I’m Back
The reason why I was gone was that I had a business trip to New Orleans planned for immediately after the election. I thought I was going celebrating. But it turns out it was good to be away from the constant newstream of Twitter and Cable News and your normal routine during what was the most shocking election result in all history, and the most heartbreaking. The only way I can describe the feeling was it was like I just lost two friends (Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton) in the same car accident. So there was actual grieving. Tears would well in my eyes for no reason, well, yes, there was a reason, but you know what I mean. But I had to force the sadness and shock away so I could concentrate on the real world business meetings. So that helped. Being away helped. I’m still devastated. I’m in the anger/acceptance stage of grieving. But I am ready to fight back now.
First thing I want to do is apologize to Jason330. His pessimistic view of the election and the electorate was, in the end, proven right. I was wrong. I was relying on polls, data, demographics, and early voting results, but they were wrong. And I am sure I argued with a number of readers, commenters and even some contributors aside from Jason330, like El Somnambulo. I am sure I was arrogant in my analysis. My apologies extends to you all as well.
Second, we have to lay down a marker for all Democrats everywhere but especially here in Delaware: we demand full, complete, and hostile obstruction and opposition to every single thing the …. god… President Trump does. The Republican playbook of 2009-16 is now yours. Use it. There shall be no bipartisan agreements to deport 11 million people. There shall be no bipartisan agreement to repeal and replace Obamacare. There shall be no bipartisan agreement to end Medicare. There shall be no bipartisan agreement to cut taxes for the rich.
Senator Carper, Senator Coons, and Representative Rochester, if you vote yes on a single Republican bill just one time, you might as well join the Republican Party that very same day.
We just elected Hitler, and your first instinct should not be to cut deals with him. Your first instinct must be resistance. No matter if your life or livelihood are in danger.
Third, I have no interest in re-litigating the 2016 primary or debating whether Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden would have done better. I have my opinions on that, and I am sure others have theirs, but really, what good does that debate do us except turn us against each other? You know what we should do? We should take the Democratic Platform as it stands now, which was agreed to by both the Clinton and Sanders campaigns, and use it as our starting point when we discuss how to move forward and what policies to change. It was the most progressive platform in party history.
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No apology required. We were all hoodwinked. Duped by pollsters and pundits. Personally, I feel so burned that I still haven’t watched or listened to ANY TV news or politics show. I may never go back. I;ll get my news from this site and be happy with that.
FWIW, the thing that gave me the pessimistic feeling was the one-sidedness of the ads in the Philly market.
The story that isn’t being told about this election is that Trump’s win was bought with a $700 million dollar investment in Philly and (probably) MIchagan and North Carolina. Pat Toomey also rode a wave of cash into office. The ads weren’t directed at getting Trump and Toomey voters out, they were directed at making Clinton/McGinty voters stay home and they appeared to have worked.
“we have to lay down a marker for all Democrats everywhere but especially here in Delaware: we demand full, complete, and hostile obstruction and opposition to every single thing the …. god… President Trump does.”
So let’s unpack Tom Carper’s statement to WDEL with the headline Carper to Trump administration: ‘We’re not going to be doormats’. Sounds promising right? But read on:
Oh man. For those democrats who fetishize “getting things done,” your dreams are about to come true. So much is going to get done you will be delirious with joy.
For Carper that means tax cuts and bank deregulation.
Right. So let's make the Republican agenda as goddamned controversial as we can.
And let's see how many filibusters Carper refuses to join. Dodd-Frank repeal comes to mind.
@jason: I, too, am effectively boycotting for-profit media. I’m not interested in anything they have to say, and they must be viewed as part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
“There shall be no bipartisan agreement to cut taxes for the rich.”
Good luck with that. The Bush tax cuts were passed by a Democratic congress – twice.
Carper to English translation: ‘We’re not going to be doormats’ = ‘We are going to be doormats’
Carper be like:
But we all know, he will be:
@DD: Thank the cosmos you’re back. We need some fighting spirit around here.
Also, I have no desire to relitigate any of the election. But I also don’t want a bunch of crap for saying I’m glad the Clintons are history.
This was not racism in action:
“Like labor unions everywhere, the local Plumbers & Pipefitters union in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley—a historically Democratic bastion due to the influence of labor—endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in September 2015 and urged its members to vote for her. But unlike in years past, when Roland “Butch” Taylor briefed about 200 members on the union’s support of Clinton and the prospective benefits of a Clinton presidency in May, the meeting didn’t go well. “I got a lot of boos,” he recalls. “I got a lot of chatter back. And out of the group, only one person came up and asked me for a T-shirt.”
“Right then and there, I knew something was wrong,” says Taylor, who retired a few months later. “I thought, ‘Well, maybe it will change as the campaign moves forward.'”
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/rust-belt-democrats-saw-trump-wave-coming
I agree that this election was not a plebiscite on racism. That Mother Jones piece nailed it. As a party, we are well to be rid of Bill and Hillary.
NAFTA and free trade might make Garrison Keillor’s portfolio look dandy, but it is Hemlock for the Democratic Party, and we need to stop drinking at and pretending that it tastes yummy.
“Somewhere along the line we forgot that not everyone wants to be white collar, we stopped recognizing the intrinsic value of hard work.”
Absolutely. Further, not everyone wants to go to college either. The DNC/Clinton campaign left behind a large swath of America. Trump took them along with him. Might be all lies but at least he was lying to them.
To characterize it as racism or any other ism, is the wrong reaction, but people can’t resist it. As I said, the big tent was not big enough to include these people.
“Might be all lies but at least he was lying to them.”
Exactly. The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference.
There were a lot of good points made by those Ohio union guys, some of them African-American. They have heard all the Democratic Party answers, like job retraining, and they’re not buying it anymore.
Also, don’t dismiss what Keillor wrote. The hatred of the “elites” also motivates lots of this animus. Which is why I wanted to take a brick to the head (figuratively) of idiot conservatives of color who are excusing all this. I fear they will learn when they’re beaten up by racists that the racists don’t like POC, and they don’t care which party they vote for.
Senator Jeff Merkley has the fighting spirit:
Anyone heard from Senator Carper or Coons?
See if Carper and Coons will sign onto a new Glass Steagall law. Elizabeth Warren wants it. And Mccain. and Angus King. and so did the GOP platform.
How they (Coons and Carper) can continue to “hope for the best” is infuriating.
Maybe we can just all commit to 5 or ten calls a day to their Wilmington offices just saying something like.. “Well? When is the statement of outraged hitting the papers?”
Close your eyes and imagine UNITED STATES SENATOR Bryan Townsend Kicking some butt in D.C.