The Day After
--The House at Pooh Corner,
A. A. Milne
Where's your shame
You've left us up to our necks in it
--Changes,
David Bowie
And is it over now, do you know how
Pickup the pieces and go home
--Gold Dust Woman,
Fleetwood Mac
Come, children, let us shut up the box
and the puppets,
for our play is played out.
--Vanity Fair,
William Makepeace Thackaray
A. A. Milne
Where's your shame
You've left us up to our necks in it
--Changes,
David Bowie
And is it over now, do you know how
Pickup the pieces and go home
--Gold Dust Woman,
Fleetwood Mac
Come, children, let us shut up the box
and the puppets,
for our play is played out.
--Vanity Fair,
William Makepeace Thackaray
We must love one another or die
--September 1, 1939,
W. H. Auden
____________________
--September 1, 1939,
W. H. Auden
____________________
[Following our recent election series, a post-election follow-on is in order.
In contrast to RAW's usual disinterested posture, this will be a personal piece.
Back to the disinterested and strac ranger material you know and love, next.]
So, the Blue States fell like a wall.
Not to spike the ball, but Lisa beat the New York Times in my prediction of THEIR eschatological predictions. Some people are just too predictable.
There are a multitude of juicy Chicken Littles to choose from today -- here's but one:
Top News
Across the World, Shock and Uncertainty at Trump's Victory
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
After a stunning upset in the American presidential election, nations braced for the possibility of an upending of the global order.
See, the global order -- that very orderliness to which you've grown accustomed over the last 13 years -- well, it may start wobbling due to President-elect Trump. Sort of like too much fracking causes earthquakes in Kansas, maybe.
But how disingenuous to proclaim shock! The candidates were running neck-and-neck, candidate Trump often pulling ahead, and the margin of error in polls means they don't account for much in a horse race.
Predictably disingenuously, ungraciously, Hillary Clinton conceded the election with, "We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought. We must accept this result." Hmmm, more divided than "we" thought? What she means is, she never imagined they would go off-script.
Why not say, "Good luck, the voters have spoken. This is democracy in action. God bless America," or something remotely close?
NO, there has to be the innuendo that there is something wrong with that bloc that has broken off. They are all painted as Cliven Bundy's -- mad ranchers eating MREs. The liquid molten hatred for the past year has been predominately from the Left.
The New York Times glaringly lacked any editorial today recognizing the President-elect. Talk about grotesque, infantile press behavior.
As we have long said, Mr. Trump's election is a fascinating phenomenon. I am happy for him, and hopeful for our nation. Hopefully others in power understand and will demonstrate the grace necessary to embrace our new President, and to allow for the next chapter to be a good one.
What worries me is those who continue to choke the bat. It is done, and it was an amazing win. No time for the haters to continue to throw in a monkey wrench because they feel they have lost their entitlement.
Look forward to the possibility of the new, with pleasure. Be proud of democracy in action. Those who voted care, and want for a better society and nation. Why is anyone continuing to throw doubt and aspersions on the President-elect?
This is wholly unacceptable, and it is THIS which is unprecedented.
Allow me to share a relevant experience today at a symposium on "Coercion in the Helping Professions". This was a thoughtful grouping of academics from across disciplines, aimed primarily at professional in medicine, psychology, nursing, criminology and social work understand the limits of reasonable coercion.
The keynote speaker, a criminologist, mentioned twice how crestfallen he was at the results of yesterday's election. He said he thought our freedoms would be curtailed under the new President. This earned him some knowing chuckles from the audience.
My concern was sent via email:
Dear Professor,
Thank you for your informative talk at the coercion symposium today.
With all due respect, and tangential to your talk, I have a question:
When you suggest our freedoms will be curtailed under the new presidency, you are indirectly shaming people who voted for Mr. Trump.
And if I understand your talk, that would be a form of coercion, no?
