Cracks

Papers make a big deal out of a squabble. Traditional conservative and right wing voters like isolationist policies. These billionaires like workers on visas because they go home when they get fired, so they have some leverage. I've actually been denied a job because I wasn't an immigrant. The boss like the power of controlling immigrants. 

MAGA doesn't have an ideology beyond wherever Trump can spot a way to grift, so I'm not surprised people might be confused about a squabble. The base being betrayed is almost boring, they will forgive him. They would rather have a betraying rapey white man than a left leaning colored woman as president. 

Corporations are trying to game everything to get the lowest wages and control workers the most. That's why they don't want national insurance, that's one of the leverage points of working. Not in New York but in other states.

BBC

Lindi Li

So Lindi Li has quit the democrats. She said she was fairly conservative before, we were just not listening. 

OK, um, I was listening to her, and I never heard it. Maybe she said it and I missed it, but I don't think she spoke about it the way she imagines she said it and to blame us for not listening well enough to her--well, won't be making that mistake any more.

Reddit seems to think she didn't like the lack of accountability of spending, which to me smacks of wanting to be more involved in decisions. So I hope she already has a job lined up, because I don't see the Republican party being more inclusive, more accountable and give her more access and power. You think there's more integrity from the republicans? 

The three days the Obama's didn't come out and endorse Harris, I guess I missed that, supposedly they were vetting other people to take over for Biden? Well, that's OK and all that. I don't think that means the USA didn't make a mistake voting for Trump. 

I don't have a problem with anyone evolving and changing. I wish her well. But I do feel betrayed. 

Quips, quotes and memes

Today's political thoughts.

"Representatives are not restricted to voting for the candidate nominated by their party, but generally do. Additionally, as the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly state that the speaker must be an incumbent member of the House, it is permissible for representatives to vote for someone who is not a member of the House at the time, and non-members have received a few votes in various speaker elections over the past several years. Nevertheless, every person elected speaker has been a member." (Wikipedia)

Saw an article to inflame, they're endlessly trying to inflame people who have imagination. 

The core of the rope a dope of the smoke and mirrors of the dumb show of the GOP is to just wreck up the place to distract from lack of leadership ability, and desire to subvert federal government--is to challenge norms, which are actually good things if you believe in collective doing good for the people. It's OK to break a few norms, but they're like narcissistic nepo babies on spring break, not really serious people. They're shadows of desire and childhood trauma. 

Trying to get beyond my hatred of Trump. His insults to the military are a corrective, we don't need such a big military, and honestly isolationism will make us less complicit with murder around the world, as a nation. I'm for downsizing the military, but not disrespecting veterans, that's just stupid. 

Most of his rhetoric is trying to create bargaining space. He mostly is out looking for a grift, he's not really into governing a country, his vision is that greed is good, selfishness is good, sort of the inverse of every spiritual teacher on the history of earth. He's also trying to avoid justice and wield power, again for self enrichment. And he's such a geezer with his comb over, his bad makeup. He paid $88 million because after he stuck his finger into Jean E Carroll, he couldn't shut up about it.  

His side man, Musk is an unelected drug addled narcissist like himself, who thinks he can slash payroll and cut costs, these one trick ponies are tiresome. Orangina is a flim flam man. He's embolden some pretty nasty characters, more puffed up borderline criminals like himself, with no sense of self or the country. There's going to be considerable resistance to anything he's trying to do, which will only embolden his rhetoric, endlessly trying to make space for his negotiations with his grifts, emoluments and emperor with not clothes moments. Tin pot authoritarian. 

Idiots on the radio suggesting he can run again--I don't think so. I will go to Washington and stop that nonsense. Is it a threat to the president if you're only threatening to stop him from breaking the law? He wants to challenge norms, this rapey fellow. The felon. 

Philosopher Slavoj Žižek on the re-election of Donald Trump & his fears for Western values

Zizek suggests that when Trump lies, people say he lies like us, he's endearing, and when Harris lied, she was straight up lying. Ordinary depravity appealed to his voters, and Democrats didn't show up for Harris. Trump had about the same votes when he lost to Biden, but Harris didn't get all the Biden votes. 

https://youtu.be/o8m13m1PS6M?si=o5aWvD0Ky2aoG-px

He talks about how Ugandha associated gay rights with western liberal democracy. 

There are these weird political counter winds that are confusing to me.

strawmen

“It is a persistent folly of progressive thought to believe that wars do not achieve meaningful political consequences.” (Atlantic, Eliot A. Cohen)

Strawmen are a favorite of political essay, making fun of an idea line.

I feel maybe progressive, but I wouldn’t deny there aren’t meaningful results from war. What I don’t agree is that lives lost are needed for political change, I’d rather wage peace. There is no final war that solves forever. We need to learn to not war. Treat every life as precious, not needed for sacrifice.

"After suffering terribly on October 7, Israel has pulverized Hamas, ending the threat it posed as an organized military force. The challenge it now faces in Gaza is a humanitarian and administrative crisis, not a security one. Israel has likewise shattered Hezbollah in Lebanon, forcing it to accept a cease-fire after losing not only thousands of foot soldiers but much of its middle management and senior leadership. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin’s brutal but botched war of conquest in Ukraine has undermined his other strategic goals. In Syria, Russia’s one solid foothold in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine has leached away Russian forces, depriving it of the ability to influence events."

