The thing that hits the hardest and hurts the most is that the damage that will now be done may well be irreversible. In spite of that, I still can't see myself giving up.
For some comic relief, listen to interviews with Trump voters as to why they voted for Trump. We need to realize, beyond any doubt, that Trump voters are living in an alternate reality, where facts are not allowed. When things go bad for them they will easily be convinced that it's the Democrats' fault.
Last night on Stephanie Ruhle's show, she had a good long discussion on "what went wrong." You should look it up on YouTube if you missed it, because there is some valuable insight there.
Tim Ryan said that Democrats "misread the room." Micheal Steele said they forgot to ask the most important question - WHY do the voters they want to reach want to vote?
It's pretty obvious that Ryan is right when you look at the results: Harris lost by 3 percent EVERYWHERE. Places she won, places she lost - she was 3 percent down from Biden's 2020 totals. This left her in a place like Pennsylvania with no margin to cover unexpected losses - there wasn't enough votes in Philadephia to cover losing northeastern Pennsylvania.
If we want to start turning things around in 2026, we need to ask WHY that 3 percent of 2020 Biden voters didn't want to vote for Kamala Harris in 2024. Since they voted for her in 2020 as VP, the lefty blahblahblah about white supremacy and misogyny are obviously not the total answer. Finding the answer to the question is crucial to any future success for us.
Unfortunately, looking through the self-righteous bleatings of the educated white upper middle class (the new heart of he Democratic Party) over at Heather Cox Richardson's comments section last night was a good lesson in how that's not going to happen. "Emotional sugar highs" of declaring oneself in favor of secession, or declaring one is going to thoroughly weed out MAGAs from their friendship lists, and all the rest of White Liberal chest-beating WILL NOT put us on the road to anything but further losses in coming elections. Having said many of those things myself, I completely understand where they come from. But having been involved in politics for 60 years, I know how useless that shit is if one is serious about climbing out of a hole.
Oh for god’s sake, can we not appreciate the hard work that went into trying to get out the vote by the Harris campaign. What went wrong here is all on the Republicans up to the Supreme Court who put forward and propped up the criminally convicted ignoramus who won. Maybe because of bomb scares and lies.
Harris did nothing wrong in my view and I have been involved in politics as a citizen for a long time too. Good things do happen sometimes, this is not one of them. The work goes on and all good people must participate. Post mortems about it are all over the place and each might contain some truth.
I disagree that racism and misogyny are not the total answer. Running for president is totally different from VP. If racism & misogyny are not the total answer, they are 99% of it. Just MHO.
This has to change for the Dems: There is nothing beyond a time-worn coalition of the educated, the corporate apparatchiks, Wall Streeters, the consultant and meritocratic class, disintegrating racial and ethnic "base", and the "progressives"...continue with that mix, and guarantee minority-party status for the years ahead.
To a large extent, the answer to all this is really quite simple. It’s beautifully explained in this six-minute video on Bonhoeffer’s theory of stupidity. Bonhoeffer was executed by the German Nazis. He wrote about his theory while in a Nazi prison.
Reorienting my primary news sources from WaPo/NYT subs to The Guardian and Le Monde Diplo, with a couple of Substacks thrown in...oh, of course, a paid-up TPM sub!
One of the first consequences of tRump 2.0 is concentrated attacks on the media, particularly reporters' freedom of news-gathering from "sources" that displease tRump and his WH. Some excellent write-ups on CJR point toward much further clamp-downs on reporters, including intensive surveillance, threats of jailing, "espionage", and the like.
As the historian Timothy Snyder has foreseen, we are entering the era of "anticipatory obedience", and deviations from that new norm will be punished. Here comes the "darkness", followed by the "dying of democracy". And a majority of our citizens are fine with that.
Inflation is a fact of life. It must be iterated, and reiterated that inflation has been coming down during this presidential term, and that we escaped a *major* pandemic relatively well. I think we have to be careful talking about the why's, partly because I don't think people are even honest with themselves about it.
“Democracy is a luxury when you can’t pay your bills.” What an autocratic statement. They just love how it sounds to be so definitive, without discussion or question. Makes them sound so tough, so smart, so confident. We shall see. Calling other people dumb does not mean that you are smart.
I'd like to hear from Urban just exactly how anyone living in a country with NO democracy (or internal stability) pays bills anyway. What a stupid statement.
Everyone who can leave, should leave. No one who can see and who has humanity should lend support to the coming cruelty and brutality. We are on notice.
One thing that could be good about Smith closing down the cases without waiting for trump to do so is that Special Counsel Report that we hope he WILL make with all the i's crossed and t's dotted. It needs to be released while Garland still can---it will be buried by Aileen Cannon or whoever the next AG is. I think it would be cool if it were released on Friday, January 17, just in time to possibly affect crowd size the following Monday.
Thank you David, again, for
your opening remarks. Stay
safe.
It Can't Happen Here (Unless Bacon Costs Too Much)
Yep.
I will participate in a nationwide zoom tonight as progressive women grieve and plan ahead. The fight is already beginning.
Grief will turn to anger, anger to resolve, resolve to action. Let’s make them miserable to be themselves.
I read a stupid quote from Nick Fuentes, “Your body, my choice. FOREVER!
My reply to him is “Your ass, my boot. Once will be enough.”
The thing that hits the hardest and hurts the most is that the damage that will now be done may well be irreversible. In spite of that, I still can't see myself giving up.
For some comic relief, listen to interviews with Trump voters as to why they voted for Trump. We need to realize, beyond any doubt, that Trump voters are living in an alternate reality, where facts are not allowed. When things go bad for them they will easily be convinced that it's the Democrats' fault.
Great article, but please, for the sake of God, do not post pictures of the orange Cheeto right now. It's too triggering!!!
