It's been two years of lying, cheating, racism, destroying human rights, disrespecting women, condoning Nazis, separating toddlers from their families, mass shootings involving innocent people and children, lining pockets of the rich, obstructing justice, pissing on the Constitution, advocating violence, cutting your health care, raping the environment, jeopardizing your Social Security and Medicare, treason, and felony crimes -- today at least we have a chance to DO SOMETHING.
Please vote. Please restore decency and kindness and ethics and justice and everything America really stands for. Especially you Millennials. As it is it will probably take 20 years to undo all of the damage done in the last two years. The future is YOUR world. You will be the ones suffering the most if all of this continues. And trust me, you WILL suffer. For your own sake, for the security of your family, vote these monsters out.
And if not, God help you... because I won't.
63 comments :
What Ken said.
Fun factoid: journalists discovered Craigslist ads seeking people to attend Trump's rallies for $100. So most of his "supporters" at these events are actually there just to get free money. Wait....free money...I thought Republicans oppose that kinda thing?
A comment I read online summed it up perfectly. These rallies are the closest Trump gets to receiving human affection. His trophy wife hates him, his cabinet all think he's a moron, other world leaders mock him, and his sociopathic kids are only about money. It's really quite pathetic. You'd feel sorry for him if he wasn't such a piece of shit.
One positive thing that's come out of his presidency is revealing the true nature of some celebrities. I used to be a big fan of James Woods. I loved his acting and I didn't care that he was a Republican. And I still don't care if certain celebrities are Republican, like Clint Eastwood for example, who is a genius. But two weeks ago, James Woods tweeted that the pipe bombs sent to various critics of Trump were a false flag stunt by the Democrats to influence the election. He deleted the tweet after a furious backlash and then stopped talking about the subject as soon as that guy was arrested. It's sad that Woods has ruined his reputation and legacy. And since he was dropped by his agent earlier this year, his career is basically over. Good riddance.
What he said.
Vote. Do it for the children.
* lining pockets of the rich.
Well, here's some early good news, anyway...
States’ early turnout setting records ahead of Election Day
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/states-setting-early-turnout-records-ahead-of-election-day/2018/11/02/7e704ce2-deff-11e8-8bac-bfe01fcdc3a6_story.html?utm_term=.45e73b47dc76
Received a mail-order ballot last month, went to my library yesterday, looked over the LWV election brochure and dropped off my ballot.
For Cal voters: NO of Prop 6 (repealing gasoline tax), YES on Props 8 and 10 (better-regulated dialysis and rent control, respectively).
Just glad to be done with this, especially the attack ads, which now are down to a predictable science:
* Opponent's name.
* Dog-whistle description, whether from the right or left.
* Repeat opponent's name.
* Tag term (e.g., "not for us").
Consultants interchange such ads. Hey, it's easier than thinking.
And at the risk of repeating myself (because I really *loathe* voter suppression), I also wanted to let people know who are voting today, who may be voting in red states run by Republicans who are doing some form of voter suppression (ie purging voter rolls, voter ID, exact match, etc) that there is help.
Call (866) OUR-VOTE or visit
https://866ourvote.org
to make sure that your vote counts.
Ken, who do you think will be the DP candidate?
I voted for Truth, Justice and the American Way this morning - that is to say, not Republican.
#votelikeasuperhero
Couldn't agree more Ken. Hopefully we have enough people who will take the time to go out and let their voice be heard and not be drowned out by the screaming crazies in the Administration and on Fox News.
I voted early. Not a millennial, having been voting for 40 years. I've never missed one, not ever.
Voting isn't just a right, it's a duty, a moral obligation. You can't have a nation of, by, and for the people if the people don't participate. And, this is really, really important: you are voting FOR someone. If you vote for someone you've never heard of because you don't think a candidate is perfect enough for you, you are NOT protesting. You are refusing responsibility by deliberately voting for the person you think will lose.