That's one way of looking at it. Could we also be against all deaths, the thousand on October 7th, and the over 40K since then? I'm sorry but Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Islam and Christianity are too into war. 

Who's denying there isn't meaningful change. Don't you think you should quote someone identified as progressive saying that? Is the meaningful change worth the lives sacrificed? Cohen seems to say yes. Lets sacrifice others lives for our own survival and existential sense of safety. There is no safety even when you win the wars. Not to the dead people, even on your side. Death is a negative outcome.

What he's not getting is that Iran isn't waging war to win, Russia is not waging war to win, they're waging war by a thousand cuts, to disrupt and keep unity and common purposes at bay. Russia is not the enemy, Iran is not the enemy. The enemy is inside us, such that we need to war. War is just the internal conflict inside us, that is externalized. Cloak it in macho practicality for action all you want.

Cohen seems to enjoy that the tide may have temporarily turned and yet he admits, "Although wars may eliminate one set of problems or strategic circumstances, they usually create a new set."

Cohen seems to have a political agenda in putting down Biden: "The Biden administration’s calls for a cease-fire in Syria were pointless and ineffectual. Along with its failure to anticipate the collapse of our Afghan allies in 2021, and its inability to do more in Ukraine than provide enough weapons to prevent Kyiv’s defeat, it shows what happens when strategic thought withers into good intentions and wishful thinking."

How about we cease to participate in negative outcomes, and see the negative side of war?

He seems to think Trump will be more decisive. Indeed, the Jewish people in my neighborhood love Trump, voted for him, name their children Elon. 

He ends, "The events of the past weeks may yet lead Trump to conclude that this is really not the best time to begin a witch hunt for wokesters in the U.S. military. And, if he is confirmed as secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth may yet learn that female pilots can drop bombs with the best of them."

How could Cohen write a book with this title? The Hollow Crown: Shakespeare on How Leaders Rise, Rule, and Fall. His insight seems to fail him, as he can both see the folly of war and then loses that insight in a zeal for "action". 

Archive of article

Syria and Iran

NY Times article:

"For decades, Iran has expended much blood and money in support of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, helping him survive a civil war that threatened his dynastic rule. Iran operated military bases, weapons warehouses and missile factories in Syria, which it used as a pipeline for arming its militant allies across the region."

"Now, just as Mr. al-Assad needs help to repel a rapid advance by rebel forces, Iran is heading for the exits. On Friday, the country started evacuating its military commanders and personnel, as well as some diplomatic staff, according to Iranian and regional officials."

"It is a remarkable turnabout: Iran not only appears to be abandoning Mr. al-Assad, its closest Arab ally, but also relinquishing everything it had built and fought to preserve for 40 years in Syria, its main foothold in the Arab world."

Memes, graphics, images, info

Because my reposting of white hot memes saved democracy... 

Pure evil

I was reading Julius Caesar and the phrase "a heart of controversy" came up and I thought about.

I thought about Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) using the existence of Sarah McBride (D-Del.) to raise money (Politico).

Googling I came up with the following statistic:

Republicans spent 215 million dollars with attack ads on trans during the election (Truth Out). 

Trump famously lied that kids come home from school a different gender, or taxpayers paying for surgery of prisoners. 

I think it's more treachery than gluttony, the above monster rips bodies apart. 

My experience working with transgender people was that they are the most oppressed people in America. Every year there's a day of remembrance where they read out all the names of transgender people who died that year. A coworker I had who was non-op male to female is dead. 

It happens in part because they are so few, and in part because it confuses people even more than gay experience does. Wrong gender, how could that be? Instead of reading Gender Queer, they want to ban the book. Prohibit understanding and acceptance. That's one way of being in the world. To me that's pure evil.

To see so called leaders actually going in the wrong direction on this is pure evil to me. Raising money off the negative force we're fighting to create a better society, is pure evil to me. Special level of hell, Dante needs to update and add a new level of hell for these types. 

How it's going?

"Last week, Donald Trump proposed for nomination — to key agencies, including the Department of Defense, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice — a group of unqualified apparatchiks, sycophants and conspiracy theorists. As loyalists, they were picked as agents of Trump’s will, less independent administrators than a group of glorified Renfields. The problem for Trump is that his nominees are so unqualified that they may not have the votes to be confirmed, even in a Republican-led Senate. One of them, the former Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, has already dropped out of contention for the role of attorney general in the wake of new evidence of sexual misconduct with a minor at a party. Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing, and the Justice Department declined to charge him last year."

(Jamelle Bouie in NY Times)

Trump’s Education Secretary Pick Named in Sexual Abuse Lawsuit. Linda McMahon, who ran World Wrestling Entertainment for decades, was accused in the lawsuit of not preventing one of the organization’s employees from victimizing children who helped set up wrestling rings.

Political thoughts today

Reading how Harris couldn't convince the people she's anti-establishment, because she's not, in the Guardian. I don't understand why the Democrats have to jump through all these hoops and Trump just lied about the election and blathers about nonsense and grievances, and he gets in, I mean that's hardly a brilliant tactic, but democrats have to figure out how to beat that nonsense? That's what democrats are guilty of, not transcending people's ability to be duped by nonsense? They're guilty of having a coherent plan?