Most sincerely,
Lisa
This is an example of the coercion felt from my liberal fellows. When asked about the election today by a concerned colleague, came the reply, "I'm not worried at all."
But I did not feel free to say, "Actually, I feel quite good about it. This is really the chance for something a little different." The anger level out there is different this cycle, confrontational and ugly.
We live in the capital of a battleground state. But glaringly absent were the presidential campaign signs which usually proliferate in the week before elections. Only one Trump sign was evident and it was in front of a business perched atop 8-feet-high wooden pillars. Clinton had only six yard signs.
Over the years, many election stickers have adorned my car bumper -- third party and otherwise -- and never have I felt a twinge of fear. But this year, it felt dangerous to have displayed a "Trump" sticker, a visceral feeling that damage would be done.
The same feeling did not overtake me when considering a "Clinton" sticker, but again, none were visible on any vehicles.
Second, you must know that a year ago I could not have cared less about the 2016 presidential election. All the pretty ponies sounded the same (while each one trying to sparkle). One would get elected, and nothing would change, certainly not for the better. As Eeyore might say, "ho-hum".
But then the violent assaults in the liberal media began against Donald Trump. Once he won his party's nomination, the assaults upon his person was daily and relentless, by turns, ludicrous and revolting.
The piffle and mean drivel being churned out by columnists I once enjoyed was stunning. It was then that the Trump-denial became fascinating
A certain Charles Pierce was one of nastiest. What he writes seethes with unremitting hatred toward Trump. He seems a deeply mean and disturbed man.
Esquire must pay him well. He seems amused with himself, but how he clears the sludge from his soul each night is unclear. He is using his writing skills doing the devil's work.
He and his ilk led the way for every other writer to jump on the anti-Trump bandwagon. In their arrogance, perhaps they thought if they banged the drum loudly enough, in unity, they would beat down and drown out the many voices that didn't agree with them.
At first, it upset my equanimity; then, it began to hurt my soul. For my sanity, I stopped reading and listening to the liberal mouthpieces on matters politic. It was as though they had all gone mad, and venom was all they knew.
For a newshound and a political junkie like myself, this was a loss. I haven't tuned in to National Public Radio since.
Where I once felt at home at my usual news roundups, these voices were now unknown to me. It felt horrifying to be so gulled. The conservative press offered a bit more balance, but the writing was more simplistic.
Lisa is officially a deracinated person. I do not know how the press will right itself, or if it will right itself. Once the horse is out of the barn . . .
This ratcheted-up level of meanness and untruthiness may be the new normal in the mainstream media. If so, that is the main casualty this election, and it is a sad loss.
But Mr. Trump did not cause that madness. The erstwhile news outlets did this to themselves, as they lurch into irrelevance.
Labels: angry press, media garbage, Presidential election 2016
posted by Lisa at 9:05 PM
26 Comments:
Hi Lisa & Jim
Congratulations! Or Commiserations, whichever you prefer on the your new Pres-elect.
This may be a little election unrelated, however:
http://www.peacefulcentury.net/the-dalai-lama-says-more-hard-hitting-words-about-the-mass-brainwashing-of-society
"As Dr. Michel Chossudovsky, University of Ottawa’s Emeritus Professor of Economics, tells us, the global war on terrorism is completely fake and based on fake premises."
You DID have that copyrighted, didn't you Jim? :)
Best regards
Carl
Carl,
nice hearing from you.
i think about you.
i seldom give advice but....here goes.
you should publish a photo book of the subjects that u cover so well. i think it would sell.
i'd buy a copy.every thai restaurant in america and western civilization would buy one.
all of our wars have been based on false premises, and faulty assumptions.
all of them.
i even question US participation in ww1 and 2.
jim hruska
Avedis seems to be still partying down and Dave is nowhere to be seen.
