Things are not going to be fine

[Parrothead]

I heard Bill Clinton speaking very briefly on the news this morning (he was an elector in NY and was just finished voting) and he was still blaming Russians and the FBI for Hillary's loss.

Here is a USA Today story on it.

Bill Clinton said he was proud of the work his wife did on the campaign trail.

But he said the FBI's handling of an investigation into the Clintons' email servers and Russian hackers who intelligence officials believe targeted Clinton's campaign were too much to overcome.

"I've watched her battle through that bogus email deal and be vindicated at the end," Bill Clinton said.

"She fought through everything, and she prevailed against it all. But, you know, with the end we had the Russians and the FBI deal, which she couldn't prevail against that."

I know he doesn't speak for the DNC and the party as a whole, but I suspect this is a prevailing opinion. And I'm of the opinion that if the Dems keeping blaming the Russians and the FBI, and don't look at themselves, that they will lose the mid-terms and the next Presidential election.

Sure, sure, these things may have flipped a few votes. But there are more fundamental problems. If you can't convince poor whites and blue-collar whites to vote for your candidate over a self-centered, racist billionaire, you have some fundamental problems that you need to address.

I agree, these may have flipped a few votes, but not enough to change the outcome. It was also pointed out, end of last week/over the weekend that the DNC was warned a year before the election of hacking vulnerability. They didn't act. A few months later, they were told the Russians could be behind it, but they still didn't act.

[geonuc]

I heard Bill Clinton speaking very briefly on the news this morning (he was an elector in NY and was just finished voting) and he was still blaming Russians and the FBI for Hillary's loss.

Here is a USA Today story on it.

Bill Clinton said he was proud of the work his wife did on the campaign trail.

But he said the FBI's handling of an investigation into the Clintons' email servers and Russian hackers who intelligence officials believe targeted Clinton's campaign were too much to overcome.

"I've watched her battle through that bogus email deal and be vindicated at the end," Bill Clinton said.

"She fought through everything, and she prevailed against it all. But, you know, with the end we had the Russians and the FBI deal, which she couldn't prevail against that."

I know he doesn't speak for the DNC and the party as a whole, but I suspect this is a prevailing opinion. And I'm of the opinion that if the Dems keeping blaming the Russians and the FBI, and don't look at themselves, that they will lose the mid-terms and the next Presidential election.

Sure, sure, these things may have flipped a few votes. But there are more fundamental problems. If you can't convince poor whites and blue-collar whites to vote for your candidate over a self-centered, racist billionaire, you have some fundamental problems that you need to address.

I don't know. Really, I don't. But I'm inclined to think that the Comey and Russian actions, especially Comey's being so close to the election, tipped a few states from Clinton to Trump. Enough to swing the electoral college. In other words, I'm inclined to believe Comey's action was effective and I'm inclined to think it was purposeful.

It's one thing to point to these things and say 'that ain't right' as many of us are doing. It's another to say that people (the DNC) aren't looking really hard at why the swing states were so close such that these two illegal acts lost the election. You can do both.

[SciFiFisher]

I don't know. Really, I don't. But I'm inclined to think that the Comey and Russian actions, especially Comey's being so close to the election, tipped a few states from Clinton to Trump. Enough to swing the electoral college. In other words, I'm inclined to believe Comey's action was effective and I'm inclined to think it was purposeful.

It's one thing to point to these things and say 'that ain't right' as many of us are doing. It's another to say that people (the DNC) aren't looking really hard at why the swing states were so close such that these two illegal acts lost the election. You can do both.

In Michigan the difference between DT and HC was 10,704 votes. I think it would be fair to say that just about everything had an impact on the election results. Comey, The Russians, The GOP's unrelenting campaign to cast HC as a criminal, Donald Trump's unrelenting appeal to every angry, unhappy, voter, and the Democratic misjudgment of just how many unhappy scared people there are in rural America and in urban America.

Trump would like you to believe that he won because he was the smartest man in the room and was planning for an electoral win all along. The truth is that the DNC was hit by the political equivalent of a 100 year flood. That doesn't mean that they should not look at what caused the flood and figure out some way to recover from it. Because they lost the presidential election. And because of the congressional elections that seemed like the Democrats were going to win and did not.

Either there are way more racists and white supremacists in this country than we thought. and/or the average person in this country is way more scared and angry than the DNC gave them credit for.

[vendic]

You misquoted swift there. That quote was by geonuc.

