologies to "disrupt" the election, and set some frightening precedents.

Arguably it's an extension of how politics has always worked...but the speed at which his system can operate, and identify/scale messages which generate Pavlovian responses, is really what sets it apart.

How Jared Kushner Won Trump the White House

“I called some of my friends from Silicon Valley, some of the best digital marketers in the world, and asked how you scale this stuff,” Kushner says. “They gave me their subcontractors.”

At first Kushner dabbled, engaging in what amounted to a beta test using Trump merchandise. “I called somebody who works for one of the technology companies that I work with, and I had them give me a tutorial on how to use Facebook micro-targeting,” Kushner says. Synched with Trump’s blunt, simple messaging, it worked. The Trump campaign went from selling $8,000 worth of hats and other items a day to $80,000, generating revenue, expanding the number of human billboards–and proving a concept. In another test, Kushner spent $160,000 to promote a series of low-tech policy videos of Trump talking straight into the camera that collectively generated more than 74 million views.

...

Kushner structured the operation with a focus on maximizing the return for every dollar spent. “We played Moneyball, asking ourselves which states will get the best ROI for the electoral vote,” Kushner says. “I asked, How can we get Trump’s message to that consumer for the least amount of cost?” FEC filings through mid-October indicate the Trump campaign spent roughly half as much as the Clinton campaign did.

...

Just as Trump’s unorthodox style allowed him to win the Republican nomination while spending far less than his more traditional opponents, Kushner’s lack of political experience became an advantage. Unschooled in traditional campaigning, he was able to look at the business of politics the way so many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have sized up other bloated industries.

Television and online advertising? Small and smaller. Twitter and Facebook would fuel the campaign, as key tools for not only spreading Trump’s message but also targeting potential supporters, scraping massive amounts of constituent data and sensing shifts in sentiment in real time.

“We weren’t afraid to make changes. We weren’t afraid to fail. We tried to do things very cheaply, very quickly. And if it wasn’t working, we would kill it quickly,” Kushner says. “It meant making quick decisions, fixing things that were broken and scaling things that worked.”

This wasn’t a completely raw startup. Kushner’s crew was able to tap into the Republican National Committee’s data machine, and it hired targeting partners like Cambridge Analytica to map voter universes and identify which parts of the Trump platform mattered most: trade, immigration or change. Tools like Deep Root drove the scaled-back TV ad spending by identifying shows popular with specific voter blocks in specific regions–say, NCIS for anti-ObamaCare voters or The Walking Dead for people worried about immigration. Kushner built a custom geo-location tool that plotted the location density of about 20 voter types over a live Google Maps interface.

Soon the data operation dictated every campaign decision: travel, fundraising, advertising, rally locations–even the topics of the speeches. “He put all the different pieces together,” Parscale says. “And what’s funny is the outside world was so obsessed about this little piece or that, they didn’t pick up that it was all being orchestrated so well.”

For fundraising they turned to machine learning, installing digital marketing companies on a trading floor to make them compete for business. Ineffective ads were killed in minutes, while successful ones scaled. The campaign was sending more than 100,000 uniquely tweaked ads to targeted voters each day. In the end, the richest person ever elected president, whose fundraising effort was rightly ridiculed at the beginning of the year, raised more than $250 million in four months–mostly from small donors.

As the election barreled toward its finale, Kushner’s system, with its high margins and up-to-the-minute voter data, provided both ample cash and the insight on where to spend it. When the campaign registered the fact that momentum in Michigan and Pennsylvania was turning Trump’s way, Kushner unleashed tailored TV ads, last-minute rallies and thousands of volunteers to knock on doors and make phone calls.

And until the final days of the campaign, he did all this without anyone on the outside knowing about it. For those who can’t understand how Hillary Clinton could win the popular vote by at least 2 million yet lose handily in the electoral college, perhaps this provides some clarity. If the campaign’s overarching sentiment was fear and anger, the deciding factor at the end was data and entrepreneurship.

“Jared understood the online world in a way the traditional media folks didn’t. He managed to assemble a presidential campaign on a shoestring using new technology and won. That’s a big deal,” says Schmidt, the Google billionaire. “Remember all those articles about how they had no money, no people, organizational structure? Well, they won, and Jared ran it.”
posted by prosopagnosia at 11:23 AM on November 27, 2016 [32 favorites]

I'm slightly disappointed that the Forbes cover article on Kushner (posted by kliuless) hasn't generated any discussion here

IIRC, We discussed it in the previous thread. I think I posted the link but I am not going to go looking right now.
posted by futz at 11:28 AM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

Reassuring.

@reillybergs
On @CNN, @KellyannePolls says Trump getting foreign intel from "many sources" - just not the daily US intelligence briefings. @MalcolmNance
posted by chris24 at 11:32 AM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

By the way, my previous comment wasn't meant to be dismissive! I found it fascinating and worthy of discussion and would love to continue to to talk about it.
posted by futz at 11:35 AM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Sociopath
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 11:36 AM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

covering legal fees if they lose or protecting them from intimidation so we actual drag Trump into court repeatedly
before the trump u settlement, i was musing to myself, "why shouldn't some fabulously wealthy dem promise to make the plaintiffs whole, even if they lose? just to get cheetoh jesus on the stand."

yo, fatcats, 74 more opportunities...
posted by j_curiouser at 11:37 AM on November 27, 2016 [8 favorites]

On @CNN, @KellyannePolls says Trump getting foreign intel from "many sources" - just not the daily US intelligence briefings. @MalcolmNance

Jesus take the fucking wheel.
posted by lydhre at 11:44 AM on November 27, 2016 [17 favorites]

Joy-Ann Reid: Already Happening: Media Normalization of Trumpism

With Donald Trump about to ascend to the White House, the media risk being tamed by their devotion to access and the belligerencies of the notoriously vengeful resident of Trump Tower and his right-wing wrecking crew of a team. We face a singular test, both as a profession and as a country: will we allow ourselves to see what we see, or will we mentally drape the naked emperor in our midst?

posted by zachlipton at 11:48 AM on November 27, 2016 [8 favorites]

@mmurraypolitics Irony of Stein recount effort: HRC trails Trump by 10K votes in MI; Stein got 50K. HRC trails Trump by 22.5K votes in WI; Stein got 30K.

Something I haven't seen too much discussion on is the polling results leading to over confidence. I believe Clinton led so strongly for so long that many people felt that they could vote third party without the danger of electing Trump. What if the polls had shown them neck and neck in the week before election? Would that have persuaded people to vote the "lesser of two evils"? As it stands I hope anyone who voted Green party in Michigan and Wisconsin is now deeply, deeply regretting that decision.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 11:54 AM on November 27, 2016 [46 favorites]

Yeah that doesn't make me want to grab anyone by the ears and shout in their face or anything.
posted by aspersioncast at 11:56 AM on November 27, 2016 [10 favorites]

Yeah that doesn't make me want to grab anyone by the ears and shout in their face or anything.

Yeah, like sitting at the Thanksgiving table with your sister when she voted for whatshisnuts and she's an employee of a 20,000 member church who almost certainly voted the same and then she tells you that you KNOW she's not racist, so why are you badmouthing people who voted for him and why the fuck am I even talking about it I think I'll go get another glass of wine and some pie.
posted by Mooski at 12:01 PM on November 27, 2016 [14 favorites]

That Forbes article on Kushner looked like a total puff piece to me. You are going to need an N>>1 to prove to me that web marketers can influence an election at all.

Some of those idiots send me targeted ads for only God knows what they are computing on. They know I am a dude. Other than that they do not have a clue what I actually spend money on. Except that they send me ads all the time for stuff I just bought and don't need any more.
posted by bukvich at 12:02 PM on November 27, 2016 [7 favorites]

That is my whole point. Stein said she'd rather have Trump. By staying in the race, she and her supporters were one of many factors that allowed us to have Trump. She got what she wanted and now she's leading a recount effort? As much as I'd love for it to result in something (defined as "overturning the results") she could have better prevented this result by dropping out and encouraging her supporters to vote Clinton.

The good news is if there are still elections in 16 years, we will get to experience this all over again as a new generation of progressive come of age and are too moral to make a pragmatic choice that benefits them more in the long run than allowing whatever dumb fuck the conservatives are running to get elected.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:04 PM on November 27, 2016 [12 favorites]

HuffPo Group Funded By Trump’s Education Secretary Pick: ‘Bring Back Child Labor’

The Acton Institute, a conservative nonprofit that is said to have received thousands of dollars in donations from Betsy DeVos and her family, posted an essay to its blog this month that called child labor “a gift our kids can handle.”

“Let us not just teach our children to play hard and study well, shuffling them through a long line of hobbies and electives and educational activities,” said the post’s author, Joseph Sunde. “A long day’s work and a load of sweat have plenty to teach as well.”

I was listening to the Vox podcast "In the Weeds" yesterday and a remark made by one of the hosts really struck me "Paul Ryan is clearly signaling that the lower classes need to lower their standard of living."

I have been thinking about that all day because I don't know what that looks like. When you are driving an unreliable car that you can hardly afford the insurance on or using sketchy, nearly nonexistent public transportation, how do you shift downwards? When you can barely afford to keep your family fed and clothed on crappy food and cheap clothes how do you lower your expenditures? When you work three jobs in order to survive, go without medical, dental or eye care, live in the cheapest housing possible and forgo most pleasures in life, how do you work harder or make do with less? Well, I didn't think about putting the kids into the workforce but maybe that is the next step.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 12:04 PM on November 27, 2016 [48 favorites]

A note from bizarro social media land: Someone responded to my relative's heartfelt anti-Trump facebook message with a note that it was time for Dems to "give him a chance, just like Republicans gave Obama a chance."

That any literate adult person could not only believe this to be true but actually type it out with their own functioning fingers fills me with that combination of despair and fury I get when I see someone fuck with an animal for no reason.
posted by aspersioncast at 12:07 PM on November 27, 2016 [43 favorites]

A note from bizarro social media land: Someone responded to my relative's heartfelt anti-Trump facebook message with a note that it was time for Dems to "give him a chance, just like Republicans gave Obama a chance."

I have no trouble giving Trump the same chance the GOP gave Obama
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 12:09 PM on November 27, 2016 [75 favorites]

I think it's generally more in Russia's interest to spread FUD and cause people to doubt the integrity of all institutions, including elections, than to actually manipulate vote totals.

Trump's too. Huh.

We face a singular test, both as a profession and as a country:

With much respect to Ms. Reid, that's not true. The test is over. The results of said test are left as an exercise to the reader.

Seriously, Journalism as we know/knew it is way dead. Blowed up, sir! All that we see before us are the remnants - after-effects of what once was, still visible, ghosted across our screens. In time, these final failures to democracy and American ideals will cease to be and the information cosmos will roll on as before.

Goodnight, and have a pleasant tomorrow.
posted by petebest at 12:16 PM on November 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

The total vote count in 2016 will be around 4-5 million higher than in 2008 and around 7 million higher than 2012. This was not a low turnout election. Anyone who claims it was is trying to sell you something (spoiler: they are selling you "won't sombody please think of the racist white people").

Clinton lost for a lot of reasons. One of those reasons was not low turnout except in the trivial sense that every candidate who loses an election has lost because their opponent turned out more supporters. It's like saying that somebody lost a baseball game because they didn't score enough points. Thanks, Yogi.

In my opinion the most important large-scale effects that cost Clinton the election are racism&misogyny, thirty years of right-wing hate machine, failure of national institutions such as the media, voter suppression, and, yes, white non-college voters feeling left out of the economy. The most important single event (rather than sociological issue) was the Comey letter ratfucking.

Of those six things only one was in Clinton's control. It is definitely possible she could have spent more time talking about and to non-college working class white people. Would that have been a good thing? Would it have won the election? I tend to doubt it but we'll never know.

Certainly I find it hard to take seriously the proposition that the big problem with American politics today is that we don't cater enough to old white people.
posted by Justinian at 12:17 PM on November 27, 2016 [89 favorites]

I have no trouble giving Trump the same chance the GOP gave Obama

Fair enough.

In fact, I'm really hoping that's part of the strategy for at least the next couple years, and that those of you who live in actual "states" with "elected representatives" are hounding them doggedly about doing just that. I will happily march on over to the Rayburn building and give the rep of your choice a piece of my mind, if I can gain an audience.
posted by aspersioncast at 12:18 PM on November 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

I wonder if part of the reason Trump is so upset at the recount efforts is that, as is typical for him, he doesn't have any idea what the detailed results of the election look like, he just knows that he won, and he believes that he absolutely crushed Clinton from coast to coast.

And his little band of sycophants and yes-people are all hovering around him, saying "Yep, you killed it, boss!" and "You whooped her, sir!" and "Dude, you musta beat her by, like, 40 million votes at least!"

But like most self-absorbed people, he's actually deeply insecure about the traits and accomplishments he has that supposedly make him so vastly superior to the rest of us. The vestige of some voice of reason left in his shriveled heart is whispering, "Man, you know you were mostly rejected by the American voters, right? You know that you only won because America is still dealing with the tech debt incurred by slavery, right?" And he's internally screaming "Shut up, you!" at that voice.

So any examination that threatens to mess up that narrative of a landslide win is met with great fear and anger by him and his cronies because it means that voice is right, and that voice must never be right.
posted by lord_wolf at 12:21 PM on November 27, 2016 [7 favorites]

and then she tells you that you KNOW she's not racist, so why are you badmouthing people who voted for him and why the fuck am I even talking about it

Saddle up the nopetopus, Hoss, we're peacin' out.
posted by petebest at 12:21 PM on November 27, 2016 [12 favorites]

> It's back in abusive partner mode: "I've been so gracious to you, now don't go let your lawyers protect the interests of millions of voters as part of a standard legal process or I might have to hurt you."

He's going to try to hurt her either way, but he's going to do it the Trump way:

The New York Post reports that despite earlier reports to the contrary, the incoming Trump administration supports an ongoing legal witch hunt against the Clintons after all -- just not one conducted by the U.S. government:

Foreign governments will be encouraged to investigate the Clinton Foundation’s finances...

A source close to President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team told The Post that the new administration plans to pressure the US ambassadors it will name to bring up the foundation with foreign governments -- and suggest they probe its ­financial dealings. [...] “Haiti and Colombia will be key diplomatic posts for this ­because of all the money ­involved,” said the source.

Yeah, those are certainly the legal systems you want to turn to for investigations that are aboveboard and first-rate: Freedom House says of Haiti that "The judiciary is inefficient and weak, and is burdened by a lack of resources, a large backlog of cases, outdated legal codes, and poor facilities," adding that "Bribery is rampant at all levels of the judicial system," while in Colombia "The justice system remains compromised by corruption and extortion."

On the other hand, this makes perfect sense coming from Trump. Where are Trump-branded ties, suits, shirts, and eyeglasses made? Not in America -- they're manufactured overseas, in countries like Bangladesh and Honduras.

So Trump's applying the same line of thinking to vengeance against the Clintons. Outsource it! Compliant governments, cheap labor -- Trump profit! #MAGA!

posted by tonycpsu at 12:24 PM on November 27, 2016 [23 favorites]

"Trump's lost the popular vote, and now he's betraying our courts by suggesting corrupt Haiti and Columbia courts are better to investigate the people that made him a loser."
posted by petebest at 12:29 PM on November 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

That Forbes article on Kushner looked like a total puff piece to me. You are going to need an N>>1 to prove to me that web marketers can influence an election at all.

I agree with this. Trump's win was not that big. After every election there is some breathless article about what the winning team did that was so special, and everyone loves to read about Silicon Valley disruption.

At this point it seems like there were an awful lot of things that contributed to Trump's win, and it will probably be argued until the end of time, especially because so many vested interests seem to want it to be something about how it was white working class voters (who were not racist at all).
posted by maggiemaggie at 12:29 PM on November 27, 2016 [12 favorites]

To the posters dismissing the impact of Kushner's operation: how do you explain the fact his techniques rapidly increased Trump's merchandise sales by 10-fold?

I realize people buying MAGA hats were probably already voting for Trump, but it certainly provides some objective evidence of the extent to which his microtargeted messaging galvanized his supporters, and turned what may have been more passive supporters into ones who were (at the very least) more willing to open their wallets.

Saying "Trump barely won" doesn't take into account how he won spending half as much as Clinton, and without a traditional on-the-ground organization.
posted by prosopagnosia at 12:35 PM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

And here we go. The winner of the election saying the election is rigged.

@realDonaldTrump
In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally
posted by chris24 at 12:42 PM on November 27, 2016 [38 favorites]

Doesn't Trump's mirror suggest that there actually was fraud on his side? I mean I know it's just a joke-rule. It's not always the case that when he goes off on something that he must be guilty of it. Of course, voter suppression laws should by any reasonable person be considered election fraud -- no doubt we'd consider a lot of the shenanigans here to be fraud if done in some "emerging democracy". So maybe he's just feeling guilty about voter ID law. Naw...
posted by R343L at 12:48 PM on November 27, 2016 [12 favorites]

To the posters dismissing the impact of Kushner's operation: how do you explain the fact his techniques rapidly increased Trump's merchandise sales by 10-fold?

There's not enough information to appraise that claim, just some upside numbers that him look good. Did Kushner spend $200,000 in micro-targeting to sell $80,000 in hats? We don't know, that's part of why people are calling it a puff piece.
posted by peeedro at 12:49 PM on November 27, 2016 [13 favorites]

re: Forbes~Kushner~microtargetting is just one of the many failure points in this round of democracy.

Many potential voters are, for whatever reasons, underinformed or misinformed or single-issue. Idiota* has been a problem since the inception of democracy.

The GOP deliberately allowing disinformation and the electorate's unwillingness to actually think about issues directly creates idiots in order to increase their chances of winning. The entire campaign post-primaries were carried out in bad faith.

With W, it was "voting for the candidate I'd rather have a beer with" and this time around it was "voting for the candidate who's as uninformed as I am" (modulo misinformed where misinformed is what one would like to be fact).

Is there a way to counteract targeted manipulation via micro-customed advertising? I'm sadly doubtful.

Given that the current state of the internet is based on advertising revenue and tracking onlinw behaviour, there's probably no technical counterattack. Critical reasoning skills is a step towards inoculating against misinformation, but too many people don't want to exercise critical reasoning cf religion/faith and/or the energy required to exercise critical reasoning.

There was a great article somewhere upthread(s) exploring the role of faith conditioning the faithful to not accept any new ideas or any ideas other than that espoused by their faith. Much of these micro-customized advertising seems to play on this fact - calling out a specific of the other candidate that does not fit their world view, or magnifying a specific of "their" candidate who agrees with a particular aspect that they hold as unassailable fact.

I'm afraid that converting unconvertable GOP voters may be a lost cause - increasing voting access to those who either did not vote or were not able to vote who may be open to thinking about issues/platforms might be one of the few available strategies remaining, idiots be damned.
posted by porpoise at 12:49 PM on November 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally

someone tell me again how this alleged human being is the President-elect of the United States of America jesus h jumped up christ on a sidecar
posted by Mooski at 12:50 PM on November 27, 2016 [23 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump
In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally

I feel that we have broken Poe's Law in the waning days of 2016, and we have moved to the weirdness that is Poe's Singularity: Everything is both real and a satire of itself at the same time.
posted by nubs at 12:50 PM on November 27, 2016 [28 favorites]

Well hey, Donald, let's do a nationwide recount if you believe that. I mean, surely you'd have a mandate if you're right, so put your money where your mouth is.
posted by jason_steakums at 12:56 PM on November 27, 2016 [17 favorites]

His little ego is so bruised by losing the popular vote.

@realDonaldTrump
It would have been much easier for me to win the so-called popular vote than the Electoral College in that I would only campaign in 3 or 4--

@realDonaldTrump
states instead of the 15 states that I visited. I would have won even more easily and convincingly (but smaller states are forgotten)!
posted by chris24 at 1:10 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Millions of people voted illegally?!? Why this can only be a job for . . . JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR
posted by petebest at 1:11 PM on November 27, 2016 [22 favorites]

Hmm wonder why "President-Elect Asserts Millions Illegally Voted" isn't the lead story on everything everywhere
posted by theodolite at 1:14 PM on November 27, 2016 [42 favorites]

Because nobody believes a word he says. Not even the people who believe him.
posted by Devonian at 1:15 PM on November 27, 2016 [17 favorites]

Seriously though, per the Lakoff article wayyyyyy upthread, a "Strict Father" candidate can only be hurt by accusations of being a Loser, being Corrupt, or Betraying Trust.

Any of those messages (Didn't win the popular vote: is a Loser) attack the heart of his support. So, yeah he's gonna trump down on it.

Lost the popular vote, is a Minority President, Loser.
posted by petebest at 1:15 PM on November 27, 2016 [22 favorites]

Hey Trump, if you're so sure you won the popular vote, why not help out with these recounts to help ferret out all those illegal votes, eh?
posted by C'est la D.C. at 1:16 PM on November 27, 2016 [11 favorites]

christers. Is he like legitimately, DSM-V standard, mentally ill?
posted by angrycat at 1:17 PM on November 27, 2016 [12 favorites]

Probably but you'd have to ask his doctor, Dr. Spaceman.
posted by Justinian at 1:18 PM on November 27, 2016 [25 favorites]

@crampell Retweeted Donald J. Trump
Apparently millions sophisticated enough to figure out how to vote illegally, not sophisticated enough to vote in states where it'd matter
posted by chris24 at 1:19 PM on November 27, 2016 [46 favorites]

"We didn't get the candidate who will support us, despite her winning the popular vote", in addition to being true, if it were headlines, would drive him insane. r.
posted by petebest at 1:19 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

The good news is if there are still elections in 16 years, we will get to experience this all over again as a new generation of progressive come of age and are too moral to make a pragmatic choice that benefits them more in the long run than allowing whatever dumb fuck the conservatives are running to get elected.

Wow, I bet this happening for a third time in as many decades would finally spur the Democratic Party into investing some political capital into starting to fix basic problems in the political system that cause the spoiler effect in the first place. /🍔
posted by XMLicious at 1:27 PM on November 27, 2016 [7 favorites]

christers. Is he like legitimately, DSM-V standard, mentally ill?

I'll just repeat my post from 2 months ago:

I know two people who have worked with Trump on two separate things* and both said he hears voices (their characterization.) Kept complaining about people talking when no one was speaking. On one occasion, my friend went to the door and called out - to nobody - for quiet. That seemed to work and he stopped complaining for the short time remaining.

Obviously hearsay since I wasn't there either time, but they are good friends who I trust and both were concerned by it given his candidacy.

* Sorry for the sockpuppet and minimal details. Given the small industry involved, I don't want to out them or me.
posted by mynewsockpuppet at 1:30 PM on November 27, 2016 [50 favorites]

That tweet chilled me to the bone. It is really happening.
posted by Golden Eternity at 1:38 PM on November 27, 2016 [13 favorites]

That tweet chilled me to the bone. It is really happening.

Yep. At the point that the winner is trying to destroy the institution that elected him, we're in for the fight of our lives and the only thing standing in his way is a Republican Congress.
posted by chris24 at 1:41 PM on November 27, 2016 [36 favorites]

I’m worried that activists and the press are paying too little attention to Pence. All indications are that Pence is going to the one really driving policy and operations of the executive branch (even more so than Dick Cheney), yet we’ve barely heard about him since the election except for the Hamilton flap. We can’t just look at which Trump scandal is a smokescreen for which other Trump scandal; we also need to consider that everything Trump does can be used as a smokescreen for Pence’s agenda. And taking down Trump won’t hurt that agenda in any way, which means we need to fight on a separate front to stop it.

Last week, Amy B. Wang for the Washington Post: Mike Pence doesn’t rule out waterboarding under Trump administration.
posted by mbrubeck at 1:44 PM on November 27, 2016 [18 favorites]

FYI, the 3 million illegals voting comes from Infowars. Not linking to it, but yeah, fucking Infowars.

And of course, it's bullshit.
posted by chris24 at 1:48 PM on November 27, 2016 [6 favorites]

He's muddying the waters on the off chance the recounts find something.
posted by fullerine at 1:57 PM on November 27, 2016 [8 favorites]

I wonder what the chances are of a splinter caucus of anti-Trump Republicans taking the balance of power? Low, to be sure, but it's not unprecedented -- look at the Gang of Eight that tried (and failed) to do comprehensive immigration reform).

There are several suspects in the Senate, but I think Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI), hardcore libertarian is one to watch in the House. His politics are awful but they're genuinely held and they're not a stalking horse for racism (although of course they would have that effect). He's the son of Palestinian immigrants, actually.
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:57 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Mark Hamill Blasts Trump’s Cabinet: ‘It’s a Who’s-Who of Really Despicable People’
posted by chris24 at 1:58 PM on November 27, 2016 [7 favorites]

2020 is going to be a shitshow. Don't forget that Russians didn't think the leaks were going to work-- they thought Trump was done after the Khan family debacle-- so this has been a complete validation of their tactics. Expect their hacking and disinformation divisions to have more funding and manpower in 2020. Expect wikileaks to be even more aggressive. I fully expect them to fabricate emails or leaks for the next election, to create scandals out of thin air and have it amplified by their disinformation network, as 2016 has shown them the cracks in our media and news consumption.

We know the Russians probed our election systems, but I'm still skeptical they were effective in actually faking votes. The one benefit of our ramshackle election system is there are so many types of voting machines and methods of reporting, many of them relying on manual tabulation, that it's tough to manipulate so many of its pieces.

But imagine the damage that is possible under a Trump administration - under the guise of an audit to ensure election security, they could have an inventory of every type of voting machine used in every state, every firmware version, the manner in which every district reports their votes and so on. They'd have the IP addresses where voter registration databases are kept - which, if manipulated, could force voters to use provisional ballots the day of the election, and those votes might be invalidated in the same way NC is doing so now. If that list were to fall in the wrong hands? If GOP Governors were to cut funding to election commissions so they can't update voting machines or maintain proper security? It wouldn't take much to truly hack our election -- just the right people looking away at the right time.

The good news - I don't think Trump will run in 2020. Maybe he'll get impeached (although I don't put any stock in the GOP having the guts to do it) but more importantly he'll be 75 and hopefully tired of pretending to work for four years. Bad news - I think Ivanka will run. Granted way too early to say this with certainty, but I suspect part of Trump's plan of completely crushing Clinton's legacy is to take the mantle of being the first woman President away from her and give it to his favorite daughter. I'm guessing her sitting in on meetings with heads of state is partially her keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn't go off the rails and partially giving her "international relations" experience that she can claim in subsequent debates. The interesting thing would be if Pence would fight her for it. Isn't it sad that the President tweet trashing his VP for running against his daughter is a completely plausible scenario? And that this is all a best case scenario because it doesn't involve a radiation cloud floating over from a nuked North Korea, making going outside to vote in California an impossibility?

Well, I need a stiff drink just thinking about all this.
posted by bluecore at 1:59 PM on November 27, 2016 [18 favorites]

The sad fact about the recounts and EC lobbying efforts is that the moment they looked like succeeding, Trump and co. would throw the tantrum of the century and would get their way with veiled or explicit threats of violence. The left will only start winning in this country when we learn to throw bigger tantrums than the right. A fighting left would have called a general strike by now, to be called off only when the EC pledges to respect the result of the popular vote.
posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 2:01 PM on November 27, 2016 [14 favorites]

Billionaire father and daughter linked to Trump shake-up

The fingerprints of Robert Mercer, a New York hedge fund billionaire, and his middle daughter, Rebekah, can be seen all over the new Trump staffing appointments and other decisions being made by the GOP presidential nominee.
...
Stephen Bannon, the Trump campaign’s newly appointed CEO, is “tied at the hip” with Rebekah Mercer...

...his promotion of veteran pollster Kellyanne Conway from senior adviser to campaign manager — also bears the hallmarks of the GOP megadonor family’s influence...

“The Mercers basically own this campaign,” said a source who has worked with Rebekah...

“She identifies as a libertarian. At least she always did,” the source said, adding that Mercer was a big supporter of libertarian think tanks like the Goldwater Institute and Cato.

“With Bekah you always had to prove your libertarian racing stripes,” the source added. “This seems really strange.”

Rebekah Mercer, Daughter of Major Donor, Named to Trump Role

the Mercers are key investors in Cambridge Analytica, a data and analytics company that uses "psychographic" models to target individual voters based on their personality types.

Some previous clients have questioned the effectiveness of the company’s work, but Rebekah Mercer encourages politicians and campaigns that benefit from her family’s money to give Cambridge a try. Originally skeptical of the company’s pitch, the Trump campaign hired it around the same time that the Mercers shifted their financial support into Trump’s column earlier this year.

Cambridge is already bragging about its role in a historic electoral upset.
...
The Mercer family also has a financial stake in Breitbart News...

"America is finally fed up and disgusted with its political elite," the Mercers said in an Oct. 8 statement. "Trump is channeling this disgust and those among the political elite who quake before the boom-box of media blather do not appreciate the apocalyptic choice that America faces."

Robert Mercer is intrigued by monetary policy and, in years past, has funded efforts to try to resurrect the gold standard. One sign that his views may get some traction in the administration: in August, Trump added economist Judy Shelton to his advisory team. Shelton is a well-known advocate for the gold standard, and spoke at a Mercer-funded conference on the topic in Wyoming last year.

One thing to keep an eye on during the Trump administration: the resolution of a long-running tax dispute between Renaissance Technologies and the Internal Revenue Service.

posted by Golden Eternity at 2:02 PM on November 27, 2016 [12 favorites]

Remember when Trump pledged, “to all of my voters and supporters and to all of the people of the United States, I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election — if I win”? At the time, I thought that at least was one promise he could keep. Somehow, even that was too much to hope for.
posted by mbrubeck at 2:04 PM on November 27, 2016 [13 favorites]

Is there a deadline to file for a recount for FL too? That one seemed fishy to me since the early vote was so heavily Democratic.
posted by localhuman at 2:09 PM on November 27, 2016 [10 favorites]

All indications are that Pence is going to the one really driving policy and operations of the executive branch (even more so than Dick Cheney), yet we’ve barely heard about him since the election except for the Hamilton flap.

Is that really true though? For that to actually happen, wouldn't Trump need to be telling people ‘Don't present me with any options, just ask Pence what he wants’, and then punishing anyone who tried to directly ass-kiss the President into following their own preferred plan?

I can believe that Trump told Pence something like this but because the VP doesn't really have any power of his own while the President is still around I would've thought that to produce a Cheney-like situation rather than a monumental clusterfuck where every cabinet member and high-ranking public servant has their own little fiefdom within the executive, Trump would need to cooperate in a very specific way that might grate against his nature, as well as any mandarins controlling access to him.
posted by XMLicious at 2:09 PM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Is there a deadline to file for a recount for FL too?

In FL only the Secretary of State can call for a recount. There's a petition here calling on him to do so.
posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 2:11 PM on November 27, 2016 [9 favorites]

More fun with Billy Bush.

@BraddJaffy:
It's hard to vote illegally. Trump himself was turned away from 3 polling places in 2004 b/c he wasn't on the rolls. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOcQEcwFkX0
posted by chris24 at 2:15 PM on November 27, 2016 [7 favorites]

At this point I'm hoping that the CIA picks Alex Jones up and throws his ass into their darkest dungeon. Otherwise I foresee a Trump White House running around battling monsters and demons. With real nukes.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 2:16 PM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

@KevinMKruse:
Is the promotion of conspiracy theories hyped by Alex Jones sufficient grounds to trigger the 25th Amendment? Asking for a friend.
posted by chris24 at 2:22 PM on November 27, 2016 [9 favorites]

I can only think that the Republicans plan to impeach Trump after the inauguration. And now I'm starting to hope that they do, because it would be a normal sort of evil.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:26 PM on November 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

At this point I'm hoping that the CIA picks Alex Jones up

that sentence was going in a different direction but I would've totally bought Alex Jones as the next director of central intelligence if that Pompeo guy hadn't gotten there first.
posted by indubitable at 2:27 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Kellyanne Conway says Trump has been "gracious" by not prosecuting Clinton while she has joined in asking for a recount
posted by Golden Eternity at 2:28 PM on November 27, 2016

I can only think that the Republicans plan to impeach Trump after the inauguration. And now I'm starting to hope that they do, because it would be a normal sort of evil.

Unless it starts a civil war. On January 20, Donald J. Trump will take control of the military.
posted by tivalasvegas at 2:28 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

I can only think that the Republicans plan to impeach Trump after the inauguration.

Why would they? They're getting everything they want.
posted by longdaysjourney at 2:29 PM on November 27, 2016 [6 favorites]

Joe in Australia, couldn't agree with you more. Trump's craziness is going to make harder to fight him because he is just so erratic and bizarre. Pence at least is a more predictable evil.
posted by not that mimi at 2:30 PM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Unless it starts a civil war.

I honestly see an ides of March sort of thing before a civil war, and I don't think the former is that likely.
posted by Mooski at 2:31 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

I can only think that the Republicans plan to impeach Trump after the inauguration.

It's amazing that our wishful thinking is Trump will be impeached as if the GOP had a conscience or that Trump is actually insane. I wonder if there was similar talk in Weimar Germany during its demise.
posted by Golden Eternity at 2:31 PM on November 27, 2016 [16 favorites]

Unless it starts a civil war. On January 20, Donald J. Trump will take control of the military.