In any case, any TV channel or even magazine that has an Inc. next to its publisher's name is probably owned by those with class interests not aligned with yours. Liberal or reactionary. How did you think it could be any other way? Even PBS has made a joke of the "Public" in their name by the advertisements and "foundations" that they are forced to consult for money to stay afloat; including a military-industrial complex linked corporation that basically paid for an infomercial on Predator drones with barely a hint of impartiality. NPR is no different.
Despite considering people even like me most likely, an anti-Zionist Jew, as one of the "anti-Semites" that condemned Bernie Sander's campaign I assure you: mysterious purging of voter rolls in Sander's Brooklyn hometown, a kangaroo court of a primary in Nevada along with early Arizona poll center "closings" to say nothing of Wikileaks revelations of DNCs complicity ensured that the only candidate who was polled consistently to beat the entire Republican field was intentionally sabotaged so that Wall Street could get their candidate. This is of course, to say nothing about the same culprit owned media in relation to Sanders. They couldn't find a juicy scandal or anything concrete to disagree with Sander's sane although not-quite-left-enough-to-be-considered democratic socialist policies (not without showing their hand of their greedy disembowelment of America) so they committed the worst slander- the slander of omission. By the time people had heard of the Independent candidate outside the Capitalist Mass Matrix, he could never get enough votes to compete.
The biggest takeaway here is this was an insider loss for an outsider year. Although, the best thing to come out of this, I think, is when all the avaricious liberal numbskulls suddenly reemerge in this city's local rallies against the wars and corporate malfeasance this deceiver faux-renegade unleashes upon America I can angrily point to all the suddenly tiny rallies for the support of the Iranian peace deal they didn't attend and the Bush Era Anti-War book store they helped put of business because they thought Hope and Change was all about being spineless Obamabots and not principled activists.
If that will come to pass, I will find the Trump era eminently rewarding even if the new lying POTUS-elect won't.
Niko - Far be it from me to neglect my social obligations on Ranger Against War!
Congrats to those who were hoping for this outcome. Some of you will recall my predictions for what comes next.
Ironically, although I said it would take months for the bedlam in the markets to play out, it took minutes: the stock market tanked upon news that the election was done, and then recovered after Trump's boilerplate speech. I checked -- my investments are, surprisingly, even a little bit up as of today. Evidently the market is even easier to reassure than I imagined.
If only the same were true of much of the rest of the left who think the world is going to end because there is a billionaire in the White House. I could tell these people the same thing I tell Avedis here -- that a 70-year-old billionaire is not going to be the one to dismantle the global order that he has spent his life benefiting from -- but it doesn't seem to matter to them, either.
On Niko's Sanders bit - I read in the news today he is considering running in 2020. I hope my respected elders on this blog won't take this the wrong way, but it says something about the political uselessness of people my age and younger when all of the leading lights of the future of revolutionary politics, be it Trump or Sanders or their presumed replacements, are already eligible for seniors' discounts.
Carl,
Thank you -- we'll take the congratulations! I am hopeful.
The Dalai Lama is correct: The violence is within us. I've been writing that we need to "wake up" for years now.
Instead, this election season has shown how lost and hateful even the people supposed to be FOR civil rights (the liberals) are. They don't even see the ugliness in their own souls. Heads are in the sand, and people have caved up among their familiars.
Nikolay,
Apropos of not much, but a friend just mentioned to me a quote from Mrs. Clinton which I'd not heard before re. the "basket of undesirables" -- by her estimation, 50% -- who supported Trump.
I was reminded of her take-down of then-candidate Obama in 2008 when she ran against him for dismissing the "guns and Bible crowd". HE was arrogant for doing so, but she, I presume, is a truth-teller for doing the same.
Yeah, she's a nasty politician.
David,
Why walk the traditional line, and lead with negativity re. the markets. Why not simply state the truth? The markets went up.
That's easy, no?
Yeah, when I read a piece from the man himself today, I am Prepared to vigorously oppose Trump's anti-sexist, xenophobic,rah-rah-rah, stance, I thought:
Will you be doing that from your Lake Champlain $600,000 new beach home, or one of your other two? (Yeah, he's a 1%).
