The December 10, 2016 Thread
Thank you to the brave hotel guest who filmed this hate crime taking place as masked white men terrorized indigenous men in North Dakota. pic.twitter.com/0rnQGaABj2
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) December 9, 2016
Martin Longman on the coming G20 summit in Germany in 2017, which will be President Trump’s first foreign summit, but also almost certainly not his first chance to embarrass America on the world stage, since his mere election has already done that:
We can take it for granted that he will not achieve anything significant. It’s not that he is a sociopathic grifter and egomaniac: that is all in the day’s work for professional diplomats, who deal with such rulers all the time. It’s that he is a vain con-man who can’t be trusted for half an hour. It’s the difference between a Khamenei or a Putin, thugs you can make a deal with, and Kim Jong-Un or Gaddafi, nutjobs you can’t rely on to act in their own interests. Trump clearly falls into the second group. Iranian President Rouhani seems to have already come to this conclusion, with a flat refusal to renegotiate the nuclear weapons deal, even under a pretty clear threat of war. The rest of the G20 will too. If they want to get anything of substance done, they will have to become the G19+1, leaving Trump as the village idiot in the corner.
The rules of the institution are no help to Trump here. […] Anyway, as I understand it the G20 procedure is therefore entirely in the hands of the host country, that is Germany. Merkel can cut Trump’s microphone if he overshoots his allocated time, or have the communiqué adopted by the majority. She will try very hard to avoid either, but if the alternative is disruption by Trump and complete failure, she is quite tough enough to do the necessary.
This is still chilling to me: pic.twitter.com/xDu57FpmJ0
— Marcy (@mms5048) December 9, 2016
Josh Marshall wonders if maybe Trump cannot divest, because if he did, his empire would collapse.
Since Donald Trump’s surprise election one month ago, there’s been a bubbling conversation about the mammoth conflicts of interest he will have if he is running or even owning his far flung business enterprises while serving as the head of state. I’ve suggested that the whole notion of ‘conflicts of interest’ doesn’t really capture what we’re dealing with here, which is really a pretty open effort to leverage the presidency to expand his family business. But a couple things came together for me today which make me think we’ve all missed the real issue.
Maybe he can’t divest because he’s too underwater to do so or more likely he’s too dependent on current and expanding cash flow to divest or even turn the reins over to someone else…. The idea that Trump is heavily leveraged and reliant on on-going cash flow to keep his business empire from coming apart and collapsing into bankruptcy was frequently discussed during the campaign. But it’s gotten pretty little attention since he was elected.
2016: a choice between Donald Trump and Goldman Sachs.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) February 28, 2016
This tweet held up well. I wonder if Trump pardons Snowden or executes him. Or maybe Putin will disappear him.
President Obama has ordered a “full review” of Russian hacking during the November election, as pressure from Congress has grown for greater public understanding of exactly what Moscow did to interfere in the electoral process, the Washington Post reports.
Said homeland-security adviser Lisa Monaco: “We may have crossed into a new threshold, and it is incumbent upon us to take stock of that, to review, to conduct some after-action, to understand what has happened and to impart some lessons learned.”
Obama wants the report before he leaves office on January 20.
The pastor at Trump's rally in LA tells the audience that Trump's WH will be a place "where men know who men are, women know who women are."
— Dan Merica (@danmericaCNN) December 9, 2016
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller (R) suggested that journalists were unfair to scrutinize his habit of posting fabricated or unsupported information on social media, the Texas Tribune reports.
Said Miller: “I’m not a news organization. Y’all are holding me to the same standards as you are a news organization, and it’s just Facebook.”
He added: “If it’s thought-provoking, I’ll put it up there and let the readers decide. Everyone that reads that is grown ups. It’s like Fox News: I report, you decide if it’s true or not.”
Mr. Miller does not understand the meaning of “report” and the news. You see, you report the news, if you are a journalist or an anchor. Normal citizens or Agricultural Commissioners don’t report the news. And if what you are “reporting” is not news but instead are lies, you are not reporting, you are lying.
When asking whether “Trump supporters” will mind his team of bankers, ask which Trump supporters you mean: https://t.co/dxsaCCUXFe
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) December 9, 2016
Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump are trying to identify staff in the Energy Department who played a role in promoting President Obama’s climate agenda, Bloomberg reports.
“The transition team has asked the agency to list employees and contractors who attended United Nations climate meetings, along with those who helped develop the Obama administration’s social cost of carbon metrics, used to estimate and justify the climate benefits of new rules.”
Yes, Kellyanne Conway. Yes, you did. https://t.co/svez5jzrMT
— Jonathan Capehart (@CapehartJ) December 9, 2016
NBC News: “There’s not a Bush or Romney (at least not yet) — nor are there key members of past GOP administrations or campaigns (except for Elaine Chao, who served as George W. Bush’s Labor secretary). Indeed, outside of Chao and U.N. ambassador pick Nikki Haley, it’s hard to see how any of these names so far would have surfaced in, say, a Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio administration. Even the one U.S. senator Trump has selected so far, Jeff Sessions, isn’t exactly a card-carrying member of the GOP establishment club. Now this theme could change if Trump chooses Romney to be his secretary of state. But right now, there are more outsiders than insiders.”
My new @thedailybeast piece on Trump's emerging gangster capitalism, and his enablers in both politics and business. https://t.co/VRq5R1PBJc
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) December 9, 2016
Gideon Resnick at The Daily Beast details the reaction to Donald Trump’s attacks on union leader Chuck Jones:
[O]n Thursday, a number of unions throughout the country, who had kept close watch on the situation, expressed disappointment and anger with a future leader of the free world using his position to bash one of their own. After all, Trump put up the best numbers in union households since Ronald Reagan won his second term in 1984.