People faced beatings and jail and death for the RIGHT to vote. They did it so that YOU would have the right to vote. It's a precious right that one particular group is trying to take away from you. Yes, you. Because it won't stop with just race and gender. Tomorrow it will because someone has decided you aren't rich enough and don't own enough land (yes, once upon a time most of you would not have been allowed to vote, even if you are white and male - it was a privilege for the white, landed elite.). And from there it's easy for them to claim any excuse. So vote. Do it because you can. Don't throw that away.
Yes!!!!
For anyone who still had doubts as to whether Trump is a sociopath, I hope his comments in recent days about the synagogue massacre puts those doubts to rest. At one of his phoney rallies, he said a "maniac" had disrupted the "tremendous momentum" of the Republican campaign.
Because, of course, the human reaction to mass murder is to complain about the fact it hindered an election campaign, right? Absolutely grotesque.
I saw an interview yesterday with a Republican who was an advisor to George W Bush for six years and he said he's going to vote Democrat for the first time in his life. That says it all.
Hi Ken. I’ve been wanting to say this for a while, as I have been so overwhelmed by the ugliness that our country has participated in since Trump’s election and have not known what to do about it. I have watched as the Republican party has fallen behind President Trump, even in the most outrageous claims and rhetoric he has told to the American people. And the saddest part of all, is that I have watched people throughout the country buy into his lies and either believe them, or not care that they were lies.
For years I worked in advertising. One thing I learned very clearly is that emotion sells. And Donald Trump understands emotion. He understands that if you can get people riled up, then they won’t care about the facts. When people are emotionally triggered by fear or hate, they will respond out of those fears and telling them the truth will barely slow them down. That’s why I believe our president is able to spout lie after lie and still have his base of people follow him. When news outlets check the facts and point out his lies, it’s irrelevant to many of the people following him because their emotions are more important to them than the facts. Emotional manipulation has long been a mainstay of politicians. Whether it’s the Willie Horton ad of decades past, or the vilification of certain groups of people, the idea of mobilizing voters based on fear and hatred has been present in our country throughout my lifetime and many lifetimes before.
This brings me to the point of my post. In the past when you have told people who condoned the administration’s actions to stop reading your blog and go away, I wrote an e-mail saying essentially that if they went away they would not longer have access to your views, which could potentially change their minds.
Well, actually I’ve changed my mind. I have come to believe that people who are drawn in (suckered in) by people like Donald Trump are not going to change their minds. Their emotions are more powerful than any logic that can be presented. Their emotions have been stirred up and they want to take it out on someone. And that someone is whoever Trump happens to be angry at. They’re on his “team,” and no amount of logic is going to get them to change teams.
So, please everyone, GO OUT AND VOTE! Let’s take our country back from the perpetrators of the inhuman acts and heinous policies that have taken place over the past two years and help bring some form of decency back into our government.
There's evidence President Dump is trying to scare people from voting
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/without-evidence-trump-and-sessions-warn-of-voter-fraud-in-tuesdays-elections/2018/11/05/e9564788-e115-11e8-8f5f-a55347f48762_story.html?utm_term=.be923771b20a
Don't listen! VOTE!
Voter fraud is a myth.
If anyone hassles you voting today, call (866) OUR-VOTE for help.
Take time to read and understand the ballot AND THEN vote. Don't make your choice based on a TV ad or a colorful mailer. Democracy takes some effort to get right.
Voter #8 at my polling place at 6am. I know the people in line with me were not voting the way I was, but everyone was in a good mood, laughing, talking, getting along. Much more civil than we are led to believe by the Cheeto in charge.
Pam, St. Louis.
I do love the irony of Trump supporters accusing others of a derangement syndrome when they spent eight years feverishly saying Obama was going to turn America into a communist state, ban all guns, create death panels, turn the White House into a mosque, hand power over to China, and abolish free enterprise.
Not a single one of those things happened. But he did wear a tan suit. Let's not forget the tan suit.
Voting with my family this afternoon at what had been my kids' elementary school.
Regarding James Woods: In my opinion, anyone who could convincingly play as utterly vile a character as he played in The Onion Field (the adaptation of Joseph Wambaugh's true-crime book) just had to be vile inside, too.
