Stick a knife in, we’re done
Harris needs Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and it doesn’t look as if she’s going to get them.
Return of the Toad. I can’t stand it.
Tip Jar
Harris needs Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and it doesn’t look as if she’s going to get them.
Return of the Toad. I can’t stand it.
Georgia has been called for Trump. Iowa & North Carolina seem gone… Alas for the USA & for the world.
Red mirage. Wait till it’s truly over.
I was sick with anxiety all night. I could barely sleep, worrying about the US election result.
“Trump addresses supporters as he stands on cusp of election victory”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/czxrnw5qrprt
To quote the TV show “Community”: [i]”This truly is the Darkest Timeline [/i].
I am re-reading Candide. I recommend it.
I highly recommend the political philosopher and YewChube personality Vlad Vexler, whose short video about the likely election result is just the tip of the iceberg for his gentle even-handedness with regard to the political devolution of the West we are experiencing.
For my part, the best that can happen now is that Europe collectively wakes up and shrugs off the largesse and interests of the American empire — we realise that tying our security, and our deeper democratic philosophy, to the whims of provincial American electors is a great fool’s bargain and that nobody is going to look out for our authentic interests but we ourselves. As a non-resident subject of the American empire, I can only hope this is one more step to our independence.
Best of luck to you who live there, in the meantime.
See you in a couple of months… Gonna be tuning out for a while.
I’m relieved that at least the ambiguity is over. The Beast doth stand before us.
And that my husband and I live in New England.
Trump would hold the record for being the most egotistical president in US history. Accordingly, he plays (‘MAGA’) to the ego of each of his followers; as did Ronald Reagan before him. As I recall the contest the latter had with Walter Mondale in 1984, Reagan played to the voters’ egos, while Mondale played to their consciences, and their sense of justice: a loser’s choice in this day and age.
However, looking on the bright side of the Trump victory, at least he is not likely to get the US into a nuclear exchange with another nuclear power.
It could spoil his hairdo.
Welcome to the Vance era. For those of us who missed out on the ‘30s, here’s our chance.
I’m tempted to take early retirement and move to Europe, but I don’t think things will be much better there.
And then there is this, from Francine Prose, “a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/06/election-anxiety-is-consuming-me-alive
Oh look. Already Roz Kaveney is trying to scapegoat the people who don’t want disabled teenagers filled up with Lupron for Donald Trump’s victory:
The decision of many centrists to play along with transphobia rather than speak out against bigotry and lies is part of how we got here.
Things will not be made better by continuing to throw us to the wolves.
https://x.com/RozKaveney/status/1854093952716095724#m
Such self-obsession!
What a Maroon,
If you honestly feel called to fold yourself into European culture, to live out the struggles and the tribulations of this aging and changing continent, then by all means come. But it will mean you’re joining a society grappling with an identity crises, an economic crisis, a technology and demography and political crisis, all of which are set to make the United States’ issues seem rather trivial.
Europe is not an escape for American disaffected liberals
If you intend to use it that way, please stay home.
Der D.,
My wife is from Spain. We’re planning to retire there some day anyway.
But thanks for the condescension.
Interesting times indeed. I’m going to hold onto hope that the US democracy can withstand the incoming challenge. I lost hope when Hillary was defeated, gained a little back when Trump was defeated, and now I’m just going to be indignant. Let’s just see how much foresight the founding fathers had — I’m counting on much. But how could they have predicted that so many idiots would vote for such a poor representative of the American people? We’ll see. This is merely another setback among many that those of us who have lived for more than half a century have endured. All in all, I’m glad this election cycle is finally over, and we won’t have to worry about Trump after 2028, or Biden, and eventually, this whole miserable era.
Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunh.
I have nothing more cogent than that.
How about this anecdote to illustrate the self-immolation of “snowflake” liberals . . .
I just got out of class where a student told me that “other professors were cancelling classes because of the election results,” presumably so they could wilt and shrivel away in their rooms. The infantilization of America continues. . .
Perhaps the professors were worried about the students’ reactions and discussion of the topic interfering with their teaching?
I feel less bad than I did when DJT won the first time, because this time I expected the result more. Back then, though, I would not have been surprised at people grieving in public ways like calling in “sick”.
I cling to a little hope that the House may not be controlled by Republicans. I’m bothered that the Senate fell. Here in Alabama, we did manage to flip a newly redrawn House district, so now there are two Democrats, both of whom are Black. (There haven’t been two D reps from this state in over a decade, and there have never been two Black reps before.) It’s a rare day when a candidate I support in a contested race in the general election wins, so I take a bit of comfort in that.
Well, this sucks. Two takeaways on voters. Lots of people voted in favour of pro-abortion protections, but for anti-abortion politicians. There are a lot of people out there who really want an incoherent awful man who will enact harmful, racist, misogynistic policies, or who just don’t care.
All we can collectively do is support each other and people in need and use our voice and any power we may have in our own sphere to make the world the place we wish it to be.
Good luck to us all. We’ll likely be better off than many.
I’m probably not going to be around here much for a while. For a long time I’ve realized that following politics is as much a hobby as anything productive, and it’s a hobby that is not bringing me any enjoyment. I’m going to stick my head in the sand for a while and remain as blissfully ignorant as I can of all the outrages to come.
I hope you don’t stay away too long.
I talk about things other than politics sometimes. Also tentatively plan to attempt to ignore him mostly. Possibly will find I can’t stick to it.
I’m determined not to let that silly bastard ruin my day, or any more of them. But hey, we need to know what’s going wrong from here forward. He warrants close attention, which makes me glad I’m not a journalist who’s required to be immersed in it. Someone will have to do it. As for me, I can take it or leave it.
I voted Harris; I’m feeling rather gutted.
