It’s been said by somebody that the greatest risk to the Republican Party and the “Conservative” movement would be if Donald Trump actually won this election.
I was, of course, hoping we would not be running that experiment, but here we are.
We’d best be thinking along the lines of “never let a good crisis go to waste”.
Nothing’s going to stop the rush of technological change that is moving us toward a renewable society, but some things could slow it down.
Consider reaching out to acquaintances across the political spectrum who may be just as horrified as you are.
We have work to do.
Concur. My thoughts on the situation will go live at http://667-per-cm.net at 11 EST this morning.
The human animal will, as a total society, never give up on growth, alas. With renewables now reeling, this is bad. Growth, efficiency… anything which expands civilization and in which renewables can’t far FAR outpace that growth, will doom us to a CO2-clogged grim future. That’s more likely now, with a Trump administration and Republican Congress. Prepare for wholesale laying waste to environmentalism.
I’m devastated.
It’ll take a lot of time to fully comprehend the magnitude of what happened.
Democracy is the best system we have, but it is vulnerable when people’s minds are hacked and manipulated by amplifying fears with lies about barely existent threats and facilitated by a news system that is more interested in ratings than truth, and an internet which delivers what you want to know, rather than what you need to know!
They say a country elects the government they deserve, but there is still a majority of people that really don’t deserve to pay for the crimes of the manipulators.
I hope these next four years are over quickly without too much carnage and irreversible damage, and that America will find its way again.
What “democracy”? Hillary got MORE votes than this Trump. Donald got even less votes than GW who also got less votes than Al Gore. Why must this history of unjust continue? Democracy my butt!
It has been very disappointing to see those I know and love bury themselves far too deeply into these “alt” media sources on the internet, to what seems the exclusion of anything else. Hey maybe their claims were right, though, and President Obama will institute a nationwide gun confiscation and turn US soldiers against citizens before the end of his term; climate change is just a global hoax. What do I know, right? Say whatever feels right and claim it factual, I guess.
Recall that I said several months back that Trump was unelectable, I was wrong. Who’s to blame for this election outcome? Did America (to put it politely – “Rock on. Just keep it clean, bro.”) mess up in their choice, or did the Democrats simply front a person who was not well-liked, not scandal-free, not free of Wall Street money, and not unwavering from core principles? Not Bernie Sanders, in other words?
No matter what brought this on, now you are facing the prospect of the entire top echelon of the EPA global warming pushers being swept out in favor of pro-science rational people, along with the prospect of President Trump telling the mainstream media and the world an entire side of the issue they’ve never heard before.
Rather than launch into utterly predictable and otherwise pointless verbal assaults, or launch into bewildered and unnecessarily damaging self pity, may I again suggest a bright alternative?
To paraphrase what I said two years back on a similar occasion when y’all were feeling especially blue ( https://climatecrocks.com/2014/11/05/alex-adair-make-me-feel-better/comment-page-1/#comment-65817 ), wouldn’t you trade everything you have just to be able to wake up, look outside, and say what a nice day it is? You can, but the trade involves casting aside preconceived ideological opinion for critical thinking and an honest examination of ALL the available facts. Give it a shot, seek evidence that points you to a conclusion instead of having a pre-set conclusion burdened with the necessity to find ‘evidence’ to prove it. I have every confidence in the world that after an honest examination of the complete global warming issue and the critics you’ve long shunned without justifiable cause, you will thank me one day for the tip. Free yourselves from beliefs you’ve never been able to prove, and open your minds to fact-based examinations of topics across the political spectrum, and you will see the future as not anything approaching one as dark and gloomy as you thought it was.
You’ve done nothing to welcome me to your side of the issue, or to your ideological positions. I welcome you to the side of reason, moderation, and genuine fair treatment of all people.
LOL I was wondering where Russell has been hiding lately, and here he is in full cry, once again doing his paid-for-by-Heartland whoring for the fossil fuel interests. This essay goes beyond Russell’s usual level of mendacity and deviousness, and is almost nausea-inducing, although it does have one extremely funny line.
“….the entire top echelon of the EPA global warming pushers being swept out in favor of pro-science rational people….” And Russell would have us believe that the irrational, anti-science large orange turd is going to do this? LMAO!
And another line that is not as funny, but IS so very Russell, i.e., ” I welcome you to the side of reason, moderation, and genuine fair treatment of all people”, as if Russell has ever demonstrated reason, moderation, and fairness in his propagandizing.
OK , Russell, you’ve earned your whore’s dollar with this comment, and I’ve responded to it, so you can turn in your chit to Heartland and get paid. Now go away.
