Shock just utter shock. Our best hope is that the incompetence of the first term will return and there will be a lot of smoke and mirrors but he won't actually bother to do what he promised to do. And his underlings will be to busy getting rich sucking off the orange ones teat that they won't do anything either. But even then we'll have four more years of the utter destruction of the justice department. We'll have Justice Cannon replacing Justice Thomas. No meaningful progress on climate change, and a transactional chaotic foreign policy. And that's the happy outlook.
I like Shapiro, but not sure a slick philly lawyer was making a difference with the demographics which shifted to Trump.
Yeah. He is popular in PA, so maybe. I did think it was a mistake not to pick him. Then again, in very, very few instances has a VP made the slightest difference to a ticket. Shapiro is more slick, Walz is more folksy. One wasn’t necessarily better or worse than the other, just different. And, as I say, I’m not sure it ultimately makes a difference. Compared to Biden, Harris increased her votes with only 3 groups: secular, high income, and college educated white women. She was barely up, tied or marginally down on all other demographics. Which probably indicates Biden took would have lost. Obviously you can’t say that for certain.
I can't believe we have to do this again. Who COULDN'T win the presidency in America at this point? What does "oh no that guy is too much of a scumbag" look like for this country?
ask Elon Musk, Joe Rogan and the other prime nitwits who either can't or can't be bothered to elucidate real truths about economics and the planet and the civility necessary for civil rights etc to a petulant uneducated mass of foolish people... after that ask Merrick Garland for his thoughts on his halcyon years of mental laziness and inaction- and finally ask those b@stards Joe Manchin and Kristin Sinema (God knows how many people didn;t actually get to vote in the election due to those clowns ineptitude)
Would even Franklin Delano Roosevelt win it amid all the blatant lying and eager willingness to be lied to.....?
This. I think we really need to address the fact that a significant portion of the population in the US has been neglected and marginalized for an entire generation. This is not only a US problem, but a bigger one for most western democracies. I truly feel that this is the main reason we are seeing far-right and nativist movements gaining traction in many countries (probably with some marginal help from Russia and other bad actors). But ultimately the reason these political ideas are flourishing is that people feel like they are being left behind and that their futures are bleak. A good example is my best friend. He and I met when we were both in middle school and have been super close friends ever since - he's about as close to a brother to me as you can get without being blood relations (he was my best man, and I his, for our respective weddings). He lived in the same neighborhood as I did. Economically, our two families were very similar back in the '80s, but while my parents were academically inclined and pushed my sister and I to go to college and excel there, his did not. He was never encouraged to do well in school, and even though he is one of the more intelligent people I've ever met, he's never done well in a school setting. While he started college with me, he also had a full-time job and ended up flunking out of college after his freshman year. I think mostly because his father basically viewed his child-rearing job as done once he'd graduated from highschool, and so he had to take on a full-time job to pay his own way. My parents supported both myself and my sister while we were completing our college studies. While we were encouraged to get jobs, there was never the expectation that we would be fully financially independent until we'd finished our education. The upshot of this is that because of my collegiate and post-collegiate education, I've had access to a completely different set of job opportunities that have provided me with both financial security and social stature. On the other hand, his family trajectory has not been the same. He's comfortable and has a stable job, but is not in the position to put money away for retirement, to be investing in education funds for his children, etc. His financial stability is a lot more precarious than my own, and frankly the type of work he does has been hit a lot more by outsourcing and corporate down-sizing/restructuring. Most of this hasn't obviously improved the productivity and efficiency in his line of work. Instead it has mostly benefitted those at the top (who like me, have post-graduate degrees, e.g. MBAs). Luckily, he doesn't work in manufacturing and so hasn't had to worry about his job being offshored, but many of those in my generation who were not on the collegiate track have had an even harder time since we all entered the workforce back in the early 90s. He's been reliably a republican voter, and is a Trump backer - which I have a hard time understanding, but I also recognize that the world he lives in is very different from mine. While I don't condone the frank racism and sexism that comes along with Trumpism, I do see and empathize to a degree with the rage that many probably feel as they have watched their livelihood and prospects stagnate and increasingly disappear. I think there is a fair degree of inchoate rage being expressed right now, and Trump has masterfully exploited that. The tragedy is that he's a conman at heart and while taking advantage of these sentiments is going to do nothing to fix the problems that engendered them in the first place. I think it is high time for a new generation of politicians to shrug off the current alignment of political norms, and stop the now well-traveled route of politics for aggrandizement and personal enrichment. It's time to actually get to work solving some of these long-standing issues about how we will ensure that our democracies will actually address the problems caused by globalization and off-shoring of stable, good-paying jobs in developed countries. It has been surprising to me how many people are okay with the frank racism and sexism exhibited by Trump. But I still cannot believe most people are really okay with these sentiments, they just feel like he is the only one speaking to the failures of an entire generation of politicians to address real problems that are hindering their personal futures. Harris never really was able to key into this, partly because she was indelibly tied to the Biden record, but also because she has taken part in, and benefited from the very political structure that has resulted in
Yeah I mean I guess that's the answer. It's crazy to say part of the problem is the dems need to go back to nominating white men, or in the case of Obama perhaps a meteorically-rising charisma monster of a black man. But the "man" thing seems to be pretty important when trying to get men to vote for you.