I don't have faith in much at this point, but I do still have faith that the vast majority of the US military would refuse illegal orders. I also have faith that the Republican powers that be will think that they can keep Trump under enough of their control that they won't impeach him either.
posted by Candleman at 2:36 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Again non-traditional news doing it better.

@people:
President-elect Donald Trump falsely claims in bizarre tweets that "millions" voted illegally for Clinton: http://peoplem.ag/J7hjf6K

@CBSNews:
Donald Trump: "Millions" voted illegally for Hillary Clinton http://cbsn.ws/2gMRG7t
posted by chris24 at 2:37 PM on November 27, 2016 [38 favorites]

On January 20, Donald J. Trump will take control of the military.

Don’t Wait Until The Trump Administration Gives An Illegal Order To Think About How You’ll Respond

Task & Purpose is a news and culture site geared toward the next great generation of American veterans. We offer an outlet for well-written analysis and commentary on veterans and greater military affairs.

T&P is one of the better veteran-aimed websites out there. They were pretty neutral during the race but have since come out pretty hard against the Dilettante-in-Chief-Elect.
posted by Etrigan at 2:37 PM on November 27, 2016 [31 favorites]

I also have faith that the Republican powers that be will think that they can keep Trump under enough of their control that they won't impeach him either.

"Pence, here's the deal. You get to sit in the big chair, you do what you're told, you get to be the man who saved America from Trump. All you have to do is keep your fucking mouth shut while we take out the trash. Got it?"

"Yessir."
posted by Mooski at 2:38 PM on November 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

I do still have faith that the vast majority of the US military would refuse illegal orders.

All it took last time was a pet lawyer to provide sufficient cover so I am not sure where your faith comes from.
posted by srboisvert at 2:48 PM on November 27, 2016 [19 favorites]

In FL only the Secretary of State can call for a recount. There's a petition here calling on him to do so.

Lulz. Actual Voldemort Rick Scott is very happy with the result in Florida, thank you very much. There'll be a recount once we track down all his horcruxes.
posted by dis_integration at 2:50 PM on November 27, 2016 [8 favorites]

I do still have faith that the vast majority of the US military would refuse illegal orders.

Two words: Abu Ghraib
posted by zachlipton at 2:56 PM on November 27, 2016 [35 favorites]

I don't have faith in much at this point, but I do still have faith that the vast majority of the US military would refuse illegal orders. I also have faith that the Republican powers that be will think that they can keep Trump under enough of their control that they won't impeach him either.

Remember the Reichstag fire. It is not difficult to imagine conditions under which a crisis occurs and the military is ordered by the Commander-in-Chief to cross the Potomac and 'secure Congress'.

If Congress initiated immediate impeachment proceedings (to be clear, I think this is very, very unlikely), a crisis of that sort would be more likely than not to happen.

The 25th Amendment is a bit different question. My strongly-wikipedia-informed understanding of the Amendment allows for the removal of a President without their consent by means of a letter written by the VP, cosigned by a majority of Cabinet members and sent to the Senate president pro tem and to the Speaker of the House. However, the President can write a countering letter to reinstate themself, and if the VP and majority of Cabinet send a counter-counter letter the matter is decided by a vote of Congress. Two-thirds of both houses must vote against the President or they are reinstated.

So this is basically the means for a legal coup, and unlike the 'normal' process of impeachment and removal, it removes the President from power immediately and potentially without his foreknowledge. But ultimately it would require, by my potentially flawed arithmetic, 96 House Republicans and 18 Republican Senators (assuming the GOP wins the LA runoff) to pull off.

I feel the same way about these scenarios as I do about the electoral college "maybe they'll vote against Trump" and, to some extent, the recount efforts.

They are an attempt to bargain and rules-lawyer our way out of the fascism that is coming, and they won't work.

The only way is through.
posted by tivalasvegas at 2:58 PM on November 27, 2016 [31 favorites]

I notice that you don't say "the only way out is through".
posted by Frowner at 3:20 PM on November 27, 2016 [18 favorites]

Huh. Betfred are currently offering 2/1 on "Trump not to last a year in office". I think I'm taking those odds.
posted by Wordshore at 3:21 PM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

I notice that you don't say "the only way out is through".

I do not. But I also would also note that empires rise, and empires fall, and so far the world has not ended.
posted by tivalasvegas at 3:33 PM on November 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

You know, I thought this recount was bullshit until I saw how scared Trump is.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 3:36 PM on November 27, 2016 [75 favorites]

I think in a way, people should be informed that these mechanisms exist and so on not because there's actually a good chance that they'll change who's President, but because we have to be able to point later and say that the Republican Congress and Senate could have changed who was president and then chose not to. They have to be made complicit in every step Trump takes from the moment he takes office. They are not just observers with their hands tied. The general public needs to know that someone could have done something, that we do in fact elect the legislative branch to be a check on the executive branch, and that a failure to act is in this case the same as endorsement.
posted by Sequence at 3:37 PM on November 27, 2016 [40 favorites]

You know, I thought this recount was bullshit until I saw how scared Trump is.

Hell, it's 2016. Maybe the recount and/or electoral college Hail Mary is just the politics equivalent of the World Series going to seven games, the Cubs recovering from being down 3-1, and the final game going into extra innings after their opponents come from behind to tie up the game by scoring three runs in the 8th inning. Who the hell knows. Maybe Elvis and Tupac are still alive and the EC will pick them for President/VP in a shocking grand finale to 2016. This fucking year!
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 3:44 PM on November 27, 2016 [27 favorites]

There is a world of difference between doing horrible things to foreigners and overthrowing the US government. Abu Ghraib was more a matter of bullies run amok than following illegal orders and the soldiers involved in torture at the black sites have almost certainly been selected for predisposition to such things.

A coup would literally end the United States as it has existed. I know a lot of military and ex-military personnel, some of whom are quite conservative, and few seem likely to even consider following an order to take on the people of the United States. I can't think of a single one, Trump supporters included, that would do so if it was ordered in response to Congress beginning impeachment proceedings against him.

Let's panic about the realistic things rather than the fantastical ones.
posted by Candleman at 3:46 PM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

until I saw how scared Trump is

Depends.
posted by petebest at 3:48 PM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

I am not convinced that Trump is invulnerable to impeachment. It's not like he made a lot of friends with the establishment Repubs in either the House or the Senate. They have the far more manageable Pence in the wings. My guess is that Ryan and McConnell will have a tipping point where they tire of the ethics problems, Trumps unwillingness to see things their way, and they see his poll numbers dip enough to flip the switch.

I give it a year and a half. Tops
posted by Ber at 3:49 PM on November 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

Conway on CNN implying that Trump's "magnanimous" decision not to prosecute Clinton (for the thing she was already cleared of) might be contingent on her comportment.
posted by contraption at 3:49 PM on November 27, 2016 [7 favorites]

Conway on CNN implying that Trump's "magnanimous" decision not to prosecute Clinton (for the thing she was already cleared of) might be contingent on her comportment.

You know the shit where you wipe and wipe and wipe but it's like wiping a Sharpie?

That's Kellyanne Conway's location in the body politic.
posted by Talez at 3:54 PM on November 27, 2016 [15 favorites]

"magnanimous" decision not to prosecute Clinton (for the thing she was already cleared of) might be contingent on her comportment.

JFC, the fact that Clinton hasn't fled to Canada or somewhere yet is all the more reason for her to be president.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 3:54 PM on November 27, 2016 [15 favorites]

> Conway on CNN implying that Trump's "magnanimous" decision not to prosecute Clinton (for the thing she was already cleared of) might be contingent on her comportment.

Or as Digby puts it, Conway just put a horse head in Clinton's bed
posted by tonycpsu at 3:56 PM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

""Paul Ryan is clearly signaling that the lower classes need to lower their standard of living." I have been thinking about that all day because I don't know what that looks like."

Two big things that pisses Randian Republicans off about poor people is when they a) own appliances like refrigerators, stoves, and -- GOD FORBID -- washing machines, or b) have cable. Never mind that cable is your cheapest choice for keeping kids in the house when you live in a high-crime, high-traffic neighborhood and they're home alone after school because you're working; if they can afford anything beyond a shack with an army cot and a campfire with a single pot to cook their beans and rice, THEY'RE NOT POOR, THEY'RE WASTEFUL. They (the Randian Republicans) are unrealistic and hateful.

"But I also would also note that empires rise, and empires fall, and so far the world has not ended."

To be fair, those empires hadn't burned enough fossil fuel to end the world yet, or didn't have A-bombs.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:01 PM on November 27, 2016 [63 favorites]

Conway on CNN implying that Trump's "magnanimous" decision not to prosecute Clinton (for the thing she was already cleared of) might be contingent on her comportment.

You'd think he'd have moved on to campaigning against Pelosi and Schumer by now.
posted by Etrigan at 4:04 PM on November 27, 2016

> Two big things that pisses Randian Republicans off about poor people is when they a) own appliances like refrigerators, stoves, and -- GOD FORBID -- washing machines, or b) have cable.

I used to hear the same argument re: cell phones (or smart phones when those were more of a luxury item) but I haven't heard it as much. Maybe the GOP published a list of approved gadgets that the poors are allowed to own without being accused of not really being poor. Or maybe I'm just doing a better job filtering out bullshit from my news feeds.
posted by tonycpsu at 4:05 PM on November 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

You'd think he'd have moved on to campaigning against Pelosi and Schumer by now.

He doesn't plan, he reacts.

Smart Democrats might use this insight to keep him on his heels for the next four years.
posted by Mooski at 4:07 PM on November 27, 2016 [26 favorites]

He doesn't plan, he reacts. Smart Democrats might use this insight to keep him on his heels for the next four years.

They ought to call in the team of psychologists who helped Clinton with debate prep to come up with a strategy.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 4:09 PM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

To be fair, those empires hadn't burned enough fossil fuel to end the world yet, or didn't have A-bombs.

I know, but I was trying to ignore those two issues for the sake of this discussion, since there is already enough existential despair to go around. :(

They ought to call in the team of psychologists who helped Clinton with debate prep to come up with a strategy.

And there it is. Hello darkness, my old friend.
posted by tivalasvegas at 4:11 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Conway on CNN

The rubbernecking.
posted by petebest at 4:12 PM on November 27, 2016

I used to hear the same argument re: cell phones (or smart phones when those were more of a luxury item) but I haven't heard it as much. Maybe the GOP published a list of approved gadgets that the poors are allowed to own without being accused of not really being poor. Or maybe I'm just doing a better job filtering out bullshit from my news feeds.

Mm, probably the latter. I still see complaints about 'obamaphones' pop up in various deplorable corners of my feeds.
posted by tivalasvegas at 4:12 PM on November 27, 2016

The rubbernecking.

Can we still rubberneck if we're sitting in the back seat of the fiery wreck?
posted by tivalasvegas at 4:13 PM on November 27, 2016

As long as the engine on fire is at the opposite end of the vehicle...
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:16 PM on November 27, 2016

Fucking bring it, Trump. I mean it.

I dare him to try and bring charges against Hillary Goddamn Clinton. Want the left to have a figurehead to rally around? Remember her approval ratings after the Benghazi sham trial? Let's stop collectively pretending this is going to be anything other than a banana republic.

Bring it, I say, you small little man. Fastest way to get his dictatorial ass set on fire.
posted by lydhre at 4:22 PM on November 27, 2016 [24 favorites]

Kellyanne Conway

And so he said he wouldn't rule it out. He said it's just not his focus right now. I think he's being quite magnanimous and at the same time he's not undercutting at all the authority and the autonomy of the Department of Justice, of the FBI, of the House Committees, who knows where the evidence may lead if, in fact, it were -- if the investigation were re-opened somewhere.

But this is the president-elect's position right now and I would say he has been incredibly gracious and magnanimous to Secretary Clinton at a time when for whatever reason her folks are saying they will join in a recount to try to somehow undo the 70 plus electoral votes that he beat her by. I mean this -- you know, I was asked on CNN and elsewhere, goodness a thousand times, will Donald Trump accept the election results? And now you've got the Democrats and Jill Stein saying they do not accept the election results. She congratulated him and conceded to him on election night. I was right there. And the idea that we are going to drag this out now where the president-elect has been incredibly magnanimous to the Clintons and to the Obamas is incredible.

A real journalist (any of those about?) would ask her two questions:
1. Why is Trump deciding who gets to be prosecuted and who doesn't?
2. What law exactly did she break?

It is not against the law to run for President against DJT. Not yet, anyway.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:29 PM on November 27, 2016 [49 favorites]

the guy is a walking scandal. how can he not be impeached?

oh yeah, so was bubba bill. :-(
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 4:30 PM on November 27, 2016

Trump won't do anything to the the Clintons because he understands if the rule against acting against your predecessor in the White House goes out the window then he'll be utterly fucked if Democrats take the White House 4 years from now.

Considering he's made it apparent that he feels the President functions along the lines of the unitary executive favored by Nixon and that Presidents can't break the law the chances that his administration won't repeatedly break the law in the next couple of years approach zero.

Trump is surrounded by vindictive fuckheads and is one himself but I figure the key focus of his administration will be crony capitalism and chasing stupid vendettas against Hilary would be massively stupid.

Trump is most concerned right now about looking illegitimate and finishing over 2 million votes behind Clinton and then trying to prosecute her would look like banana republic levels of incompetence.
posted by vuron at 4:32 PM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

A real journalist (any of those about?) would ask her two questions:
1. Why is Trump deciding who gets to be prosecuted and who doesn't?
2. What law exactly did she break?

"But if we ask them hard questions they won't come on our show!"
posted by Talez at 4:35 PM on November 27, 2016 [26 favorites]

oh yeah, so was bubba bill. :-(

I know. Getting caught up with someone who ran a shitty business and a blow job. How the fuck did the republic ever survive a President getting caught up in that?
posted by Talez at 4:36 PM on November 27, 2016 [15 favorites]

I think Trump's razor comes into play here. He's accusing Clinton of stealing 3 million votes because that's how many he stole.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 4:36 PM on November 27, 2016 [17 favorites]

A real journalist (any of those about?)

Someone in these threads said the BBC had one. I wonder if they'd let us borrow it.

Alternately, some group on the Internet was working on taping an old issue of Psychology Today to a Press Relations undergrad, but I don't have a lot of hope that much will come of it.
posted by petebest at 4:36 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

NYTimes Trump Claims, With No Evidence, That ‘Millions of People’ Voted Illegally

One person who spoke with Mr. Trump over the holiday weekend said the president-elect had appeared to be preoccupied by suggestions that a recount might be started, even as his aides played down any concerns. Another friend said Mr. Trump felt crossed by Mrs. Clinton, who he believed had conceded the race and accepted the results.

Mr. Trump’s aides echoed his concerns about the recount effort in appearances on Sunday morning television news programs. Ms. Conway, who was his campaign manager, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Mrs. Clinton and her campaign advisers would have to decide “whether they’re going to be a bunch of crybabies.”

Check the URL which is "trump adviser steps up searing attack on romney." Looks like they completely changed the focus of the story. This is a preview of the next 4 years as Trump takes offense at some perceived slight and goes on a twitter rant. He will be known in the history books as "Old Aggravated." Or maybe President Donald "Twitterstorm" Trump.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:37 PM on November 27, 2016 [11 favorites]

Trump is most concerned right now about looking illegitimate and finishing over 2 million votes behind Clinton and then trying to prosecute her would look like banana republic levels of incompetence.

"Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."

Just in case you were, maybe, thinking he was like normal people.
posted by Mooski at 4:37 PM on November 27, 2016 [11 favorites]

@realdonaldtrump: Serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California - so why isn't the media reporting on this? Serious bias - big problem!

He should request a recount, then.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 4:37 PM on November 27, 2016 [66 favorites]

Getting impeached is highly unlikely but becoming radioactive for the Republican brand is exceedingly possible. I don't have a whole lot of confidence in our current media environment but once the Republican take the US back to the 1920s agenda becomes apparent I suspect even the largely ineffective media in this country will start to report in ways that will make re-electing Trump more or less impossible.

The reality is that Trump only got elected this time due to racism/misogyny and basic complacency by the electorate. Start taking away stuff that the electorate likes like Medicare and Social Security and you'll get a pretty significant shift in the electorate.
posted by vuron at 4:40 PM on November 27, 2016

Trump's secret plan against ISIS? Twitter.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 4:40 PM on November 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

> "Trump won't do anything to the the Clintons because he understands ..."

I started questioning your premise right there.

I'm not, sadly, joking.
posted by kyrademon at 4:40 PM on November 27, 2016 [26 favorites]

I am having my first fun in almost three weeks.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 4:41 PM on November 27, 2016 [21 favorites]

Smart Democrats might use this insight to keep him on his heels for the next four years.

Trying to pin down Trump politically is like wrestling a greased up pig in shit.
posted by Talez at 4:41 PM on November 27, 2016 [6 favorites]

> "Start taking away stuff that the electorate likes like Medicare and Social Security and you'll get a pretty significant shift in the electorate."

I gave up on trying to predict what the electorate would do when a big enough minority to carry the electoral college voted for the obviously crazy man.
posted by kyrademon at 4:43 PM on November 27, 2016 [35 favorites]

He will be known in the history books as "Old Aggravated." Or maybe President Donald "Twitterstorm" Trump.

I've seen Trumplethinskin thrown around.
posted by supercrayon at 4:43 PM on November 27, 2016 [38 favorites]

...you both get dirty, and the pig likes it.
posted by j_curiouser at 4:43 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Voter fraud in Va, NH, CA. OK what proof do you have, sir? Someone told you? You saw something fishy in the polls? You heard a rumor? What? Show us some evidence or else stop tweeting shit.

Jesus I don't expect much from a Trump Presidency, god knows, but out and out lying and conspiracy theory crap is not something I was preparing myself for.

#YouSirAreALiar #InsaneTrump #NightmarePresidency #GoBackToTrumpTower #DumpsterFireInChief
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:46 PM on November 27, 2016 [11 favorites]

Start taking away stuff that the electorate likes like Medicare and Social Security and you'll get a pretty significant shift in the electorate.

That's why any proposed changes to fuck Medicare and SS consistently don't affect people born before $CURRENT_YEAR - 55.
posted by Talez at 4:47 PM on November 27, 2016 [13 favorites]

Someone responded to my relative's heartfelt anti-Trump facebook message with a note that it was time for Dems to "give him a chance, just like Republicans gave Obama a chance."

I see this everywhere and I am so tired of it. Even if it were true that Republicans gave Obama a chance (it's not), this basically amounts to "When a smart, moderate Constitutional scholar and U.S. senator won in an obviously fair election, we accepted it, so why are you upset that an unqualified racist, misogynistic, narcissistic authoritarian won in an election heavily influenced by Russian hacking, FBI interference, voter suppression laws, and abundant propaganda?
posted by Pater Aletheias at 4:47 PM on November 27, 2016 [109 favorites]

i just say, "the Electoral College is in the rule book. So are the recounts. Nothing new here, and all the campaigns knew it before kick-off."

(also does not sway trumpsters)
posted by j_curiouser at 4:51 PM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Even if Boomers turn out to be selfish fucks (and the jury is still out on that) the reality is that you can't keep the current program working for people over >55 and then give a different program for people under 55 because the reality is that people under 55 are the ones paying the bills for the Seniors.

You really can't privatize a part of it without privatizing all of it. It's just going to be a shell game to hide that fact from Seniors until the Republicans manage to force something through.

I can't even imagine how they think that they can pass a privatization of Medicare through reconcilliation though.
posted by vuron at 4:53 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Look this is all speculative, but suppose Trump truly believes that millions of illegal voters, fed on T-bone steaks and gifted with new phones, are bused around the country, voting for Democrats. Would it not seem reasonable to him to counter with his own illegal vote-rigging schemes?
posted by thelonius at 4:56 PM on November 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

Even if Boomers turn out to be selfish fucks (and the jury is still out on that)

lulwhut
posted by entropicamericana at 4:57 PM on November 27, 2016 [15 favorites]

the rigging was: voter id, weakened vra, redistricting, and comey.
posted by j_curiouser at 4:59 PM on November 27, 2016 [31 favorites]

AARP will still go on the warpath, even if current seniors are guaranteed the old Medicare. And if you want to see anti-Boomer rhetoric reach a fever pitch, just wait until the GOP tries to explain to millenials and X-ers that they're expected to pay for the boomers without getting anything themselves. Not only do the headlines, and attack ads, write themselves, but I can see the collective freakout on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc. About how the Boomers left us a broken world, broken economy, and now they want us to pay for a benefit we'll never see.

Almost want to see the GOP try this because the resulting shitstorm will be immense..
posted by honestcoyote at 5:00 PM on November 27, 2016 [9 favorites]

the rigging was: voter id, weakened vra, redistricting, and comey.

Sure, but the recount is based on suspicions that there was something done to vote-counting machines, right?
posted by thelonius at 5:02 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

I can't even imagine how they think that they can pass a privatization of Medicare through reconcilliation though.

This is a party who refused to vote on a SCOTUS replacement.

They've already crossed that Rubicon.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 5:04 PM on November 27, 2016 [15 favorites]

Can we not with the generalizations about a whole group of people? The age bashing around here can get old. (har har)
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 5:04 PM on November 27, 2016 [7 favorites]

Almost want to see the GOP try this

As horrible as all this is becoming, there's a capering lunatic inside me that wants a President Trump, so that when everything goes to shit and they start rounding up dissenting voices, it can grab my conservative acquaintances by the shoulders and shake them: "SEE?! Do you GODDAMN SEE now?" I usually bring that crazy person inside me to heel by reminding myself that even then, they will not see.
posted to MeFi by Mooski at 8:32 AM on February 28, 2016

Nah, you really don't want to see it. You just think you do.
posted by Mooski at 5:04 PM on November 27, 2016 [31 favorites]

The New Yorker nails it: Facts Don't Matter
posted by chris24 at 5:09 PM on November 27, 2016 [20 favorites]

BTW ... is there still a press pool covering PEOTUS? Haven't heard anything in awhile.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:11 PM on November 27, 2016

Sure, but the recount is based on suspicions that there was something done to vote-counting machines, right?

i say, recount *all* the paper. fuck those machines. if WI finds just one that is undeniably broken or cheating, then agitate for a full paper recount. everywhere.
posted by j_curiouser at 5:11 PM on November 27, 2016 [11 favorites]

It's all connected. Josh Marshall noticed this at the bottom of a WaPo story
In father’s scandal, the genesis of Jared Kushner’s unflinching loyalty:

Back on Dec. 7, 2013, the day after Wildstein resigned from the Port Authority amid growing evidence that he had ordered the lane closures, Kushner got in touch with him. In an email obtained by The Post, Kushner drew a parallel between Wildstein and his father, who had also resigned as a Port Authority commissioner in 2003 as questions began to percolate about Kushner’s campaign contributions.

“Just wanted you to know that I am thinking of you and wishing the best. For what it’s worth, I thought the move you pulled was kind of badass,” Kushner wrote.

Heller, the Kushner Companies spokeswoman, said this week that the message was a “poorly worded way of Jared trying to cheer up an old friend.”

Is there one awful thing in politics these people don't have a hand in?
posted by zachlipton at 5:16 PM on November 27, 2016 [9 favorites]

Can we not with the generalizations about a whole group of people?
Speaking as a member of that group, and of most of the other privileged groups ('Boomer' age, white, male), I can attest that we ARE all that bad. I've spent most of my adult life trying NOT to 'be like that', but the pull of privilege is so damned strong and generations of privilege have made us so spoiled and weak, that I can't even say "not ALL people like me" anymore, and Donald Trump is Our Leader and Our Role Model.
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:17 PM on November 27, 2016 [10 favorites]

Can we not with the generalizations about a whole group of people? The age bashing around here can get old. (har har)

I'm not personally bashing the boomers or older. But I'm pretty sure the GOP proposal will usher in a pretty vitriolic response from those under 55. If AARP and many of the current seniors also defend Medicare in its current state, and I'm sure they will, then the inter-generational vitriol can be kept to a minimum.

For the old people in my family, the one thing which really makes them pay attention to politics is when their Social Security and/or Medicare is under threat.
posted by honestcoyote at 5:17 PM on November 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

We're going to Mexico on December 22nd and I keep suggesting to my spouse that we change our plans and leave the 18th instead, just in case the country descends into chaos after the Electoral College votes. She laughs, but I am not entirely kidding. And I think she knows that and worries about the same thing.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:20 PM on November 27, 2016 [6 favorites]

Heller, the Kushner Companies spokeswoman, said this week that the message was a “poorly worded way of Jared trying to cheer up an old friend.”

Of course, this will lead the media to act like the problem is that he used the word "badass", not what he was actually saying.
posted by Sequence at 5:20 PM on November 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

I heard rumors on Tuesday that the Trump camp was in blind, mortal panic over the possibility of a hand recount in Wisconsin and Michigan. That seems to be confirmed now that Stein actually pulled it off... Trump is out of his gourd more than usual with the "millions of illegal votes" thing.

Going to be an interesting week.
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:26 PM on November 27, 2016 [32 favorites]

Going to be an interesting week.

Been a lot of those lately.

Next time I'm voting for the candidate who promises duller weeks.
posted by notyou at 5:30 PM on November 27, 2016 [32 favorites]

looks like i picked the wrong week to quit drinkin
posted by entropicamericana at 5:43 PM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

no this is the best week, every week after this will be worse
posted by thelonius at 5:47 PM on November 27, 2016 [28 favorites]

How fucked up is Trump's claim that millions of people voted illegally and he actually won the popular vote? Out of morbid curiosity, I checked out Breitbart to see how they were covering it. They described his allegation as being presented "completely without evidence."

Not even other the other wackos have his back on this.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:49 PM on November 27, 2016 [24 favorites]

you can't keep the current program working for people over >55 and then give a different program for people under 55 because the reality is that people under 55 are the ones paying the bills for the Seniors

I just turned 52. I've been paying into the system for 35 years. I'm not "entitled." I am fucking owed.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:57 PM on November 27, 2016 [74 favorites]

I too just turned 52, and I will sharpen my walking sticks and head to congress my own self before I let them privatize it for any age. Fuck that noise.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 6:05 PM on November 27, 2016 [22 favorites]

Out of morbid curiosity, I checked out Breitbart to see how they were covering it. They described his allegation as being presented "completely without evidence."

That's not how I read it. They took an existing Reuters story (even including the "(REUTERS)" at the beginning), softened the headline and some of the language, then linked directly to the Reuters story to make it look like they were quoting it verbatim. Pretty sneaky.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:06 PM on November 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

Almost want to see the GOP try this because the resulting shitstorm will be immense..

I can understand the sentiment, but I'm still on Team Not Rooting for Terrible Things to Happen.
posted by indubitable at 6:07 PM on November 27, 2016 [12 favorites]

Yeah we need to stop acting like its charity. We PAID into it. It's our national 401k. Let's act like it. We are all vested.
posted by ian1977 at 6:07 PM on November 27, 2016 [35 favorites]

Next time I'm voting for the candidate who promises duller weeks.


I miss Dukakis. I miss Tsongas. I miss Jack Kemp.
posted by ocschwar at 6:08 PM on November 27, 2016 [13 favorites]

Or as Digby puts it, Conway just put a horse head in Clinton's bed


Come on, Hillary. Get a flat in Auckland NZ and a Twitter app on your phone.

You'll literally kill him.
posted by ocschwar at 6:12 PM on November 27, 2016 [9 favorites]

I try not to get too mistrustful of boomers but increasingly their voting patterns kind of look like they are trying to pull the ladder up after them.

Like others have said people have been paying into the system fir decades and you are going to take away their benefits right before they are due to be paid?

Rage would just cover a small amount if that.
posted by vuron at 6:13 PM on November 27, 2016 [12 favorites]

I miss Tsongas.

His wife is my now congresswoman. She seems to be doing a reasonably good job of being an east coast liberal.
posted by Talez at 6:13 PM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

Just thinking of Trump's 'psychological projection.' Remember this:

Let's dispel once and for all with the fiction that Barack Obama doesn't know what he is doing, he knows exactly what he is doing.

Barack Obama is undertaking a systematic effort to change this country, to make America more like the rest of the world... it is a systematic effort to change America.

Or maybe this is more like irony.
posted by Golden Eternity at 6:15 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Come on, Hillary. Get a flat in Auckland NZ and a Twitter app on your phone.

You'll literally kill him.

CHILD, I got a spare bedroom, Hillary can fucking stay with me even Bill can come they can do all their tweeting and then play on my PS4 if they want.
posted by supercrayon at 6:18 PM on November 27, 2016 [23 favorites]

In some of the recent threads people mentioned Obama "Miss Me Yet?" billboards. Before too long we could do those for Clinton.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:20 PM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Well one thing is clear: we can dispel once and for all with the idea that Donald Trump knows what he is doing, he has no idea what the hell he is doing.

HUZZAH! CHANGE COMES TO AMERICA!
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:21 PM on November 27, 2016 [8 favorites]

Now it can be revealed: he originally intended the hats to say "MAKE AMERICA GRATING" but they were changed in SpellCheck.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:25 PM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

during the campaign i never felt comfortable about wearing Hillary stuff, or having a bumper sticker on my vehicle because i was scared of what some deplorables would do to me or my property. but as this presidency-elect has unfolded, just as bad or worse than i would have expected and as the racism, misogyny xenophobia lies hate and fucking stupidity has been normalized by the media i'm tired of being comfortable.

as a white straight cis male with a good job and all the privileges and graces i could imagine its time to wear my disgust out in meatspace, if not for me but for others who aren't as safe to do so. so last week i decided to make a giant 'holiday' light display. my choice was 'fuck trump', but ms localhuman didn't like that because there's kids in our neighborhood, so we agreed on 'trump is poopy'.

i've been learning how to weld, so this gave me a chance to work with some rebar for the letters and frame of it. i ended up with a 5 foot tall and 22 foot long display lit in LEDS, which i just finished wrapping the lights around.

its going on the roof of the garage for all to see once the rain stops here. if some deplorable wants to report it or vandalize my shit or beat me up or something then i don't really give a shit. what's going on IS NOT NORMAL and i am done acting as if it is.
posted by localhuman at 6:27 PM on November 27, 2016 [133 favorites]

We've already had a preview of how the narrative to 'privatize' Social Security goes: recession, then AUSTERITY for the win.

Toddler is already itching to give some creditor a haircut. That creditor is us.
posted by Dashy at 6:27 PM on November 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

Well one thing is clear: we can dispel once and for all with the idea that Donald Trump knows what he is doing, he has no idea what the hell he is doing.


i am not worried about trump knowing what he is doing, i'm worried about the cadre of grifters and opportunists surrounding him taking advantage of him not knowing what he is doing.
posted by murphy slaw at 6:29 PM on November 27, 2016 [16 favorites]

I'm worried that Paul Ryan knows exactly what he's doing.
posted by zachlipton at 6:30 PM on November 27, 2016 [51 favorites]

I was thinking today that maybe it's time for us white people to come out as what we actually are: vaguely pink or maybe (to steal a line from Bob Dylan) "chicken".
Just because it's a bit harder to rally around something like "PINK SUPREMACY" or "CHICKEN SUPREMACY".
posted by uosuaq at 6:37 PM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

They tried in 2005 to privatize Social Security. Went so well Rove's "permanent Republican majority" was gone by 2006. Voters tend to like SS and Medicare.

"Having invested so much political capital in this issue, President Bush embarked on the first of what proved to be a long series of tours crammed with events at which he pitched his plan to the people. It soon became apparent that it would be a tough sell. Within weeks, observers noticed that the more the President talked about Social Security, the more support for his plan declined. According to the Gallup organization, public disapproval of President Bush’s handling of Social Security rose by 16 points from 48 to 64 percent–between his State of the Union address and June."
posted by chris24 at 6:38 PM on November 27, 2016 [10 favorites]

beige genocide is real
posted by murphy slaw at 6:39 PM on November 27, 2016

Paul Ryan knows exactly what he's doing

I can't say why I know this because it could get someone in trouble (and it's not like we don't know anyway), but Ryan totally knows what he's doing and definitely, seriously, wants the Presidency.
posted by waitingtoderail at 6:43 PM on November 27, 2016 [18 favorites]

Ryan totally knows what he's doing and definitely, seriously, wants the Presidency.

Win-win, as far as I'm concerned, as long as he acts soon.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:47 PM on November 27, 2016

Prismacolor renamed the long used "flesh" color to become a more politically correct marketer. It is now prismacolor number 927, now with the label "light peach".

(prismacolor number 927 with swatch which looks close on my monitor)
posted by bukvich at 6:47 PM on November 27, 2016

In one of the local FB groups I'm in, literally called Resist Hate, another member was flamed hard for voting for Trump. We spoke privately about WHY he voted for Trump, but what mattered to me is that he was in this group, willing to stand up against the worst parts of this upcoming administration, and he got treated to a barrage of insults. I totally understand why people, especially those who will be made unsafe(r), don't want to empathize with the average Trump supporter, but when one willingly stands up against hate, they shouldn't be attacked. That'll get us nowhere, and actively works against us. Ugh, I just hate everything right now.
posted by Ruki at 6:52 PM on November 27, 2016 [7 favorites]

Well one thing is clear: we can dispel once and for all with the idea that Donald Trump knows what he is doing, he has no idea what the hell he is doing.

