A Right Wing Cannot Flap Alone, or, Donald Trump Screwed the Putsch

[Dark Jaguar]

Tim Walz was an excellent pick.  There was no candidate Harris could have chosen that wouldn't have been labelled a "left wing extremist".  We all know this to be a fact.  As evidence, they're calling HARRIS a left wing extremist, and she's anything but!  It didn't matter who she picked as far as Republican narrative goes.  All she needed to worry about then, the one thing she COULD affect with her choice, was countering impressions of "elitism".  This guy is far from that, and he's a populist.  A REAL populist, representing the will of the people.  It's a wonderful selection.  Don't misunderstand.  I don't think this guy is an "ultra leftist", but he is left of center, and further left than Harris herself, and I appreciate that.

I'll be keeping a close eye on this guy.  VPs tend to get the VIP pass to presidential picks down the line after all, which is another reason I'm glad this guy was the pick.

I keep seeing people ask "but, does the VP pick REALLY matter?".  I would like to remind those people being paid MILLIONS to comment on national news that they are asking if KAMILA HARRIS' VP pick matters.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, he seems like a solid choice.  I was leaning Shapiro because winning Pennsylvania is the most important thing, but Walz will be fine and seems good at coming up with attacks that the right hates -- his "they're weird" line is really annoying them, which is nice.

[Dark Jaguar]

Shapiro's policies are very disappointing, and he would have been the worst choice for that.  Picking him was never necessary to win over a state anyway.  That state can be won over in other ways.

[A Black Falcon]

I'll be honest, I did not see "the moment she became nominee Harris' approval ratings and vote share vs. Trump would skyrocket upwards and now it's a Dem-leaning race in the polls" coming, but that's what happened... huh.

[Weltall]

Trump is promising a collapse of the economy and widespread devastation, the end of the country, quote unquote. Which, to those of us who don't fall into the Hanlon's Razor trap, reads as a threat of what he expects his brainwashed minions to bring about if Democrats win again. Those outcomes, after all, would be the result of a successful attempt by these evil losers to start a civil war, or at the very least, widespread violence.

I hope he suffers a massive coronary thrombosis the day after he loses. I hope it ends with a load of shit in his pants and the cameras rolling. I don't want him to rot in prison, I don't want him to suffer, or to die by violent means. I just want this to be definitively and forever behind us.

[Dark Jaguar]

The best think Trump could do for the country would be to join the Hermit's Union and seal himself into a cave out in the woods, alone, for the rest of his horse-blooded unnatural life.  His brush with death didn't change him at all.  He's not Scrooge, he's just Trump.

In either case, Harris is raising in popularity, and picking Walz seems to have given her a massive bump.  We have a singularly odd moment in history, where Trump picked the LEAST popular vice presidential candidate in living history, and Harris has managed to pick the MOST popular VP candidate.  That may actually be enough to win this, but we have one big thing left.  There's a very good chance that at the convention, since the VP reveal has already been done, they will be focusing on party platform as their big convention surprise.  They've revealed a number of good policy decisions, and they are likely to keep that momentum going.  Again, good decisions, not great.

No taxes on tipping?  Good.  I say that minimum wage should be universally required for jobs like waiting tables and bartending, as well as significantly raising said minimum wage so that we can abolish the tipping practice altogether like other countries, but this is still a good start.

...

But can we at least work in some requirements that someone has to actually be working a service job like that to get tipped?  I foresee landlords pushing the concept of "tipping" them or corporate executives sneaking in "tips" to themselves from each other in order to evade taxes.

Not saying it's a bad idea because of those things, as a middle of the road measure, it's an important one, it just needs some loopholes closed.

Other matters are generally favorable, and Walz is more open about the atrocities taking place in Gaza right now.  Harris, of course, as the CURRENT VP, can't really go against Biden at the moment, but we'll see.

[A Black Falcon]

Don't make any mistake, despite the good feelings, this race is still really close and either candidate can win.  The polls in the key states are slightly in our favor but not by much...

[Dark Jaguar]

As if I could make that mistake, but so far the convention is going well.



Bernie pushing from further left helps to counter the ridiculous notion that Harris is some radical progressive.  The window of "the center" has always been a moving target.  Stillness is a synonym for death, life is change.

[Dark Jaguar]

I'm surprised this isn't getting reported on more, but it's interesting to see this coalition of republicans from across multiple decades all come together to point out that yes, the Republican party leadership has significantly changed and no longer reflects classic republican values.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, the overt patriotism, the 'USA' chants, and the quite a few Republicans speaking for Harris because of Trump's threat to our democracy were great to see for sure!  It's really important to defeat him for our democracy, and it's fantastic that a few Republicans realize that.   I read that somehow Fox News avoided showing even a single one of those speeches... can't imagine why.

Meanwhile, I'm not sure if you saw this, but the so-called "fact checkers" seem to have decided to openly support Trump with false fact checks of Democrats in his favor, as the number of times during the convention that multiple different fact checkers wrote articles making openly false claims in the name of "fact checking" the Democrats is insane.  Here are a few examples:
- You can't say that Trump will refuse to accept the results of the election, we don't know that.  "He just hasn't said that he would accept.  And he has previously said the only way he loses is if the Democrats cheat", to quote the fact checker.
- You can't say that Trump said that women who have abortions should be punished even though the words are a direct quote, that is misleading because his campaign retracted the statement later that day.
- Biden was misleading when he said that during his 4-year term Trump added more to the national debt than any other four-year term because more money was added to the debt than that during Obama's eight-year term.
- It is unclear how much of Project 2025 Trump supports and how much he doesn't.  (This is true, but we all know he would sign anything that comes to his desk so it doesn't matter.)
- Bill Clinton said something true but left out important context when he accurately said that Democratic administrations have created 50 million jobs total since 1989 while Republican administrations have created 1 million jobs total. What is this context he left out that is oh so important?  Well, that most of the major job-losing events since '89 have happened during Republican administrations, mostly.  I'm sure there is no reason for this beyond luck, implies the fact-checker.  Also the labor market is affected by factors beyond just who is president, surely this is all just a coincidence!  It's only a margin of 50 to 1, Republicans do just fine on the economy, vote Trump!

https://presswatchers.org/2024/08/fact-c...ace-plant/  This article covers a bunch of these examples and some more.

[Dark Jaguar]

It's not that they're trying to be "in favor" of Trump, they're just terrified of not looking "balanced".  Like CNN, they are trying to stay "in the middle" and not get accused of favoritism.

Two things wrong with that.  First, "the middle" is a moving target.  By chasing the "middle", you inherently move yourself further right.

Secondly, their job isn't to provide "balance", it's to fact check.  It's a silly little joke, but it's very true these days.  Reality has a leftist bias.  An honest fact checker would acknowledge that we can predict future behavior based on past behavior and conclude that Trump is doing exactly the same thing he did LAST election and that it's up to him to prove he WON'T deny the election results at this point.

[A Black Falcon]

I know that what you say is the most likely explanation for this kind of utter nonsense, but I am not convinced that it's as benign as that...

[Dark Jaguar]

Politico has never had a heavy conservative bent.  Listen, I understand your temptation to presume a conspiracy is going on, but we don't have reason to think that.  This isn't "benign", don't get me wrong.  It's horribly harmful, but it's easily explained by basic corporate greed influencing editorial decisions.  In fact, I've found that a lot of otherwise unexplainable corporate decisions make a lot more sense if you assume the people in charge are amoral and greedy.  It's cartoonish, like Captain Planet level stuff, but if the past 8 years have taught us ANYTHING, it's that Captain Planet villains exist in the really real world and we owe that cartoon an apology.  Sometimes, real people are one dimensional and real world world building sucks.

So in this case, when you have SO many people threatening en masse to stop buying this newspaper or stop watching that network, they make the corporate decision to hedge their bets towards some imagined middle ground to "do the least harm" to their bottom line.

That said, sometimes conspiracies actually happen.  The key is, I just need evidence of it, and saying "they're all acting weird" isn't evidence.

[A Black Falcon]

Dick Cheney is voting for Harris, the Democrat.  Now that's an insane sentence that nobody would have ever believed had you told them 20 years ago!

[Dark Jaguar]

Dick Cheney is voting for Harris, the Democrat.  Now that's an insane sentence that nobody would have ever believed had you told them 20 years ago!

Not even close to the only republican voting for Harris, and not even close to insane either.  I mean take a look at everything Trump says and does.  Frankly, it's a shock they weren't abandoning him in droves eight years ago, but better late than never.  Also, keep in mind the election is still close, very close.  It would be so easy for this to flip on a dime if we're not careful.  The only poll that matters is on election day.  Remember that.

[Dark Jaguar]

The ACTOR?!



Yes, the actor, the actor who's very existence cut the spine out of the democratic party and gave the republican party license to be their worst selves, and basically resulted in modern politics as we know it today.

[Sacred Jellybean]

Also Newt Gingrich. He's responsible for a great deal of dysfunction and refusal to work together that we still see today. McConnell abusing the filibuster to grind things to a halt is another big factor.

Fuck all three of them, though!

I haven't posted since the Biden debate debacle so I might as well say, thank goodness all that gloom and doom has ended! Him stepping down went almost as well as it could have. As well as it could have would be for everyone, save for Trump's most slavering devotees, to flock to Harris in a landslide. Polls are looking pretty good but for the love of god, keep that foot on the gas until the last vote is counted, until his last frivolous lawsuit is thrown out, and we can flush that turd down into the toilet once and for all.

[Dark Jaguar]

Just keep in mind Trump's going to break every norm all over again.  Yes, he said he might "disappear" if he doesn't win, but he said that last time.  Expect another attempted overthrow, and expect constant legal challenges until the day he dies.  He's publicly stated that he doesn't like self reflection because he "might not like what he sees".  This is a shallow man who's only purpose in life is stepping on other people.  He is living proof that shallow two dimensional villains actually are realistic.

[Dark Jaguar]

I've been wondering for a few weeks now why Harris' campaign has suddenly shifted from the "They're weird" stuff and aggressively cheering on their own policies rhetoric to the largely unpopular attempts to "win over" the republicans.... again... 

Well, here's our answer.  Harris got advisors from Biden's team at that time.



Good god... the poll numbers reflect how much of a disaster this shift in messaging has been.  Stop that!  Do the thing that made you so exciting a couple months ago!  Do that until election!  I swear, no one snatches defeat out of the jaws of victory like a democrat...

[A Black Falcon]

In 2020, while the public polls showed Biden winning comfortably, Biden's pollsters were saying that the race was much closer than the polling made it seem: the race was actually really close!  They were right, it was actually really, really close, and Biden only narrowly won.

In 2024, public polls are showing a very, very close race, with maybe Trump slightly favored.  Meanwhile, Harris's pollsters are seeing a much more favorable electorate and think that she may win more easily than most polls show.  And now, a poll of Iowa by one of the most accurate pollsters in the nation of that state, Ann Selzer, showed a result of... 47 Harris to 44 Trump.  If that is accurate things may go much better Tuesday than expected, but there's no way to know until Tuesday.

On the fundamentals, on the one hand Harris should be favored because Trump is a wannabe Nazi who wants to overthrow our democracy, and Americans in the past didn't exactly think highly of Nazis.  On the other hand, Trump as a white man running against a brown woman?  Between sexism and racism I would think that that makes Trump favored, unfortunately, and he has the 'but the economy' edge as well... though the economy has gotten a lot better, negating a lot of that lead. 

On the 'he's a Nazi-esque dictator wannabe!' this SHOULD have been an easy win for the Democrats, but it's not, it's a close race.  That things are close says a lot bad about this nation... even if the best outcome happens and Harris's internal polls are right, it's going to be way, way closer than it should have been.  But we will see soon.

(Also, maybe Harris's Liz Cheney push will end up helping her in states like Iowa?)

[Dark Jaguar]

No way to tell, but I'll say this.  First of all, the down ballot races MATTER, so even if you just can't bring yourself to vote for Harris because of her Gaza position, or some of her history, at least vote down ballot.  We need a sensible house and senate.

But, here's my last pitch for voting actively against Trump himself:

[Dark Jaguar]

Is this screwing the pooch?  Because they're about to take every damn thing... AGAIN!  Only this time, they already have the supreme court AND presidential immunity.

I feel ill...

[Dark Jaguar]

Alright, I've come to accept something I think we all need to.  There was never a "rejection" of Trump, and no election in my lifetime has ever been a "rejection" of anything, for one simple reason.  It's too close to be definitive.  Our nation no longer knows what a "landslide election" actually is.  We quibble over a 5% lead being a "landslide", and frankly that's ridiculous, because that means there is still very nearly half our entire voting population that wanted the opposite.  It has ALWAYS been close, at least during my lifetime, and we need to stop pretending that an election says anything more than basically... whims of fate, a certain level of randomness, determining an outcome.  I don't mean really random as in error bars or anything, just in the sense that, well, look at these results. 

I've been arguing over things like how flawed the electoral college is, or flaws in political strategy, or the problems in rampant misinformation.  All of that is true, but at a fundamental level, what we have is a country that is fundamentally divided.  If we won, it wouldn't be a "repudiation" of Trump, it would have just been a slim victory.

Our nation's problems are far more fundamental.  A whole lot of people really do simply want to win, and simply don't care if they're "right", they just want to be on the winning side.  Nothing deeper than that.  The only way to truly fix our country is the long slow hard route of changing the minds of half the nation.  There is no other path.

But for now, for the next four years, we need to do everything in our power to make sure that Trump is ONLY president for four more years.  That's going to involve a lot of grassroots local politics and forming cooperative groups.  We're going to all have to get out of our comfort zones and actually meet people in real life, find common ground, and form groups.

[A Black Falcon]

Well that went horribly.  I can't say that I'm surprised, though... I wanted to believe that we could win and that the Harris campaign was right, but really I never thought she could win, somehow the idea of Harris being president never really felt real... though I couldn't imagine Trump actually being President (again) either, though I guess we have to now.  How horrible.  But yeah, as soon as Biden withdrew from the race I thought it was probably over for us -- not that he would have won, his approval numbers were even worse -- but that between the economic fundamentals and the sexism and racism we were probably going to lose, and unfortunately that's how it ended up.  I never thought that Trump would actually win the popular vote, though, but he has. 

The thing about that though is that he's winning with a similar number of votes to what he got in 2020.  The problem is that Harris is going to get about ten million fewer votes than Biden.  The American people SHOULD have rejected the fascist and his racism, but weren't bothered enough by any of that to go and vote based on anything other than the economy.  It is a condemnation of this nation that that is the case, but that's how it is.

But ultimately, nothing either campaign did affected the outcome.  It came down to the fundamental fact that inflation destroys governments in power.  That is the explanation for this result: it's all because of the inflation.  The list of incumbent governments around the world that have either lost or fallen significantly short of their prior numbers within the past year or so is long indeed.  The US SHOULDN'T have been a part of that list because thanks to Bidens' masterful management we avoided a recession and have one of the best economies in the world right now, but unfortunately all that mattered really was inflation, particularly food prices, and not that we only had that inflation because of how we successfully averted economic collapse after Covid started.  But yeah, this inflation has taken out or reduced margins for government after government around the world, from the UK to Japan to many other countries.  That list will surely get longer in the future too, it's hard to imagine Canada re-electing Trudeau with his approval ratings for instance.

Probably the most interesting outcome of this election is that for the first time in a long time now, there wasn't a gap between the raw vote totals and the electoral college.  Because of Trump doing significantly better in blue states than he did before while the key deciding states stayed close, the deciding states went for Trump by amounts quite similar to the overall national margin.  And Georgia and North Carolina voted to the left of where they did in previous elections when compared to the national average, which is important for the future.

And also... while Trump won, he hasn't had massive downballot coattails.  Right now it looks like the most likely Senate result is 53R-47D.  It's awful that we're probably very narrowly losing the PA Senate seat, but holding three and probably four of the five Senate seats up this year in the key deciding purple states is pretty decent really, particularly when Trump won all of those states!  Because of how bad the map is it's still a four seat gain for Republicans, but still... it could be a lot worse.  And in the House, the most likely result is basically a like maybe one seat gain for the Republicans, so they will probably keep the House, horribly, but again by an extremely small, chaos-is-certain majority.  There wasn't a wave in the House at all.

[Dark Jaguar]

"Inflation" didn't cause this.  That's ridiculously glib.  There is no singular answer to this, though I will repeat, we MUST accept that this is who we are.  Not individually, but as a nation, this IS who we are now.

[A Black Falcon]

Inflation isn't the only cause, but it is the clear primary cause.  It's the exact same reason why so many governments around the world have lost over the past year.

I entirely agree about your second point though, yes, people elected him again knowing who he is and that says a lot very bad about this country.  I am certainly feeling a lot less good about America after this.  But the primary reason for Harris falling 10 million votes short of Biden while Trump got about the same number of votes he got last time has to be the economy.  (Again, that our economy's probably the best in the world right now SHOULD have been enough to save us, but sadly it wasn't.  Awful.)

[Dark Jaguar]

Why does it "have to be" economy?  Again, the biggest takeaway is that this is who we are, as a country, and that we've ALWAYS won by the skin of our teeth.  We can't even blame the electoral college on this one.  The economy was, in fact, in a rebound thanks to Biden's efforts to achieve a "soft landing", and frankly, it's about to get a lot WORSE under Trump.  Even Musk, who for some reason is now in Trump's orbit, has warned us all that we're in for a lot of economic pain under Trump.  He puts himself in that camp, but he's literally the richest duck in the world, so of course he's not talking about himself.

[A Black Falcon]

Why is economy and inflation clearly the main cause?  Well, because it's the one factor that connects this to all of the other elections around the world over the course of the last year, and it shows how our election fits right in to the pattern.  Look at this.  This table I saw linked online is of elections in developed nations, showing whether the governing parties won or lost.  Look at 2024.

I just saw this table and I think it shows quite clearly that I was wrong, the US electorate actually did realize that our economy wasn't as bad as any other developed nations' this year.  The Democrats didn't lose by nearly as much as most other parties on that last bar...


The economy is indeed about to get a lot worse, but people are very stupid and think that Trump will make prices come down when actually his campaign promises will increase inflation and wreck the economy.  'But groceries cost more and things were better under Trump, so I'm not voting Democratic this year'.

[Dark Jaguar]

I've said before that "at the table" politics matter most to the most people, and we both have acknowledged that economic shifts take slow effect and often aren't "visible" to the average person until an election cycle later, meaning blame/praise gets incorrectly assigned.

That said, there's more to it than that.  That's what I mean.  Pointing to ONE thing, the price of bread, and saying "that's the thing that did it" is too glib.

The one thing I hate hearing from democrats right now, and should have been hating all along, is this one phrase: "This isn't who we are!"  If this election proved one thing... yes it is.  It IS who we are, to a significant percentage, and we MUST come to terms with that reality now.

[Weltall]

Perhaps we should all be questioning everything that we've read, heard, and especially believed. 

The Democratic Party is moribund. I don't see how it recovers from what just happened, with any of the current leadership in place, or with their approach to doing anything, really. This was a comprehensive failure, up and down the ballot, from sea to shining sea. This all boils down to the fact that, in spite of the fact that Donald Trump lies pathologically, the Democratic Party somehow found ways to appear even less credible to the American people. They really did feel like things were better under Trump. They feel like things got worse under Biden. They voted accordingly.

You can blame it on racism, on sexism, on fascism, but in reality, I think a lot of people go ® without ever really considering those things. They hear "fascists" from one side and "communists" from the other, and it sounds like noise to them. They make choices based on other things, like the economy. You can show them how much better the US has done with regards to inflation, compared to the rest of the world. That's not the economy they care about. The economy they care about is the prices for the things they need to live, going up. Groceries gets the attention, but rent is a real killer for low-income people. That was happening on Biden's watch, they saw no real help coming from them, or meaningful attention being paid to their problems. They heard "things are fine, we're doing real good, look at the stock market!"

Not all Republican voters are mindless red hats, or even agree with them. They might be approachable in the future, capable of regretting how they voted last week. We can be ready to talk to them, or we can blame them for "voting wrong" and drive away a potential ally in the future. It's time for whatever the "left" is to ask a lot of hard questions and be ready to see reality for what it is. Otherwise, we can expect more of this. Forever. The quicker we put our emotions away and start trying to play the game to win, the better our odds.

It bears repeating, however: the Democratic Party leadership all need to go away. They quite objectively suck, they have been sucking for a long time. Their way of doing things has resulted in virtually zero sustained change. Most of my anger and antipathy is directed at them, and I want them all to go away. To lose twice to this clown and beat him, barely, one time, is malfeasance. I never thought it would be possible to be more disappointing than Hillary 2016, but that campaign looks like a triumph compared to what took place this year. Democrats are useless for saving democracy. Throw them all in the trash. 

[A Black Falcon]

I agree with what you say about why Trump won, but on the Democratic Party I think you exaggerate.  Trump won because of the inflation-fueled anti-incumbent wave that's swept the whole world this year, but down-ballot things were much less bad.  In 2016, Republicans won every single US Senate seat in a state that Trump won.  This year, Democrats held four Senate seats in Trump states -- Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, and Arizona.  The resulting 53R-47D Senate will do bad things but it's a much less bad situation than it would have been without the party's reasonably decent success in down-ballot races.

In the US House things are similar, and the Dems look likely to actually pick UP a seat versus the last Congress!  The current House is 222R-213D, and right now Republicans are leading in 222 seats again, but Democrats are looking good to flip at least one of those R-leading seats, or maybe more.  If it goes to 221R as looks likely that would apparently be the smallest margin in a Presidential year ever since Alaska and Hawaii were added as states.  That's pretty good for a losing campaign.  I don't think the Democratic Party has totally failed or is a disaster, not with pretty decent House results like this considering the R+2 national environment...

Oh, in 2016 the Republicans got 241 House seats to only 194 for the Dems.  Democrats gained 6 seats that election (they'd been at 188 in '14) but still were far behind.

[Devil's Advocate]

I've said before that "at the table" politics matter most to the most people, and we both have acknowledged that economic shifts take slow effect and often aren't "visible" to the average person until an election cycle later, meaning blame/praise gets incorrectly assigned.

That said, there's more to it than that.  That's what I mean.  Pointing to ONE thing, the price of bread, and saying "that's the thing that did it" is too glib.

The one thing I hate hearing from democrats right now, and should have been hating all along, is this one phrase: "This isn't who we are!"  If this election proved one thing... yes it is.  It IS who we are, to a significant percentage, and we MUST come to terms with that reality now.

The more you read about how voters made their decisions, the more you realize that there was nothing Democrats could've have done. The majority of Americans simply aren't capable of critical thought and making informed decisions.

[etoven]

I've said before that "at the table" politics matter most to the most people, and we both have acknowledged that economic shifts take slow effect and often aren't "visible" to the average person until an election cycle later, meaning blame/praise gets incorrectly assigned.

That said, there's more to it than that.  That's what I mean.  Pointing to ONE thing, the price of bread, and saying "that's the thing that did it" is too glib.

The one thing I hate hearing from democrats right now, and should have been hating all along, is this one phrase: "This isn't who we are!"  If this election proved one thing... yes it is.  It IS who we are, to a significant percentage, and we MUST come to terms with that reality now.

The more you read about how voters made their decisions, the more you realize that there was nothing Democrats could've have done. The majority of Americans simply aren't capable of critical thought and making informed decisions.

I just checked the stats soon this thread's gonna need it's own hard drive. And orange pennywise from the movie IT isn't helping make that not a thing that's for sure.

[etoven]

Perhaps we should all be questioning everything that we've read, heard, and especially believed. 

The Democratic Party is moribund. I don't see how it recovers from what just happened, with any of the current leadership in place, or with their approach to doing anything, really. This was a comprehensive failure, up and down the ballot, from sea to shining sea. This all boils down to the fact that, in spite of the fact that Donald Trump lies pathologically, the Democratic Party somehow found ways to appear even less credible to the American people. They really did feel like things were better under Trump. They feel like things got worse under Biden. They voted accordingly.

You can blame it on racism, on sexism, on fascism, but in reality, I think a lot of people go ® without ever really considering those things. They hear "fascists" from one side and "communists" from the other, and it sounds like noise to them. They make choices based on other things, like the economy. You can show them how much better the US has done with regards to inflation, compared to the rest of the world. That's not the economy they care about. The economy they care about is the prices for the things they need to live, going up. Groceries gets the attention, but rent is a real killer for low-income people. That was happening on Biden's watch, they saw no real help coming from them, or meaningful attention being paid to their problems. They heard "things are fine, we're doing real good, look at the stock market!"

Not all Republican voters are mindless red hats, or even agree with them. They might be approachable in the future, capable of regretting how they voted last week. We can be ready to talk to them, or we can blame them for "voting wrong" and drive away a potential ally in the future. It's time for whatever the "left" is to ask a lot of hard questions and be ready to see reality for what it is. Otherwise, we can expect more of this. Forever. The quicker we put our emotions away and start trying to play the game to win, the better our odds.

It bears repeating, however: the Democratic Party leadership all need to go away. They quite objectively suck, they have been sucking for a long time. Their way of doing things has resulted in virtually zero sustained change. Most of my anger and antipathy is directed at them, and I want them all to go away. To lose twice to this clown and beat him, barely, one time, is malfeasance. I never thought it would be possible to be more disappointing than Hillary 2016, but that campaign looks like a triumph compared to what took place this year. Democrats are useless for saving democracy. Throw them all in the trash. 

IDK I think there's still something to be said about the populous when the other guy sucks so hard that my neighbors labradoodle should have been able to beat him.
Inept leadership and all.

[Devil's Advocate]

AOC reached out to her supporters on social media to ask why they voted for her and also Trump. These people don't know the difference. And this is the level of ignorance we're dealing with...

[Dark Jaguar]

Trump, the man who acts like a living caricature of a cartoon "grifter salesman", somehow appears "genuine" to a lot of the populace.  I don't understand HOW that's possible, but I must accept it all the same.

[Devil's Advocate]

Trump, the man who acts like a living caricature of a cartoon "grifter salesman", somehow appears "genuine" to a lot of the populace.  I don't understand HOW that's possible, but I must accept it all the same.

I've come to accept that most people aren't paying attention or at worse are just racist. Sad times.

[Dark Jaguar]

Right now, I'm absolutely furious at the talking heads on TV, so-called "left" networks like MSNBC, various democrat politicians, and ancient fossils with HBO shows like Bill Mayer, now stating that the democratic party needs to go RIGHT to win elections, literally arguing we need to abandon trans people entirely just as an example.

They don't seem to realize that "going right" will doom the democratic party.  No one anywhere who votes conservative is going to choose a "lesser" right when they have the full strength right party at home.

The democrats fail for one reason.  They learn the wrong lesson every time they lose.  They think "Alright, what did the republicans do?  Let's copy that!"  And they copy the party policy!  Except, then they're just copycats, and in a two party system, the copycat will always lose.  Every single time they have tried to "go right" to win, they have lost.  They lose the interest of the left, and they don't gain nearly enough right voting people to make up the difference, so they lose.

But, that seems to be what they plan on doing.  The democratic party is about to shift over the line to where the republicans were in 1999.

[Devil's Advocate]

Right now, I'm absolutely furious at the talking heads on TV, so-called "left" networks like MSNBC, various democrat politicians, and ancient fossils with HBO shows like Bill Mayer, now stating that the democratic party needs to go RIGHT to win elections, literally arguing we need to abandon trans people entirely just as an example.

They don't seem to realize that "going right" will doom the democratic party.  No one anywhere who votes conservative is going to choose a "lesser" right when they have the full strength right party at home.

The democrats fail for one reason.  They learn the wrong lesson every time they lose.  They think "Alright, what did the republicans do?  Let's copy that!"  And they copy the party policy!  Except, then they're just copycats, and in a two party system, the copycat will always lose.  Every single time they have tried to "go right" to win, they have lost.  They lose the interest of the left, and they don't gain nearly enough right voting people to make up the difference, so they lose.

But, that seems to be what they plan on doing.  The democratic party is about to shift over the line to where the republicans were in 1999.

At this point I'm afraid it's probably in the best interest for the Democratic party to hang back and let it get worse.

[Dark Jaguar]

Right now, I'm absolutely furious at the talking heads on TV, so-called "left" networks like MSNBC, various democrat politicians, and ancient fossils with HBO shows like Bill Mayer, now stating that the democratic party needs to go RIGHT to win elections, literally arguing we need to abandon trans people entirely just as an example.

They don't seem to realize that "going right" will doom the democratic party.  No one anywhere who votes conservative is going to choose a "lesser" right when they have the full strength right party at home.

The democrats fail for one reason.  They learn the wrong lesson every time they lose.  They think "Alright, what did the republicans do?  Let's copy that!"  And they copy the party policy!  Except, then they're just copycats, and in a two party system, the copycat will always lose.  Every single time they have tried to "go right" to win, they have lost.  They lose the interest of the left, and they don't gain nearly enough right voting people to make up the difference, so they lose.

But, that seems to be what they plan on doing.  The democratic party is about to shift over the line to where the republicans were in 1999.

At this point I'm afraid it's probably in the best interest for the Democratic party to hang back and let it get worse.

According to historians, the biggest mistake to make in a resistance is unforced compliance.