Russell:
Your post amounts to an empty attempt to coax people to cast off any concern for our problems and just join in your allegedly care-free stance on the issue. First, science doesn’t care one bit about what particular outlook is appealing or gloomy. Second, this type of attempt to prey on people when they are apparently down and out is one of the tactics of the charlatan. Third, I would assume we are all doing just fine in our lives making every attempt to use our abilities or time to address or highlight the issues of our time and simply enjoying our time in general. You seem to advocate that people can only find fulfillment by taking the blue pill.
And then there is this…
“You’ve done nothing to welcome me to your side of the issue, or to your ideological positions.”
I have taken the time to go step-by-step to illustrate why the professional world of science generally rejects your conflict of interest or appearances of such with Heartland and other groups. Judging from your attempts to derail the discussion from that subject back then, one must conclude that you don’t really want to understand even such a basic concept. You would apparently rather keep taking the blue pills.
Last night I was wake all the night, following the US Presidential elections. Living in the north of Sweden this election was very important for me and thousands of other active in the Climate Movement here in Sweden. The outcome was not the one we waited for, but as we are not citizens of US it´s just for us to accept it even though it affects us, and the whole World.
The only thing is that now we just have to work even harder to create the CHANGE.
Change is possible – it must be possible!
https://lessco2.wordpress.com/2016/02/16/change-is-possible/
That is rich coming from you. It is a do as I say not as I do sort of thing.
Other than that you are best ignored.
I’m glad to see that many Crockers are able to see through Russell’s BS, as evidenced by this comment and the many thumbs down Russell has garnered so far.
Russell has forgotten to hack WordPress this time and award himself some thumbs up as he normally does—-as usual, they will be the only ones he gets.
So … since I told all quite some time back how I didn’t hack the up/down vote system and how anyone can place multiple votes, how do we have any assurance that you didn’t place all or nearly all of those downvotes there yourself, particularly in light of your own comments not getting an equal if not greater amount of upvotes?
Guys, the challenge has been out there the entire time I’ve been here, including an outright invitation straight to Peter for a personal interview. Don’t just hurl accusations at me, show the world how you prove them – that I’m paid to do what I do, that I don’t examine all evidence, that my work contains outright lies or demonstrable propaganda, etc, etc, etc. All eyes are on you guys now, your own little circle of pals aren’t the only ones reading these comments. With so many downvotes of my positive outreach comment, is that an indication that Crocks people also repudiate the conciliatory speeches made by Hillary Clinton and President Obama this morning?
Friend, there was another one-sentence comment directed at you while I was composing my first one, and it was so far negative that Peter (or whoever else was moderating here) deleted it. Ask Peter about it. I was going to respond to it by pointing out that nothing is accomplished with such negativity, and how everything is gained through a positive welcoming hand offering to share the full story. It’s your choice to live in a world filled with self-inflicted rage and negativity caused by your own inexplicable discrimination. Remember this famous turning point scene from the 1967 Sidney Poitier movie “In the Heat of the Night”?
Chief Gillespie: [regarding Sam Wood’s status as a suspect] We have the motive which is money, and the body which is dead!
Tibbs: Sam didn’t kill Colbert!
Chief Gillespie: What makes you so sure?
Tibbs: Because Colbert was killed HERE, driven back to town in his own car and dumped on the street. Sam couldn’t have driven two cars!
Irrational discrimination clouded the Chief’s mind up until the point where the truth was unavoidable to see. Your view of me and skeptic climate scientists overall and perhaps others you vilify is clouded by your own unsupportable discriminatory views. Your discrimination either has merit and is based on indisputable facts you can support for all to see, or it implodes, and when you comprehend how it does, you become a better person like the illustration of the fictional Chief Gillespie.
Marijuana legal in most US states after ballots
Russell is back, upping his comment count and thereby his whore’s pay from Heartland and the fossil fuel interests. I won’t waste the time looking for Russell’s prior confession, but long time Crockers will recall that he bragged to us about how one could “hack” the thumbs feature by logging off and on repeatedly, which somehow defeated the “one man-one vote” algorithm and allowed Russell to give himself multiple “thumbs up” (and multiple “downs” to the rest of us). It’s a dead issue—-Russell Cook IS a crook, and his whining denial is just that—-whining.
And listen to him sling the bullshit in his “Guys” paragraph! He repeats the laughable offer to “do an interview” with Peter. Peter only does interviews with more substantial and significant deniers like Morano, not with third-string bench sitters like Russell (who is allowed to continue posting on Crock ONLY because he is such a GOOD “bad example”). The many down votes of Russell’s laughingly titled “positive outreach comment” are simply because Russell is a disgusting, lying POS, and people want to tell him that without wasting words on comments.
