Get Out And Vote!
Program Note: What follows is a repeat column from eight years ago, and the only time I've ever sat down and typed out a transcript because I was shocked that it didn't already exist on the web somewhere. This was the first time I ever laid eyes on Craig Ferguson's late-night comedy talk show, and I have to admit I was hooked from this point on. Oddly, he almost never mentioned politics again (except for the occasional sex scandal jokes) -- this was a completely out-of-character rant for him.
One technical note, I have removed the link to the video, because the guy's blog doesn't exist anymore. So if you want to see it you'll have to look it up on "the Googley web" yourself.
I'm running this repeat column today because there just isn't anything left to say about this election. We can all join in the comments as the results roll in tonight, but I just don't have anything to add today, other than "Go vote!" I mean, I could have ginned up a column on being annoyed at some political pundits (who really should know better) who have recently started misusing the political term "The Big Blue Wall," by somehow changing the accepted definition to only mean Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania -- something that's been annoying me for a few days. But it just isn't worth it, and my guess is that after the dust settles the term will revert back to its actual meaning (the 242 Electoral College votes that Democrats begin the race with in their pocket). In fact, sooner or later that Big Blue Wall is likely going to be expanded (I wrote about this earlier this year, with my guess being that Colorado, New Mexico, and Virginia will soon join the crowd). But until that point, it has a very specific meaning, at least to the wonky pedants such as yours truly.
But it just wasn't enough for a full column -- it barely even made a decent paragraph, there. So instead, I decided to just post Craig's excellent "Go vote!" rant, and then head on down to the polling place myself. Until the polls close, here's a nostalgic look back at the halcyon days of the 2008 race. Craig even gets almost prophetic when he warns about complaining: "when we wind up with President Sanjaya!" That's not all that far off the mark from President Trump, now is it?
[Originally published September 11, 2008]
As a public service, today I am running a full transcript of Craig Ferguson's monologue (from The Late Late Show on CBS) from last night, 8/10/08.
I tuned in to David Letterman last night to see Barack Obama's interview, and happened to catch Ferguson as he went on an absolute rant worthy of the name. I was pretty happy watching the Obama interview, but this just stunned me. Craig Ferguson is an extremely funny comedian who usually plays a cheerful idiot on his show, and this isn't the usual fare for him. But he nailed it.
I looked for a full transcription of his remarks but could not find them anywhere online today, so I decided to post my own. You can watch both these segments from Aaron Barnhart's blog, as he's got the two YouTube segments posted together (he also has an edited transcript, but it cuts a lot out).
So without further ado, here is Craig Ferguson (a recently naturalized American citizen), from last night's show:
It's a great day for America, everybody. Why? Well, um... it just is. And... I just... did you... did you just watch Barack Obama on David Letterman? I did... 'cause this show is live. I was just watching it... I watched that show... now I don't want to... to say who I... I support, in this election, but when I'm watching that show, I'm thinking: "Now, there's a very sexy, compassionate man." Obama is good too, but Dave... not only sexy... my boss. Find new and creative ways to suck up to people, that's what I always do.
But I'm watching him on Dave, and the presidential election is heating up. There's all sorts of "controversy." You know, 'cause Obama's been saying, "You can put a pig..." ah... put a pig... you can put a pig anywhere you like -- it's America! Put a pig over here! Are you sure? Yeah! You wouldn't be able to do that in Soviet Russia. You have to keep your pig in a commune with other pigs, but, in America, pigs roam free! Obama is, ah, said "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig" and then Republicans are like: [sharp intake of breath]"Did you call Sarah Palin a pig?!? That means you hate America!!" And then the Democrats will say, "No, no, no!! Republicans -- you don't love pigs! It's a pig's right to wear lipstick.. this is... free.. surely," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, [mimes sticking finger down throat] bleah!
What I don't understand... what I don't understand is this: What... Why is Barack Obama talking about lipstick on a pig? Why are we talking about animals and cosmetics? Here's... Here's another thing I don't understand: Why is John McCain hanging around while his vice presidential candidate is up there... you know... campaigning to be president? What the hell's going on? He's like: "[unintelligible "old man" noises] Idn't she pretty?"
If you watch the news you would think that Sarah Palin is running for president.
Spoiler alert! You're not!
What happens is that the media... really, me too... yeah, I count... the media focuses on the best-looking candidates from either side -- the most "TV-friendly" people. The TV news reports, you know, like the way this election is being covered... is being covered is like TMZ or something. It's like they're covering Paris and Nicole. I... I'm watching this... it's like: "Ooh, [moron noises], look at her hair and hat," and everything, and I'm like: if... if Walter Cronkite could see these brain-dead morons yapping about flag pins and hairstyles, he'd turn over in his grave! Which is weird because Cronkite is alive and well and he lives in Martha's Vineyard. But, if he were dead, he'd be furious!
Do you know what I think it is? I think a lot of the reporters want to be as famous as the candidates they're covering. And here is my hope for this election. Anyways, my belief and my hope... that the American people are smarter than the media that are meant to be serving them. At this time... this is unbelievable to me. I think people want to see real solutions to real problems -- and they don't really care that much if they come from the right or the left. You know, every media outlet, you know, wants you to pay attention to their agenda, and their poll. But there's only one poll that matters, and it's on November the fourth. [asks offstage] (It's November the fourth, right?) Yeah, November the fourth!
I should say... you know what I... you know the other thing about, you know, when they... they... when the news reports show the candidates in slow motion with their families? And "the children," you know? I don't care! They show that the candidate... and the candidates say: "well, the family is off limits," you know, I mean, like Sarah Palin says, you know, "my daughter's pregnancy, that's off limits, that's a family matter;" and Barack Obama is saying "yes, that's absolutely right" -- but listen, here's what I say: if your families are off limits, WHY ARE THEY ON THE STAGE? Why is there a profile in People magazine of you and your damn family all over -- the children marching around -- SHAME ON YOU, YOU MANIPULATIVE HYPOCRITES!!
I'm talking to both sides. Talking about... Obama... McCain... Palin... the other one... I'm talking to all of you!
I like all... I like all four of these candidates a lot -- for comedy reasons they can't be beat. You got your, your grizzled old veteran who's trying to win one last campaign. You got the brash rookie who inspires millions. You got that hockey mom who's governor by day, naughty librarian by night. You've got, ah, Biden, who's all "Biden-ey" there.
What... the point I'm trying to get is this is a very important election, this one, but you would not know it from the way it's being reported. You know, politics is covered like show business now. On The Today Show, you know, this morning, they're like: "Which candidate would you rather have dinner with?" Here's an easy answer: None! They're politicians! I don't want dinner with you... I don't want your friendship! Here's what I want to know: What are you going to do for this country, pal? What are you gonna do?!?
[in a singsong voice, dancing around] My children... oh, ho! [points to back of head] Do I have a zipper up here or something?!?
The news reports, they're all very tabloid-ey, they're trying to be funny, like... like Jon Stewart... you know, maybe because more and more people, see, they're getting their news from late-night TV -- which, believe me -- not a good idea. I like... I like The Daily Show. I like Jon Stewart, I think he does a bang-up job, he does a great job... but let him do it -- the rest of the TV news people, TAKE THIS THING SERIOUSLY!! This is important!!
And listen, we all visit -- you too... you too ladies... gentleman and ladies, we've got, we, all of us, we've got a responsibility... you have to get your news from... from news sources, not just one, 'cause they're all biased. Especially the cable channels... MSNBC, very liberal... Fox News, very conservative... the Animal Planet, always meerkats, never badgers....
Do you know what... Do you know what bothers me is that every election year as well, you get the voter registration drives aimed at the young people: "Rock the Vote"... "The Vote's Crack-a-lackin"... "Think the Vote"... you know... "Music the Vote"... "Dee-de-dee-de"... here... "The Vote, The Vote, The Vote, The Vote, The Vote, The Vote, The Vote!"
Are we so lost we have to be sold our own democratic right? What the hell is wrong with... what is going on?!? We have to "sexy-up" the vote for young people? Remember four years ago Puff Diddley had that group "Vote or Die"? Then it turns out he didn't even vote himself! Maybe he forgot which name he registered under.
Listen. Here's what I am saying to you... here's what I'm saying. Here's what I've been saying: If you don't vote, you're a moron. Alright?
If you... settle down. I know you say: "Well, not voting is a vote" -- no it isn't! Not voting is... is just being stupid. Voting is not sexy. Voting is not hip. It is not fashionable. It's not a movie. It's not a videogame. All the kids hate doing it. Frankly, voting is a pain in the ass, but here's a word -- look it up -- it is your duty to vote! "Duty?"
The foundation in this democracy is based on free people making free choices. So, young people, if you can't take your hand out of your bag of Cheetos long enough to fill out a form, then you can't complain when we wind up with President Sanjaya!
Listen. I am an American. This country at... is at war -- right now. Americans, in foreign lands, wearing uniforms representing this country, are losing their lives. Americans here in this country are losing their homes. We have two patriotic candidates, right? They both love this country. They have different ideas about what to do with it. Learn about them. Read about them. Question them. Listen to them. Then, on Election Day, exercise your sacred right as American, and listen to yourself.
We'll be right back.
[Commercial break]
Welcome back, everybody! Welcome back. Welcome back to the grumpy political edition of the show. I'm angry! Oh, I-I-I-I... yeah!
Do you know, I'm thinking about the, ah... I was... I got these statistics off the Googley web today, and I'm... I was looking at the statistics of people who... who actually vote, and I'm thinking, and I'll get to this in a minute... but I'm thinking, I think a lot of people don't vote because they think they're going to have to get into an argument about... you know... they have to talk to other people about, you know, who they are voting for, and get into the political discussion, and tempers flare, and people say mean things, and all that bull doo-doo that you... and all that stuff about... and I think that... I think sometimes people forget this. Um, you don't have to tell anybody who you vote for. Privacy is protected in a democracy like this. You don't... you don't have to tell, ah, who you're voting for. It's none of... It's nobody else's business.
In fact, I wish a lot of people -- celebrities, mostly -- would take advantage of the rule of privacy, and shut the hell up about who you're voting for. And just vote. Just vote. I mean, it's, it's, it's... it's so odd to me, you know... "Well, you should vote the way I am voting, because, you know, I'm on a sitcom." No!! No, it doesn't matter. You... you're perfectly entitled to talk about who you vote for, of course you are, it's encouraged -- but, it's also... you know, you don't have to. I'm just saying.
Anyway, [reads off paper] here in the past two presidential elections less than two-thirds of the eligible voters turned out to the polls -- 64% in 2004, and 60%... 60%... in 2000. [asks offstage] What is that, a "B"? That's a "B," isn't it? "D"? A "D"? A "D" isn't sixty... where the hell did you go to school? A "D" at 60%? Really, is that a "D"... is it really? [audience: "Yeah!"] Man, I'm really glad I dropped out of high school, that would have sucked!