I personally don't think it was a 100 year flood type event. It was a pretty clear path to failure that many people saw but few others seem to want to accept. Hillary was about as popular as Trump/Hitler, that was known way in advance. She had huge trust issues among some democrats but there was almost no trust there from republicans and independents. The DNC and Hillary colluded to win the primaries while at the same time were trying to spin Hillary as a nothing but a victim of the Republican smear campaign.
Then the emails came out exposing the whole thing with the DNC.

Now Bill Clinton comes out and says,

"She fought through everything, and she prevailed against it all. But, you know, with the end we had the Russians and the FBI deal, which she couldn't prevail against that."

Funny how the emails/ Russians seems to be the problem, but, doing what they did to Sanders and the disrespecting the principles of a fair democratic election are seen as a non issue. According to Bill, the problem isn't that they were caught. It was the fault of those who exposed them. Those pesky Russians have interfered in the election! How dare they! That's our job and the DNC's job.

Unless this attitude changes, the Democratic party will lose everyone but it's hard core supporters. As this election has shown, that's not enough to win.

[code monkey]

and on the other hand trump came across as completely trustworthy, an upstanding man of proper morals and spelled out detailed plans for fixing the problems that we face so that's why he won?

[vendic]

Far from it. That's my point.
Getting close to winning against him as though it was a significant achievement is imho a travesty.
It should never have been close. It should have been a landslide.

The question shouldn't what we did wrong to just lose by a small margin.
It should be wtf did we do that stopped us getting an unprecedented victory, as it should have been.
We lost against Trump. TRUMP!
It's not about the little things that could have made a slight difference. It's the BIG things that made a huge difference. Imho, that was by putting in an un-electable candidate to begin with. Everything else that happened later was icing.

[geonuc]

It's quite a stretch to call a candidate who garnered three million more votes than any of the other candidates 'unelectable'.

[vendic]

Not really. Comparing the primaries to the general election doesn't work.
Democrats and Republicans in the general election will mainly vote for party lines regardless who that is and who they voted for in the primaries.

Then there are the swing voters and independents. The key to winning an election is to gather most of them since they are the ones that might vote against you and swing the tide. The core base will simply vote for the party all the time.

This election highlighted that fact. You can't win an election by relying on your core base alone. You have to appeal to those who normally wouldn't vote the party line. The Democratic party did pretty much everything possible to mess that up. The other thing this election has shown is that when there is a deep distrust of a candidate in the party it will also divide even part of that core base. That's what makes the candidate un-electable. The inability to pull in the non core base voters and keep the "usually" party line voters voting the party line. When that doesn't work, the result is a shift from what should have been a major victory to a loss or a close race.

I can't stress this enough, the Democratic party pissed off so many people that it lost the General election to Trump. That is an epic fuck up that can't be sugar coated by saying it was close. Not in my book. If we don't learn the lesson now we never will and 2018 is going to be a disaster.

[geonuc]

Not really. Comparing the primaries to the general election doesn't work.

I wasn't comparing them. But now that you mention it, Clinton got more votes than both Sanders and Trump. You can say all you want about Clinton's flaws and how the DNC chooses its nominee, and you have repeatedly, but 'unelectable' and 'won the popular vote by a large margin' are hard to tag on the same person. That's all I'm saying.

[Swift]

Far from it. That's my point.
Getting close to winning against him as though it was a significant achievement is imho a travesty.
It should never have been close. It should have been a landslide.

The question shouldn't what we did wrong to just lose by a small margin.
It should be wtf did we do that stopped us getting an unprecedented victory, as it should have been.
We lost against Trump. TRUMP!
It's not about the little things that could have made a slight difference. It's the BIG things that made a huge difference. Imho, that was by putting in an un-electable candidate to begin with. Everything else that happened later was icing.

I don't think I'd go as far as saying Clinton was unelectable (though I never thought either she or Sanders was a particularly attractive candidate - and I'm not talking about looks - frankly, I was never excited about either of them).

But other than that, I completely agree. The fact that the Dems didn't squish Trump like the bug he is, is inexcusable.

[grapes]

Not really. Comparing the primaries to the general election doesn't work.

I wasn't comparing them. But now that you mention it, Clinton got more votes than both Sanders and Trump. You can say all you want about Clinton's flaws and how the DNC chooses its nominee, and you have repeatedly, but 'unelectable' and 'won the popular vote by a large margin' are hard to tag on the same person. That's all I'm saying.

I saw an analysis somewhere (here?) that Clinton trailed all of Obama's numbers in the states, except for California, where hers exceeded his by over two million. So, maybe say she was electable in California?

No, seriously, anyone who can get even a couple million votes is electable. If only we'd passed that so-called Reagan amendment limiting presidential candidates to age 70 at inauguration. Then, Clinton would be president. Damn boomers anyway.

