Presidential Election 2016

[Tiller]

This is apparently Trump's "First 100 days":

http://www.npr.org/2016/11/09/501451368 ... t-100-days

[grant1simons2]

*Reads a couple*

Hey, that actually sounds okay!

*Reads a few more*

OH MY GOD WE'RE DOOMED

[MNdible]

^
Yup.

Some of these read like they were written by a nine year old.

[FISHMANPET]

So, the sleeper that jumps out at me is ending all funding to "Sanctuary Cities" which is cities that have decided not to hassle people about their immigration status. According to Wikipedia we're one of those cities. One of the powers that a president does have is to appoint heads of agencies that will disburse the funds that Congress allocates, so this strikes me as a very real way that Trump can hurt our city, either by losing federal funding for things like transit, or by starting to deport non-citizens. Both outcomes very bad.

[grant1simons2]

Lol

https://www.greatagain.gov/policy/trans ... cture.html

[Nathan]

So that's like what, one light rail line for every major metro area? Throw in an airport or two and... yeah. I have a feeling transit is not going to be yuge.

[mattaudio]

greatagain.gov is a gem

[gpete]

I sure hope it's before 2020! 2018 the Dems have a tall order to not only hold their Senate seats but actually make inroads. Could happen if the Republicans misplay their hand.

The only silver lining I see is that there's going to be a huge Democratic effort for 2020 and that's a redistricting year. The question is whether the party can come together and formulate a winning message and slate of candidates that year.

I think the Boomers are done being in charge.

I was thinking there was opportunity in 2018, too, but take a look at the senate map for 2018: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... ions,_2018

There really isn't much room for Dems to increase their numbers. IF the Dems can hold all their current seats, the only possible pickup opportunities are where? Nevada, Arizona, and Texas?

At the same time, Dems have to defend seats in West Virginia, Montana, Missouri, North Dakota, and Indiana.

[amiller92]

The next two years are going to change a lot of things. I'm not making any 2018 predictions - aside from general backlash - yet.

[cooperrez]

Lol

https://www.greatagain.gov/policy/trans ... cture.html

I saw your lol and thought to myself, how inappropriate to laugh at this moment, but realized you have it right.

I thought of this song, Preciso Me Encontrar, and this line, "Vou por aí a procurar. Rir pra não chorar", roughly translated to, Gonna look around. Laugh so I don't cry.

https://youtu.be/plOTKOJ32Os

[Didier]

Going back to twincitizen's point, I'm still seeing a lot of people on social media still holding Clinton up as some sort of model or martyr, and I can't help but think that they're being delusional.

Her baggage — real and perceived; she has both — drove away 10 million Obama voters and allowed a historically unpopular demagogue to win the presidency with the same number of votes that John McCain had in his blowout defeat eight years ago. Hillary might represent a lot of good things, but this was the Democrats' election to win and she lost it.

So let's move on. There are other women just as qualified as Hillary to be president, and one could realistically be elected as soon as 2020. And frankly, the lack of enthusiasm for Hillary being the first female president was a pretty big buzzkill anyway. Whoever does break that glass ceiling should be celebrated in a way that Hillary never would have been.

[amiller92]

In a way, it's kind of a liberating place to be. There's an opening to reposition the party with a fresh face. There's one one waiting in the wings for the next cycle.

Of course, there's a whole lot of ugliness between now and then.

[EOst]

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/11/10 ... -survival/

Autocracy: Rules for Survival

The second falsehood is the pretense that America is starting from scratch and its president-elect is a tabula rasa. Or we are: “we owe him an open mind.” It was as though Donald Trump had not, in the course of his campaign, promised to deport US citizens, promised to create a system of surveillance targeted specifically at Muslim Americans, promised to build a wall on the border with Mexico, advocated war crimes, endorsed torture, and repeatedly threatened to jail Hillary Clinton herself. It was as though those statements and many more could be written off as so much campaign hyperbole and now that the campaign was over, Trump would be eager to become a regular, rule-abiding politician of the pre-Trump era.

But Trump is anything but a regular politician and this has been anything but a regular election. Trump will be only the fourth candidate in history and the second in more than a century to win the presidency after losing the popular vote. He is also probably the first candidate in history to win the presidency despite having been shown repeatedly by the national media to be a chronic liar, sexual predator, serial tax-avoider, and race-baiter who has attracted the likes of the Ku Klux Klan. Most important, Trump is the first candidate in memory who ran not for president but for autocrat—and won.

I have lived in autocracies most of my life, and have spent much of my career writing about Vladimir Putin’s Russia. I have learned a few rules for surviving in an autocracy and salvaging your sanity and self-respect. It might be worth considering them now:

[Tiller]

This is the most important portion of that:

Rule #3: Institutions will not save you. It took Putin a year to take over the Russian media and four years to dismantle its electoral system; the judiciary collapsed unnoticed. The capture of institutions in Turkey has been carried out even faster, by a man once celebrated as the democrat to lead Turkey into the EU. Poland has in less than a year undone half of a quarter century’s accomplishments in building a constitutional democracy.

[acs]

Oh christ, grow the f*** up. I'm already sick of this worthless fearmongering. It does nothing. Trump isn't hitler or putin or a dictator and never will be. Not in this country. The party base needs to stop acting like petulant children and start figuring out what went wrong and how we can make sure it doesn't happen in 2018 and beyond. Instead of blocking freeways and claiming Trump isn't your president (shit that would have made heads explode in 2008), think about how we can pressure the Democrats still left in power to stand firm on parts of his agenda we don't like and mold the parts we do more to our liking instead of Paul Ryan's. All the democrats in congress and legislature didn't suddenly disappear. You know who has the right idea? Bernie Sanders. Be like Bernie: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ber ... 0512937bef

[EOst]

I hope you're right!

[VAStationDude]

Your brain must have exploded in 08 because you've forgotten the Tea Party movement. They came into being immediately after Obama's election. Trump has called for the use of state sanctioned force against Muslims and other minorities and now he's mad because people are criticising the future president. Obama never used eliminationist rhetoric against pre diabetic white people and he still got the tea baggers.

[Tiller]

Congressman Keith Ellison Wants To Run The DNC

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kei ... 16ef303153

Rep. Keith Ellison, a leading progressive voice in Congress and one of only two Muslim Americans in the House of Representatives, has his eyes on becoming the next chair of the Democratic National Committee.

The Minnesota Democrat has been planning a run for weeks, and has begun informally talking to other party lawmakers and insiders about his prospects for the post, several sources have told The Huffington Post.

The only part I don't like about this idea is I want a full-time chair. What would happen if he vacated his seat?

Edit: Howard Dean is also in the running.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... -dnc-chair

[acs]

It's a safe seat so no loss on the national level. However, it would probably take him away from MN politics and any local races he could influence or run for in the future.

[mister.shoes]

Read this: http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-t ... lks-about/

So, I grew up in the middle-of-nowhere, ND. We weren't a company town so there was no big "factory closed" or other earth-shattering economic upheaval, being close enough to Minot and its Air Force base to be a bedroom community. But while I have little-to-no connections to ND remaining (my parents are now happily in S MPLS and my family is split between MN and MI), I spent enough years there to see how that essay makes a world of sense. Doesn't make me any less pissed off, but yeah, I kinda get it now.