We could’ve avoided President Donald Trump. Now, we must learn the lessons

[Karl Frederick]

Rebecca Solnit describes the situation we're in, in this article at theguardian.com, and enumerates several of the opportunities we had to avoid the future we're living out:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/20/president-trump-learn-lessons-republican

[Valley Oak]

Rebecca Solnit describes the situation we're in, in this article at theguardian.com, and enumerates several of the opportunities we had to avoid the future we're living out:
We could’ve avoided President Donald Trump. Now, we must learn the lessons (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/20/president-trump-learn-lessons-republican)
For the most part a good article but I really take issue with the implied falsehood that Bernie and his supporters undermined in any way the election of Hillary Clinton. This is not only untrue but it is grossly inappropriate for several reasons.

For starters, the Electoral College elected Drumpf, not the American people. Clinton won almost 3 million more popular votes than did that fascist currently occupying and smelling up the White House.

The media is largely in the hands of the Right Wing. There is not only fascist Fox News but also the timid and spineless outlets such as MSNBC, CNN, and others. Furthermore, there are the countless echo chambers and extremists such as Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and others. There is also an enormous number of Youtube channels, for example, that spew out reactionary poison everyday with little or no factual information, which has been twisted and tweaked beyond recognition of anything remotely resembling the truth.

There are many actors such as, rural America, most religious organizations (churches and their followers), very wealthy families such as, the Mercers, Betsy DeVos (who is a billionaire religious fanatic and is now our nation's "Education" Secretary. Etc, etc, etc.

The Republican Party employed thousands of Internet trolls to delegitimize Clinton as a viable candidate). Not only did the Russians help with their hackers, but also private individuals and conservative organizations activated people to infect social media with fake news and trash-talking Clinton. The Republican Party did not directly hire their army of online hacks but many wealthy and powerful entities and individuals did that dirty work in order to help elect Trump.

To put ANY blame whatsoever on Bernie voters or Sanders himself is vile and pathetic, to say the least. The only thing Bernie Sanders and his supporters did was use their democratic and constitutional right to run for office and try to implement truly progressive public policies.

If we want to look at who to blame, in my opinion, it is the undemocratic and broken election system of the Electoral College and, ultimately, the American people themselves because almost 50% voted for that nightmare scumbag, Trump. Trump merely reflects the filthy soul of half of the American people who voted for him.

[phredo]

I agree with you, Edward, about Bernie. But I take issue with a) the Russian hack (a liberal fantasy) and b) the idea that the people who voted for Trump have "filthy soul[s]". That's the kind of thinking, IMHO, that will insure that liberals continue to lose; that is, their inability to see that the loss was due to their support for a candidate and system that left half of the country to rot.

[podfish]

I agree with you, Edward, about Bernie. But I take issue with a) the Russian hack (a liberal fantasy) and b) the idea that the people who voted for Trump have "filthy soul[s]". That's the kind of thinking, IMHO, that will insure that liberals continue to lose; that is, their inability to see that the loss was due to their support for a candidate and system that left half of the country to rot.He said "half the people who voted for him". The deplorable half. Not all of them.

I wouldn't go so far as claiming they have filthy souls - but they've proven that they don't have too many qualms about causing harm to large groups of people. That's selfishness and lack of empathy. In a purportedly christian nation, that seems weird to me. There's a strong streak of "hey, they deserve it. I don't" in the thinking of pretty much any Trump voter I've encountered in person or online. That's true of even those who think they're really nice - they still don't extend empathy to others they find unworthy. So their souls may not be filthy, but maybe they're a bit grubby...

[wisewomn]

A little clarification, Edward.

Fewer than half the eligible voters voted in the last election. Of that half, less than half voted for Trump, so in reality less than 25% of eligible voters voted for Trump and many of those voters were voting against Clinton.

So it's not as bleak as some would have us believe. We are the majority opinion in this country. Hold that thought.


...If we want to look at who to blame, in my opinion, it is the undemocratic and broken election system of the Electoral College and, ultimately, the American people themselves because almost 50% voted for that nightmare scumbag, Trump. Trump merely reflects the filthy soul of half of the American people who voted for him.

[podfish]

... it's not as bleak as some would have us believe. We are the majority opinion in this country. Hold that thought.I find it useful to contrast with the 60s. The 'silent majority' were then in fact a majority, and that group was the one resistant to what we now think of as progressive values. A lot changed for the better anyway. Now the progressives are indeed the majority. That should bode well for the future despite the occasional backsliding.