Some guy on Reddit was writing about the feeling of economic disaster people feel from inflation and people actually somehow were persuaded that Trump would be the solution?! To me that's just the population being stupid. I'm sorry to be so judgemental, but everything I read said that Harris' plans were much more likely to address inflation.

Here's my analysis of the elections. Unthinking dopes thought Trump would be better. He's not going to be, and they made a mistake. Sure Trump will, like a broken clock, be right twice a day, but he's not got a vision, he's out for himself, and his appointments to the cabinet have been exactly the opposite of what is needed. It's going to be painful to watch this shit show, and the faith that American institutions are going to be so robust that we'll be OK, isn't something I share.

American voters aren't likely to catch they got the best possible out of the worldwide inflation problems, and that rebelling against that is just going to be worse. For me that's not democrats not figuring it out, that's just Americans being stupid. Now political people should figure out how to pitch their message given that, but they were trying things. They had Liz Cheney. 

How Americans were so ignorant about Trump's downsides and basic inability to really understand what is going on, that's not the democrats failure, that's just dumb luck.

The way people spin the "lessons" is just more self promotion and saying, see, we should have never abandoned the workers, or whatever agenda and then blah blah blah. Nobody really understands why Americans are so attracted to the just break everything, except perhaps as Freud's death instinct. 

This article by Michael Bérubé has a similar theme, more on Gaza and Sanders. Here's an ending:

"We are now left to live with the bitter irony that many of those long-term investments in American manufacturing and infrastructure will bear fruit during Trump’s second term. Sometime in late January 2025, I suspect, we will begin to hear how Trump tamed inflation and reinvigorated the American working class simply by taking office. And we will continue to hear, as Bidenomics takes root and Trump takes the credit for its successes, that the Democrats lost by turning their backs on that working class."

America voted for Project 25, inflation and worse government. Honestly it makes me question democracy, but I'd rather fix it than abandon it. And that means it has to be a crime to lie in public forums. But that's a problematic notion because bias and perspectives create truths. If there's one thing Trump is really revolutionary about, it's his realizing the political potential of lying.

I think if our democratic systems were robust enough, he would have never gotten to the election. Judiciary and the press failed. He exposed their corruption. The rise of social media contributed. Education can't completely solve the problem either. Something new has to emerge ins response. Perhaps it's greater political involvement, resistance to evil, to wake people up.

Deactivated twitter

Woof, I did it, I deactivated my twitter account. Been wanting to do that for a while. I really struggled with it, because Musk kept doing things that I disliked, and I kept reading about things he was doing that I disliked. Him joining the Trump administration as an unelected official seems to have put it over the top for sports journalists.

Unfortunately the proliferation of micro blogging sites led to more social media. I didn't know which place to place my bets, so I did Tribal, Mastodon, Sky Blue, Threads.

Threads is similar in it's a sick oligarch we know about. I'm not sure others aren't as evil as twitter and threads, but I don't know yet. And they weren't in Europe, where I get a lot of soccer news. I think they're in Europe now, but I'm not sure.

Tribal is too beggy. Mastodon and Blue Sky seemed to be doing fine. 

I got some sex workers looking to sell me content on Blue Sky, but I just blocked them. 

I followed a trans woman and I got everything slanted towards that when I first signed up. 

Now all the sports journalists are signing up to Blue Sky. The issue with Blue Sky was it was hard to get an invite, as they wanted to control the growth. But they added a million users yesterday, so I think Blue Sky is the winner over Mastodon. 

Stephen King moved to Threads, but I follow the soccer journalists. 

How is this conservative?

There are many different ways of looking at politics, and I have a friend who just looks at oppression, taking away freedom, right and left. You can be a left wing libertarian, allegedly, like Noam Chomsky. 

Somehow I'm stuck in right as conservative, left as progressive. One side wants to keep government to a minimum. Government has exploded, my grandparents were conservatives, they voted for Reagan. They grew up during the depression, went to war. They were the great generation. I can see how they would be against the explosion of the government.

Young people are against all the rules these days, the rules set up to protect other people, they're hemmed in by all these rules. Trump represents breaking free from all the strictures. 

Trump is picking the exact opposite of the kind of people who should be running things, he's set on destruction and destroying. 

His administration picks are just a mockery of government, and that's a kind of destruction of government. That is why conservatives got behind what American liberals consider a gross travesty. I'm not sure if they're fully comfortable with everything he's doing. And maybe they can see some of the horror he's going to be unleashing, that the left will see more clearly and in detail.

The political bias is about ignoring as much as it is about seeing. Conservatives have an idea about their personality motivation. Liberals have an idea about how their personality feels about trying to help others through federal government. I'm not so balanced I can see the unintended consequences and downside to the left. My libertarian friend claims he can see the problems both sides make. 

From my leftist perspective, I see conservatives want to just wreck up government to show that it's not good. They have to distract with culture wars because the people united will do things to ameliorate the excesses of capitalism. Conservatives hate communism, collectivism, spreading money out, the believe in winners and losers, and the suffering of other is brought on not by systems but by personal failures. Maybe it's a character to highlight points. I've noticed in life that people just describe things how it fits for them, and make it work.