[vendic]

Not really. Comparing the primaries to the general election doesn't work.

I wasn't comparing them. But now that you mention it, Clinton got more votes than both Sanders and Trump. You can say all you want about Clinton's flaws and how the DNC chooses its nominee, and you have repeatedly, but 'unelectable' and 'won the popular vote by a large margin' are hard to tag on the same person. That's all I'm saying.

Quite simply: if she couldn't defeat Trump, who could she defeat?
I come up with nothing on that question. Hence to me, she is un-electable.
She lost to the person she had the best chance of defeating, then it stands to reason that she would have lost to the any other opponent by a larger margin.
I fail to see where the problem in logic is or why anyone would disagree after the fact. I held the same view back in the primaries and I could understand people disagreeing with me back then. Now that she lost to Trump, I thought it would be accepted. I'm not sure why it isn't.

[vendic]

interesting read. http://nypost.com/2016/12/21/why-hillar ... upporters/

[Cyborg Girl]

@vendic, the NY Post is a Murdoch paper. It cannot be trusted at all.

Edit: I kind of agree re the Dems and squashing Trump. OTOH you have to understand that Republicans have been flirting with Fascism for a very long time now, and have had MASSIVE support from the business world due to their deregulation shtick. There have been predictions of an eventual Republican coup and autocracy since the Bush Administration, if not earlier.

To be honest, one of the weirdest things for me about this election has been seeing all my most paranoid Bush-era fantasies proven true. And then some. It's like living in an SF novel by Michael Moore.

[vendic]

Ah. My bad. Normally I double check things but it's not so convenient to do so at present.

I don't think Republicans have been flirting with fascism, it's been both parties shifting more to the right. You have a choice of right or further right/ more authoritarian. There is no right and left here. Nor is there central. Most Americans wouldn't know a central government if it bit them on the ass. They would call it communist or socialist.
I've heard it said, "I won't vote for Hillary because I don't vote Republican". There's more truth there than it would initially appear, only the timing is off.
If you look at the current Democrat policies, they are more like Republican policies a few decades back.

[Cyborg Girl]

@vendic: very much agreed about the Dems shifting right, and basically being neoliberal. But the Repubs are a whole other ball game. As a group, their stances on minority and workers' rights have been *far* more regressive than Democrats' for a while now. As far as embracing Fascism, there was Rush Limbaugh before Glenn Beck and Alex Jones. And also Jerry Falwell and his ilk. Bush and company had strong connections with the Christian dominionist types; and though they were a lot more reserved about their racist dogwhistles, they were happy to accept help from Limbaugh and suchlike.

This was their campaign fuel. It brought in the crazy. It got them votes.

I don't even think they were above going as far as Trump; rather, they were smart enough to think it would be political suicide. Trump was stupid enough not to realize that. Now that he's discovered it is not suicide, and can in fact win elections... Well. You've seen the way the Repubs are now. They're so excited they're getting orgasms. They stand to have absolute power, full control of the government, the capacity to hurt and oppress people as they see fit, and they are fucking drooling over it. Trump is their key to the kingdom. No way will they reign him in.

Thus, my expectations re: rule of law, the fate of my country, and my own survival. Believe me, I would love very, very much to be proven wrong.

[Cyborg Girl]

Also, an observation I may have made before:

There's a certain segment of Republicans who claim to love America. But... They hate social services. They hate Congress. They hate Democratic presidents. They hate the Judiciary. They hate bureaucrats and paper-pushers.

They do love some Republican presidents. And they always, ALWAYS, love the military. They hate weakness, and love action.

Basically, there's a part of the Republican base to whom "the real America" is not their government in full, not the public, and not the Constitution, but rather a subset of the government that basically resembles a dictatorship. These folks could probably be described as proto-Fascists; they seem to fit e.g. Umberto Eco's list of characteristics very well.

(And yes, of course you see this in military SF. Hatred for bureaucrats and Congress/Parliament, vaunting the virtues of executive power, uncritical praise of the military vs. civilian parts of government... check, check, check.)

But yeah. It looks like Trump is going to give these people their wish. His being a thundering idiot is a feature, not a bug; anti-intellectualism goes right along with hatred for introspection and debate vs. forthright action. Likewise his volatility, for the same reasons. And likewise his cruelty; if you think weakness is evil, then the weak deserve to be destroyed, right?

[Sigma_Orionis]

I remember saying that if the Republicans nominated Trump, the Dems could nominate a Rhinoceros and still win. Boy did I get it wrong. So I suppose I could be talking out of my ass more than usual.