This seems to be the consensus reaction, and it's really scaring me. Here and on twitter, I'm mainly seeing: "he's crazy," he's lying again." Yeah, these are the same lies that got him elected, and he's promised to deport three million people. They may seem crazy to us, but his followers believe the lies, or more likely they agree with using the lies to subvert democracy.

Mr. Trump’s Justice Department will also present a severe threat to voting rights. It could choose not to vigorously enforce the Voting Rights Act, instead pressing states to take more aggressive action to combat alleged voter fraud. This could include purging voter rolls and starting investigations into voter-registration organizations.

Does anyone not believe Trump and his people will use voter disenfranchisement, deportation and redistricting to prevent the Democrats from regaining power? I would argue that Trump probably does know what he's doing. And he does in fact want to change America to look a lot more like the rest of the world (less democratic, more corrupt and oligarchical). Granted, I'm not sure what we can actually do about it. I guess not much.
posted by Golden Eternity at 6:54 PM on November 27, 2016 [11 favorites]

I think Ryan is an idiot personally but I suspect that he and some of his compatriots are desperate enough to use this rare Republican trifecta to push through some truly odious shit. I sincerely doubt that Republicans can actually use reconciliation on Medicare or Medicaid as reconciliation basically needs to be revenue neutral and there is no way in hell that privatizing Medicare would be revenue neutral.

The primary reason why privatizing medicare is unbelievably stupid is that insurers might like to get a piece of that money but nobody in their right mind actually wants to service seniors in the healthcare market. The simple fact of the matter is that they are unbelievably expensive and invariably consume more benefits than they pay in. The only reason why Medicare works currently is that everyone pays into it (huge payment pool) and the fact that most of the people paying in won't get to draw a benefit for x number of years.

Go to a medicare privatization scheme and suddenly instead of having medicare as the insurer of last resort you have private insurance companies being forced to cover end of life care which is insanely expensive. No insurer would ever be willing to be put in that position unless they can deny coverage to the most expensive patients but the reality is that a large number of medicare beneficiaries would be completely uninsurable on the open market.

I could see medicaid getting fucked over because "lol fuck the poor" but the reality is that a large number of middle class people also need stuff like medicaid for end of life care like paying for memory care facilities, etc that aren't covered by Medicare.

The reality is that the vast majority of Americans cannot deal with the costs of medical emergencies as is and that's with Medicare and Medicaid absorbing the costs for some of the most expensive patients.

I think the second anything like Medicare and/or SS privatization hits the public conscience the number of lobbying groups like AARP and the AMA that will come out with all sorts of attack ads will be epic. For Ryan the simple fact that Trump is a complete and total shitshow is actually a good thing because he is distraction.
posted by vuron at 6:55 PM on November 27, 2016 [14 favorites]

Out of morbid curiosity, I checked out Breitbart to see how they were covering it. They described his allegation as being presented "completely without evidence."

Curious. I've seen a lot of random FB commenters on trending election-related news articles quoting the 3 million figure at least a week before Trump's tweet. It was especially memorable because everybody was saying the same number of faked votes. It was never presented with a source; it was always just assumed that the reader shared the context behind it or would trust that it was true.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:06 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't think massive public disapproval will stop them. WWC well be eating dig food and they'll still vote republican so long as everyone else is eating cat food.
posted by Joey Michaels at 7:07 PM on November 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

I would have previously said that the number of middle-class people whose kids age out of sharing their healthcare plans and still need care but are in terrible jobs, especially in the rust belt, would have prevented them going after Medicaid. But then my mom acted like I was Taking Advantage Of The System for getting Medicaid and actually getting a couple of my old fillings replaced while I had it. I don't have faith in people loving their children more than they hate the poor, anymore.
posted by Sequence at 7:07 PM on November 27, 2016 [13 favorites]

Real thoughts that come into my head: Does he not have family to attend to on the Sunday after Thanksgiving? Where is his 10 year old son? Why can't he spend some time with his wife? Is it too cold to play golf? Why doesn't someone just change his password?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:08 PM on November 27, 2016 [13 favorites]

Curious. I've seen a lot of random FB commenters on trending election-related news articles quoting the 3 million figure at least a week before Trump's tweet. It was especially memorable because everybody was saying the same number of faked votes. It was never presented with a source; it was always just assumed that the reader shared the context behind it or would trust that it was true.

Snopes did some digging into the source. It's some guy on Twitter who once ran a Newt Gingrich super PAC and who refuses to give any sources for his claims, as spread by Alex Jones and Infowars.
posted by zachlipton at 7:12 PM on November 27, 2016 [23 favorites]

Curious. I've seen a lot of random FB commenters on trending election-related news articles quoting the 3 million figure at least a week before Trump's tweet. It was especially memorable because everybody was saying the same number of faked votes. It was never presented with a source;

I posted this earlier, but I'm now even more curious about this Trump guy referring me to a video where FOX News falsely interprets Obama as telling illegals they can vote and won't get in trouble.
posted by Golden Eternity at 7:14 PM on November 27, 2016

Medicare privatization is pretty much impossible without emlininating benefits, because holy cow. Just a tiny example: All ESRD( end stage renal disease) patients end up on Medicare. It's pretty much an automatic qualifier if you are s US citizen. It costs 87,945 per year per person, and there are approximately 650,000 people currently receiving treatment in the USWithout a single payer system there is absolutely no way to recoup these costs. No private company in their right mind would take these patients, that's why they are all on Medicare because basically no insurance would cover it.

Seniors (and people with disabilities) are a giant high risk pool usually on a fixed income. The money has to come from somewhere.
posted by AlexiaSky at 7:16 PM on November 27, 2016 [21 favorites]

I don't have faith in people loving their children more than they hate the poor, anymore.

Yeah that has been the most dispiriting part for me. I can see (if not approve of) not giving a fuck about other people's kids, but your own? That seems like such a basic human thing that it boggles me.

My current assumption is that it's really a delusion; they think their kids WILL be ok, if they work hard, and toughen up, and also climate change and economic collapse won't really happen.

But even that seems like a huge risk to take with your kids' futures.

But then you are also talking about people who refuse to believe the stats about abstinence-only sex ed, even when their own kids end up with STDs or pregnant--people who won't get their kids a shot that might prevent cancer because they have some kind of crazy idea that it will make them more promiscuous. Which is worse than dying of cancer.

So maybe it's not that hard to understand.
posted by emjaybee at 7:17 PM on November 27, 2016 [22 favorites]

Golden Eternity - that's a scary thought; that Trump is using all of his reality TV tricks and pretending to be utterly and completely incompetent as a grand misdirection to accomplish his real goals of maximizing the advancement of kleptocratic oligarchy to the next level. At least, for him and his.

I recall others saying that the current culture war was started with education 'reforms' in the '70s, it's ulterior goal being to create an unquestioning, unimaginative, and easily manipulated voting populace.

Continued school segragation, the travesty of education funding (local property taxes instead of federal funding), somehow Texas influencing/telling what Pearson Education will publish in their education material, scam Charter Schools, fake Universities, and grarr.

Not going to get fixed anytime soon. This is the endgame of something that started 40-50 years ago.

If I was Philosopher King of the World, I'd work towards legislation that guarantees (and* legislation that makes me able to spell the word 'guarantees' without having to look it up) that grade-school Social Studies teachers get paid like medical specialists and require as much advanced education, practical experience under supervision, and are held to similar codes of conduct with a similar level of censure.

*(and single-payer; "Hey, you don't like the state/quickness of medical care? Pay up through your taxes. Everyone deserves the same standard of care." Not to mention gutting a thick and greasy layer of leaches lying between the real cost of healthcare and the end user.)
posted by porpoise at 7:22 PM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

Seniors (and people with disabilities) are a giant high risk pool usually on a fixed income. The money has to come from somewhere.

Don't worry, the problem can be solved by decreasing the number of people in that pool, and Ryan's plan will help significantly with that.
posted by Candleman at 7:26 PM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'd do this myself if I knew how, but someone should write a Twitter bot that simply tweets several times a day "@realDonaldTrump has lost the popular vote to @HillaryClinton by [current margin]". We need to keep pushing the minority president meme, plus it would be such fun to see Donald work himself into a frothing rage at a bot.
posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 7:27 PM on November 27, 2016 [39 favorites]

And he does in fact want to change America to look a lot more like the rest of the world (less democratic, more corrupt and oligarchical).

I don't actually think he cares at all about what America looks like (or is like); he just wants people to cheer for him, and to make money. Being president helps him make money, and gets lots of people to cheer for him. So long as people like him--people he respects, that is--or pretend to like him, he'll just sign anything and agree to anything.

There's no great plan. There's just what he wants for himself (& presumably his family, but he sees his family as a reflection of himself, not as individual people separate from him).
posted by suelac at 7:29 PM on November 27, 2016 [8 favorites]

We are getting attacked for participating in a recount that we didn't ask for by the man who won election but thinks there was massive fraud

--@marceelias (Marc Elias, general counsel for the Clinton campaign)
posted by zachlipton at 7:32 PM on November 27, 2016 [62 favorites]

Suelac, I think that's right except I'd swap in "pay attention to" for "cheer for." Good, bad, whatever: the media will be reporting on everything he says and does for as long as this lasts. We are all Apprentices now.
posted by kerf at 7:34 PM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

We are all Apprentices now.
More like Survivors, but some of the more stupid think they're American Idols.
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:36 PM on November 27, 2016 [9 favorites]

pretending to be utterly and completely incompetent as a grand misdirection to accomplish his real goals of maximizing the advancement of kleptocratic oligarchy to the next level.

I'm sure he is pretty incompetent when it comes to running the country. And I think it's probably true that his tweeting behavior is somewhat a product of mental health issues. But it's also true that these lies have been told before and are being used to justify voter disenfranchisement and deportation and that his supporters like them. So I'm not sure these tweets are the best example of incompetence.

Anyway, the question remains, what is the best course of action to take to counter what he is doing and saying? The media just seems to repeat his lies, sometimes pointing out that they are lies.

In the back of my mind, I'm worried about even greater voter fraud happening in deeply Republican precincts that could be used to affect Gubernatorial, Senate, and Presidential elections.
posted by Golden Eternity at 7:36 PM on November 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

Fred Boursier ‏@boursier
Randos: "We're fucked."

Educated friends: "Don't worry, it's illegal to become a dictator."

Very Well Educated friends: "We're fucked."
posted by Talez at 7:37 PM on November 27, 2016 [51 favorites]

Maybe there is something to this as well. I don't know.

NYT publishes damning, deep look at Trump's commercial/presidential conflicts of interests, so Trump tweets crazy fake-vote conspiracy
posted by Golden Eternity at 7:37 PM on November 27, 2016 [10 favorites]

i don't think the tweets are any strategy on trump's part, i think that bannon et. al. just give him his phone back whenever they need cover fire

also traditionally hard hitting investigations into a candidate's unfitness for office are done before the general election but i guess beggars can't be choosers in the current media landscape
posted by murphy slaw at 7:44 PM on November 27, 2016 [37 favorites]

I do think some of the crazy tweeting is to distract from the business corruption. I also think the president-elect tweeting about bullshit election fraud and trying to undermine democracy is important to also focus on and is not just a distraction.
posted by chris24 at 7:51 PM on November 27, 2016 [9 favorites]

Trump is going to lose the recount, isn't he? O holy Shit.

I was once afraid I was living in a William Gibson novel, then a Douglas Adams novel, then I was afraid I was living in a Jules Verne novel, because, why not?

I'm living in a John Titor message board thread. Well, I'm OK as I can program in APL and I'm white and don't live in a city. No.

Fuck Titor. Fuck Trump. General Sherman isn't dead while John Brown's body lies a moldering in the grave.

Even if America loses the recount? The Truth Still Marches On. Two million plus votes worth of American Truth.

Glory Hallelujah.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:53 PM on November 27, 2016 [6 favorites]

murphy slaw, I've actually been thinking something very similar. Bannon, Kushner--Trump just does whatever Trump does. But they have no reason to reign him in because he's not saying anything that can genuinely hurt him. I can't figure out what would genuinely hurt him, except admitting to something that could get him thrown in prison. I think they've spent months coaching him to keep his mouth shut about the things that go that far--because I do believe those things exist--but anything else? Literally anything else? "Go right ahead, Donald. You go tell people what you think while we iron out the details here."
posted by Sequence at 7:55 PM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

NYT publishes damning, deep look at Trump's commercial/presidential conflicts of interests, so Trump tweets crazy fake-vote conspiracy

Ooh, ooh, I know this one! This is where Clinton voters tear out our last patch of hair, Republicans in Congress roll their eyes and turn the page, and Trump supporters wait until the story appears on their preferred media outlet as "New York Times ignores massive voter fraud in favor of running hit piece." Tweet at 11 3AM.
posted by Rykey at 7:56 PM on November 27, 2016 [12 favorites]

Curious. I've seen a lot of random FB commenters on trending election-related news articles quoting the 3 million figure at least a week before Trump's tweet. It was especially memorable because everybody was saying the same number of faked votes. It was never presented with a source; it was always just assumed that the reader shared the context behind it or would trust that it was true.

I just used the 3 million figure today in describing his tweet to other people because I was certain that's what it actually had said. I had gone to Twitter and read his actual output today. But now that I go back, it only says "millions" and holy shit that is spooky and I'm not sure what's real anymore.
posted by indubitable at 7:58 PM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

> Ooh, ooh, I know this one! This is where Clinton voters tear out our last patch of hair, Republicans in Congress roll their eyes and turn the page, and Trump supporters wait until the story appears on their preferred media outlet as "New York Times ignores massive voter fraud in favor of running hit piece." Tweet at 11 3AM.

Correct. We would have also accepted "Surely this."
posted by tonycpsu at 8:00 PM on November 27, 2016 [10 favorites]

Trump is going to lose the recount, isn't he? O holy Shit.


i doubt it. he does seem to be on track to be the first candidate in living memory to get fewer electoral votes than expected due to electoral college defections, which should net us another couple of evenings of fun tweets and do nothing at all to actually stop the trainwreck that is his impending administration
posted by murphy slaw at 8:00 PM on November 27, 2016 [6 favorites]

Trump is going to lose the recount, isn't he? O holy Shit.

TURN TURN TURN CURSE SPIT
posted by dis_integration at 8:04 PM on November 27, 2016 [15 favorites]

someone should write a Twitter bot that simply tweets several times a day "@realDonaldTrump has lost the popular vote to @HillaryClinton by [current margin]".

Why isn't this done yet?!?!
posted by petebest at 8:04 PM on November 27, 2016 [10 favorites]

I was once afraid I was living in a William Gibson novel, then a Douglas Adams novel, then I was afraid I was living in a Jules Verne novel, because, why not?

I'm afraid we're living in a Stephen King novel because we elected Greg Stillson.
posted by Talez at 8:04 PM on November 27, 2016 [14 favorites]

Oh good, then he's only one mis-step away from his presidential aspirations ending.
posted by Rat Spatula at 8:06 PM on November 27, 2016

someone should write a Twitter bot that simply tweets several times a day "@realDonaldTrump has lost the popular vote to @HillaryClinton by [current margin]".
Why isn't this done yet?!?!

Maybe it has been, multiple times, but Twitter just keeps deleting the accounts. (Terms of Service Violation: Not Alt)
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:07 PM on November 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

I feel pretty bad for the psychic coma patient who died to bring us the Access Hollywood tape
posted by theodolite at 8:08 PM on November 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

Trump is going to lose the recount, isn't he?

No. The same people who oversaw the original count are overseeing the recount. No shenanigans will be uncovered. Trump's freaking over this for the same reason he freaked over the Khans: Someone wasn't prostrating and kissing his ring and showering him with praise.
posted by dirigibleman at 8:09 PM on November 27, 2016 [12 favorites]

How the fuck do you get to the point where securing the US presidency is a make or break thing for you?


leveraging yourself up to your eyeballs with banks run from oligarchies outside of the u.s. is a good start
posted by murphy slaw at 8:10 PM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

I, for one, haven't ruled out Lewis Carroll.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:10 PM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

I, for one, haven't ruled out Lewis Carroll.


dude humpty dumpty is running the goddamn show
posted by murphy slaw at 8:11 PM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh good, then he's only one mis-step away from his presidential aspirations ending.

If anyone sees Trashcan Man dragging anything across the desert, run like hell!
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 8:13 PM on November 27, 2016 [9 favorites]

It's actually a Philip Dick novel, because we have no idea who's making our reality today, nor who tomorrow.

The chances are high that they don't know either.

It's a shame. The futures of Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein were rather lovely to the young Devonian, even if there were Issues, but once I'd got onto the hard stuff of Dick, Ballard and Vonnegut, I knew that they were onto something.
posted by Devonian at 8:13 PM on November 27, 2016 [17 favorites]

someone should write a Twitter bot that simply tweets several times a day "@realDonaldTrump has lost the popular vote to @HillaryClinton by [current margin]".

Dave Wasserman has the best ongoing tally of the popular vote and tweets the current total and Clinton lead once or twice daily. Sadly he does not direct them to Trump.

‏@Redistrict
Fact: Hillary Clinton's popular vote lead is 2.2 million (1.7%) w/ 134.2 million votes counted. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/133Eb4qQmOxNvtesw2hdVns073R68EZx4SfCnP4IGQf8/htmlview?sle=true#gid=19
posted by chris24 at 8:14 PM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

interestingly, christopher walken also saves us all in my post-election fan fiction
posted by murphy slaw at 8:15 PM on November 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

dude humpty dumpty is running the goddamn show

More like Tweedledick and Tweedledumb.
posted by Talez at 8:16 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Word is Trump is going to lose WI and MI by the hand count, and by a lot. All eyes on PA... and maybe Obama stepping in once it's obvious what happened in WI and MI.

I wish this wasn't true.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:17 PM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

Word from where?
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 8:18 PM on November 27, 2016 [21 favorites]

What word? Who's word and where?
posted by zachlipton at 8:18 PM on November 27, 2016 [11 favorites]

Word is Trump is going to lose WI and MI by the hand count, and by a lot

would you say that many people are saying this
posted by murphy slaw at 8:18 PM on November 27, 2016 [45 favorites]

"When I use a word," Trumpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Trumpty Dumpty, "which is to be master — that's all."

posted by kirkaracha at 8:18 PM on November 27, 2016 [7 favorites]

i want to believe
posted by entropicamericana at 8:19 PM on November 27, 2016 [12 favorites]

Well it is 2016. If it was any other year I'd be thinking no way, it's impossible. With this year hey why the hell not. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by Jalliah at 8:20 PM on November 27, 2016 [16 favorites]

Sadly Related:
Report from the Future: VR Market Soars During Trump Presidency
In a special report from from April 1, 2018, harsh realities spur virtual escapism in a post-truth society.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:20 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Presidents don't get to decide who gets prosecuted for crimes. These discussions of Trump choosing not to prosecute Clinton are ahistorical, and genuinely frightening for the number of people that act as if this is normal decision processes for the American government.

And Trump is claiming there were millions of fraudulent votes cast. That seems like something the FBI and Justice department should look into, cause that sounds like a massive crime against democracy. But that doesn't seem to be part of any conversation related to these whack a doodle conspiracy theories.

Why isn't there an investigation into the voting fraud they are claiming occurred?

The people eating this bullshit don't even believe it themselves.
posted by dglynn at 8:21 PM on November 27, 2016 [22 favorites]

I'd be thrilled to have Hillary and Bill come stay in my guest room and introduce them to the wonders of Skyrim but I'm worried one of them would side with the Stormcloaks and then I'd have to tearfully eject them into the street.
posted by um at 8:22 PM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

There are four words that I wish everyone used when getting news they found interesting - "Who told you that?".

One weird trick... but it works for stuff you really want to believe, and stuff you really don't.

Once upon a time, it was called journalism.
posted by Devonian at 8:22 PM on November 27, 2016 [41 favorites]

Sadly Related:
Report from the Future: VR Market Soars During Trump Presidency
In a special report from from April 1, 2018, harsh realities spur virtual escapism in a post-truth society.

I know it's a joke and all. VR is going to soar big time with or without Trump as president.
posted by Jalliah at 8:23 PM on November 27, 2016

"But then you are also talking about people who refuse to believe the stats about abstinence-only sex ed, even when their own kids end up with STDs or pregnant"

It's not so much that they refuse to believe the stats, but that they reject the idea that government, or schools, should be promoting immoral behavior in any way even if promoting that behavior can prevent worse outcomes. Plenty of them KNOW how many teenagers are going to have sex, and they KNOW that comprehensive sex-ed reduces the rates of STDs and unwanted pregnancies and abortions, but they completely reject the idea that telling kids "here's how to do that immoral thing you want to do more safely" (i.e., have premarital sex) is an acceptable strategy for authority figures (and especially not government or schools who are non-avoidable authority figures; they mind less if parents or churches make that decision because you can opt out).

So it's interesting because a lot of harm reduction strategies involve cooperating with the behavior whose harm we're trying to mitigate, and selling harm mitigation is always a hard sell at first. (Remember how hard it was to get anyone on board with needle exchanges at first?) It's party of why heroin treatment right now in red states is such a clusterfuck; a lot of what we need to do is harm reduction, and that's often a very hard sell in conservative, religious states. (Mike Pence of Indiana specifically rolled back harm reduction initiatives like needle exchanges and methadone treatment, giving Indiana not just sky-rocking heroin use but a brand new AIDS epidemic; it's one of the things Pence is fleeing by taking the VP post.)

Anyway you can frequently get them to agree with your factual premise; they just flatly disagree with your method of addressing it, because of the moral statement a particular law or policy is making. This is why, incidentally, it's often more powerful to fight right-wing positions with morality language. Lefties love to be technocrats, and that's not a bad thing, but when you say "we can reduce the harm of heroin with needle exchanges" you are actually making a moral choice that the harm of heroin should be reduced, and that you choose that moral action over allowing drug users to suffer for their actions (as a warning and a punishment) or over the government making a strong moral statement that drug use is always bad and we won't participate in it in any form. The thing is, when you're arguing with right-wing religious people, owning that moral claim and frankly presenting it as a competing moral argument (rather than a pure technocratic harm-reduction strategy) is often far more powerful and convincing. "Look, we have a duty to these people who are suffering and people who work on the front lines of the heroin epidemic (especially use examples of Christian charitable groups if you've got them) know this works better in the long term in reducing drug use, but it's also far more compassionate (and hits these other Christian moral imperatives)."

You're not going to sell them all that way, but "We are making a moral stand for compassion" is the way to fight people who think the law should say "we are making a moral stand against drug use." (And the marriage equality movement used this to great effect, talking a lot about taking a moral stand in favor of families and children to fight against the rhetoric of religious people who wanted to take a moral stand against homosexuality. That was really powerful in shifting religious people to being pro-marriage-equality or at least no longer willing to fight it -- the idea that it was a moral claim in favor of families and in favor of children, rather than the idea that "who the hell cares who consenting adults have sex with, what does that have to do with anything?" which is a functionally amoral claim (not immoral, amoral).) The left likes to make a lot of amoral, technocratic, Utilitarian arguments, and I have no beef with that, but making positive, explicitly moral arguments should be another tool in the toolbox. And most lefties do hold their positions because of their moral commitments! Sometimes the way to win your point isn't with facts and figures and most good for the greatest number, but with a passionate appeal to your moral stance.

(That said, you can't sell a religious fundamentalist on sex ed by making those arguments unless literally their only sexual morality concern is reducing abortion and they are willing to have the government hand out condoms to achieve that. Usually they are ALSO concerned that teenagers just not be told sex is an okay thing to have. Soooooometimes they'll agree that just like we teach financial education to high school students who are not yet legally allowed to have credit cards or mortgages as a vaccination against bad decisions when they ARE allowed to do those things as adults, we should teach comprehensive sex ed so that when they're older and married they know stuff about their own bodies and can protect their sexual health the better to procreate later. But that's a pretty long detour.)

I taught ethics to community college students (teenagers and adults both) in downstate Illinois for 5 years, including lots and lots of rural folks who were members of fundamentalist churches, and I spent a lot of time on the school board dealing with things like sex ed and STD testing in schools and pregnant students and whatnot -- I have spent a lot lot lot of time arguing with people about these things and have zeroed in a handful of strategies that tend to work. :) I also have a WHOLE lot of insight into why my students especially held the positions they held -- I led classroom discussions and graded their papers for five years, after all -- and I think it pays to inquire into the underlying structures of thought, rather than just the bumper-sticker sloganeering, because it's a lot easier to find your point of entry to change minds if you understand what the sticking point is.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:24 PM on November 27, 2016 [164 favorites]

man, fuck virtual reality, i'm gonna need to get a wirehead jack installed to get through this
posted by murphy slaw at 8:25 PM on November 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

He's afraid he could lose the recount. This is a man who's so insecure that he's trying to convince himself not just that he won, which should be enough, but that he really secretly won in a landslide. Of course he's insecure enough to think that he could lose the recount. I'm not sure that means it's really the case, but I do think he believes it possible and that it's seriously distressing to him. This is the same thing behind him talking about not conceding. He would have been terrible at leading one side of a civil war. He doesn't really want that.

But he can't believe he's the second-best guy. Believing he's the best guy is the thing that justifies every other decision he's ever made. He wants to be liked, and he did nothing with his life worth liking him for. So, here we are. He's got a lifetime's worth of a tantrum built up about how nobody wants to be his friend, and thus we wind up in the President of Gothos scenario.
posted by Sequence at 8:28 PM on November 27, 2016 [20 favorites]

There are four words that I wish everyone used when getting news they found interesting - "Who told you that?".

If you're pressed for time, you could shorten it to, "Says who?"
posted by indubitable at 8:29 PM on November 27, 2016 [23 favorites]

Today I made two trees, the outside of house and a couple of chess pieces. Tomorrow I'll be sticking them into VR and walking all around them. I will also be shooting tomatoes out of my hand.
Next up is taking a zombie model and learning how to change it's face to Trumps.
Then I'm going to walk around my house, trees, and chess pieces and shoot tomatoes at zombie Trumps, all in VR.

As you can see my life is quite exciting right now.
posted by Jalliah at 8:33 PM on November 27, 2016 [7 favorites]

i don't think the tweets are any strategy on trump's part

That's not quite what I think is happening either. I think they do have some goals they want to accomplish, and voter disenfranchisement to counter demographic changes and hold onto power is quite likely one of them. Getting rich, another. Maybe they do think that "post-modern," "post-truth," "fake news" propaganda is an effective tool that helped them get elected and will help them execute on their agenda. It is interesting where this story about "3 million illegal voters" came from:

Donald Trump’s new explanation for losing the popular vote? A Twitter-born conspiracy theory.

In fact, this claim that millions of illegal immigrants voted is itself the result of a random tweet.

On Nov. 13, Gregg Phillips, a former Texas Health and Human Services Commission deputy commissioner, tweeted about there being 3 million votes that were cast by noncitizens.

@JumpVote:

We have verified more than three million votes cast by non-citizens.

We are joining .@TrueTheVote to initiate legal action.

#unrigged

Phillips claims in another tweet that his organization (it's not clear which organization, but it may be VoteStand) has a database of 180 million voter registrations and he confirms that 3 million of the people in that database who voted are noncitizens. He has been asked to provide evidence for that claim repeatedly, without having done so.

Probably Trump's tweets weren't planned ahead, but they seem to have been taken from a fake news project someone had already created - whether at the direction of Trump's team or not.

Trump likes to hold forth in his rallies telling mostly lies, and not having his rallies anymore maybe twitter is filling the void for him. But his lies are being used to advance and perhaps create his administration's agenda, to the extent that they actually know what their agenda is. Perhaps his rallies were never really part of a grand strategy either, but they just took off and were certainly a big part of how he ended up resonating with so many people and got elected.
posted by Golden Eternity at 8:34 PM on November 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

If you're pressed for time, you could shorten it to, "Says who?"

You could. It's more confrontational, though. You have to say it in a spirit of genuine curiosity, and mean it that way too.

When it comes down to scepticism versus cynicism, scepticism wins every time. Even - especially when - the stakes are this high.
posted by Devonian at 8:35 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

@monkeycageblog:
2004: Dems must win "values voters" if they want to win any election ever again.
2008: [Dems win without values voters.]

@monkeycageblog:
2008/12: GOP must win over non-whites if they want to win any election ever again.
2016: [GOP wins without non-whites]

@monkeycageblog:
Just a cautionary note amidst the many #hottakes on why the Democrats must win white working-class votes, etc., etc.
posted by chris24 at 8:47 PM on November 27, 2016 [28 favorites]

Ari Fleischer has a WSJ bit Trump vs. the White House Press Corps. His argument is summarized by Blake Hounshell: "Ari Fleischer argues that if Trump cracks down on the press, it will be because we deserved it." Or, as Brendan Nyhan puts it, "BTW, this is a classic example of how anti-anti-Trumpism allows conservatives who know better to excuse & downplay dangerous norm violations."
posted by zachlipton at 8:52 PM on November 27, 2016 [6 favorites]

("Says who" is a callback.)

Ah, so it is. Missed that. But at this moment, I don't know what it actually signifies...
posted by Devonian at 9:07 PM on November 27, 2016

lalex: you can't fly there.
posted by tss at 9:09 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

@carlbernstein:
This factless madness shows @realDonaldTrump to be unhinged. If PresNixon had a Twitter account it would not reflect this much paranoia.
posted by chris24 at 9:13 PM on November 27, 2016 [17 favorites]

I am certain Trump will win the recount. I was certain Clinton would win the election. So there's hope I guess.
posted by Joey Michaels at 9:18 PM on November 27, 2016 [20 favorites]

I heard rumors on Tuesday that the Trump camp was in blind, mortal panic over the possibility of a hand recount in Wisconsin and Michigan.

How about sourcing your rumors or at least adding a bit of context? Perhaps adding "real, fake, joke" to your comments? It's hard to parse what you are saying and hard to respond to.
posted by futz at 9:23 PM on November 27, 2016 [22 favorites]

Trump’s lies have a purpose. They are an assault on democracy. - Donald Trump is winning the war on reality. Welcome to the age of nightmares.

I don't fully buy any of this but it is interesting to read.

It is tempting to suppose Trump built this phantasmagoria by accident — that it is the byproduct of an erratic, undisciplined, borderline pathological approach to dishonesty. But the president-elect should not be underestimated. His victories in both the Republican primary and the general election were stunning upsets, and he is now set to alter the course of world history. If he does not fully understand what he is doing, his advisers certainly do.

I'm not convinced his advisers really do either or that a logical understanding of what they are doing exists at all.

(Surkov's) aim is to undermine peoples’ perceptions of the world, so they never know what is really happening.

Surkov turned Russian politics into a bewildering, constantly changing piece of theater. He sponsored all kinds of groups, from neo-Nazi skinheads to liberal human rights groups. He even backed parties that were opposed to President Putin.

But the key thing was, that Surkov then let it be known that this was what he was doing, which meant that no one was sure what was real or fake. As one journalist put it: “It is a strategy of power that keeps any opposition constantly confused.”

A ceaseless shape-shifting that is unstoppable because it is undefinable. It is exactly what Surkov is alleged to have done in the Ukraine this year. In typical fashion, as the war began, Surkov published a short story about something he called non-linear war. A war where you never know what the enemy are really up to, or even who they are. The underlying aim, Surkov says, is not to win the war, but to use the conflict to create a constant state of destabilized perception, in order to manage and control.
...
(Now referring to Trump and Bannon)
In a world where nothing is true, the only real choice available to voters is between competing fictions. Trump offered a particularly compelling set of fictions, but he also found various ways to telegraph that he knew what he was doing. Through irony, evasion, self-contradiction, and obviously ridiculous claims, he let his supporters in on the joke. If everything is a lie, then the man who makes his lies obvious is practicing a peculiar form of honesty.
...
“One thing that should be distinguished here, is the media is always taking Trump literally,” said Thiel during an October appearance at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “It never takes him seriously, but it always takes him literally. I think a lot of the voters who vote for Trump take him seriously but not literally.”

This might work for some things where Trump's lie is an exaggeration but behind it there is some truth. I think people really believed Obama was negotiating bad deals for them and Trump would negotiate good deals, etc. But what do we make of this lie? Do people really believe 3M non-citizens voted? What are we supposed to take seriously here? I wish someone would ask Thiel.

It is tempting to take solace in the belief that, if Trump cannot be taken literally, his extreme rhetoric might conceal a secret moderate streak. But that hope would be misplaced. Non-linear warfare is intrinsically authoritarian. The president-elect is speaking the language of dictators.
...
Consensus is the bedrock of democracy. For differences to get resolved in a properly democratic fashion, there needs to be agreement over the terms of the debate. Interlocutors must be aware of their shared rights and responsibilities, and they need to be capable of proceeding from a common set of facts and premises.

American democracy has always been deeply flawed, but political actors used to at least agree on a set of shared premises and ground rules. President Barack Obama bemoaned the erosion of this consensus in a New Yorker article published shortly after Trump’s election.

I really don't get how any of this is working, but judging by Putin's success, Trump's success, and Brexit's success, it is.

It's fascinating how it has gone from Rush Limbaugh "ditto-heads" accusing their opponents of being "low information voters" to now admitting that Trump is basically always lying and is perhaps not well informed but "should be taken seriously." The Tea Part and Sarah Palin reaction to Obama was another shocker for me. Also seemingly quite irrational.