Um. Ah, let's see... historically, if you register to vote, you're more likely to vote. Here's one thing I was ashamed, ah, I was ashamed of this... naturalized citizens [points to self]... naturalized citizens, they vote less frequently than Americans born here. What the hell are you thinking?
Ahh... young adults always have the lowest percentage of any group... um, yeah, it's always... it's... you're 57% in 2004 for 18-to-24 year olds... fifty-seven... [asks offstage] that's a "D-minus?" "F"? My god, you guys are tough!
More women vote... more veterans vote... the highest voter percentage is Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oregon, Maine, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Iowa -- no surprises there.
Here's the thing that made me think, though, the... the people who didn't register to vote, when they were asked why they didn't vote, they said, ah... half of them said, "I'm not interested in the election," and the other half said, "I'm not interested in politics."
How could you be not interested in politics? You've got, you've got to have an opinion about something. Don't you think? I mean, I don't know -- "I'm not interested in politics" -- do you, do you live anywhere? Do you, do you shop anywhere? Do you drive a car? Do you put on pants? Do you leave the house at any point? Do you own the house? Do you rent the house? Do you ever, ah, hope that the police will save you from something that may or may not be illegal? Of course you're involved in politics. If you're alive you're involved in politics.
Anyway, I thought we'd bring out... no, no... no, please... I thought I would bring out something of which I am, ah, about to fill in, which I thought you might be... and all of you, in the studio audience, ah, the thousands of people that make up the studio audience every night here... These will be available to you as you leave the studio tonight, and, ah, they're available in libraries and post offices in... ah... in supermarkets, sometimes. And I got mine... it's, ah... it's a voter registration form, and all you do is... it's kind of your IQ test to see if you can vote. All you have to do is fill in some pretty tough questions... name, address... when you were born... telephone (if you have a telephone, you don't have to put telephone in)... I know, it's pretty, uh, pretty relaxed. You, ah, don't have to put in, ah... oh, you can put... "I decline to state a political party." I would do that if I was you, and you know why? Just to be ornery And then you just sign it and you send it away, and you get to participate in... ah... in the democracy... ah... that we live in.
[holds outside of form up to camera] Take that, stamp collector! [camera zooms in on "No postage necessary" on envelope front]
What I'm saying is: please, do me the honor of being my fellow Americans, and vote!
We'll be right back...
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
Hey CW
All this talk about drinking and meditation and people needing distractions so they don't stress out cracks me up.
My candidate will lose.
Never had a shot.
And as a result, I get to laugh at both sides freaking out.
I'll sleep soundly tonight even if the polls were wrong and nails are still being bitten late into the wee hours.
However it turns out, the country loses.
Neither of the duopoly's choices of oligarch boot licking liars deserves the job.
Neither will fix the real problems we face.
The referendums are where the only true change will come.
So, winners stop gloating... losers stop whining.
You're all going to look like suckers in the end.
Embrace reality.
Our politicians suck eggs.
Meditate on that.
A
Speaking of drinking... here's a guide (infographic) to help...:
http://vinepair.com/articles/election-night-drinking-guide-infographic/
Richard
Maybe we should push for our elected officials to start identifying their party affiliation only during campaign season. I'd love to see an "A" (American) in the little parentheses after a Congress person's name instead of an "R" or "D", because once the election is over, they should be representing all of the citizens from their home states; not just those who support their party. I hate to admit that I have caught myself on more than one occasion realizing that how I interpreted statements being made by a politician was heavily influenced by knowing which party the person was affiliated with.
Perhaps we could make the day after Election Day be called "Clean Slate Day" -- it's pretty self-explanatory -- we put everyone's past deeds behind us and focus only on the future!
OK, everyone got a good cold stiff drink?
Here we go!
:-)
-CW
altohone -
OK, sounds like someone needs another round!
Heh.
Hey, my candidate lost in the primaries. But I'm still optimistic, since Bernie got as far as he did -- much farther than any other progressive candidate of my lifetime. This means when we eventually get an election without a Clinton in it, we'll have a chance. I consider that a very positive development, personally.
ListenWhenYouHear -
What's funny is this does happen in certain places. Here in CA, for example, Republicans run without EVER mentioning their party. Not in ads, just pretend they don't have a party. Similar things happen with Dems in red states...
-CW
OK, this is fairly stunning. FL -- 8 million votes counted, and Trump is up by a total of 28 votes.
That's a pretty thin margin! Hope we don't see a recount again...
-CW
Ohio 1200 votes apart, with 2 million counted. 29% reporting...
-CW
Hey Stig -
Things seem to be going about the same way that you & I predicted a while ago - Trump is jumping out front at 9:00pm and will stay ahead until the west starts to come in with its tsunami of democratic votes.
What I didn't expect are all of the too-close-to call states this late in the evening. It's beginning to look like it doesn't matter who the candidates are. The needle from 2012 has barely moved in a lot of these places. Amazing.
I am watching Florida with baited breath...
i wonder if the lagging southern counties will come through...
time for some Ron Zacapa Reserva Limitada...i think i will go with a non election year vintage of 2013...
Will somebody please tell me that everything is going to be alright ...
I have a theory ...
The turnout is huge. Sorry ...
People who don't normally vote because politics doesn't interest them, they don't care, all politicians are the same so why bother voting ... these are the people who Trump tapped into and there are quite a lot of them ...
Huge turnout = Trump victory
CW
4
No thanks on the drink.
Optimism about what may be in 4 years is a luxury.
At the moment, I'm feeling conflicted.
I like most of the gang here, but your standard bearer is so awful there is an inevitable and unflattering reflection.
So much was swept under the rug, and the fingers were almost always pointing in the wrong direction.
And the Giant Meteor was nowhere to be found on my ballot.
A
Virginia's looking good, and PA still strong for Clinton.
MN and CO also looking good, and I expect NV to get called fairly early...
It's going to be a longer night than expected, but things still look fairly good...
-CW
altohone -
I actually saw a campaign sign for "Giant Meteor 2016" this year....
Heh.
-CW
Debacle!
WashPost just called FL for Trump...
-CW
I just wanted to add something to the electoral reform column comments but...
So...i want it out on the record before the election is over. I am a bit disappointed that OPOV did not get a mention. If we ever want to see a meaningful change in how we elect our corporate interest blocks we need to make the election OPOV....
Of course that needs to be accompanied by reducing money and getting rid of gerrymandering...
I will now return to my drink...
Clinton needs to turn around MI and WI to have a chance. I think we are going to have a Trump Presidency
it would not shock me....
The real question will be "will the people who voted for one of the big two get what they are looking for?
I wager NOT...
No matter how you slice and dice, there will be no big mandate...
Aren't we all glad Michale goes to sleep early?
Sigh...
-CW
I second that. A ray of hope from Kornacki, who says tens of thousands of votes still outstanding in Wade County, near Detroit. She could still pull this off if she can hold MI and Wisconsin.
Michale was right about Florida. :) Ewwwwww.
Wonder what in the hell they are going to replace Obamacare with?
Sure glad I have Tricare. :)
A bizarre end to the most bizarre election -- we could be headed for a tie.
Clinton takes NV, MI, PA, NH and Maine(2).
Trump takes WI, AZ. (and Alaska)
269-269.
-CW
This is the level of disbelief in the stupidity of the electorate I felt when the Brexit result came in. How stupid are you people. This is a con man, and just like Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, etc. who immediately did a 180 the day after the election, nothing he is promised will happen. If you think well paid heavy manufacturing jobs are coming back to the midwest, I've got a bridge for you.
sure...
Speaking of M....Dude glad to see you have survived the Rubicon...Now do your PT as is recommended.
A friend of mine had a HA with a PE about 15 years ago...since that time she has followed the PT regimen and has not had another issue and is hot as hell!...
So While you over comment on occasion....or most of the time... You need to do the sweat to be around to be a PITA...
Main(2)? This comes down to Maine(2)? That's bizarre.
is it just me or has CNN called it for tRUMP?
Wow, got out of the stock market 2 days ago. saved myself 450K. Look for the market to take a big dive if Trump wins.
NV just called for Clinton...
-CW
Trump projected to win PA.
It's over, I think.
-CW
And let the After Action reports begin... :D
It's going to be a frabjous day.. See ya'all in a few hours.... :D
Ahh hell, who can sleep now anyways!! :D
Kick,
Michale was right about Florida. :) Ewwwwww.
And PA... Don't forget PA... :D
"Wakie Wakie, hands of snakie??" :D
But you were right about Nevada.... I give you that...
Here's my map...
http://theworleys.net/temp/michaleEC.jpg
It's amazing how much my map looks like the real map, eh? :D
GT,
Speaking of M....Dude glad to see you have survived the Rubicon...Now do your PT as is recommended.
A friend of mine had a HA with a PE about 15 years ago...since that time she has followed the PT regimen and has not had another issue and is hot as hell!...
So While you over comment on occasion....or most of the time... You need to do the sweat to be around to be a PITA...
Thanx.. Yea, the PT is going to be the hard part... I am really crappy at follow-thru in these regards...
Let's hope the PT consists of typing and trackball usage.. Then I got it made!! :D
Clinton is refusing to concede the race and accept the results...
Hmmmmmmm..
Isn't that the EXACT SAME THING that Camp Clinton claimed TRUMP would do!???
All I have to say (in THIS comment anyways :D) is that the GOP now has full control of the United States government...
The American people expect RESULTS....
We put ya'all in power. We can kick your asses out...
Remember that...
It's easy to predict Obama's next step...
Pardon Clinton...
On the other hand, Obama just might be royally PISSED that Clinton dropped the ball..
Obama might just let her swing in the wind.... Wouldn't surprise me...
Liz,
Will somebody please tell me that everything is going to be alright ...
Everything is going to be all right..... :D
I have a theory ...
The turnout is huge. Sorry ...
People who don't normally vote because politics doesn't interest them, they don't care, all politicians are the same so why bother voting ... these are the people who Trump tapped into and there are quite a lot of them ...
Huge turnout = Trump victory
Looks like your theory was prescient, my friend... :D
"You were great in your day, Superman. But it just stands to reason, when it came time to cash in your chips, this old... diseased... maniac would be your banker."
-Gene Hackman, SUPERMAN
Seems apropos, somehow, eh? :D
With regards to Clinton's crimes, I am of two minds on this.
First, I want to see her in jail....
On the other hand, I think Trump should be magnanimous, knowing that the BIGGEST punishment for Clinton is watching the 20 Jan inauguration on TV instead of from the stage...
Which way I go will depend on how Clinton handles her loss...
And to add to the good news, here in FL, the medical marijuana initiative has passed....
So, all in all, a VERY good election night...
It's time to drain the swamp..
Celebs who said they’d leave country if Trump won
http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/305117-celebs-who-said-theyd-leave-country-if-trump-won
Let's start with these cretins... :D
Although my wife and I think that Amy Schumer is pretty hot.. :D
Everything is going to be all right..... :D
Thanks, Michale ... I appreciate that. :)
http://theworleys.net/temp/spot.jpg
hehehehehehehehehehehehehe
Thanks, Michale ... I appreciate that. :)
Glad ta see someone is up..