[Icssoma]

Thought this was an excellent article. thank you for posting. said these things during the election, & after. nothing to disagree with.
perhaps bernie supporters, obsessed, "do protest too much."
sara silverman reached out & begged you to switch courses during the convention.
people on wacco continued on rant & rave--what a luxury!. ( the need to stay w. bernie, and the continued attacks on hillary, set the framework. trump, his team, & the russians got exactly what they wanted).
people who were part of the 3rd party strategy were warned as well.
people have been talking about the popular vote...what if it was 4 million or more?
in the 70's one of the best strategies was to "divide and conquer".
it worked well in this election.
wacco was not the only place where this played out, but it was significant for me, as a resident of west county.
people who didn't understand super delegates, & wanted to whine/fuss/complain, missed the big picture.
npr was no help.
i talked w. my friends who were clinton supporters, & we said during the anti-clinton coverage..."do we really like her". [we did/we do, the media barrage was so negative, & that of our bernie friends, it was very hard to explain here (on wacco) to npr, that we admired her.]
i acknowledged that here, & posted several times. actually talked about how difficult & painful it was to be a hillary supporter in west co.
believe, obama was concerned about his legacy, & was gutless. he could have talked about the fbi big time.
when i posted about Karl Rove pouring millions into Bernie's pact last january, & paid for hillary attack ads, that was major.
if you don't take responsibility for "feeling the burn" during the convention, & not supporting hillary full force during and afterwards, then you are playing the blame game. (as a clinton supporter during obama's run, i was upset & hurt. i knew it was important to do everything i could do to work for obama's election.)
his win was easier. it happens almost every 8 years there is a regime change.
now we are looking at how much damage can be done to the environment, to the peace movement, to people who have little or no power.
there is plenty of "blame" to go around.
i believe voting for 3rd party candidates, is unsafe, if the election is unsafe,, no matter the state. when comey came out with his fbi announcement, it was unsafe.
did the fbi & russian hacking turn the corner? absolutely.
did our media fail us, yes.
what were you doing about the presidential election at that time.
i still "feel the burn". am angry at npr, & frustrated with all who stayed with "ideals" that required plans for implementation that were backed by fantasy. (the college plan, problematic unto itself, was proposed by a 5+% growth--not heard of or seen for more than 20 years).
republican leadership/strategists are cut throat.
demos eat there own kind. (will rogers from the 30's "I am not a member of an organized political party. I am a Democrat). time to stop eating our young.
these are lessons that many of us have lived again & again, or read about.
if you didn't work for hillary, when she was the candidate, then you worked against her.
if you don't see this, how will young people see this. (i learned this during the '68 election as a mc carthy supporter).
i don't know if we can fight the "brave new ugly donald world" with denying our roles.
we need to understand each of our part (i should have written & called npr), & move on to fight.
let's acknowledge our part, & move forward.
we now have a "muslim ban", & the appointment of Tillerson.
NSA advisor Mike Flynn has put Iran on notice, & warned of new U.S. sanctions following the country's weekend ballistic missile test.
We need to fight jeff sessions, Feinstein is working hard here. what we don't need now is a "law & order candidate" (translates: hard-line stances on immigration, terrorism, crime, drugs and guns. he could wipe away progress in civil rights, changes in sentencing and police accountability.).
lucky we live in west county, where we can find beauty to help us get through this era.

[Shepherd]

Thought this was an excellent article. thank you for posting. said these things during the election, & after. nothing to disagree with.
perhaps bernie supporters, obsessed, "do protest too much."...
"Protest too much." I don't think we protest enough. I was a Bernie supporter and feel that he may even have won, because he could have gotten some of the Trump populist voice. But here we are, experiencing the biggest uprising in the U.S. since the War of Independence and the Civil War. At 72-years-old, I was active in the 60s in both the civil rights and peace movements. We have the opportunity to do even more now, unless we try not to "protest too much."

Ranting and raving are not "a luxury." They are essential to safe-guarding our hard-earned freedoms. Now we have someone blaming we Bernie supporters for electing Trump. Give me a break.

[phredo]

Too bad so many Clinton supporters wasted their votes on their flawed candidate, especially when they had such an opportunity to adjust their course after the Wikileaks releases showed her character and tactics more clearly. Hope we all show more wisdom four years from now. :2cents:

[wisewomn]

I understand your frustration, Iccsoma, but balk at your finger-wagging at Bernie supporters--of which I was one. I did vote, reluctantly, for Clinton in the main election, even though I believed that things would continue to deteriorate under her administration, just at a slower rate than is happening with Trump. IMO Clinton is a hack and in thrall to the same corporations and banks, etc. as most of our current government.

Poll after poll showed that Sanders had a better chance of beating Trump than Clinton did, but the Democratic Establishment wanted Clinton (because they are also in thrall to the same powers that be) and cheated her way to the nomination.