It's like spirituality, I can make every contradiction work out in Buddhism, because I'm fully invested in this spiritual tradition and I'm not superficial about it. That's why I dislike telling Christians they're not following the teachings by being a conservative Christian. Jesus seems to say take care of the poor, spread the wealth around, he seems to be a socialist, but some Christians want to do that personally, not at the federal level. I think Jesus would want to do it everywhere, but he's not my guy, my guy is the Buddha. The Buddha was trying to get the kings to be nicer and not war so much, he seemed to be pragmatic with who the kings really were in front of him, and reserved his real advice for the people who wanted to move towards enlightenment. But that is contentious, there is a Theravada book that suggests the Buddha wasn't interested at all in politics. There are conservative Buddhists, Sangharakshita voted for Thatcher, I could name some others.

I really feel that my perspective is true, and that there are other perspectives and democracy is a dance between conservative and progressive instincts. 

Maddow called trump a tin can autocrat, and I think that's accurate, most people don't think he's going to go dictator, he's has hyperbolic rhetoric for a bargaining position. He's the head of a family and his father was an asshole too, his grandfather was an asshole too. He doesn't hug and kiss his daughter on stage if he doesn't feel it. He's incredibly undisciplined, and just wants to do what he wants to do, and what he can get away with. I'm grateful that he doesn't have the military. I'm not feeling the commitment to democracy from Trump, but I also feel like he could have done more for the insurrection, but he wanted to be handed the dictatorship, like Caesar.

Hate him or love him, he tapped into what it took to win, honestly it's a slim margin, and there are questions about purged voter rolls, and bomb threats to polling places from Russia, no election is pure, that's why I think it should be just total votes, I don't like the electoral college, created to appease slave owners. 

Some quotes from Blue Sky which got over a million people yesterday.

"Maybe it’s just me, but it’s pretty terrifying that corrupt uninformed non-elected tech billionaire Elon Musk violated the Logan Act by having a meeting with Iran’s ambassador to discuss tensions between the US and Iran and absolutely no one will do anything about it." Ricky Divila

Zach Williams: And reactionary anti-institutionalism leads to Elon Musk negotiating with Iran. Swell.

I get the feeling that people who voted for Trump are going to tune out to his methods or they will see it as disrupting the status quo, which in reality is just ignoring all the rules and customs that have grown up over the centuries. 

My friend thinks institutions are robust enough to save us. I'm not so sure. I hardly think greater access by the oligarchs is avoiding the status quo. He's just called in a hatchet man who fires people and loses value. Conservatives might like that, not see a problem with it. If it leads to lower taxes, great. Ignore the negative consequences.

Monday morning thoughts

I found Saturday Night Live's opening skit chilling. Bill Barr joking about minorities, chilling. Trump has ushered in mediocrity in entertainment. 

The person calling people trying to persuade them to vote for Harris found similar to what I found in the park watching my daughter. I live in an immigrant neighborhood. One Ukranian woman who recently gave birth could not ranting about lazy immigrants. She was obviously infected with Fox fake news. She could not see the irony that she was an immigrant. Another Ukranian woman just got a bad vibe from Harris and wasn't going to vote. 

When I speculated about how Eastern Europeans might be tempted to vote for a strongman, because they resembled the vicious rulers they fled from, a Albanian woman shook her head.

My son could joke about Trump saying they're eating cats and dogs. I couldn't joke. 

I want an explanation that is prescriptive and leads to a path away from this mess. 

Criticizing Fox infotainment doesn't work because there exists MSNBC and many comedy shows that regularly debunk and make fun of the right. 

Criticizing young people doesn't feel right because they're going to have a sense of how things are distorted, they just got the wrong end of the firebrand if they think radical social media is truer than mainstream media. 

Right leaning people hate liberals as bad as liberals hate rapey felons with bad policy ideas. It's not equivalent hate seeming from my left wing thinking. Their ideas are obviously mistaken. The instinct isn't wrong.

There's no powerful conclusion, that can save me from the next 4 years. There's no easy fix for the shock people feel. My usual bromides about living the questions, and tolerating ambivalence doesn't really cut it. I'm scared. My only hope is that people leave their screens and fight vigorously. We're puny in this world but when we clearly see something and come together it can be powerful.

Maybe Trump can stop this war in Ukraine. Maybe his greed and age will stumble him up. I read about the hypothesis that we elect incompetent and ineffectual presidents because we don't want effective leadership, they're always clawless. Obama was obstructed, Bush was a dry drunk, Clinton self sabotaging. Maybe the president isn't really needed, and America just needs a grievance leader, a surrogate of wronged white man.

"Villa Vie Residences, a U.S. residential cruise company, has announced a 4-year round-the-world voyage for those wanting to escape life under Тrumр. The cruise will stop in 140 countries across all seven continents, with single cabin prices starting at $256,000." Reddit

An analysis of factors about presidential election.

Bhikkhu Bodhi

“ This doesn’t mean we should demonize the Trump supporters. Certainly, not all those who voted for Trump are ready to embrace fascism or throw their liberal opponents into the flames. It’s likely that only a relatively small number of those who cheered, laughed, and danced at the MAGA rallies are prone to violence. The vast majority are probably just ordinary folk, very much like ourselves, who voted for Trump because they believed he would best represent their interests.”

Bhikkhu Bodhi

Forces Debates

This is a summary of what I'm reading. People are scrambling to explain the results of the presidential election. 

There is the Russian efforts for Trump (NY Times). 