Some folks object to these posts. Here's one who LOVES them. Thanks.
The people who know Trump best, New York City, voted AGAINST him in 2016 by a 90% margin. He only got 10% of the vote.
That tells you everything, just in case the last two disgusting years haven't.
End the madness. Restore checks and balances. Vote the GOP the hell OUT.
I walked to the polling place and was back before a big potato in the oven had baked. Voting was held at the National Guard Center, so you had to walk past a huge cannon at the entrance. Guess that kept the canvassers away. I'm always a little unnerved to see people reading the voter guide in line, like cramming for a test at the last moment. In my case, they whooshed me straight through the crowd because I knew what table to go to, and I'd already filled out the sample ballot so it only took two minutes to fill out the real one. Now I just have to wait for the returns (and the potato).
What I'm waiting for is the "Face in the Crowd Moment" we all know is coming. It might be an open mic at a rally or an unguarded comment during an interview--whatever it is, when it happens and the mob turns on him, I just hope I'm still around to see it.
If you've never read Your Arkansas Traveler, Budd Schulberg's short story A Face in the Crowd is based on, Election Day might be the perfect time to do so:
https://archive.org/stream/somefacesincrowd00schu/somefacesincrowd00schu_djvu.txt
I VOTED. Otherwise, no comment.
M.B.
Hi Ken,
I'm from Canada and the majority of people from my country would support what you wrote. So please dear allies, get out and vote, not just for America but for the world!
Voter guide? Sample ballot? I've been searching for those things for a month. But as you may have heard, here in Georgia the Secretary of State (who just happens to be the Republican candidate for governor) is the Wizard of Voter Suppression. There isn't a dirty trick he hasn't employed, so it gave me special pleasure to vote against him. If there's a run-off, I'll do it again.
Anyone who's put off by weather, long lines or whatever should watch the most recent John Oliver show. The little boy reunited with his mother and responding with rage and confusion is the most terrible thing I have ever seen. You can do something about that today!
Well, here's to hoping that both the returns and the potato were to your liking.
I live in battleground state Florida now and am hoping (and voted) for an Andrew Gillum/Bill Nelson sweep. We've had eight years of sleazebag Rick Scott, who termed out as governor and is now trying to buy ads his way toward Nelson's senate seat. This could be the year Florida finally secures itself blue.
Thanks for the patriotic post, Ken.
Anyone put off by weather or long lines needs to remember 102-year-old Desiline Victor
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/state-of-the-union-guest-desiline-victor-102-will-be-the-face-of-voting-delays-at-address/2013/02/11/3b81604a-74a4-11e2-95e4-6148e45d7adb_story.html?utm_term=.51fcd1f143b4
Agreed. I grew up in the '60s, seeing reports of blacks and others in the South being beaten and murdered in order to vote. It's a powerful weapon, and I cherish the right to have it.
I voted for more cowbell...
Ahh, a “Face in the Crowd” moment.
Except it won't be a deceptively hot mic; it will be a known live mic.
And it won't be said once, where it can plausibly be walked back; but instead twice to two different audiences.
And it won't be betrayal and revulsion the audience feels but instead laughter and moral superiority.
In other words, it won't be a Face in the Crowd” moment at all; it will be a Hillary Clinton Deplorables moment.
People vote for Trump because they can sense the contempt that many non-Trump voters have for them. It's not that they love him; it's that they love seeing their cosmopolitan and moral betters clutch their pearls and cluck their tongues. Trump is the Marcia Jeffries who exposes the venom people like Lonseome Hillary have for middle America. He gets votes because people feel that the hate directed at him is often hate targeted at them.
The biggest mistake we Democrat’s have made in the last few years is demonizing all Republicans. Trump is blind to the horror of his motley collection of ideas, and he has attracted people whose ideas are in equally tangled disarray. But rational conservatives who genuinely believe that less government is best for everyone have no where to turn, and they don’t deserve to be lumped with the Alt Right and Trump supporters. We can only hope that they will turn to the Democratic Party for this election and for the near future, but I fear that will not happen if they continue to be vilified so totally.
