Now what?

[caja-dglh]

Now what?

In some ways removing those signs is beneficial to him. If he can get them to give him the letters on the cheap he can put them up around the White House.

[Hot Pepsi]

Now what?

Disturbing.

It's hard not to normalize because people so desperately want life to be normal, or at least, bearable. It's hard to live every damn day mentally tooled up to fight the latest outrage.

I'm exhausted already. How does Noam Chomsky do it?
http://www.theonion.com/article/exhausted-noam-chomsky-just-going-to-try-and-enjoy-17404

Also related
http://www.theonion.com/article/seymour-hersh-uncovers-new-thing-too-sad-to-think--6683

[ursus arctos]

Now what?

[Incandenza]

Now what?

Hot Pepsi wrote: These are strange times. Becoming President of the United States has tanked his brand. What would THE FOUNDERS think?*

But "what does it say about us" that so many relatively rich people in Manhattan hate Trump so much - I sense real, deep hatred - and yet they're the ones most likely to benefit from his policies and the exact opposite is true of so many of his actual supporters.

*They'd probably think "Wait, a black man was PRESIDENT? Why is there a dead animal on that man's head? What's up with your trousers? How did I get here?")

Haha, exactly. Someone on Twitter was unironically musing what Alexander Hamilton would have made of how people voted. I said he probably would have wondered why we let blacks and women have the franchise.

[Hot Pepsi]

Now what?

He didn't want the masses to vote for the president at all. You can kinda see his point.

[Incandenza]

Now what?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/us/politics/trump-transition.html?_r=0

For advice on building Mr. Trump’s national security team, his inner circle has been relying on three hawkish current and former American officials: Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California, who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee; Peter Hoekstra, a former Republican congressman and former chairman of the Intelligence Committee; and Frank Gaffney, a Pentagon official during the Reagan administration and a founder of the Center for Security Policy.

Mr. Gaffney has long advanced baseless conspiracy theories, including that President Obama might be a closet Muslim. The Southern Poverty Law Center described him as “one of America’s most notorious Islamophobes.”

Gaffney was mentioned last December in the election thread. Trump is loyal.

[linus]

Now what?

It's going to be interesting if Gaffney is picked and Ellison is heading the DNC, as Gaffney believes that Ellison is in cahoots with the Muslim Brotherhood.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Now what?

So it turns out he's going to be surrounded by bellicose loons after all?

[Ginger Yellow]

Now what?

Gaffney believes everyone is in cahoots with the Muslim Brotherhood.

[Hot Pepsi]

Now what?

No doubt there will be a lot of Republicans and Democrats objecting to Ellison because he's black and Muslim. Republicans don't like those things full-stop, and Democrats will think they need to get a rust-belt white guy. But Ellison's district is exactly the sort of mostly white middle-class suburban area where Democrats need to make progress.

[ursus arctos]

Now what?

Ellison also grew up and went to school in Detroit, and is infinitely better connected with working class people of any colour than the current leadership.

[anton pulisov]

Now what?

Peter Hoekstra, a former Republican congressman and former chairman of the Intelligence Committee

[Incandenza]

Now what?

ursus arctos wrote: Ellison also grew up and went to school in Detroit, and is infinitely better connected with working class people of any colour than the current leadership.

Keith Ellison was laughed at by everyone else on George Stephanopoulos' show last July after suggesting Trump could be the nominee:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHkPadFK34o

[Hot Pepsi]

Now what?

I'm a fan.

Here's a good piece on Pennsylvania.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20161118_Dissecting_the_Democrats_Pa__loss___We_fa iled_in_hearing_people__hearing_their_voices_.html ?mobi=true

I've come to see that I'm part of the problem. I don't like the Democratic Party for a lot of reasons, but they are the opposition party. I need to do what I can to help them.

[San Bernardhinault]

Now what?

There are a couple of things in that article that bother me - not about the article itself, but about much of the current navel-gazing:

"Taking the vote for granted was the biggest failure that we had," said McGinnis. "We did a great job in Chester County - but throughout the state, I think that we failed in hearing people, hearing their voices."

and

"The real issue is we seem to be the party of the white, affluent, educated person. The party for minorities, for LGBT community, for women," McGinnis said. "But we have a problem with white working-class men."

