Interests: Public policy, politics, process theology, & pickleball.
There is no shame in losing an election. There is shame in supporting Donald Trump.
It’s always so easy to laugh at this, but it’s not funny. For 3hrs today, grown men & women all took turns getting down on their knees, fellating their dear leader. In front of the cameras. It’s sad. It’s gross. It’s North Korea. It shouldn’t happen here.
I understand the respect for decorum, and the idea that elected people should listen when the president comes to the chamber to speak.
But this speech is beneath the dignity of any reasonable person listening to it .
Did you think you would live to see a man incite an armed rebellion against the U.S. that killed and injured many and caused the seat of our government to be occupied by insurrectionists, only to get away with it scot-free, with no consequences except for being elected president?
I’m listening to Republican strategist Sarah Longwell on NPR talking about public opinion of Trump’s tyrannical posture and she just said:
“When I ask voters in focus groups if they think Donald Trump is an authoritarian, the #1 response by far is, ‘what’s an authoritarian?’”
When the grieving is done, it’s time for watchdog mode.
Trump is a felon, a liar and a cheat; that won’t change.
The creepy billionaires who put him there will be coming for plunder. It’s a safe bet that epic corruption will stain the Trump years.
This election is a disaster... but 2016 was the watershed election. We let them get the Supreme Court. So Roe is gone. The Court delayed Trump's prosecution & then gave him immunity for official acts. The Court will allow billionaires to foul our politics for decades.
150 billionaire families spent $1.9B on the 2024 election through October.
It's a huge amount of money — but it represents just 0.07% of their overall wealth.
It essentially costs them nothing to drown our democracy in cash.
We must get big money out of our politics.
Lots of reasons for the vote:
Incumbents are unpopular!
Biden had a low approval rating!
Harris did this or didn't do that!
Etc., etc.
I don't quarrel with the analyses. But to understand is not to excuse. No excuse for the American people voting to make Trump president again.
@notsilencednow A problem with this theory is it doesn't explain the exit polls, which indicated more support was there for him in different voting groups.
I don't think it was the machines. It's the ignorance & prejudices that are far too prevalent in the U.S. (plus FOX & billionaire money).
This election wasn’t about the price of eggs, it was about a large portion of an electorate too incapable of critical thinking to understand that presidents work with the economy handed to them by the previous administration—and that the BidenHarris Admin delivered miraculously for all of us, given what the incompetent ignoramus they just reelected left them with.
Well, that, and the abject wh*te fear/hatred of the “other”—which seems to include just about everyone else.
We have so much work to do.
“Every American knew, or should have known. The man elected president last night is a depraved and brazen pathological liar, a shameless con man, a sociopathic criminal, a man who has no moral or social conscience, empathy, or remorse. He has no respect for the Constitution and laws he will swear to uphold, and on top of all that, he exhibits emotional and cognitive deficiencies that seem to be intensifying, and that will only make his turpitude worse. He represents everything we should aspire not to be, and everything we should teach our children not to emulate. The only hope is that he’s utterly incompetent, and even that is a double-edged sword, because his incompetence often can do as much as harm as his malevolence. His government will be filled with corrupt grifters, spiteful maniacs, and morally bankrupt sycophants, who will follow in his example and carry his directives out, because that’s who they are and want to be.”
@jackDaleyDCLA@BarbMcQuade For most of us, that kind of talk is specifically about Donald Trump (who well deserves it), not his followers.
However, the truth is that Trump is an authoritarian leader who appeals to folks who wish to follow an authoritarian.
The most angering and jarring part of this whole saga is that #DonaldTrump will get away with crimes, and violating all of our norms as a civilized nation of laws. Trump is a criminal. #JackSmith and others having to let him walk away scott-free should offend, and enrage us all.
Stock markets at record highs, low unemployment, wage growth exceeds inflation, the best handling of inflation of any G7 nation, energy independence, and I can go on and on and on...But no matter how this result lands, whether VP Harris ekes this out or not, it is amazing how unappreciated successful governance was in this election and how Americans are so willing to bring back into office the guy who caused all the destruction.