“The attacks on Chuck Jones, president of United Steelworkers Local 1999, must stop immediately,” Elaine Kim, of 32BJ SEIU, the largest building service workers union in the country, said in a statement to The Daily Beast.
“Jones was doing his job defending working men and women and the families that depend on them by speaking out and sharing the facts about the deal with Carrier. To attack Jones and his family is not only beyond the pale but anti-worker and un-American. To speak the truth is a freedom generations of Americans died for, and worth defending today and forever. We call on those who cherish that freedom, including those in positions of influence, to join us in standing with Chuck Jones, loudly and publicly.”
The message of solidarity was apparently heard loud and clear.
Paul Waldman points out that Democrats must also stand firm and not help Republicans dismantle progress on health care and health insurance:
There are times when being the party of no is smart not just for political reasons, but for substantive ones as well. This is one of those times.[…] soon enough, Republicans will own health care. If and when they pass some form of repeal and some form of replacement, they’ll be on the hook for everything anyone doesn’t like about the American health care system. Premium increases? Republicans’ fault. Narrow provider networks? Republicans’ fault. High copays? Republicans’ fault. Can’t afford coverage? Republicans’ fault. Had to wait 45 minutes and the doctor was rude to you? Republicans’ fault. Now they’ll see what Barack Obama has been dealing with.
Joan Walsh at The Nation says Democrats should fight all of Donald Trump’s nominees:
[S]o far, presented with these political gifts, Democrats have been fairly silent. They’ve pledged to fight Sessions, and they should, but no one else has come in for much attack, although today Senator Ed Markey said he would oppose Pruitt’s nomination to head the EPA, and Schumer had some tough words for Pudzer as labor secretary. That’s good news, but it’s not enough.
On one level, I understand the need for Democrats to “pick their battles.” They may be more likely to win GOP support to actually block a nominee or two by being selective. But no one has yet marshaled an argument to Trump voters that they’ve been hoodwinked: that the outsider candidate has picked a cabinet of insiders, who make an utter mockery of his promises to look out for the “forgotten man.” Democrats should be making the case, as Ben Adler argues in The Guardian, that Trump is “a self-dealing political profiteer and a tool of the business and political elite.” Jeff Hauser of the Revolving Door Project has suggested that Democrats refuse to consider any appointments until Trump discloses and then divests himself of his global and largely secret financial empire—especially since we can’t trust Trump’s picks to monitor his self-dealing.
“greater public understanding of exactly what Moscow did to interfere in the electoral process”
I too would like to understand exactly what the Russians did and didn’t do. Remember Podesta wasn’t “hacked” he stupidly gave up his email password to a spearphishing email.
The D’s are now in a position to do what the R’s have done successfully–poach R senators to stop Trump. That assumes, of course, that D’s afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome don’t cave, a major assumption, granted.
But McCain and Graham have made clear that they’re not gonna let the Russian hacking slide, Jeff Flake from Arizona and Sasse from Nebraska believe he’s unfit to be president. You’ve got those two wishy-washy senators from Maine, one of whom wants to be governor. And then you’ve got R senators who understand the electoral peril in cutting Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and even Obamacare.
If D’s hang strong, they can minimize the damage to the social safety net while undermining Trump’s presidency. If. We’re looking at you, Carper and Coons.
“while undermining Trump’s presidency”
I’m not a big fan of undermining any presidency. The GOP spent 8 years doing that to Obama. The meme of turnabout being fair play is always going to be a juvenile response.
You stand in opposition when the issue is contrary to the principles you hold dear. You support when actions align with your principles and you propose actions which make bad laws better. That’s not undermining a presidency, that’s being a good citizen. A McConnell narrative is distasteful regardless of whose lips it comes from.
It may not change what you do, but it does keep you on the high road in that principled opposition cannot be characterized as undermining, except when you admit that’s what you are doing.
The real problems are going to be Manchin, McCaskill, Heitkamp and Tester.
Unless it is Social Security, I wouldn’t count on McCain or Graham to get too far away from their team on much of anything.
“You support when actions align with your principles…”
Anything introduced by the Republican Congress will be studded with poison pills for Democrats and the 99%. No matter what benefit is proposed or what hostages are threatened, swallowing those pills will only do further damage and serve to reduce Democratic credibility and influence, and allow Republicans to pass even greater depredations in the future. It’s time to let the hostages feel the naked Republican threat and fight back for themselves.
Not sure how retirees in Florida and Arizona will embrace cuts to Social Security and Medicare. That’s something that elected officials, even R’s, pay attention to.
Trump just proposed a lifetime ban for executive branch officials on becoming lobbyist for foreign governments, which is odd because he is a lobbyist for Russia.
Trump and the Republicans were not legitimately elected. If the Electoral College votes for him, then the Republicans will have succeeded in installing a Russian puppet in the White House.
We face perhaps the gravest threat to our national security ever, and what do we hear from Obama and the Democratic leaders? Calls for “investigations.” Typical.
“Oh, let’s study how the horse got out of the barn.”
Yep. It is a ball of suck. Don’t delude yourself about the EC stopping it.
Trump transition team response:
“These are the same people (the CIA) that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction…The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’”
@Disappointed: “What do we hear from Obama and the Democratic leaders? Calls for ‘investigations.’ Typical.”
What exactly should they be calling for, if not investigations? Armed resistance? Not sure what the alternative is besides “investigations.”
He still has the bully pulpit for a couple of weeks.
Exactly Prop Joe. Eventually, it may come to armed resistance and Civil War. But that must be saved for when the Fuhrer tries to deport Latinos, Muslims and gays, or interferes with the First Amendment in any way.
