A Black Comedy of Errors

[MineralMan]

We're in for it, now and for the near future. We left both houses of Congress in the hands of Republicans. We elected a mindless narcissistic asshole as President and a slimy, poisonous salamander as VP. We can see that clearly and there's not much we can do about it now. How it happened is no longer the point, really. Not enough people voted for our candidate, for whatever reason. And there you have it. We're not going to reverse the election. That's not going to happen.

It's going to be ugly, whatever happens down the road. We will be governed by no-nothings and unscrupulous old men who want to return to a time that never actually existed in the past. None of those people who won this year gives a good goddamn about the people who will suffer from their bad decisions. As far as our new leadership is concerned, they can just die, and good riddance to them. Their health care options will be gone and there aren't going to be those "jobs" candidates promised.

It's a cosmically bad joke that we played on ourselves. For a lot of people, not much will change. They have all sorts of privilege, due to race, age, gender, sexual orientation and other factors. They won't be fatally injured by the rolling disaster that will be Trump's legacy. For the rest of America, it's going to be a bad, bad time, and many actually will die due to program cuts, emboldened bigots, racists and misogynists. But nobody in this new government will give a single crap about the harm they cause.

Will we learn from this? Who knows? We should have foreseen it and swept Hillary Clinton into office and gotten the Senate back. But, we did not do that. We didn't vote, or we skipped the Presidential race, or we voted for some phony alternative candidate. At least some of us did those things. Enough did those things to make Trump's win possible. And now we will pay for our folly. It's a big, awful joke.

I'm not laughing, though. I don't laugh at misfortune and malfeasance. I'm old, now, and realize that I have zero clout. I won't be laughing at what is about to happen. I'll simply be depressed, but I'll try to do what I can to help those who are harmed. I don't know how effective I'll be, but I'll try. As long as I'm here and able to, anyhow.

This is a black comedy. Some, indeed, will be laughing. Their maniacal laughter may be the crowning blow that this election has dealt to us. I'm pissed. I'm tired. I'm saddened. I wish us all luck. I wish this planet luck. I wish for everyone who is young to wake up and get smart really quickly. That might save things. I don't know.

Sorry to be a downer on this Sunday morning, but that's my opinion.

Thanks for reading it.

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. Not a downer - realistic. My mood hasn't improved since election night.

You, and many others here, have put into words how many of us are feeling. I actually think that this is indeed the beginning of a very dark period - so many (the media, many of my friends) see politics as just a reality show - and that either they are beyond impact, or "things will be OK if we don't talk about it". I fear we are well beyond that. It really is dire.

Obama staying involved (as stated in a few posts here) is good news. We need others to step up. We've not heard a thing from Jimmy Carter - that is troubling to me, because he exudes such wisdom in times like this.

What I fear is that if the media continues to treat this as if it is entertainment - as if it is something that doesn't impact them, and their lives - and start being an advocate for truth - and what is right - we are doubly screwed.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Never give up.

If you want to do something locally, here's a place to start: https://www.facebook.com/events/616851611833413/

[MineralMan]

3. Sorry, but I'm not interested in any sort of marginal splinter movement

stuff. That's not going to help us win, despite its good intentions, of which I have no doubt.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. It's not "marginal" or "splinter."

It's growing every day and is looking for ways to reform the Democratic Party, which is an ineffective hot mess right now. I know someone who has become involved in this group (who is not in any respect a disgruntled BernieBro but is someone who has been active in local DFL stuff for years), and he reported that he's extremely impressed with the level of organization and the enthusiasm of its participants. If you want to sit home and fret and wait for some organization to come along that meets your high standards of non-fringiness, feel free; but it won't be the Minnesota DFL in its current condition - let along the national party, which has again proved itself to be an insulated, bloated organization whose purpose is mainly to raise money that it can't figure out how to spend effectively.

I'm getting to work.

[MineralMan]

5. To tell you the truth, I'm dropping out of organized

party activities altogether. At age 71, I'm going to focus on work and other activities from now on. I'll continue to write about political matters, and will remain active in some political venues, but I'm not going to become further involved in organized groups. This election year convinced me that splitting is not going to result in any progressive success. This year, splitting cost us a presidential election and worsened our position in Congress. I watched it happen in horror, frankly.