I so agree with you. We are inundated with photos of this monster and it’s only going to get worse.
Last night on Stephanie Ruhle's show, she had a good long discussion on "what went wrong." You should look it up on YouTube if you missed it, because there is some valuable insight there.
Tim Ryan said that Democrats "misread the room." Micheal Steele said they forgot to ask the most important question - WHY do the voters they want to reach want to vote?
It's pretty obvious that Ryan is right when you look at the results: Harris lost by 3 percent EVERYWHERE. Places she won, places she lost - she was 3 percent down from Biden's 2020 totals. This left her in a place like Pennsylvania with no margin to cover unexpected losses - there wasn't enough votes in Philadephia to cover losing northeastern Pennsylvania.
If we want to start turning things around in 2026, we need to ask WHY that 3 percent of 2020 Biden voters didn't want to vote for Kamala Harris in 2024. Since they voted for her in 2020 as VP, the lefty blahblahblah about white supremacy and misogyny are obviously not the total answer. Finding the answer to the question is crucial to any future success for us.
Unfortunately, looking through the self-righteous bleatings of the educated white upper middle class (the new heart of he Democratic Party) over at Heather Cox Richardson's comments section last night was a good lesson in how that's not going to happen. "Emotional sugar highs" of declaring oneself in favor of secession, or declaring one is going to thoroughly weed out MAGAs from their friendship lists, and all the rest of White Liberal chest-beating WILL NOT put us on the road to anything but further losses in coming elections. Having said many of those things myself, I completely understand where they come from. But having been involved in politics for 60 years, I know how useless that shit is if one is serious about climbing out of a hole.
Oh for god’s sake, can we not appreciate the hard work that went into trying to get out the vote by the Harris campaign. What went wrong here is all on the Republicans up to the Supreme Court who put forward and propped up the criminally convicted ignoramus who won. Maybe because of bomb scares and lies.
Harris did nothing wrong in my view and I have been involved in politics as a citizen for a long time too. Good things do happen sometimes, this is not one of them. The work goes on and all good people must participate. Post mortems about it are all over the place and each might contain some truth.
That said, you are a good writer.
I disagree that racism and misogyny are not the total answer. Running for president is totally different from VP. If racism & misogyny are not the total answer, they are 99% of it. Just MHO.
This has to change for the Dems: There is nothing beyond a time-worn coalition of the educated, the corporate apparatchiks, Wall Streeters, the consultant and meritocratic class, disintegrating racial and ethnic "base", and the "progressives"...continue with that mix, and guarantee minority-party status for the years ahead.
Yep.
The dumbest people in America voted for a felon and a fraud.
To a large extent, the answer to all this is really quite simple. It’s beautifully explained in this six-minute video on Bonhoeffer’s theory of stupidity. Bonhoeffer was executed by the German Nazis. He wrote about his theory while in a Nazi prison.
https://sproutsschools.com/bonhoeffers-theory-of-stupidity/
That is great! Thanks. Will be sharing.
Janet, we watched that a few days ago. It was very well explained. Many folks are just happy to get into a cult; way too hard to think critically 😩😥
Reorienting my primary news sources from WaPo/NYT subs to The Guardian and Le Monde Diplo, with a couple of Substacks thrown in...oh, of course, a paid-up TPM sub!
Haven't watched cable/network noos for years.
ditto. no corporate cable/network for years, no intention of returning to it.
One of the first consequences of tRump 2.0 is concentrated attacks on the media, particularly reporters' freedom of news-gathering from "sources" that displease tRump and his WH. Some excellent write-ups on CJR point toward much further clamp-downs on reporters, including intensive surveillance, threats of jailing, "espionage", and the like.
As the historian Timothy Snyder has foreseen, we are entering the era of "anticipatory obedience", and deviations from that new norm will be punished. Here comes the "darkness", followed by the "dying of democracy". And a majority of our citizens are fine with that.
🤬😱😭😭😭
Thank you for this compilation…we will ban together and hope for a correction in 2 years 💪
Biden has two more months in office. It’s time for him to expand the “Supreme” Court.
Coney Barrett was shoved in after trump lost the 2020 election.
Inflation is a fact of life. It must be iterated, and reiterated that inflation has been coming down during this presidential term, and that we escaped a *major* pandemic relatively well. I think we have to be careful talking about the why's, partly because I don't think people are even honest with themselves about it.
Capitalism is never questioned hence we accept inflation as a fact of life.
Browsing for reading of better future as we enter this fascist time, I found a nice book. FYI. No More Fairy Tales: stories to save our planet…
“Democracy is a luxury when you can’t pay your bills.” What an autocratic statement. They just love how it sounds to be so definitive, without discussion or question. Makes them sound so tough, so smart, so confident. We shall see. Calling other people dumb does not mean that you are smart.
I'd like to hear from Urban just exactly how anyone living in a country with NO democracy (or internal stability) pays bills anyway. What a stupid statement.
Totally!
"White Women Doomed Harris"??? I cancelled my TNR subscription over that one.
Well, it's kinda true...according to poll results 52% of white women voted for Trump. It sickens me.
It sickens you? Do you have different expectations for white women than any other random group?
I expected women to support other women and resist being made into Handmaidens and second class citizens , so yes.
Everyone who can leave, should leave. No one who can see and who has humanity should lend support to the coming cruelty and brutality. We are on notice.
Unfortunately, those who are most vulnerable can't possibly leave.
One thing that could be good about Smith closing down the cases without waiting for trump to do so is that Special Counsel Report that we hope he WILL make with all the i's crossed and t's dotted. It needs to be released while Garland still can---it will be buried by Aileen Cannon or whoever the next AG is. I think it would be cool if it were released on Friday, January 17, just in time to possibly affect crowd size the following Monday.