This is added to the right wing media machine that maybe even created Trump (Michael Tomasky). My issue is that MSNBC exists, and I know a lot of people who watch that, and Fox news is popularity is over exaggerated. I know personally, talking to people who have been brainwashed by Fox, that that misinformation exists.

Americans focused on grievances and Trump has grievances (Ben Rhodes). 

It's illiberal populism (Tom Nichols).

To me protecting against women and minorities taking over (me). Gabriel Winant doesn't feel that explains enough.

The suggestion is to keep fighting (David Frum).

We have known the disaster that is Donald Trump, Heather Cox Richardson writes about it, this is how the south won the civil war all over again, and the information environment that allowed him to be elected. Who knows if Trump is really going to try and enact his disastrous agenda. 

There are counter forces. A movement from South Korea is to not have children when there's a unappealing ruler, called 4B. Here's my question, would Trump even notice if people stopped having children for the next 4 years? He's got a 4 year term and then he's going to live off his grift, he's going to be 82 when he leaves office. He snubs his children, sees everyone as how he can exploit them, so I'm not sure he really cares how much he wrecks up America. America could do with lower population. Happiness, compassion, equanimity and love are revolutionary in this environment. 

Sales of dystopian novels soars, as people grasp for ways of how to survive the next 4 years. It's kind of horrifying to imagine building towards the next 4 years. People want to imagine strong resistance.

To me the people that say they will be OK, and watching the leopard eat our faces, isn't appealing. 

Gabriel Winant suggests: "virtually every historical moment of substantive liberal triumph has been made possible by social movements that imposed themselves from below, often over the protest of liberal policymakers and thinkers, registering their objection to the means despite their abstract support for the ends. Universal adult suffrage, the welfare state, equal protection under law—such is the story of each of these."

She ends: "As Brecht also observed, “those who are against Fascism without being against capitalism, who lament over the barbarism that comes out of barbarism, are like people who wish to eat their veal without slaughtering the calf. They are willing to eat the calf, but they dislike the sight of blood. They are easily satisfied if the butcher washes his hands before weighing the meat.” To tell the truth instead is not in itself a solution, but it is the necessary, and only possible, first step."

Frum suggests: "Many of those shattered by this result will be tempted to withdraw into passivity—or recoil into performative radicalism. Reject both. We should focus, instead, on how to win back to the cause of liberal democracy a sufficient number of those Americans who voted for a candidate who denigrated this nation’s institutions and ideals."

I was hoping voting would be done with this, but it's not enough, there needs to be a fight. 

Students say they're going to "fight" for the environment.

Rachel Maddow wants to keep fighting. They look for counter indications about a mandate. The second video of Chris Hayes points out that Trump was stopped with largely unpopular policies, and that because 3 out of 100 people changed sides, that doesn't mean that everything is fore ordained. More people marched to protest Trump than people attended his inauguration. Maddow suggests you contest everything. I think about Obama was resisted by the right. Being despondent and checking out is what the right wants. The press needs to really fight. Legislature needs to fight. Judiciary needs to fight. People need to act in the grass roots. She suggests to be a pirate and have fun opposing. Keep fighting. 

This is kind of chilling though: "The U.S. military needs to give the people of this country binding assurances that they will not deploy military force against the civilian population." I think Trump uses these kind of chilling threats to get his way. 

Finally Bhikkhu Bodhi:

“The danger, I would contend, emanates not from the crowds wearing the emblematic red MAGA hat but from those in the background pulling the strings from behind them. It comes from the multi-billionaires who feed on the fears and resentments of the adulating masses they manipulate to their advantage. It comes from the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, and the Christian Nationalists—the architects of Project 2025. It comes from Big Oil and Big Gas and Big Tech, and from all the other regressive coalitions, interest groups, and alliances that devour our natural and human resources as if they were dishes at a banquet.”

I like Chris Hayes' analysis: They lost every swing state save NC, the popular vote and both houses of congress. And what the party did was: support a deranged lie that the vote was rigged, watched as their leader whipped up a violent mob and then spent four years doing exactly what he had been doing before while losing a step.

Michael Tomasky

“The answer is the right-wing media. Today, the right-wing media—Fox News (and the entire News Corp.), Newsmax, One America News Network, the Sinclair network of radio and TV stations and newspapers, iHeart Media (formerly Clear Channel), the Bott Radio Network (Christian radio), Elon Musk’s X, the huge podcasts like Joe Rogan’s, and much more—sets the news agenda in this country. And they fed their audiences a diet of slanted and distorted information that made it possible for Trump to win.” ( New Republic )

“Let me say that again, in case it got lost: Today, the right-wing media sets the news agenda in this country. Not The New York Times. Not The Washington Post (which bent over backwards to exert no influence when Jeff Bezos pulled the paper’s Harris endorsement). Not CBS, NBC, and ABC. The agenda is set by all the outlets I listed in the above paragraph. Even the mighty New York Times follows in its wake, aping the tone they set disturbingly often.”

Ben Rhodes

In the New York Times.

"The playbook for transforming a democracy into a soft autocracy was clear: Win power with a populist message against elites. Redraw parliamentary districts. Change voting laws. Harass civil society. Pack courts with judges willing to support power grabs. Enrich cronies through corruption. Buy up newspapers and television stations and turn them into right-wing propaganda. Use social media to energize supporters. Wrap it up in an Us versus Them message: Us, the “real” Russians or Hungarians or Americans, against a rotating cast of Them: the migrants, the Muslims, the liberals, the gays, George Soros and on and on."