It is impossible to reform the Democratic Party by forming separate groups, whether you consider them splinter groups or not. All that will do is further cause the Party to lose effectiveness, and will not create any sort of new direction for anyone other than those involved with the various separate groups.

I look at DU and JPR this year as a similar exercise in splitting. JPR is already splitting into further fragments as I write. Such is what happens. It united against Hillary Clinton, but once that was over, it has no core, and is rapidly devolving into bickering and disputes.

I've been there and have done that already in my political life. Similar splitting happened in the late 1960s and led to a horrible period in this country, to be quite frank. It gave us Nixon, Reagan and Bush. On a national level, the only pattern for success is melding and amalgamation. In 2016, splitting resulted in a devastating loss. I won't participate in splitting further. National and even state politics are a matter of groups coming together, despite differences, not the opposite. Work toward the better, always, not the perfect. There is no perfect in a nation of 315 million people.

So, you go right ahead and do as you think best. I will do the same. But, I'm dropping out of political evangelism of any kind. It's a losing proposition. This election is over, and I'm not going to dissect it any further. We lost. We should not have lost. We will be paying a heavy, heavy price for our loss. How heavy I'm not certain, but we have marginalized ourselves for the next four years, at least, and maybe longer, if the Republicans can force through changes that make it even more difficult to move progressively.

By the next presidential election, I will be completely out of politics, really, except to vote. I'm out of energy, out of time, and completely out of enthusiasm for the bickering and ill-humor of today's Democratic movement. I'm too damned old to play games with politics.

We lost. We will have a very, very hard time winning for some considerable time. We made our separate beds and will have to sleep in them until we figure out why that happened and correct it. The people who voted for Hillary Clinton outnumber those who did not by a very, very large margin. We might have won, but we did not. Splitting was the reason.

Now, we will have a very ugly Republican administration. It will try its hardest to make it almost impossible for Democrats and progressives to recover. If I do anything at all, it will be to try to undermine those efforts. I'll leave it to you and others to figure out how to create a majority for the next election.

[gulliver]

6. If you look back at history, this crap really is kind of normal.

That includes the jeopardy to the human race itself. "President Trump" is well within the known envelope of human folly. I'm not telling you anything new there, I know.

I think there is some comfort to be found in knowing that by living through crazy times, we can feel closer to others who lived through crazy times in the past and who are living through crazy times now. Trump has already given the world a huge dose of perspective.

I voted against his ass by the way. I wanted uninteresting times, but I got these.

[MineralMan]

7. I know. I spent most of my adult life with Nixon, Reagan and Bushes.

I am no longer interested in more of that, but it looks like I'll be spending the latter years of my life with Republicans in charge. I'm not seeing any movement to pull everything together on the leftish side of the political spectrum. Just the opposite, in fact. I'm seeing the same kind of splitting I saw in the late 60s. That didn't work, either. It won't work now.

I'm sorry to say that. More sorry than you know.

[LeftInTX]

8. I was only 12 in 1968, so all I've ever known in splitting in the Dem party.

(I don't count 1960 and 64 cuz I was too young to pay attention to inter-party issues)

1968 was a clusterfuck. Some of it beyond our control. Johnson didn't run. Bobby was killed. There was the Eugene McCarthy/Humphrey mess.

The Republican party was split as hell this year and they won.

[MineralMan]

9. The Republican Party had one principal candidate.

Our Party had two, despite the results of the primaries. A significant number of those who supported the primary candidate who did not become the nominee split off. Just enough to kill Hillary Clinton's campaign chances. I thought she'd pull it out anyhow, but it didn't happen, to the surprise of very many people.

Now, it looks like we're going to split even further after a close loss. That's the wrong move, but I can't do anything about that, any more than I could in 1968. Back then, I was a young guy of 23 years of age. Now, I'm 71, and tired and no more effective than I was then. I knew we'd lose in 1968. It was obvious. We have not yet recovered, but we're now in a race to divide the Democrats into splinter groups.

Feh! That is always our fatal flaw, really. In splitting, we lose a large set of people in the middle of the political spectrum. They vote, and they vote in massive numbers, actually. They make up the vast majority of total votes, and lean one way and then in another. And that is the story of our national politics.