Wow: right across the State Line:
http://6abc.com/news/police-suspect-shot-dead-during-chester-home-invasion/1649588/
@PropJoe:
Obama took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. He is also in charge of National Security. Donald Trump and the Republicans represent a grave threat to both. They represent essentially a takeover of our government by foreign interests.
He should be saying this loudly and often. He should be calling on the Electoral College to recognize the threat in a speech to the nation. He should fire and jail Comey for violating the Hatch act and Sedition. He should go out fighting, instead of surrendering. He could call for massive and peaceful resistance now, in the streets.
Appeasement and surrender, that’s the Democratic Leadership’s way.
That’s why people like you aren’t in charge of big things, like a country. 46% of America begs to differ with your assessment of the grave, imminent danger Trump presents. Personally, I believe he’s a miserable shit-stain hack of a human, but he won the election, as did other Republicans, until we uncover evidence saying otherwise. For Obama to be actively working to undermine the incoming administration, an entire party, and advocating that Americans take up arms (literally and/or figuratively) against duly elected, however distasteful, representatives would basically just be treasonous… It’d be no different, frankly worse, than selling state secrets and files to a foreign government.
Obama would have to convene a secret meeting of the Supreme Court and present evidence. The SC would have to vacate the election and pass some kind of True Bill acting as a grand jury which would allow someone (the FBI?) to round up Trump, Comey, McConnell and others. Then Obama would impose martial law and set a date for a new election.
Does any of that sound remotely realistic ?
I suppose the shorter version of my comment would be that you want Obama and the Democratic Party to go from being “Appeasement and surrender… the Democratic Leadership’s way” to “Violent, Bloody Opposition and Politcal Coups… the Democratic Leadership’s way.”
Well, nice to see all the white flags here. Not.
Trump represents a grave and present danger to national security and the Constitution. The Electoral College could vote for Hillary, winner of the popular vote. It would be legal, Constitutional, and is the right thing to do in the face of the threat Trump poses to national security and the the Constitution. It would not be a coup.
But, like Obama and Hillary and the Democratic Leaders, you just want to wave your white flags and surrender and pretend it can’t be done because you’re scared of something(?). Obama took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic. He is cowardly failing to do his solemn duty.
Russia hacked the DNC and released e-mails to hurt Hillary and to boost Trump. Trump publicly encouraged them to do this. Almost all recounts and investigations into voting machines has been stopped by the Republicans. Trump is allegedly is expected to name as his secretary of state Exxon Mobile CEO Rex Tillerson, who has ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Nobody knows what the financial ties Trump has with Russia because we can’t see his tax returns. What more evidence do you need?
If y’all had been around in 1776 we’d still be under the British Monarchy.
@disappointed: It would not be a coup.
Except in the eyes of about 46 million Trump voters and, I’d guess, at least 30 million Clinton voters. Because it would be a coup … and if you think that would not lead to outright and widespread violence you’re living in a fool’s paradise.
Unfortunately, he won the election. We are now in the position where he’s going to have to lose his claim to legitimacy with at least half of his voters before he is really vulnerable. And in that time he’s going to do a great deal of damage–some of it potentially irreparable.
But your course doesn’t get us 1776; it gets us 1861.
The single best wake-up call to the Democratic Party I’ve read since the election:
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/12/10/1609623/-Hey-Democrats-Do-you-ever-want-to-win-again
Imagine if the situations were reversed:
Every Republican leader would be doing everything possible every day to try to change the Electoral College vote and de-legitimitized President-Elect Clinton as a treasonous Russian agent spy. Even if they still lost, they would still have at least de-legitimitized her and damaged her significantly.
They just stole a Supreme Court seat in broad daylight, and got away with it!
Republicans are street fighters. Democrats are ballet dancers.
Republicans win elections by any means necessary. Democrats lose by every means possible.
And have no doubts: Trump is a danger to national security and people are going to die because of him. The President has sole control over the nuclear button, there are no checks and balances, and the system is designed to launch within 10 minutes after an order.
Great piece, El Som – thanks for the link.
Sadly, you can substitute “Delaware Liberal” for “Daily Kos” throughout it.
That is a great peice and yes…. it is just as accurate if you swap DL for Dkos
Awesome. So this dKos writer voter 3rd party, so he was AOK with whoever the majority voted for in the first place. Then we procede to more the the stupid Hillary bashing. Bill and Hill presented a target rich environment? It’s as though David Brock never existed. Never mind that there was excellent reporting from the NYT showing that Karl Rove was responsible for reviving some of that stuff for consumption by the part of the so-called left that didn’t trust her. The triangulation thing isn’t even coherent, and nor is the business on economic inequality. Basically, this entire post is — If Hillary had been way more Progressive she would have won. Awesome analysis.
And Bullshit, really.
Nothing here about the people who were prevented about voting? Apparently these are no longer the people that the so-called progressive even care about as part of their coalition. Or about the gerrymandered districts that structure electoral outcomes. Or even about the incredibly toxic messaging of Trump that never got much of an examination — because are you not entertained?
Seriously, if HRC has to be the devil so you can exorcise it from the Democratic Party, you are not paying attention to the Party. And why would you? It isn’t as though any of you will show up to fix it.
Dumb reductive bianary thinking. That part is true. Let’s at least agree to that much
Binary… stupid phone.
Cassandra_m, As long as Dems keep arguing for the failed strategies of Obama and Clinton, and the Dems are just going to keep losing. Under Obama’s leadership, the Democrats have lost power by every measure. Hillary and Obama’s DNC ran a horrible non-strategic campaign, and lost horribly when they had every chance to win it with a different candidate and different strategy.