And is what Clinton said in her wonderful speech “conciliatory” in your mind? Only a low IQ asshole like Russell would not recognize that her speech was aimed at the nation and her supporters, not at The Hump (who she still thinks is all those things she called him for months right up to last Monday and is unqualified to be president). She proved herself to be more presidential by again speaking with substance rather than with the “I’m the only one who can make America great again” BS of The Hump.
I seriously doubt Peter moderated anything you posted because it was “so far negative”—-in your patently transparent efforts to always appear reasonable, rational, and polite, you have NEVER gone to the levels of “negativity” that I’m sure you’d like to with your comments. You are not an honest man, Russell, and all Crockers know that, so stop BS-ing us. Post the “moderated” comment again so we can see it—-reword it so it “passes”.
Words fail me when I look at Russell’s feeble and demented attempt to use the Sidney Poitier movie “In the Heat of the Night” as some kind of object lesson. All I can say is that it’s more proof that if you wind Russell up, he will spew demented BS
Re-read my above comment, friend. I didn’t post the one-sentence slam against you that was deleted. That’s why I asked you to ask Peter about it. He and whatever moderators he has are the people with the authority to delete comments here. Meanwhile, friends, notice “d.o.g.”‘s sidestep about the upvote thing. Ask yourselves, if so many downvote me, why does the same number not upvote “d.o.g.”? There’s no defeat of any algoritm here, and since anyone who turns off the cookies feature of their computer can put in new votes without logging into a refresh of the web page, it does not in any way constitute a hack.
Finally, I have no hate or negativity against “d.o.g.”; I don’t know the man and he may very well be someone who would rush into a fire to save people, a hero. Truth is, I simply do not understand his mindset. On multiple occasions now, he has not backed up a single accusation against me, and has gone off on mistaken raging tangents that defy explanation, such as the one above about the deleted comment. One doesn’t hate a person for doing that, you feel sorry for him and hope he gets better before he causes injury to himself.
LOL—–Russell has confessed once again to being a dishonest and deplorable POS with this explanation of how he “hacks” WordPress and corrupts the “thumbs” feature that SHOULD be used for honest “one man-one vote” assessments of others comments.
“…anyone who turns off the cookies feature of their computer can put in new votes without logging into a refresh of the web page….”,
Kind of like a safecracker posting a “how to take things that don’t belong to you” tutorial on a website, and encouraging others to do so. Russell’s insistence that “it does not in any way constitute a hack” is a semantic argument that he has made before. He is too freaking oblivious to realize that I use the not-quite-correct term “hack” because it pushes his buttons and gets him hopping, just as do references to his “baseball cap”.
Russell says he has “no hate or negativity” against me, and follows it with his usual hateful and negative bullshit. He of course words it all so very carefully and tries to sound SO reasonable, again oblivious to the fact that everyone here sees right through him. Why do you think you got over 20 “thumbs down” on your first comment, Russell? And why do you typically get more thumbs down for your bullshit than even a total moron like Tommy-Poo Bates?
With regard to your closing “hate and negativity”, the only proper reply is “GFYS, Russell”. You are one of the sorriest people I have ever come across in a career that was spent dealing with people. You diminish the Crock community by your presence.
As someone else said, I, too, am devastated.
I am considering a run for the border…..Canada, of course, but frankly I am too damn depressed to move.
Someone sent me a relevant joke photo, but I can’t get it to “take”.
It was a man holding an assault rifle and sitting on a saddle on a huge moose—-titled “Canadian Border Patrol—-Watching for Illegal Americans”.
Be careful when you overcome your depression and do make the attempt. And is everyone aware that the Canadian Immigration website crashed late last night because it got too many hits from Americans?
I heard about the crash….not really surprised. This election has seemed so surreal to me,
I would wait for some time to make every attempt to contribute or improve one’s own country of birth. Then again, do whatever makes you happy.
That being said, folks that bail on the USA make it a little harder for those that stay to actually implement sensible, moderate solutions. We also need all the folks we can get to push hard on the issue that there will be no second term for Donald Trump if he makes an attempt to mess with the Paris Accords. Who knows how he plans to renegotiate such a deal, because he never really explained much of anything in detail over the campaign, but hopefully he would yield to the pressure of being limited to one term. The world needs the USA to hold it together on the Paris front over the coming term, or the whole thing might come unraveled.