First - there's nothing wrong with being the party of the educated, or minorities, of the LGBT, of women. What the hell is wrong with that?

Secondly - and correlated - a lot of the talk of appealing to the "white working class men without a college education" is dangerously going the other way. It seems to be taking the other vote for granted. It seems to just assume that the educated, that women, the minorities, will just vote Democrat.

There's a big danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, in the search of a tiny swing of a small demographic.

And, of course, it needs to be hammered heavily into everyone's heads, that poor people voted Democrat massively, and it was the middle classes - not the working classes - that made up the majority of Trump's voters.

[Hot Pepsi]

Now what?

San Bernardhinault wrote: "The real issue is we seem to be the party of the white, affluent, educated person. The party for minorities, for LGBT community, for women," McGinnis said. "But we have a problem with white working-class men."

Without hearing him (her) actually say this and know where the emphasis was, it's hard to say if he was trying to diminish the "minorities, LGBT community, women" part of say that they're proud of that, but we just can't get over the hump with the bigger group.

The bigger problem is that way too many poor people and minority people and people in general didn't vote at all.

As for the working class white men, who are having their moment, the Democrats don't do well with this group for multiple reasons:

1) They don't do much to actually reach these people. Without the unions, there really isn't much of an avenue for progressives to even talk to these people and, as far as I can tell, Clinton herself didn't spend a lot of time visiting places like Erie and didn't do a lot of messaging aimed at them. And now that these people have already turned against the Democrats it's going to be hard to get them to listen. Meanwhile, their local politicians who enjoy safe gerrymandered seats, talk radio, these guys' bosses, their wing-nut white-pride megachurches, and the NRA all have their ear.

2) It's not clear what the Democrats have to offer these people. Of course, Trump and the GOP aren't offering them anything either except lies, but insofar as Clinton had a platform to help dying small cities, displaced coal miners, etc, she didn't do a very good job of hammering it home. #imwithher isn't going to cut it. Fetterman was all about these people and the Pennsylvania DNC just ignored him and helped nominate Katy McGinty. I hate the whole insider/outsider bullshit, but she was plugged into the state party so they supported her. Other than saying that Trump and Toomey are shitbags, I'm not sure what she stood for.

Sanders did have a lot to offer these people. Whether he could have overcome the redbaiting and antisemitism that would have been thrown at him is hard to say - I'm doubtful - but at least the Democrats could have lost knowing that they put forward a real alternative.

3) Flat-out unmitigated ethno-centrism and racism (and in this case, sexism). White conservative evangelicals believe - because the GOP and others constantly tell them this - that this is "their" country and that it's being taken away by Mexicans, gays, Lesbians, Frenchmen Muslims, Jews, atheists, hippies, "coastal elites," Democrats, Unitarians, etc, etc.

I don't know how to combat that message except with demographics and better education (which the GOP will fight), but I would be eternally grateful for a candidate who would go to the heart of, say, West Virginia and say "It's not the brown people that have ruined your economy, it's Wall Street and their friends in the Republican party and the Clinton-wing of the Democratic party." And do it over and over. Even if he/she got booed for that, it would be a good step. It would, I think, at least force some Trump voters to think about their racial prejudices. Might swing a few. But more importantly, it might encourage more Latinos to get involved and get out the vote. And confessing the Democrats' complicity -whether real or not - might persuade a few people who believe only Trump "tells it like it is."

It might be hopeless. I suspect it probably is, actually, but I'm hoping to be persuaded otherwise.

[delicatemoth]

Now what?

I'm far from the first to make this observation, but it's all intensely Phildickian. Trump seems to have claimed that he persuaded Ford not to move a plant from Kentucky to Mexico, when Ford never had any such plans.

Americans can call the House Oversight Committee to call for a review of Trump's financials.

People have been calling their senators to ask them to protest the appointment of Bannon. Apparently Kasich's Ohio office is hanging up on folk mid-call.

[Hot Pepsi]

Now what?

It was Kasich's staff guy who was one of the cons most most outspoken against Bannon.