I hate celebrating alone.. :D
This was BREXIT all over again....
Shervin Pishevar, co-founder of the venture capital company Sherpa Capital, which helped fund Uber, Airbnb and Slack, tweeted that if Trump wins, he would start funding a campaign to allow California to secede from the US and form a new country.
heh :D
Well, I guess congratulations are in order, Michale.
Maybe President Trump can do what no recent president has done - bridge the great divide in American politics.
Here is some advice that my favourite American politician once gave to supporters of Barack Obama just before he was elected POTUS: the new president will be tested and there will be an international crisis and decisions may be made that are not the popular decisions but they will be the right decisions ...
Yes, I may be drunk. :)
Well, I guess congratulations are in order, Michale.
Thank you, Liz.. :D
Maybe President Trump can do what no recent president has done - bridge the great divide in American politics.
That's a tall order.. But I think President Trump can rise to the challenge if.... *IF* those who so vehemently attacked Trump are willing to meet Trump halfway and mebbe a tad more....
Trump has surely earned that...
Here is some advice that my favourite American politician once gave to supporters of Barack Obama just before he was elected POTUS: the new president will be tested and there will be an international crisis and decisions may be made that are not the popular decisions but they will be the right decisions ...
Well said...
"It's easy to tell the difference between right and wrong. What's hard is choosing the wrong that's more right."
-Annette Benning, THE SEIGE
Yes, I may be drunk. :)
"Oh don't listen to me, I'm shit-faced"
-Annette Benning, THE SEIGE
Heh
But I think President Trump can rise to the challenge if.... *IF* those who so vehemently attacked Trump are willing to meet Trump halfway and mebbe a tad more....
Trump has surely earned that...
That can also apply to here in Weigantia as well...
:D
But the dynamic around here is surely going to be interesting, eh???
Yes it will.
That's it for me tonight ... sleep well ...
The BIGGEST plus for me is that I don't have to worry about my guns being pried from my cold dead fingers... :D
That's it for me tonight ... sleep well ...
Yea, I am up for the day.. I checked the results at 0220 and tried, for like about 2 mins to go back to sleep...
Not gonna happen..
Took some pain meds for my arm and here I am.... :D
Ni Liz... Sleep well.. The world will still be here when you wake... :D
Stick a fork in the Clintons...
They're done....
Aren't we all glad Michale goes to sleep early?
Sigh...
Just my luck....
My ship comes in and I am at the frakin' airport!!! :D
Oh, damn, I woke him up....
Heh.
:-)
-CW
What it all boils down to is this..
Over 80% of Americans want this country to change direction..
Donald Trump is the **ONLY** candidate running on the platform of making that happen...
-Michale http://www.chrisweigant.com/2016/11/07/final-electoral-math-my-2016-picks/#comment-87701
Oh, damn, I woke him up....
Heh.
hehehehe
Yea, Betina warned me not to check the returns if I woke up during the night or I would never get back to sleep, win or lose....
Boy did she call it...
It's gonna be a long day... :D
Kick,
Even with his tough talk about Mexican immigrants, Trump held on to roughly the same share of Hispanic voters as Romney had claimed four years ago. Likewise, he was drawing about the same levels of support from black voters as Romney won.
Looks like you called that one, Kick.... I totally blew that call....
Yes, everything will be alright now. In the first 100 days of Trump's presidency:
Obamacare will be repealed and not replaced with anything because Republicans liked the old system wherein only those who could afford health insurance got health insurance. Employers will stop offering health insurance because they will no longer be able to afford it (health insurers will need to more than quadruple their fees when they lose all the new customers they had gained via the ACA). Medicare and Medicaid will be abolished as pandering to the poor.
The minimum wage will be abolished. Wages and salaries will drop as job losses increase across the country. Unemployment benefits will also be abolished as they pander to lazy non-workers (can't have that in Republicanland!)
Government assets will be sold to private corporations (expect Trump to buy up a lot of these at bargain prices) including all infrastructure like all major roads, bridges, waterways, airports etc. There will be tolls on everything - you'll need to pay tolls just to get to the supermarket and to work (if you still have a job).
Social security will be sold off to companies who will use the money to play the stock market. It isn't their money so they don't care what happens to it. Benefits for the disabled will cease (Trump has made no secret of his contempt for the disabled) and Veterans Affairs will be cut to the bone without so much as a squeak from John McCain.
$3 trillion dollars has already been wiped off the DOW in a single half day and taken many 401Ks with it. More will go as the recession bites hard into America's economy. It will be worse than 2008 but apparently that's how Republicans like it. The recession will reverberate around the world, taking every other country with it but few Americans don't care about other nations.
The filibuster will finally get nuked because the Republicans are now in a position to ensure that Democrats never ever win another election at any level.
There will be other stuff too. It will be interesting.
Oh yes, one more prediction - Trump won't ever have to face a court case again but his enemies are in for a lot of pain and misery. Both the Clintons and Obamas should leave the country while they can.
So yes, everything will be alright come 2017.
I honestly believe it was Clinton's "deplorables" comments that was the beginning of her end...
You can't win the Presidency by unfairly maligning more than half of the country....
Mopshell,
Oh yes, one more prediction - Trump won't ever have to face a court case again but his enemies are in for a lot of pain and misery.
Just as Clinton's enemies would have been in for a lot of pain and misery if Clinton had won...
But I don't think you'll have to worry about it. Trump is likely to be very magnanimous in his victory..
I honestly would not be surprised if HE pardoned Clinton...
I think it was Listen who mentioned something about a CLEAN SLATE...
Like I said.. If those that attacked Trump and Trump supporters so mercilessly are willing to meet halfway and a tad more... I think this is a great opportunity to move past the politics of personal destruction...
Regardless, we'll always have Weigantia.. :D
Admit it...
How many thought to yerselves, "Oh shit, Michale is going to be totally imposible now!!!"
:D
Neil,
This is the level of disbelief in the stupidity of the electorate I felt when the Brexit result came in. How stupid are you people.
OR......
The people know better than you do.... :D
"We can't discard a possibility just because we don't happen to like it."
-Martin Sheen, THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
:D
and just like Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, etc. who immediately did a 180 the day after the election, nothing he is promised will happen.
I think you have that backwards... NONE of the horrible fear-mongering claims of the anti-BREXIT pukes have come to pass.. Matter o fact, the UK economy has shown some remarkable growth in some areas...
Irrationally and hysterically predicting all sorts of impossible catastrophes and such is nothing but sour grapes..
Ya'all are better than that....
I made it thru the rain...
And kept myself protected...
I made it thru the rain...
And kept my point of view...
I made it thru the rain...
And found myself respected...
By the others who... got rained on too..
I made it thru.....
-Barry Manilow
:D
The site later rallied and was live again around 4.30am East Coast time. Americans looking to flee Trump will likely be surprised at how difficult relocating to Canada actually is — even with a functioning immigration website.
Canadians have been fighting against accepting greater numbers of political refugees, and the Canadian government has been deeply considering curbing border-jumping.
They may have to just live with the election’s results for now.
http://heatst.com/politics/canadas-immigration-site-crashes-as-liberals-panic/
What!!!!
A country that wants to control it's borders and limit immigration!!!!!?????
HOW HORRIBLE!!!!!
{/sarcasm}
Congratulations are in order for not underestimating the stupidity of the American electorate- though that is usually a pretty safe bet.
Time will tell as to whether it's the stupidity of the American electorate... Or the BRILLIANCE of the American electorate.. :D
But ya gotta admit... The EV map I put forth was pretty damn close to the actual results. :D
Let me be the first to blame Ralph Nader for giving us a President Trump.
If Ralph Nader had informed citizens about Voucher Vendetta back in the fall of 2015, then Bernie would have won the Democratic nomination and crushed Trump in the general election.
Thanks Ralph.
heh :D
One thing that is for sure..
NO ONE can claim that this was a SPECIAL INTERESTS election or the CORPORATE/LOBBYISTS have won..
This was and is a PURELY PEOPLE POWER Election and it's the PEOPLE who have won..
Ya'all just HAVE to acknowledge that....
Illegal immigrants vow to defy Trump,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/9/illegal-immigrants-vow-defy-trump-call-obama-halt-/
Fine....
We'll see how they will like the stock of an M-16 upside the jaw.... :D
http://theworleys.net/temp/trumpday.jpg
:D
Looks like the Democrat smiling the widest is Michael Moore.... :D
Don
For those of you that are annoyed by my previous comment- get used to it.
If you need any pointers on how to piss people off and REALLY get their knickers in knots.....
.... Just let me know.. :D
Michael Moore's Once-Shocking Prediction of a Trump Presidency Now Feels Very Prescient
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-moores-once-shocking-prediction-a-trump-presidency-feels-very-prescient-945645
Looks like Trump might be able to fill TWO Supreme Court seats...
RBG had promised to retire and moved to New Zealand if Trump became President... :D
[65] But I don't think you'll have to worry about it. Trump is likely to be very magnanimous in his victory..
I don't worry about it because there's no point caring about something you can do nothing about. Besides, I'll be too busy worrying how to get by day-to-day in the coming recession. It's going to be tough.
Since Trump's faithful were chanting "Lock her up!" and "Execute Obama" at Trump's victory celebration, I don't think Trump will go against them. He promised this to them. In rally after rally, in speech after speech, he promised this to them. If Clinton is still in the country on January 21 2017, I fully expect she will be arrested.
I just hope the Obamas get their girls out as soon as they can. America is not a safe place for them anymore.
I didn't bother taking my meds today because what's the point? What's the point of living to see how bad the world will become.
But, oddly, I am pleased for you and Liz. You both got what you wanted in one way or another. I'm glad somebody did. I suppose CW did too. He never made his dislike for Clinton a secret.
[81] Yes I hope for her sake that RBG retires at the end of this year and that she gets to spend her remaining years in a country as lovely as New Zealand.
Congratulations to Michael who predicted this outcome. Although I bet on the the other outcome, I did assign Trump a roughly 15% chance of winning, which is close enough to Russian roulette odds. As I see it, the US spun to the loaded chamber and pulled the trigger. Oops. Bound to happen, sooner or later.
Prediction depends upon precedent, but there has been no recent precedent for what occurred last night.* In Germany yes, but not here. As in Germany vs Hitler, the Old Money Elites of the GOP wimped out with respect to Trump, thinking they can control the strongman. They are probably wrong, they will continue to be co-opted.
Mophell, you are right, the Clintons and Obamas should leave while the going is good. No shame in that, they can fight more effectively from afar than in a mock courtroom or cell.
The election of Trump is being called a Constitutional crisis, but I think not, at least not yet. What's happened is a consequence of dysfunctional government resulting from the ground rules set by the Constitution and exploited by both Democrats and Republicans. The net result has been poor representation of the electorate and dysfunctional government. Can the above be fixed within the framework of the Constitution? In theory yes, in practice no. When was the last time an amendment was added to the Constitution? Lack of repair and modification of a dynamic system is just another symptom of systemic dysfunction.