I believe I said something like this before. The best bet is not to allow him to reach respectability. That is DENY him the chance to appear presidential. That means that The Democrats have to keep a very even keel. Trump's strength is his weakness as well. His off the cuff remarks that make him "palatable" to those who believe in him ALSO will get him in a lot of trouble once he is sworn in. I think that his reaction to the Carrier incident is a good example.

His second most important weakness is something you gringos are not all that familiar with: Feudalism.

What do I mean by that? Well all those comparisons made about Trump behaving like a Latin American Caudillo focused on what his twitter comments. HOWEVER, there is another similarity. He behaves like a Feudal Lord on his fiefdom. I am sure that this happens in a lot of private organizations. HOWEVER, in my experience, it happens more often and to a greater extent in organizations where measurable results are not important. Trump's Companies look from the outside to be organized for one purpose only: Stroke his ego, I don't think his companies make all that much money. The money they get are from his franchising deals. His companies do not seem to have real "operations departments" that get things done. His Businesses seem to consist in going around spreading his "brand", so to me it looks like most of his companies are glorified marketing departments.

I've worked in companies like that all my life, Hell I LIVE in a country what that kind of behavior is a way of life. and you know what? they operate a lot like medieval courts. And guess what? very little of value gets done. I remember when discussing the sad state of affairs in my country that Fisher said that you had a lower standard for incompetence than we do. You know what? I agree.

By the looks of it

Game of Thrones indeed. I think that by this time next year. His approval ratings will be a lot less than stellar. Hope the Democrats can capitalize on that.

Unfortunately this seems to be a global trend. People seem to be turning WAAAAY to the right in all "first world" countries. I think everyone's afraid because the world economy is so sluggish. I think that what they fail to realized is that is due to exceedingly tight fiscal policies in those very same countries, particularly in Europe. So they're rewarding the same people making them afraid.

[Cyborg Girl]

*presses virtual 'Like' button on Sigma's post above*

@Sigma, I think you might be interested in Sarah Kendzior's comments on this. She made a career of studying kleptocracy in former Soviet Bloc countries, and sees Trump as being in the same mold as far-right kleptocrats. IIRC she has also commented that, in a decade of studying corruption in Uzbekistan, she saw *nothing* as flamboyant as Trump's conflicts of interest.

I'm also kind of reminded of a thing I saw once, about how a business is a lot like a miniature Stalinist dictatorship. And Trump has repeatedly said stuff about running the country like a business, and his businessman's experience being valuable. So I think we know how well that would work out, even if Trump weren't an utterly shitty businessman.

Re: turning to the right, and tight fiscal policies. Yes, I've been noticing that. Currently reading Origins of Totalitarianism (Hannah Arendt), and I think there are uncomfortable parallels to the conditions that created Nazi-style anti-Semitism.

Though I still think the biggest factor, and the thing that made Trump (or someone like him) inevitable, was the Republicans tacitly embracing hate to get votes, starting with Nixon and building from there. I think our fate was more or less sealed with the wide acceptance of Limbaugh and FOX News - not popularity, mind, but acceptance, the normalization of hate-rhetoric as acceptable in a liberal democracy. If an actual Fascist didn't eventually hit the jackpot with that, a con artist pretending to be a Fascist would.

(Noting of course that by now, Trump's rhetoric is convincing enough that I wonder if he believes his own bullshit.)

[Sigma_Orionis]

Though I still think the biggest factor, and the thing that made Trump (or someone like him) inevitable, was the Republicans tacitly embracing hate to get votes, starting with Nixon and building from there. I think our fate was more or less sealed with the wide acceptance of Limbaugh and FOX News - not popularity, mind, but acceptance, the normalization of hate-rhetoric as acceptable in a liberal democracy. If an actual Fascist didn't eventually hit the jackpot with that, a con artist pretending to be a Fascist would.

(Noting of course that by now, Trump's rhetoric is convincing enough that I wonder if he believes his own bullshit.)

THAT alone should be enough reason for ALL of the US Left not to act like spoiled children like the US Right did when Obama won. Like our opposition did for years. THAT helps legitimize Trump and normalize everything you hate about him and the people who are around him.

Like it or not, as vendic said in another thread the US is a right leaning country, PERIOD. The Republicans used to be a coalition between, Geopolitical Real-Politickers, "Fiscal Conservatives" (quotes because it's more posturing than anything else, but a lot of people do believe in that position) and the Religious Right. It has morphed into an uneasy, unstable coalition between "Fiscal Conservatives" and Improvised "Right Wing" Populists with too much sympathy for Facism for my taste. THAT is their weakness. DO NOT give them the chance to attain respectability, or stability. The Democrats are a coalition of everything else, which by definition is unstable. HOWEVER, it does include a great deal of moderates now. DO NOT ALIENATE THEM. the same goes for those (I suspect they're few, hopefully not) moderate republicans left.