But now it isn’t about the past; it is about the future. And, again, Obama, Hillary, and the Democrats are failing to show up to fight. Oh, but wait, they did re-elect Pelosi and Hoyer. That is promising. Not.
Hillary and Obama’s DNC ran a horrible non-strategic campaign, and lost horribly when they had every chance to win it with a different candidate and different strategy.
This.
This is specifically the fantasy that I am pushing back against. The first thing that I know about you from this statement is that you have no idea what the DNC’s job is. The second thing I know about you is that you do not get how primaries work. The strongest candidate for the job won the most votes in the primary. That is how it works — period. If your candidate did not make it, then your candidate was not a strong candidate. And you do not get to create your own Fox News narrative that blames the DNC for a primary candidate rather than your candidate who couldn’t figure out how to play this thing to emerge the winner.
cassandra, I think you are specifically wasting your time with disappointed, who apparently wants a (no shit) civil war.
Moreover, pushing back against the “wrong candidate, wrong strategy” arguments by people who completely wrote off Trump in the first place is like expected Trump himself to admit he’s unprepared to be President. As I have written on other threads, you’ve been consistent throughout.
I hear you. And I wasn’t *that* consistent — I was a Bernie supporter early and let that go when his campaign told the press that they really weren’t competing in the Deep South. But more specifically, I push back on the magical thinking that spins up a narrative of bogeymen and needs for a more perfect progressivism that will get them to where they want to be. Even though a more perfect progressivism can be had right in their backyards and few of them want to reckon with the fact that Delaware is probably more purple that we want to deal with.
There’s no future without being clear about the past.
“But more specifically, I push back on the magical thinking that spins up a narrative of bogeymen and needs for a more perfect progressivism that will get them to where they want to be.”
Fair enough. 50% plus 1 watered down DLC triangulation is working, so why look under the hood, right? I mean it works for winning primaries anyway and that’s the most important thing.
cassandra_m, Under Obama and the DNC, the Democrats lost the House, the Senate, numerous governorships and state legislators, a Supreme Court Seat, and the Presidency. And, yes, I know how the DNC works, and so do you. They did everything they could to smooth Clinton’s path to the nomination and discourage anybody else from running.
You can wave your hands all you want, but facts is facts. It isn’t a matter of “perfect progressivism,” it is a matter of ending the undeniably failed politics of Obama and the Clintons and Pelosi et al.
And, no, Steve, I don’t want a civil war, and that is a “parade of horribles” rhetorical argument. We would not have a civil war, because not enough people care.
Under Obama and the DNC, the Democrats lost the House, the Senate, numerous governorships and state legislators, a Supreme Court Seat, and the Presidency.
Again, you do not know what the DNC is responsible for. CLEARLY. And you clearly have not come to grips with the effects of gerrymandering in the House (not Obama’s fault — even though he and Eric Holder will be confronting this problem specifically. Completely outside of the DNC since you need some hints on what it does. You have clearly not come to grips with the open door for voter suppression. And why should you? No one in your circle is subject to this.
But those politics have not failed. As the fact that HRC will get almost 3M more votes than Trump. That’s 65.8M votes or so who voted for those politics. And it isn’t as though most of those 65.8M people are the 1%, either. Those politics were overcome by very toxic identity politics from Trump and from his big lie about jobs.
50% plus 1 watered down DLC triangulation is working, so why look under the hood, right? I mean it works for winning primaries anyway and that’s the most important thing.
So this petulant and stupid comment — is this on purpose or what?
I love the President but extreme Gerrymandering occurred after 2010 mid terms. That result is inarguably in large part his fault.
I was agreeing with you. Why mess with success?
Obama fired Howard Dean in 2008 and installed Tim Kaine has DNC Chair. In 2010, they lost the House in the Republican wave, and that was the redistricting year. So, yes, the gerrymandering was Obama’s fault. He never should have fired Howard Dean. Or hired Debbie Wasserman-Schulz.
The fact that Hillary won a majority of the vote is true. The fact that she failed to run a strategic campaign to win the majority of Electoral College votes is also true. Obama beat her for the nomination in 2008 for the same reason: she did not run a strategic campaign and lost states she expected to win easily.
Saying that these politics have not failed is absurd when in the last 8 years the Democrats lost the House, the Senate, numerous governorships and state legislators, a Supreme Court Seat, and the Presidency (to Donald Trump!). If that isn’t failure, I can’t imaging what you think failure is.
Need to clap harder, I guess.
@ cassandra_m
If your candidate did not make it, then your candidate was not a strong candidate.
The same holds true for the general election. Yet you somehow fail to realize that.
Dallasdoc’s kos diary hasn’t been given a very honest reading. There is a lot of common ground and common sense there.
It’s been given an honest reading. And while there are a few things that I might agree with there, the need to set this up as Bill and Hill demonization undermines any authority it might have. Especially from someone who voted to agree with what everyone else decided. I provided other critiques of that piece where it failed in its analysis — so who is not reading honestly here?
The same holds true for the general election. Yet you somehow fail to realize that.
Yes, and this is bullshit too. Because this cycle, strong meant racism, misogyny, nativism and promising people that he’ll restore the manufacturing base. Strong meant toxic identity politics and lying to people.
So, yes, the gerrymandering was Obama’s fault.
🙄
” Basically, this entire post is — If Hillary had been way more Progressive she would have won. Awesome analysis. And Bullshit, really.”
Hillary’s economic plans were centered on an orthodox Democratic spending plan which, like all Democratic “jobs” plans, didn’t address the structural economic problems at the heart of working class angst. It was progressive enough maybe, but she didn’t lead with that message. Yes I heard her say it in speeches but it was never boiled down to something simple like “A chicken in every pot.” It was never the first point and she didn’t repeat it enough to penetrate the thick skulls of low-information voters. That’s what created the opening for Trump’s bluster and racism to prevail.