What we really need IS a genuine Constitutional Crisis. A practical, but very bold, solution to the dysfunction is to take a leaf from the Confederate playbook. The Northeastern States are plenty big enough to form an independent nation with a strong economy, a smaller, but more perfect union. Same with the West Coast. (Texas, though red, might want to go it alone on general principles). Would secession result in a 2nd Civil War. Quite possibly, but I don't think it inevitable if the process is negotiated equitably, and how much bad government are you willing to endure and for how long? Trump loves to deal...but The window for initiating this action is fairly short, so act now, before he takes office.
I want a divorce! I don't have enough money to emigrate. I'm in a Red State, but willing to move.
*I'll get to the Civil War
Don
Sorry, but Hillary, Wall Street coddlers and DNC insiders who gave it to Hillary are to blame.
You're not going to achieve progress by pointing fingers in the wrong direction like the establishment hacks.
We shall see if the Dems learned the lesson, or still search for scapegoats.
A
Congratulations to Michael who predicted this outcome.
Thank you...
The election of Trump is being called a Constitutional crisis, but I think not, at least not yet.
How can it be a Constitutional crisis??? There was an election, there was NO signs of any fraud or cheating.. Trump got the required 270 Electoral Votes and then some...
How could ANYONE possibly say "Constitutional Crisis"??
I want a divorce! I don't have enough money to emigrate. I'm in a Red State, but willing to move.
And what happens if you move to a Blue state and then IT starts doing things that you don't like?? Move again???
Maybe the solution is, instead of demonizing and attacking people who think differently, work WITH them to find and build on the things that ya'all DO have in common??
Just a thought...
Since Trump's faithful were chanting "Lock her up!" and "Execute Obama" at Trump's victory celebration, I don't think Trump will go against them.
I do... Trump has already shown he is being magnanmous, thanking Hillary for her years of public service...
Trump is being a VERY gracious winner.. I dare say a LOT more gracious than Hillary would have been had the roles been reversed..
Trump supporters?? Maybe not so much.. But that's hardly surprising and, considering the attacks and the violence that Trump supporters had to endure, wholly understandable...
I just hope the Obamas get their girls out as soon as they can. America is not a safe place for them anymore.
Oh come now, that's just silly fear-mongering...
I didn't bother taking my meds today because what's the point? What's the point of living to see how bad the world will become.
The point?? Because you might find that you are as wrong about the world going bad as you were about Hillary winning the election...
Believe me, I have been there and have the scars, figuratively and literally, to prove it...
You might be wrong and the world might be a LOT better place because of a Trump presidency...
[81] Yes I hope for her sake that RBG retires at the end of this year and that she gets to spend her remaining years in a country as lovely as New Zealand.
Their emigration policies are brutal though...
http://nypost.com/2016/11/09/trump-victory-is-a-win-for-the-little-guy-over-the-elite/
What he said....
Michale wrote:
"NO ONE can claim that this was a SPECIAL INTERESTS election or the CORPORATE/LOBBYISTS have won..
This was and is a PURELY PEOPLE POWER Election and it's the PEOPLE who have won.."
THAT remains to be seen. We will just have to see exactly what policies President Trump and the Republicans actually enact. Remember that the Republicans still control the Congress, and Trump is not really a Republican.
We are now entering totally uncharted waters. The American electorate has essentially decided to kick over the apple cart by driving the USA over a cliff into the unknown. It MAY turn out good, or it MAY turn into a HUGE disaster with lots of buyer's remorse. Only time will tell. IF it's a huge disaster, that is what could spark a constitutional crisis. But that's down the road.
In any case, congratulations also Michale. You were right. I know you get so tired of hearing that. :-)
But, oddly, I am pleased for you and Liz. You both got what you wanted in one way or another. I'm glad somebody did. I suppose CW did too. He never made his dislike for Clinton a secret.
I don't think that's accurate at all..
Sure, CW and Liz (and a couple others) expressed some logical and rational reservations about Hillary character and campaign... But to characterize such reservations as hoping she would lose??
Totally inaccurate...
No, I think it's a safe bet that the *ONLY* happy Weigantian today is your's truly... :D
THAT remains to be seen.
No, the election WAS people powered... There is no doubt of that..
Now, whether Trump GOVERNS as People Power POTUS.. THAT remains to be seen...
In any case, congratulations also Michale. You were right. I know you get so tired of hearing that. :-)
Remember that the Republicans still control the Congress, and Trump is not really a Republican.
EXACTLY!!!
Trump is a true INDEPENDENT..
We finally have a TRUE Independent as President.
And you are right. That *IS* uncharted waters....
I am willing to wager that Trump will make deals with Democrats as much as he makes deals with Republicans...
Yea, it wears thin... But only when it's me telling myself. :D heh
Thanx....
Serious question here..
Is it possible for Trump to change his Party Affiliation to INDEPENDENT or NPA after he is sworn in???
*THAT* would be the best possible move for Trump to make, to PROVE he is a POTUS for and of the American people...
#91 proper
THAT remains to be seen.
No, the election WAS people powered... There is no doubt of that..
Now, whether Trump GOVERNS as People Power POTUS.. THAT remains to be seen...
In any case, congratulations also Michale. You were right. I know you get so tired of hearing that. :-)
Yea, it wears thin... But only when it's me telling myself. :D heh
Thanx....
Remember that the Republicans still control the Congress, and Trump is not really a Republican.
EXACTLY!!!
Trump is a true INDEPENDENT..
We finally have a TRUE Independent as President.
And you are right. That *IS* uncharted waters....
I am willing to wager that Trump will make deals with Democrats as much as he makes deals with Republicans...
http://theworleys.net/temp/trumpdeath.jpg
Yea... It's the Obamas and the Clintons who have to worry about their safety.. :^/
If anyone is interested, FNC is streaming live HRC remarks...
https://www.facebook.com/FoxNews/videos/10154778138341336/
Oh gods, they STILL can't quit attacking and denigrating Trump.... They are going to lose ANY goodwill that the new Administration might show her...
Credit where Credit is due..
Kaine's digs at Trump were annoying...
Hillary has shown some real class in her concession speech.. More so than I ever thought possible....
Kudos to Hillary....
Michale,
Hillary has shown some real class in her concession speech.. More so than I ever thought possible....
As you know, I am not one of Hillary's greatest fans but, I have never doubted her capacity to act with class and so I was not at all surprised by how she has reacted to this devastating loss.
May President-elect Trump govern with equal grace, compassion and insight as was demonstrated by Secretary Clinton's concession speech.
May President-elect Trump govern with equal grace, compassion and insight as was demonstrated by Secretary Clinton's concession speech.
"So say we all"
-Battlestar Galactica
I am still working on my After Action Report....
But, just for posterity's sake, I am posting what I wrote if Hillary had one...
Hillary won!? Oh shit, we're frak'ed!!
:D
http://www.mrctv.org/blog/trump-wins-and-liberal-media-lost-their-minds
It's funny...
For all the accusations of hate and hate mongering directed at Trump, and Trump supporters...
It's those on the Left who are exhibiting all the hate.....
Ironic, isn't it....
The comparison to Brexit is very apt. The sense of shock, the markets falling.
Third-party voters ought to be asked, "Is this the result you wanted?" Why did you, Jill Stein or Gary Johnson voter, decide that Donald Trump was preferable to Hillary Clinton? Don't play coy, because everyone warned you that this could be the result of your intransigence.
I will note here that in every state in which Trump won, Gary Johnson received enough votes to have tipped the race the other way. Nader, meet Johnson.
Then: millennials (ugh!). The millennial vote was down 9% compared to 2012 last night, more than enough to make up the margins Hillary needed to win. Bernie's ghost hovered over this election: I heard one millennial say last night, "Well, if she'd have been nicer to Bernie...", OMFG.
So, rather than vote for Hillary, they preferred to flush everything that Bernie stood for. That's some fancy thinking, there.
And Republican women who voted for Trump: would you please wear an "I voted for Trump" sticker everywhere you go, so that when some creep shoves you or your daughter up against a wall for a quick feel, I can say, "you voted for that"?
As for 'moderate Republicans', if such a species still exists today, I would point you to an article that I saw recently about the way some Elephants are being hunted to extinction. Pretty soon, only elephants without tusks or raised in captivity will remain. The next time that you see an elephant used as a logo for the GOP, paint a tiny bullseye on it, just to remind yourselves that you're a species on the endangered list.
And to the Religious Right, well they can sit down and shut up from now on: after Trump's victory, they can't even claim to represent their own constituency. Not now that they've voted for a serial adulterer con artist with a taste for barely legal poontang. Between Trump and his top surrogates Gingrich & Giuliani they had nine wives between them, yet evangelicals couldn't wait to vote to legitimatize them. So your credibility is now null. The next time I hear a criticism of 'godless liberals' I will laugh like 'Bob & Tom' on meth.
To CNN, MSNBC and other 'mainstream' media outlets: you got what you wanted, didn't you? Thanks to two billion dollars worth of free media afforded to Trump early in the campaign, moderate Republicans never had a chance to gain enough momentum to stop Trump. You wanted a show to boost ratings? You've got it, and it's been picked up for another four years. But heed this warning: progressives have been growing increasingly uneasy with corporate-owned media, and this will accelerate that discussion. I don't know how much it takes to crowd-source a network, but I predict that the effort will be made sooner rather than later, and you'll be stuck with a show that nobody watches.
Finally, to Michale. Yes, I do owe you an apology. You waved your hands in the air and shouted, BREXIT! until we were all tired of hearing about it, but you were right: there was a rural revolution brewing and we didn't see it coming. The fact that they've bought themselves (as they would say) a 'pig in a poke' doesn't make me any happier, though I wish that I could fast-forward to the moment, sometime in the future, when they all collectively realize that they've been made fools of by a master con artist.
But your side has to admit that it has some demographic problems as well. Trump didn't win a single American city last night, not even in deep-red Texas, Mississippi, or Louisiana. Millennials didn't turn out for Hillary, but they didn't vote for Trump in large numbers either, opting instead to either not vote or to throw their votes to third party alternatives. The aging white voters that this win depended on are dying off, and will be outstripped demographically in a very few years unless the upcoming deportations include anyone with a tan. And, by the way, your party might have to deal with an exodus of the financial class, once a reliable and lucrative ally. Judging by their reaction today, that could be an uphill battle for Trump.
I'll finish with a quote from last night, by Republican Steve Schmidt:
"Wall Street took Trump literally but not seriously, while Trump supporters took him seriously but not literally."
We'll see soon which was right in their assessment.