Perhaps the chaos created by this crazy surge rightward has been a big factor in creating the environment in which Trump has thrived. First by removing consensus and ground rules from the GOP and now from the entire political process. And perhaps the alternate reality created to justify the Iraq War also set the stage for some of this, both here in the US and by convincing Putin and Surkov that they had to respond in kind.
posted by Golden Eternity at 9:33 PM on November 27, 2016 [21 favorites]

I think Trump's razor comes into play here. He's accusing Clinton of stealing 3 million votes because that's how many he stole.

Trump's Mirror, but yeah.
posted by mazola at 9:41 PM on November 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

What we need now is a second movement toward, maybe, a 20-hour workweek.

We could start with a movement for a 40-hour workweek . . .
posted by flug at 9:54 PM on November 27, 2016 [22 favorites]

It's all social-signaling, i.e. all that stuff Fred Clark wrote about evangelicals bearing false witness

Trump doesn't actually believe the bullshit he says, and neither do his supporters
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:00 PM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

@evanier Hey, if Trump can claim he won the popular vote, we all can! Tweet your victory claim with the hashtag #IWonThePopularVote.
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:08 PM on November 27, 2016 [14 favorites]

> I don't fully buy any of this but it is interesting to read. [...] I'm not convinced his advisers really do either or that a logical understanding of what they are doing exists at all.

I think the answer depends on whether you and Resnikoff are talking about his end goals -- what he would do if there were no political obstacles -- or the tradecraft that he uses to advance toward whatever those goals may be. To the extent that he has goals, I don't think his and those of his advisers are necessarily aligned, but I also don't think he's smart enough to know when he's being played by those advisors, so he may unwittingly advance theirs anyway. Since most of his inner circle have no public service record to speak of, it's going to be hard to get a fix on these dynamics until we've seen them operate for awhile, even if we're getting some hints about them in the form of Steve Bannon quotes and Kellyanne Conway Sunday talk show appearances.

Whatever his/their goals are, and they're probably bad, I actually find myself more worried by Trump's tradecraft, which I think the Resnikoff piece summarizes quite well. He has has shown a frightening ability to exploit loopholes in our media and the public's ability to reason, and neither the media nor the public seem to have been able to overcome his denial-of-service attacks. There are hopeful signs, like how some media outlets are using the word "false" to describe Trump's three million voter tweet instead of merely reporting that he said it, but as soon as he senses one attack isn't working he just switches to another. There may be limits to how far he can ride this "throw shit on the wall and see what sticks" strategy, but there are going to be very few limits on what he can do once he's sworn in, so we don't have a lot of time to fuck around here.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:13 PM on November 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'd do this myself if I knew how, but someone should write a Twitter bot that simply tweets several times a day "@realDonaldTrump has lost the popular vote to @HillaryClinton by [current margin]".

I played around with the twitter api a bit and resurrected an old twitter account to do something similar. It updates every hour with a randomly selected tweet with either this statement or some other statement or an old Camus quote. I'll probably clean the source up and post it on github/here so we can all send out automated tweets.

I wasn't able to find a free election results API, so for now I just started the margin at 2100000 and it auto increments randomly.
posted by localhuman at 10:20 PM on November 27, 2016 [8 favorites]

Nigel Farage to ask Americans to 'forgive' British people who criticised Donald Trump, in US trip

Didn't he already kiss the ring right after the election? Does trump now need to retrieve the ring from Nigel's colon?
posted by futz at 10:20 PM on November 27, 2016 [10 favorites]

Golden Eternity—the bit about Vladislav Surkov you quote from the ThinkProgress piece is itself a quote from a 2014 film by Brit documentarian Adam Curtis. If you look in the MeFi tag I've linked to there you can see the FPPs about that one and about his latest film HyperNormalisation which aired last month and dealt with parallels between Surkov's propaganda and Trump's campaign. (Among many other things; it's quite long, but I found it worth watching.)
posted by XMLicious at 10:58 PM on November 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

Good night, thread
Good night, orange head
Good night, silent, creeping dread ...
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:04 PM on November 27, 2016 [57 favorites]

@thejoshpatten: Throwing out bait this distracting can only mean one thing: Eric just murdered an escort.
posted by PenDevil at 11:55 PM on November 27, 2016 [9 favorites]

R. Derek Black, Why I Left White Nationalism. This is the son of the guy who founded Stormfront (previous FPP on Derek Black: The White Flight of Derek Black). I'm glad he wrote it, and I wonder if he has the guts to put his ass on the line for real -- like, high-profile interviews with Megyn Kelly etc., to help fight this xenophobia and contempt that he spread and inflamed.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 12:15 AM on November 28, 2016 [8 favorites]

From the NYT:

"Trump Tower in the Makati City district of Manila is being developed by Donald J. Trump’s business partner Jose E.B. Antonio, who has just been named the Philippines’ special trade envoy to the United States."

FFS. That is all.
posted by jaduncan at 12:24 AM on November 28, 2016 [29 favorites]

That's why he opposed the TPP... he wants all trade channeled directly through him. Cha-ching.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:42 AM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Special trade.

At least they're still using euphemisms.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:43 AM on November 28, 2016

It would have been much easier for me to win the so-called popular vote

That surly addition of "so-called" actually makes me think that he's upset that Hillary is more *popular* than he is - that the election is a literal popularity contest and his brain cannot parse how everyone tells him he "won" the election but that still doesn't mean he's the most popular kid in the class.
posted by jontyjago at 12:47 AM on November 28, 2016 [19 favorites]

Okay I had to go and finish it, so Good Night Thread for real this time ...

In the great blue web
there was a contact link
And a megathread
And a post about a cow who could stand on his head.
And there were three deleted posts full of Trump boasts
And two little catters wedged in a scanner.

And a Democrat armed with a brickbat.
And a Berner bereft
And the liberal Left
And a quiet old moderator who was grumbling, "pest."

Good night, web. Good night, thread
Good night, silent, creeping dread.
Good night, scary big orange head.

Good night, posts. Good night, boasts.
Good night, catters. Good night, scanners.
Good night, Democrat. Good night, brickbat.
Good night, sanity. Good night, humanity.

Good night, corb. Good night, Left.
Good night Wordshore doing his best.
Good night to the old mod grumbling, “Pest!”

Good night, insurance. Good night, clean air.
Good night, tweetstorms everywhere.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:51 AM on November 28, 2016 [80 favorites]

Once there was a user
who wanted to run away.
So he said to the mods
"I am running away."
"If you run away," said the mod,
"The thread will run after you,
Because this is a dystopian nightmare."
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:57 AM on November 28, 2016 [58 favorites]

So much depends
On the large orange hair
Resting uncomfortably
On an empty shell
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:23 AM on November 28, 2016 [10 favorites]

Is it possible to recount Virginia? Trump has declared it rigged. I know Hillary won but if there was voter (Trump) fraud, it would be valuable to see. If there is no Trump fraud then all of this exercise is for naught. And it makes for great trolling.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 2:48 AM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm just so goddamn tired of all of this, everyone.
posted by flatluigi at 2:50 AM on November 28, 2016 [15 favorites]

Does anyone have insight into why he singled out Virginia, New Hampshire, and California? Is there some Infowars/Breitbart/O'Keefe piece or random social media post he's drawing from, or did he just pick randomly pick them out of a hat filled with states that went for Hillary?
posted by prosopagnosia at 3:27 AM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Does anyone have insight into why he singled out Virginia, New Hampshire, and California? Is there some Infowars/Breitbart/O'Keefe piece or random social media post he's drawing from, or did he just pick randomly pick them out of a hat filled with states that went for Hillary?

This blog post in support of Trump's tweet links to some pre-election stories that may have fuelled it.
posted by rory at 4:32 AM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

@localhuman: I recommend putting a . in front of Trump's Twitter name, otherwise the tweets won't show up in "your" timeline. (A thing that confused me for a moment.)
posted by XtinaS at 4:38 AM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Is it just me or in that photo in the NYT where Trump is bellowing at the media through upraised hands to his pie-hole, and Mitt is standing sideways, like he is about to turn to Trump and go "heh heh" while thinking, my Mormon forbearers suffered much more when they fled across the American desert, come on Mitt, you can do this"

Is anybody else looking at the picture and thinking:
"Don't stop and look back, Mitt! That's when the monster gets you!"
or
"PILLAR OF SALT PILLAR OF SALT PILLAR OF SALT"

mind you, I don't know if Lot is in the Mormon bible so maybe only reminding him of the monster rule would work
posted by angrycat at 4:47 AM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

One of the newest things to freak me out about the future Trump presidency. Marco Rubio is talking about how Trump will bring "change" to Cuba.
posted by drezdn at 5:05 AM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Donald Trump's top aide, Kellyanne Conway, on Monday slammed an MSNBC report that said the president-elect was "furious" over comments she made Sunday about Mitt Romney.

Conway called the reporting "sexist" and said she could have any job she wants, according to MSNBC.

Top aides to Trump said they were "baffled" over Conway's comments about Romney, MSNBC reported earlier Monday. A source said her comments escalate concerns that Conway is "pushing her own agenda" instead of driving Trump's message.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:11 AM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

Top aides to Trump said they were "baffled" over Conway's comments about Romney, MSNBC reported earlier Monday. A source said her comments escalate concerns that Conway is "pushing her own agenda" instead of driving Trump's message.

Well it sounds like everything is just hunky-dory inside the Trump camp. Yep, no infighting here, no siree bob. We're all on the same page, moving forward under the clear and unambiguous direction of our leader, everyone understands what their job is and there is no use of the press to backstab and undermine in a frantic scramble to become the chief source of influence with the erratic, mercurial boss who does whatever the last person he talked to suggests. Nope, this is entirely healthy and not at all something to worry about because it's how adults in the world's oldest democracy definitely do things. Elder statesmen, all.
posted by dis_integration at 5:22 AM on November 28, 2016 [45 favorites]

I'm gonna be pissed at myself for getting interested in this recount business if all this Trump/Conway/presumably Bannon wailing is cover for the fight over whether it will Dracula or Mitt as SoS, and further if this Mitt tussle is like the first war between the evil demented children or the adults who have both many copies and, in contrast to the children, an actual motherfucking plan.
posted by angrycat at 5:35 AM on November 28, 2016

To rely on an old cliche, when you look up "gas lighting" in the dictionary there's a picture of Kellyanne Conway's face.

Of all the horrible people I've met through that campaign, I think she's the worst of the worst. Everyone else seems like they are either lying to themselves (Giuliani) or dumb as a rock (taco truck guy.) Every time she opens her trap she lies straight to my face and then laughs about it.
posted by Room 641-A at 5:35 AM on November 28, 2016 [20 favorites]

Cuba has caught our PE's eye.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

If Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a whole, I will terminate deal.

Great. Now what?
posted by Talez at 6:05 AM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

I kind of feel like if we had time, mass producing Trump/Poop Christmas lights would be the opportunity to make some cash before the apocalypse. I mean there's next Christmas I guess.
posted by angrycat at 6:05 AM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

If there is a next Christmas.
posted by pxe2000 at 6:07 AM on November 28, 2016 [8 favorites]

This word art guy is doing a word art piece for the FOX Philly affiliate, and they sent out a tweet asking for topical words to use in the word art. I was like don't respond don't respond then my typey hands went *WHERE IS YOUR TRUMP GOD NOW* which is both nonsensical and not really funny.
posted by angrycat at 6:14 AM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

@allanbrauer:

Contact your governor's office on Monday, tell him/her you're shocked to learn millions of illegal votes cast, demand a complete audit.
posted by Wordshore at 6:16 AM on November 28, 2016 [43 favorites]

One of the newest things to freak me out about the future Trump presidency. Marco Rubio is talking about how Trump will bring "change" to Cuba.

This is chilling to me too. For Trump this must look like the perfect little place to invade—as a poor nation in transition it's ripe for strongarming into accepting economic conditions favorable to the USA The Donald, it's got major ideological significance to a good chunk of his base, it allows him to posture as a President with the balls to "deal with" enemy nations, and hey, at only 100 miles off our shores it's cheap to invade and way too risky for other countries to try to stop us.

I think the reality would be way messier and bloodier than that, but Trump never loses sleep over something so malleable as reality, so.
posted by Rykey at 6:16 AM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

Scott Shane posted a fawning article at the NYT, continuing the normalization of Trump. Seriously, he calls this guy a "populist firebrand" and the piece is filled with criticisms that are almost immedeatly downplayed. For instance:

Vociferous critics of his appointment, a diverse group that includes the conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who challenged Mrs. Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, have variously called Mr. Bannon a racist, a sexist, an anti-Semite and an Islamophobe. Interviews with two dozen people who know him well, however, portray a man not easily labeled, capable of surprising both friends and enemies, with unshakable self-confidence and striking intensity. (Mr. Bannon turned down a request for an interview, saying he was too busy with the presidential transition.)

Shane goes waaaay out of his way to excuse Bannon's bigotry and anger issues, with multiple "some of his best friends" handwaving, but the atom bomb comes near the end:

Ms. Jones, the film colleague, said that in their years working together, Mr. Bannon occasionally talked about the genetic superiority of some people and once mused about the desirability of limiting the vote to property owners.

“I said, ‘That would exclude a lot of African-Americans,’” Ms. Jones recalled. “He said, ‘Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.’ I said, ‘But what about Wendy?’” referring to Mr. Bannon’s executive assistant. “He said, ‘She’s different. She’s family.’”

Shane is almost apologetic in how he slips this in. In a normal year, reverting voting rights not just to before the Civil War, but basically to the turn of the 19th century, would be front-page news. Now? It's several dozen paragraphs into a hagiography.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:19 AM on November 28, 2016 [61 favorites]

BAY OF PIGS II: ELECTRIC FUCKAROO
posted by Devonian at 6:19 AM on November 28, 2016 [13 favorites]

Also, let me congratulate conservatives on making this possible. And yes, that includes pretty much all of them. Supported voter suppression in the face of reams of evidence showing racial bias? Joined in the criminalization of race and the racialization of crime? Showed sympathy for neo-Confederate viewpoints through shitty historical lenses and "honor culture"? Kept up a constant drumbeat of the ACA and Occupy as spoooky socialism and othering Obama as some sort of radical destroyer of society? Defended groups like militias and sovereign citizens as merely misunderstood despite growing proof of their radicalization? Refused to see decisions such as Hobby Lobby and Shelby as firmly based in bigotry instead of nebulous ideas of "freedom"? Leaned on "state's rights" arguments time and time again for denying basic human rights?

All of that was part of the American conservative movement as a whole well before Trump came along. Trump is their creation, whether they supported him or not. All that up there? Those are the building blocks of autocratic rule just waiting for people like Trump and his circle to take advantage of them. If that's still what conservatism in the US is, don't expect them to make much noise when he puts it all in action. So far, they've been following the script perfectly.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:22 AM on November 28, 2016 [60 favorites]

If Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a whole, I will terminate deal.

Of all the many, many saddening, vexing and terrifying aspects of Donald J. Trump's character, one of the things that sticks in my craw most is his tendency to frame any interaction as a "deal," and generally a zero-sum one at that. It's such a brain-dead, reductionist way to understand complex decision spaces in which, ideally, we'd be considering the prerogatives of parties not actually at the table or capable of articulating their interests.

In a "deal," you seek to best your opponent. You inflict the maximum discomfort on them that's consistent with their remaining at the table and considering themselves bound on an ongoing basis by the terms of negotiation. It doesn't matter how humiliated they are by the terms they accede to, especially if you don't really plan on doing business with them again.

In the governance of a state, though — especially of what remains a state with disproportionate global influence — none of this applies. It's such a terribly small, ignoble, shaming way of thinking about the world, and though we know all too well by now that Donald J. Trump is nothing if not small and ignoble and shaming, it still saddens me, every single time I see it in action.
posted by adamgreenfield at 6:25 AM on November 28, 2016 [55 favorites]

zombieflanders:

yeah, that piece was nauseating - like, I physically felt the bile rise in my throat as I read it. I've been looking for newspapers to pay for and was hesitating between the NYTimes and the Washington Post but both of them have infuriated me so badly in the last few days that I haven't been able to force myself to do so.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Is either the Times or the WaPo the best of a bad lot? I don't want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, here, but also ARGH! Or should I shell out for something weekly - the New Yorker? I welcome any of your suggestions.
posted by pretentious illiterate at 6:28 AM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Does anyone have any suggestions? Is either the Times or the WaPo the best of a bad lot? I don't want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, here, but also ARGH! Or should I shell out for something weekly - the New Yorker? I welcome any of your suggestions.

Even if you end up subscribing to one of them (I picked WaPo because of Jenna Johnson and David Fahrenthold) a Mother Jones sub is $12/year.
posted by Talez at 6:33 AM on November 28, 2016 [8 favorites]

“I said, ‘That would exclude a lot of African-Americans,’” Ms. Jones recalled. “He said, ‘Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.’ I said, ‘But what about Wendy?’” referring to Mr. Bannon’s executive assistant. “He said, ‘She’s different. She’s family.’”

Oh God. Bannon's "My One Black Friend So I'm Not A Racist."
posted by hangashore at 6:40 AM on November 28, 2016 [14 favorites]

I did WaPo and TPM Prime ($5/month). I'll add MoJo. Thanks Talez. NYT can fuck off. Their past Clinton coverage is a huge part of where we are today.
posted by chris24 at 6:40 AM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

In a "deal," you seek to best your opponent.

Back in the 1990s I asked my dad, an old-timey title & contract lawyer, to look over a contract a company was offering me to do some software development. Watching him read it, I realized it was angering him. Then he told me that he would not write such a contract and that no client of his would ask him to a second time. Wearing the same tight-mouthed look I had seen aimed at me many times, he said it was unfair. Then we went through every word of the contract and made it fair.
posted by kingless at 6:43 AM on November 28, 2016 [13 favorites]

You know, this really is a "first they came for the..." moment. Overnight we see that now it's perfectly acceptable to mainstream people that our leaders think Blacks are genetically inferior and should have their rights restricted on that basis. A year ago, this was not an opinion that a politician could espouse openly, and now it's just one ideological variant. Believing that Black people are inferior is now just a stripe of normal political opinion.

Leaving mere justice aside, how long before the nation is calmly discussing the inferiority of women and their unsuitability to political life, or the idea that gay people should be force-treated, or the idea that Jews really do control international banking? We're about one step away from all these things being political positions that the mainstream accepts as just one totally reasonable set of views that totally reasonable people hold.

And then we're in the shit. I would not be at all surprised if there's an attempt to restrict the franchise - maybe just to men, maybe just to whites, maybe just to property owners. And consider the spinelessness that everyone displays now. What will people do then? Nothing much, I bet.

And here's something I bet: I bet that Black Lives Matter will be literally outlawed - declared a terrorist organization or whatever state mechanism is available - once the Trump administration has finished dealing with the ACA and Medicare. Nobody in power really likes BLM and it will play well with the base. I'm betting on a handful of terrorism arrests for the high profile BLM members - at best, there's nothing that will stand up in court, but it will be a way to jail them for a while and harass them almost indefinitely. (People on the activist left here have been harassed using terrorism legislation for transparently phony stuff - they've always been cleared, but it takes years and a lot of money.) And at worst they will have time to change the law and really start putting people away. There's too many people associated with BLM to arrest literally everybody, but they can break the back of the movement. "Black lives matter, right?" say some people. "We hate you for even asking that question," say white people.

I have no doubt that there will be protests when this happens, but it will be like every other time someone is jailed on fake charges (or "trumped up" charges, of course) - protests will happen and do no good.
posted by Frowner at 6:45 AM on November 28, 2016 [48 favorites]

Nigel Farage to ask Americans to 'forgive' British people who criticised Donald Trump, in US trip

So...he's on an international apology tour?
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:49 AM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

Oh God. Bannon's "My One Black Friend So I'm Not A Racist."

Not only that, but his One Black Friend works for him.
posted by dinty_moore at 6:52 AM on November 28, 2016 [7 favorites]

Charles Blow and Krugman are I guess the main reasons I subscribe to the NYT these days. Some of their post-election editorial board pieces have had some real virtuous venom in them. Don't know what the fuck is up with that dude who's like I don't know, both presenting egregious racism and excusing it? But there is still goodness at the Old Grey Lady.

Edited to change post-Trump to post-election, sob, Freudian sob
posted by angrycat at 6:55 AM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

It does exacerbate tensions between urban and rural areas, but it also can increase diversity within the populations, which is the best way to spread tolerance and understanding between groups.

So I'm kind of aghast with horror at any attempt to increase the education divide in areas that already have resentment over that stuff specifically to change voting patterns, in part because as others noted, when you make the education overtly political in any way, you actually remove people's access to it. People in red areas are less likely to send their kids to the state college if they think it's blue-leaning. They don't want it indoctrinating their children against them.

And honestly - they're not wrong that higher education often skews liberal in this particular sort of filter-bubble way. When I was in college, I was one of the students tagged in to help with the hiring process of a tenured professor (bizarrely, I still have no idea why they invited me and the other two students to this thing). One of the candidates openly admitted that she had bias against her more conservative students and would not give them recommendations even if they were very good students, because she didn't want them succeeding at their chosen goals - she was ultimately the candidate who received the offer, to my horror. That's a real problem.

And it's a real problem for our nation, if the tools that would really help all of us to succeed are being given this kind of partisan conditioning. I talked about this in a kind of jokey way upthread - how I wished climate change advertising sometimes came out with a more rural tinge, with rural mores. I wish the same thing about college. I wish there was a way to have higher education, complete with the critical thinking that often acts as a shield against dictators, without making people feel like there's a hostile environment for them. I wish that college professors, instead of openly mocking these areas in classes, had sympathy for them. I wish that professors would say, "So you believe this. Okay, what sources can you use?" instead of dismissing things out of hand.

I don't think you can increase the tensions and expect it to bring about more tolerance. The more everyone goes to their particular corners of the ring and waits for someone to shout "fight", the more we're going to have results like this, where people vote for Trump out of spite and anger at "those people". We are at an insanely unhealthy level of tension right now - something really does need to be done if we're going to survive this.
posted by corb at 6:59 AM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

I unreservedly apologise for Farage.

Also, he can crawl right up Trump's rump trumpet and die there.

I'm practising very hard at not being infuriated by these rancid people, because they're so transparently trying to deflect attention from what they're doing by displaying such a panoply of pernicious behaviour, like shit-peacocks spreading their tails made of a hundred kinds of excrement.

We're better than these people. And nobody can insult us or condescend to us without our permission. Permission not granted.
posted by Devonian at 7:00 AM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

Interesting tweetstorm begins here on Trump and the truth. Basically saying that his public easily disproven bullshit is terrible for gaslighting, but good as dominance display. I.e. no better way to show how powerful you are than to get people to say 2+2=5.

@jtlevy
1. Ways of thinking about Trump's relationship to truth.
posted by chris24 at 7:01 AM on November 28, 2016 [12 favorites]

That Powers Boothe speech from Sin City was Trump to a T.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:04 AM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Want nauseating? Here's Mother Jones of all publications, complaining about liberals overusing "white supremacy" and charges of racism. Who started this "terrible fad"? Pesky PC thinkers like Ta-Nehisi Coates, probably.

You know the window is shifting in an ugly direction when Mother Jones is starting to sound like the fucking National Review.
posted by windbox at 7:28 AM on November 28, 2016 [31 favorites]

I think the Washington Post is a better option than NYT for a couple of reasons, in addition to those mentioned above: they've made subscriptions free for .edu, .gov, and .mil addresses, and I support that. The Capital Weather Gang is fantastic for any weather buffs (and very useful even if you don't live nearby), and the Food and Style sections aren't going to drive you mad with baffling trend pieces.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 7:30 AM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

Here's Mother Jones of all publications, complaining about liberals overusing "white supremacy" and charges of racism.

Well, thank god we have a white guy who's lived his entire life in Southern California telling us how best to engage with racists.
posted by Etrigan at 7:36 AM on November 28, 2016 [7 favorites]

Trump loves deals so much ... I wonder if we could troll him into offering a New Deal to the American people, one that would build a Great Society? Create a sort of Social Security for out most vulnerable, and some Fair Labor Standards to protect our working men from predatory capitalists, who will of course be taxed.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:36 AM on November 28, 2016 [15 favorites]

Trump loves deals so much ... I wonder if we could troll him into offering a New Deal to the American people, one that would build a Great Society?

To the Twitters!

But seriously, we have the most trollable president of living memory. I know I've been disappointed in my hopeful predictions before, but I think it's totally possible, "Liberals don't WANT you to make these civil protections" could actually work for at least something. I mean, that's the hope I like to call "Ivanka's Long Con".
posted by corb at 7:39 AM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

to protect our working men from predatory capitalists, who will of course be taxed.

Might want to skip the use of the word "predatory;" when you talk to capitalists about predators, they respond with phrases like "culling the herd."
posted by Mooski at 7:39 AM on November 28, 2016

And it's a real problem for our nation, if the tools that would really help all of us to succeed are being given this kind of partisan conditioning. I talked about this in a kind of jokey way upthread - how I wished climate change advertising sometimes came out with a more rural tinge, with rural mores. I wish the same thing about college. I wish there was a way to have higher education, complete with the critical thinking that often acts as a shield against dictators, without making people feel like there's a hostile environment for them. I wish that college professors, instead of openly mocking these areas in classes, had sympathy for them. I wish that professors would say, "So you believe this. Okay, what sources can you use?" instead of dismissing things out of hand.

Okay, first of all this "ivory tower liberals run academia" nonsense isn't really how modern colleges and universities operate. Going to school at, say, Ole Miss (with almost 25k students), isn't like this. Second, I'd put good money that once you dig deep enough, you'll find it's not usually the teachers making academia a hostile environment, or that they're mocking conservatives. Rather, it's students whose own bigoted bubble is challenged, often because college reading material is held to much higher standards than either public or private school textbooks. Relatedly, the "what sources can you use" is itself a bit of a red herring. The amount of disinformation that both public and private schools spew is huge. By the time a student enters college, they could have learned that: the Civil War wasn't about slavery, Jim Crow wasn't that bad, evolution is just as proven a fact as creationism, the separation of church and state is largely a myth, capitalism is awesome and it's your duty as an American to vilify socialism/communism, anthropogenic climate change isn't real, slaves weren't in fact slaves (they're "immigrants" and "workers from Africa"), it's your duty as an American to believe Islam is based on and exists mainly because of violence, the "Wild West" was a place where open carry of guns were necessary (and totally COOL!) and self-reliance and family values won the day over savages, and Mexican-Americans are all somehow connected to drugs and have dual loyalties, to the point of advocating "Latin supremacy." And that's just a list of what's going on already. There are plenty of sources that will tell you all of that. Of course, what you won't learn about the basics of American history alone is enough to fill libraries.

So, no, it isn't that liberals that are undertaking "partisan conditioning" or creating a hostile academic environment for conservatives. It's not liberals who are inventing wholly different Americas and histories and dismissing things out of hand. The tools for fighting back against this thought are already there, but it's not liberals openly mocking people with terms like "PC culture" and "SJW indoctrination" and the like. At some point in time, you may have to realize that a lot--probably the overwhelming majority--of American conservative ideas really do have biases of their own that are rooted in bigotry and other horrible things. Ideologies don't deserve the same weight just because they exist, they have to earn it. Trying to kneecap anything that doesn't give equal weight just because it's somehow "partisan" (instead of, y'know, factual) is part of the problem, not the solution.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:41 AM on November 28, 2016 [78 favorites]

I wish there was a way to have higher education, complete with the critical thinking that often acts as a shield against dictators, without making people feel like there's a hostile environment for them. I wish that college professors, instead of openly mocking these areas in classes, had sympathy for them. I wish that professors would say, "So you believe this. Okay, what sources can you use?" instead of dismissing things out of hand.

I think I agree with this, but it depends on what ideas you are talking about. There are some things, like climate change, where the evidence is all on one side, and students need to know that if they still think it's a hoax, they've been badly misinformed. In my classes, I do my best to be as neutral as possible regarding positions where a reasonable case can be made on either side, but if someone says that the economy got worse under Obama or lower taxes lead to increased revenue or Trump won the popular vote, I think part of my job is to gently acquaint them with reality. If they leave my class and still have no idea how to separate reliable information from propaganda, I've failed in my obligations to them.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:42 AM on November 28, 2016 [39 favorites]

President elect calling into the shows.

@Politics1com:
Joe Scarborough, citing "sources at top of Trump org" for his Conway comments, slipped once and said "I got this directly from Donald Trump"
posted by chris24 at 7:45 AM on November 28, 2016 [14 favorites]

We are at an insanely unhealthy level of tension right now - something really does need to be done if we're going to survive this.


i can't see any way to reduce the tension as long as the conservative identity bundles up defensible political ideas (that i happen to disagree with) with a bunch of regressive cultural baggage that denies the fundamental equality and right to exist of people that i know and love.

my perception is that the right knows that the political ideas aren't popular enough to win on their own, so they bundle them with religious lipservice, racial/class resentment, and xenophobia, which is how the party that has traditionally stood for the interests of capital and the upper classes has come to be associated with anti-elitism.

i'm willing to have a dialogue about the role of the federal government (if unlikely to be swayed), but i can't compromise on the "social issues" - because "social issues" is a way of soft-peddling the the civil rights of racial minorities, the right to exist of non cishet sexualities, and the sovereignty of women over their own bodies. it's just not negotiable.

i don't see any way out of this dilemma without prominent conservative leaders strongly disavowing regressive social politics, and that seems like political suicide given the demographic trends
posted by murphy slaw at 7:46 AM on November 28, 2016 [15 favorites]

And it's a real problem for our nation, if the tools that would really help all of us to succeed are being given this kind of partisan conditioning.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I don't understand any way to read this other than as concern trolling. The "partisan conditioning" that acts to undermine free inquiry and critical thinking in higher education most often originates in the needs of capital, though it operates in ways that are far subtler and harder to parody than, say, Melissa Click.
posted by adamgreenfield at 7:47 AM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

I've noticed a cute trick for articles like that windbox :

Anytime you find an article blaming political correctness, wikileaks, the Greens, or anyone but Clinton's own campaign, for Clinton loosing the election then ask yourself 'Why is this author diverting attention from "It's the economy stupid"', meaning Clinton attachment to Wall St., trade policy, etc.

Answer #1 should be "Are they a neo-liberal themselves?" If you start googling the author's name plus anything like Yemen, Syria, Libya, Snowden, wikileaks, Assange, copyright, Guantanamo, etc. then you often find articles promoting absolutely horrible positions.

I just found Kevin Drum attacking Snowden back in 2013 based on your article. Appears he already resided firmly on the neo-liberal end of MotherJones' writers.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:49 AM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

I wish there was a way to have higher education, complete with the critical thinking that often acts as a shield against dictators, without making people feel like there's a hostile environment for them.

Trade schools, unions, and well-regarded civic organizations used to cover a large part of this idea. Not saying people who want a university education shouldn't be able to get one, but it's no coincidence that all three of these instruments of stability for the others have pretty well smashed by The Powerful over the past few decades.
posted by Rykey at 7:55 AM on November 28, 2016 [14 favorites]

Okay, first of all this "ivory tower liberals run academia" nonsense isn't really how modern colleges and universities operate.

It certainly wasn't when I was an undergrad.

Nowadays, you don't have to be a liberal to be opposed to the GOP. The GOP has taken policy stances that are directly against the domain knowledge of the field of engineering, and so those "ivory tower liberals" increasingly include the engineering faculty.

Only one conservative pundit that I've found has taken notice of it, , a few years back, though he seems to have missed the point.
posted by ocschwar at 8:00 AM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

In the latest blow to the last remaining pieces of liberalism and democratic socialism, Francois Fillon just defeated Alain Juppe in the conservative primaries.

Just a reminder, Fillon promised to raise the retirement age, gut the French social security system, and scrap the 35 hour work week.

So the French now have a choice between Trumpism-lite and the full flavour Trumpism. The French left now have decided on death by a thousand cuts by splitting the vote. Both leftists with an honest shot are deciding to run in the presidentials rather than deciding it in the Socialist primary and getting behind the winner.

We are so fucked.
posted by Talez at 8:01 AM on November 28, 2016 [16 favorites]

Stat News Trump promised to bring back coal. Now some worry he will take away miners’ black lung benefits

At the time, to qualify for benefits, miners had to prove not only that they were disabled because of breathing problems, and that they had coal workers’ black lung, but that their disability was caused by their years in the mine.

It was “almost impossible,” said Phil Smith, a spokesman for the United Mine Workers of America. “The vast majority of people were denied benefits. People would take these cases through the black lung court system and they would be denied because the companies could sow the shadow of a seed of a doubt.”

The Affordable Care Act changed that. Under “Miscellaneous Provisions” is a small section sponsored by a self-proclaimed “child of the Appalachian coalfields,” the late West Virginia Democratic Senator Robert Byrd.

The Byrd Amendments shifted the burden of proof from the miners onto the mining companies. If a miner has spent 15 years or more underground and can prove respiratory disability, then it is presumed to be black lung related to mine work, unless the company can prove otherwise.

Do away with the ACA and you do away with the Byrd amendment. Which means the burden of proof will fall on the miners.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 8:03 AM on November 28, 2016 [49 favorites]

i'm willing to have a dialogue about the role of the federal government (if unlikely to be swayed), but i can't compromise on the "social issues" - because "social issues" is a way of soft-peddling the the civil rights of racial minorities, the right to exist of non cishet sexualities, and the sovereignty of women over their own bodies. it's just not negotiable.