@cassandr_m wrote “Because this cycle, strong meant racism, misogyny, nativism and promising people that he’ll restore the manufacturing base. Strong meant toxic identity politics and lying to people.”
And Hillary’s message was all about her: “Stronger Together” and “I’m With Her.” Neither of those themes spoke to the economic injustice and uncertainty many Americans are feeling. So just a few more voters in swing states went for the racist, misogynist, sexual predator, con-man, and now we are facing the biggest national security threat in my lifetime.
Thanks, Hillary.
I said that I wasn’t going to take part in this kind of argument, but the arguments in favor of staying the Democratic Party’s course have been so dishonest and disingenuous that I had to jump in. Here is what I see happening all too often: teasing out one sentence and setting that strawman up for knocking down.
When you read Dallasdoc’s diary there are a lot of well-made points, like this one:
And yet the stay the course argument ignores every bit of that and focuses on the straw man argument that progressives are in search of a savior. It has been used against me time and again, and it is simply not so.
One surefire way to put the Democratic Party out of its misery is to try to convince everyone that the politics actually worked because Clinton got more votes. And the side the actually won was just mean and nasty. We don’t want to be mean and nasty.
The best defense Professor Newton can offer is consistency. Steve, is that some inside joke I’m not in on?
What do I know? I don’t understand how politics works anyway. Against all observation and outcome these last few years have been an unabashed Democratic success! I suppose my ignorance is why I’ve yet to receive any invitations to the victory parties.
The Dangerous Myth That Hillary Clinton Ignored the Working Class
And even here on this blog there was recognition that Hillary was taking up Sander’s message and elements of his platform — movement on health care, college and all of the triumph over the most progressive platform in the history of the DNC. We even marvelled at how she didn’t have to pivot to the center.
So rewriting this history is not what you get to do. Her campaign was not either/or (and I observe that the people making this claim are the white men of the party) — there was plenty of economic meat (meat that I didn’t think she could get done with a GOP led Congress), but it was there. And it isn’t as though Trump’s message was about fixing economic inequality — his message was to recreate the America of the 50’s again, with all of the accompanying dog whistles that white folks get to be at the front of the line again.
Your defense of the campaign is totally rationale and not insane. Many congratulations on the outstanding achievement and historic victory. Strategy and execution was genius. I look forward to many more political successes in the future.
(Note: I agree with the premise of the Atlantic essay. Read it twice last week and discussed it over dinner with Drew S last Thursday. I haven’t the slightest idea what the point of it is though, defending the losing strategy.)
Pretending that any of you guys except jason actually saw Trump as a threat to win is pretty sad.
Steve, You’re mostly right about that, however, I knew that the percent probability of a Hillary win was never 100%.
It can still rain on days that only have a 5% probability of precipitation, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t plan your picnic. And it doesn’t mean the forecast was wrong, either.
And I did not expect Hillary to run such a poor campaign in swing states. She took them for granted and just tried to run out the clock.
please don’t tell me what “i get to do.” i know it’s just a figure of speech, but it sounds like i need your permission.
steve: you’re correct. we were all in one of those “bubbles,” just taking it for granted that more people would feel like we did about trump. a dangerous naivete. more realism going forward will help.
I think I already covered that, Steve, but since you brought it up again, no I didn’t think we were this base and vile and stupid. At least I admit it. I fail how understand how this is relevant to the point I’m making.
What I’m not doing is pretending the Democratic effort was not a losing effort. I’m admitting my mistake. See how that works? I’m not continuing to defend as appropriate a failed strategy.
@Ex-anon we were all in one of those “bubbles,”
Because I can’t resist it (I’m really not a good person): neither jason nor I inhabited one of those “bubbles.” Both of us spent time here trying to convince people that Trump could win.
@Disappointed–you’re right that most people here thought Trump’s chances were 5% or less. You’re wrong that they ever were that low, despite what pollsters told you. Nor (and this is cassandra’s point) is it acceptable to lay it all on Clinton as a crappy candidate and her campaign as inept. I grant you a case can be made for both–but Trump was a crappy candidate and his campaign was equally inept.
Trump was the beneficiary of timing and a seismic shift in popular opinion that went virtually unnoticed by almost everyone for the past twenty years. There were signs–you don’t hold a near-continuous conservative majority in the House without it indicating something.
The very first thing that the Trump opposition should be doing is throwing out every opposition (read “Democrat” for DL purposes here) leader/strategist over forty-five. It’s time to completely skip a generation, maybe two, and put the people in charge of the opposition who stand to lose the rest of their lives.
Politics has abruptly become actuarial. The future (in Delaware terms) is Eugene Young (and his wife, by the way, who is an accomplished young academic researching just such political shifts) and Sarah McBride, not Matt Denn.
Even the Daily Kos has now become the political Facebook of the elderly.
Agree on the Daily Kos bit…
So the defense is that nobody really knew what to do or understood what was happening? Everyone was caught by surprise (except you and Jason). Chalk it up to “timing and a seismic shift in popular opinion.”
So, like, it isn’t fair to point out that the Democratic Party and the HRC campaign didn’t know, because hey, the anonymous commenters here didn’t know either! Pardon me if I find this very lame. I fail to see what it matters whether I believed Trump could win or not. What does my belief have to do with it?
(Point in fact, I thought he could win but that the chances were maybe one in five. Again, how this pertains to the actual people who, you know, make the strategy, I haven’t the slightest idea. How are we held to the standard the campaign is held to? Very strange.)
ok, steve, not all.
