I did. I enjoy David Axelrod's analysis. Too bad he kept getting shouted down by John Legend. It shows how the democrats losing the election occurred for many reasons. Also, the complete bewilderment from Hillary's supporters about how she could possibly lose the election is actually a symptom of the problematic mentality of the left. Yes, there are racists and sexists and all the other -ists out there. Trump just pandered exactly where he needed to and they ate it up. The democrats were just so concerned with their name calling of these people they don't like or respect that they just assumed they had the win. Also, people weren't inspired to vote for Hillary. She just had less votes for her in the states where she needed it.
He had some interesting things to say, for sure. I was actually impressed by Bill's general response to Trump being elected... fairly pragmatic.
Bill is not a dumb guy. He criticizes liberals almost as often as conservatives. He knows the faults of both sides.
I came across this article today. I think it's an interesting perspective on how we sometimes don't take seriously enough the ramifications of political policies and some good commentary on Hollywood's role in left wing politics adding another layer of pretentiousness making the rest of America not give a shit. http://thebaffler.com/blog/crash-po...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
I do wonder, in light of the protests (a few bad apples) and the clear surprise and hurt feelings after the election, how we address the media problem we have in this country. The media will grasp at anything that remotely sounds scandalous and take sound bites out of context as well as mixing in some solid reporting around their editorials. Is Trump a great guy? Hell no but he's not as bad as he was represented in the media. He has women working in high levels of his company, his campaign manager was female, he's done work in inner cities and probably isn't as racist, misogynist as some think. He probably is as narcissistic but at that level of success it might be hard not to be. On the other side Obama wasn't the devil and our country survived and while racism is a much larger hotter issue now than it was before he was president I don't think history will judge him all that harshly. Hillary isn't the devil and had she won the country would have survived. Personally I think Trump has a shot to not suck. From what I've read (I can't remember where and I wish I had links to back up my thoughts) he may be socially more liberal than Hillary. Combine that with what I hope is fiscal conservatism (I really really hope) and he may do better than many think. Hell, he's going to be president so we all have to hope just like we did with Obama. At any rate, my main point is I think we need to force the media to be more responsible with their reporting. The difference in what you hear switching between channels and all of the doomsday predictions from both sides are not helping the state of the country. How we do any of this other than not tuning in I don't know.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-...t-promoses-rededicate-itself-honest-reporting I couldn't find the original NY Times article the other day but the NY Times promises to rededicate itself to honest reporting without favoritism. For them to admit it is a problem is a big first step. I guess they kind of have to at this point, their reporting has fully blown up in their faces with this election. Hopefully other news agencies start trying reporting just the facts. Have an editorial section, that is fine but don't editorialize actual events and call it news.
For the first time I got severely pissed at him, and almost quit watching his show. He tore Assange new asshole on a satellite interview for the Hillary leaks basically saying "You realize if you make Hillary look bad Trump could win, right?" Usually he lets guests speak for themselves, this time he was all offence with his audience cheering everything he said. Ok but....what the fuck ever, Bill. If it happened, it fucking happened regardless of who's team looks like the asshole. It was the most bias and ignorant thing I've ever seen him do on that show.
This is the part I'm not buying. The entire world is bewildered. If Hillary had gone up against say Romney, I would expect her to get thoroughly smoked. Even against Rubio I wouldn't have given her good odds. But against Trump? He's literally still in the negatives of "days in office" and it's already the disaster that most people saw from a mile away. Voting for him was an utterly bewildering act.
I guess what I meant is how a lot of people on the left can't possibly understand how or why someone else might not be on board with the same cultural and moral positions they hold. Yes, I know Trump is a ridiculous choice for president. I didn't vote for him. Most people across the country fall into a sort of identity politics mentality. Always will vote red or blue no matter who is running. In this election, a few things happened. We had two awful candidates that inspired less people to go to the polls. Democrats are far more likely to stay home and not vote if they aren't sufficiently woo'd. Specifically in the African American community. Republicans tend to fall in line no matter what and vote down the party ticket. Also, republicans that I know in my personal life tend to harbor a lot more day-to-day anger than others. The other part is that Hillary lost the rust belt because she took them for granted when Trump did not. I agree that if someone votes for Trump, they had to, at the very least, passively agree with the shit he said and did. That is not ok. But they feel he will help them get jobs back that won't ever come back. So they voted for the guy who they perceived to give a shit. He doesn't and they will soon see how they got duped.
Here's the thing. Where's the line? Where does Joe Average American Republican raise his head up and say, "whoa. Hold on. This isn't what I signed on for..."? Because right now I'm not seeing much of any boundaries.
We'll see about that one. Then again, technically he'll be the first president to support gay marriage as of his inauguration date.