But he sure does LOOK like an "Uncle Bernie". Keep pumping that iron, Bernie . . .
Pt II:
David,
I can't believe a smart man like yerself would puppet the press (= the Liars) so often.
Trump never said he would "dismantle the global order". That was the NYT continuing their cognitive dissonance the day after his election.
What Trump has said is, he would like for America to be the monetary beneficiaries of those transactions, rather than being on the losing end. Kinda makes sense, if you think about it.
Mustn't look at the NYT when you do this, however, lest you be spun into yet another fantasia ;)
Please, Lisa, give me some credit here. I watched the markets on the night of the 8th. They went down, Trump spoke, and they went up. A clever trick.
I haven't heard about the peso. I imagine it's probably down.
As for what Bernie does, yes, I imagine fighting the evil capitalists is much easier when you have a comfortable amount of personal wealth to sustain yourself. I also would like to fight climate change by flying around on a private jet, amongst other heroic and selfless deeds.
"America" is neither the beneficiary nor the victim of global trade agreements. Elites are, including Trump.
As for what the New York Times has to say about it, they are settling down slowly, although there were some amusing moments. Paul Krugman's first take on the Trump election was -- to use his own words here -- that it would cause a crash so deep the stock market would "never" recover. It did in minutes. Evidently the collective investing class listened to his victory speech and decided there wouldn't be a trade war after all.
David,
I s'pose it's a stylistic matter.
They went down, then up -- you say, "A clever trick". ISTM yet more implication of the otherworldly "magician, world mastermind and Samurai-chef view of Trump", the totality of everything in the universe.
It's just attributing too much hocus-pocus to the man. He spoke, he's the President-elect. People are generally happy. They elected him, after all. The system worked.
I just read the Dow hits record highs, and the bank sector hits 2008 levels. By all accounts, this bodes well for the economy. Just that, period.
One can lasso most things 'round the moon, but I prefer no spin. Just watch and listen. Leave the nattering nabobs of negativity to their own devices, save if you want a good chuckle.
The MSM is making good and sure they superannuate themselves. Fools all.
I'm no pollster, but I coulda told you what was happening far better than they -- and I did -- simply because I watch and listen, for myself.
No hocus-pocus. Just good life skills.
Lisa --
Okay, I can tell we're diverging unnecessarily here, and it's probably my fault for wording this wrong.
You will recall, as I do, that for quite some time now the financial press has been in a tizzy over the certainty of a stock market crash on fears of a pending trade war should Trump win the presidency. Hence I predicted before the election that should Trump win the markets would go down as people had their tantrum, then back up in January when it was clear that things were going to continue on just fine. That would make sense, in their bubble. Right now, the markets derive their profits from global networks. Economic nationalism is good for the American people in the long run, but very bad for people who are profiting from the absence of national borders in the short term.
So I tuned in. Right on cue, the market futures dipped down once it became clear Trump would win. The New York Times's "expert" economist, Krugman, said the economy would never recover, hyperbole which on its own would have supplied more than enough comedy for the evening.
Then Trump gave his speech, and the markets went back up. Now, as you point out, they're at record highs. It's almost as if the financial class bought into their own propaganda so much they really did think Trump might announce the beginning of World War III or the mass imprisonment of all journalists in his victory speech, and then when he didn't, they shrugged and things went back to normal.
No hocus-pocus, just an unexpected thing I noticed.
And that should be the point. Even a half-assed Keynesian New Deal Liberal (who also wishes to continue the only Keynesian financed institution today, the Imperial Military, despite its world-spanning massive budget making his social democrat policies impossible) was such a horrifying threat to the Neoliberal business-as-usual he had to be destroyed. That's how extremist these money changers are. I wouldn't be surprised if the "lesson" they learn from this election is that they didn't make the Democrats right-wing enough, doing their own part in digging the country's own grave.