Finally, who knows whether the “alt” movement wouldn’t follow you to Canada? With some fringe elements that have already shown their face in parts of Europe, I can only imagine how Trump’s recent win potentially emboldens other types to use similar tactics. Hey, the Russians might just help them out for free by hacking their opponents and letting sensationalism take much out of context like with the East Anglia event or this year’s presidential campaign.
Bernie would have made the difference. It’s a lesson the Dems have to learn hard now.
It is possible Sanders would have handily taken Donald Trump to task by focusing on policy and highlighting facts. Sanders likely wouldn’t have made the same mistake of focusing far too much on Trump’s flaws and using the victim card when targeted by Trump’s words. The “woman card” thing from early on in the campaign comes to mind as the inkling of a warning sign that Clinton was not going to win by focusing too much on how bad the other guy’s behavior happens to be.
That being said, who knows what could have happened? Maybe the post-factual nature of this populism would have just viewed Sanders as a boring policy wonk as compared to this edgy reality TV star billionaire that could say anything at a moment’s notice? I have heard of some psychologists talk of activating an authoritarian thread within some people.
Anyway, I certainly also feel that Sanders would have made a better go at it, but at the same time any “autopsy report” here has to examine the root causes. Hopefully these root causes don’t lie too deeply in these “alt media” outlets and other mass psychological phenomena like authoritarianism. Those types of things would be very difficult to fix from a traditional political messaging perspective.
Doing the math: Polls showed that Bernie was beating Trump handily during the primaries while Hillary was only beating him marginally.
Also, one could argue that Trump defied the polls because of the enthusiasm and thus larger turnout of those who favored him. Bernie had the same if not more enthusiasm behind him. Yeah, the Dems fucked up.
Chomsky takes a broader perspective, saying “we” failed to organize.
http://www.nationalmemo.com/left-wing-icon-noam-chomsky-clinton-must-win-but-listen-to-trump-voters/
So, I wrote this whole long thing here, but it didn’t post.
But, essentially, you’re right. The Democrats had a chance to run the table here, and they lacked the imagination to do it. The only way to win an election fueled by anti-establishment sentiment was to run an anti-establishment candidate. Sanders would have creamed Trump, and he would have helped the down-ballot candidates a lot more than Clinton did.
This is an opportunity for the Democrats to do some real soul-searching and decide if they are the party of FDR and JFK, or if they are the neoliberal Clintonian Party of corporate influence and centrism. They can really benefit by making the right choice, because the loss of the heart and soul of the old Democratic Party, and its appeal to the working class, was the very reason they lost this election.
Or, they can play the blame game and go back to business as usual.
To you and all the other Wednesday morning quarterbacks, I congratulate you on your hindsight. ANYBODY should have been able to beat that PIG, and the fact that Clinton didn’t doesn’t mean Sanders could have. Things are apparently much more complicated than they seem.
You WILL, however, be glad to know that my MAGIC 8-BALL strongly supported your conclusions. I asked it four times if Sanders would have been more likely to beat Trump than Clinton, and got these answers.
Without a doubt
It is certain
It is decidedly so
You may rely on it
You supported Clinton from day one, so no doubt you have your opinion on this.
Trump had one card this whole election – that he was the outsider that was going to fight special interests and return prosperity to working class families and the middle class. The Democrats had a choice between a guy giving the same message but 50 times more coherently, or a candidate who could not represent the term ‘insider’ more completely.
The people arguing for Clinton screamed and shouted that Sanders had no chance as the candidate, and see what that has gotten them.
Yes, it’s Monday morning quarterbacking. Who knows for absolutely certain? But the basic fact remains that this entire election has been the voters uprising against the status quo, and it’s not like the Democrats didn’t have a warning about it.
And my main point is that the Democrats do have a silver lining here. The pro-corporate policies of the Democrats that started with Bill Clinton’s term have steadily eroded one of their main bases of support, and this election is the fallout from it. They can learn from that, or not.
I agree the time is ripe for learning. Chomsky humbly makes the point that “we” failed by failing to organize and unite the people who shared a common purpose but were too atomized to realize it. He thinks the internet may not be the best medium for doing the work of organizing and uniting. All the great left figures I follow share this basic insight of the need for boots on the ground organizing — some call it activism — Chomsky, Hedges, Wolff, Nader…
You agree the time is ripe for learning? LOL Some folks think that learning should be life-long and constant. Rather than reserve “learning” for digging out from under disasters, we should be trying to learn how to head them off, and this one has been brewing since Reagan’s time and before.
I have suggested to you on other threads that you need to take a reading comprehension course, which may in the future help you avoid misinterpreting Chomsky and the “other great left figures” that you have looked up on the web (since you say you don’t read books). You DO need to read some books and see some several-hundred-page detailed expositions of what’s wrong and why. Wiki isn’t enough.