The Democrats went belly-up during the Reagan Administration and have not represented average Americans in years. They've just kept the rhetoric and have been running on fumes since then. Too many people believed for years that the Democratic candidates for President were the lesser of two evils and voted for them despite serious reservations, myself included. In fact, the Democratic candidates were just the slower of two evils.

I could as easily wag my finger at the Clinton supporters and even the people who believed in Bernie but who thought Clinton had the best chance of winning, "deserved" to win the nomination, had the most experience, would be the first female President, etc. ad nauseum. If all of them had voted for Sanders instead of Clinton in the primaries, we very likely would not be looking in horror at Trump now, and many positive changes would be in the air.
But all that is fruitless and behind us now.

Trump's great gift to us all is that he has "awakened" and galvanized a great many people who were previously uninterested in politics and disengaged. The Repugs continue to shoot themselves in their collective feet, but the Democratic Party is being transformed and revitalized in a good way (I hope). As Bill Maher (I think) said, "We now have our own Tea Party."

Onward and upward.

[Shepherd]

Elizabeth Warren would get my vote 4 years from now. She is brave, speaks up, and even now is protesting the predator-in-chief. One of the best tools for defeating this emperor without clothes would be humor and humiliation. I do respect the presidency, but not the current president.

Sen. Warren is not a war hawk nor a member of the 1%. Or perhaps Calif. Senator Kamala Harris? There are many qualified women who could run and win. Between now and then, we have a lot of protesting, protecting, ranting, raving, writing letters, building community, strengthening neighborhoods, supporting those most at risk, etc.


Too bad so many Clinton supporters wasted their votes on their flawed candidate, especially when they had such an opportunity to adjust their course after the Wikileaks releases showed her character and tactics more clearly. Hope we all show more wisdom four years from now. :2cents:

[Icssoma]

All candidates are flawed. those that are courageous & are principled get little done in office (but make great former presidents--Carter).
Feinstein has major flaws, but has taken important leadership on sessions, protection of the desert, and was gutsy as mayor & as a senator (in her moderate/neo liberal way). something to be said for being elected & sitting in a seat of power.
would like to have more senators in that role.
Bernie was NEVER VETTED. on gun control or health care. he opposed the most progressive health care put forward (too progressive for his state at the time).
This is the discussion. Do you believe Karl Rove's pact put so much money (unwanted), running effective ads against hillary to spend $. Rove goes for the jugular. he believed, as i believe, he could have handily beat bernie.
ralph nader previous to the last election was our our most recent experience with a spoiler. i would take gore any day. maybe my belief is false that we might have avoided the iraq war? this is history.

i heard from people voting for a 3rd party candidate & writing in that trump would bring about a revolution.
believed the stakes were too high for our planet & our inhabitants.
Hillary was, as bill maher said, like a black driving in a white neighborhood, stopped and searched and let go again & again.
maybe you could get Mr. Assange to release Bernie's emails, or Donald's taxes?
HILLARY WAS THE ONLY CANDIDATE THAT WAS VETTED.again & again & again & again. others were hacked, but only her emails were released.
loved that Solnit talks in her article about LBJ. he was gutsy, & went for the jugular. he changed things for the civil rights movement, in a way that is almost impossible to imagine. (a huge learning curve for a southern democrat. sad that he didn't have better advice from McNamara. sad that Mc Namara's insights were too late for vietnam (the incredible The Fog of War), but not to late for our choices today.
Cory Booker & Sherrod Brown, big hillary supporters, & the later was advising her on wall street/financial policies.
let's see tim kaine, mike pence. another difficult choice.
i am not a fan of bernie, if he had been the party's nominee in the last election, i would have gone to bat for him every day.
i am troubled & saddened by all of trump's appointments, & actions.
it has been a painful time. i would like to have had a different agenda going forward.
the stakes are too high. we are in for the fight of our lives. each day i choose which actions to take to oppose the orange man, & work for a better world.

[american dream]

Warren and Harris are both eminently qualified. Bill Maher also suggest our own Gavin Newsom, though he's not well-enough known nationally. But, then, either was Obama!


Elizabeth Warren would get my vote 4 years from now. She is brave, speaks up, and even now is protesting the predator-in-chief. One of the best tools for defeating this emperor without clothes would be humor and humiliation. I do respect the presidency, but not the current president.

Sen. Warren is not a war hawk nor a member of the 1%. Or perhaps Calif. Senator Kamala Harris? There are many qualified women who could run and win. Between now and then, we have a lot of protesting, protecting, ranting, raving, writing letters, building community, strengthening neighborhoods, supporting those most at risk, etc.