@R E Vanella What I’m not doing is pretending the Democratic effort was not a losing effort.
I honestly think you miss what cassandra is arguing, but that’s really neither here nor there. Not at this point.
My assessment of what happened in 2016 has to do with longer term trends (mostly mentioned above), and my personal reasons for not giving a shit about retooling the Democratic strategy are these:
1. I’m not a Democrat. Nor are millions of other Americans who will be critical in forming an opposition to Trump.
2. 2016 didn’t just reveal cracks in the existing two-party system, it blew it up. Both parties. All business as usual. The GOP that remains is about the equivalent of the Roman Senate (which retained its title but not is function) as Rome moved from a Republic into an Empire. The political world you all knew (that I knew) has changed. It’s gone. Younger people see this and wonder why we don’t.
3. There’s no certain way to know how the next two years will shake out. Ironically, the potentially authoritarian state that the conservatives have feared may well be brought to them by their own revolution. The really harmful irony is that the people who thought they’d end up fighting against the government are now lining up to be its foot soldiers. Trump is aiming for a full-court press to keep his political opponents off balance and forced to choose between protecting this or that because they can’t protect both. His ultimate goal (as it appears to me) is the re-establishment of the 1945-1960 period within America but without the American Empire abroad.
4. This is an opinion by somebody who is wrong as often as he is right: political resistance is a necessary but insufficient component to stop this. There has to be organized social and cultural resistance, and it has to include the next generation of weaponized information in its arsenal. The states like DE, NY, MA, and CA have to first become breakwaters of social and cultural tolerance/solidarity because they will be the administration’s first targets.
I don’t have all or even most of the answers. But I can tell you the political climate has changed as sure as the meteorological climate, and it didn’t do so swiftly, It did so slowly, and while we watched but did not see.
@R E Vanella–you choose to believe this was a winnable campaign that was lost. In normal times I would agree with you completely.
Not this time.
This was a year made for a demagogue, and we got one. We usually don’t.
So nobody had a chance versus Trump in this climate? Is that what you’re arguing? No candidate. No strategy. I might buy this, but I didn’t take Cassandra’s argument that way.
And I’d describe my own feelings pre election as “I was resigned to the fact that there was but one reasonable candidate to vote for, even if the entire campaign was mediocre at best.”
I actually did believe Trump could win.. Working on an essay re: that now. I was planning something for potential outcome and now I’m actively executing that plan.
No R E Vanella I don’t believe it was inevitable. And I will admit that while I worried a lot about Trump winning I still believed the odds were in Clinton’s favor.
I am not supporting cassandra’s entire argument; I do believe she has been consistent, however, and I do believe that she is pointing out where the people criticizing Clinton and the DNC are not being consistent.
Nor am I claiming prescience. I’ve done a lot of research and a lot of thinking since 8 November, because for Trump to actually win big in the Electoral College one (or both) of two things had to happen: (1) he had to be incredibly lucky and get all the breaks, of which her ponderous campaign was only one and the FBI Director another; and (2) he benefited from something longer term going on that shifted the ground beneath.
And, yes, I am convinced that 99.9% of us (me included) all missed it. Oh, like everybody else I saw parts of it and wondered, but the nature of paradigm shifts is that you can’t clearly see what’s on the other side of the curtain.
This was not “we elected a bad president” (Dubya) or “this is the consummation of Clinton hubris” or “this is a conservative revolution” (Reagan), this was, if I am correct, a sort of political singularity that left us in an alternate timeline.
If I’m wrong (and I often am) I will look foolish in another six months to a year. I can live with that. But I won’t be silent about what I think I see.
Fair enough. All points taken. I was getting this weird dynamic whereby the environment had changed so significantly that this result was more or less inevitable. If that’s so the Democratic Party is useless now. No point in fighting a new war with obsolete equipment. That’s where I felt the need to strongly disagree. This steadfast defense of the old strategy (and the party and the candidate) because, for example, Clinton won more popular votes completely missing this point it seems to me. Why even discuss this in those terms now? Why try to convince people this wasn’t a political failure?
This steadfast defense of the old strategy (and the party and the candidate) because, for example, Clinton won more popular votes completely missing this point it seems to me. Why even discuss this in those terms now? Why try to convince people this wasn’t a political failure?
Not cassandra, but I think her point is that people are distorting what happened, and therefore drawing the wrong conclusions, and that they are doing so in the pursuit of some specific agendas that in part buy into part of the Trump message. That’s my interpretation of what she’s saying.
I think that’s valuable IF you presume the game has not changed. You and I are in a different place, so it has less value to us in a pragmatic sense.
Except that I completely agree with cassandra that pulling back from the message of an inclusive society is a strategy even more foreordained to defeat than what actually happened.
We disagree on interpretation of Cassandra’s argument. She went much further than what you summarize in your 2nd paragraph. If it were that narrow I would agree.
We agree on pretty much everything else.
“Except that I completely agree with cassandra that pulling back from the message of an inclusive society is a strategy even more foreordained to defeat than what actually happened.”
Except that Democrats or liberals in general have neither a plan nor motivation to pull back from the message of an inclusive society. To claim there is such a plan is in the realm of conspiracy theories and fake news.
I think puck’s response is exactly what cassandra is talking about.
Lots of Democrats didn’t embrace that message as fully as puck would like everyone to believe–many bernie bros among them.
Time recently used the dogwhistle “everyday Americans” in a caption contending Clinton had spent too much time appealing to minorities and women and not enough to “everyday Americans”–which meant “white Americans.” The people who most stridently emphasize that Clinton lacked a strong enough “economic” message to go with her “social” message are doing a softer version of that dogwhistle, given that the voters that such a message would be used to court are almost exclusively white. There have been many variations of “the Democrats have to have something to appeal to disaffected white working class voters,” which is an inherent statement that there is something fundamentally different between the “white working class” and the “non-white working class.”