Hey CW and gang
Just in case anybody missed it, here's Glenn Greenwald in full-
The Intercept
GG
11/9/16
Democrats, Trump and the ongoing, dangerous refusal to learn the lesson of Brexit
The parallels between the U.K.’s shocking approval of the Brexit referendum in June and the U.S.’ even more shocking election of Donald Trump as president last night are overwhelming. Elites (outside of populist right-wing circles) aggressively unified across ideological lines in opposition to both. Supporters of Brexit and Trump were continually maligned by the dominant media narrative (validly or otherwise) as primitive, stupid, racist, xenophobic, and irrational. In each case, journalists who spend all day chatting with one another on Twitter and congregating in exclusive social circles in national capitals — constantly re-affirming their own wisdom in an endless feedback loop — were certain of victory. Afterward, the elites whose entitlement to prevail was crushed devoted their energies to blaming everyone they could find except for themselves, while doubling down on their unbridled contempt for those who defied them, steadfastly refusing to examine what drove their insubordination.
The indisputable fact is that prevailing institutions of authority in the West, for decades, have relentlessly and with complete indifference stomped on the economic welfare and social security of hundreds of millions of people. While elite circles gorged themselves on globalism, free trade, Wall Street casino-gambling, and endless wars (wars that enriched the perpetrators and sent the poorest and most marginalized to bear all their burdens), they completely ignored the victims of their gluttony, except when those victims piped up a bit too much — when they caused a ruckus — and were then scornfully condemned as troglodytes who were the deserved losers in the glorious, global game of meritocracy.
That message was heard loud and clear. The institutions and elite factions that have spent years mocking, maligning, and pillaging large portions of the population — all while compiling their own long record of failure and corruption and destruction — are now shocked that their dictates and decrees go unheeded. But human beings are not going to follow and obey the exact people they most blame for their suffering. They’re going to do exactly the opposite: purposely defy them and try to impose punishment in retaliation. Their instruments for retaliation are Brexit and Trump. Those are their agents, dispatched on a mission of destruction: aimed at a system and culture that they regard, not without reason, as rife with corruption and, above all else, contempt for them and their welfare.
After the Brexit vote, I wrote an article comprehensively detailing these dynamics, which I won’t repeat here but hope those interested will read. The title conveys the crux: “Brexit Is Only the Latest Proof of the Insularity and Failure of Western Establishment Institutions.” That analysis was inspired by a short, incredibly insightful, and now-more-relevant-than-ever post-Brexit Facebook note by The Los Angeles Times’ Vincent Bevins, who wrote that “both Brexit and Trumpism are the very, very wrong answers to legitimate questions that urban elites have refused to ask for 30 years”; in particular, “since the 1980s the elites in rich countries have overplayed their hand, taking all the gains for themselves and just covering their ears when anyone else talks, and now they are watching in horror as voters revolt.”
For those who tried to remove themselves from the self-affirming, vehemently pro-Clinton elite echo chamber of 2016, the warning signs that Brexit screechingly announced were not hard to see. These two short passages from a Slate interview I gave in July — here and here — summarized those grave dangers: that opinion-making elites were so clustered, so incestuous, so far removed from the people who would decide this election, so contemptuous of them, that they were not only incapable of seeing the trends toward Trump but were unwittingly accelerating those trends with their own condescending, self-glorifying behavior.
Like most everyone else who saw the polling data and predictive models of the media’s self-proclaimed data experts, I long believed Clinton would win, but the reasons why she very well could lose were not hard to see. The warning lights were flashing in neon for a long time, but they were in seedy places that elites studiously avoid. The few people who purposely went to those places and listened, such as Chris Arnade, saw and heard them loud and clear. The ongoing failure to take heed of this intense but invisible resentment and suffering guarantees that it will fester and strengthen. This was the last paragraph of my July article on the Brexit fallout:
Instead of acknowledging and addressing the fundamental flaws within themselves, [elites] are devoting their energies to demonizing the victims of their corruption, all in order to delegitimize those grievances and thus relieve themselves of responsibility to meaningfully address them. That reaction only serves to bolster, if not vindicate, the animating perceptions that these elite institutions are hopelessly self-interested, toxic, and destructive and thus cannot be reformed but rather must be destroyed. That, in turn, only ensures there will be many more Brexits, and Trumps, in our collective future.
Beyond the Brexit analysis, there are three new points from last night’s results that I want to emphasize, as they are unique to the 2016 U.S. election and, more importantly, illustrate the elite pathologies that led to all of this:
(1) Democrats have already begun flailing around trying to blame anyone and everyone they can find — everyone except themselves — for last night’s crushing defeat of their party. You know the drearily predictable list of their scapegoats: Russia, WikiLeaks, James Comey, Jill Stein, Bernie Bros, The Media, news outlets (including, perhaps especially, the Intercept) which sinned by reporting negatively on Hillary Clinton. Anyone who thinks that what happened last night in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Michigan can be blamed on any of that is drowning in self-protective ignorance so deep that it’s impossible to express in words.
When a political party is demolished, the principle responsibility belongs to one entity: the party that got crushed. It’s the job of the party and the candidate, and nobody else, to persuade the citizenry to support them and find ways to do that. Last night, the Democrats failed, resoundingly, to do that, and any autopsy or liberal think piece or pro-Clinton-pundit commentary that does not start and finish with their own behavior is one that is inherently worthless.
Put simply, Democrats knowingly chose to nominate a deeply unpopular, extremely vulnerable, scandal-plagued candidate, who — for very good reason — was widely perceived to be a protector and beneficiary of all the worst components of status quo elite corruption. It’s astonishing that those of us who tried frantically to warn Democrats that nominating Hillary Clinton was a huge and scary gamble, that all empirical evidence showed that she could lose to anyone and that Bernie Sanders would be a much stronger candidate especially in this climate — are now the ones being blamed: by the very same people who insisted on ignoring all that data and nominating her anyway.
But that’s just basic blame-shifting and self-preservation. Far more significant is what this shows about the mentality of the Democratic Party. Just think about who they nominated: someone who — when she wasn’t dining with Saudi monarchs and being feted in Davos by tyrants who gave million-dollar checks — spent the last several years piggishly running around to Wall Street banks and major corporations cashing in with $250,000 fees for 45-minute secret speeches even though she had already become unimaginably rich with book advances while her husband already made tens of millions playing these same games. She did all that without the slightest apparent concern for how that would feed into all the perceptions and resentments of her and the Democratic Party as corrupt, status-quo-protecting, aristocratic tools of the rich and powerful: exactly the worst possible behavior for this post-2008-economic-crisis era of globalism and destroyed industries.
It goes without saying that Trump is a sociopathic con artist obsessed with personal enrichment: the opposite of a genuine warrior for the downtrodden. That’s too obvious to debate. But, just as Obama did so powerfully in 2008, he could credibly run as an enemy of the D.C. and Wall Street system that has steamrolled over so many people, while Hillary Clinton is its loyal guardian, its consummate beneficiary.
Trump vowed to destroy the system that elites love (for good reason) and the masses hate (for equally good reason), while Clinton vowed to more efficiently manage it. That, as Matt Stoller’s indispensable article in the Atlantic three weeks ago documented, is the conniving choice the Democratic Party made decades ago: to abandon populism and become the party of technocratically proficient, mildly benevolent managers of elite power. Those are the cynical, self-interested seeds they planted, and now the crop has sprouted.
Of course there are fundamental differences between Obama’s version of “change” and Trump’s. But at a high level of generality — which is where these messages are often ingested — both were perceived as outside forces on a mission to tear down corrupt elite structures, while Clinton was perceived as devoted to their fortification. That is the choice made by Democrats — largely happy with status quo authorities, believing in their basic goodness — and any honest attempt by Democrats to find the prime author of last night’s debacle will begin with a large mirror.
(2) That racism, misogyny and xenophobia are pervasive in all sectors of America is indisputable from even a casual glance at its history, both distant and recent. There are reasons why all presidents until 2008 were white and all 45 elected presidents are men. There can be no doubt that those pathologies played a substantial role in last night’s outcome. But that fact answers very few questions, and begs many critical ones.
To begin with, one must confront the fact that not only was Barack Obama elected twice, but is poised to leave office as a highly popular president: now viewed more positively than Reagan. America wasn’t any less racist and xenophobic in 2008 and 2012 than it is now. Even stalwart Democrats fond of casually branding their opponents as bigots are acknowledging that a far more complicated analysis is required to understand last night’s results. As the New York Times’ Nate Cohn put it: “Clinton suffered her biggest losses in the places where Obama was strongest among white voters. It’s not a simple racism story.” Matt Yglesias acknowledged that Obama’s high approval rating is inconsistent with depictions of the U.S. as “county besotted with racism.”
People often talk about “racism/sexism/xenophobia” v. “economic suffering” as if they are totally distinct dichotomies. Of course there are substantial elements of both in Trump’s voting base, but the two categories are inextricably linked: the more economic suffering people endure, the angrier and more bitter they get, the easier it is to direct their anger to scapegoats. Economic suffering often fuels ugly bigotry. It is true that many Trump voters are relatively well-off and that many of the nation’s poorest voted for Clinton, but, as Michael Moore quite presciently warned, those portions of the country that have been most ravaged by free trade orgies and globalism — Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa — were filled with rage and “see [Trump] as a chance to be the human Molotov cocktail that they’d like to throw into the system to blow it up.” Those are the places that were decisive in Trump’s victory. As the Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney put it:
It long has been, and still is, a central American challenge to rid its society of these structural inequalities. But one way to ensure those scapegoating dynamics fester rather than erode is to continue to embrace a system that excludes and ignores a large portion of the population. Hillary Clinton was viewed, reasonably, as a stalwart devotee, beloved agent, and prime beneficiary of that system, and thus could not possibly be viewed as a credible actor against it.
(3) Over the last six decades, and particularly over the last fifteen years of the endless War on Terror, both political parties have joined to construct a frightening and unprecedentedly invasive and destructive system of authoritarian power, accompanied by the unbridled authority vested in the Executive Branch to use it. As a result, the president of the United States commands a vast nuclear arsenal that can destroy the planet many times over; the deadliest and most expensive military ever developed in human history; legal authorities that allow him to prosecute numerous secret wars at the same time, imprison people with no due process, and to target people (including U.S. citizens) for assassination with no oversight; domestic law enforcement agencies that are constructed to appear and to act as standing, para-militarized armies; a sprawling penal state that allows imprisonment far more easily than most western countries; and a system of electronic surveillance purposely designed to be ubiquitous and limitless, including on U.S. soil.
Those who have been warning of the grave dangers these powers pose have often been dismissed on the ground that the leaders who control this system are benevolent and well-intentioned. They have thus often resorted to the tactic of urging people to imagine what might happen if a president they regarded as less-then-benevolent one day gained control of it. That day has arrived. One hopes that this will at least provide the impetus to unite across ideological and partisan lines to finally impose meaningful limits on these powers that should never have been vested in the first place. That commitment should start now.