Oh man, so this is a thing I (and the Evan McMullins of the world) really fucking struggle with, and honestly what provoked me to a lot of alcoholic rage fits at the convention. Because you're right, it's totally entangled right now in a way it really, really doesn't need to be. There's no reason those ideas need to be parceled together.

My best idea - which, it's unproven, because obviously I haven't Solved The Republican Party yet - is approaching these issues from within the morality that is underlying the oppositions to things. Eyebrows talked somewhere about this in one of the threads (possibly this one!) - about how really the only way to argue morality is with morality, and with a morality that people understand and welcome into their morality. (Apologies if I'm paraphrasing badly)

So when I'm talking about minority issues to Republicans, for example, I never use the words "racist" or "white supremacy", because those are unfortunately coded as "liberal language" as a result of a lot of stuff. I use words like "Fulfilling America's Promise" and "Everyone Should Be Free" and "Hard-working Americans Are Suffering". And I can say honestly a lot of the same things, as long as I use different language about them.

Women and their own bodies is really hard, because for the people involved, they really, sincerely, truly, think it's murder. I found this out essentially living with these folks for a couple weeks - it's not a show they're putting on because they want to control women's sex lives, they really think that babies are being killed by people who don't care about the issues. And the people who sincerely believe this often /are/ willing to put their money where their mouth is and adopt disabled babies or what have you, so it's hard to pitch it in terms of "life destroyed", because the answer for them is "I will take the baby and save the life." My techno answer is that I hope eventually we get to a stage where fetuses can be removed from wombs and put in vats, but short of that I think we're screwed in terms of getting people off of that.
posted by corb at 8:04 AM on November 28, 2016 [37 favorites]

Might want to skip the use of the word "predatory;" when you talk to capitalists about predators, they respond with phrases like "culling the herd."

maybe if we say 'parasitic capitalists' it will have a more groady connotation.
posted by ian1977 at 8:05 AM on November 28, 2016

According to Pence's Twitter, he is meeting with Trump today, so there's a possibility something will get done that isn't completely batshit. And possible that Trump will take a security briefing today, maybe?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:08 AM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

According to Pence's Twitter, he is meeting with Trump today, so there's a possibility something will get done that isn't completely batshit.

... just banally evil.
posted by Etrigan at 8:10 AM on November 28, 2016 [15 favorites]

Over at WaPo Jenna Johnson has compiled a list of Trump promises: I will give you everything.’ Here are 282 of Donald Trump’s campaign promises.

39) Eliminate the $19 trillion national debt within eight years by “vigorously eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, ending redundant government programs and growing the economy to increase tax revenues.”

60) Make medical marijuana widely available to patients and allow states to decide if they want to fully legalize pot.

67) “Charge Mexico $100,000 for every illegal that crosses that border because it’s trouble.”

60) Make medical marijuana widely available to patients and allow states to decide if they want to fully legalize pot.

posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 8:10 AM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

Texas Elector Resigns: Trump Is Not Qualified And I Cannot Vote For Him

republican elector finds himself unable to vote for trump, and therefore resigns to salve his conscience rather than actually deny trump an electoral vote.
posted by murphy slaw at 8:13 AM on November 28, 2016 [29 favorites]

My techno answer is that I hope eventually we get to a stage where fetuses can be removed from wombs and put in vats, but short of that I think we're screwed in terms of getting people off of that.

This is the prospect that scares me, because I've known lots of Christians who've said "well we'll just raise the babies" but I suspect this is going to be the solution proposed as soon as it's practical? But I don't think that population is in any way prepared to adopt that many children, and I think it's very, very deeply problematic if we suddenly have a huge population of PoC kids who're being raised by white evangelicals and Catholics who don't think they're racists. And they're definitely not going to approve of government funding to allow those kids to be raised in their own communities. I used to think that sounded like a good plan, but like most things with abortion, it only works if you don't think of what happens to the actual living children, only about what happens to the fetuses.
posted by Sequence at 8:15 AM on November 28, 2016 [26 favorites]

Women and their own bodies is really hard, because for the people involved, they really, sincerely, truly, think it's murder.

I believe you, corb, but one of the problems with people who hold these beliefs is that many of them are anti-choice: they've also blocked access to birth control and sex ed and successfully prevented clinical trials of birth control in the US. If people who held this belief thought of it as murder, you'd think they'd be more willing to prevent abortion through education and access to birth control.
posted by pxe2000 at 8:16 AM on November 28, 2016 [33 favorites]

Women and their own bodies is really hard, because for the people involved, they really, sincerely, truly, think it's murder. I found this out essentially living with these folks for a couple weeks - it's not a show they're putting on because they want to control women's sex lives, they really think that babies are being killed by people who don't care about the issues.

This would maybe (but not really) ring true if it was just about abortion. But their opposition to birth control and the means to acquire it, adherence to abstinence-only education, and the reduction if not elimination of any women's health care unrelated to childbirth/childcare reveals it as utter hypocrisy.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:18 AM on November 28, 2016 [40 favorites]

Using the conservative language at all, even to refute it, is failure. Which is why NYT, CNN, WaPo, et. al., support electing conservatives, even when it's critically important that they not do that.

(corb points it out above as well; it fits the "nuturing parent"/"strict father" dichotomy)
posted by petebest at 8:22 AM on November 28, 2016

Women and their own bodies is really hard, because for the people involved, they really, sincerely, truly, think it's murder.

Nah.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:23 AM on November 28, 2016 [24 favorites]

Just because people lie to themselves about their motivations does not mean that we must believe their lies. I mean, these are the same people whose holy book contain the words "Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?:

These are people who gather thorns and thistles, and, were they really concerned about abortion being murder, they would gather different fruit.

No, this is the fruit of people who are trying to control sexuality and punish women for their sexuality. That's the fruit that is gathered, and someone can tell themselves they're gathering grapes and figs, but I know a thistle when I see one.
posted by maxsparber at 8:23 AM on November 28, 2016 [23 favorites]

republican elector finds himself unable to vote for trump, and therefore resigns to salve his conscience rather than actually deny trump an electoral vote.

...thus eternally earning the title of ChickenShit in Mooski's Pantheon of Assholes.
posted by Mooski at 8:27 AM on November 28, 2016 [8 favorites]

The hypocrisy of the sanctity of life arguments on the part of most conservatives is outstanding. Apparently the concern about the lives of unborn children basically stops at birth. You know because anyone who decides to have a child needs to be able to shoulder the entire cost of taking care of that child until they reach adulthood. You know unless that child is LGBTQ or something and then it's perfectly acceptable to kick them out of the home. The hypocrisy also tends to extend to the Death Penalty issue as apparently all life is sacred unless the government wants to kill people.

Yes there are some conservative Christians that actually walk the walk in terms of all life is sacred but a disturbing percentage have been completely disingenous with their rhetoric. In some cases this has been because of a desire to police women's bodies but in some cases it seems simply as a way to publically claim moral superiority over others. As in before Roe v Wade abortion wasn't necessary a major concern of Christian Conservatives but in the wake of Roe V Wade it became something that they could rally the troops around because abortion is something that even a lot of liberals feel queasy about. It's not that liberals want lots of abortion we just understand it's necessity as a tool when access to birth control is not assured and rape culture is so prevalent.

Honestly I've gotten so tired about bending over backwards to understand the needs and feelings of conservatives. Maybe my well of compassion is drying up and I need to dig a new well but I'm just so frustrated with the increasing desire by some conservatives to not just slow down social progress but to actively punish certain groups of individuals. This Puritan instinct at the heart of our country's psyche is unbelievably destructive.
posted by vuron at 8:28 AM on November 28, 2016 [39 favorites]

Also, a prime example in why it's hard to believe a lot of those people really think it's murder, Rep. Scott Desjarlais:

Two abortions. Maybe three, if you count the one he pressured a girlfriend—who happened to be his patient—to get. Pulling out a gun during an argument with his first wife. Prescribing pills to another patient while they dated. Getting reprimanded by the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners for dallying with patients, an ethics violation.

He's entering his fourth term, having won 2/3rds of the vote in his district this year. If the pro-life folks were sincere, then an awful lot of them seem to have voted for someone they believe is a serial murderer. Or worse, actually, since he pressured at least one woman to do it.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:30 AM on November 28, 2016 [31 favorites]

This is the prospect that scares me, because I've known lots of Christians who've said "well we'll just raise the babies" but I suspect this is going to be the solution proposed as soon as it's practical? But I don't think that population is in any way prepared to adopt that many children

This is why for a long time I focused all my (rare) conversations with pro-lifers on frozen embryos in IVF clinics. As in, why do people protest planned parenthood and not IVF clinics, where thousands of embryos are created but unused each year? The current 'solution' here makes parents pay for storage, and the best guess right now is ~1million embryos are just sitting in liquid nitrogen in the U.S. For a while the viability of frozen embryos dropped off precipitously after 7-10 years, so my moral equivalence argument was stronger, but we've gotten better at thawing them without embryos dying; pregancies from embryos frozen 10+ years are no longer uncommon. Still, as a younger deludingmyself would say: if you care so much about the unborn, why don't you put your uterus where your mouth is? Implant an abandoned IVF embryo or three - or seven! - right now, because clearly your age or family situation or whether this choice is right for you and your life right now is entirely irrelevant in your assessment of the morality of the situation.
posted by deludingmyself at 8:33 AM on November 28, 2016 [15 favorites]

There was also this Atlantic article that examined how often anti-abortion activists will have abortions when the pregnancy is a problem for them:

The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion.
posted by maxsparber at 8:34 AM on November 28, 2016 [17 favorites]

Should Californians request a vote recount based on Trump's statements? I'm honestly wondering what the pro/cons are.
posted by samthemander at 8:37 AM on November 28, 2016

corb: Women and their own bodies is really hard, because for the people involved, they really, sincerely, truly, think it's murder.

I was impressed with the way this blogger squared that circle.
posted by Too-Ticky at 8:39 AM on November 28, 2016 [8 favorites]

There's also the possibility, which I've had to entertain when dealing with my mother, that they genuinely think of it as murder but they are also genuinely more concerned with punishing the perpetrators of things like that than they are about preventing such things from happening. I've had to confront recently the fact that the evangelical conservatives I've known have been not just not going out to save babies from getting murdered, but also pretty aggressively against, for example, giving better schools to the urban poor. They see "inner city" crime as a huge social problem, but they don't want prevention, they want the death penalty. It's not at all a "culture of life", but it does start to seem fairly consistent in a bizarro-world way. They don't really believe that prevention works. They think the only reason anybody fails to do bad things is because they're going to be punished. Because heaven knows that it's only the threat of hell that keeps anybody from being a total monster, isn't it?

What covers people like Desjarlais is the idea now that the media is unreliable and therefore probably lying, because it's Bad People who do that stuff, and their side isn't Bad People, so clearly he can't have done any of it. "Everybody knows" that people lie during divorce proceedings, especially women. And as with virtually any other type of crime, as a last resort, you come to the idea that if it's an awful thing but it's done by a Good Person, then it's like stealing bread when you're starving--it must have been something done because of necessity that does not apply to Bad People.

This is what you get when you have a bunch of crypto-hyper-Calvinists trying to do what they think of as social justice.
posted by Sequence at 8:39 AM on November 28, 2016 [22 favorites]

Yeah some people firmly truly and righteously believe that homosexuality angers God and causes volcanoes. They're dumb. The end. Work around them. Legislate them out of relevance. No need to convince stupid.
posted by ian1977 at 8:42 AM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

If the pro-life folks were sincere

So I think honestly a lot of how I handle issues that I don't personally believe in is a sort of Pascal's Politics Wager. I mean, I honestly and truly believe most of the pro-life people are sincere, but there are other issues where I'm not sure if people are sincere or not because I find it difficult to empathize with them, or they seem idiotic to me.

And so what do I lose, and what do I gain, by believing people are sincere? If I wager they are sincere and they actually are sincere, then I am both correct and I have a hope of convincing them. If I wager they are sincere and they actually are insincere, then as long as they believe they are sincere, or want to publicly appear sincere, I still have a hope of convincing them.

If I wager they are insincere, and they are sincere, I am wrong and have mortally offended them and have lost any chance of convincing them. If I wager they are insincere and they are insincere, then I have still mortally offended them because I am publicly calling them a liar, and so they're still less likely to change their views.

So I generally wager on the side of believing people are sincere, or at least treating them publicly as though I do believe them, and asking questions accordingly. It's really hard, and takes a lot of work, and sometimes I fall down, but I honestly do think it's the best way to to go in a world this divided. It's like assuming good faith, but for the outside-Metafilter world as well.
posted by corb at 8:43 AM on November 28, 2016 [19 favorites]

So I generally wager on the side of believing people are sincere, or at least treating them publicly as though I do believe them

I never doubt the sincerity of someone who says they're willing for me to suffer so they can get their own way.
posted by Mooski at 8:46 AM on November 28, 2016 [39 favorites]

Has anyone been watching the Wisconsin Elections Live Feed? Their meeting started an hour ago, but haven't heard anything from it.
posted by dinty_moore at 8:47 AM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

In a democracy, there are two ways to move your agenda forward. One way is to persuade people that your ideas are worth trying out. Another way is to force them to go along with your ideas. I don't think the hard work (emotionally and otherwise) of persuasion needs to fall equally on everyone, but I prefer an overall strategy of persuasion to a strategy of force. When we start expanding the category of people whom we won't even try to persuade, I worry about continuing ideological radicalization and entrenchment. It's not an easy question, especially as there clearly are some people whom it doesn't seem worth persuading (occasional articles about former white supremacists seeing the light notwithstanding). But dismissing increasingly large groups of people as people we should just work around is troubling to me.
posted by prefpara at 8:47 AM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

The genius of the blathering of Cheeto Jesus (I cringe at writing it's 'name') is that it eats up all the air in the room. I had a boss once, a malevolent, poisonous, crazy as fuck fucker who regularly, when he was in a losing position, would turn on the crazy. There is only so much time or energy for any argument and he would run out the clock on either literal time commitment or emotional energy when he found himself on the losing side of a disagreement.

So Trump flips out (possibly with real hurt) about the vote recount - the media talks about that for a while and the heat is off his equally insane/suspicious cabinet picks or foreign business dealings (that are blatantly unconstitutional) and we are closer to the E.C meeting and there has been no airing of his lack of fitness for the position.

Maybe expecting a consensus, a national moment of mourning for our self-respect following the very dumb thing we all did, maybe expecting a moment of national consensus is unrealistic. But I worry about the clock running out and TPEOTUS,CheetoJesus, getting voted in because no one had a chance to voice, clearly, the very real problems with him as an actual Gov servant.

It's funny and insane but it's also 11 year old diversionary tactics that should take a backseat to his myriad conflicts of interest.
posted by From Bklyn at 8:48 AM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

So I generally wager on the side of believing people are sincere, or at least treating them publicly as though I do believe them, and asking questions accordingly. It's really hard, and takes a lot of work, and sometimes I fall down, but I honestly do think it's the best way to to go in a world this divided. It's like assuming good faith, but for the outside-Metafilter world as well.

Meanwhile, they take all that good faith and use it to actively destroy other people's lives, up to and including allowing their torture and death. All for no other reason other than belief that they are evil because of gender, race, sexuality, religion, and a host of other rather arbitrary measures, most of which are either inborn or have nothing to do with how they treat the world at large.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:53 AM on November 28, 2016 [14 favorites]

Assumption of good faith is a finite resource. Just as Trump abuses the media's desire to treat him as sincere, so to do many of our fellow citizens. An initial assumption of good faith is helpful, but when a person or group repeatedly engages in deceptive argumentation and ignores contrary evidence, writing them off as bad faith opponents is essential, both for one's own sanity, and for the causes to which they're committed. What's important is not what someone believes they're doing, but what they're actually doing. It's not possible to read their minds, but there is nothing wrong with making choices about where to expend one's energy, and when you know someone's operating in bad faith, it's not wrong to say so.

The laws of the United States recognize that bad faith exists -- see legal action against TRAP laws that purport to regulate health and safety, but are actually using those as a fig leaf to conceal the end goal of stopping abortion. We need not read minds in order to come to an understanding about whether someone is pissing on us while telling us it's raining.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:54 AM on November 28, 2016 [33 favorites]

So I generally wager on the side of believing people are sincere,

Sincere belief is no reason to legislate the behaviour of your neighbours. Separation of church and state. I'm definitely pro-life but I am as definitely pro choice and I don't think this is at all contradictory.
posted by From Bklyn at 8:54 AM on November 28, 2016 [36 favorites]

I don't doubt their sincerity I just doubt their underlying motivations. I think that conservative Christians have fixated upon abortion as the social ill par excellence as a way of proving their moral righteousness even though there are a zillion other social ills that negatively impact people in much more profound ways than abortion.

I don't doubt their sincerity about their profound dislike of gay marriage, I just doubt their motivations. I don't see how any possible reading of scripture would somehow make it so that gay marriage somehow diminishes their marriage in the eyes of god. Nobody is forcing Evangelical ministers perform marriages. Furthermore the stubborn insistence on using passages from scripture that refer to rabbinical strictures from the Old Testament, aspects of the Old Testament that in theory Christians aren't even subject too to affirm prejuidice is insane.
posted by vuron at 8:55 AM on November 28, 2016 [8 favorites]

So I generally wager on the side of believing people are sincere,

I do too, until they repeatedly show, by behavior, that they are either lying or self-deluded.
posted by maxsparber at 8:57 AM on November 28, 2016 [10 favorites]

But their opposition to birth control and the means to acquire it, adherence to abstinence-only education,

This is rooted, in a lot of ways, in a moral definition that doesn't get mentioned much outside Christian circles - that sex outside of church-sanctioned marriage is adultery and therefore a sin. Including, of course, sex between consenting single unmarried adults. This is a belief quite common even in moderate/mainstream (non-evangelical) churches and denominations, and even if they recognize that it happens many Christians are uncomfortable with any hint of the government "encouraging" or "enabling" said sin.

Which is to say that America's "conservative Christian problem" is not likely to go away any time soon. It will require, I think, a fairly serious conceptual & cultural shift that almost certainly needs to be driven from within the Christian community - where progressive/liberal/moderate Christians need to make a lot of noise for a long time about how harm-prevention is in keeping with Jesus's teachings, and how the sin of adultery needs to be viewed as a more private matter between the sinners and God, so harm-prevention outweighs an individual's moral distaste at allowing the government to "encourage" adultery via providing birth control and comprehensive sex education.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:02 AM on November 28, 2016 [10 favorites]

Oh great, and now there's been a campus shooting at Ohio State U, and I actually find myself thinking, "Please let this be a normal horrific garden-variety violent campus incident and not a Trump's America white supremacy shooting." WTF, 2016?
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:02 AM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

updated the trump popular vote autotweeter. its not perfect by any means but anyone interested can check it out/fork it/etc here https://github.com/localhuman/autotweet
posted by localhuman at 9:02 AM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

“I’m sorry, Jeannie, your answer was correct, but Kevin shouted his incorrect answer over yours, so he gets the points.”
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:06 AM on November 28, 2016 [22 favorites]

Egg on Trump's popular vote insanity.

@Evan_McMullin Retweeted Donald J. Trump
It should not go unrecognized that @realDonaldTrump's effort to inflate his election performance without cause is typical of autocrats.

They do it increase the perception of their political legitimacy, while undermining popular opposition to them.

And, in the process, they do enormous damage to democratic institutions, which is a larger objective they share.

Because it is those institutions and supporting norms that present the most significant check on an authoritarian's power.

When confidence in those institutions and norms has been sufficiently eroded, the authoritarian has a freer hand with which to wield power.

Those wishing not to experience this should speak up every time @realDonaldTrump attempts to walk us down this path. We must not tire of it.
posted by chris24 at 9:10 AM on November 28, 2016 [54 favorites]

Bradley Proctor, Vox: An American “Redemption”? Trumpism fits a pattern of backlash against social progress
posted by tonycpsu at 9:15 AM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

Predictions:

1) Trump will wear a baseball hat to the inauguration.

2) Drones will be used to kill people inside the US during his term.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:22 AM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Chris Potter of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Breaking: Allegheny County delaying certification of election results as activists file petitions seeking recount in some precincts here.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:24 AM on November 28, 2016 [15 favorites]

Ari Berman: Donald Trump Is the Greatest Threat to American Democracy in Our Lifetime. His lies about voter fraud are a prelude to massive voter suppression.
posted by zombieflanders at 9:24 AM on November 28, 2016 [36 favorites]

Texas Elector Resigns: Trump Is Not Qualified And I Cannot Vote For Him
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:45 AM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Here's a response to the Kevin Drum "fad white supremacy" article in Mother Jones.
posted by Joey Michaels at 9:51 AM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

Moving Forward: Ideas for the DNC by Ilyse Hogue (NARAL president):

I believe the DNC has a critical role to play in regrouping after 2016, one that fully embraces the Wellstone triad approach to change: public policy that reflects peoples’ needs, grassroots organizing that honors peoples’ lived experience, and an electoral strategy that brings both to bear to ensure victory. The DNC should not just be a force every two years at election time, but it should also be a daily presence in peoples’ lives, relevant in policy discussions and responsive to the ideas and concerns of people where they live. And everyone needs to know that Democrats fight for people, not for big corporate interests.
To accomplish this, here are ten first ideas to shape the way we build our Party for the sustained fights ahead...

posted by melissasaurus at 10:00 AM on November 28, 2016 [11 favorites]

Texas Elector Resigns: Trump Is Not Qualified And I Cannot Vote For Him

So brave. "I can't vote for Trump and I don't want to face the consequences for doing the right thing, so I will resign, assuaging my conscience, and let someone else vote for the autocrat, thus changing nothing."
posted by entropicamericana at 10:01 AM on November 28, 2016 [57 favorites]

I think Trump is quite likely to lead to a significant realignment of political parties in various parts of the US.

The small government libertarian aspects of the Republican party are almost certainly going to be abandoned which is quite likely to result in increased movement of western states towards Democrats. I think you are already seeing that in how the moderate Mormon politicians are intensely uncomfortable with the Trump administration. I wonder if they believe that if the US starts down the road of enacting policies against minority religions like Islam will restrictions on Mormons be that far behind?

If Republicans are going to try to transition to a Great Plains + Rust Belt strategy for elections I think they are going to have to change their pitch quite a bit. They are already looking suspect in the sun belt states and the southern half of the Atlantic seaboard is also looking shaky for them. Yes disenfranchisement of voters might allow them to hold onto areas of the old South but their ability to hold onto NC and increasingly GA is looking sketchy as migration of new residents to those states are challenging the established social order.
posted by vuron at 10:07 AM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

At least he said very publicly that the man is unqualified and that it's possible that even a Republican cannot stomach voting for him. That can't be said too often.
posted by Too-Ticky at 10:08 AM on November 28, 2016 [13 favorites]

The "consequences for doing the right thing" could be severe, so I can't really say I blame him, entropicamericana. How many in his position are doing even that much/little?
posted by ODiV at 10:09 AM on November 28, 2016 [7 favorites]

Allegheny County holds off on certifying election results

One of my coworkers is an Allegheny County election official and was at the meeting. I only got a chance to talk to him for a minute between work meetings, but he did say that he spoke up in favor of doing a forensic analysis of the machines (yay!), but also had to explain to others that the pre-election firmware verification doesn't count as a forensic analysis because it happened before the election, which you'd hope people would understand without it having to be explained to them.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:09 AM on November 28, 2016 [8 favorites]

The "consequences for doing the right thing" could be severe, so I can't really say I blame him, entropicamericana. How many in his position are doing even that much/little?

Not enough. But I guess "Give me liberty or I'll resign" has a certain ring to it.
posted by entropicamericana at 10:15 AM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Give me liberty, or give me what I voted for!"
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:16 AM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

The "consequences for doing the right thing" could be severe, so I can't really say I blame him, entropicamericana. How many in his position are doing even that much/little?

I get that, but the consequences for us are also severe, and he signed up for it.
posted by dinty_moore at 10:16 AM on November 28, 2016 [10 favorites]

The "consequences for doing the right thing" could be severe, so I can't really say I blame him, entropicamericana. How many in his position are doing even that much/little?

Doing the right thing regardless of cost is (or should be) an expectation of appointed/elected office; I refuse to congratulate someone for doing the barest minimum just because everyone else in their position did nothing at all.
posted by Mooski at 10:17 AM on November 28, 2016 [11 favorites]

President-elect Donald Trump is considering retired General David Petraeus to be secretary of state and plans to meet with the former CIA director Monday in New York, according to a senior official with the transition.

So now instead of classified email leaks at State, we'll get classified documents hand-delivered to whoever Petraeus wants to fuck at the time. #MAGA!
posted by tonycpsu at 10:18 AM on November 28, 2016 [37 favorites]

Wait, when that one elector was saying they couldn't vote for Clinton before the election, but would not resign, everyone was like, "If you can't do the job you were appointed to do, you should step aside!"

Now that it's the other way, you want to cast aspersions?
posted by valkane at 10:18 AM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

> So brave. "I can't vote for Trump and I don't want to face the consequences for doing the right thing, so I will resign, assuaging my conscience, and let someone else vote for the autocrat, thus changing nothing."

It turns out he's also the guy in the firing squad who gets the blank cartridge every time.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:18 AM on November 28, 2016

Now that it's the other way, you want to cast aspersions?

No, we want them to go further and use the power they (nominally) have and vote for Clinton or Egg or Romney or some (anyone!) at least vaguely fit for the office.
posted by jedicus at 10:21 AM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

Now that it's the other way, you want to cast aspersions?

well since you're casting false equivalencies it's only fair
posted by entropicamericana at 10:22 AM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

As Steven Dennis noted on Twitter: "Comey testified that David Petraeus's actions were far worse than Hillary Clinton's email server"
posted by zachlipton at 10:22 AM on November 28, 2016 [25 favorites]

Here's a response to the Kevin Drum "fad white supremacy" article in Mother Jones.
I found the end of the response article to be noteworthy:

Why does understanding white supremacy matter now?

I hope this is obvious, but in case it’s not, let me offer one other important reason that understanding white supremacy now is more important than ever. In a recent study, researchers at Stanford Graduate School of Education found that 82% of 203 students surveyed believed sponsored content was a real news story.

This is consistent with what I found in Cyber Racism (2009), when I asked young people (ages 15-19) if they could tell the difference between a “cloaked” white supremacist site, and an actual civil rights site. Most could not. So, one young person in my study, reading a white supremacist site that declared “slavery was good for some people,” responded: “well, maybe so, there’s two sides to everything.”

I hope you find this as chilling. We don’t want to go back to debating whether slavery was a moral evil or not, do we? If we don’t, then we have to get smarter about the way white supremacy operates, and how we fight against it.

Saying that white supremacy is a “fad” neither helps our understanding, nor the fight against it, but reveals the epistemology of ignorance that keeps white people from understanding the system we, ourselves, have built.

posted by ZeusHumms at 10:24 AM on November 28, 2016 [32 favorites]

Not enough. But I guess "Give me liberty or I'll resign" has a certain ring to it.

Sure, probably not enough. I'm taking more of a glass houses approach to speaking out against Trump and taking action against fascism, but I'm probably less gutsy in real life than most of you.
posted by ODiV at 10:28 AM on November 28, 2016

No, we want them to go further and use the power they (nominally) have and vote for Clinton or Egg or Romney or some (anyone!) at least vaguely fit for the office.

I want this too - so much. I really think that Trump is enough of a danger to the Republic that he justifies uncommon actions.

But I do wish that we could be consistent in our support for "if you think someone's a danger to the Republic, you should use the safety valves that were set up for that very purpose." People were pretty rough about the possibility of that one elector that felt he couldn't morally vote for Clinton. If we want to foster an atmosphere where people feel comfortable taking moral stands in line with their principles, we do kind of have to be consistent with it, or people think it's all partisan posturing and dismiss it.
posted by corb at 10:29 AM on November 28, 2016 [7 favorites]

AP: Writing about the ‘alt-right’ by John Daniszewski, Vice President for Standards
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:32 AM on November 28, 2016 [10 favorites]

Wait, when that one elector was saying they couldn't vote for Clinton before the election, but would not resign, everyone was like, "If you can't do the job you were appointed to do, you should step aside!"

Now that it's the other way, you want to cast aspersions?

Interestingly, this is more or less what the Supreme Court's position was on pledges by electors -- the state can require the pledge before selecting the elector, but it doesn't necessarily mean the elector has to abide by the pledge.
posted by Etrigan at 10:32 AM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

the problem with that is that it presupposes the candidates are in any way equally awful, when in fact, trump is quantifiably the most corrupt and unqualified president in history and he hasn't even taken the oath of office yet.
posted by entropicamericana at 10:33 AM on November 28, 2016 [18 favorites]

But I do wish that we could be consistent in our support for "if you think someone's a danger to the Republic, you should use the safety valves that were set up for that very purpose."

There are no bright-line rules for what does and does not constitute a valid claim of a candidate being a danger to the republic, so there is no hypocrisy. I do not believe that Hillary Clinton was an existential threat, so that elector's moral judgement is wrong to me. I do believe Trump is an existential threat, so I'm fine with using the electors' judgement to override the will of their voters.

I also supported elimination of the Electoral College a long time before Donald Trump was a candidate, but if it must exist, we might as well use it for the purpose it was originally created for. I still hope it dies, and if it was gone before this election, Trump would not be President.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:34 AM on November 28, 2016 [21 favorites]

corb: If we want to foster an atmosphere where people feel comfortable taking moral stands in line with their principles, we do kind of have to be consistent with it

How is that possible though? We're such a large group, and even somewhat diverse.
posted by Too-Ticky at 10:35 AM on November 28, 2016

There would certainly seem to be a susceptibility in the electoral college. What's to stop someone from buying off a few electors if the election is really close?

Peter Thiel Insider Picked to Oversee Donald Trump’s Defense Department Transition

Palantir gained notoriety in 2011 after the hacking collective LulzSec dumped thousands of hacked emails from HBGary Federal, a firm collaborating with Palantir to pitch clients, revealing plans to use Palantir’s data analysis tools on a project to spy on labor unions, journalists, and activist groups on behalf of business interests.

God, wake me up from this nightmare.
posted by Golden Eternity at 10:37 AM on November 28, 2016 [15 favorites]

What is this crap?

@JoeNBC Mayor Giuliani is America's mayor and @KellyannePolls did a fantastic job managing media relations in a turbulent campaign season.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:40 AM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

This is why the parties are so important, as David Frum pointed out in his podcast with Ezra Klein. The GOP is most to blame here. They never, never should have let Trump get to the general election.
posted by Golden Eternity at 10:40 AM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

New popular vote numbers via @AP: Clinton 64,429,062 (48.1%) Trump 62,352,375 (46.5%) Johnson 4,419,063 (3.3%) Stein 1,399,376 (1.0%)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:43 AM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

What is this crap?

Remember when Rnc Prbs said that Rush Limbaugh wasn't running the GOP, and then had to "correct" himself? It's like that.
posted by Etrigan at 10:43 AM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

i guess the only way to unseat giuliani as america's mayor is to have a worse terrorist attack happen to your city during your administration?
posted by murphy slaw at 10:45 AM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

or to look more fabulous in a dress. (tw: our president-elect motorboating a crossdressing rudy guiliani)

can we name rupaul america's mayor now, please?
posted by entropicamericana at 10:52 AM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

New popular vote numbers via @AP: Clinton 64,429,062 (48.1%) Trump 62,352,375 (46.5%) Johnson 4,419,063 (3.3%) Stein 1,399,376 (1.0%)

64,429,062 - 62,352,375 = 2,076,687

2 million people silenced.
posted by dis_integration at 10:52 AM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

2 million people silenced.
posted by dis_integration at 13:52 on November 28 [+] [!]

70 million... 70 million people did not want the butternut turd
posted by Cat_Examiner at 10:56 AM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

2 million people silenced.

15 states each have fewer than 2 million people living in them, just saying.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 10:56 AM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

.@Delta CEO writes memo to staff over intimidation from Trump-supporting passenger
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:56 AM on November 28, 2016 [16 favorites]

It's possible that some have changed their views regarding what Washington electors say they plan to do when the electoral college vote is taken, valkane. This is a complex issue on all sides. Perhaps we need to examine each elector's reasons for doing what they do, then decide if we support them in their efforts.

In this case, Texas has no laws regarding faithless electors, but I don't know what personal challenges this EC voter would have faced had it become known that he voted for someone other than Trump. I can wish he would have found it within himself to keep his position and vote his conscience, but that's about all I can do. Without knowing his life, I can't judge him.
posted by Silverstone at 10:59 AM on November 28, 2016

Giuliani is a piece of shit whose decision to place the Emergency Command Center in the fucking #1 target in NYC was idiotic and costly. No effective chain of command was set up on 9/11 and firefighters and police worked pretty much without centralized direction. His decision to give Motorola a $14m no-bid contract for radios in 1994, radios that never worked and which were not replaced prior to 9/11 despite multiple requests from the union, cost lives on 9/11 when those NYFD radios again didn't work in the towers and evacuation orders never reached the firefighters. Dozens of firefighters died because they didn't even know the South Tower had fallen. He's then spent the next 15 years preening about it and pretending he almost lost his life that day. I hope he dies a painful death.
posted by chris24 at 10:59 AM on November 28, 2016 [68 favorites]

Ivanka Trump Chinese shoe factory is now moving to Ethiopia where labor costs 20% of Chinese labor

I figure that as each developing country becomes stable enough with reliable electricity and transportation they will move into position as the cheapest place for manufacturing until we are left with nowhere on earth as cheap as USA prison labor. MAGA!
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 11:02 AM on November 28, 2016 [19 favorites]

I figure that as each developing country becomes stable enough with reliable electricity and transportation they will move into position as the cheapest place for manufacturing until we are left with nowhere on earth as cheap as USA prison labor.