Chomsky (what’s with the “humbly”?) makes the point that “we” failed by failing to organize and unite the people who shared a common purpose, thinks the internet may not be the best medium for doing the work of organizing and uniting, and sees the need for boots on the ground organizing? Doctor Obvious speaks! (especially with the “some call it activism” caveat).
The Clinton campaign was a well-oiled machine, and had as many “boots on the ground” as any campaign ever had, just as Obama’s did before her. I have been inundated for many months with snail mail, phone calls, TV ads, emails, and bright-eyed young Democrats knocking on my door (many of them brought in from outside VA).
And I don’t think even the Trump campaign or The Hump himself saw this coming. I firmly believe that he never really wanted to be president—-too much work—-and that he was just indulging his pathological narcissism and getting free publicity for the Trump brand. He is probably more surprised than anyone at his victory, and IMO he has bit off more than he can chew and is going to have a hard time not choking on it. He’s the dumb snake that grabbed an elephant by the leg
(PS Calling Nader a “great left figure” is quite a stretch, considering he is responsible for giving us George W. Bush, whose “reign” continued and exacerbated the decline of the middle class that began in Reagan’s time and led to the discontent that has now given us the looming disaster of President Hump).
No, I believe DOG voted for Bernie in the primary.
You know damn well I voted for Hillary, GB. I “felt the bern” in many ways, but wanted to see an extremely well-qualified woman in the presidency rather than another man. We have had too much testosterone at the top in this country.
I also thought she had a better chance of winning it than Bernie, as did much of the country for most of the campaign. You and the others that say “Bernie could have beaten Trump” have your heads in the dark place, and should start talking to your MAGIC 8-BALLs.
If it had been Bernie vs The Hump, it would have been a “sort of” outsider vs. real outsider (and one that we have seen is perhaps not really human). The Hump would have labelled Bernie a politician (he is) and an insider (he is, since he’s a politician), called him a socialist, communist, and big government advocate, and pandered to “the uneducated rural white voters” with the same kind of hateful campaign he employed against Hillary.
The Hump would have made a substitution for the “nasty woman” label though, since Bernie is not a woman. Bernie would have been the “New York Jew” that was controlled by the world-wide Jewish-led conspiracy that wants to rule the world, and that would have gone over big with the base.
No, it’s a lot more complicated than we thought. When The Hump can win with white woman and get a higher percentage of Hispanic votes than Romney, and Blacks didn’t quite turn out as much as they should have, and all the pollsters and pundits got it so wrong, there’s something we don’t understand.
(Unless it’s all just a symptom of how F-ed up the human brain is and a sign that we are accelerating our extinction. Hearing that The Hump won was like hearing a diagnosis of terminal cancer from you doctor.)
PS Since Bernie’s parents were immigrants from Poland, The Hump would also have used the same kind of argument as he did with “the Mexican judge”.
Can’t you see it? That pouting little fish mouth, that flabby chin, those undersized hands waving as he shouted “Bernie can’t be president because his parents were Polish, and that’s a communist country”.
DOG, your diaper is full and dripping.
Hillary didn’t lose because Trump called her names, (“corrupt Hillary”).
Hillary lost because she IS corrupt and working people are tired of the rich taking their money.
“DOG, your diaper is full and dripping”, says Shockley? Feeling impotent in the face of logic and superior knowledge, Billy? So you respond with vulgar and peurile insults? Why am I not surprised? Up your game, Billy! You are embarrassing yourself.
“Hillary lost because she IS corrupt and working people are tired of the rich taking their money”.
There is some truth in that semi-literate statement, though not the “Hillary is corrupt part—-that’s just the mindless and childish ignorance of one who doesn’t read books.
Yes, the also semi-literate “the rich taking the working people’s money” IS the source of nearly all societal ills on the planet. Would you like a reading list of books that expand on that idea? I warn you, you’ll have to go to a library and check them out, and they ARE often long and have big words in them.
You misspelled “puerile”. Spelling is so important to you, I thought you should know.
You demonstrate your impotence once again with this junevile, chidlish, and purile comment.
Still mad bra? And there I thought you were serious about spelling…
LOL!
These folks have just elected their own predator. Congrats!
Another analogy would be eating uncooked meat in order to catch a tapeworm, or perhaps eating rotten food in order to get food poisoning. Mindlessly self-destructive behavior by the Repugnants, and it’s going to be fun to watch how it unfolds
Clinton got almost 200,000 votes MORE than Trump.
http://oi63.tinypic.com/nz0thz.jpg
We all know it isn’t the first time that happened.