I'm not sure there is a line at this point. I didn't vote for him because he terrified me with the way her garnered support. His platform of saying he will fix everything singlehandedly and bring America back to its "former greatness" is out of Hitler's playbook. And I HATE when people liken anyone to Hitler. But its just there. I've been trying to so hard to put myself in a Trump supporter's shoes. In good faith trying to figure out what the appeal is without trying to just write them off as racist. And I'm having trouble. He has made himself out to be some savior of the working class. Those jobs aren't ever coming back.
I don't know how the argument could possibly be made that he's more socially liberal than Hillary. I know there was the idea that he was the most socially liberal of the Republican candidates, which I never really bought but could understand that perception when the other options were representatives of the far Religious Right, Kasich and his marvelous track record on abortion, and Carly "no really guys, this Planned Parenthood selling baby parts racket is totes a thing" Fiorina. But Trump squashed even the shimmer of hope when he picked Pence as his running mate, and he's continuing to crush that by choosing an anti-Semitic anti-woman white nationalist as one of his top advisors, having a transition team chock full of anti-LGBT people who believe (among other things) that homosexuality is just a "compulsion" that can be repressed, tossing out cabinet options that include a guy who's convinced BLM is going to team up with ISIS to take down the country and a guy who thought the NAACP was unamerican and communist-inspired and Joe Arpaio who has so many anti-liberal social views and actions under his belt that I couldn't pick which one to summarize him with (among other great candidates), and having a list of Supreme Court nominations that are passionately anti-every socially liberal decision the Court has ever made. And that's not including the issues that I don't really know if they count as social issues, like climate change - which he believes is a Chinese hoax and is stocking his team with people who don't believe in it, including lobbyists for oil and energy companies in the cabinet positions that are meant to protect the environment, education, and whether or not you're generally pro or anti war (he's considering one of the main architects for the Iraq War that he was so against for Secretary of State). So, sure, I was a little comforted by his comment about gay marriage I guess, but when actions say so much than words those words don't mean shit, especially when I'm looking at him as a Bush-esque malleable idiot where the people underneath him will really be running the show. In the past day or two I've come very close to almost feeling bad for the Trump supporters that voted for him for any other reasons besides the white nationalist ones, because those white nationalists are the only people he's been keeping his promises to. Some of that backpedaling has been okay for me (I'm not AS completely scared of losing my insurance as I was last week, for example), but most of it is still just bad for everyone. Like, I spent the past year and a half being enraged at them for falling for what the world's most obvious conman was selling them, but lately I've been thinking how now not only are things going to be shitty for them too but they're also going to realize (one hopes) that they were played for a fool. To be clear, I'm talking about the people who somehow thought he was going to be better for the white working class. I still don't feel bad whatsoever for the people who just wanted to be anti-establishment. I had a nice little laugh at their expense when I saw the justification his transition team was putting forth for why his team and potential future cabinet is completely full of career politicians, lobbyists, donors, and Wall Street reps. "Oh yeah we're still going to drain the swamp, that'll happen one day. But you need people from the swamp to be in charge while we figure out how to do that and they're the only people available to hire anyway. Then later on we'll replace ourselves with [???]" Sure, friends. Sure.
I don't think Trump is a Hitler, or liable to become one, but I do think that the America that voted for Trump on Tuesday would vote for a Hitler in a heartbeat. In a way we got lucky; if the ignorance and malice we saw exploited on Tuesday had been for the benefit of someone with a real ambition to seize control, we might never have gotten a chance to learn from the mistake. Instead we were duped by a fairly garden variety conman.
Probably one of the best things to come out of this election was the subreddit /r/bidenbro https://www.reddit.com/r/bidenbro/top/ It is fucking hilarious. If you need a politically-themed laugh break, it's worth a look.
The Onion has made Biden into an amazing character over the last eight years: http://www.theonion.com/article/biden-worries-legalized-weed-in-dc-will-cut-into-h-38210 http://www.theonion.com/article/biden-tossed-out-of-car-passing-by-white-house-37494 http://www.theonion.com/article/biden-frantically-hitting-up-cabinet-members-for-c-34515 http://www.theonion.com/article/nude-biden-wakes-up-on-cold-slab-in-dc-morgue-34243 http://www.theonion.com/video/obama-issues-presidential-pardon-to-get-biden-out--31560 http://www.theonion.com/article/biden-says-life-better-than-it-was-4-years-ago-but-29477
None of the people that I know that admitted they were voting Trump, or that I suspect did, were absolutely voting against Clinton rather than for Trump. If Hitler were running against Hillary, you're probably right.
In fairness, Hitler BEFORE the holocaust might not have seemed like a such a bad deal to a country full of Germans feeling the hurt after a lost war.