"I would never claim to have all the answers about what went wrong, but I do worry that Democrats walked into the trap of defending the very institutions — the “establishment” — that most Americans distrust. As a party interested in competent technocracy, we lost touch with the anger people feel at government. As a party that prizes data, we seized on indicators of growth and job creation as proof that the economy was booming, even though people felt crushed by rising costs. As a party motivated by social justice, we let revulsion at white Christian nationalism bait us into identity politics on their terms — whether it was debates about transgender athletes, the busing of migrants to cities, or shaming racist MAGA personalities who can’t be shamed. As a party committed to American leadership of a “rules-based international order,” we defended a national security enterprise that has failed repeatedly in the 21st century, and made ourselves hypocrites through unconditional military support for Israel’s bombardment of civilians in Gaza."

"Democrats understandably have a hard time fathoming why Americans would put our democracy at risk, but we miss the reality that our democracy is part of what angers them. Many voters have come to associate democracy with globalization, corruption, financial capitalism, migration, forever wars and elites (like me) who talk about it as an end in itself rather than a means to redressing inequality, reining in capitalist systems that are rigged, responding to global conflict and fostering a sense of shared national identity."

"Donald Trump has won the presidency, but I don’t believe he will deliver on his promises. Like other self-interested autocrats, his remedies are designed to exploit problems instead of solving them, and he’s surrounded by oligarchs who want to loot the system instead of reforming it. Mass deportation and tariffs are recipes for inflation. Tax cuts and deregulation will exacerbate inequality. America First impulses will fuel global conflict, technological disruption and climate conflagration. Mr. Trump is the new establishment in this country and globally, and we should emphasize that instead of painting him as an outlier or interloper."

Great comments, I'm being thrown hither and thither by trying to understand what happened. I'm getting little glimpses of how this happened, but not an answer that suggests solutions. I don't think America needs to tailor a message based on this, but then again, I'm not a strategist. The suggestion that democrats should perpetually cast themselves as outsiders is bizarre. 

Guardian: "Democrats and Republicans agree on one thing: any lessons learned from Trump 2.0 will be immediately forgotten" by Marina Hyde

I think if the populace is just going to hate whoever is president and vote in the next one, then the incumbent advantage is gone. If people hate government so much they're willing to send Trump, then well, they get Trump. We're all going to suffer for it. 

Susie Wiles

Susie Wiles is chief of staff. She has no education, her daughter was sent away because she didn't clear the FBI. 

"Mr. Trump, whose leadership model in his real estate business had little structural hierarchy, has never understood the role and bucked against efforts to create an orderly process.

One of his chiefs of staff, John F. Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, said it was the worst job he had ever had."

I think this is going to be a hate Trump blog. Trump taught me to hate: I hate Trump. If Trumpism is spreading grievances, I hate the America that elected him. 

"Mr. DeSantis later fired her and denounced her in ways that even his allies found unseemly, but she got her revenge earlier this year when she helped Mr. Trump crush Mr. DeSantis in the G.O.P. presidential primaries." (quotes NY Times. 

Yikes

“Some Democrats, still gripped by the lure of wonkery, continue to scratch their heads over which policy proposals might have unlocked more votes, but that was always a mug’s game. Trump voters never cared about policies, and he rarely gave them any. (Choosing to be eaten by a shark rather than electrocuted might be a personal preference, but it’s not a policy.) His rallies involved long rants about the way he’s been treated, like a giant therapy session or a huge family gathering around a bellowing, impaired grandpa.” (Atlantic Written by Tom Nichols)

“Back in 2021, I wrote a book about the rise of “illiberal populism,” the self-destructive tendency in some nations that leads people to participate in democratic institutions such as voting while being hostile to democracy itself, casting ballots primarily to punish other people and to curtail everyone’s rights—even their own. These movements are sometimes led by fantastically wealthy faux populists who hoodwink gullible voters by promising to solve a litany of problems that always seem to involve money, immigrants, and minorities. The appeals from these charlatans resonate most not among the very poor, but among a bored, relatively well-off middle class, usually those who are deeply uncomfortable with racial and demographic changes in their own countries.”

“Trump, as he has shown repeatedly over the years, couldn’t care less about any of these groups. He ran for office to seize control of the apparatus of government and to evade judicial accountability for his previous actions as president. Once he is safe, he will embark on the other project he seems to truly care about: the destruction of the rule of law and any other impediments to enlarging his power.”

“An affluent society that thinks it is living in a hellscape is ripe for gulling by dictators who are willing to play along with such delusions.”

I'm starting to connect political thinking. I wrote about a book by Larry M. Bartels. It was called Democracy Erodes from the Top. 

I read that there was a spike in people googling "Why isn't Biden on the ticket?" or something like that to figure out how Harris was on the ticket. They missed that whole drama. I wish I had that good of a filter. I think Americans just tune out politicians and so they have to say something dramatic to get through to people. 

That almost makes me want to put forward John Stewart, or Stephen Colbert. I think it should also be a white guy with charisma. I was thinking that military guy, can't find his name now. But I'm already wondering how I can help defeat Vance in 2028.