That is exactly, and explicitly, the plan. No one is under any illusions that it's anything but the cheapest possible price point, and as soon as your labor force gets good enough at something to want more money, they're out.
posted by Etrigan at 11:04 AM on November 28, 2016 [13 favorites]

No one is under any illusions that it's anything but the cheapest possible price point, and as soon as your labor force gets good enough at something to want more money, they're out.

We live in a world where self-storage is a thing.

That's proof positive that we have reached a near-peak in demand for physical possessions, and that makes it futile to chase the manufacture of cheap goods a policy aim for the nation.

Got to find alternatives.
posted by ocschwar at 11:06 AM on November 28, 2016 [7 favorites]

I know that third party votes are mostly symbolic since they're made with the knowledge that their candidate won't actually be president and thus shouldn't really be taken as an approval for the specific candidate's merit, but it remains very hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that one in a hundred voters went for Stein.
posted by vathek at 11:08 AM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

 A City Clerk Opposed an Early-Voting Site at UW–Green Bay Because ‘Students Lean More Toward the Democrats’ - New e-mails released to The Nation reveal ongoing GOP attempts to suppress the vote. (Ari BermanTwitter, October)
posted by Golden Eternity at 11:09 AM on November 28, 2016 [27 favorites]

i find it pretty unsurprising that 1% of americans would rather be "right" than have good government
posted by murphy slaw at 11:10 AM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

i find it pretty unsurprising that 1% of americans would rather be "right" than have good government

UM, YOU MEAN 46.5%
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 11:15 AM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

i find it pretty unsurprising that 1% of americans would rather be "right" than have good government

1%? Didn't Trump get 47% of the vote?
posted by Talez at 11:16 AM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

Ivanka Trump Chinese shoe factory is now moving to Ethiopia where labor costs 20% of Chinese labor
That's just to compensate for the 35% tariff Donald's going to put on them.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:16 AM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

i assume that most trump voters thought they were getting "good government" as in "good for them", but anyone voting for stein who thought she could be elected was sufficiently deluded that their ability to find their own polling place is called into question
posted by murphy slaw at 11:19 AM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

C'mon folks, if you just start thinking of national politics as a professional team sport, peoples' reactions become a lot more understandable.

The trick, of course, is to not throw up at the thought of that mentality running the world.
posted by Mooski at 11:20 AM on November 28, 2016 [13 favorites]

1%? Didn't Trump get 47% of the vote?

47 percent of the 50-some-odd percent of Americans who voted.
posted by maxsparber at 11:22 AM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

i find it pretty unsurprising that 1% of americans would rather be "right" than have good government

1%? Didn't Trump get 47% of the vote?

Trump voters didn't care about facts, let alone what was "right."
posted by C'est la D.C. at 11:24 AM on November 28, 2016

47 percent of the 50-some-odd percent of Americans who voted.

Say what you will about Steinism, at least it's an ethos. Non voters, what are they? Nothing. That is a huge problem, especially when we are literally confronting a fascist.
posted by cell divide at 11:25 AM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

i dunno, i feel like at least the subset of non-voters who can't even be arsed to register are doing the country a favor by not voting, since they can't even gin up enough interest in the outcome to fill out a form
posted by murphy slaw at 11:27 AM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Wisconsin rejects doing recount by hand; Stein to sue

The Wisconsin Elections Commission set a timetable Monday for a recount of the presidential election but rejected a request to conduct it by hand made by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who quickly responded that she would sue.

Also Monday, Stein filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania to force a recount there and her supporters began filing recount requests at the precinct level there. Stein — who received just a tiny piece of the vote —also plans to ask for a recount in Michigan on Wednesday.

Unless Stein wins her lawsuit in Dane County Circuit Court, officials in each of Wisconsin’s 72 counties would decide on their own whether to do their recounts by hand. That could mean some counties perform recounts by machine and some by hand.
posted by futz at 11:35 AM on November 28, 2016 [17 favorites]

I don't really blame the non-voters themselves, I was sort of joking by hackily riffing off of Lebowski, but I do think it points to just how broken the system is...

The vast majority of people support the policies of the Democrats, but the Republicans control every branch of Government at most levels in most states. Something very wrong here, and 50% of people aren't voting at all.
posted by cell divide at 11:35 AM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

i dunno, i feel like at least the subset of non-voters who can't even be arsed to register are doing the country a favor by not voting, since they can't even gin up enough interest in the outcome to fill out a form

Conservatives have put up enormous obstacles to voter registration along pretty much racist lines. They've also made it extremely easy to purge people from voter rolls for pretty weak reasons, also along racist lines. They're getting ready to go national with it, and they know that even NeverTrump conservatives are behind it 100%.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:37 AM on November 28, 2016 [36 favorites]

it remains very hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that one in a hundred voters went for Stein.

As with 2000, voters were assured that Clinton/Gore had the election in the bag, and I bet a sizable portion of those voters merely wanting to register a protest against "the system."
posted by Candleman at 11:37 AM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

I don't know how much of non-voting is apathy and how much is people being struck from rolls of eligible voters, turned away at their polling place, were convinced that they might get in trouble for voting, can't vote because of their citizenship status or status as a former convict, etc.

I mean, I used to assume these were a small minority until I realize just how many African-Americans are cycled through the criminal justice system. How many just can't vote or have been driven away? At this moment, I guess I wouldn't be surprised to discover its most of them. I suppose it is unlikely that Republicans have made it impossible for half of American to vote, but I wouldn't put it past them.
posted by maxsparber at 11:39 AM on November 28, 2016 [13 favorites]

Just to add to my comment regarding faithless electors, I am still uncomfortable with the fact that, when an elector votes against his/her state's will, a whole lot of presidential election voters have been effectively silenced. One should probably come to a decision on whether or not one can support all possible outcomes if called to serve in the position of elector. To do anything else is potentially unfair to a lot of voters.

While this gentleman would have served people of conscience's purposes by denying Trump an EC vote, we must be certain that the gain outweighs the cost. I think it does in this case, but that's an opinion, not a fact.
posted by Silverstone at 11:41 AM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

No reason I can think of to suspect non-voters, had they cast a ballot, would have voted in a significantly different fashion than those who did vote, if anything, given the lack of importance attached to their preference, they very well may have gone more for Trump than Clinton. The allure of fame and novelty being what it is. We can certainly wishcast they'd have gone against Trump since that's what we would have them do, but in a coin flippish scenario, that isn't particularly likely. Of course, in hindsight, everything looks better than what we ended up with, so I can see where the desire comes from, but I'm not seeing it as a strong likelihood.

The bigger problem with the non-voters is that they, presumably, don't invest in the system because they generally expect things to follow along the same paths as they are used to from previous elections. In normal circumstances that's actually not such a bad thing, but in the case of an exceptional threat like Trump, it can be much worse since the non-voters will be looking to normalize the results of the election and aren't as likely to want to get involved with anything that upsets the status quo, and they'll be more likely, I suspect, to see attempts to oppose Trump as the upsetting element than Trump himself given their interest in continuity. They aren't going to be revolutionaries in other words.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:42 AM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

As with 2000, voters were assured that Clinton/Gore had the election in the bag

The way I remember 2000, was that people said it wouldn't matter which of Gore or Bush won. (I still ended up voting Gore).
posted by drezdn at 11:42 AM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, if you want some "fun" thinking, cross-reference "can't vote while in prison" with "federal conviction rates by race".
posted by XtinaS at 11:43 AM on November 28, 2016 [12 favorites]

An estimated 6.1 million Americans are forbidden to vote because of “felony disenfranchisement,” or laws restricting voting rights for those convicted of felony-level crimes.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 11:43 AM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

Isn't the relentless "both sides are equally terrible" drum beating, of which Stein was a major proponent, part of the reason so many people didn't bother to vote? Sure, some people who agreed with that voted for Stein, but others surely saw John Oliver bash Stein or whatever and just decided to stay home because they were too disgusted with the whole thing. If people are going to spend a year dumping on the process, they shouldn't be shocked that some people eventually decide they want nothing to do with it.

In any case, turnout was largely up. Yes, turnout was down somewhat in some urban areas compared to the Obama years, which everyone pretty much expected. Meanwhile, turnout was up significantly in rural counties that went overwhelmingly for Trump in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
posted by zachlipton at 11:44 AM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

it remains very hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that one in a hundred voters went for Stein.

I think that there were probably a lot of people young enough to not remember how 2000 went.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 11:45 AM on November 28, 2016 [7 favorites]

An estimated 6.1 million Americans are forbidden to vote because of “felony disenfranchisement,” or laws restricting voting rights for those convicted of felony-level crimes.

That's about the population of Tennessee. I have a feeling that if some crooked mechanism made it possible for all but 200,000 in Tennessee to vote, that would be a pretty significant news story.
posted by maxsparber at 11:48 AM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

Did you know the President-elect is having a Cyber Monday sale? Use promo code GREATDEAL (sadly, it's not BIGLY).
posted by zachlipton at 11:48 AM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Just to add to my comment regarding faithless electors, I am still uncomfortable with the fact that, when an elector votes against his/her state's will, a whole lot of presidential election voters have been effectively silenced. One should probably come to a decision on whether or not one can support all possible outcomes if called to serve in the position of elector. To do anything else is potentially unfair to a lot of voters.

And do you know what else is unfair to a lot of voters? Like 2.1 million and counting of them?
posted by entropicamericana at 11:51 AM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

We all know who's really going to benefit from these recounts...
posted by schmod at 11:53 AM on November 28, 2016 [10 favorites]

Swing state Florida (home bitter home) is particularly bad at restoring voting rights:

The state of Florida alone accounts for more than a quarter (27 percent) of the disenfranchised population nationally, and its nearly 1.5 million individuals disenfranchised post-sentence account for nearly half (48 percent) of the national total.

It's one of 3 states that permanently remove a felon's right to vote with no formal reinstatement process save each person convicted requesting clemency from the Governor on an individual basis.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 11:54 AM on November 28, 2016 [8 favorites]

Joe Scarborough has been inspired by Trump's run that he too can run for president, that's what's behind all his personal inanity.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:56 AM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

Eyebrows, you buried the bigger insanity behind the link (which is from September and somehow escaped my attention): Trump: The Musical, and he's already made a demo. [real, I guess, who the hell can tell anymore?]

I'm just a simple man
Blessed with this orange tan
I'm simply titanic
Beloved by Hispanics and Jews
I'm huge
Losers don't understand
The genius of my border plan
They call me a fool
Then they dare ridicule my huge hands

posted by zachlipton at 12:04 PM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

Joe Scarborough has been inspired by Trump's run that he too can run for president

In fairness, Trump has in fact shown that literally anyone can become President, no matter how bad they would obviously be at presidenting.
posted by Etrigan at 12:06 PM on November 28, 2016 [10 favorites]

‘Alt-right’ online poison nearly turned me into a racist

It hit me like a ton of bricks. Online radicalisation of young white men. It’s here, it’s serious, and I was lucky to be able to snap out of it when I did. And if it can get somebody like me to swallow it – a lifelong liberal – I can’t imagine the damage it is doing overall.

It seemed so subtle – at no point did I think my casual and growing Islamophobia was genuine racism. The good news for me is that my journey toward the alt-right was mercifully brief: I never wanted to harm or abuse anybody verbally, it was all very low level – a creeping fear and bigotry that I won’t let infest me again. But I suspect you could, if you don’t catch it quickly, be guided into a much more overt and sinister hatred.

This article hits home hard. Articles like these are good to remind me that you play with proverbial fire when you keep an eye on the sewer. I do try to actively immunize myself when I feel it appealing to my baser instincts but it's hard not to get sucked into it.
posted by Talez at 12:06 PM on November 28, 2016 [14 favorites]

In fairness, Trump has in fact shown that literally anyone can become President, no matter how bad they would obviously be at presidenting.

Well, literally any rich white dude.
posted by maxsparber at 12:10 PM on November 28, 2016 [24 favorites]

OSU story updated 2:56pm ET

The suspect in Monday's Ohio State University attack was an 18-year-old of Somali descent, a federal law enforcement official said.

Please no. Jesus fuck no. Just not now. Not with this climate.
posted by Talez at 12:11 PM on November 28, 2016 [18 favorites]

When the guy who wears the rubber boot on his head becomes president, then I will believe anyone can be president.
posted by maxsparber at 12:11 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

When the guy who wears the rubber boot on his head becomes president, then I will believe anyone can be president.

Hey! He has a name you know. Vermin Supreme.
posted by Talez at 12:12 PM on November 28, 2016 [7 favorites]

He's not president yet.
posted by ian1977 at 12:13 PM on November 28, 2016

He's not president yet.

Vermin Supreme? Not for lack of trying.
posted by maxsparber at 12:15 PM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

Trump is meeting with an ex-bank CEO who wants to abolish the Federal Reserve and return to the gold standard

On Monday, Trump will meet with John Allison, the former CEO of the bank BB&T and of the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute.

There have been reports that Allison is being considered for Treasury secretary.

...Allison also suggested that the government's practice of insuring bank deposits up to $250,000 should be abolished and the US should go back to a banking system backed by "a market standard such as gold."

Another potential wacko. Just great.
posted by futz at 12:18 PM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

Trump has in fact shown that literally anyone can become President

Your periodic reminder that this is not true for naturalized citizens, we're constitutionally barred because reasons. According to our laws, Khizr Khan is less qualified to defend the Constitution than Donald Trump.
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:19 PM on November 28, 2016 [19 favorites]

Well, literally any rich white dude.

Cis, straight, not visibly disabled, Christian or "of Christian stock", I'm sure I'm missing some too.
posted by ODiV at 12:19 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

can we name rupaul america's mayor now, please?

Approved.
posted by petebest at 12:20 PM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

>So when I'm talking about minority issues to Republicans, for example, I never use the words "racist" or "white supremacy", because those are unfortunately coded as "liberal language" as a result of a lot of stuff. I use words like "Fulfilling America's Promise" and "Everyone Should Be Free" and "Hard-working Americans Are Suffering". And I can say honestly a lot of the same things, as long as I use different language about them.

--

Racist is "liberal language", and you want us to reach out and try to understand them.

Wow.

To be fair, corb was explaining how she tries to persuade racists to be less racist. I don't think she's saying that everyone necessarily should take the time and emotional energy to do so. And we need people like corb to be doing this work, because God knows I can only do it for so long before I lose my temper and/or my mind.

All of us will have tasks to do, and not all the same tasks -- but they are all tasks in the same direction, that of the defeat of neofascism, the defense of our public institutions and the establishment of genuine multiracial democracy under the rule of law.
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:27 PM on November 28, 2016 [44 favorites]

John Allison, the former CEO of the bank BB&T

Ah yes, the man whose donations to universities are tied to them teaching Atlas Shrugged.
posted by holgate at 12:29 PM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

Now that it's the other way, you want to cast aspersions?

Yes.
posted by aspersioncast at 12:30 PM on November 28, 2016 [28 favorites]

Trump aides launch 'defense fund' amid recount efforts in midwest states

...The email from Chris Carr, political director of the Republican National Committee, describes the recount effort, which has so far raised $6m for the three states, as “ridiculous”, “meaningless” and “a political ploy by the left to further divide our country, gin up support from their extremist base, and threaten President-elect Trump’s mandate”.
...“This recount is nothing but a distraction – and a preview of the lengths to which liberals are willing to go over the next four years to try to stop us.

“But now that the recount is set to take place, we need to be ready to fight back and win, just like we did during the campaign. With you on our side we will be successful in once again stopping Hillary and her far-left pals from dividing our country even more. Contribute $10, $25, $50, $100, $200, or more today to help."
posted by futz at 12:30 PM on November 28, 2016

Trump is meeting with an ex-bank CEO who wants to abolish the Federal Reserve and return to the gold standard

ron paul right now
posted by entropicamericana at 12:31 PM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

constitutionally barred because reasons

It seems to me that there was a genuine anxiety, back in the 1780's, that someone could become President but actually have an allegiance to a foreign power. So they threw in the bit about the President needing to be a natural born citizen. How appropriate this remains seems unclear today.
posted by thelonius at 12:32 PM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

...Allison also suggested that the government's practice of insuring bank deposits up to $250,000 should be abolished and the US should go back to a banking system backed by "a market standard such as gold."


If Trump is going to crucify labor, seems fitting that he should use a cross of gold.
posted by ocschwar at 12:33 PM on November 28, 2016 [10 favorites]

Trump aides launch 'defense fund' amid recount efforts in midwest states

I'm honestly not sure whether they think they can, like counter-bid the recount costs or this is just a simple grift.
posted by Etrigan at 12:33 PM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm honestly not sure whether they think they can, like counter-bid the recount costs or this is just a simple grift.

Yeah, it's a tough call - I've spent most of my life using the 'never assume malice where stupidity adequately explains' rule, but these guys are like, ringers or something.
posted by Mooski at 12:36 PM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

>> but it remains very hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that one in a hundred voters went for Stein.

> I think a productive, actionable takeaway from this fact is that quite a large number of us are willing to go leftward. Democrats, from now on, would do very well to get/remain as liberal as we can, and to continually offer alternative solutions to Trump-based problems.

hey let's try this one on for size:

Mainstream liberalism isn't appealing to America, because of all of the stuff we've spent like two years observing on in the runup to the disaster of November 8th, 2016. Maybe all those critiques are right; jobs where a person can support themselves on 40 hours a week of work are on the whole gone and not coming back, the people who actually have "decent" jobs hate them, and thanks to the hyperconcentration of wealth that's been happening since the Reagan/Thatcher counterrevolution, almost no one is comfortable or safe anymore. And that's the situation for the best-positioned workers; if you're marked as Other in any way, you're made available for intensified hyperexploitation, and mainstream liberals are not willing to do enough to protect you. Mainstream liberalism built the grimdark cyberpunk future we're living in; people are right to be skeptical of it.

but also let's try this on for size too:

Leftism isn't appealing to America either. Bernie Sanders would have lost the election harder than Clinton did. There is a small boutique market in left-of-liberal ideas in America, but it's not nearly large enough to move the country as a whole.

Maybe we've been a majority-fascist country for a long time. Maybe we're not becoming illiberal — breaking toward fascism on the one hand and socialism on the other — maybe we're just a majority-fascist place that's had our underlying tendencies kept largely in check by center-liberal institutions. Maybe those institutions just took a mortal blow.

Maybe there is no solution. Maybe there are no actionable takeaways. Maybe we lost years ago. Maybe we broke it all back in 2000. Maybe we just have to cross our fingers and put our dreams in cold storage. Maybe Americans are, on the whole, genuinely no-foolin' bad.

If we are, maybe it will take generations to make anything decent from this crooked — no, not crooked, rotten — timber.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:36 PM on November 28, 2016 [45 favorites]

US should go back to a banking system backed by "a market standard such as gold."

I JUST USED THIS AS THE EXAMPLE OF AN OBVIOUSLY STUPID IDEA WHOSE TIME HAD RIGHTFULLY PASSED.

DAMMIT 2016!
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:42 PM on November 28, 2016 [10 favorites]

Maybe we've been a majority-fascist country for a long time.

Maybe we've been a sizable minority fascist country for a long time, and another sizable minority completely-apathetic country. The solutions to that are slightly different than if we were in a country that was genuinely more than 50% fascists, but I do think it's still very bad.
posted by Sequence at 12:46 PM on November 28, 2016 [13 favorites]

The Daily Mail story about Ivana Trump's shoe factory in China led me to this chilling glimpse of global labour:
posted by stonepharisee at 12:46 PM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Maybe there is no solution. Maybe there are no actionable takeaways. Maybe we lost years ago. Maybe we broke it all back in 2000. Maybe we just have to cross our fingers and put our dreams in cold storage. Maybe Americans are, on the whole, genuinely no-foolin' bad.


Or maybe we can stand and fight and resist. And listen and encourage and inspire. Maybe our fellow Americans are more victims than villains, conned by a criminal who played on their fears, but who will soon see how empty those promises were. Maybe love can still win. I don't know. But we have to try.
posted by OnceUponATime at 12:47 PM on November 28, 2016 [18 favorites]

Trump ally: Mitt Romney a 'self-serving egomaniac'

New York Rep. Chris Collins on Monday criticized Mitt Romney, a possible Secretary of State nominee in the new administration, calling him a "self-serving egomaniac."

"What do I know about Mitt Romney? I know that he's a self-serving egomaniac who puts himself first, who has a chip on his shoulder, and thinks that he should be president of the United States," Collins, a Donald Trump backer, told host Chris Cuomo on "New Day."

LOL. He just described trump. Have these people no self awareness?
posted by futz at 12:47 PM on November 28, 2016 [29 favorites]

Allison also suggested that the government's practice of insuring bank deposits up to $250,000 should be abolished

This is... I mean, god, that's criminally insane, right there. He wants people who are customers of banks that fuck up to lose all of their money without recourse. That's just malicious.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:49 PM on November 28, 2016 [57 favorites]

Wisconsin rejects doing recount by hand; Stein to sue

C'mon Wisconsin, the whole point of this is to see how secure your ballot-counting computers are. Using those same computers for a recount completely defeats the purpose. Don't screw this up.
posted by OnceUponATime at 12:50 PM on November 28, 2016 [24 favorites]

> Or maybe we can stand and fight and resist. And listen and encourage and inspire. Maybe our fellow Americans are more victims than villains, conned by a criminal who played on their fears, but who will soon see how empty those promises were. Maybe love can still win. I don't know. But we have to try.

Maybe abandoning false hope is a necessary prerequisite for resistance.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:54 PM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

odinsdream: "Racist is "liberal language", and you want us to reach out and try to understand them.

Wow."

What I've found is that we're using two different meanings of the word 'racist'. For many conservatives, racism is literally disliking a person purely because they are of another race. Like, you have to don a sheet and burn a cross to count as a racist. When told they're being racist because of indifference or insensitivity they get all het up because they think we're accusing them of their definition. So I don't use the word with conservative family and basically describe racism as we understand it here and that often seems to go over a lot better. As mentioned previously though; my family, my job - doesn't have to be yours.
posted by charred husk at 12:58 PM on November 28, 2016 [29 favorites]

Leftism isn't appealing to America either. Bernie Sanders would have lost the election harder than Clinton did.

Sen. Sanders' performance in the primaries was a strong hint that our narrative of politics was fundamentally flawed.

I'm not going to rehash arguments about how Bernie would have performed in a general election. However, I do think that it's worth discussing our predictions for how he should have performed in the primaries, because we can compare our predictions to what actually happened. "Socialism" should have been utterly toxic to his campaign, and ended up virtually being a non-issue. Bernie is a career politician, an independent, and isn't particularly telegenic. No sane political observer would have predicted that Bernie would have come within arms reach of a major party nomination, or carried significant momentum into the General Election campaign season.

Americans largely didn't care about "how Leftist" Bernie's ideas were. A Clinton victory was a "sure thing" on the morning of November 8. We need to take all of our old assumptions with a grain of salt, because these assumptions have fallen flat on their face more than once this campaign season.

Early this year, I remarked that we'd need to rethink a lot of our assumptions about American politics if Sanders' managed to scoop up any delegates outside of his home state. There had been absolutely no notable event or shift to suggest that such a thing should have been possible.

In hindsight, I wildly underestimated just how wrong we were.

Increasingly, it's seeming like Americans care about how the candidates deliver their arguments, rather than the substance of those arguments. But that's a different topic.

Sanders should have been a canary in the coal mine, and we all ignored it.
posted by schmod at 1:01 PM on November 28, 2016 [27 favorites]

I have a lot of faith in these left-of-liberal ideas and their ability to improve the lives of humans everywhere. I suspect I'm not alone.

I have faith in them too, but I also think millions of Americans voted for Donald Trump just because he had an 'R' by his name, so I have to agree that leftist politics are a boutique issue at this point.

Also the left's messaging as is is still mostly leaving out so called "identity politics" so I disagree with most of their tactics and messaging to help "most Americans."
posted by zutalors! at 1:03 PM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Is it just living cheek by jowl with a more cosmopolitan crowd? In other words the city vs. the rural vote? Or are Californian rural voters also more inclined to vote Democrat?

Urban vs. rural certainly seems to be part of it. The Central Valley is more rural and its economy is more dependent on agriculture and petroleum; they tended to go Trump, with the exception of the counties containing the larger urban areas within the Central Valley (Fresno, Sacramento, Merced, [narrowly] Modesto). But there are also exceptions. Bakersfield, in Kern County, is a relatively large urban area within the Central Valley and the county is almost 50% Hispanic but Kern County went decisively for Trump. Mendocino, Humboldt, and Lake Counties are roughly as rural as Shasta, Tehama, and Glenn, but the first three went Clinton and the last three went Trump.

I think of Mendocino as much more "hippie VT" rural than "typical American" rural, and I think of Bakersfield (with its heavy ties to the oil industry) as more culturally similar to somewhere like Texas than to the coast, but I don't know how to formalize either of those things off the top of my head.
posted by en forme de poire at 1:05 PM on November 28, 2016 [7 favorites]

but I also think millions of Americans voted for Donald Trump just because he had an 'R' by his name, so I have to agree that leftist politics are a boutique issue at this point.

I don't follow this at all. Millions of Americans voted for Hillary because she had a D by her name and right wing fascism is ascendent in our country.
posted by Bookhouse at 1:06 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Sanders should have been a canary in the coal mine, and we all ignored it.

I've been thinking he would have served that purpose much better if he actually carried out his threat to run in 2012.
posted by FJT at 1:06 PM on November 28, 2016

Sanders lost the primary to Clinton. By 3.7 million votes.
Clinton "lost" the general election, but won the popular vote by 2 million votes.

To claim that Sanders would have done even better against Trump than Clinton in the general election through some sort of paper-rock-scissors logic is silly (and also done to death in these threads).
posted by Roommate at 1:07 PM on November 28, 2016 [34 favorites]

When told they're being racist because of indifference or insensitivity they get all het up because they think we're accusing them of their definition.

What I'd add to this, though, is that they lack a fundamental understanding that indifference and insensitivity can hurt people as much as the cross-burning when crosses hardly ever get burned and a huge portion of the population treats blacks and Mexicans especially like they are just somewhat lesser beings than everybody else.
posted by Sequence at 1:10 PM on November 28, 2016 [8 favorites]

To claim that Sanders would have done even better against Trump than Clinton in the general election through some sort of paper-rock-scissors logic is silly (and also done to death in these threads).

We have no idea what would have happened, which is why the debate is silly. The primary numbers don't mean anything.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:12 PM on November 28, 2016 [8 favorites]

but I also think millions of Americans voted for Donald Trump just because he had an 'R' by his name, so I have to agree that leftist politics are a boutique issue at this point.

I don't follow this at all. Millions of Americans voted for Hillary because she had a D by her name and right wing fascism is ascendent in our country.

Hillary Clinton is a lifelong Democrat and Donald Trump is a come lately swindler. I would have expected voters to be able to tell the difference. Clearly that's wrong, but not sure what's hard to follow in my comment.
posted by zutalors! at 1:12 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

interesting email from Tim Kaine's mailing list just now:

[ehmt],

It’s been over two years since our country launched military action against ISIS -- without authorization from Congress. This sets a dangerous precedent. No president should be able to go to war without a vote in Congress. I stood up to my own party by sponsoring legislation on this issue before Donald Trump even declared his candidacy for president -- and now that he’s about to assume the Oval Office, the stakes are higher than ever. Will you join me and demand that Congress exercise its Constitutional duty to authorize military force? We can’t afford to let the executive branch carry out acts of war without clear limits on the scope of the mission or defined timelines.

It’s far too easy to imagine a future president using Congressional inaction to justify the hasty and unpredictable initiation of military action. This is precisely why the founders wanted a separation of powers in our Constitution. We don’t know exactly what President-elect Trump will do once he takes office, but during his campaign, he made some pretty cavalier statements about war, bloodshed, and torture. I want you to stand with me if you agree with what I know to be true -- that such a grave decision isn’t the president’s to make alone. In our democracy, it belongs to the people’s representatives, the U.S. Congress.

Please stand with me and demand Congress exercise its Constitutional duty to authorize military force.

Thanks,
Tim

I hadn't realized that this was a Tim Kaine position.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 1:12 PM on November 28, 2016 [22 favorites]

@nycsouthpaw: In depo for Trump Plaza bankruptcy case, Trump's own lawyer testifies they often met with him in pairs because Trump lies so much

Court documents
posted by Golden Eternity at 1:12 PM on November 28, 2016 [16 favorites]

What I'd add to this, though, is that they lack a fundamental understanding that indifference and insensitivity can hurt people as much as the cross-burning

See, the thing that makes me lose my pacifistic calm and begin feeling white hot hate that only ranting on MeFi and drinking copious amounts of wine can quench is the realization that they don't lack that understanding.

It simply doesn't affect them.
posted by Mooski at 1:14 PM on November 28, 2016 [13 favorites]

>> When told they're being racist because of indifference or insensitivity they get all het up because they think we're accusing them of their definition.

> What I'd add to this, though, is that they lack a fundamental understanding that indifference and insensitivity can hurt people as much as the cross-burning when crosses hardly ever get burned and a huge portion of the population treats blacks and Mexicans especially like they are just somewhat lesser beings than everybody else.

Alternately: Perhaps they understand structural racism just fine, and like that there is a widespread system of preference and exclusion that promises good things for the group they identify with and bad things for people they don't identify with.

Conservatives respond to accusations of support for structural white supremacy with the complaint that they shouldn't be called racist because that they're not white-hood racists. Maybe this isn't because they don't understand that structural white supremacy is a thing that hurts non-white people, but instead because they think that their flavor of racism is, unlike white-hood racism, genuinely acceptable — regardless of who it hurts.

They don't invoke the KKK boogeyman because they think that's the only form of racism and don't want to be associated with racism, they invoke the KKK boogeyman to reassure themselves that as long as they can find someone worse than them, they're not genuinely doing anything bad.

In public, use whatever language you need to use to persuade people caught in this trap. But privately? Be honest with yourself; most people run off of pure self-interest, and a majority of white people genuinely see the defense of structural white supremacy as a key part of defending their interests.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:21 PM on November 28, 2016 [37 favorites]

In depo for Trump Plaza bankruptcy case, Trump's own lawyer testifies they often met with him in pairs because Trump lies so much

That's an oldie but a goodie. I love it.
posted by futz at 1:21 PM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

So we're gradually becoming comfortable, or at least conversant, with the idea that when an authoritarian tells us who he is and what he wants to do, we should believe him. We need to start becoming comfortable, or at least conversant, with the idea that we should extend the same courtesy to the people who put the authoritarian in charge. We should believe that they really do want what they asked for.

America has told us who it is. Although we may feel optimism about particular plans or strategies, we must be completely realistic, completely honest, about the terrain on which we implement those plans or strategies.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:29 PM on November 28, 2016 [47 favorites]

Perhaps they understand structural racism just fine, and like that there is a widespread system of preference and exclusion that promises good things for the group they identify with and bad things for people they don't identify with.


U.S. Economic Confidence Surges After Election

After Trump won last week's election, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents now have a much more optimistic view of the U.S. economy's outlook than they did before the election. Just 16% of Republicans said the economy was getting better in the week before the election, while 81% said it was getting worse. Since the election, 49% say it is getting better and 44% worse.

The Last Jim Crow Generation loves Socialism for White People.

"Just voting their economic concerns," they said.
"Sincerely afraid for their personal finances," they said.

I'd rather be sailing
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:30 PM on November 28, 2016 [13 favorites]

So in today's meetings, we have Petraeus, about whom Trump just tweeted: "Just met with General Petraeus--was very impressed!" He pled guilty last year to mishandling classified information.

Followed by Sheriff David Clarke, who runs a jail where one inmate died of thirst this year in a death ruled a homicide, not to mention the newborn baby who died; the mother says prison staff ignored her labor.
posted by zachlipton at 1:31 PM on November 28, 2016 [24 favorites]

The gold standard?

Didn't J P Morgan try to organise a military coup using a fascist army to depose FDR over the US leaving the gold standard?

Why yes, yes he did.

Guess it's easier now. You don't actually need the coup, and the fascists are already in place.
posted by Devonian at 1:38 PM on November 28, 2016 [12 favorites]

Every single one of these picks so far has been genuinely bizarre. It's like they're intentionally trying to assert their ineptitude, gormless hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance. Petraeus?

If every person floated for a cabinet position is clearly incompetent, unqualified, or literally convicted of criminal mishandling of classified information, is there actually any recourse?
posted by aspersioncast at 1:43 PM on November 28, 2016 [14 favorites]

I am still uncomfortable with the fact that, when an elector votes against his/her state's will, a whole lot of presidential election voters have been effectively silenced.