No Jeremy Corbyn nor Portugese Communist-Green Party him. At least British Labour had a genuinely left wing social democrat around to re-direct the party away from the Blairite "New Labourites" of the last decade and a half. Who in the unapolegetically Neoliberal Capitalist Democrat party will save them from New Democratism?
Yes, the voters have spoken and in second place was Donald Trump.
I forgot to add that. Correction: The electoral college system worked, an anachronism designed-depending on the historian- to defend the "sovereignty" of the slaves states or for the patricians to change the vote if the plebeians voted the wrong way.
If anyone still doesn't get it, one can have delusions about this amoral, narcissistic, whackjob telling the truth, the half-truth at least and nothing but that for Christ sakes; but the generation that now matches the Baby Boomers in vote eligibility is thinking otherwise. They're marching in Portland, New York, Boston, Oakland even in states Trump was supposed to have convinced in Richmond and Kansas City. I'd ask them personally to save it when he does something stupid, or more worryingly, calculatedly evil. They seem be chomping at the bit already.
If anyone is going to keep him honest these four years or if necessary, expose his administration for what it is, its them.
Grung - True, but there is both comedy and irony in this. The establishment that crafted the electoral system feared that the people might one day choose "wrong," so they installed a check in the form of the Electoral College.
Today, the candidate preferred by most of the elite class won the popular vote, but will not enter the White House because of the Electoral College.
Checks and balances have an amusing way of backfiring sometimes.
Nikolay,
How can the people be protesting anything? This man has not yet taken office!
Like the superannuated Thomas Friedman (he of the "Friedman Unit") said of the Palestinian terrorists, they hate The Other more than they love their own children.
These misguided people you mention who march and feel some sort of community among their other stoked friends hate Trump more than they love their own country's well-being.
There is nothing noble or or sensical in that. That is what should frighten us all, that stupidity and energy put into destruction of an idea or a hope.
These liberal pitchfork-carriers worry me, and the press has created this monster.
Despite the press focus on what "created" trump (as though he were some otherworldly thing), I stand back and watch these cells of misguided and hateful erstwhile liberal-thinking people and wonder -- "what hath God wrought"?
[Though analogizing the NYT with God is a bit much, perhaps.]
Niko - In a small way I'm pleased to see that the younger generation was able to get away from their phones long enough to attend a protest (or at least to bring their phones with them, more likely).
One amusing irony of these protests is that I would bet a substantial number of those people did not vote for Clinton. On its own, that's fine. They probably had much the same feeling I did: that neither candidate is worthy of the office and that it is unlikely either one intends to change all that much about a system that has so far sustained them. However, certainly they would not be protesting if Clinton were elected.
Now they are in the position of -- horror of horrors! -- disputing the outcome of the election, much as they feared Trump's supporters would. They're bleeding away their energy on the one thing it is too late for them to do anything about. Do these protests have an actual demand, or are they simply about blowing off steam?
Lisa - So far as I can see, they are protesting what seems to be the lawful election of a new President by due process. I think you're probably reading too much into their intentions on the rest of it. They lost and they're upset. On the whole, Trump's future in politics is probably safer if they blow off steam doing unproductive things like this than actually organizing for 2020. A street protest really ought to have a political demand behind it, or else it is simply an angry mob.
I suspect that over the next few weeks Trump will begin to pick lobbyists, bankers, career politicians, and other members of the elite establishment for positions in his administration. These protesters will presumably be much angrier when he does so than they would have been when Hillary Clinton did much the same thing. They may also be relieved when he leaves most of the international trade agreements intact, even though they were upset when Obama broke his notably similar promise to renegotiate those very same agreements.
(I might be a little less care-free on that last point if I was a Mexican, but we shall see.)
Grunge Gene,
Pls. read what David says on the Electoral College.
JFK won in 1960 by the same margin as Trump, and we all like JFK, right? That's how the system works.