I wouldn't worry about that too much. The smart ones understand. Try reading this:
This conservative would take Obama back in a nanosecond
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/07/20/how-i-miss-obama/?utm_term=.d4225bbd9726
For all the reasons you cited, I voted Republican.
And don't forget this actual headline from Sept. 4, 2013 from the conservative Washington Times: “Obama’s foot on Oval Office desk sends shockwaves around the world.”
For a scientist like me Trump's total lack of interest in acquiring knowledge to perform evidence-based decision making is astounding. Here's a man who had the means and opportunities to educate himself like few people can. Instead he's been showing nothing but disregard for facts or scientific endeavours of any kind. It's been a constant stream of exaggerations, self-promotion, insults, falsehoods and outright lies. To make things worse, he surrounds himself with people of a similar intellectual calibre.
The transatlantic partnership between the USA and Europe has always been an alliance that promoted stability and important values. Currently it's an empty shell.
I voted last week. Washington state has all-mail voting, so three weeks ago every household found in their mailbox a voter's guide and then official ballots. We filled out our choices in the comfort of our own homes and then put them in a postage-paid envelope in mailboxes or in secure dropboxes in public locations (libraries, malls). We also have a ballot ID stub so we can check on a website if our vote was counted. This system is efficient for the state and ultraconvenient for voters, and I'd like to see it adopted in more states.
ODJ, Lonesome Rhodes moment has already happened, "I can shoot someone on fifth avenue and they'll still vote for me."
The Senate is lost. I'm surprised people didn't run against them for supporting Kavanaugh.
This is what happens when you put up such obviously fake stories. Hopefully, they'll be better with the attacks next time. Not sure if they can come up with anything on Trump(other than Russia), but there are other targets that they can use to paint the whole party. Take down one or two at a time with some accusers, and then a narrative emerges.
We'll see about the House.
Jeff
"For all the reasons you cited"
So you're saying you voted BECAUSE you want lying, cheating, racism, destroying human rights, disrespecting women, condoning Nazis, separating toddlers from their families, mass shootings involving innocent people and children, lining pockets of the rich, obstructing justice, pissing on the Constitution, advocating violence, cutting your health care, raping the environment, jeopardizing your Social Security and Medicare, treason, and felony crimes?
Janet Ybarra
Thank you for sharing that beautifully written article. It does give one hope. I suppose we’ll know in a few hours.
"Cowbell" references are as tired as "Chico needed the money" japes.
I blame cable TV for a lot of the toxic political environment. Morning Joe gave Trump millions of dollars of free publicity during the 2016 primaries. They thought he was a joke, but had access to him. He had the last laugh. He used their show to blow away the other 16 candidates, saving himself tens of millions of dollars.
Stop showing campaign rallies that aren't news. If the news organizations would have a benchmark that vitriol spouted from the lectern is campaign commercial fodder and not news, he loses his bullhorn. They don't have to show it live. Tape it and only show what's newsworthy.
Instead they take the most egregious comments and run to get reaction shots from the other party. Probably most disheartening is the lack of courage in Congress. There are many good Republican legislators who fear Trump's wrath and won't contradict him publicly; only in the safety of off-the-record conversations.
Probably most distressing is this election will wipe out whatever moderates are left in either party, making the rhetoric even more partisan. Maybe those moderates should ban together, find common ground and start a third party, forcing the Rs and Ds to form coalitions that would actually move legislation. There are more independents registered than either Rs or Ds. Whatever happened to that infrastructure bill that would have benefited millions of Americans? With the debt escalating as a result of the tax cut legislation (and wait under the middle class has its cuts run out while corporations continue to reap huge profits), there is no funding that could support such a large public works project.
I'm one of the older Millenials (born in '84), and I did the early voting in my state a couple weeks ago. So I've been spending my day nervously awaiting the results. I don't blame anyone for keeping their hopes realistic and tempered, but if we can get some really, really good news from tonight, I might be able to feel a little better about things going forward. You've aptly summed up exactly what we're fighting against today, and I hope lots of people send a much needed wake-up call to this administration.