The electoral college system means that they never actually did vote for the US President; they voted for electors. And just as the electoral college system benefited Trump in one respect (he won despite having less overall support than Clinton) it might equally disadvantage him in another respect: electors may decide to do their job and keep the lunatic out of office. You can't have one without the other, and if you're not concerned about the silencing of millions of voters who wanted Clinton, you shouldn't be concerned about the "whole lot" of voters who wanted Trump.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:45 PM on November 28, 2016 [14 favorites]

Of course we should take people's preferences seriously. The reality is a sizable number of Americans felt like we needed a completely incompetent racist, sexist asshole in the White House because they want a bully who will put their enemies in their place.

The reality is that the WWC likes their government benefits they just feel like other people are cutting in line and that Obama in particular was allowing huge numbers of people to bypass the system and start getting benefits while their friends and families struggle to get those benefits.

Yes a lot of that has to do with some of the states being way more generous or parsimonious than others but these people honestly feel like Obama was allowing Dreamers and Syrians to take precious benefits that should be going to them and their families.

They feel like they've followed the American promise "Work hard and your life and the lives of your families will get better" and that it's not living up to the promise and they are mad and frustrated about that and they want people like the Republican leadership to tell them it's not their fault. That it's the fault of minority X.

I think we all understand what is driving the white US electorate and it's a profound unease with the present and future and a desire to return to some mythical past where various people knew their place.

I think this is why a lot of PoC and other minority groups that have traditionally been given the short end of the stick are profoundly uneasy with the attempts to pander to the WWC because we've been there done that. The old New Deal coalition was built on northern labor interests and the needs of white supremacist south. The Current Republican coalition is built on Northern Capital Interests and the needs of a white supremacist south and potentially midwest. So when Democrats start talking about appealing to a white supremacist demographic by using economic populist rhetoric more than a few people start going "oh here we go again"
posted by vuron at 1:47 PM on November 28, 2016 [31 favorites]

Like where exactly are the checks and balances on presidential appointments sitting right now? Is the assumption that the Senate will simply approve of ingrates like Giuliani simply because they're Republican?
posted by aspersioncast at 1:47 PM on November 28, 2016

> If every person floated for a cabinet position is clearly incompetent, unqualified, or literally convicted of criminal mishandling of classified information, is there actually any recourse?

The law, as always, is the law as implemented rather than the law as written.

As such, the question you have to ask is whether or not a majority of the members of the House of Representatives takes offense at any of this. If yes, then impeachment is the recourse. If not, then there is no recourse.

Which is to say, there is no recourse.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:48 PM on November 28, 2016 [7 favorites]

After Trump won last week's election, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents now have a much more optimistic view of the U.S. economy's outlook than they did before the election. Just 16% of Republicans said the economy was getting better in the week before the election, while 81% said it was getting worse. Since the election, 49% say it is getting better and 44% worse.


Good time to go short.
posted by srboisvert at 1:48 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

If every person floated for a cabinet position is clearly incompetent, unqualified, or literally convicted of criminal mishandling of classified information, is there actually any recourse?

The GOP Senate.

None of them actually like Trump. We have to flood them with calls to put country before party and join the democrats in rejecting unqualified candidates.

Mattis for secdef, Romney for state, Summers for treasury, et cetera.

They can be right wingers. But they have to be qualified right wingers, with a spine, and with at least some respect from the democrats.
posted by ocschwar at 1:48 PM on November 28, 2016 [10 favorites]

And if a standoff build over this, the existing cabinet can be invited to invoke the 25th amendment.
posted by ocschwar at 1:50 PM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

The resigning elector wrote a fairly long post about his decision. I think it's hard to deny that he is taking this seriously and thought hard about his decision. If more people took the process as seriously as he seems to be taking it, it would work better.
posted by prefpara at 1:50 PM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

I would like to see a reporter interview Trump and say " You don't really expect to believe you are not a bald...[big pause] faced liar".
posted by srboisvert at 1:53 PM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

That said, he does seem to value his own moral purity more than he values even an infinitesimal chance to save America from a horrifying scumbag so...
posted by prefpara at 1:56 PM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

So, a Bill Clinton Administration-affiliated candidate is likely to be beaten in the Electoral College, despite winning the national popular vote, by a Way Less Qualified, born-rich phoney-baloney "regular guy," with iffy-at-best business cred, and a green-party possible-spoiler snafu is in-the-mix.

Yuuuuup.
posted by Cookiebastard at 1:57 PM on November 28, 2016 [13 favorites]

I am still uncomfortable with the fact that, when an elector votes against his/her state's will, a whole lot of presidential election voters have been effectively silenced.

Eh, that horse has already left the barn. In all but two states right now, Every single electoral vote is awarded to one person, no matter how close the actual vote count is. In many swing states (Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, etc), Trump won with less than 50% of the overall vote, and within 1-2% of Clinton. Yet he receives 100% of the electoral votes for those states. Can you really say that is the "will of the state"? How is than not silencing the nearly half of voters in the state who went for Clinton? Disenfranchisement is baked into the system, one way or another.
posted by Roommate at 1:57 PM on November 28, 2016 [42 favorites]

Clarke in the DHS is double plus ungood
posted by angrycat at 1:58 PM on November 28, 2016

Sanders lost the primary to Clinton. By 3.7 million votes.
Clinton "lost" the general election, but won the popular vote by 2 million votes.

To claim that Sanders would have done even better against Trump than Clinton in the general election through some sort of paper-rock-scissors logic is silly (and also done to death in these threads).

This reasoning does not make sense. Registered Democrats and any other Democratic primary voters are not a representative subset of the voters in the general election. It wasn't a very controversial argument that for instance, Huntsman may well have outperformed Romney in the general even though he underperformed him in the 2012 Republican primary, in both cases because he appealed more to centrists.

We have very little concrete evidence either for or against Sanders outperforming Clinton vs. Trump. This is especially true because of the unpredictability of this cycle and because of the additional wrench-in-the-system of the Electoral College, which means not only the number of votes but also their spatial distribution are of key importance; after all, as you point out, Trump did not need to win more votes than Clinton in order to win the presidency.

Indeed, this has all been done to death already, but I think it's also unfair to drop inaccurate "proofs" like this in one sentence and then pre-emptively chide people for responding.
posted by en forme de poire at 2:09 PM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

I have faith in them too, but I also think millions of Americans voted for Donald Trump just because he had an 'R' by his name, so I have to agree that leftist politics are a boutique issue at this point.

And two million plus more Americans voted for the most progressive Democratic platform ever.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:13 PM on November 28, 2016 [12 favorites]

the epistemology of ignorance

I think this is on Kevin Drum's resume tho
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:21 PM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

My conclusions:

One dimension of racism appears to have an active to passive-aggressive axis.

Donald's actions overall seem to be informed by the Art of War & Norman Vincent Peale as major philosophies.
posted by ZeusHumms at 2:24 PM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

In a different world, the first thing that Trump will do after Dec. 15 is to make a long, Howard Beale-esque harangue assaulting the state of American democracy, covering everything that brought his rise in the primaries to his victory in the general election. He would name names and list the sins of the system and the voters that brought him here on his platform, and lack thereof. After announcing that he is resigning, he would end with, "...The Aristocrats!"
posted by Apocryphon at 2:27 PM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

a national moment of mourning for our self-respect following the very dumb thing we all did

F that. Trump voters broke it, and they can figure it out (but probably won't). What's the Klingon ceremony for being excommunicated? That's what is happening to anyone I know who supported Hitl-,er, Trump. I'll help fill sandbags when the deluge comes, but we're done with the chit-chat talky talky.
posted by petebest at 2:29 PM on November 28, 2016 [10 favorites]

David Friedman, Trump's Israel advisor, everyone (Haaretz link is an annoying-to-bypass paywalled profile of him, but the last paragraph is something special):

Friedman has, on various occasions during the campaign, been asked to respond to charges of anti-Semitism among Trump supporters. He has largely dismissed these allegations, insisting that hatred of Jews is far more prevalent among the Left.

Friedman delivered a particularly scathing attack on The New York Times, after a tape recently surfaced in which Trump was caught boasting about sexually assaulting women. “The New York Times ran with the story with all the journalistic integrity of the worst gossip rag,” Friedman wrote in a column in The Jerusalem Post. “If only the Times had reported on the Nazi death camps with the same fervor as its failed last-minute attempt to conjure up alleged victims of Donald Trump, imagine how many lives could have been saved."

posted by zachlipton at 2:31 PM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

" . . . The Kakistocrats!"
posted by aspersioncast at 2:31 PM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

Maybe this isn't because they don't understand that structural white supremacy is a thing that hurts non-white people, but instead because they think that their flavor of racism is, unlike white-hood racism, genuinely acceptable — regardless of who it hurts.

This is correct. Things like "structural racism" or even the word "systemic" is PC liberal academic talk and hearing the very words causes them to tune out. Whites are poor too, you see! Racism happens against white people too, you see! Mentioning intersectionality induces nothing but an eyeroll or a blank stare.

I saw the movie Arrival this weekend and there's a scene where [not a spoiler] Jeremy Renner, a physicist, is going on about how he's super eager to ask the aliens about how their technology and Amy Adams is like, "whoa there, lets learn how to actually communicate with them before we start throwing them calculus questions" (or something along those lines). Trying to get your common right-leaning person to understand something like structural racism is like trying to discuss calculus equations with an alien who only speaks bleep-blorp.

I was talking to a conservative leaning guy at a party who "held his nose and voted for Clinton" who very genuinely believed - growing up in NYC - he has seen more "racism" from black people toward Asians and whites. He swears this is his experience growing up in Queens. To him, racism = being mean to a person based on bigoted views toward other races, and not much else. So any attempt to convince him that white supremacy is a real thing was to basically deny him his own experiences growing up, and this became kind of infuriating to him. There are millions of people like this guy.

But who has time for a giant history lesson? Do you walk around with printouts of "A Case for Reparations" and hand it to them like, listen, I don't talk about racism with anyone until you've read this - bye.
posted by windbox at 2:33 PM on November 28, 2016 [22 favorites]

That said, he does seem to value his own moral purity more than he values even an infinitesimal chance to save America from a horrifying scumbag so...

The same can be said for every "progressive" who couldn't bring themselves to vote for Clinton. (except for the infinitesimal part)
posted by rocket88 at 2:35 PM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

This afternoon my wife and I were talking about this awful mess, and she said (paraphrasing) "If there were *any* justice or karma in this universe, at the very, *very* least Trump wouldn't get *everything* he wants," and the first thing that popped into my head was the "Cartmanland" episode of South Park.

I think a lot of people (including myself) feel like Kyle did in that episode, but if things go the way for Trump the way they did for Cartman we will all suffer, not just Cartman/Trump.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:40 PM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

A gem from future AG Sessions. Source later in tweet thread.

@jessicaesquire:
Money quote: Sessions called inclusion of disabled students “the single most irritating problem for teachers throughout America today.”
posted by chris24 at 2:45 PM on November 28, 2016 [14 favorites]

Listening to Keith Olbermann shout about how Trump is "manifestly, profoundly and dangerously insane" and "not psychologically fit to assume the Presidency" is probably unlikely to make you feel any better, but that's a thing you hear now if you'd like.
posted by zachlipton at 2:46 PM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

I saw the movie Arrival this weekend and there's a scene where [not a spoiler]

I would consider that comment and the follow up a spoiler, please don't spoil movies here, thanks.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 2:49 PM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

We could all use a bit of good news: Roy Cooper's lead grows in North Carolina. I hope this means McCrory's re-election bid goes down the toilet once and for all.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 2:58 PM on November 28, 2016 [21 favorites]

The Atlantic Trump Excuses the White Working Class From the Politics of Personal Responsibility

It struck me as I was reading J.D. Vance’s beautiful memoir about his Appalachian upbringing, Hillbilly Elegy. What makes Vance’s book so striking is not the problems he describes: deindustrialization, drug addiction, single motherhood, a definition of masculinity that inhibits academic achievement. William Julius Wilson and Charles Murray made their reputations dissecting these ills 30 years ago. What makes Vance’s book so arresting is that the people he’s describing are white.[...]

Trump never speaks this way. In fact, he speaks less about personal responsibility than any Republican presidential nominee since Reagan. He’s the anti-J.D. Vance. Vance wants blue-collar whites to blame multinational corporations less for their woes. Trump blames them more than any Republican nominee ever has. Vance cautions that government can’t save Appalachia. Trump, by promising a crackdown on immigrants and outsourcing, vows that it will.

This is the real shift Trump is bringing to the GOP. Under Reagan, Republicans demanded personal responsibility from African Americans and ignored the same cultural problems when displayed by whites. Under Trump, Republicans acknowledge that whites exhibit those same pathologies. Trump, for instance, spoke frequently during the campaign about drug addiction in white, rural states like New Hampshire. But instead of demanding personal responsibility, Trump’s GOP promises state protection. Unlike Vance, who speaks about his poor white neighbors in the way Reagan-era conservatives spoke about poor blacks, Trump-era conservatives describe the white working class as the victims of political and economic forces beyond their control.

posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 2:58 PM on November 28, 2016 [27 favorites]

I think "racism" is like selfishness, a terrible part of human nature that affects us all sometimes whether we realize it or not, though we try to avoid it. We're all guilty of banal kinds of selfishness, not giving as much to charity as we could, etc. And most of us are guilty of banal racism too, being more likely to vote for people of our own race on American Idol, or whatever. But then there are the KKK members, the Nazis, the alt-right trolls. They are racist in the way that a mugger is selfish. Openly, unrepentantly, shamelessly, destructively, malevolently racist.

In those terms I guess structural racism is like the structural greed of laissez faire capitalism. The white collar criminal or the privatize-the-profits/socialize-the-losses Wall Street robber baron robs people as surely as the mugger does, but it's a less visceral threat. Both the greedy capitalist and the mugger are selfish, taking what doesn't belong to them, but they are selfish in different ways. The red-lining banker is racist in a different way than the cross-burning KKK member, but still racist.

For white people, who can sort of imagine the visceral fear of finding a burning cross on their lawn, it can be hard, I think, to imagine the more abstract damage of getting turned down for a loan because of your race... so that you never get your own lawn in the first place. Just like people are more afraid of muggers than of Bernie Madoff, even though Madoff took a lot more from his victims than the average mugger does.

Theft is theft and racism is racism, but I sort of wish we had names for the different types and categories of racism (like the apocryphal "100 words for snow") so that more white people (like my own family) could understand what we're talking about. I guess we're starting to. "Implicit bias" "Structural racism" "hate crimes"... Cross burning is racist, red-lining is racist, but they are racist in different ways. In particular, structural racism always benefits white people in the way that laissez fair capitalism always benefits rich people. But poor people can be muggers and minorities can commit hate crimes.

It seems like a useful analogy to me. I've been trying to use it to explain what liberals mean when they talk about "racism" to conservatives in my life who think it can only mean the cross-burning kind.
posted by OnceUponATime at 3:02 PM on November 28, 2016 [17 favorites]

bmaz @ emptywheel: The Stein Recount Needle and the Damage Done

If this effort involved intelligent and targeted meaningful “audits” of voting in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, that would truly yield the data we need to answer a variety of questions, I would agree wholeheartedly. But that is not what is afoot here via Stein. These are rote last second “recounts”, likely through the same tabulation mechanisms originally used, and are almost guaranteed to produce the same results, give or take minuscule deviation.

In fact, as close as I can discern from reportage, even in Stein’s first state, Wisconsin, to perform a truly different full hand count analysis requires leave of a court. And it is hard to see leave of court being given without a substantive evidentiary basis being proffered, of which there is, of course, none to date. In Pennslyvania, the outlook is no better, and arguably even more lame and adverse. That is before we ever get to Michigan, which the last second for Stein is Wednesday.

There are a lot of truly intelligent and proper purposes for all Americans, and currently Democrats, to want to test and audit the vote in this country. It is that important, and that germane to our democracy.

By the same token, it is also too important to be driven by a crass vanity project at the last second by a bit player glomming on for self promotion. This is the lifeblood of American plebiscite and democracy, and we deserve better.

But the current action is not just a curiosity that “can’t hurt” or that is suddenly necessary to react to some idiotic tweet by Trump. The stakes are higher than that. Stein’s effort is ill advised, ill counseled legally, ill targeted, ill executed and ill timed by every metric I can see.

My PA election official coworker confirmed that the PA "recounts" are likely to just be repeats of the tabulations that occurred on election nights, and unlikely to return a significant deviation from those returns.
posted by tonycpsu at 3:02 PM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

Final uncalled race: SAN DIEGO (AP) — California Republican Congressman Darrell Issa narrowly wins re-election.

Which means we will hearing more about how the US needs to privatize the US Postal Service.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 3:04 PM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm not caught up on the thread yet -- because when someone requested a bot upthread I immediately stopped reading and created this one . Do not worry that it shows 4 posts in a short time. That was testing. Now it is scheduled to run once an hour and about half the posts will tag The Donald.

Thanks for giving me a reason to experiment with making a bot. This is fun!
posted by litlnemo at 3:13 PM on November 28, 2016 [40 favorites]

That's really cool litlnemo. Anyway to add commas to the numbers?
posted by ian1977 at 3:15 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Allison also suggested that the government's practice of insuring bank deposits up to $250,000 should be abolished

This is... I mean, god, that's criminally insane, right there. He wants people who are customers of banks that fuck up to lose all of their money without recourse. That's just malicious.

I'm no economist, but this sounds like it would be Very Bad for the economy, even for rich assholes like Trump. Won't that cause runs on banks and violence and oh look it's the 1930s again.

Better go withdraw my funds and put them in a can under the bed.
posted by emjaybee at 3:16 PM on November 28, 2016 [7 favorites]

@KellyannePolls 306. Landslide. Blowout. Historic.

@NateSilver538 Actually way below average for a winner's total: 1984—525 1980—489 1988—426 1996—379 1992—370 2008—365 2012—332 *2016—306* 2004—286 2000—271

I was struck by Conway's remark this morning about the Romney kerfuffle-- she said that she spoke out on the Sunday Morning shows against Romney as "a concerned citizen." Huh. She didn't get asked on those shows to give her view as a concerned citizen, she was asked to give her views as The POETUS's spokesperson. She really is in her own way an amateur and loose cannon. I had hoped never to hear from her again after the election but it looks like she is going to continue on as a stone in our collective shoe. #ThanksTrump
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 3:17 PM on November 28, 2016 [16 favorites]

Not to make this an ask.me, but could anyone with actual knowledge recommend some good resources on gold standard vs current monetary policy. I don't know why a gold standard would be a bad thing. My son asked about it, because it got raised in his AP social studies class, but I don't know enough to intelligently discuss it.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 3:18 PM on November 28, 2016

In fact, as close as I can discern from reportage, even in Stein’s first state, Wisconsin, to perform a truly different full hand count analysis requires leave of a court. And it is hard to see leave of court being given without a substantive evidentiary basis being proffered, of which there is, of course, none to date.

Wouldn't the precincts with the padded numbers be considered evidence?
posted by furtive_jackanapes at 3:18 PM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

I hadn't realized that this was a Tim Kaine position.

He introduced this legislation giving explicit authorization for use of force against ISIS with important limitations in 2014. It went nowhere of course, but it's not a new issue for him.
posted by peeedro at 3:21 PM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

> She really is in her own way an amateur and loose cannon.

It's unclear how much of her attack on Romney is orchestrated vs. freelancing behavior. She may be trying to push Trump in a certain direction, or she might be acting on behalf of the campaign to publicly ridicule him for his attacks during the campaign.
posted by tonycpsu at 3:22 PM on November 28, 2016

> Wouldn't the precincts with the padded numbers be considered evidence?
posted by furtive_jackanapes at 3:18 PM on November 28 [+] [!]

Does anyone have a better source for this? This Palmer Report thing does not seem like a real site to me.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:25 PM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

What other crazy ideas can they come up with?

Paying immigrants to stay in their own country?

Ending taxation for public services (like firefighters )?

That they should let go the entire national guard because Americas the Greatest?

Restarting prohibition?

Criminalizing nongmo crops?

Advocating for homeopathic medicine because cost?

Death panels?

Banning books on the national level?

Hunger games?
posted by AlexiaSky at 3:25 PM on November 28, 2016

SecretAgentSockPuppet, Atlantic article on why the gold standard is a super bad idea.
posted by emjaybee at 3:26 PM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

Ian, about the commas in the bot tweets -- I don't know, maybe later when I have some time to look into it more. I'm feeding it commas but they are getting stripped out.
posted by litlnemo at 3:28 PM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Banning books on the national level?

I know it sounds like an overreaction, but I have been very glad I kept my paper books and didn't have anything much on Kindle. In fact I'm going to buy some more basic reference texts and other things I want to have access to. Because if you wanted to ban e-books, it would be trivially easy. Or worse, censor parts of them or change them without notice.

Maybe it's complete paranoia on my part, but we are dealing with paranoid people with no respect for freedom of the press. Or education.
posted by emjaybee at 3:30 PM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

The Palmer thing links to a local ABC affiliate, Palmer's conclusions are his own.
posted by furtive_jackanapes at 3:32 PM on November 28, 2016

E-books are easier to distribute and hide than paper, generally, so I wouldn't go abandoning them just yet. Kindle isn't all of e-books, as much as they'd want you to think that.
posted by ODiV at 3:34 PM on November 28, 2016 [8 favorites]

I read this article in the Washington Post this morning and it really stuck in my head:

A single chart everybody needs to look at before Trump’s big fight over bringing back American jobs

The relationship between factories and workers has changed over the past decades, and it’s unlikely to go back. Over the past 35 years, the United States shed about 7 million manufacturing jobs. And some industries, such as textiles and apparel, have disappeared almost entirely.

Yet American factories actually make more stuff than they ever have, and at a lower cost. Manufacturing accounts for more than a third of U.S. economic output — making it the largest sector of the economy. From that perspective, it’s hard to argue that American manufacturing today is anything but a success.

The issue is that the fortunes of factories themselves and of manufacturing workers have diverged, as Muro’s chart below shows. U.S. factories now manufacture twice as much as they did in 1984, with one-third fewer workers, according to the Federal Reserve.[...]

The economics are unavoidable and irreversible. Although a human welder may earn $25 an hour, a robot welder costs around $8 an hour over a five-year period, according to estimates from the Boston Consulting Group. The group projects that the cost could fall to as little as $2 an hour within 15 years.

My husband and I kicked this around all day. Good reasons to use robots: no need for benefits, don't need time off for lunch or visit to the dentist, no need for OSHA, will work at full capacity all hours of the day, will not make mistakes. Good reason to use humans: they can take over other stations or jobs quickly, they don't need a power supply, do not need a large initial investment.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 3:39 PM on November 28, 2016 [21 favorites]

Shadi Hamid @ Foreign Policy compares Trump to Islamist democratic movements and the search for greater meaning in politics: "The End of the End of History"

His rallies were more like faith-based festivals. This wasn’t politics as an end — it was politics as a means to something else, although I wasn’t quite sure what. But I did know that I had seen it before.

The differences between ethno-nationalist parties, such as Trump’s new Republicans, and religious parties are of course numerous, which makes the similarities all the more glaring. There is the same sense of victimization, real and imagined, at the hands of an entrenched elite, coupled with an acute sense of loss. In both cases, the leader of the movement is seen as the embodiment of the national will, representing “the people.”

The overlap between Trumpism and Islamism is no coincidence. In my book Islamic Exceptionalism, which discusses Islam’s tensions with liberalism and liberal democracy, I argue that some public role for religion is necessary in religiously conservative societies. Religion, unlike secular nationalism or socialism, can provide a common language and a kind of asabiyya — a 14th-century Arabic term coined by the historian Ibn Khaldun meaning roughly “group consciousness.” Asabiyya was needed to bind states together, providing cohesion and shared purpose.

In less religious or “post-Christian” societies, a mainstream Christianity is no longer capable of providing the necessary group identity. But that doesn’t mean other ideas won’t fill the vacuum. In other words, be careful what you wish for: An America where religion plays less of a role isn’t necessarily a better one, if what replaces religion is white nativism.

Whether it’s nativism, European-style ethno-nationalism, or, in the case of the Middle East, Islamism, the thread that connects these disparate experiments is similar: the flailing search for a politics of meaning. The ideologies might seem incoherent or hollow, but they all aspire to some sort of social solidarity, anchoring public life in sharply defined identities. During the Arab Spring, for instance, the Muslim Brotherhood hoped, at least in the long run, to transform Egypt into a kind of missionary state.

The essence of politics then isn’t just, or even primarily, about improving citizens’ quality of life — it’s about directing their energies toward moral, philosophical, or ideological ends. When the state entrusts itself with a cause — whether based around religion or ethnic identity — citizens are no longer individuals pursuing their own conception of the good life; they are part of a larger brotherhood, entrusted with a mission to reshape society. (How can your revamped cap-and-trade proposal compete with that?)

[...] It could prove a definitive rebuke to what liberal democracy had, contrary to the intent of its originators, become — the kind of center-left managerial technocracy that was as uninspiring as it was unthreatening.

This techno-liberalism could, to be sure, improve people’s lives by nudging and tinkering around the margins. But aside from the “poetry” of periodic moments like Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign, it offered only the prose of technocratic policy — prose that could become its own kind of faith, offering certainty and even a sense of identity, but primarily directed at elites and wonks who believed that the future of politics was in finding the right “facts.” These facts, objective and unimpeachable, would aid in the slow work of, say, refining a flawed universal health-care system and getting Wall Street to behave a little bit better. For everyone else, it failed to offer a substantive politics of meaning: Hillary Clinton was smart and experienced, and that was good enough for me, but I always struggled to explain to skeptics what all of this was really for.

I am not a beneficiary of white privilege, but I am privileged, in that I am part of a cosmopolitan “elite” that liked, and even loved, what we thought America had become: more open, multicultural, and respectful of an individual’s decision to lead whatever life he or she wanted. A Hillary Clinton presidency meant protecting those progressive gains.

But why would others who don’t look like me, share my experiences, or relate to me believe in some variation of the status quo — of another four years of deepening gains, which, by and large, had little to do with them? Humans need to belong, and so we gravitate toward in-groups of like-minded people. In my case, those like-minded people are of different races and religions, but we share a culture, lifestyle, and a sensibility. We were moved by the kind of joyous diversity on display at the Democratic National Convention. In those images, I could recognize the America that I knew and perhaps the only America I hoped to know.

But most members of the so-called and now somewhat clichéd “white working class” relate to each other more than they could ever relate to me. They see me as different, in part because I am. Is this a kind of nativism? Maybe. But, ultimately, my politics are just as motivated by identity and culture as theirs.

The decline of Christianity in the United States has left an ideological vacuum, and for many, perhaps most, modern liberalism is just a bit too boring to fill the gap. Or, to put it differently, it doesn’t provide the existential meaning that they want and even crave.

In his seminal essay “The End of History?” the political scientist Francis Fukuyama grappled with the victory of liberal democracy. He wrote that “the struggle for recognition, the willingness to risk one’s life for a purely abstract goal, the worldwide ideological struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism, will be replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns, and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands.”

But Fukuyama was ambivalent about this, instinctively recognizing liberal democracy’s inherent weakness before most. He ended his article on a prescient if now somewhat terrifying note: “Perhaps this very prospect of centuries of boredom at the end of history will serve to get history started once again.”

Please, please read this essay.
posted by Apocryphon at 3:46 PM on November 28, 2016 [46 favorites]

i strip the copy protection and back up all my e-books.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 3:51 PM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

(not to derail, but a quick comment -- I fixed the commas thingy. As far as I can tell. :) )
posted by litlnemo at 3:54 PM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

In the wake of the election, some American conservatives are soul-searching as much as American liberals are. Building off of Hamid's thesis-

Jennifer Rubin @ WashPo: "An American renaissance in a nonideological time"

If “conservatism” has shriveled and populism is ethically and intellectually hollow, what replaces it? Millions of people who voted for President Obama twice went for now-President-elect Trump. A GOP convulsed over conservative one upmanship went for the candidate with no ideology at all. It’s not political abstraction but the search for recognition, a sense of belonging that is at the root of most political movements, and that’s where we will find the alternative to scary or anachronistic right-leaning politics.

[...] Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the best spokesman on the right for civic values has, heralded “bedrock” or “foundational” values:

The ones we all want our children and our grandchildren to embrace, like personal responsibility, resilience, empathy, teamwork, family, faith. We all know that those values have weakened and it is essential that we come together and restore them. And I think what some people miss–don’t deal with just the symptoms, deal with the problem. Restoring these values will allow us to have greater courage, to confront greed, to confront frustration, to confront alienation — to protect those values.

It is about re-establishing a sense of community even as (or, especially as) globalism accelerates. In practice that means we have to help others navigate in a confusing, dangerous and complex world. To do that a new political movement would say:

* Character and rationality can be fostered and cultivated with empathy, tolerance and an appreciation of our responsibilities to one another;
* The international liberal order that has existed for 70-plus years (at times unilaterally and at times with willing democracies) can preserve peace and promote prosperity; and
* Individual dignity and self-expression are best achieved within a social contract that offers ample education, social stability and security so as to allow as many people as possible to succeed.

This means rebuilding international institutions to reduce conflict and increase stability (a strong U.S. military, alliances that protect sovereignty, etc.) and enhancing domestic institutions (families, neighborhoods, crony-free government and schools) that maximize chances for success. Ordered liberty — perhaps “humane liberty” — is what we are after. The right has focused almost exclusively on the “liberty” part, which too often sounds like the rich-get-richer and the poor are “free” to be poor. Far more important are the “ordered” and “humane” parts, which the rich take for granted and which provide everyone else with traction to traverse their lives.

In sum, it is not self-evident that “conservatism” matters anymore. Investing in human capital and basic science; lessening human isolation and addiction; reforming big bureaucracies and anti-poverty programs certainly matter. Above that, connectedness matters in a confusing modern world, more so than ever before. It is not unreasonable to think as the left mimics Europe’s social democratic parties and the right morphs into the national front-type parties that the equivalent of Christian democratic parties would emerge in American politics.

posted by Apocryphon at 3:54 PM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

Matt Karp in Jacobin: Fairfax County, USA
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 3:54 PM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

Mod note: Heya- Quick note, some folks have asked that people post only shorter excerpts from articles in these megathreads; just something to be conscious of. (More discussion here.)
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 3:57 PM on November 28, 2016 [7 favorites]

Remember when national politicians were making fun of Alex Jones and not using him as a source

Good times
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:05 PM on November 28, 2016 [12 favorites]

An important little tweetstorm from Elliott Lusztig:

1. Hannah Arendt in her book The Origin of Totalitarianism provides a helpful guide for interpreting the language of fascists.
2. She noted how decent liberals of 1930s Germany would "fact check" the Nazis' bizarre claims about Jews like they were meant to be factual
3. What they failed to understand, Arendt suggests, is that the Nazi Jew hating was not a statement of fact but a declaration of intent.
4. So when someone would blame the Jews for Germany's defeat in WW1, naive people would counter by saying there's no evidence of that.
5. What the Nazis were doing was not describing what was true, but what would have to be true to justify what they planned to do next.
6. Did 3 million "illegals" cast votes in this election? Clearly not. But fact checking is just a way of playing along with their game
7. What Trump is saying is not that 3m illegals voted. What he's saying is: I'm going to steal the voting rights of millions of Americans.

Standing there helpfully fact checking nonsense has not proved to be helpful. If this was an effective tactic, the Washington Post's Pinocchio meter would have ensured the public knew that Trump wasn't qualified to operate a garbage disposal. It didn't work. I don't have a clue what's going to be effective, but having the same voices Trump voters already don't trust going "that's wrong" isn't it.
posted by zachlipton at 4:11 PM on November 28, 2016 [158 favorites]

GSA's Trump Hotel Lease Debacle

The Post Office Lease differs from many of Mr. Trump’s other business arrangements. That’s because, in writing the contract, the federal and D.C. governments determined, in advance, that elected officials could play no role in this lease arrangement. The contract language is clear: “No ... elected official of the Government of the United States ... shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom...”

The language could not be any more specific or clear. Donald Trump will breach the contract on Jan. 20, when, while continuing to benefit from the lease, he will become an “elected official of the Government of the United States.”

posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:26 PM on November 28, 2016 [39 favorites]

I am not a huge fan of Shadi Hamid, but here's a great discussion of his book.

The Election was Stolen – Here’s How…
Before a single vote was cast, the election was fixed by GOP and Trump operatives.

Starting in 2013 – just as the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act – a coterie of Trump operatives, under the direction of Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State, created a system to purge 1.1 million Americans of color from the voter rolls of GOP–controlled states.

posted by Golden Eternity at 4:28 PM on November 28, 2016 [7 favorites]

Politico Roger Stone: Clinton more likely to face prosecution after recount

Again offering no evidence, Stone told Steve Malzberg that “we have to presume” that the money funding the Stein campaign’s call for a recount is from billionaire donor George Soros or from Clinton, who lost the White House to Trump this month in a major upset.

“Now Hillary, I think, increases her chances of prosecution by acting this way,” Stone concluded.

I don't know what the relationship is these days between Stone and Trump but this fits in with Conway's veiled threats.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:31 PM on November 28, 2016 [7 favorites]

I thought the Jacobin article linked a few comments up was very much worth reading, thanks for posting that.
posted by cell divide at 4:34 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Programming note: Chris Christie will be making a "press announcement" at 11:30 (Eastern, I presume) Tuesday. The event was initially described as a "press conference."