There’s something that absolutely sticks in my craw. I get that in a fair fight, election between 2 people, s/he with the most votes wins. Largely this is what happened here. Yeah, other stuff, but Lumpy got the votes. However (craw sticking time) I have serious problems with the entrenched media, the media that has a name for being august, old-school, formers of opinion, I’m thinking here of the broadsheet newspapers, NY Times, WaPo, etc. and the networks, CBS, NBC and ABC who essentially sane-washed Lumpy. Lumpy was coming out with some seriously demented shit, while very obviously suffering from some sort of mental affect, some form of dementia. Biden was hammered from pillar to post for this type of behavior, yet Lumpy was given a free pass. Explained away, what he meant to say was…, completely unmentioned or tortured to within an inch of its life to polite-wash it. When Lumpy straight up went on a eugenics rant about immigrants poisoning the gene pool, direct from the pages of Mein Kampf, The Times airbrushed it as Lumpy having a lifelong interest in genetics. FFS. There were 2 places we learned of Lumpy’s dementia, MSNBC and blogs. And whatever about taking sides, being biased etc. when one candidate is that handicapped by affect, it’s an obligation to report on it. Not to sane wash or ignore it.
Still will never understand how financial instability makes people racist but it's something we've seen throughout history, and unfortunately saw again yesterday. But it also makes sense that if people aren't happy with the way the country is going, and your message is basically "we're going to keep doing the same thing but with a more joyful attitude" which was essentially what the Harris campaign was, then you're going to lose. Which is what happened.
It's not as important as the "Blatant lying" thing... Or, I would say - it usen't to be as important. Because going forward - all bets are off.... we are now saddled with a bunch of the worst types of people imaginable in political power
It's crazy how much I would kill for a Romney or especially a McCain to be on the other side of the ticket. We didn't know how good we had it back then...
Jack Smith isn’t waiting to be fired. He resigning. The leaves the DOJ Cannon. ??? To absolve Drumph from his high crimes and misdemeanors. The insurrectionists will be pardoned. And so it goes.
Romney- you mean that guy who has to spend $5,000 a month on a special security detail for his immediate family, due to the Twitter thoughts and prayers of the peace-loving panjandrum...... wonder what the little clown in the red hat would spake of Senator Romney.... https://www.cnn.com/shorts/events-desktop-cnn-shorts?iid=vertical-video_entry mad imbeciles
I think I'm even more baffled today - reading and listening to the some of the groups that fell for his lies. The Arabs were an own goal by Harris and Biden - Trump went into those communities and happily lied to them. He HATES muslims and doesn't give a shit about the genocide in Gaza. He's going to double down on the support for Israel. But - because like most things - the war will invariably end - he will take credit for it. In the interim, he will institute another Muslim ban. But - the Dems - didn't even address it. Didn't go to those communities and articulate an idea. I'm not sure if they knew they were in a no-win situation - or if they really thought those communities would still side with them regardless of not even being addressed. The optics of the massive military aid to Israel well after retribution was enacted for the Hamas attacks of last year didn't play well either. And then the Latino women - what the hell are you all thinking? etc etc.
It think it’s becoming more apparent in the aftermath that there was no single bullet, it was a lot of things, some small, some large, some own goals, a lot of lies. Also, for the first time in a long, long time, the GOP managed to put a coalition together. Built on lies, empty promises and pandering, but a coalition. Lumpy has won the popular vote which is the first time for a Republican since 2004.
As Jimmy Kimmel said , “It was a terrible night for women, for children, for hundreds of thousands of hard-working immigrants. “For healthcare, for our climate, for our climate, for science, for journalism, for justice, for free speech,” “It was a terrible night for poor people, for the middle class, for seniors who rely on social security, for our allies in Ukraine…,” “For NATO, For the truth and democracy and decent and it was a terrible night for everyone who voted against him.” “But it was a really good night for [Vladimir] Putin and polio and the lovable billionaires like Elon Musk and the bros up in Silicon Valley and all the wriggling brainworms who sold what was left of their souls to bow down to Donald Trump,” “Guess what? It was a bad night for everyone who voted for him too – you just don’t realize it yet,”
Definitely a concern going forward. Advancing age and deteriorating cognitive abilities layered on existing average-at-best intelligence and low impulse control make for a pretty scary package.