Give your President-elect half a chance! There's nothing further to debate until he takes office.
To all the fools apparently marching, I'd ask, "Why"? You live in a democracy, and it worked. Do you think you can cow or intimidate anyone?
It's so ironic: All the things the press launched about Trump, have come home to roost.
It is in fact the Liberals -- as I have long said -- who are spewing the hatred and the coercion. It is THEY who are the fascists.
What you get is a vote, and that is precious thing. But you may not retroactively punish those who voted otherwise. What odd times.
He is our next President. Emphasis on "OUR".
That is why I quoted from Auden:
Love or die.
David,
Thank you for the sensibility in your last post :)
Clearly-observed.
Yes, yes, Lisa the Hippies must always be punched. The Left is always responsible for the coarsening of the debate. The President (when he is a Republican ) must always be respected. It's to early to say I hope he fails (that's only allowable by conservatives tut-tut. Sigh... The electoral college is an outdated device set up by Aristocratic Oligarchs who hated (and feared) the Demos and wanted no part of Mob Rule, i.e. Democracy.
The WWC voted for Trump because of his unvarnished calls for making America a White Power Nation. I don't believe the man himself is an outright bigot, though his practices in the 1970's certainly seem suspect but, he got people to vote for him by proclaiming all blacks are criminals, all Mexicans are job stealing rapists, and all muslims are terrorists.
I hope I'm wrong about him but, I fear I won't be AND lo and behold look at the trial balloon floated by Paul Ryan, the elimination of Medicare. So, the WWC has voted to cut it's own throat and they gladly will do it because Trump made them feel it's okay to be bigoted.
and as I pointed out on my blog, agitation and violence from the right in this country but, is to be meet with overwhelming state sponsored violence when it is preceived to be coming from the left.
"Avedis seems to be still partying down .."
Nah - out of town on business and very busy. My East Coast colleagues (was in Philly and a nicer part of NJ) are flabbergasted that Trump won. Total shock. Emotions swinging from depression to anger. These are six figure (some high six figure) well educated white collar professionals. I'm just sitting there quietly. Occasionally nodding or smiling. I think if I offered that I voted for Trump, they'd stick me in the eye with their steak knives.
I predicted a Trump win long ago. All of these people. like me, are in big data analytics (most managers/directors). Their heads are so far up their asses that they failed to be able to analyze.
Their consternation is delicious to me, but I must savor the dish in private until I get back to my farmer neighbors at home.
avedis
The problem as I see it, Grung, is that these protests are simply offering the right what it wants: a futile left-wing complaint to mock and fantasize about suppressing with police violence.
Presumably, given that Trump already could not win the popular vote, is likely to be remarkably inept as a politician, and -- if the left and the neoliberals are correct -- will soon enact policies that plunge America into chaos and depression, this is the time to begin planning to unseat him in 2020 and to oust the Republicans from the Congress while you're at it. I am not sure I see a direct connection between these protests and those objectives.
You once told me that protests would scare the elites into action when the elites feared for their lives. These demonstrations, in contrast, are clearly futile. I appreciate that they are an intended show of strength, but they are coming across as futile and reactionary.
While the left is protesting needlessly and the right is hooting at their futility, Trump the outsider, Trump the non-elitist, is busy meeting with lobbyists, bankers, career politicians, and other fellow elites to staff his administration so that they can shield as much of their system as they can from populist anger, much as they did in 2008-2009. The game plays on in Washington.
Gene,
We met at Lt. Nixon's site many years ago.
I met Lt. Nixon. He seemed like a moderate Republican. You liked what I said there, and then came here. Now you find my position unsettling. But I am the same person, with the same sense of reason you once appreciated. Now that I do not accord with your sense of right, you are angry.
"Yes, yes, Lisa the Hippies must always be punched. The Left is always responsible for the coarsening of the debate." No, actually, the Left usually was the more thoughtful, dispassionate side. They have abdicated their hold on reason.