I've been thinking a lot about Leslie Knope, the fictional character that Amy Poehler created. I think that's what these times call for, someone with a positive fairly pure heart grinding in local politics, past all the obstacles, and obstruction. I really like that show. There's the libertarian Ron Swanson. There's the young cynical negative April Ludgate. There's the health obsessed Rob Lowe character, who's name escapes me right now. It's filled with quirky characters, and I love that show. 

Given the above quotes, what is the press' role of trying to jolt the American populace into seeing their choices more clearly? Or should they just try to sell papers, clicks and engagement?

Forces

There are forces that led to Trump's win. 

Misogyny is one, the idea that women are inferior or that you don't want to be led by a woman. By any measure, Harris was more qualified than Trump. 

White women voted for Trump, because if they admit the patriarchy exists they would get upset and depressed, so they have to live in denial. They voted for the most openly anti-women president ever. Yes, perhaps they don't believe the rhetoric I'm laying down. They have other ideas. Abortion wasn't the issue democrats hoped it would be. It persuaded the people who were going to vote for Harris anyway.

"Time and again, voters, very often women themselves, told me that they just didn’t think that “America is ready for a female president”." (Guardian)

Racist won't admit to it, they just don't like a Jamaican and Indian woman, can't say why. I know conservatives are tired of being called racist by liberals, but what do you call not giving a chance to someone who is a non-white woman? (Article which suggests racism).

Biden got 81 million, Harris got 67. 14 million people who might be inclined to vote for Biden stayed away from Harris. This was an issue of turnout for me. They were not, like me disgusted and horrified by Trump, they saw him as a cranky reality personality, and he entertained them. 

Trump got less votes, he got almost 72 this election, he got 74 in the last election. About 2 million people were perhaps disgusted by his felonious rapey insurrectionist ways. Is that progress for humanity? 

I'm disappointed in the American people. If someone gets a whiff that one candidate will lower taxes, true or not, even if everyone says that Harris had the best economic plans.

Looking at the electoral map of NYC you see Asians and Jewish people voted for Trump. Why? I honestly don't know, do they imagine lower taxes? They're brainwashed? They're used to venial rulers, and that's what they expect, they think they're more honest? Why would the two uber minorities favor a venial strong man? 

I've always felt many people just want to blow up the world. Kaboom. Trump will do that to a degree. A friend thinks America's institutions are robust enough to mostly protect Americans. I hope he's right, but I don't think the Supreme Court is, they're bought and sold. 

It can't be for economics, Trump is going to head us into recession and chaos. 

Immigrants voting for Trump is just punching down, an American past time. 

I'd hoped America would vote more along the lines I envision America. A place for justice, fairness. We have a legal system, but we don't have justice. 

In an open society there will always be outside forces. Russians called in bomb threats to polling places, and spread misinformation. I'm more disappointed that Americans were susceptible to it. That as reported on Reddit that high school boys were happy Trump won so they wouldn't be drafted into war. That could only be a perversion of the fact that indeed Democrats do go to war more often, but not significantly so, and they don't institute a draft since the Vietnam War.

Disappointed only begins to express my feelings.

Yes, you can try to reframe positively:

"Many of those shattered by this result will be tempted to withdraw into passivity—or recoil into performative radicalism. Reject both. We should focus, instead, on how to win back to the cause of liberal democracy a sufficient number of those Americans who voted for a candidate who denigrated this nation’s institutions and ideals." (David Frum)

I understand I have a political bias. I understand I'm more informed. I understand the temptation to political apathy. I take Frum's point that maybe America isn't as idealistic as I want it to be. I get it that most people are focused on the here and now, and politics isn't interesting, or just fantastical entertainment. 

I'm trying to invest less energy in politics. This blog is about trying to ventilate so I can move on. I don't want to dread the next 4 years. 

Woman in the park had an equal humans t-shirt. I asked her how she's going to cope. She says she's just going to try to live her values, like getting caught up in politics was a mistake. She's focused on what she can do. 

My friend in Iran thinks the government just wants to make people's lives miserable in Iran. I guess that's what we voted for. I'm going to look for counter examples of that, to disprove that hypothesis. 

Meanwhile Rebecca Solnit has words of wisdom:

Going to read Anand Giridharadas too. 

Should we manically dance on stage with Kamala Harris, pretending to be happy?

Atlantic article by David Frum

“My generation was raised on the belief that America could always be counted upon to do the right thing, even if belatedly: reject the isolationism of America First and join the fight against Nazism; fund the Marshall Plan to stop communism; extend the promise of democracy to all people, without regard to race or sex. But maybe that belief was true only for a specific period, a unique moment. There were many chapters of history in which America did the wrong thing for years or decades. Maybe we are living through such a period now.” Atlantic

Election Day!

 

Iran and Ahoo Daryaei

A woman was upset when someone ripped her clothes trying to force her to wear her head covering the proper way, and just said fuck it, and stripped down to her underwear. I'm pretty sure she snapped from the harassment, and is probably dead. Iran is the kind of country that does this to people, and then disposes of them. Such a tragic situation. I don't wish to characterize a country by their political system, the people can be really kind, thoughtful, sensitive. My friends there think the government is about making people miserable. Only 1% of the people go to Friday prayers, but the country is controlled by fundamentalist Imams. To me she is saying my body is not a problem, stop making it a problem with your fragility. I will die for that statement. I hope things change there. Found out her name is Ahoo Daryaei

Two imperfect countries, pointing fingers at each other. Iran funds terrorist groups that work to hassle Israel. Israel fights back. Iran launches missiles, Israel fights back. Iran vows to fight back. Don't you see how tit for tat leaves you both weakened? 