I’m guessing here, but I’d echo AQC’s statement in another thread, and suspect that a large part of cassandra’s anger as a “Black working woman” comes from the subtle message that keeps playing here that it’s time for minorities and many women to squish back further into the back of the bus.
It’s kind of depressingly ironic to be a white male having to explain to other white males what you didn’t get about a Black woman telling you about her perspective, and calling you on the fact that one element of the smug superiority with which many folks dismiss her argument actually does have something to do with her Blackness and her femaleness, and that the fact that such occurs is indicative that not all liberal or democratic elements are quite ready for a truly inclusive society.
But, hey, as usual you will claim you’ve been misunderstood, misquoted, and maligned rather than even examine the possibility that some criticism might be warranted.
Strengthening the economic message doesn’t take away from the current social message – if anything, it amplifies it. Adding incentives or disincentives that result in new jobs in the Rust Belt or the inner cities is not racist. And if you come up with such a policy, it is not racist to promote it vigorously.
More accurate puck: “strengthening the economic message for white people doesn’t take away from the current social message for women and minorities–if anything, it amplifies it.”
As cassandra would say, there–fixed that for you.
There you go again.
There is a lot to like in Steve’s comment’s but he is getting carried away. The people who think “Bernie Bros” are using “soft dog whistles” are carrying water for the GOP spinmeister at this point. Kudos to them for being so effective in hammering in the wedge. They have proven Newton’s disinformation war theory.
The reality is that there is no either/or choice between economic justice and social justice. None.
@jason–The people who think “Bernie Bros” are using “soft dog whistles” are carrying water for the GOP spinmeister at this point.
Verb tenses are important; change that “are” to “were.” There was a reason that Bernie didn’t attempt to campaign anywhere in the South–because Clinton fed him his lunch every time they met in a State with a substantial minority population.
I agree with you that Democrats can’t afford to separate “social” and “economic” issues–in fact I never said they should. I said they have. Case in point one: Jack Markell. Case in point two: Tom Carper. Case in point three: Chris Coons. Case in point four: John Carney.
All of these gentlemen (and it is considered tacky to say so, but all these middle-aged to elderly upper class White gentlemen) have time and again–by your own admission sacrificed economic issues while (usually) coming around to support social issues. To be honest, all four of these men could have been moderate Republicans under Reagan.
In the 1960s we had two parties with two wings each–liberal Dems, conservative Dems, liberal GOPers, conservative GOPers. This may have been artifact of Nixon’s “Southern Strategy,” but the reality is that today we have a GOP with only one wing and a Democratic Party that still has two, as is still pretending the Republicans have two as well. At any rate, both wings of the Democratic Party missed this election, and the “lesson learned” appears not to be that social and economic issues need to exist together, but that economic issues must be (supposedly temporarily) considered more important.
One of the reasons that fewer people today identify as Democrats is that Democrats own a phenomenal fundraising machine and apparently have no interest in grooming young people (or listening to them).
Weed whacking is a fruitless exercise. The argument that a failure to address the needs of one constituency is not an argument that one did too much for other constituencies.
The simple facts are that the campaign (and Democrats in general) neglected the Rust Belt constituency (there may be other failures, but let’s stick to this particular one). The Rust Belt constituency is afflicted with rational egoism, just as we all are. Their plaint is that it appeared that there was everything for thee and nothing for me.
Their jobs are gone. Their towns are crumbling. Their health is failing. Their addictions are growing. The biggest industry is Oxy. While liberals (at least from what they saw from their seat at the last bar in town) were all about free college and creating safe spaces. From their perspective, the Democratic Party left them.
Honestly, it’s that simple.
Well put. The union guy across the street from me does not think that Trump is going to be a hero on labor issues, but at least he talked about work and jobs in a way that made him feel like someone was paying attention.
So if I get this straight from @jason and @Dave, the difference was that Trump made noises that sounded sympathetic to the plight of the workers, and that the Clinton campaign didn’t.
Of course everything Trump said about bringing back those Rust Belt jobs was a lie–outmoded factories and higher labor costs in an essentially post-industrial society are facts that aren’t going to change–but since it worked for him you are effectively arguing that Clinton lost because either (a) she didn’t offer a competing lie; or (b) they were all too dumb to realize they were being played.
Or both.
What I can’t figure out is where that means you’d like the Democrats to go from here. There is no magic bullet that will re-invigorate the Rust Belt, which is only a stone’s throw from being the same economic disaster (that we politely don’t talk about) that is central Appalachia.
If the Democrats are honest, and say that the economy has passed them by, those jobs aren’t returning, so let’s pull up those bootstraps and try something different, they’ll be laughed out of the process.
If the Democrats support organized labor, which they always have, they will fall afoul of spending the last thirty years allowing organized labor to be demonized as a major part of the problem, as Trump has just successfully done with Carrier.
If the Democrats try to mimic Trump’s lies, we get “Trump lite,” which is the death of an inclusive society.
So tell me, jason, when you say that social justice and economic justice are inseparable, how do you sell that to people who respond pretty much only to hearing comfortable lies?
Easy.
How do they still have high paying manufacturing jobs in Germany when cheap ass Poland is just a stone’s throw away? It is not a given that manufacturing jobs are “not coming back.” Germany decided to have an industrial policy that didn’t enthrone increasing “shareholder value” as the highest and best goal of a society.
Clinton tried to signal that a little with the Green leadership jobs stuff, but that is thinking too small. We need an industrial policy which views equity investors as equal in standing with a broader range of stakeholders.