Hippies do not equate with liberals. I am "the Left", yet I cannot affiliate with these people now. Their hatred has disenfranchised me.
I don't recognize this as American mid-20th-21st century behavior. It is a devolution.
You say, "all blacks are criminals, etc."? Who ever said ALL anything? Wouldn't that be stupid?
You say, "It's to early to say I hope he fails". No, if you hate your country that much, it's never the wrong time to make your hatred known (if it makes you feel better.)
Gene,
We met at Lt. Nixon's site many years ago.
I met Lt. Nixon. He seemed like a moderate Republican. You liked what I said there, and then came here. Now you find my position unsettling. But I am the same person, with the same sense of reason you once appreciated. Now that I do not accord with your sense of right, you are angry.
"Yes, yes, Lisa the Hippies must always be punched. The Left is always responsible for the coarsening of the debate." No, actually, the Left usually was the more thoughtful, dispassionate side. They have abdicated their hold on reason.
Hippies do not equate with liberals. I am "the Left", yet I cannot affiliate with these people now. Their hatred has disenfranchised me.
I don't recognize this as American mid-20th-21st century behavior. It is a devolution.
You say, "all blacks are criminals, etc."? Who ever said ALL anything? Wouldn't that be stupid?
You say, "It's to early to say I hope he fails". No, if you hate your country that much, it's never the wrong time to make your hatred known (if it makes you feel better.)
This discussion is playing out as a mirror image of some of the discussions that happened in 2008 and it is almost certainly going to be just as unproductive.
Gene - The people who support Trump won this election. Yes, they won because of an antiquated quirk of American democracy, but had things gone the other way, it would be liberals and leftists heaving a sigh of relief and right-wingers complaining that the system was rigged. The left cannot put itself in the untenable position of disputing the results of an election. If you are right that the Trump administration is going to be a disaster for the white working class, then bridges need to be rebuilt between that class and the left in time to make a difference in 2018 and 2020.
I think it's too soon to know exactly what Trump is going to do, though. He's a con man. He's in court for being a con man as we speak. His critics made a great deal of this during the election. So why assume you know his policy agenda based on what he promised in the election? It won't include a wall or a ban on Muslims. It probably won't include all that much in the way of trade negotiations, and he's already said it likely won't even involve the wholesale repeal of Obamacare. Rejecting an administration that may end up doing something very popular with the working class seems politically risky, to say the least.
Lisa -- Maybe give that a rest. Gene plainly doesn't hate America any more than the right-wingers who would have rejected Clinton's presidency hate America, something which I was rightfully reminded of here last week. Declaring pre-emptively that you don't support a president is probably uncouth, but I'm not aware of any liberal democracy anywhere in the world in which citizens are required to like, support, or even hope success on an elected official, provided that they remain within the bounds of the law.
David,
Per your censure: you should know from all of my writing that the thing I am most against is the idea that anyone can legislate morality. (Hence why misogyny, racism, anti-Semitism, and the whole lot continues, robustly.) The best that can be done is to apply the law to lawbreakers.
Gene can't be forced to feel anything. I am merely suggesting that we do as we have done in the past, wish the best for the new administration. I believe in energy, and the more good stuff we have directed at any project, the better. Can't hurt.
I am saying to him that I am liberal, and reminding him that I brought a liberal and reasoned voice to a more conservative military blog in the past. I am still that person.
Imagine if, following Obama's election, sour crowds began massing in major cities in protest. Do you know what would happen?
Tremulous cries of "Racism"! Possibly violence in the streets. No, people quietly accepted the election. So, what's new today?
I believe, because of the incessant press censure, the people feel they are doing a good thing by carrying the torch of hatred. It's OK to call Trump, "orange-face", where it wold not be OK to call Obama, "Oreo" or "blackface".
So what gives. Only some hatred is OK? I don't like hypocrisy ... it's just so, hypocritical!
Post-election, I believe it bodes poorly for our nation.
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