What a got damn shitshow. [warning politics]

[PonoBill]

I woke up at about 3:00 AM this morning thinking about the democrats in relation to some of the books I'm reading (mostly politics and history, with a little civics tossed in). I think the democrats are the victims of their own success--as translated to a foolish hubris that suggests political incompetence. They moved steadily closer to absolute inside baseball, paying attention only to party interests and the concerns/interests of the political elite inside the party.

In discarding candidates with greater popular appeal and less baggage in favor of an insider that already had promises and rewards in place for the elite, they ignored the simple fact that the US has a relatively large number of influential electors--both particularly powerful voting blocks in specific areas, and in the way the electoral college is now forced to follow the voting in specific states. Interestingly enough, this tampering with the electoral college is largely an artifact of the democratic party. Even with this gerrymandered structure, and in part because of it, Selecting a candidate that couldn't attract more than a handful of people to a rally is hard to overcome.

Having a large number of influential electors means the will of the elite doesn't come into play until after the election when the new president assembles their own particular supportive elite. No wonder they howled when they lost. If nothing else, the break from the current elite will be hard for them to mend. If the democrats want to reestablish relevance, they'll need to play the game differently. That means pitching out a lot of the old players. A lot of the old guard won't survive being out of power for however long this administration lasts.

It's a strange time in history. This same story is playing out with different flavors in a lot of places simultaneously. The Western version of the Arab Spring.

[stoneaxe]

I've felt terribly sad for my sister the last couple of months. She lost her son in a tragic accident and she has gone a little over the edge in her grief. She's almost more of what she already was...digging deeper into her core.

I can understand that behavior in response to such severe grief. I feel like I'm seeing similar over the edge behavior in liberals though and the hypocrisy is just getting annoying at this point. I've typically seen the far left and far right as equally hypocritical. The far left has gone bonkers now though.

[johnysmoke]

Demagogue with a clown car cabinet. Clinton totally sucks, but Trump just scares the shit out of me with his crazy. The guy is going to start ww3 tweeting from his crapper at 3 in the morning. If I was in my mid twenties I'd enjoy the chaos, but having a three year old son I'm more interested in a stable future. Also a clean and healthy environment would be great as well.
I'd be fine with a real Republican in the office, a McCain or Romney or Kasich, but Trump is like a devil in wolf's clothing that skull fucked as many sheep as possible just for laughs and is now wearing their skins around while their hearts are still beating with a necklace of eyeballs to top it all off.
I dislike/distrust Manhattanites and rich kids, and the combination thereof sticks with me even more. If he was a bring himself up by the bootstraps type of guy I'd feel better about him being a great business man who hasn't filed for bankruptcy 8 times, but seems to me he's a country club type rich kid who's probably hiding something, otherwise he wouldn't be lying about his taxes.
Hopefully I'm wrong, hopefully he'll be a great president, and stop sending stupid tweets in the wee hours of the morning, or stop stirring up sentiments of hate towards certain segments of the population, my people didn't roll off any Mayflower, and I'll assume the same about the rest of you mongrels. And I'm not paying for any fucking wall. But yeah, hopefully it's all been blurred by the press and intelligence agencies, and he'll be a great and effective leader, get the country out of debt and not screw things up too much. A year from now I'm sure we'll have a pretty good bead on which way we're headed.

[stoneaxe]

Poetic post Johnny....he scares me too. Here's to hoping we haven't thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

[outcast]

Will there still be waves after the Portal opens, and the Swamp starts to Drain   (Saturday?)

[mjb1959]

I'd be fine with a real Republican in the office, a McCain or Romney or Kasich, but Trump is like a devil in wolf's clothing that skull fucked as many sheep as possible just for laughs and is now wearing their skins around while their hearts are still beating with a necklace of eyeballs to top it all off.

these 3 are really not republicans in spirit, Kasich is truly democrat lite..
that is why we conservatives have been frustrated and losing elections...

[SUPcheat]

It's gettin' real tomorrow!  Still some open flights to Canada.

[IRideYellow]

Here are some of his biographers read on this nut job.  Comes down to lying, begging for attention and revenge (my TL;DR).  I just dont think he will get anything done.  That requires a bit of interest in the job of running the country and I just don't see that in him.   

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/trump-biographers-presidency-legitimate-214655

[SUPcheat]

Maybe it will be a good illustration of how the government manages to keep functioning IN SPITE of the President.

[johnysmoke]

Well apparently qclimate change is no longer a problem. https://www.whitehouse.gov/energy/climate-change

[SUP Leave]

Well I will say one thing about that inauguration address - it was wholly expected and unexpected all at once.

I mean, anyone who has watched any politics generally expects some graciousness and maybe a bit of reach across the aisle at a pristine moment like this. But we did not get that. Hell, TD took shots at every politician on the hill (his own side included). His speech was the exact same stuff he said in his campaign. Except now he has the power to do some of those things.

The speech itself has hyuuuge policy holes in it. One main point "we will give the power of DC back to you the people" okay great, that is a conservative principal, let the government be just big enough to run the country and not big enough to run my life. Perfect, however: The next main point "we are going to build railroads, bridges, freeways, interfere in trade, interfere with corporations, give everybody healthcare, get you a job" is in direct conflict with the first point. Not a conservative principle at all. That's Bernie Sanders stuff. So it was a great populist speech but not conservative. I didn't like it.

My 13 y.o. daughter attended the inaugural. She is there with a school group and they got their inauguration tickets upgraded by a Senator, so she could see things pretty well (front row of the standing people). She is getting a great experience this week, they are at the African American History Museum now, but have done a lot of things. On Wednesday she got to lay a wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldier. Today she has gotten to see some protesting, and other chicanery that has made things exciting for them. I can't wait to talk to her tonight.

[digger71]

In what is a snapshot of the way DJT operates, the POTUS twitter account transferred to Trump this AM.  The header image was changed to a photo of the inauguration...except it was actually Obama's 2009 inauguration.  And since it was a Getty image it was cropped just enough to eliminate the watermark.

Seems to fit the definition of propaganda pretty well, and not paying for it is quintessential Trump.

[stoneaxe]

Seriously? Some web/graphics work done by a low level staffer is propaganda created by and not paid for by Trump? You really think that is indicative of how Trump operates? He is certainly a sleazebag in many ways but pointing at something like that as a reflection on him....silly. We definitely should have elected Hillary then...her IT skills (not to mention her morals) are so much better....

[digger71]

Always the intern/low level staffer to blame.  Not saying DJT picked the image himself, but rather that this is indicative of the culture of his organization. And it certainly isn't the first time the Trump team has used an image in a misleading way to promote him.

And why are we talking about Hilary?  I thought she lost??

[johnysmoke]

They had to use a picture lifted from a previous Obama event to make it look like there's a bigger crowd then there actually is. Low numbers according to my wife's friends on the ground in DC.