* * * * *
For many years, the U.S. — like the U.K. and other western nations — has embarked on a course that virtually guaranteed a collapse of elite authority and internal implosion. From the invasion of Iraq to the 2008 financial crisis to the all-consuming framework of prisons and endless wars, societal benefits have been directed almost exclusively to the very elite institutions most responsible for failure at the expense of everyone else.
It was only a matter of time before instability, backlash and disruption resulted. Both Brexit and Trump unmistakably signal its arrival. The only question is whether those two cataclysmic events will be the peak of this process, or just the beginning. And that, in turn, will be determined by whether their crucial lessons are learned — truly internalized — or ignored in favor of self-exonerating campaigns to blame everyone else.
---
---
So, go the source for the imbedded links or for the comments.
In case you don't bother, my comment was a prediction that the Dems won't learn from their mistakes and won't abandon their failed tactics.
After all, they've spent 16 years blaming Nader (and counting).
A
Hey CW
The filter ate my comment.
It's long, but timely.
A
Editing note: the beginning of paragraph 3 should read: "..in every state in which Hillary was expected to win.."
And Republican women who voted for Trump: would you please wear an "I voted for Trump" sticker everywhere you go, so that when some creep shoves you or your daughter up against a wall for a quick feel, I can say, "you voted for that"?
Oh puullleeeeezzzzzeeeeee...
The mere TIMING of the accusations should have proven to you how bogus they were....
"Wall Street took Trump literally but not seriously, while Trump supporters took him seriously but not literally."
I like that quote as well because it DOES sum things up perfectly.... :D
So, we CAN agree on things.. :D
In hindsight, Trump's total decimation of 17 establishment candidates in the Primary should have been the canary in the coal mine....
Michale: I'll tell you what I told my brother last night. If Trump wants to win me over, he'll convince the GOP to finally take up the infrastructure bill that's been gathering dust for the last eight years. I'd like to see the US build out the way that every other industrialized society has during the last decade.
I'd also like to see him, now that he's won, put the immigration issue on the back burner, and stop terrifying the poor, sweet, Mexican immigrant family that lives next door to me. The GOP will now have to face the fact that it's wealthy agro-business interests, not liberal coddling, that drives most immigration in the southwest. They'll find that out if they try to pass anything resembling a deportation force.
Hey, at least the legalization effort won big last night!
Finally, to Michale. Yes, I do owe you an apology.
No apology necessary....
We simply disagreed.. You WOULD owe me an apology if you hadn't acknowledged that I COULD be right and you COULD be wrong, but you did.. So, no apology is necessary... But thank you anyways... :D
though I wish that I could fast-forward to the moment, sometime in the future, when they all collectively realize that they've been made fools of by a master con artist.
OR.... Trump could be another Ronald Reagan, bringing back Morning to America..... :D
A person doesn't get to be as successful as Trump in business by SOLELY being a "master con artist"....
The mere TIMING of the accusations should have proven to you how bogus they were....
They weren't 'accusations', they were his own words on videotape. At what point should that have been raised? Besides, there's a chance that the Trump campaign actually encouraged the release of that tape, so that he could rip into Bill's past (as he actually did). But he can't dismiss his own words - they'll hang in the air around him like cat box odor forever.
I'd also like to see him, now that he's won, put the immigration issue on the back burner, and stop terrifying the poor, sweet, Mexican immigrant family that lives next door to me.
I'de also like to see that "poor sweet Mexican immigrant family that lives next door to you" to show respect for this country by obeying it's laws...
Michale: I'll tell you what I told my brother last night. If Trump wants to win me over, he'll convince the GOP to finally take up the infrastructure bill that's been gathering dust for the last eight years. I'd like to see the US build out the way that every other industrialized society has during the last decade.
What if Trump were to renounce his Republican Party membership and register as an NPA??
I don't think we have to worry about Trump having to "convince" the GOP to do anything..
Trump will say... They will do.... The alternative IS Trump renouncing his Party membership and turning his supporters AGAINST the GOP.....
They weren't 'accusations', they were his own words on videotape.
Oh that.... Locker room talk from 10 years ago.... Hardly indicative of ANYTHING.....
No different than Hillary staring longingly at whatsername's tits....
Can you imagine what Bill Clinton talks about in the locker room with Jeffery Epstein???
Trump could be another Ronald Reagan, bringing back Morning to America..... :D
..and a savings and loan collapse, a run-up of the deficit, backroom deals with the Iranians, illegal military interventions, support for racist and authoritarian regimes and a bloated peacetime military buildup. I can't wait.
And Reagan would have never trusted the Russians as much as Trump does. Never.
And Republican women who voted for Trump: would you please wear an "I voted for Trump" sticker everywhere you go, so that when some creep shoves you or your daughter up against a wall for a quick feel, I can say, "you voted for that"?
You seem to be saying that any woman who voted for Trump DESERVES to be thrown up against a wall and sexually molested..
While I don't know you all that well, I think I know you well enough to know that you don't WANT to be saying that...
And Reagan would have never trusted the Russians as much as Trump does. Never.
Trump has done NOTHING to indicate that he trusts the Russians...
But, take a look at the dynamic here... :D
Under Reagan, it was the Left that wanted to make nice with the Russians... :D
backroom deals with the Iranians, illegal military interventions, support for racist and authoritarian regimes
Obama....
Obama......
And.... WOW... Obama......
:D
All I am saying is that you are predicting a Trump Administration debacle in the EXACT SAME MANNER you predicted a Trump loss...
You MIGHT be wrong...
Trump MIGHT be a great president..
Isn't that what you want?? For Trump to be a great President and be a bona fide hero for this country and all Americans??
Trump will say... They will do.... The alternative IS Trump renouncing his Party membership and turning his supporters AGAINST the GOP.
And here I was thinking that I could never root for Trump. I want to see him go down that path, and see where it gets him. Couldn't happen to a nicer group of guys.
I'd also like to see that "poor sweet Mexican immigrant family that lives next door to you" to show respect for this country by obeying it's laws...
They do, more so than the hillbillys living across the street, I can tell you that. But which laws would you have them follow - the laws that allowed and encouraged them to emigrate in the first place, or the NEW proposed laws that will make their lives a living nightmare? You can't criticize folks for not following rules that you're changing as you go along.
And here I was thinking that I could never root for Trump. I want to see him go down that path, and see where it gets him. Couldn't happen to a nicer group of guys.
And on THAT, we are in complete agreement... :D
They do, more so than the hillbillys living across the street, I can tell you that. But which laws would you have them follow - the laws that allowed and encouraged them to emigrate in the first place, or the NEW proposed laws that will make their lives a living nightmare? You can't criticize folks for not following rules that you're changing as you go along.
Trump is not advocating any new laws.. Trump says we simply ENFORCE the laws that are already on the books...
It was Obama who wanted a whole slew of new laws. And when he couldn't get those, he did an end run around Congress...
Then Trump body-slammed Obama to the ground for a 4 yard loss :D
I agree that illegal immigrants are not in the best of situations in the here and now...
But it's a situation of their own making.. But it's never too late to do the right thing...
For all the accusations of hate and hate mongering directed at Trump, and Trump supporters...It's those on the Left who are exhibiting all the hate.....Ironic, isn't it....
I won't include the link you provided as proof of your comment, Michale.
Because, of all the things you contribute to this site, it is your insertion of extraneous links like that that have nothing to do with the people, yourself included, who call this wonderful site a virtual home.
My hope going forward is that you won't project the actions and ideas of those who would work to keep your country divided onto your friends who share this place with you.
I don't think we deserve it and I think you know it.
For all the accusations of hate and hate mongering directed at Trump, and Trump supporters...It's those on the Left who are exhibiting all the hate.....Ironic, isn't it....
I won't include the link you provided as proof of your comment, Michale.
Because, of all the things you contribute to this site, it is your insertion of extraneous links like that that have nothing to do with the people, yourself included, who call this wonderful site a virtual home that really irks me.
My hope going forward is that you won't project the actions and ideas of those who would work to keep your country divided onto your friends who share this place with you.
I don't think we deserve it and I think you know it.
Is it to soon to point out that while Trump wins in the EC he still came in second in the popular vote.
OPOV is a needed change...
Isn't that what you want?? For Trump to be a great President and be a bona fide hero for this country and all Americans??
Yes. I'd like him to show me, just one time, that he's up to the job. I haven't seen anything remotely like that yet.
The hillbillies didn't vote for Trump because he's competent - they elected him to throw a wrench into the urban-centric culture of Washington politics.
But their choice of champions was flawed because Trump is, if anything, a creature of the very culture they despise, or didn't they notice that he operates from a high-rise in Manhattan, hires illegal immigrants, and out-sources all of his manufacturing?
Trump can't stop the technological innovation that has stolen midwestern jobs, and makes them computer-illiterate cogs in the new economy. He won't increase funding to education, to the contrary, I expect him to support useless for-profit enterprises like Trump University. Trump can't abolish hip hop, and won't take the guns from the hands of desperate inner-city criminals - he might actually arm them to the teeth instead, through lax gun laws.
In otherwords, what exactly the rural folk expect Trump to do to make their lives easier eludes me.
And it's not just the illegal Immigrants fault..
For YEARS, the Democrats have been convincing illegal immigrants that immigration is a RIGHT.. That they have a RIGHT to come to this country and break our laws...
Trump will make sure that these immigrants know that the Democrats have been LYING....
The hillbillies didn't vote for Trump because he's competent - they elected him to throw a wrench into the urban-centric culture of Washington politics.
You're projecting.. :D
In otherwords, what exactly the rural folk expect Trump to do to make their lives easier eludes me.
Looks like we'll find out together... :D
GT,
Is it to soon to point out that while Trump wins in the EC he still came in second in the popular vote.
OPOV is a needed change...
I believe it was Russ who said, "Thank god for the Electoral Vote!!" or words to that effect.. :D
'Sides.. All the counting isn't done... Trump may still pull ahead in the popular vote as well....
Liz,
Because, of all the things you contribute to this site, it is your insertion of extraneous links like that that have nothing to do with the people, yourself included, who call this wonderful site a virtual home that really irks me.
But they aren't "extraneous" links... They are links that are chock full o facts that support the case I am making.. I'll be touching on this in my After Action Report...
Michale,
Here is the stark difference today between Democrats and Republicans:
President Obama said today that he wishes President-elect Trump success because, to paraphrase Joe Biden, if Trump fail, America fails.
Now, fast rewind to Inauguration Day 2009 when the Republican leadership announced that their number one priority - in the midst of the most destructive global financial crisis since the Great Depression as America was losing more than 700,000 jobs per month, you will recall - was to do everything in their power to ensure that President Obama would be a one-term president.
I can't help but wonder, given his paranoid assertions during the latter days of the campaign about the system being rigged, how Donald Trump would have handled a defeat and how he will proceed after taking the oath of office.
But they aren't "extraneous" links... They are links that are chock full o facts that support the case I am making.. I'll be touching on this in my After Action Report...
I haven't made myself clear.
Your links and projections on us, your fellow Weigantians, are extraneous and wholly unwarranted, not to mention unappreciated.