We used to pack popcorn back when we could pretend that this vaguely resembled something funny. What food do we pack for the horror show?
posted by zachlipton at 4:34 PM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Jamelle Bouie: Jesse Jackson's campaigns offer a road map for Democrats in crisis: Against a political movement that defines America in exclusionary and racial terms—as a white country for white people—a renewed Rainbow Coalition is the only defense worth making.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 4:37 PM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

Maybe there is no solution. Maybe there are no actionable takeaways. Maybe we lost years ago. Maybe we broke it all back in 2000. Maybe we just have to cross our fingers and put our dreams in cold storage. Maybe Americans are, on the whole, genuinely no-foolin' bad.

I do not have enough alcohol on hand for this bleak analysis.
posted by corb at 4:47 PM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

We used to pack popcorn back when we could pretend that this vaguely resembled something funny. What food do we pack for the horror show?

Bourbon.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:47 PM on November 28, 2016 [19 favorites]

Kellyanne Conway just tweeted a photo of Trump and her "working late tonight" (dude, it's not even 8pm). He's using a Mac (or at least looking at something on one).

And has an improper number of hats on his desk (0 would be the proper number). Both his in and out boxes are utterly empty and he seems to have multiple copies of the documentary Citizen Soldier, along with a copy of Time magazine with his face on the cover (I think we found the last subscriber). There's also some kind of box next to his telephone; it's unclear to me whether that's an intercom, encryption device, or something else entirely.
posted by zachlipton at 4:47 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

What food do we pack for the horror show?

Meatloaf made out of Chris Christie?

There's a Rocky Horror Picture Show joke in there somewhere...
posted by Talez at 4:48 PM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Allison also suggested that the government's practice of insuring bank deposits up to $250,000 should be abolished

This is... I mean, god, that's criminally insane, right there. He wants people who are customers of banks that fuck up to lose all of their money without recourse. That's just malicious.
-Pope Guilty

Not to mention that it threatens the stability of the entire retail banking system. Deposit insurance is why most Americans are unfamiliar with the term "bank run". I guess we're about to reacquaint ourselves with it the hard way.
posted by indubitable at 4:48 PM on November 28, 2016 [10 favorites]

Politico GOP eyes best chance in years to defund Planned Parenthood

Eliminating Planned Parenthood's approximately $550 million in federal funding — most of it through Medicaid — would be abortion opponent's most tangible victory since 2007, when the Supreme Court upheld a ban on so-called partial birth abortions.

That would mean low-income women in Medicaid wouldn't be able to go to Planned Parenthood for cancer screenings, contraception or other health services unrelated to abortion. Republicans say they will redirect the funding that would have gone to Planned Parenthood to community health centers, which do not provide abortion.

posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:48 PM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

>> Maybe there is no solution. Maybe there are no actionable takeaways. Maybe we lost years ago. Maybe we broke it all back in 2000. Maybe we just have to cross our fingers and put our dreams in cold storage. Maybe Americans are, on the whole, genuinely no-foolin' bad.

> I do not have enough alcohol on hand for this bleak analysis.

so I'm torn between wanting to say "welcome to the desert of the real" and wanting to say "metafilter: I do not have enough alcohol on hand for this bleak analysis."
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:51 PM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

About those "padded" votes.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:51 PM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Not to mention that it threatens the stability of the entire retail banking system. Deposit insurance is why most Americans are unfamiliar with the term "bank run". I guess we're about to reacquaint ourselves with it the hard way.

You forgot the second half. Changing back to gold money will also let us experience the panics of 18XX (pick a fucking year, the economy was either in one or recovering from one). Just like in the old days!
posted by Talez at 4:51 PM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

Trump has a smaller percent of the vote than all but 7 presidents. Those 7 each faced a major 3rd party candidate (6 of whom won at least a state, the 7th was Perot). Trump did not face one. So he's basically the smallest winner.

WaPo: Donald Trump’s political mandate is historically small
posted by chris24 at 4:53 PM on November 28, 2016 [20 favorites]

a renewed Rainbow Coalition is the only defense worth making.

Or a patchwork quilt.

General Petraeus discusses the challenges President-elect Trump will inherit and how US foreign policy might change.

When asked whether it is significant that the US' traditional foes are cheering and its allies are bemused and dismayed by the election result, Petraeus says, "it's not the most welcome of developments" but that American democracy has been robust over the years and the US has seen more divisive politics in the past.
...
He says the battle for Mosul isn't a disaster. It is "unfolding as a textbook example of urban combat where there is a very high degree of sensitivity to damage, to innocent civilians." Demographically-speaking, Mosul lies in "very complex human terrain", and the biggest challenge will come after the battle, Petraeus says.

Thank you, David Patraeus.
posted by Golden Eternity at 4:55 PM on November 28, 2016

Kellyanne Conway just tweeted a photo of Trump and her "working late tonight"

Dog, I fucking hate these people.
posted by chaoticgood at 5:07 PM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

She didn't use the word late, to be fair. But he's totally trying to join Pantsuit Nation.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:08 PM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

A friendly reminder to please run links through the Search page to check for dupes.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:08 PM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

She didn't use the word late, to be fair. But he's totally trying to join Pantsuit Nation.

Oh crud. It does seem to say "working hard." I swear I read it as "working late." Sorry for the misquote.
posted by zachlipton at 5:25 PM on November 28, 2016

Apparently they're both white, and possibly working class?
The Election Has Revealed One Thing Gwyneth Paltrow and Slavoj Žižek Have in Common
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:31 PM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Charles Pierce: Recount? Why Not. This election is more than sketchy enough to warrant it.

All of Trump's Current Problems Can Be Summed Up in One Word: Corruption.
posted by homunculus at 5:35 PM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

Media critic Jack Shafer's got The New Rules for Covering Trump.

He's fairly strongly on what I'll call Team "Trump intentionally tweets outrageous stuff to distract people from negative stories," a contention Art of the Deal ghostwriter Tony Schwartz rejects: "Trump tweeting recklessly and inaccurately is not a political choice he is making, but rather a psychological compulsion." But Shafer's broader points are to avoid feeding the troll with coverage of his tweets and to focus on the leaks that will pour out of the bureaucracies in government agencies instead of fishing for access from the White House.

In other news, Bloomberg has Paul Manafort Is Back. The King of K Street is ready for the new Washington.
posted by zachlipton at 5:47 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

> a contention Art of the Deal ghostwriter Tony Schwartz rejects: "Trump tweeting recklessly and inaccurately is not a political choice he is making, but rather a psychological compulsion."

Outcomes matter more than intent. His reckless and inaccurate tweets serve to muddy the waters and lower the bar for media expectations whether he's consciously trying to do so or not.
posted by tonycpsu at 5:48 PM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

The producers of Celebrity Deathmatch had already begun developing a "what if Trump became President" claymation show before he won the election. Now they're actively shopping "Prez" around the networks as "biting, satirical (and) aimed at viewers 16-35". (See sample frame from pitch reel here)
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:52 PM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's like a dark sequel to "That's My Bush!"
posted by drezdn at 5:57 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is some bleak gallows humor re Castro's death.
posted by prefpara at 5:57 PM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

Isn't the main point of the electoral college to put a buffer of educated, reasonable partisans between a potential con artist and a gullible electorate? Just because that function wasn't needed during the last 250 years is no reason that it's not needed this time.
posted by morspin at 5:59 PM on November 28, 2016 [21 favorites]

Whole bunch of different things:

"that someone could become President but actually have an allegiance to a foreign power. So they threw in the bit about the President needing to be a natural born citizen. How appropriate this remains seems unclear today."

I've thought for a while that we should amend the constitution to say to run for president you have to be a Natural-Born Citizen, or a (sole) US citizen for 35 years (possibly with a requirement they be resident in the country, or working abroad for the military or government, for 75% of the last 10 years or something). Nobody really wants to vote for presidents under about age 55 anyway, and a someone who immigrates as a child, or who makes a commitment to the US as a young adult, should have the opportunity to run for president at 50 or 55 or 60 or 65. Like, I have no personal desire to vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger, but that's a man who affirmatively chose the US as his home, contributed a lot as a private citizen, and served in government office for many years, and he's clearly as American as I am, and I firmly believe that whether he is qualified to be president (and weather his birth abroad matters) is a question properly put to the voters, who can decide for themselves if they care that he spent 20 years in Austria.

(Although Schwarzenegger didn't become a citizen until 1983 so under my scheme he wouldn't be eligible until 2018, but you get my drift.)

"This is correct. Things like "structural racism" or even the word "systemic" is PC liberal academic talk and hearing the very words causes them to tune out. Whites are poor too, you see! Racism happens against white people too, you see! Mentioning intersectionality induces nothing but an eyeroll or a blank stare."

Yeah, I completely agree with people above who said that a lot of folks on the right -- including the moderate right -- consider KKK stuff "racism" and recoil when structural racism is called "racism." However, if you can explain structural racism without using the world racism first, an awful lot of them are on board. But you're coming into communities where calling someone a racist is the H-bomb of conversation and it flatly ends discussion, so when you're like, "Your kindly suburban police department that works pretty well and that employs many of your friends is structurally racist," they just hear "racist" which means "KKK" and tune out completely. (And, yes, my patience level for white people who think being called racist is worse than being a victim of racism is at an all-time low, I am with you, but let's assume the goal is to be heard and understood at all costs.) Even just using the words "unconscious bias" can help; A LOT of centrist and religious right-wingers are willing to grant they have "unconscious bias" that, because they are not racists as they understand the term, they feel very guilty about having and would like to know how to combat! Once you find that common ground, you can say, "So when people talk about 'structural racism,' what they're really talking about is how that unconscious bias can influence institutions like police departments in a way that nobody intends but that can be really pernicious and unfair ..." Or you can talk about methods in hiring that combat that unconscious bias. Or whatever.

And we may be good leftists who embrace the less-fortunate and less-educated but there are a lot of lefties who absolutely use that academic language and in-depth knowledge as a weapon of social exclusion to patronize, mock, and exclude people who grew up in the "wrong" sorts of social milieus. Teaching community college in a post-industrial midwestern city anchoring a rural area (with many blue collar students and farm-family students and inner-city minority students), I all the time saw white teenaged socialists from the suburbs with two doctor parents using their language of social justice as a cudgel to exclude and put-down their classmates from disadvantaged groups. It wasn't a language of social justice for them; it was purely a marker of superior social status and education. We're not immune to assholes. So remember when you talk to people outside traditional leftist circles that they may very well have gotten their exposure to leftist ideas from jackasses using it as a way to exclude and patronize. You have to undo the harm before you can build bridges.

There are a lot of hella racists out there and I do not dispute that (and I no longer have time for the irredeemable, I leave that to their pastors). But there are a lot of moderate conservatives, religious conservatives, fiscal conservatives, etc., who agree with a lot of left-wing ideas when they are presented in language they can understand and identify with. As I said above, the marriage equality movement used this to their advantage in locating explicitly moral arguments to target persuadable right-wingers. Karl Rove and his ilk explicitly seek out language to target people in the same way. The left needs to have a part of its movement that is explicitly focused on those persuadable people on the right and on finding the right language and arguments to bridge those gaps. Not the WHOLE THING, not even the most important part, but you've got to have some folks who can "translate" your message, whether that's into other languages or other social milieus. Usually you've got that ONE GUY, like, I don't know, a radical Methodist pastor, who knows exactly how to talk to conservatives to get the message across. Have that guy go do that while the leadership focuses on the main thrust.

"Do you walk around with printouts of "A Case for Reparations" and hand it to them like, listen, I don't talk about racism with anyone until you've read this - bye. "

This is totally a legitimate option that I have totally employed with jerks.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:02 PM on November 28, 2016 [79 favorites]

I've been thinking a lot about how the DNC can lower the barrier to entry into local party participation and engagement. I feel like they need to roll out an app infrastructure, with an app to engage supporters at the base of it, putting people in direct communication with their local party for retail politics purposes as well as presenting people with actionable items that they can perform to help out. News, events, fundraising calls, volunteer opportunities both within the party and for the party to perform out helping the community (I really like what Mike McCurry supposedly said about the DNC presenting a face of volunteerism at the local level), surveys, phonebanking/texting tools, ways to share news items and social media posts, etc etc. And all the engagement with the supporters filters up through tools for media relations, fundraising, volunteer management, etc used by staffers and reps at the city, county, state and national level, to do high level analytics and develop strategies that can go right back down the chain. Imagine finding your next candidate in a district the old DNC would write off because you see that someone there is heavily engaged on the supporter level. Or being a neophyte local candidate with a cash-strapped skeleton crew local DNC office that doesn't get the benefit of highly experienced staff, and having all these tools at your fingertips to help you with your messaging and analytics and put you directly in touch with your voters, and give you a helpline to experienced reps and staffers and volunteers across the country. I would love to see something like that.
posted by jason_steakums at 6:05 PM on November 28, 2016 [30 favorites]

Outcomes matter more than intent. His reckless and inaccurate tweets serve to muddy the waters and lower the bar for media expectations whether he's consciously trying to do so or not.

Intent may not change the effect that they have, but understanding the intent is critical to pushing back usefully. People on the left sometimes believe outcome>intent to the point that it hobbles us.

If Trump is engaging in a clever water-muddying strategy with those tweets, it's incredibly valuable to suss out what that strategy might be.

If, however, they're purely emotional outbursts with no conscious strategy behind them, maybe we can instead determine what makes him react. Folks on our side can then do things to prod him into the kinds of reactions we want (at 3AM, presumably). Or we can determine that "hey, questioning his authoritah on topic X makes him go on a Twitter rant, when he ignores everything related to topic Y. I wonder why that is?"
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 6:10 PM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

> Or we can determine that "hey, questioning his authoritah on topic X makes him go on a Twitter rant, when he ignores everything related to topic Y. I wonder why that is?"

This isn't impossible, but we've been watching him for quite a while now and he's still an enigma. "Trump's razor" and "Trump's mirror" are nice working theories, but they're not foolproof, and I'm skeptical that this kind of systematic A/B testing you're positing could be done in a way that sheds significant light on what he's thinking.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:18 PM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

If, however, they're purely emotional outbursts with no conscious strategy behind them, maybe we can instead determine what makes him react.

Isn't the issue here that the press (or at least some of it) responds in long-learned and unhelpful ways, and if he goes full Col. Kurtz, there'll be a bunch of tweets and website headlines saying "Exterminate all the brutes"?
posted by holgate at 6:19 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Well... he's going on a retweet storm again. CNN is the target this time. Guess Kellyanne was getting him set up on Twitter with that laptop.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:23 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Jason_steakums: There is an app called Countable, which I downloaded after the election. I'm still getting the hang of using it, but so far it's easy and fun and really helps me keep on top of issues to contact my congresspeople about. Countable was launched in late 2014. I'm sure there's room for all kinds of political apps, such as the ones focusing on building a party (vs. contacting already-elected representatives) that you are referring to. Apps aren't the solution to everything, but having a quick and convenient way to go political, right at one's fingertips, might get more people to participate.

Eyebrows: I agree with you about some on the left's tendency to default to academic language. Most people are not in academia and don't really understand or use those terms, even if they agree with the actual principles. "Use less jargon" is a great idea in general, when reaching out to people.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 6:24 PM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

Hallie Jackson ‏@HallieJackson 3m3 minutes ago Manhattan, NY
NEWS: Rep. Tom Price expected to be named Trump HHS pick, per source familiar w/decision. He's key House R behind plan to replace Obamacare.
posted by bluecore at 6:27 PM on November 28, 2016

if he goes full Col. Kurtz

"Are you an journalist?"
"I'm a content aggregator."
"You are neither. You are an errand boy, sent by failed grocers, to collect a bill. Sad!"
posted by thelonius at 6:27 PM on November 28, 2016 [20 favorites]

NYT: Challenging the Boss in Public? For Kellyanne Conway, It’s Part of the Job. In which Trump and Conway go to ridiculous public lengths to demonstrate they aren't mad at each other.

Of note, she called two people after Morning Joe reported Trump was furious at Conway: Trump himself, and Jared Kushner.
posted by zachlipton at 6:28 PM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

I've been thinking a lot about how the DNC can lower the barrier to entry into local party participation and engagement. I feel like they need to roll out an app infrastructure, with an app to engage supporters at the base of it, putting people in direct communication with their local party for retail politics purposes as well as presenting people with actionable items that they can perform to help out.

My experience, unfortunately, is that the local party people don't want to lower the barrier to entry into local party participation. They like that barrier. The barrier means that they get to hang out with people they enjoy hanging out with. They get to be in control. They get to do things the way they've always done things. Having new people get involved would be awkward, and they would just as soon avoid it.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:28 PM on November 28, 2016 [12 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: "@FiIibuster: @jeffzeleny Pathetic - you have no sufficient evidence that Donald Trump did not suffer from voter fraud, shame! Bad reporter.
posted by Golden Eternity at 6:29 PM on November 28, 2016

Wait a second. These "retweets" (or copy/paste jobs because he doesn't know how the retweet button works) aren't things that are @mentioning Trump. He's actively seeking them out somewhere, not grabbing them out of his notifications timeline. Did he search on @jeffzeleny and copy/paste the first mean thing he saw?
posted by zachlipton at 6:30 PM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

i have no evidence that donald trump is not a reptillian from rigel IV either. sad!
posted by entropicamericana at 6:30 PM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

Bad reporter! Bad doggie!
posted by futz at 6:31 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Trump's total lack of concern for the conventions which underpin US governance leads me to wonder whether the Trillion Dollar Coin strategy will come back to life when Congress denies funding to one of his plans.
posted by Coventry at 6:35 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Ok some of the retweets do @mention Trump, but this one doesn't. Where did the President-elect come to find Certified RV Tech Joe Bowman's attack on a journalist and decide to signal boost it?
posted by zachlipton at 6:36 PM on November 28, 2016

i don't know what's worse, the president-elect echoing tweets from a 16 year old, or that he's been on twitter for more than four years and he still hasn't figured out how to retweet
posted by murphy slaw at 6:37 PM on November 28, 2016 [19 favorites]

"My experience, unfortunately, is that the local party people don't want to lower the barrier to entry into local party participation."

I have been complaining about this for a long time, particularly about the high barrier to entry for young women with children ... and thanks to our local Pantsuit Nation we are getting childcare at most Progressive and Democratic meetings locally. I am all hoped up! This is one of the most useful and consequential things I can imagine organizing, and it took, like, two weeks!

It's just a couple younger parents rotating volunteering to watch the kids with a couple older parents' teenagers, and some coloring books and an iPad movie, but DUDE. Suddenly a huge quantity of parents, especially moms, whose participation was an enormous logistical nightmare can suddenly come to 75% of meetings! Oh, hey, equitable school funding and health insurance for children and parental leave matters to you? WE JUST BROUGHT YOUR ENTIRE CONSTITUENCY TO LOCAL PARTY MEETINGS.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:37 PM on November 28, 2016 [85 favorites]

because when someone requested a bot upthread I immediately stopped reading and created this one .

It's perfecto! Thank you!
posted by petebest at 6:41 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

He's not done.

@realDonaldTrump: "@sdcritic: @HighonHillcrest @jeffzeleny @CNN There is NO QUESTION THAT #voterfraud did take place, and in favor of #CorruptHillary !"
posted by Golden Eternity at 6:41 PM on November 28, 2016

Tom Price, the rumored HHS pick, created a fake council of doctors to oppose Obamacare and finesse people
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:44 PM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: "@FiIibuster: @jeffzeleny Pathetic - you have no sufficient evidence that Donald Trump did not suffer from voter fraud, shame! Bad reporter.

How are we supposed to feel about @Filibuster's banner image which is a promotion photo from House of Cards?
posted by dis_integration at 6:44 PM on November 28, 2016

I am in love with the bot! But I keep picturing the twitter pic of Clinton as this instead. :)
posted by agregoli at 6:45 PM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

I had largely assumed the recount was a waste of time, but given how he's reacting, I now wonder if there is something to find.
posted by frumiousb at 6:47 PM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

He's too dumb to know whether or not there's anything to find.
posted by something something at 6:48 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

He's retweeting a 16 year old.

I'm not sure I love this new "anyone can have the President's ear" world nearly as much as I thought I was going to if it had happened with literally any other president.
posted by corb at 6:49 PM on November 28, 2016 [20 favorites]

Like seriously HOW CAN HE BE THIS DUMB.
posted by something something at 6:49 PM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

There is NO QUESTION THAT #voterfraud did take place

Clear enough. Mandatory nationwide audit! Let's go people, you heard the turd - we've gotta snake out these Russi-aahahaIi mean illegal vote hackers!
posted by petebest at 6:49 PM on November 28, 2016 [10 favorites]

Tom Price, the rumored HHS pick, created a fake council of doctors to oppose Obamacare and finesse people

Jelani Cobb (who's a staff writer at the New Yorker and professor at Columbia Journalism) just tweeted: "Sat next to Trump's HHS pick Tom Price on a flight a few years ago. Seemed decent enough til he said he wasn't sure of Obama's citizenship."
posted by zachlipton at 6:49 PM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

Democrats clinch a supermajority in both houses of the California Legislature after Josh Newman wins state Senate seat

posted by futz at 6:49 PM on November 28, 2016 [12 favorites]

How do you even find a kid's Twitter and decide to re-tweet that?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:51 PM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Tom Price, the rumored HHS pick, created a fake council of doctors to oppose Obamacare and finesse people

I sometimes get him mixed up with Paul Broun, another GOPer physician who got gerrymandered into a district that covers UGA in Athens, and doesn't believe in evolution. Price just represents a white flight Atlanta burb district and doesn't believe in healthcare.
posted by holgate at 6:54 PM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Jason_steakums: There is an app called Countable, which I downloaded after the election. I'm still getting the hang of using it, but so far it's easy and fun and really helps me keep on top of issues to contact my congresspeople about. Countable was launched in late 2014. I'm sure there's room for all kinds of political apps, such as the ones focusing on building a party (vs. contacting already-elected representatives) that you are referring to. Apps aren't the solution to everything, but having a quick and convenient way to go political, right at one's fingertips, might get more people to participate.

Countable is actually what got me thinking about this! That and the easy access phonebanking tools during the campaign. It's so easy, and there is absolutely a desire for simple slacktivism that could be harnessed and turned into actual engagement. Something simple that makes you feel like you're involved and doing something, even if it's just answering a survey, or chipping in $5 for a local Facebook ad campaign, that integrates that with all of the tools of a modern national campaign and gives these tools to hopeful candidates across the board while the DNC is in desperate need of a full court 50 state press... that would be so cool.

I have no idea how to make something like this or even get the idea to someone at the DNC who could advocate for it (paradoxically, I could with this very app!) but I hope similar ideas are being discussed as the DNC makes plans.
posted by jason_steakums at 6:58 PM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

Obama is stoic in public but in private he must be weeping for this country.
posted by Talez at 6:59 PM on November 28, 2016 [20 favorites]

he must be weeping for this country.

yeah well he's hardly the only one
posted by entropicamericana at 7:01 PM on November 28, 2016 [27 favorites]

the transition from a president of impeccable poise and character to one with none at all is giving me whiplash
posted by murphy slaw at 7:01 PM on November 28, 2016 [15 favorites]

(Interesting rec for Countable, thanks. It might be the nudge I need to get on first name terms with my rep, who was one of the first to endorse Trump.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 7:02 PM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

As a woman who was a reluctant Hillary supporter turned excited Hillary supporter the closer we got to the election, this essay from Eirene Donohue resonated with me: "No You Can't: Why I'm Still Crying Over Hillary Clinton's Loss."
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 7:11 PM on November 28, 2016 [28 favorites]

updated the trump popular vote autotweeter

I come back in 24 hours and my dream is a reality! That's awesome, localhuman. Hopefully Donald's enjoying it too.

I feel like it might be better to just manually feed it the vote margin so it's tweeting accurate numbers -- what do you think?
posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 7:14 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump
.@CNN is so embarrassed by their total (100%) support of Hillary Clinton, and yet her loss in a landslide, that they don't know what to do.

I'm pretty sure they know what to do.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:16 PM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

I miss the taco trucks on every corner most of all.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:18 PM on November 28, 2016 [20 favorites]

Torn between suggesting you feed it real numbers and starting a bot to just tweet random clooose-enough numbers along with text like "lol no mandate 4 u" or "no one likes you" or "you're utterly forgettable".

I should go to sleep. A lot.
posted by XtinaS at 7:19 PM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm going to be awake all night wondering how and why Trump saw this tweet to retweet it.
posted by zachlipton at 7:34 PM on November 28, 2016

I'm pretty sure they know what to do.

Fold, like spineless commerce-bots and whinge out 8 years of just-barely-concerned "headlines"? Yeah.

It's as inevitable as vodka on the way to an ism.

But hey, this is what the decimated rock music industry needs to get back in front! Get ready for the next Guns-n-Ro*hurl*ses! *spit* Whoo! Reagan-era Rock! Squeeedly-deeee!!!
posted by petebest at 7:35 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Steady, pete.
posted by vrakatar at 7:36 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Sorry. It was the tweet . . . The tweet got to me.
posted by petebest at 7:46 PM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm going to be awake all night wondering how and why Trump saw this tweet to retweet it.

Jesus, this entire country is turning into the goddamn backwards-ass redneck town I thought I escaped when I graduated high school.
posted by bibliowench at 7:46 PM on November 28, 2016 [15 favorites]

I can't wait for those tweets coming from @POTUS instead of @realDonaldTrump. We should start a betting pool for the first rage-tweet to be subject to Presidential recordkeeping policies.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:52 PM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

Nah. Trump will continue to use his private Twitter, then we'll have a private/public twitter debate, next election.
posted by Archelaus at 7:53 PM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh my god. That selfie of that child in his little hat and hoodie. That kid is barely thru puberty. @FiIibuster may be a little shit but Trump creeping on him and dragging him into a twitter war is horrifying, I really don't know what to say here. This goes beyond citing nonsense sources for his bullshit and into child predator behavior.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 8:01 PM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

...not one but two! Thanks, litlnemo :)
posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 8:06 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Apparently the Usual Idiots at MAD Magazine (yes, it still exists) are treating Trump as an opportunity. Their "Trump Tweets" have been hit-and-miss, but the latest Cyber Monday collection is more hits than misses.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:15 PM on November 28, 2016

the Usual Idiots at MAD Magazine

Sadly and predictably, they appear to be more qualified.
posted by petebest at 8:24 PM on November 28, 2016

DID HE DELETE ALL THOSE TWEETS? I just thought, "fuck it" and reported his ass to twitter for harassment of Jeff Zeleney and that fiIibuster kid. Reloaded the page and they were all gone.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 8:25 PM on November 28, 2016

Still there for me.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:27 PM on November 28, 2016

I still see them.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:27 PM on November 28, 2016

thanks to our local Pantsuit Nation we are getting childcare at most Progressive and Democratic meetings locally.

Eyebrows, I just mentioned this in my response to my local PN chapter's member survey. What would it take to get this off the ground across the country, I wonder? I don't have kids, but this seems like a concept whose time has come.
posted by deludingmyself at 8:28 PM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

Trump Is Poopy holiday decorations are installed on the garage. There is also an inflatable cheetah with a santa hat, because it was the only non-Halloween inflatable cat we could find. And cats are great.

With the auto tweeter bot, I have to figure out how litlnemo is getting accurate margin results, will update the project after that!
posted by localhuman at 8:31 PM on November 28, 2016 [16 favorites]

Well, that's creepy as hell.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 8:32 PM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

They are still on the verified android phone @realrealdonaldjtrump page. I can't get over this. A 16 year old criticizes a CNN reporter (without facts or merit)and DJT copy/pastes the tweet and adds "Bad reporter" and tweets it out to his 12 million followers. Not only does he break all the customary rules of politics, he breaks all the customary rules of twitter!
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 8:36 PM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

‘I want them to understand how bad that hurts me’: Vets slam college for taking down U.S. flag

When the president of Hampshire College decided to remove the American flag from the center of campus days after Donald Trump’s election, the move triggered fiery reactions.
[...]
Soucy was joined Sunday by hundreds of flag-waving veterans from across New England who descended upon the liberal arts college’s campus in Amherst, Mass., to deliver a forceful rebuke to opponents of the U.S. flag. The demonstrators called upon Hampshire officials to reverse their most recent decision to stop flying all flags — including the stars and stripes — on the main flagpole on campus, according to masslive.com.

Demonstrators, the outlet reported, sang “God Bless America” and held signs with slogans including “No flag = no taxpayer (money).”

posted by Joe in Australia at 8:36 PM on November 28, 2016

he breaks all the customary rules of twitter!

surely this
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:39 PM on November 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

"What would it take to get this off the ground across the country, I wonder?"

Honestly for the local action, just a group of local moms calendaring up the meetings and starting a sign-up (teenagers being volunteered against their will as assistants also helps) ... also a second room in the venue where kids can be, but most evening meeting venues have that! It's not even a loss of time because if two adults sign up but only one is needed, the other can go attend the regular meeting.

It really just needs people in positions of authority to say "Young families are a priority demographic for us, and to involve young families in regular meetings (rather than just parades and special events), we need to provide childcare on the regular." It's relatively self-organizing once someone says it's a priority! Even better if the party will pitch in $50 for crayons and coloring paper and goldfish crackers for the whole year.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:41 PM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

It's "Trump".
posted by petebest at 8:47 PM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's "Trump".

"TRUMP", surely?
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 8:53 PM on November 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

For the record, the editorial staff of MAD Magazine has called themselves "The Usual Idiots" for most of the mag's history, going back to the 1950s*... times have never been more perfect for them as now...

* and often even worse things; self-effacing humor has always been taken to extremes there
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:54 PM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Honestly for the local action, just a group of local moms calendaring up the meetings and starting a sign-up (teenagers being volunteered against their will as assistants also helps)

I think overall this is fabulous. My one suggestion is to make sure dads/men/brothers are involved as well. As someone who was a teenage girl a...few *cough* years ago, I still have some lingering resentment about the babysitting I was drafted into along with the other girls in our local community when our parents were doing the group meetings thing. Because yes, it was always girls. Some of them might be interested in participating in their first real political activity, and I would want to make sure they hear loud and clear that they are valued beyond their caretaking skills.

So if local groups could find a way of saying firmly from the beginning that "childcare and support for young families is a priority for the entire group and we're all going to make sure it happens," that would be easier that trying to fight later against an entrenched expectation that this is something that the moms/sisters/random young women are expected to deal with. I know that a lot of the PN groups are very women-oriented at this point, so it makes sense that they're finding their own solutions to this, but...there's a part that just rubs me a little raw. Men need to step up and make this their issue to fix as well.
posted by Salieri at 8:58 PM on November 28, 2016 [33 favorites]

Barron totally knows dad's twitter password.

You made me realize that if the current situation is bad YA dystopian fiction, and if Trump's regime goes on long enough, it will be Barron who leads the resistance. Though no one will know who the leader is for the longest time, until the girl who loves him finally convinces him to remove the mask and show her his true face.
posted by honestcoyote at 9:03 PM on November 28, 2016 [32 favorites]

So are you telling me that we've never been doing Hamilton; this entire election has just been an unusually racist and sexist version of Urinetown the whole time? Because I can totally make that work with Sheriff Clarke as Officer Lockstock, but we're going to have to start rehearsals all over again.
posted by zachlipton at 9:12 PM on November 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

I hope I'm not beating a long-dead horse (I had to take a big break from these threads), but the issue of who Trump's main base of supporters has been dogging me-- particularly the discussion about the white working class. I see so much conflicting stats and info that I vacillate on this back and forth.

At first, even during the campaigns, I thought that Trump was scoring points on job loss and NAFTA, even if they were hastily and sloppily stated during the debates. And Clinton just did not address that at all, she just stood there smiling. And I thought, "oh wow, Trump is scoring major populist points with workers, Hillary is completely dropping the ball. She has no answer for NAFTA. Sure, she's infinitely more professional and composed than he is, but that's not all many people care about". So I first went with the later narrative that it was mostly fueled by workers, specifically white working class, who had been left to twist in the wind by both parties. Then I read that Trump's average supporter made $72k and I thought "ok; that blows that theory" and we saw all the racism, sexism and so on completely flare up. Then I saw an article rebutting that article on the myth of the white working class Trump supporter, stating that though the Trump supporters were making good money, they tended to live in areas that did have drastic economic decline and thus they were reacting to what they saw around them, what they feared. Not so much what they directly experienced.

It seems that it's not a binary choice between racism/sexism and labor concerns but rather both. In hard economic times, people tend to blame The Other because they are visible targets in a system that is too complex to comprehend. Fear brings out a tribal mentality in people- it becomes Us Vs Them, look out for You and Yours. It becomes The Immigrants are the problem. I knew in 2008 that sooner or later people were going to blame immigrants/ethnic groups for job loss/economic decline; it seems to be a pattern...(not wanting to Godwin here but it is relevant). It's easier to blame Random Mexican Guy for job loss than it is to understand the complex web of Wall Street machinations and credit default swaps and all the crap that crashed the economy. I lived in San Diego for years, and when the economy was good, no one cared about Mexican immigrants, they employed/exploited/relied on them. But when the economy goes south, suddenly it's a Big Threat to the Economy* and the reason for all the new trend of unemployment, regardless of the fact that they've been here all along.

* we can add the mythical Welfare Queen to the scapegoat list
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 9:12 PM on November 28, 2016 [4 favorites]