For better or worse, the average US Citizen TOLERATES right wing nutjobs a lot more than their left wing counterparts. The reasons are historical. Way too many people have bad memories of the Radical part of US left flying of the handle in the 70s and the inability of the more moderate ones to contain them in those days. Nowadays it's obvious that the more moderate parts of the US left have managed to contain their nutjobs. Well, allow them to continue to do so. Otherwise the right will gain the upper hand simply because if all things look the same, the public will lean towards those it has more tolerance to. The Clintons know this, however they seem to have lost their ability to capitalize that. Someone else will have to then.

Yes, the rightward shift is a phenomenon that is happening all over the so-called "First World". Even in Spain, that has had to (unfairly in my opinion) suffer a lot of economic hardship out of German/Dutch intransigence still keeps the Right in Power. HOWEVER stupid symbolic gestures the radical left loves so much (demonstrations, inflammatory rhetoric, etc.) will not help turn that around. People in the middle class are scared of going poor and continue to reward those that caused much of the problem. EVEN in "left-wing" Europe. I don't know if that will change. But right now the US holds the scales. So it's imperative for the US to avoid letting a nutjob like Trump become respectable.

Once again, I will point out to Jim Wright's Blog, I agree with what he has to say.

One more thing. WORK THE STATES. The US Left needs to realize that the Electoral System of the US is BASED on the States, so work them, try to get as many state legislatures as possible. THE ONLY Way the US left can turn this around (much to my dislike) is to have a working legislative branch. regaining the presidency must be a CONSEQUENCE of regaining the states.

[vendic]

The reason that the world is heading to the right imho is because there is a growing discrepancy between the poor and the rich. The majority of people are getting poorer than they were used to while the mega rich are getting richer. I've said it before many times but when that happens as often as it does, what is happening is the legalized distribution of wealth from the poor to the rich. IOW, the mega rich can't get richer without the poor getting poorer. People scream about the distribution of wealth to help the poor but worship the systems that do the favor for the rich. While I'm not going to repeat why or what the problems are (there are many) most people know something is wrong. They know that they need more money to survive and the system is working against them.
The solution to many appears from the old saying, "when has a poor man given anyone a job?"
For many this is a no brainer, the only way to get the country back on it's feet is to support the rich so they give the poor jobs. The rich are rich because they did everything right so people tend to want to invest in someone that has a proven record. That however is complete and utter bullshit for the most part but convincing a population with an average IQ of 100 who are struggling to feed their family is about as rewarding as masturbation with a cheese grater.
Hence, the shift to the right. Give more to industry in the hope that it will build things up for the rest of us. unfortunately as it has repeatedly been shown, what happens is they just make a bigger funnel to get more of the poor's wealth and transfer it to the top.

The solution is simple enough if we accept the above. Getting the majority to do so however is not likely. More likely things will turn to shit and a rebellion will happen, or, WWIII. War always helps bring down the anger of the poor and gets rid of plenty of them too. Win win, even when the country loses. I can go darker (war is coming John Doe), but fear that will make you all think I'm insane. Oh wait. Y'all already do. lol

That's my personal pov for what it's worth.

[Sigma_Orionis]

Well, if what you say is correct, it's vicious circle. Yet, how did we get into that?

You have to remember that the left gained a fair amount of prestige in the 1930s with the Great Depression. SO, after WWII and DESPITE the Cold War with the USSR there were plenty of "left wing" politics in the west The right gained a lot of prestige with the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe.

Maybe the "Great Recession" wasn't bad enough to make the Right lose its prestige and maybe that's why we're in this mess. One thing is certain. Automation is going to make it all worse. And I don't think the Right is prepared to deal with that. That leaves the Left. If this ends up in a war, I hope it happens after I'm comfortably dead.

[vendic]

I'm so not implying that the left is the answer. I personally believe in a mixed more neutral based economy. Certain things work better when under government control, others better in private hands and good regulation is essential.
I just really don't think that will be realised yet however. There is another war coming. It's brewing right now. I doubt that at the end of it things will better. Mainly because people are fucking stupid.

[Sigma_Orionis]

I guess I was thinking about "The Left" in the US which encompasses everything But what now is the US Republican Party.

[code monkey]

[quote="Sigma_Orionis"]
... I think that by this time next year. His approval ratings will be a lot less than stellar.../quote]

his approval ratings are already a lot less than stellar.