Michale,
I hope that you will think long and hard about where you post your 'After Action Report' and remember what this site is all about.
Please consider who we are and how we are trying to move forward in a positive manner with Trump at the helm and your country teetering on the edge, deeply divided on a broad array of issues as well as on a sense of who and what America and Americans are ...
Your links and projections on us, your fellow Weigantians, are extraneous and wholly unwarranted, not to mention unappreciated.
Oh come on....
If today's events haven't proven beyond ALL doubt that my "projections" upon ya'all were dead on ballz accurate, then NOTHING will ever "prove" it... :D
Looks like we'll find out together..
Really? Rural America votes for a man who, except for the very specific promises to build a wall and deport illegal immigrants, has only promised vaguely that 'things will be great', and you're not even a little bit concerned that we have no idea what the rest of his agenda is? Some examples: will he insert American Troops into the Middle east, or adopt an isolationist policy? I dunno. Will he criticize Assad's and Russia's barrel-bombing of civilians, or back Putin's war of attrition in Syria? I dunno. Will Trump build economic ties to US allies around the world, or hold them up for protection money? I dunno.
A lot of uncertainty there, and 'we'll see' is a scary attitude to adopt in the face of it.
Michale,
I'm going to try one more time, perhaps for the last time ...
Why do you think your fellow Weigantians are full of hate?
Get used to it, Michale. You're now a defender of the Status Quo (the 'quo' being Trump), and you're now going to have to get used to defending, rather than attacking, the government that he leads. If that feels uncomfortable,
"Welcome to the party, pal!"
"Everybody is sad when their side loses an election, but the day after we have to remember that we're actually all on one team. This is an intramural scrimmage," Obama said. "We're not Democrats first. We're not Republicans first. We are Americans first. We're patriots first. We all want what's best for this country." ... President Barack Obama, November 9, 2016
Now, THAT is what's called taking the high road.
If only congressional Republicans had taken the same view on that cold January day in 2009 ...
I found someone who can say it better than I can.. :D
https://www.facebook.com/TheDailyRantsGuy/videos/1139935746084594/
I'm going to try one more time, perhaps for the last time ...
Why do you think your fellow Weigantians are full of hate?
I honestly don't know...
But you seem to be implying that my fellow Weigantians AREN"T full of hate...
I will grant you that some aren't...
But YOU must also grant me that MANY are...
Now, let me ask YOU a question...
Why do you think that Trump supporters are full of hate??
Get used to it, Michale. You're now a defender of the Status Quo (the 'quo' being Trump), and you're now going to have to get used to defending, rather than attacking, the government that he leads. If that feels uncomfortable,
You have got it all wrong, B...
I am not the defender of the Status Quo, nor am I obligated to defend Trump when he is wrong...
You are confusing me with a Party drone.. A Party drone must defend their queen, even if said queen is bat-shit wrong...
When Trump is wrong, I will slam him down... When he is right, I will defend him..
THAT is what a person who is NOT enslaved by Party Dogma does...
I know, I know... It's an alien concept for many people here...
Now, THAT is what's called taking the high road.
And what was it called when Clinton/Obama called Trump and Trump supporters "deplorables", "irredeemables" and so many other names???
hmmmmmmmm???
I would have thought that the discussions, debates and arguments of the last year and a half that culminated in the results we saw would have earned me at least some semblance of street cred......
At least a GLIMMERING of a SPARK of a thought in ya'all's brains that would say, "Hay... wait a tic.. Maybe Michale DOES know what he is talking about...."
I'm just sayin'.....
Now, THAT is what's called taking the high road.
What I mean is, it's EASY to take the high road when circumstances more or less FORCE you to take the high road..
The TRUE mark of character would have been for Obama and Hillary to take the high road last week...
Or the week before...
Am I wrong???
B,
Some examples: will he insert American Troops into the Middle east, or adopt an isolationist policy? I dunno. Will he criticize Assad's and Russia's barrel-bombing of civilians, or back Putin's war of attrition in Syria? I dunno. Will Trump build economic ties to US allies around the world, or hold them up for protection money? I dunno.
A lot of uncertainty there, and 'we'll see' is a scary attitude to adopt in the face of it.
As opposed to Clinton's actions where we KNOW she will insert troops... we KNOW she will impose a NFZ, thereby setting up a confrontation between US and Russian fighters....
We KNOW what Clinton would have done.. We have SEEN it in Benghazi, in Libya and in Syria...
Trump MAY be worse, I grant you...
But he also MAY be better...
THAT is what you refuse to acknowledge with any seriousness...
I am also constrained to point out that there was a LOT of uncertainty in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected..
Ya'all didn't seem to mind the uncertainty then....
How come??? Just because of the -D after Obama's name???
Why do you think that Trump supporters are full of hate??
When have I ever said that they were!!!???
I have no time for this.
Please consider who we are and how we are trying to move forward in a positive manner with Trump at the helm and your country teetering on the edge, deeply divided on a broad array of issues as well as on a sense of who and what America and Americans are ...
Liz, you have my word that I WILL remember that a FEW of you are looking to move forward in a positive manner and that a FEW of you are trying to give Trump a chance..
But, recent history has PROVEN that many many MORE Weigantians are of the variety who think that Trump is a racist and Trump supporters are nothing but hate-mongering racists...
While I *WILL* address the few who have the positive outlook, it's those who blindly HATE Trump and his supporters that will get the most out of my After Action report...
IN other words... I'll stick with the facts, both GOOD and BAD....
Why do you think that Trump supporters are full of hate??
When have I ever said that they were!!!???
I have no time for this.
Fair enough... I misspoke... My apologies...
Why do you think the majority of Weigantians think that Trump supporters are full of hate...
And when those Weigantians espoused that idea that Trump supporters were full of hate, why didn't OTHER Weigantians who DON'T share that opinion set the record straight???
You see my point???
Either by commission **OR** omission, Weigantians think that Trump supporters are full of hate....
If you believe as I do, that Trump supporters are NOT motivated by hate, then by all means... Set me straight...
THEN, you and I can discuss why OTHER Weigantians think that....
When I first came to this country two things struck me:
1. I had never seen such "economic apartheid" before, and I grew up for a time in Africa
2. The Democrats were like the British Conservatives and the Republicans were far off in rightwingistan
Bill Clinton, if anything, took the Democratic Party even further to the right. The left/right struggle in Europe is one of Labor vs. Capital, but here it was Capital vs. Capital.
Little has changed to alter my first observations.
Last night was thus a "looking the the mirror glass" experience. The midwest blue collar workers rejected the party that pretends to represent labor for an extreme example of a capitalist.
I wonder how long it is going to take them to find out.
I get the feeling that NO ONE here wants to discuss how THEY might have been wrong in what they said and how they feel...
How can their be an honest discussion under those circumstances??
And let me leave ya'all (I'm on my wife's time now) with this...
https://www.facebook.com/ellentv/videos/10154894159977240/
If you watch nothing else tonight... Watch that...
Don
145
I laughed when I read it, but then I kept reading and you seemed very serious.
I respect what Nader has accomplished and despise the hacks misdirecting blame away from those truly accountable in 2000 and 2016, but if I were you I wouldn't court him for your effort.
It's not the crusade against him.
He's just a brand name with the baggage of preconceived notions.
New blood is better.
A
Michale,
Why do you think that Trump supporters are full of hate??
Oh, oh, oh..... pick me. I can answer why I think some of them are.
Ahem...... I attended three Trump rallies and watched them yell profanities and carry on and even throw rocks. I was a working "observer" and witnessed the usual Trump rhetoric where he cursed and carried on about Mexicans and got the crowds all worked up. On the way out of the venue during one rally, they were mad as hell and throwing rocks (missed me).
Do not for one minute doubt that Donald Trump said racist things in his rallies. He did. I was there. Do not for one minute doubt that Trump followers are angry and sometimes violent. They are. I have witnessed it several times in person.
Of course, the majority of them are absolutely NOT like this at all... not one iota... but it would serve you well to believe me when I tell you that Donald Trump whipped those crowds up with his racist rhetoric, and lots of them are really angry. Angry enough to throw rocks at their fellow Americans.
At the airport in Vegas a few days ago, I accidentally forgot to remove my little blue "H" pin with the red arrow. This really big guy with a tattooed arm grabbed my ass and called me "a c**t with a Hillary pin." Poor guy ended up on the ground at the Vegas airport with my tennis shoe on his throat. He was lucky I wasn't wearing my combat boots and really fortunate my husband wasn't there.
Most of the Trump supporters are great, but some of them are really angry and kind of angry and mean. FACT.
I've had a chance to read the entire page now, and I completely agree with EM and her sentiments. Saves me some time that she said what I was thinking. Thank you so much, EM. :)
Michale said: Maybe the solution is, instead of demonizing and attacking people who think differently, work WITH them to find and build on the things that ya'all DO have in common??
Question:
When did righties do this for Obama? He was demonized from the outset and still is.
I did a lot of work in Nevada this election. I wish some of the other states had gone the same way it did in Nevada... a blue wave. I suspect if it had, the Republicans would be whining about how everything is "rigged" and how they intended to block everything in the future that President Clinton tried to enact.
Democrats will be expected to respect the office that Republicans only respect when they're the occupant. The difference is, Democrats will for the most part, I suspect, actually respect the office. :)
Did you hear the guy yell out "kill Obama" while Trump was giving his victory speech? No, they're not hateful; why would anyone think that? /sarcasm off
When did righties do this for Obama? He was demonized from the outset and still is.
And so now, ya'all's choice is to act EXACTLY like the "righties"???
The difference is, Democrats will for the most part, I suspect, actually respect the office. :)
Despite all the KILL TRUMP AND HIS SUPPORTERS facts to the contrary....
Did you hear the guy yell out "kill Obama" while Trump was giving his victory speech? No, they're not hateful; why would anyone think that? /sarcasm off
And did you read ANY of the links I posted about all the violence from the Left??
Why is it that you condemn the alleged violence and hate from the Right but leave uncommented the real and documented violence from the Left??
This is EXACTLY why I can't get excited by ya'all's claims of violence from the Right..
Because I know for a fact that it's SOLELY based on Partisan ideology.. That you ONLY mind the alleged violence from the Right and condone and encourage the violence and hate from the Left...
Do not for one minute doubt that Donald Trump said racist things in his rallies. He did. I was there.
THen it should be easy for you to quote EXACTLY what he said...
Because I have already proven beyond any doubt that Trump has never said a racist thing..
At the airport in Vegas a few days ago, I accidentally forgot to remove my little blue "H" pin with the red arrow. This really big guy with a tattooed arm grabbed my ass and called me "a c**t with a Hillary pin." Poor guy ended up on the ground at the Vegas airport with my tennis shoe on his throat. He was lucky I wasn't wearing my combat boots and really fortunate my husband wasn't there.