I'm sorry but humans don't vote to launch missiles. Get more democracy representation. 

Not saluting Hitler in Germany, not taking feedback on how she dresses in Iran, and standing up to tanks in China.

News Links:

Iran Intl, Jerusalem Post, Reuters

video

Reddit, Reddit

Afghanistan woman dancing in defiance.

Further history:

100,000 Iranian women march against the Hijab Law, Tehran, 1979. 45 years.

Follow up: 

News outlets are calling for her freedom and updates:

11/4 BBC

11/7. People are copying Ahoo Daryaei, walking around in underwear. 

11/8 Protesters in Iran want Ms. Daryaei released YouTube

Guardian article

Found out she has a Wikipedia page. Good links in the bibliography. 

11/8, they protest at the London embassy of Iran:

Twitter

Iran International

11/12/24. Women protest in Belgium in front of the Iranian embassy:

A vote for Trump

First off, voting for Trump says it's OK to be a felon, rapist, pedophile, grifter, failed businessman who has bankrupt many businesses, a soft shoe shuffler. He believes you can grab married women by the pussy. That's what you get when you vote for Trump. 

He cannot operate a charity in New York because he stole from cancer victims. 

Elon Musk, a surrogate who campaigns for him, said Trump would crash the economy (source). Musk is trying to pre-load a pardon for the crimes he has and hopes to commit. 

Generals, economists, his former staff all say not to vote for him. He can't play music at his rallies because many musicians have issued cease and desist orders.

Trump still owes many municipalities money he promised to pay for holding a rally there. 

But to me the worst thing about him is that he lies. Just kidding all the other stuff is horrible too, lying isn't better than rape, although lying about rape, and being held accountable to the truth has cost him 88.3 million dollars, when he could have just shut up. He lost a 5 million dollar defamation case, and still wouldn't shut up, so 83.3 million was added on. Does that sound like a leader to you?

His hate speech has cost many lives. His speaking and being president leads to more violence. He's even suggested a day of violence. If you're pro-life, you can't vote for Trump. It's estimated that his inaction around Covid led to hundreds of thousands of lives. It's not just politics, he's a murderer by ineptitude and callous disregard.

He doesn't have any plan for reducing inflation, every economist and businessman says he's going to tank the economy, so people who imagine voting for him will help inflation, are confused at best, maliciously wanting inflation in reality.

So the case for Trump is built on a fairly shoddy horrible platform of lack of discipline, and vice. It's basically inviting another crime spree. 

Knowing that, you'd have to willfully be so ignorant, or, and I think this is really it, that you want to blow the country up. You have the kind of reverse patriotism that wants to see America burn. It's funny when other people suffer. 

For those who think Harris' support of Israel is a mistake, consider Bernie Sanders advice.

Every accusation is a confession of intention: MAGA Wisconsin Election Commission director Kimberly Zapata found guilty on all felony counts for falsifying military ballots. She could face 5 years in prison (Twitter). Watch more MAGA go to jail trying to corrupt our democracy. 

When Trump loses in a landslide, like France, I'm not going to be super proud of America, because this is what should happen, to vote against the obviously evil candidate, but it will restore some sanity to the country, and return to some level of safety and relaxation. 

Swastikas in America

"There was never any question that this rally was going to be anything but an attempt to inflame Trump’s base. The plan for a rally at Madison Square Garden itself deliberately evoked its predecessor: a Nazi rally at the old Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. About 18,000 people showed up for that “true Americanism” event, held on a stage that featured a huge portrait of George Washington in his Continental Army uniform flanked by swastikas."

Letters From America by Heather Cox Richardson

Later: "Meanwhile, the decision of the owners of the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post not to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris seems to have sparked a backlash. As Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer noted, “in a strange way the papers did perform a public service: showing American voters what life under a dictator would feel like.”"

Also, "Early on October 26, the Washington Post itself went after Trump backer billionaire Elon Musk with a major story highlighting the information that Musk, an immigrant from South Africa, had worked illegally when he started his career in the U.S. Musk “did not have the legal right to work” in the U.S. when he started his first successful company. As part of the Trump campaign, Musk has emphasized his opposition to undocumented immigrants."

Also, "On Sunday the front page of the New York Times opinion section read, in giant capital letters: “DONALD TRUMP/ SAYS HE WILL PROSECUTE HIS ENEMIES/ ORDER MASS DEPORTATIONS/ USE SOLDIERS AGAINST CITIZENS/ ABANDON ALLIES/ PLAY POLITICS WITH DISASTERS/ BELIEVE HIM.” And then, inside the section, the paper provided the receipts: Trump’s own words outlining his fascist plans. “BELIEVE HIM,” the paper said."

Also, "comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who goes by Kill Tony, delivered a steamingly racist set. He said, for example: “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”"

Also, "Trump advisor Stephen Miller’s claim that “America is for Americans and Americans only” directly echoed the statement of Adolf Hitler that "Germany is for Germans and Germans only.”"

NY Times: Trump at the Garden: A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism