The morning after

by liberal japonicus

Living in Japan, I was awake for all of this as I had classes and meetings, such that I had to stop looking at anything around noon. I came home, commiserated with my wife (it was a very quiet evening) and went to bed early. How did I sleep? As Tommy Lasorda once said, when he was asked how he slept after a particularly bad loss 'I slept like a baby. I woke up every three hours crying.'

Just before I signed off, a Japan based friend of mine wrote on facebook that he had just gotten new glasses but, in the same boat as me, couldn't bear to look at the internet. I would have suggested he do what Oedipus did, but I wasn't sure if Facebook would flag me.

It was Vonnegut who talked about writers and artists as canaries in a coal mine, dropping dead as a warning sign, and I can find lots of quotes about that, but I can't find the Vonnegutian conclusion, which is that the theory doesn't really work, cause there are tons of them dropping dead all around us.

Since I imagine wj will not be using his fetching prognosticator's chapeau anytime soon, I thought I'd take it out for a spin, though given the speed that everything happens, I might be narrating rather than predicting. At the PMQs, newly installed Opposition Leader Kemi Badanoch took her first turn at the dispatch box and spent most of it asking if Kier Starmer was going to apologize to Trump for various comments. Bold move, given that Trump is pretty much an anathama in the UK. Starmer didn't say it, but I would have wondered if this meant that Badanoch is planning on bringing Farage back into the fold.

When placed in that light, it is pretty clear that Badanoch saw a momentary advantage, and didn't, for a moment, consider that the UK government has to deal with that orange turd and might need to be circumspect. Which is where I see this as going. I'm going to assume, without evidence, that the majority obtained was not people who were all in with the movement, but people who divine a momentary advantage in their local situation, and having an opportunity to make hay and own the libs, jump on. Which might be as hopelessly optimistic as wj's take, but it's all I got. I can only hope, in 4 years, a lot of those people will say disavow having anything to do with him and wonder why folks get so bent out of shape.

A new open thread, rumbling with dark clouds and thunder.

Comments

[novakant]

I can only hope, in 4 years, a lot of those people will say disavow having anything to do with him and wonder why folks get so bent out of shape.

The trouble is, even if these people see the error of their ways, by then the damage will already have been done: to the democratic institutions of the US, Ukraine and the Middle East and the environment. And these developments will be largely irreversible.

Since this is an open thread, Germany's government has just fallen apart, great timing (gift link):

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/world/europe/germany-coalition-collapse-government.html?unlocked_article_code=1.YE4.sTui.BecjxF-ACZ70&smid=url-share

And even snap elections won't solve the problem, since you need 50% of the seats to govern and the main challenger, the conservative CDU, would need to coalesce either with the currently governing social democrats (SPD) and another party or the far-right AfD:

https://yougov.co.uk/international/articles/50608-with-one-year-until-the-german-federal-election-how-does-the-political-landscape-look

[Hartmut]

Not a great fan of Scholz but I think it was the right decision. The FDP was always torn between socially liberal and libertarian/national conservative but the old liberal guard is mostly retired and/or deceased. That's one reason why I switched to Green, a party that drifted from the rather far left to the moderate center or at most left of center. The finance minister (FDP) actually proposed as a solution for German problems to cut taxes for corporations and to put the fight against climate change on the back burner (which would then also have enough coal to run again) including revoking already legislated goals. Both are a big NO for the coalition partners and if the FDP really wants to die* on that hill it should be given the opportunity to do that out of government.
The problem with the CDU is that it is joined at the hip with the Bavarian CSU (our Texas GOP). If that tie could get cut, there could be a working coalition between SPD, CDU and Green Party (in one German state there is a ruling and moderately functional Black(=CDU)/Green coalition already).

*other leaders of the FDP do not want to because they fear that it could literally mean the end of the party which is currently polling far below the 5% mark (the cutoff for entry into parliament). It's not that they do not share the goals but they realize that to insist on it would be potentially suicidal.

[bobbyp]

How did this happen? WTF is going on?

Beinart blames Biden's unqualified (in practice) support for Israel:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/07/opinion/democrats-israel-gaza-war.html?unlocked_article_code=1.YE4.Cuik.VK4jqIAF7Efx&smid=url-share

I like Beinart, but this strikes me as "really"?

Linker says the American public firmly believes "we are on the wrong path".

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/07/opinion/kamala-harris-election.html?unlocked_article_code=1.YE4.gpc_.5zuqPsGnQV1x&smid=url-share

Yep...we need to invoke centerist nostrums like austerity...but spread the wealth more equally? Are you serious?

Drum says things are pretty good===so what is all the whining about?

https://jabberwocking.com/donald-trump-should-have-the-easiest-presidency-ever/

WTF do you want, people?

As usual, I got nothin'.

[russell]

WTF do you want, people?

I also scratch my head about this one.

Compared to all the stuff that has happened over the last few decades - and it's a long, long list - the last four years have been a disaster?

People's memories are really, really short.

[CharlesWT]

Voters don't see charts showing how great the economy is. They see food items that cost twice as much as four years ago.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Beware of wishing for "prices like they were years ago", because that way lies deflation and economic ruin.

FAFO

[Ugh]

no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people

[bobbyp]

...because that way lies deflation....

The libertarian wet dream.

[Donald]

I won't pretend I read a 105 page economics paper, but this one from last May says that most workers were in fact better off under Trump, economically. They don't blame Biden for inflation--they are quite specific in refuting that. I am not able to judge any of these claims. No doubt other economists will have written something refuting what they say.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4834901
But many working people feel they were better off under Trump than under Biden, right or wrong, and whether or not that is fair to Biden. The majority of people vote based on that, not based on "democracy" or "fascism" or "genocide" either. So the country is the same country it always was, with a new conman willing to exploit people's struggles. People remember that Trump was in power before and his voters don't remember it as a dictatorship. He might have more luck with his fascist leanings the second time around, but many of his voters don't take that seriously (while others probably want it.)

[Donald]

I think Beinart overstates Gaza's influcnce, just as mainstream liberals seemed to think the fascist charge should have made people vote differently.

Both the prospect of fascism and the reality of US support for genocide should make more of a difference, but they don't. That is just part of our current political culture. The issues seem distant to people. It is possible some leftist activists who would have done "get out the vote" work didn't show up because of Gaza--I have seen a few claims of that sort, but all such claims need evidence.

[Donald]

And Charles is right. (I don't know the exact price increase.) If we expect the average voter to understand the risks of deflation leading to depression we are expecting a bit much. On my own issue, in real life I made a reference to the Middle East country that people worry might develop a nuclear bomb and this person thought I meant Gaza. People are not supereducated on the issues. But they generally know how well they are doing.

[bobbyp]

Charles is not right. Strike that. Charles is not correct:

https://cepr.net/four-more-items-in-the-wages-outpacing-prices-debate/

and this...

https://cepr.net/three-additional-points-on-the-ny-times-piece-on-blah-voters/

[wj]

WTF do you want, people?

As usual, I got nothin'.

I think you folks are over-thinking this. Consider the population divided into pieces, each with different criteria.

First up are the ideologues. Not necessarily in the sense of fanatics. More just people who are politically active and have various beliefs which drive their vote. It does include the Trump-cult members, but also progressives, libertarians, conservatives, racists, greens, etc. They will vote their beliefs, when one party aligns with them. If neither party does, some will vote "less bad," in the hopes of at least getting something. Others will cast protest votes, either third party or even the worse party. When their usual party loses, they argue that the party should have been more liberal/conservative. Not that the actual voters care, for the most part.

Second are the sports fans. They vote for whichever party they see as their "home team" -- that is, the party they have always voted for. Possibly even their parents' home team party. Party platform is irrelevant for them, except in really extreme cases. The Republican parts of this group, for example, had no particular problem when Trump completely reversed long-standing party positions on stuff; it was still their home team.

Those latter make up bulk of their respective party's base. Also the bulk of the people who staff local party organizations. Likewise state party organizations. The ideologues may take over occasionally, as we've seen happen to various parts of the Republican party. But the ideologues aren't really interested in the nuts and bolts of running an effective organization, so when that happens it hurts their party more than helps. For the most part, if their party loses the fans argue to move to the center.

Finally there is a big group of the politically indifferent. Their world revolves around their families, their job, and/or their hobbies. Their (conscious) interaction with the Federal government is filing their income taxes once a year. If they pay attention at all, it's to something like their local school board; and then mostly only if there's a problem with their kids'/grandkids' school.

They generally are blissfully ignorant about which level of government does what. Housing prices high? Probably due to locally set zoning rules, possibly constrained by state law ("affordable housing" requirements, maybe). But for all they know it's a Federal deal. They might recognize the name of their Congressman or state legislator. But mostly couldn't name both their US senators.

When an election rolls around, what they mostly notice is that commercials shift to campaign ads. But they are accustomed to tuning out/skipping past commercials. They don't even think about candidates and issues until the last couple of weeks before Election Day. Drives the ideologues crazy: "How can anybody possibly be undecided?!?!?" But they basically are, because they just don't pay attention to things that (as far as they are concerned) don't really impact their lives.

When they do vote (and many mostly don't), they vote on one of two bases. One: "vibes" -- otherwise known as "who would I like to have a beer with." Not be more involved with, e.g. "would you let this guy babysit your kids?" Just a brief social encountry.

The other basis, possibly more important these days, is entertainment value. Politics as reality TV. Just like Survivor or a horror movie, it can be fun occasionally. And if it gets to be too much, just watch something else. It's not like it matters in the real world.

All this is why we see things like a proposition to restore abortion rights win majorities (whether big enough to pass a 60% threshold or not), while the legislators who wrote abortion bans get reelected. The connection between something that impacts them and their choice of entertainment simply isn't apparent.

The outcome of elections becomes explicable. How much do the sports fans turn out, plus which candidate feels more entertaining to the otherwise uninvolved? Run someone who's experienced in reality TV and, absent something drastic like covid, he's the favorite to win.

[GftNC]

People's memories are really short.

This is definitely true. And people worried about the cost of living are not susceptible to arguments about how inflation is much less than the rest of the world, and other such data. So I think it is incontestable that the economy was a major driver. And no doubt immigration and Gaza and various other factors.

But what nobody here has mentioned is the impact of certain culture war issues, what some commentators are calling the "woke v unwoke, which has replaced left v right". For reasons nobody here will doubt, I have no wish to open yet again the rights and wrongs of the trans issue. But another gender-critical feminist to whom I am very close, and who monitors a lot of American "liberal" TV (Maddow, Morning Joe), told me that every morning for the last several months on the latter there was never any discussion of the trans issue, until the morning after the election. And that then there was a 10 minute discussion about it, during which the various people taking part suddenly started telling stories about e.g. the experiences/feelings of their children in changing rooms etc. She said it was as if they suddenly felt liberated to talk about, and possibly express concerns about, a subject which is normally taboo in liberal circles.

And obviously, I can relate, since my attitudes on almost all other issues are reliably liberal/progressive, whereas my gender critical views have encountered enormous pushback here. And even here, some people deeply disliked the whole "white fragility" narrative, which in many progressive circles was just accepted on its face. When I linked something ages ago (a couple of years?) of James Carville saying that the Dems needed to stop worrying so much about "acceptable" terminology like Latinx, which to most people was alienating and irrelevant, once again there was much derision. But a real lefty friend said to me after the election that calling people bigots for refusing to endorse progressive mantras about TWAW, and cultural appropriation, alienates and offends otherwise well-meaning people who are not part of the academy, and up on the latest "acceptable" concepts and terminology. (Don't think I'm unaware that by saying some of this stuff I sound like McKinney, but nonetheless I really do think it's an important aspect of what has happened.)

I see and understand nous on the other thread saying he is not interested in the blame game, but I do believe that these issues are also germane to the theory which seems to find general acceptance: that the Dems have lost the support of the working class, because they are too far removed from the issues which affect them.

[russell]

My understanding is that Latinos don't like the term Latinx. Didn't invent it, didn't ask for it, don't want it. They prefer "Hispanic" or "Latino". Or, no special designation at all.

In my very very humble opinion, this is exactly right on:

the Dems have lost the support of the working class, because they are too far removed from the issues which affect them.

The (D) party at some point shifted focus away from their traditional base of working people. I absolutely support and applaud their focus on expanding civil rights to include populations that have historically been subject to systematic discrimination - de jure and de facto - but it shouldn't be either / or. You can do both.

This election needs to be a wake up call. I hope they can rise to the challenge.

[CharlesWT]

Charles is not right. Strike that. Charles is not correct:

Overall food prices may be up less than a third. But people notice the items that are up well over a third. The peanut butter brand I like is up more than 50%. Some commodity items like dried beans have doubled in price in some stores.

[Michael Cain]

Americans, used broadly, periodically embrace isolationism, at least in terms of meddling in fighting. First Gulf War, Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, the Middle East over and over, saber-rattling over Taiwan, the DoD apparently always needing more money... Lots of people may have gotten to the "let those people take care of their own problems" stage.

[bobbyp]

Run someone who's experienced in reality TV and, absent something drastic like covid, he's the favorite to win.

Richard Hatch for president!

[nous]

My understanding is that Latinos don't like the term Latinx. Didn't invent it, didn't ask for it, don't want it. They prefer "Hispanic" or "Latino". Or, no special designation at all.

This is only partially correct. The term absolutely came from within, but it came from academia, and it marks out a college educated and politically liberal discourse community within the larger Spanish-speaking communities. I think the adoption and/or pushback around the term is less an issue of ethnicity and more one of class.

And fully wrapped up in all of that is the degree to which the person in question is accepting of, or critical of, the cultural patriarchy of their community.

So your position statement undoubtedly holds true for a lot of Hispanic folks, but when they say it came from outside their community, that's gatekeeping, rather than colonization.

[russell]

Thank you for the correction, nous, I appreciate it.

[Pete]

that the Dems have lost the support of the working class, because they are too far removed from the issues which affect them.

I read this the first time the way I think it was meant (Dems - they, working class - them). But after Russell quoted it, I realized there's another way of reading it:

The working class, because they are too far removed from the issues which affect them.

A novel reading, perhaps, but it kinda describes what has me baffled, angry, and despondent. I watched a focus group of union workers recently. "Undecideds" who "don't know enough" and "need to do more research". Fine. We're 2 weeks out from the election, so when is this gonna happen? How long would it take to whip out your smart phone and find out which candidate supports unions and which one has a long history of stiffing them? Which candidate passed an infrastructure bill that includes union protections? If your main complaint is wages and inflation, isn't this the least you can pay attention to?

Hispanics who vote for the Party that says the deportations start on Day One. People complaining about the housing crunch who want the same deportations - have they seen a construction crew lately? It ain't a bunch of college-educated white guys. Women who look at the Party of proud, blatant misogyny and stripping their rights and saying, "Give Me More of That!" Because the other guy might put a sanitary napkin dispenser in the Boys' Room.

I don't understand the person conscientious enough to vote but who can't be bothered to do the bare minimum to know what they're voting for. I dunno what kind of messaging penetrates that kind of willful ignorance. Kamala spent over a billion dollars - it's not like info was hard to find. Seems like the best bet is to out-demogogue whatever it is the (R)s have become. And, man, that f*cking sucks.

[Donald]

I don't think Kamala's billion dollars was spent well, but I don't live in a swing state, where I would assume there were more ads.

On the economic issue, if people say they are having a hard time I am usually going to believe them. And I did see a lot of people saying they were having a hard time in the voter interviews I'd read. I wasn't endorsing Charles's actual food price claim in the previous comment, but when people complain about price increases, well, that is something to notice.

I don't know what Biden could have done about it. Maybe like incumbents everywhere Harris was destined to lose this year. But in a way it is actually encouraging to think it was predominantly economic factors that drove this--it does not mean that most Trump voters are incipient fascists or supporters of every ugly thing or stupid policy he puts forward. They just remember being better off during his term (rightly or wrongly). Of course some or many Trump voters are attracted to the nastiness.

In our society you are always going to have ignorant voters trying to vote their interests and not understanding the issues. You have to plan for that. Which is one reason I gather unions used to be so useful for the left.

[nous]

Dems can't win as cultural demagogues. Dems usually lose when it's a game of dueling amygdala hijacks because the blame game is almost always directed against a group that is needed to keep the D coalition functional.

They have to build coalitions on hope, and they have to actually show up in the communities that need the hope and do something for that message to be believable.

Labor rhetoric is the only place I've found where the us/them of demagoguery doesn't eat into your coalitions, it just pisses off your big donors.

So be it.

[wj]

"Undecideds" who "don't know enough" and "need to do more research". Fine. We're 2 weeks out from the election, so when is this gonna happen?

Except they don't mean what you assume they mean by "Don't know enough" or "Need to do more research." They know that these are acceptable glosses on reality. Who could object to someone doing more research? So they toss them out.

But what they really mean is that they haven't decided who will be more fun to watch playing the game of reality TV government. Doesn't take that long, once they stop to take a look. Certainly far less time than doing the research on issues that you are assuming they are talking about.

[bobbyp]

Dems can't win as cultural demagogues.

If you observe a lot of right wing culture warriors up close I would bet that many of them assert the Dems have won this war and are engaged in a deliberate strategy of cultural domination and/or genocide...or at least that's what they see on FOX.

Hence the vehemence and anger. Losing is no fun.

[bobbyp]

The (D) party at some point shifted focus away from their traditional base of working people.

The civil rights movement and the shiny object of free markets (plus getting run over twice by RReagan) turned out to be a politically deadly combination. The first propped them up. The second led them astray.

[GftNC]

I think the adoption and/or pushback around the term is less an issue of ethnicity and more one of class.

This is part of what I was getting at. I think many things which the academy, and a "college educated and politically liberal discourse community" thinks are self-evident and self-evidently good, are not remotely perceived as such by the working class at large. And that that same working class feels dissed and angry at being made to feel that they are ignorant bigots when they don't subscribe to what they perceive as standards with which they disagree, and in many cases think are nonsensical. (And, FWIW, that feeling is not experienced only by the working class, even though they are the group we are discussing.)

Pete: sorry for lack of grammatical clarity. I did wonder when I read it back, but your first reading is of course what I intended.

[nous]

I think many things which the academy, and a "college educated and politically liberal discourse community" thinks are self-evident and self-evidently good, are not remotely perceived as such by the working class at large.

I know a lot of first-gen academics from underserved communities. This is ever the struggle for them. They are sent to college in order to secure a foothold in the middle class for their family at-large, but if they come away from college with any critical views of their communities, then they are treated as outsiders who have sold out, and who have strayed from their cultural roots. The economic advantages are welcome, but any realignment of cultural values is seen as a threat or a judgment.

Not an easy dynamic to navigate.

As an exvangelical and first-gen student from a poor family, I get a degree of this myself in my immediate family, but the pressure is greater for people of color from proud minority communities.

[liberal japonicus]

A theory that seems to be popping up is that this is a covid related phenomenon in that pratically every goverment, liberal (Germany, Canada, US) or conservative (Japan, UK) has gotten turfed out. I'm not sure about it, but I do think that the pandemic's effects are something that has never been truly reckoned with. If this is the case, it just sucks that Biden popped up just a little too early.

[Ufficio]

Does/did Harris use the term "latinx"? Do other prominent Dems routinely use it?

[liberal japonicus]

every morning for the last several months on the latter there was never any discussion of the trans issue, until the morning after the election

Again, a can of worms that I also don't want to open here, but

https://truthout.org/articles/republicans-spent-nearly-215m-on-tv-ads-attacking-trans-rights-this-election/

While it wasn't discussed on the morning shows, it was a staple of the Republican campaign. I wonder how much of Harris' defeat is attributable to that blanketing of the airwaves.

[GftNC]

Ufficio: no, I don't think so. My memory is that Carville was citing it as an example emblematic of the kind of "identity politics" that the Dems and progressives (and their academic vanguard) were much concerned with, and talking about, and that people who questioned it or rejected it were made to feel that they were ignorant or disrespectful. Not a good thing to make many of your voters feel.

lj: no question but the Rs went gangbusters for the trans issue. They felt, and I think electorally they were correct, that they were pushing at an open door in characterising it as absurd and mad, obviously in sport but by extension on a lot of it.

And my point was not that it was not discussed "on the morning shows", but that on the shows specifically with a liberal/D bent it was not discussed until November 6th because of a perception (in my opinion, for obvious reasons, correct) that this was a taboo subject for good liberals and progressives to question, or raise problems about.

I wonder how much of Harris' defeat is attributable to that blanketing of the airwaves.

Me too.

[Pete]

They have to build coalitions on hope, and they have to actually show up in the communities that need the hope and do something for that message to be believable.

I want to believe this, but the Rs just held an insane rally at Madison Square Garden and called Puerto Rico a pile of floating garbage, called America the world's trash bin (or something to that effect) and they won the election going away.

Except they don't mean what you assume they mean

Oh, I know it's shorthand for "I don't want to look as ignorant as I am about the topic and don't ask me any more questions" and I'd wager it was a paid session and they weren't there out of some sense of civic enlightenment. Still, assuming this is a "persuadable", what sort of messaging gets through? Target the union rep and hope they get everyone in line?

@GftNC

Your point was perfectly clear. The apology is mine for using your words to cram through my own pet peeve. ;-)

@nous 5:05

Great point. Using a very broad brush, I suspect there's something similar in urban/rural tensions.

[nous]

I want to believe this, but the Rs just held an insane rally at Madison Square Garden and called Puerto Rico a pile of floating garbage, called America the world's trash bin (or something to that effect) and they won the election going away.

Yes. An amygdala hijack works for conservatives. The neurochemistry of fear favors them because when people become afraid, they respond positively to messages of redemptive violence and start to act on inherent bias. That's the R's brand.

It's not logical, either. If the R's trigger enough fear to cause stress, and the viewer is anxious about trans people, then when the R's promise retribution against the trans threat, then that triggers a dopamine hit whether or not the R's have also vaguely threatened a community that the listener belongs to.

It's really hard to try to leverage that same reaction for the sake of change and of more empathy. The D's could use that tactic, but to do so they would have to become something more statist and authoritarian.

Bernie had the secret sauce for economic populism that didn't alienate a diverse coalition. The "Tio Bernie" latino labor vote was in full display at his rallies. It's unfortunate that the infighting amongst the D's kept a large portion of the party attacking Sanders long after 2016, and that Biden was more associated with the Clinton side than with the Sanders side.

WRT labor, my time as a labor leader made me quite aware of the low-information voter mindset. It's considered good if a union can get more than 50% of their represented employees to take even a marginally active role in union matters. More often than not it is a core group of around 10% that is actually informed and active, and the only time that you get any wider turnout for a meeting is if there are raises or job cuts under negotiation. Solidarity takes work.

[bobbyp]

Ezra Klein has a good op-ed in the Times. (Gift link below)

He wrote the following: "Democrats have to go places they have not been going and take seriously opinions they have not been taking seriously.

Now I am approaching 76 years of age, and I have been hearing this line REPEATEDLY since the 1980 election post mortum.* So sure, that's nice. Thanks for the advice. But it cries to be fleshed out. Just what opinions does this admonition refer to? I'm a reasonable guy. Spit it out.

*A question in return: Why is this advise not applied to Republicans when they get their asses kicked? Murc's Law?

Here's the link: Enjoy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/07/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-election.html?unlocked_article_code=1.YU4.PpN_.583SCHOWyeH_&smid=url-share

Wish me a happy birthday (11/14). Heh.

[JanieM]

Happy birthday, bobbyp!!

[CharlesWT]

Wish me a happy birthday (11/14). Heh.

Happy Birthday! Same age as King Charles.

[GftNC]

Happy birthday, bobbyp, and many happy returns!

[wj]

Still, assuming this is a "persuadable", what sort of messaging gets through?

The whole point is that it isn't about persuasion. It's totally divorced from anything you might consider an issue. You have to approach it from a very different, and unfamiliar, angle.

[wj]

Still, assuming this is a "persuadable", what sort of messaging gets through?

The whole point is that it isn't about persuasion. It's totally divorced from anything you might consider an issue. You have to approach it from a very different, and unfamiliar, angle.

[Donald]

Inflation is probably the reason Harris lost and while I hate the campaign she ran (embracing the Cheneys?) chances are she was going to lose no matter what. Yes, there are some significant number of people who love Trump’s bigotry but it is also pretty common to read voter interviews where people don’t like Trump, but right or wrong, think they were better off under Trump than under Biden.

You aren’t going to get the votes of people who love Trump for his hatefulness, but the others are just standard American voters. They aren’t going to read articles about how inflation wasn’t Biden’s fault. They blame the person in office.

If Trump pushes his tariffs through chances are he will be extremely unpopular fairly soon, if the economists are right, though I would prefer the country not pay that price. Republicans in Congress with a sense of self preservation might hold him back on that, though I could be wrong. No idea if there are sensible Republicans left.

[liberal japonicus]

I heard the Ezra Klein as a podcast, he had some good points, but he said this
5:50
And in wasting that time, it had refused to face up to a core problem: Biden wasn’t just too old. Voters were unhappy with his administration, with the wars abroad and the prices at home and the absence of leadership that made them confident that the people in charge knew what they were doing.

Now, I know that the US is entangled in a lot of these conflicts, both on the side of good (Ukraine) and the side of evil (Israel), but Biden got hammered for withdrawing from Afganistan, but it seems remarkable that a pundit like Klein would glibly make this mistake. If he does, one has to imagine low-information voters are thinking that Trump is a peace candidate.

[nous]

HBTY, BP.

Also...

I don't entirely buy a lot of what Richard Seymour says here, and I'm not one to be seduced by psychoanalytic explanations, but I do very much think that he's on the right track when he says that a lot of our global slide to authoritarian nationalism is displacement of climate anxiety and despair onto more tangible and confrontable scapegoats.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/30/richard-seymour-on-far-right-environmental-crisis-disaster-nationalism

Don't think I'll be buying his book and reading it, but I may check it out if it shows up at the campus library. I'm at least interested in his thoughts about how community building can help, even if I am not as interested in the marxist psychoanalysis part.

Would be nice if someone took on the topic from a perspective of permaculture, circularity, and the doughnut economy.

[Donald]

I am using up my free NYT links pretty fast, but I agreed with all of this—

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/08/opinion/republicans-democrats-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.YU4.Sg7q.LV2k2RbCeXO9&smid=url-share

[novakant]

The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lies will now be accepted as truth, and the truth be defamed as lies, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world — and the category of truth vs. falsehood is among the mental means to this end — is being destroyed.

I think it might be time to (re-)read Hannah Arendt.

Recently, I have only read this introduction, which is very good (and apparently her books, especially "Origins of Totalitarianism" can a bit meandering so you need an expert guide):

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/hannah-arendt-9780198806981?cc=gb&lang=en&

Also, this interview is good:

https://www.vox.com/vox-conversations-podcast/23048597/vox-conversations-hannah-arendt-totalitarianism-the-philosophers

[bobbyp]

Donald,
The essay by Ben Rhodes was a good read. Thanks.

Here's another take (yes, they shall be endless. It's the American way):

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/08/opinion/democrats-resistance-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.YU4.1B2P.YYKk1Nl1hstl&smid=url-share

[Donald]

Bobbyp--

I had just finished reading that piece by Shenk--I am glad you linked it as I want to start rationing my free NYT links for the rest of the month. It was good too.

I've been pleasantly surprised by some of the post-mortems at the NYT--instead of simply blaming the electorate that voted for Trump (though obviously some or many of them did vote for him for the worst possible reasons), people are advocating that the Democrats do some serious introspection in order to figure out how to win back the working class and middle class people who voted for Trump. (Again not imagining we are going to win over the ones for whom the bigotry is the point.) I hope this is a genuine portent of serious discussion within the Party as a whole.

[bobbyp]

I'll bet you a gazillion LoomCoin that you might find this take interesting:

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/11/initial-election-thoughts

[novakant]

These post mortems are all great, but one does wonder why all that wisdom never seems to affect the leadership of the Democratic party before they drive the election into the ditch - again!

God, I really despise these people right now and Biden deserves a special place somewhere not so nice for being stupid and selfish.

[russell]

Here is another take on "what just happened", from Christopher Robichaud, lecturer in Ethics and Public Policy at Harvard. My wife's aunt shared this via email, I don't where it came from originally so I'm just gonna include the whole thing, rather than a link.

It's good to analyze things to try to do better going forward, but let's not spend the days ahead of us in a circular firing squad.

Here's Robichaud. It's perhaps the darkest take on things I've read, but I find it hard to disagree with. This is a deeper issue than political or economic ephemera. Robichaud calls it a matter of culture, to me it's a matter of ethos.

---------------------------------------

I'll say this, and then I likely won't be saying much more on here for quite some time, to the relief of some, I'm sure. But my farewell warning is this.

Everyone in the days and weeks ahead will use this loss as an opportunity to seek validation for their own hobby horse complaint. Harris lost because she campaigned with Liz Cheney. Harris lost because she didn't embrace Gaza. Harris lost because she didn't choose Shapiro. Harris lost because she wasn't progressive enough (possibly my favorite one).

Take a good hard look at the map, my friends. Trump has won the popular vote. Trump ran the table. Explaining that with your hobby horse issue isn't going to cut it, tempting and consoling as it may be.

The problem isn't the electoral college. The problem isn't that we didn't have a full primary. The problem isn't Harris. The problem isn't that Dems didn't have the right message. The problem isn't even inflation or the border.

The problem is so much worse than any of those things. Those are all technical problems, with straightforward expertise fixes. If only it were so! No, our problem is not technical. It's very much adaptive. A party that embraced the Big Lie, supported an insurrection, and has been selling conspiracy-addled madness for years was widely and enthusiastically embraced. Voter turnout was profound! People didn't sit this out.

Simply put, the problem--as some of you have rightly posted--is cultural. America, culturally, has completely abandoned a politics of decency and respect and has embraced instead a politics of resentment, revenge, false nostalgia, and bullying. And if you look at the demographics, you also won't be able to comfort yourself that it's just a white thing, or a working class thing, or an education thing. It's multi-class, multi-gender, multi-educational and multi-racial. That's what winning the popular vote means. That's what running the table amounts to.

A culture that has descended to this level of debasement is not easily fixed. In fact it may not ever be fixed. The timeline for changing something like this is decades--at best--not two-to-four year election cycles. You can extend that in this case, because with the GOP likely controlling all branches of federal government and the courts, they will ensure that mechanisms are in place to keep them in power long after their popularity has waned. You can count on that.

The GOP evolved into a party of rage, lies, and revenge--and it correctly diagnosed that there was and is a large appetite for that. That's what the country wants. At least, enough of the country wants it to ensure broad appeal and widespread electoral success. The old GOP will never return, and the Dems have nothing to say to American culture at the moment. Nothing. They've been speaking to a country that's gone, like dust in the wind.

And that's my final thought, which my posts last night alluded to. The America I knew and loved is gone. This new America--nah, I won't even bother. I will say that cultural change is less likely to occur in politics, or in the academy. You're not going to get people to see how vulgar they've become through a clever argument or a nice campaign speech, that's for sure.

This would be time for the arts, broadly understood, to step in. The arts can change hearts and minds. Too bad the arts have been systematically dismantled in education in this country, and on the other end, the tech industry's assault on the arts through AI is sure to hollow out any good-faith efforts that might emerge.

And for the rest of the world, America's rightward lurch is, I'm afraid, bad news for you too. I know you know this. Because it's not isolated, is it? It's just at the moment the most prominent example of a burgeoning trend. And this will embolden others in other countries, to be sure. We need not speculate what happens when countries become mired in lies, embrace resentment, and savor bullying. We know exactly what happens. Bloody conflict and global destabilization.

The first quarter of the 21st century will therefore in hindsight be viewed as the seed-planting stage for the absolute shit show that's about to unfold globally over the next two and a half decades. Count on it.

Adopt whatever coping and endurance strategies you have available. You're going to need it.

I think that's all I've left to say.

Thanks for reading this.

[wj]

I came across an interesting factiod. Unfortunately it was yesterday just before catching a plane (to Istanbul) so I can't find the link just now. Sorry. Take my word for it. Or, better yet, go digging yourself.

It compared 2020 vs 2024. Margins (percentage-wise) were essentially unchanged for most demographics: women, blacks, white men, etc. Except, Hispanic men flipped from pro Biden vs Trump to pro Trump vs Harris. From, if memory serves, +7 for Biden to -3 for Harris.

If that's correct, a whole lot of postmortem analysis is going to have to be rethought.

[nous]

If that's correct, a whole lot of postmortem analysis is going to have to be rethought.

Twist on Sturgeon's Law: 90% of postmortem analysis is curve fitting with confirmation bias.

[Donald]

I am seeing conflicting claims on voter turnout. One claim is that Democratic turnout dropped dramatically.

I don’t buy Robichaud’s analysis. I think it applies to some fraction of Trump’s voters but we knew that already. I agree it isn’t anyone’s hobbyhorse like mine, though I suspect Gaza played some role, but along with many others. In fact I think he has his own hobbyhorse, which is about irrationality and hatred taking over.. He brushes away all other factors so he can push his own. Well yes, demonization and lies played a big role. Republicans often run based on fear— fear of communists or socialists, or crime ( often mixed in with some racist stereotypes) or Muslim terrorists. That’s all still present and now we have added illegal immigrants as a big demon figure. . Remember how torture became enhanced interrogation? Of course you do. This blog often focused on that during the Bush era. That was how we were embracing fascism back then. Then we looked forward, not back and the Cheneys actually became the good guys but I digress.

You have some fraction of the population which loves having the excuse to demonize others and Trump gives them what they want , but no, I don’t think that this means even his own voters all fit into the category. We always have people running on hatred and it often works if there are other factors present. Like the perception of a bad economy. .

I think that Trump expanded his reach because of the economy. People remembered things being better under Trump than under Biden and were not convinced Harris or the Democrats saw the problem. His hardcore base o

It’d be nice if more voters voted based on grand moral issues, but they don’t.

[russell]

I think that Trump expanded his reach because of the economy. People remembered things being better under Trump than under Biden and were not convinced Harris or the Democrats saw the problem.

People remembered (accurately or not) that things were better under Trump, and they are OK if that means millions of people get rounded up into camps and deported as part of the deal.

Or they want to pretend that was all just campaign blather and he's not gonna do any of it.

I put his core in the first group, and the rest in the second. I'm not sure the second is much, or any, better than the first.

Lather rinse repeat for all of the other heinous stuff he's promised to do.

Where I'm at right now is that I do not trust a little more than half the country. Or at least a little more than half the voters. I don't trust them because I have no idea what they are or are not capable of.

What people will accept is part of who they are, and I really don't know what the limits are on what people will accept.

And that is a more profound thing (to me, anyway) than a simple response to inflation.

[Pete]

Remember how torture became enhanced interrogation?

Remember when we invented “enemy combatants” as a Geneva dodge? I wonder how that wagon hitches to “official acts”? Welp, I guess those people will get their day in court.

Oh, right…

[Tony P.]

As a (d)emocrat, I have always believed that a government of The People, by The People, and for The People can never be better than The People. This election showed what The People, here in America, really are: MAGAts and morons, by a majority.

The MAGAts voted for cruelty and corporate power. They will be happy to get those. The morons who voted with them will get cruelty and corporate power too, and will be surprised to learn that cruelty (toward Others, they think) doesn't pay the bills, and that corporate power doesn't reduce the price of eggs. Being morons, they won't understand that they screwed themselves.

Expecting the Democratic Party to educate the morons is a pipe dream. The Dems will try to mitigate the damage to the morons that the MAGAts will joyfully inflict. Exactly the wrong approach. Just sit back and say "I told you so" at every opportunity, is my suggestion.

Some of the damage the MAGAts will do will be irreversible, of course. There are such things as tipping points in nature, whether climate change deniers believe in science or not. Other kinds of damage will be as good as permanent for most Americans now living. RFK Jr's crackpottery under He, Trump, like Lysenko's crackpottery under Stalin, will be hurting anti-vaxxer MAGAbros long after we are all comfortably dead. ChristoFascist judges will do the bidding of their corporate sponsors for decades, to the detriment of non-billionaire god-botherers.

Still, I recommend the "I told you so" approach. That's the only kind of "messaging" I can get behind right now. If it offends the morons, too bad. Offending people did the MAGAts no harm, did it?

--TP

[bobbyp]

But, but, but, Tony. Hang on a minute. It's all about the price of eggs:

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/egg-prices-adjusted-for-inflation/#google_vignette

[Priest]

Trump's raw vote totals look like they will be slightly above 2020+increase in voting age population. Harris's totals look like they will end up 5 to 6 million below Biden's 2020 numbers, so 7 to 8 million less than Biden+increase in voting age population.

The results are largely because several million people that voted Democratic in 2020 did not vote for anybody this time. So the result is mostly because of an increase in apathy, Trump is only a bit more popular than four years ago.

[Donald]

Oh, if we are talking about morality, let me bring Gaza back into the picture. If morality matters, how many Democrats favor putting Biden and Blinken on trial for complicity in crimes against humanity? They violated the Leahy Law. I hear Democrats talking about the rule of law where Trump is concerned. Do they mean it or not?

We are talking about the horrible things Trump might do. Gaza is a wasteland. There is evidence that Israel is engaged in ethnically cleansing northern Gaza right now. The Biden Administration people consistently respond to every claim of an atrocity by asking Israel for more information and claiming that they are “ assessing” various claims without ever coming to a conclusion.

People were perfectly fine having Biden run again until he humiliated himself in the debate. Why? Because to the vast majority of Americans this simply isn’t something that will change their vote. They tell themselves it isn’t Biden’s fault.

I live in this country and I wish people took crimes against humanity seriously as a disqualification for holding public office, but they don’t, and it isn’t half the country, it is most of it. The people who refused to vote for Harris or voted third party as protest are the exception. If everyone did this, things would change. If we stopped settling for war criminals as nominees, things would change.

Both parties are fine with war criminals, The voters are fine with war criminals. I just voted for Harris and yeah, I just voted for someone I think is a war criminal. I voted for her as the lesser evil and because as some have argued, she would be more vulnerable to pressure. Did all of her voters think about slaughtered babies and think about it in such terms or did they brush it off? And truthfully, if she won I just expected her to see this as evidence she could continue the Biden policy without any political cost. I felt sick voting for her.

I know what country I live in. Morally, this is where it has always been. Massive cruelty against powerless people is something that both parties practice and it doesn’t hurt them at the polls.

And the issue that probably made the difference is inflation.
https://jacobin.com/2024/11/trump-2024-election-inflation-economy

[Snarki, child of Loki]

One affect of the pandemic is to blur people's memory of the "before times", and I suspect that may have something to do with nostalgia for Trump's first term.

Whether that was enough to tip the balance, dunno.

[nous]

Both parties are fine with war criminals, The voters are fine with war criminals. I just voted for Harris and yeah, I just voted for someone I think is a war criminal. I voted for her as the lesser evil and because as some have argued, she would be more vulnerable to pressure. Did all of her voters think about slaughtered babies and think about it in such terms or did they brush it off? And truthfully, if she won I just expected her to see this as evidence she could continue the Biden policy without any political cost. I felt sick voting for her.

Prisoner's Dilemma. It's not just that we continue to vote for the lesser of two evils. We do this because we know what the other party is going to choose. Choosing the morally correct approach does not lead to moral improvement for the country, it just cedes control to the other side.

The R's will never, NEVER, cede national sovereignty to international courts. The R's will never let their leaders suffer accountability through the US courts. We've seen this happen repeatedly. The D's may push for accountability, but that deed never goes unpunished by the R's.

And if we imagine for a moment that, yes, against all history, both parties repent and choose to act morally, the fallout from that will paralyze our foreign policy institutions and this same game of Prisoner's Dilemma will play out on the international level instead.

I may sound like I am supporting realpolitik, but I'm not. I'm taking what I think is the least harmful alternatives within the context of all the foreseeable alternatives. Until you can explain to me how our moral stance changes the other side's response, I don't see how choosing the more moral stance makes the situation better. It actually causes more net harm.

I too feel sick knowing that I am complicit in the suffering of innocents, but I don't see that any structural conditions exist that can prevent that suffering.

I do personally know someone who left the vote for president blank over Gaza, and who posted this proudly on social media. It was a deeply moral stance, but it also ceded anything that could be done to protect women and LGBTQ+ people from harm in order to refuse to be complicit in Gaza's suffering. It may save that person's political soul in some theological sense, but it also takes away that person's input in anything executive for the next four years.

Can we really afford that? I guess we are about to find out.

[Donald]

Oh, I think I did the right thing voting for Harris, but I genuinely mean voting for the lesser evil. It seems to be a phrase for many people, something to be deployed against the third party temptation but we ought to take it seriously.

Stop putting people in the position of having to vote for a war criminal to stop an even worse war criminal who is also terrible on many other issues. We really can do better than this. It isn’t utopian for Presidents to abide by the Leahy Law.

On inflation, I am not an economist and don’t know who is right regarding the claims that many ordinary people were better off under Trump. But they believe it and that was a huge problem.

[Donald]

On the international level, there is no PD that forced us to support Israel no matter what. What Biden has done instead is show that we have no more moral standards than Putin. The whole “ rules- based order” that Biden talked about was proven to be a fraud. We get nothing from supporting genocide. With Biden we got the worst of everything— ineffectual posturing about human rights as BIbi takes the weapons we supply and does what he wants. We could have, say, supplied purely defensive weapons against missile attacks but stopped the flow of bombs and yes, they needed the weapons. That would have been the actions of an ally which takes international standards seriously. But I think Biden shared Bibi’s goal. He wanted a victory in Gaza and then he imagined he could get a peace between Saudi Arabia and Israel and a pathway to a 2ss. Delusional.

Biden lost leverage as the election season progressed and now he is the lamest of ducks.

[nous]

We really can do better than this. It isn’t utopian for Presidents to abide by the Leahy Law.

It's not utopian, but your "we" here is not in evidence as any practical reality. It's "us" and "them." "We" doesn't reach the other side of the aisle. Not a statement of D moral superiority. It's transitive.

The Leahy Law would have to apply to both sides and both sides would have to accept the consequences for their own.

I have not seen that happen anywhere.

[liberal japonicus]

I just put a new post that is a version of nous' comment.

[wj]

Or they want to pretend that was all just campaign blather and he's not gonna do any of it.

In fairness (hey, why not?), inn his first term Trump failed to do a lot of things he claimed he would do. It was because there were guardrails in the form of people who knew and supported the Constitution, and had something of morality. That this time the crazies are ready with staff who will do what he says is a nuance. And most voters don't do nuance.

[wj]

Or they want to pretend that was all just campaign blather and he's not gonna do any of it.

In fairness (hey, why not?), inn his first term Trump failed to do a lot of things he claimed he would do. It was because there were guardrails in the form of people who knew and supported the Constitution, and had something of morality. That this time the crazies are ready with staff who will do what he says is a nuance. And most voters don't do nuance.

[Donald]

Nous— What is “ both sides”. Do you mean Democrats and Republicans? If so, I agree.

If you mean US and U.S. enemies. Again I agree they wouldn’t change their ruthlessness, but that is not the point.

We had the same issue in the Cold War. Did Soviet communism collapse because we supported a genocidal regime in Guatemala? Death squads in El Salvador? Genocide in East Timor? Savimbi in Angola? Some wanted to support Renamo in Mozambique and apartheid in South Africa. We couldn’t be human rights supporters because the commies would take advantage of us.

It was a garbage argument. We murdered a bunch of people and it had nothing to do with the collapse of the USSR. There were some legit things we did do to resist them and some legit gray areas, but nNot the things I mentioned.

[Donald]

Another free link. This is about the economic argument but also about Trump’s appeal to working class Hispanics.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/09/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-patrick-ruffini.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Yk4.4gEb.EiqYfw2zo4_k&smid=url-share

[Donald]

If you mean that Republicans won’t abide by the Leahy Law, of course they won’t. They oppose all such constraints on their own side. They favor prosecuting corrupt Democratic politicians took but look who they love as President.

If the argument is that Republicans support corrupt politicians and favor a murderous foreign policy with no legal constraints then I am with you. They also use racist arguments in campaigns and favor brutal racist policies.

So what follows from this? Democrats get to do the same things?

Back when the ICC issue was debated— should the US join— the Republican argument was that it would be used to prosecute innocent Americans in foreign courts and would be a weapon for our enemies. The Democrats argued that the principle of complementarity— I think that is the legal term— meant that there was no danger because we have a functioning judicial system that can prosecute our own war criminals so the ICC would not have jurisdiction.

Both sides were using BS arguments.

[wj]

Did Soviet communism collapse because we supported a genocidal regime in Guatemala? Death squads in El Salvador? Genocide in East Timor? Savimbi in Angola? Some wanted to support Renamo in Mozambique and apartheid in South Africa. We couldn’t be human rights supporters because the commies would take advantage of us.

Donald, did you ever, anywhere, come across someone arguing that our actions in any of those places would lead to the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union? Because I never did. I saw a lot of "prevent the spread" arguments. But never anything claiming a rollback would result.

[wj]

Did Soviet communism collapse because we supported a genocidal regime in Guatemala? Death squads in El Salvador? Genocide in East Timor? Savimbi in Angola? Some wanted to support Renamo in Mozambique and apartheid in South Africa. We couldn’t be human rights supporters because the commies would take advantage of us.

Donald, did you ever, anywhere, come across someone arguing that our actions in any of those places would lead to the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union? Because I never did. I saw a lot of "prevent the spread" arguments. But never anything claiming a rollback would result.

[russell]

Donald's righteous (and correct) anger at the moral and ethical failures of both sides has had me thinking a lot. Here are my thoughts, FWIW. I'll be curious to know what others think.

For good or ill, I don't really expect moral and ethical goodness to be uppermost in the calculus of political leaders. The domain of politics is power, and political action is always constrained by what is possible. By what is available.

This does not lend itself to clear and unambiguous moral actions. It means, at best, compromise - giving up the best outcome in exchange for the least bad available option. And that's at best, which is in itself a rare thing - people make bad decisions.

This is what I think Michelle Obama was getting at in her (perhaps apocryphal) comment to Barack that politics was "not noble work".

So if we want political actors to do good things, I think we need to make them do it. As in the (probably apocryphal, but believable) exchange between FDR and the Pullman porters union, "I'm with you, I agree with you. Now make me do it". Which mostly means creating pragmatic incentives for those political actors to do the right thing.

The "right thing" in a political context often means exercising power in ways that don't necessarily, or directly, benefit the one exercising the power. It could even be costly to that actor. So incentives to do the right thing need to be created.

And it's up to us to do that. We have to make them.

Kind of a half-baked stream of consciousness babble stream on the topic, but it's all I got at the moment. I am curious to know your thoughts.

[Michael Cain]

Since election day, Gov. Newsom of California has called a special legislative session to plan how to protect California's chosen policies against what they anticipate coming from the Trump administration. Up the coast, Washington Gov. Inslee has declared a similar goal for his state.

[liberal japonicus]

If the argument is that Republicans support corrupt politicians and favor a murderous foreign policy with no legal constraints then I am with you. They also use racist arguments in campaigns and favor brutal racist policies.

So what follows from this? Democrats get to do the same things?

I'd argue that what the Republicans have done is create the conditions where the field is tilted their way and then these kinds of messages, which are amplified to the people who don't pay much attention to politics, then get some traction. So no, Dems don't need to match with brutalist foreign policy or advocating racism, but they do need to deal with the structural issues that favor Republicans. I'm not sure how, many of the points are now so baked in that it is hard to imagine the Dems balancing it without doing the same things. But this isn't the messages, it is the infrastructure of representation.

[Donald]

“ Donald, did you ever, anywhere, come across someone arguing that our actions in any of those places would lead to the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union? Because I never did. I saw a lot of "prevent the spread" arguments. But never anything claiming a rollback would result.”

This is nitpicking. We supported the murder of millions ( when you add up our worst actions) as part of the grand battle against Soviet communism and none of this contributed to anything except massive suffering. If we didn’t hold the line the USSR would be strengthened, etc…. Atrocities aside, it could get ridiculous. Invading Grenada was like engaging in regime change for the Grand Duchy of Fenwick.

Anyway, I don’t much disagree with thecommments following mine and the other thread is interesting without tempting me to add to it, so I will call, it a night.

[CharlesWT]

Tens of thousands in China suddenly decided to go for a bike ride. The impulse has spread to several cities with an estimated 800,000 subcomming. This in a country where the government gets nervous when small crowds form.

"The students would emerge on their bikes, in the tens of thousands, seemingly out of nowhere. Like a flash mob on wheels, they rode for hours in the night, by the light of streetlamps, sometimes bursting into verses of the Chinese national anthem. Some carried Chinese flags.

They were making the 40-mile journey from the Chinese city of Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province, to the neighboring city of Kaifeng, a cycling trip that can take up to five hours one-way. Why? For the sake of it."
Why Did Tens of Thousands of Chinese Students Go on Night Bike Rides?: Making the impromptu five-hour ride between two Chinese cities became a craze among young people. But as their numbers swelled, the authorities shut it down.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

"Making the impromptu five-hour ride between two Chinese cities became a craze among young people. But as their numbers swelled, the authorities shut it down."

In related news, several years ago Orcas off the coast of Washington state developed the 'fashion' of wearing a dead salmon on their head, then stopped.

There's a joke about "...a fish needs a bicycle" in there, somewhere, if only we could find it.

[russell]

I've come to believe that the orcas are f***ing with our heads.

"Why are they doing that?", we ask. The answer: to make us ask that question.

Crows, same thing. My wife and I were at Bryce Canyon once. A bunch of tourists were in a kind of fenced in viewing area overlooking the canyon. A crow rode a wind gust up the canyon wall, then flew upside down over their heads.

Why? Just because he could. I swear I heard him laugh as he flew away.

[Hartmut]

Sorry, no funny animal stories available from me at the moment. As for crows, I get the impression that there are more of them around these days than there were for many years (although not as a many as in the 70ies). Fewer pigeon though. Are the crows actually rogue pigeons?

The Israeli Right wastes little time to put a lie on the claim that His Orangeness would be less bad for the Palestinians. The finance minister publicly declares that his election victory is the perfect moment to finally and formally annex the West Bank.

[GftNC]

I've been away for a few days following the election at a wedding in Ireland of someone I've known and loved since she was three hours old. Amazingly, we all managed to lock our grief and misery away in a vault pretty much inaccessible to us for the duration of the whole magical thing. I never opened a phone or a computer until last night, back in London. No ObWi, no Guardian, no Times, no NYT, no WaPo.

Re-entering the real world has been hard, and I still haven't read a newspaper. Someone on the flight over yesterday told me they'd just read that Trump talked to Zelensky with Elon Musk on the line. Words fail.

I've just finished catching up on this thread (but not clicking on links), and will now head on over to the newer one. But: russell, great to hear from you as it always is. Your conclusions seem right to me. Donald: the Cheneys never became the good guys. By endorsing Harris they merely proved that they have some scintilla of judgement, and in the case of Liz (during the hearings) some respect for some of the qualities that most of us think necessary for the survival of democracy and the rule of law in America. Which is more than almost all other Republican politicians.

[Pro Bono]

There's an annual overnight cycle ride from London to Dunwich, on the Suffolk coast, 112 miles by the recommended route - the Dunwich Dynamo. I rode it a few times in my relative youth, because I could.

Dunwich was once a major port, but most of it has been under the North Sea for a few hundred years.

[russell]

And there's also this from over at Balloon Juice.

Trump's Electoral College numbers look daunting, but he barely got a majority of the popular vote - less than 51%. The country is split right down the middle. Given his generally impulsive character we're probably in for a blizzard of chaos, which is not likely to wear well on the less-ideological Trump voters.

Take care of yourselves and as many other folks as you can, find useful and constructive things to do, try to avoid doomscrolling and freaking out. OK to be angry, but make your anger useful. And wait for the tide to turn.

I'm not trying to minimize what is likely to be a calamitous time, especially for more marginalized folks. But we all need to stay sane and balanced if we want to keep things as not-bad as they can be.

Members, don't get weary.

[Pete]

And it begins..

Huckabee as Ambassador to Israel
Noem at Homeland Security
Miller as Deputy CoS
Rubio at Sec. State

Worst fears are being realized. I've heard rumblings of a bend-the-knee military purge. I really want to be with Russell's better angels - cuz I like to believe that's who I am - but I'm having a hard time moving away from TonyP's "FAFO" viewpoint.

I can't help but think about how many women are bleeding out in parking lots while people voted about the price of eggs. Well, in that context, the price of eggs has never been higher.

[liberal japonicus]

This just in
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/12/politics/elon-musk-vivek-ramaswamy-department-of-government-efficiency-trump/index.html

and this about Trump's 'warrior board'
https://newrepublic.com/post/188338/trump-executive-order-military-board-purge

[Donald]

Trump is going to be terrible, but Biden is still the same abject bootlicker to Netanyahu to the very end. He put out a 30 day ultimatum to Israel in October to let far more aid into Israel, with the deadline conveniently after the election.

As everyone expected, Israel hasn’t come close to what they demanded and Biden has decided not to do anything. What a shock.

[Pete]

Is there a “Biden Heights” in Golan?

[Priest]

File under “electoral rules matter” and “alternate reality chaos”: If the presidential election was determined by national popular vote AND a majority was required to prevent a second round/runoff, there still looks to be the possibility that Trump finishes just under 50%; the election/campaign could continue for many more weeks.

[Hartmut]

Rubio is probably among the least worst expected choices compared e.g. to Grenell. A spineless opportunist with at least some experience useful for the job instead of an incompetent ideologue.
But he hasn't got the job yet.

[wj]

A spineless opportunist with at least some experience useful for the job

Now become the gold standard for appointees.

[wj]

A spineless opportunist with at least some experience useful for the job

Now become the gold standard for appointees.

[hairshirthedonist]

On that note:

https://apnews.com/article/trump-hegseth-defense-secretary-pentagon-2d8030921ecef933778cf92afd40ec72

President-elect Donald Trump stunned the Pentagon and the broader defense world by nominating Fox News host Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary, tapping someone largely inexperienced and untested on the global stage to take over the world’s largest and most powerful military.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

"tapping someone largely inexperienced and untested on the global stage to take over the world’s largest and most powerful military"

Trump has no interest in foreign wars; if it comes to it he'll just surrender to Putin.

Now "the enemy within", oh, yeah he wants the military to go after THEM. And a "fox news personality" is perfectly suited to the task.

[Hartmut]

He was a prime defender of His Orangeness concerning Jan 6th. And some of those actually organizing the event are said to be marked for influential posts too. Let's see whether some actual attackers will also make the list. Only the bloody banner tainted with the blood of the insurrectionists is still missing in the picture*. Maybe some blood sample of Ashli Babbitt can be found in some doctor's office to be used for that purpose.

*the original 1923 one from Munich - if still in existence - is suspected to be somewhere in the US brought in by a GI as a war trophy.

[novakant]

Great, and now we have Trump's spokesperson as an MP in the British Parliament (pontificating about the Chagos Islands of all things):

Farage, the Reform UK leader, said there was “outright hostility” in the incoming Trump administration to the UK’s deal with Mauritius handing over sovereignty of the Chagos Islands

Great synergy - the next 4 years are goin to be wonderful!

[GftNC]

I honestly don't know if I am going to be able to continue to read newspapers, and stay otherwise informed on all this. It is profoundly depressing and upsetting. And, while being very aware that I don't live in the US and that it is worse for most of you, somehow that doesn't make it any easier. I am really struggling to reach nous or russell levels of mental discipline.

[CaseyL]

The US will simply melt down as a world power with malign clowns in charge of the military and diplomacy.

Russia has population growth problem. Possibly an economic growth problem. And, it seems, a military readiness problem, if they're bringing in North Korean soldiers.

China also has a population growth problem, and I'm told (but am not sure it's true) their economic growth is stagnant.

The rise of tyranny, at the same time each of the most powerful tyrannies are crumbling from the inside, is a global phenom.

The US economy has been immune up to now, but that will change as Trump's policies take hold. And a large percentage of young people do not want children (though their ability to control whether or not they do will likely vanish soon).

So... maybe this will be an era of vanishing hegemonic power?

It would be interesting to see what replaces the Great Hegemonic Powers, though I don't expect to live long enough to see that.

[wj]

China also has a population growth problem, and I'm told (but am not sure it's true) their economic growth is stagnant.

Plus, a lot of their economic growth has been export driven. A US economic meltdown will be bad for them. And the rest of the world's economies following suit, if only temporarily, will be worse.

[Hartmut]

It would be interesting to see what replaces the Great Hegemonic Powers

Something like Renaissance Italy (age of the Condottieri) or Germany after the 30 Years War (age of the cabinet wars) but on a global scale.
Just without the cultural achievements.

[hairshirthedonist]

"Simon Johnson, a co-winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics, spoke with Quartz before Election Day"

https://qz.com/donald-turmp-taxes-tariffs-economy-simon-johnson-nobel-1851688311

Some excerpts - not that anyone here really needs convincing or that the people who do would pay any mind:

He calls himself the tariff man, and he says there’s going to be a very high tariff on everyone, and particularly on China. This is just a really bad idea. It’s not a bad idea in a complicated way, it’s a bad idea in a very simple way, which is that low-income Americans have a high import content of their consumption.

(...)

It’s a terrible, stupid, and pointless negotiating tactic because a tariff is a tax on your own consumers.

(...)

Why are the billionaires rallying around Trump? Why do we see Elon Musk and Howard Lutnick from Cantor Fitzgerald and John Paulson and so on? Well, one thing to note is the import content of consumption for rich people is quite low. So, actually, he’s not threatening their pocketbooks at all with the tariff thing.

A second piece is that he’s offering to extend or expand the tax cuts that he put in place in his first presidency, and those are disproportionately favoring rich people, directly and indirectly.

(...)

But they do believe that they can get the tax cuts and, as you know, the unfortunate reality of the American geopolitical position is that because the dollar is the reserve currency of the world, we can run large deficits for some time. But nobody knows for how long. Nobody knows when they’ll catch up with us. So when things are going well, like now, we should be reducing our deficits and reducing our debt relative to GDP. But they want to go massively in another direction, in their own favor.

(...)

So we won that for studying a wide range of societies over history and arguing that [to be prosperous] what you want to have is more inclusive economic and political institutions and not what we call extractive economic and political institutions. Well, I would say the billionaires, and I’m happy to call them by name — Musk, Paulson, and Lutnick — these guys are working to establish a massive extraction of value from the American state and the American taxpayer and future taxpayers.

When you see their ideas for basically abolishing the civil service and removing the professionalism of government at the federal level, I’m comfortable saying that they are aiming to establish an extractive state and to abandon the sensible and reasonable principles of inclusion around American institutions, and create something that favors themselves and not the rest of the American people. This is what populists have done since the beginning of the modern era—wrapped themselves in the idea that this is good for the common people and then they enrich themselves and ruin the country. It’s the history of Argentina over 120 years.

(...)

People like Kissinger, and on this point Hamilton and Jefferson substantially agreed, and of course Washington absolutely agreed, that you didn’t want to have too much power in the hands of one person, or a small set of people. You needed checks and balances at the federal level to make sure that the president couldn’t become an elected dictator.

(...)

The tax cut as Trump proposes it would be a big giveaway — in part it’s for those [large] companies, but of course a lot of it is for the shareholders of those companies who are well-to-do Americans. There’s a reason that populists like to cut taxes: because people can feel good for a short period of time. And there’s a reason we call it populism, because when you throw fiscal responsibility out the window, you’re always popular. It is really striking and, of course actually ridiculous, that people like Elon Musk wring their hands about debt to GDP in the U.S. and then propose these incredible tax cuts, which is what drove the big increase in debt-to-GDP during the Trump administration.

(...)

You need to maintain democracy, first and foremost. You mustn’t undermine the elections and you must recognize when you lose an election.