So, we're supposed to accepted your personal experiences as fact, but ya'all are free to ignore my personal experiences, such as talking with MANY legal hispanics as not factual???
How, exactly, does that work?? :^/
Because I know for a fact that it's SOLELY based on Partisan ideology.. That you ONLY mind the alleged violence from the Right and condone and encourage the violence and hate from the Left...
Let me explain it this way...
A guy wearing an I AM A REPUBLICAN hat comes to the podium and says all sorts of racist and hate filled crap...
You lean over to your friend next to you and remark what a racist asshole that guy is..
The guy leaves and a girl steps forward to the podium wearing an I AM A REPUBLICAN shirt.. She goes on and on spewing a whole litany of racist and hate-filled crap...
You again turn to your friend and remark what a racist and hate monger this biatch is...
The girl leaves the podium and another guy steps up to the podium, wearing an I AM A DEMOCRAT shirt. This guy goes on and on spewing a whole bunch of racist and hate mongering crap....
And you say absolutely NOTHING to your friend about it...
Now...
What logical and rational conclusion can be deduced from this???
Oh, oh, oh..... pick me. I can answer why I think some of them are.
Ah Ah Ah....
We are not talking about "some".. The statement has been made MANY times here that "Trump supporters are racist and full of hate" with nay attention paid to quantifying...
Ya'all said it.. Ya'all don't get to re-write recent history... It's not allowed.. :D
Put another way... I can easily make a case that "some" Hillary supporters are racist and sexist hate mongers...
Ya'all's case from the get go is that the VAST MAJORITY, if not ALL of Trump supporters are...
And you have no basis for such a claim, save political bigotry...
Twitter Erupts With Calls For Donald Trump To Be Assassinated
Twitter is exploding with people calling for president-elect Donald Trump to be assassinated.
The Republican real-estate billionaire beat Hillary Clinton handily to become the next president of the United States, but that hasn’t stopped lots of people calling for somebody to murder him.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/09/twitter-erupts-with-calls-for-donald-trump-to-be-assassinated/#ixzz4PbjVIy7e
This is ya'all's fellow Left Wingers....
Do ya'all have anything to say to them??? Anything at all???
I fear the comments section of this blog are headed in a direction I want no part of.
I fear the comments section of this blog are headed in a direction I want no part of.
I understand.... It's hard to come to grips with being so blatantly wrong about most everything..
But I have faith in your strength....
Is it really so difficult to condemn those scum on the Left calling for the brutal murder and attacks on Trump and Trump supporters??
I wouldn't have thought so...
Liz,
The Trump supporters, including yours truly, endured so much hatred and vitriol and attacks and condemnations and ridicule from the Left Wingery as a whole and, either by commission or omission, the VAST majority of Weigantians..
Do you honestly believe it's fair for us to be asked to forget all that, forget all the name-callings and personal attacks and the like and just hug it out??
There will come a day for that... With me, personally, it will likely be sooner rather than later.....
But today is not that day...
"There will come a day when your people will be welcome back to Atlantis. But today is not that day.."
-Commander Freah, STARGATE: ATLANTIS
Is it so difficult to leave that crap off of this site?
What was I wrong about?
Is it so difficult to leave that crap off of this site?
Which "crap" are you referring to???
What was I wrong about?
That was a royal "you" and not a "you" you.... :D
This is ya'all's fellow Left Wingers....
And, the link that preceded it.
And, most frustrating of all, your endless implications that we have anything to do with it.
And, most frustrating of all, your endless implications that we have anything to do with it.
With one or two exceptions, no one here has anything to do with STOPPING it either....
Michale,
Because I know for a fact that it's SOLELY based on Partisan ideology.. That you ONLY mind the alleged violence from the Right and condone and encourage the violence and hate from the Left...
Well I don't know how many times I have to tell you, but you don't know what you're talking about with your constant "partisan ideology" ECHO... Echo... echo -- at least where I am concerned.
No one has to post constantly about "both sides doing it" in order to make a point. Only a fool would fail to see that there is violence on both sides, but one doesn't have to argue both sides in order to make a credible point on one side or the other. Please let that finally permeate through your dura mater. :)
. Only a fool would fail to see that there is violence on both sides, but one doesn't have to argue both sides in order to make a credible point on one side or the other.
And yet, point to me a SINGLE un-prompted comment where one of ya'all condemned Left Winger violence against Trump supporters or Trump himself..
You can't because NONE exists...
You can claim til the cows come home, but the facts are the facts..
And the fact is *NO ONE* here has, unprompted or unsolicited, condemned Left Wingery violence against Trump and/or Trump supporters..
NO..... ONE....
Michale,
So, we're supposed to accepted your personal experiences as fact, but ya'all are free to ignore my personal experiences, such as talking with MANY legal hispanics as not factual???
How, exactly, does that work?? :^/
You are free to believe it or not. I don't concern myself with whether or not people believe my opinions or my experiences.
I understand what you're saying about "legal Hispanics," but put that conversation in the context of what we were talking about at the time -- polling -- and consider that Hispanics, both legal and illegal ones, are not a monolithic group, particularly and especially in your neck of the woods in Florida. Lots of illegal Hispanics live with legal Hispanics so it's complicated and nuanced. You like to say "it's that simple" a lot, but sometimes things aren't all that simple to peg or easily label.
I am related to lots of Trump supporters. They are all different and nuanced. I don't blame them for the guy who touched my ass and wound up on his ass for doing it. :)
EM is right about this, and you would be well served to listen to what she is saying. I've been between anti-Trump supporters and Trump supporters and watched a reporter get clocked in the face by a rock that flew past me and into his face. My not posting about it doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Button it up with the blame here and the "D" and "R" rhetoric. I live with supporters on both sides and the young ones voting for Jill Stein against all my objections.
And yet, point to me a SINGLE un-prompted comment where one of ya'all condemned Left Winger violence against Trump supporters or Trump himself..
Your peevish neediness of concession and validation is again duly noted.
EM is totally right about this issue... she is DOB right, as you like to say.
Let it go. :)
You are free to believe it or not. I don't concern myself with whether or not people believe my opinions or my experiences.
Don't get me wrong, K... I fully believe your personal experiences..
I just wish it was a courtesy that extended both ways.. :D
Your peevish neediness of concession and validation is again duly noted.
It matches well with yer peevish neediness to avoid the facts and the hypocrisy.. :D
Let it go. :)
Not gonna happen.. :D Not until the facts are conceded.... :D
Not gonna happen.. :D Not until the facts are conceded.... :D
And what are those facts, you may ask???
Well, I am glad you asked..
The fact that Trump supporters as a whole, are no more racist and violent than Hillary supporters..
Each group has their violent bad apples and assholes.....
Michale,
I just wish it was a courtesy that extended both ways.. :D
It does extend both ways, but you must realize the context in which your personal experiences were being questioned. We were talking about polling at the time you said something along the lines of "all the legal Hispanics I know"... so I believed you, but in the context of POLLING, all the Hispanics you know are a small sample limited to your neighborhood. See? I live in Texas so I could say "all the Hispanics I know" were against Trump, and in the context of polling that would be an unrepresentative sample size signifying nothing that would be considered anecdotal evidence. :)
It matches well with yer peevish neediness to avoid the facts and the hypocrisy.. :D
You seem to want posters to be like the media... to give equal time to both sides and practice that "false equivalence" BS. Real people aren't generally like that. People are opinionated. I like to let people be who they are... blow off steam. EVERYONE knows "both sides do it," but they don't want to blow off steam whining about their side. A person doesn't have to argue both sides in order to make a valid point, right? :)
Michale,
The fact that Trump supporters as a whole, are no more racist and violent than Hillary supporters..
Each group truly does, but you'll NEVER get me to believe that false equivalency thing that they're "equally" racist and violent or "equally" anything. :)
Each group has their violent bad apples and assholes.....
FACT. :) But define "asshole." I decked that guy in Vegas and put him on his ass and put my foot in his throat. His buddy called me some choice names for hurting him, but he deserved what he got. Sometimes people who wouldn't normally be violent can be provoked. You never know when that person's ass you're grabbing is trained to defend themselves. :) Does that make me an "asshole"? Am I just supposed to let some jerk touch me like that because he feels empowered by Trump winning? I won't allow it. No one is touching me like that because I supported a candidate they didn't agree with (forgot to take off my little "H" pin). :)
Michale,
I know more about ISIS than the generals do.
Remember when I posted that and you tore me up? When you thought I was saying it, you said it was the dumbest thing you ever heard, right? It was equally dumb when Trump said it.
So now you know how lots of people feel about a lot of the crap coming out of Trump's orange blowhole... and it has nothing at all to do with the "R" after his name; it's because he says stupid stuff. I respect the office, but I do not respect Trump. Respect is earned.
See? I live in Texas so I could say "all the Hispanics I know" were against Trump, and in the context of polling that would be an unrepresentative sample size signifying nothing that would be considered anecdotal evidence. :)
But the crux of the "All the hispanics we know" argument has one oh so important component..
Are all the hispanics you know LEGALLY here in the US???
I know more about ISIS than the generals do.
Campaign hyperbole... Nothing more...
; it's because he says stupid stuff. I respect the office, but I do not respect Trump. Respect is earned.
I couldn't agree more... Really...
But, if you start with the idea that Trump can NEVER earn your respect, well, that is on you, no?? :D
Each group truly does, but you'll NEVER get me to believe that false equivalency thing that they're "equally" racist and violent or "equally" anything. :)
Oh sure, it's not a one for one trade-off... You don't have one racist Lefty for every one racist Righty...
But, by and large, the quantity comes close.... That video link I posted in the latest Friday commentary goes into much detail.. I hope you watch it... It's a REAL eye-opener, especially in light of the dynamic we have here in Weigantia....
Michale,
Are all the hispanics you know LEGALLY here in the US???
That was a hypothetical, but the answer is yes AND both fathers and mothers born in America also, which is more than Trump can say... as well as 4/5 of Trump's children.
I know more about ISIS than the generals do.
Campaign hyperbole... Nothing more...
I like this BS excuse of yours for Trump. Does it extend to others with a "D" after their name? I know it did not extend to me when you thought I was saying it. "I'm speaking with myself because I have a very big brain" didn't go over too well with you either. You accused me of making it up and Trump never saying it... when he said all of that and much more. Words matter. Words that Trump says should matter when he says them and not just when I repeat them.
But, if you start with the idea that Trump can NEVER earn your respect, well, that is on you, no?? :D
I NEVER said "NEVER," but I will say that Trump's words should matter. He seems to have little respect for women... so.... You can dismiss everything Trump ever tweeted or said or says in the future as "campaign hyperbole" or "locker room talk," but words he says should matter as much as words I say or anyone else says. I hear a lot of Republicans saying we have to give Trump a chance when I don't remember that same chance ever being extended to President Obama, a man who actually won the popular vote twice. Trump hasn't even done that once. Trump lost the majority... the majority of voters didn't choose him. Republicans who say Trump has a mandate said Obama did not have a mandate.