Lean to the Left. Lean to the Right. Stand up. Sit down. Fight! Fight! Fight!

It's all about the mass of people in the center. We either get them or the other side does. This time, the other side did, and it doesn't look like we really understand that, even now. More's the pity.

[LeftInTX]

12. I hear you.

It was a close loss and it would be a mistake to throw out the baby with the bath water. I think some tweaking is needed, but that is about all.

Revolutions and all of that will only alienate us from the middle of the political spectrum.

I supported Hillary, although I voted for Bernie in the primary. I feel Clinton made some campaign mistakes. I also feel, that although she was an excellent candidate, in terms of policies, she didn't connect with enough voters in an emotional level. Her policies were great and I wouldn't change any of that.

Wikileaks and Comey didn't help. The media didn't help either.

[LeftInTX]

10. But, the difference between then and now

1968 got us Nixon, but I think the House and Senate were Dem.
Dems were much more prevalent in state govts.

Now it seems like Republicans are cockroaches. They are everywhere. Even if you get rid of one(vote one out) there are a million more hiding in the walls. I've never won the war on cockroaches.

[MineralMan]

11. The Republicans figured out basic populism as a strategy.

They finally understood that appealing to the under-educated masses was how they could win consistently, both in state and federal elections. In more local elections, too.

We think we appeal to the underpaid, underprivileged and underappreciated, simply because we want to do the right thing for them. We fail because our goals are too complex. The Republicans appeal to their prejudices and fears and feed them slogans. Shit! Everyone wants "America to be Great Again!" Who cares what that slogan means. It has appeal. "Stronger Together" is a weak slogan.

Populism.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

13. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," said Edmund Burke

a long time ago. If you want to hide out and watch the coming shitstorm from the comfort of your living room, go for it. There will be plenty of those good Germans who'll be doing the same thing, but if the last six decades or so have taught me anything (and I, too, was around for the shitstorms of the 60s), it's that it's never over. It's never fixed so that we can just progress to our eventual happy utopia, singing Kumbaya all the way. It's never been like that. You have to keep fighting the shit, over and over and over because the shit never ends. I prefer not to bend over and take it this time, either, old as I am.

One specific thing that is becoming clear as gin is the fact that the Democratic Party fucked up, bigly. Hillary should have won that election in a walk. Why didn't she? There are many reasons that congealed into a perfect storm, and all of them have to be looked at with a cold, objective eye, even if some possibilities might offend some people. What were the problems? The candidate; the candidate's baggage, whether real or contrived by the right wing; sexism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia - all these prejudices bubbling closer to the surface since the election of the first black president; the lazy, clueless, corrupt media; voter suppression in some states; Comey; the Russian hacks; the failure of the campaign to recognize a whole lot of things that Trump was able to capitalize on; the failure to read the mood of the electorate in some areas; the failure to go into some states that could have been won? Why was the campaign caught flat-footed? Why does the DNC keep losing when it should be winning? All of these are fair questions. Is anybody going to ask them, and is anybody going to come up with honest answers?

Which takes me back to my original point: People are trying to organize, not to splinter the party but to clean it up, get rid of the overpaid consultants who clearly have no idea what they're doing, and figure out how to communicate with the voters, not just the big-money donors. Some will demonstrate. I'm not a big fan of demonstrations unless they are focused and so large that the media can't ignore them, but I participated in a few back then, and I know they can easily go out of control. During the '60s and '70s, there was often a certain amount of violence at some demonstrations - Chicago, '68 comes to mind - and this will certainly happen again. It could get bad, as during the civil rights movement, and later, Kent State. People got killed, and I expect that will happen again. Our government, such as it will be, is likely to try to suppress expressions of dissent, but we know what happens when governments step on the necks of the people for too long, too hard. I don't advocate violence at all, but it will happen, just as it did in the past.

But we can't give up. Those good Germans, not wanting to make trouble, gave up, and their country was nearly destroyed. At the risk of violating Godwin's law, I am going to mention the name of Hitler. Trump is not Hitler. But it should be borne in mind that Hitler wasn't Hitler either, until he was. Hitler had help, too; and some of that help came from people who didn't try hard enough to stop him. We have to stop Trump.

[Martin Eden]

14. "everyone who is young to wake up and get smart really quickly"

In YOUTH lies HOPE.