Normally, what I do when I get through another 50 of these is provide links to the full record. Plan was to do that here as well, probably with whatever was the best Clinton picture from Tuesday.
Instead of that, Nazis.
Given that, I just wanted to give you stuff I find indespensible about what happened to us Tuesday.
Things I was wrong about.
-I didn't think decent people would vote for Trump. You wouldn't cast Trump as President in a movie. No studio would ever do that - he so obviously presents as a grifter, even before the reinvention as head of the white supremacists. Not everyone who voted for Trump is decent; many millions are just creepy, dumb, evil little deplorables. But there aren't enough of those people to win a general election.
-I thought Latinos would storm the polls for Clinton.
Things I was right about:
-Clinton was the wrong candidate for this election. Much of this country is a hallowed out husk; the reason is 30+ years of tax cuts/austerity/privatization/worship of the "free market". That's contestable, I recognize, but I've got the better end of the argument. When Trump's message is "things are terrible, I'll make them better" and Clinton's message is "things are already great" it makes it easy to vote for the first guy when you've lost your house to foreclosure or live paycheck to paycheck or wonder if you lose your job what could possibly ever replace it. Sure, repealing the estate tax won't make things better, but that's not the point (sure, some people in that category also are creeped out by transgenders or are otherwise unsympathetic plaintiffs from my standpoint; otherwise they'd all be Democrats)
-Clinton was the wrong candidate for this election. She stinks of the 90s. Stinks of it. Women, understandably so, are eager for their turn, but WokeHill never rang true, despite liberals telling you it did and that if it didn't for you, it was misogyny, even if you were also a woman. Every leaked email, every "I've got a public position and a private position" was just crap you left behind in the previous century. We watched that show; even people who liked it at the time aren't pulling out their old DVDs any more. The only show from the 90s people still want to see is Friends.
-Clinton ran a dumb campaign. Since the convention appearance of Bloomberg and Generals and Leon Panetta the attempt to get GOP votes instead of heading left to get your base to turn out was a terrible idea. The focus on Russia was never going to get out liberal votes; "lets talk about the Cold War" was just part and parcel of that 90s Clinton mindset to always move center. Old guys like me hated that mindset, hated what the Democrats became, and when Gore signaled he was going to continue, even carry that further by choosing a DINO like Joe Lieberman as VP, we voted with our feet in the general. Know what a good campaign is:
Do you have a pre-existing condition? Trump's promising to repeal Obamacare. Go ahead, ask him.
Who do you think will insure you if you lose your job? You want to talk about freedom? Freedom can't mean "I have to take whatever my boss dishes out forever or I go uninsured."
Don't talk to me about how Mitt Romney's voting.
-I'll tell you the one moment I bet Clinton wishes she could do over again. That second debate, right after the Access Hollywood tape - when there was such hot scrutiny on every move Trump made and he brought the WJC accusers. Remember the moment he was behind Clinton, right behind her - it was palpable that he was in her space? She needed to turn around and tell him to back down. She should have spoken sharply. She should have looked him in the eye and actually been the feminist hero her supporters tried to turn her into. You have to know the moment - and whatever the instinct is for a woman politician not to show too much strength needed to give way to understanding there was blood in the water and she should have been the shark. It's a small thing - she still is Hillary Clinton who talked about superpredators trying to reinvent herself, and admittedly this is just my pet theory, but at the time, as someone who used to make a living speaking in front of groups - at that moment I felt it, I felt the absolute right thing to do was bring fire and make him back down, make him cower (which he either would have done or he would have not done which would have been just as good). If it was a prizefight, Trump was in deep trouble in that round, came out swinging and exposed his chin - Clinton, normally a defensive fighter, remained defensive, lost the round and then the fight.
-Sanders wins. Sanders wins easily. It seems self evident that Sanders wins easily.
-And yes, I voted for Clinton.
1.
Sanders campaign statement, per CNN: "We have nothing polite to say right now."— David Freddoso (@freddoso) November 9, 2016
2. Greenwald
THE PARALLELS BETWEEN the U.K.’s shocking approval of the Brexit referendum in June and the U.S.’ even more shocking election of Donald Trump as president last night are overwhelming. Elites (outside of populist right-wing circles) aggressively unified across ideological lines in opposition to both. Supporters of Brexit and Trump were continually maligned by the dominant media narrative (validly or otherwise) as primitive, stupid, racist, xenophobic, and irrational. In each case, journalists who spend all day chatting with one another on Twitter and congregating in exclusive social circles in national capitals — constantly re-affirming their own wisdom in an endless feedback loop — were certain of victory. Afterward, the elites whose entitlement to prevail was crushed devoted their energies to blaming everyone they could find except for themselves, while doubling down on their unbridled contempt for those who defied them, steadfastly refusing to examine what drove their insubordination.
3. Lund - pre-election
This one had everything: nativism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, misogyny, sexual assault allegations aplenty, and a final annihilation of all sense of shared history and foundational fact. And, on the other side, a compromised candidate whose organization trammeled the most economically promising working-class campaign in generations to deliver what is by now the Democratic Party’s sweetest platform: sheer, uncompromising terror at the alternative.
4. I've Been Making This Point Since the Late 90s.
In facilitating the election of Trump, the Electoral College has effectively disenfranchised racial minorities once again. The Electoral College underrepresented Clinton’s diverse, urban-centered coalition, and overrepresented Trump’s coalition, which is based around rural and suburban white people. Trump’s white nationalist demagoguery was unable to secure a plurality, let alone a majority, in a racially diverse country—but he didn’t need one.
5.
Updated poll numbers— Josh Nelson (@SSS_joshnelson) November 9, 2016
231,556,622 eligible voters
46.9% didn't vote
25.6% voted for Clinton
25.5% voted for Trump
1.7% voted for Johnson
6.
7. Inside NFL Locker Rooms
8. But, what else could the Democrats Have Possibly Done?
Hillary Clinton is a deeply unpopular politician. She won a hotly contested primary victory against a uniquely popular candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders. In her place, could he have beaten Trump?
That Clinton has unusually high unfavorables has been true for decades. Indeed, it has been a steady fact of her political life. She has annually ranked among the least-liked politicians on the national stage since she was the first lady. In recent years, her low favorability rating was matched only by that of her opponent, animated hate Muppet Donald Trump. In contrast, Sanders enjoys very high popularity, ranking as the most popular senator for two years in a row. Nationally, his favorability rating is more than 10 points higher than Clinton’s, and his unfavorability rating is more than 15 points lower. This popularity would have been a real asset on the campaign trail.
9.
10. Zach. Killing it.
And one more...
That's all for this time. I'll be back next time...if there is a next time
Your pal,
Jim