Can the Democratic Party do that? I doubt it. They are beholden to the people who have gained so much wealth and power since the industrial world was turned upside down by shareholder primacy.
Also, from a practical perspective… whoever gets on the offensive, sets up a shadow Presidency first, complete with shadow cabinet… I’ll vote for next time.
“the difference was that Trump made noises that sounded sympathetic to the plight of the workers, and that the Clinton campaign didn’t.”
YES
“(a) she didn’t offer a competing lie; or (b) they were all too dumb to realize they were being played.”
Both A and B
A third alternative is what Jason touched on. A nation can decide for themselves how they want to participate in a global economy. Every nation must have some measure of self interest that is fundamental to its existence. If we decide that farming is an essential element in our survival, then we must farm regardless of the cost. The measure of whether an activity is essential is not merely an economic ROI, because ultimately the accumulation of wealth must have some purpose, whether it is to fuel consumption (and thereby production) or to improve quality of life, promote the general welfare, or ensure survival, establish dominance (to ensure survival), , the need to create and innovate, etc.
What we are missing as a nation, is a national sense of who we are and what we want to be as Americans. Not as a place where we live, but as something we are all a part of. We readily adopt that sense of who we are at a local level becoming locavores because we want to promote locally produced foods but we don’t seem to care when it comes to Oreos, Rubbermaid, steel, shoes, etc.
It’s not just here. It’s all over. Italian shoes and Louis Vuitton are being made in China. We pay lip service to Made In American, but that’s the extent of it because when we shop, we don’t care where it’s made as a long as the price is right.
So @jason’s point is that Clinton should have tried to sell European industrial policy to people willing to believe that Trump could use old-fashioned protectionism and tax policy to bring back their jobs?
And @Dave outright admits that what he wanted Clinton to do was to lie to all those people?
It’s not like Democrats (much less Republicans) have ever successfully advocated for an industrial policy. Obama did so piecemeal and ineptly (“green jobs” and “shovel-ready jobs”). You’re actually advocating that what needs to happen is that we need a more centralized economy, but that Democrats need to lie to workers to get into power to create one (leaving unanswered how they would get the majority GOP in at least the House to ever go along with that).
So Democrats would have to become Trump to save themselves from Trump?
This IS what you seem to be advocating–but, hey, maybe by pointing that out I’m somehow “carrying water” for the GOP.
You are confusing GOP “policy” for GOP politics. But to your other points, No.
Dems don’t need to become Trump, but they need to learn how to say things that sound like a more broad-based industrial policy. [Notice I don;t say that have to DO anything, I understand our current reality]
Even with that low bar, I don’t think they are able to even say the right things. We are talking about Democrats and the party is wholly owned by the people and corporations who have gotten so much out of Shareholder primacy.
Sanders was on the trails of something like that, as was Dean (IMHO), but they were both dealt with.
It is not a given that manufacturing jobs are “not coming back.”
It is a given. Especially those jobs that the rust belt pines for. You can see that from the old school rust belt businesses that are there. Workers are being replaced by machines and employers are screaming for people who can operate the machines. Carrier is going to use the majority of its tax break to modernize that plant and a bunch of the current jobs will vanish.
The Germans understood that people who demand high wages need to provide some additional value. So they invested in a great deal of R&D that would work with their existing businesses to help create that value. The Germans (as I have written about here many times) have focused on their high end manufacturing, they are well known for delivering excellent products (pace Volkswagen) and this approach takes advantage of that branding.
Sometime back, President Obama asked Tim Cook why he didn’t make iPhones here. Cook had a number of reasons including the lack of manufacturing engineers here. And this expertise that helps an organization work out efficient processes, new machinery, other materials while delivering very high quality is what he was talking about. And this is the role that the German R&D firms take on. In some ways, this lack of focus on better efficiency and processes is why Bethlehem Steel and much of Alcoa is no longer extant.
Bernie Sanders had mainly a fair trade policy, while Clinton had a more robust manufacturing policy. That included removing some business tax breaks that help companies move out of the country (a thing Obama and the Dems did try that the GOP blocked), provide incentives for business creation in rural areas, training for workers and the usual China stuff. As for the Green business, China knows that it has to stop polluting and are working towards capturing a market. They make about 70% or so of the world’s solar panels, so this is an industry that we lost largely because the GOP has no vision that does not include fossil fuels. We’ve created much of this stuff and yet can’t figure out a way to capitalize on making an industry out of it.
Spending on infrastructure would boost manufacturing, but the GOP blocked Obama’s 400B+ plan.
Still, fair trade for the US would mean increasing the price to manufacture in other countries and I don’t see that happening. And while everyone is very concerned about the folks who lost their jobs to outsourcing, there is little concern for those businesses who were able to expand to foreign markets because trade deals made it easier for them.
Bottom line, the places that still have a robust manufacturing capability have worked at keeping it robust. Either through price strategies or through value strategies. We’ve done little of the thinking or investment that might provide some incentives for high end manufacturing to be here.
But yeah, she had an Industrial Policy — it just didn’t complete with “I’m going to bring back all of the jobs.”
And many thanks to Steve Newton for being my translator here. It has been illuminating to find that there are people who would rather discuss what I mean with him rather than ask me.
Which provides a lesson that I already knew, right?
We agree more that we disagree on all of this. I said, “Germany decided to have an industrial policy that didn’t enthrone increasing “shareholder value” as the highest and best goal of a society. ” and you fleshed out that a bit, which I appreciate.
I think we can also (perhaps) agree that Republicans are not the only political party in the US with a very short-sighted take on indiustrial policy largely because they have been captured by special interests?