Still, the shock this time is less than my shock in ‘16. Yes, on the one hand, Trump is a better known quantity of malignant, narcissistic incompetence and ego. On the other hand, I lived through it once and have devised various coping strategies (hint: they mostly involve thinking about other things and remembering I’m old.)
It also helps that some of the specific liberal issues I care about have surprisingly been better supported by Republicans than Democrats (hint:women’s sex-based rights in Title IX) so I feel like I can move forward with just a little more bipartisan outlook than last time.
Mike B, Mosnae, after the 2016 election, I was teaching a Wednesday evening class. Two of the students (both male; I had few to no females in that class ever) were gloating, and one of them said it was now okay for him to punch his mother in the face when she annoyed him.
What a Maroon,
There was no condescenscion in my initial reply to you, but an honest appeal. The fact that you are married to a Spaniard who saw fit to leave Europe and settle her life in the United States makes little difference. My request was made in all sincerity — if you are willing to participate in Europe, in making its future, in addressing its current problems and in giving your energy to solving them in a way that leaves the greatest good for the greatest number, by all means come. If you are only interested in escaping the duty of living under the political whims of your fellow citizens but otherwise wish to impose your own politics upon Europe, please do not come — we have quite enough Americans here already, along with native Europeans raised on social media who aspire to be Americans.
Europe is not a safety hatch for Americans who fear Republican governance. Europe is its own thing, with its own problems, and its own future. That future has the potential to be excellent. It also has the potential to be far more horrendous than the depths of depravity exposed almost a century ago here. If you are not willing to confront that reality, then please, stay home.
We cannot save you. And if you have no capacity to engage with the very real problems we have, or to build a future with us, you had might as well stay home and try to fix your own problems. That is not condescenscion; it is an honest appeal, which you are free to take or leave.
I love Europe, and I wish it the best. I welcome all comers, from any country or any ethnic or religious group, who do the same. If you do not, if the place i have chosen to live is just a refuge so that you can pantomime some moral superiority to the countrymen who disagree with you, I have absolutely no use for you, and neither do hundreds of millions of my fellow Europeans.
Der D,
I really have no need or desire to justify myself to you, but I will say that I met my wife while I was living in Spain; life’s circumstances led to us living in the US, but it wasn’t a necessary or permanent choice. If we choose to live elsewhere, we have our reasons.
DD, you’re being awfully snide for no obvious reason. Sorry about the surplus of Americans but after all, a lot of Europeans have seen the US as a refuge and acted accordingly. Donald Trump’s grandparents for instance.
Thanks, Ophelia.
Brett Stephens has a pretty good opinion column at NYT discussing why the Democrats did so badly;
A Party of Prigs and Pontificators Suffers a Humiliating Defeat
A few paragraphs:
I thought he made a number of insightful points. I especially liked the observation (not in the quoted section) of the “broad inability of liberals to understand Trump’s political appeal except in terms flattering to their beliefs”; that’s a common issue across the political spectrum, and critical-thinking liberals are not immune.
Another issue where rural people feel imposed upon is wind & solar projects in their area.
I have no reason to think wind power causes cancer, but even if people just regard wind generators as eyesores they should not just be dismissed.
Wind & solar are of limited usefulness because of their part time nature. If you put a lot of them on the grid you need an equal generation capacity in mostly natural gas to turn on during periods of calm & night or cloud. This greatly increases the cost of electricity.
If you really want to cut CO2 emissions build lots of nuclear. This has the advantage of taking up much less land.
Here is some data on opposition to wind & solar projects in the US.
https://robertbryce.com/renewable-rejection-database/
Jim, I think there may be some dispute about that. In Nebraska, for instance, wind farms are popular with the ranchers. They get extra money, and they can still graze their cows around them. There have been some dissenters, yes, but the papers in the state routinely write glowing reviews of the various farmers who love the wind farms, and I have only met one person in all my years as a Nebraskan that complained about wind farms. He was also hooked on nuclear as the only possible viable option.
Nuclear should be part of the solution, but it is not the ONLY answer. There will need to be other answers as well. But putting words into the mouths of farmers who are making money off the wind farms on their property isn’t the answer. I promise you, building nuclear plants in these areas would not be popular. People don’t trust nuclear. Are they wrong? Probably, depending on how we build the plants. But until the nuclear supporters are able to address those fears, building nuclear power plants will not endear you to the local people.
As for the article that Sackbut referenced, yes, I definitely see the point, but…realistically, the exact same could be said for the opposite side. They were also treating it not as a normal political cycle, but the end of the world if their candidate did not win. They were demonizing their opponents as thoroughly as the left. They play identity politics all the time (white males, anyone? Much more ‘identity politics’ than equal rights and opportunities for women, people of color, and immigrants…without removing actual rights from white males, thereby asking only for what is justifiable). That analysis cuts both ways in every single possible way. The idea of trying to force bizarre cultural views on others? Try Christian Dominionism.
The problem isn’t that Democrats didn’t treat him as a normal politician with bad policies; it’s that the media continued to treat him as normal. This is not politics as normal, there is nothing normal about it, and normalizing it is not the answer.
Look around at your neighbors, your colleagues, and tell yourself the truth. There are enough misogynists and racists in that crowd to elect a Trump over a Harris. That’s the truth. It isn’t as simple as that, I know. It goes back a long way, at least as long as Reagan, and maybe as long as Eisenhower, who was the first to let Billy Graham into the oval office. When Reagan killed off the fairness doctrine, a Donald Trump became close to inevitable.
From listening to podcasts by the guy who compiled the data on opposition to wind & solar projects, my impression is that such projects tend to divide communities between those who get paid to put such projects on their land and neighbors who have to put up with what they regard as eyesores & noise pollution with no financial benefit. Put as much salt on that as you want.