From what I've seen so far, it's been a mixed bag. A few bright spots but not as strong as perhaps some of us had hoped. (We already lost an Indiana senator and things look too close in Florida.)
The really good news right now is how strong Beto O'Rourke has come on against Ted Cruz in Texas.
He is proving to be someone special. Perhaps someone to watch running for president soon...
Ok, so the Republicans have held the Senate, which had been predicted, but the Democrats have taken the House.
I hope the Democrats now give the Republicans a taste of their own medicine and make things as difficult and painful as possible for the Trump administration for the next two years.
He didn't win tonight, despite all the Hollywood love (and $$$$) he got. My fellow Dems need to stop focusing on charisma and emphasize simple competence -- and economic rather than social issues.
Things certainly will painful for President Dump as Democrats now have full subpoena and investigatory power.
It was just reported that the new chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee will now receive (as he can by law) Dump's tax returns.
It is only the beginning of putting Dump and his administration hard under the microscope.
He really won't like that. I see an outside chance that if the heat gets uncomfortable enough that Dump packs it up and leaves early.
The bad news is ultimately Beto O'Rourke lost to Ted Cruz. The good news is that frees up Beto to run for president.
MikeKPa said:
"Probably most distressing is this election will wipe out whatever moderates are left in either party, making the rhetoric even more partisan.
There are a lot of reasons why that happens. Certainly some is sociological. (Read, The Big Sort if you have the time and inclination). But another reason is structural. To be moderate means to be able to see more sides to a story or to have a varied intensity level. Our current structure discourages moderation for at least two reasons.
One: The 17th Amendment (the direct election of Senators) means that Reps and Senators now have overlapping constituencies. An appeal that works in one chamber will work in the other. That's not diversity, that's sameness. We want a Senate Republican who will break party ranks because his state is downwind of pollution. We want a Senate Democrat who will break ranks because his border state is overburdened by illegal immigrants. Whatever the issue. The point is that both parties would know that an issue is non-starter unless it can appeal to a broad cross section of people, people with varying interests. That leads to point two.
Two: The Supremacy clause vacuums issues up to the federal level. Win at the federal level and you win everywhere. Lose at the federal level and you lose everywhere. This creates incentives to fight...to fight hard knowing there isn't an escape. High intensity. But, I, as individual, am relatively impotent at the federal level because my vote is diluted by 120 million other people. And those people aren't my neighbors; I can't go talk to them or convince them or have them convince me. I don't want to be subject to the wishes of rube in Tupelo or an overeducated snob in New Haven. I want control not anxiety. The more control I have the more secure I feel. That security allows me to be comfortable with, to tolerate, the differences of outcomes that may occur in other states. Those uptight people in Nebraska may not want marijuana but I can chill here in Colorado.
More moderates would be nice. National legislation should reflect national consensus. If no consensus, then leave it to the states, where people can talk, debate, or -- if push comes to shove -- move. The people who benefit from the current arrangement are the ones who can most effectively seem indispensable. I don't want more indispensable politicians. I prefer more autonomous citizens.
If you apply Trump's standards, in which losing the popular vote is a landslide and visibly thin crowds are record-breakers, there was a blue wave.
Disappointed. Disgusted. I've worked with the public the last 40+ years [DJ, dispatcher, theater operator, etc] and to say the ignorance level of people is increasing is not very far from the truth.....and they're proud of being ignoramuses. Believe everything told to you by politicians of both sides without doing any fact checking of your own. A classmate that graduated with me bragging about the fact that he hasn't read a book since the day he graduated. Votes Republican. Big basketball star in high school, now out, and works minimum wage job at a hardware store and former classmates won't give him the time of day "because he's a n*****r and they can't be trusted". They vote Republican. And Ohio...at least the Republican guy running for Senate lost. He's from my area and I talked to people who see him come in to the local stores and they go up to say hi and he won't even shake their hand and they get the feeling that he thinks he's "Too good to talk to you". Idiots that complain they're going to lose their health care yet go and vote Republican because "they're against abortion." Tell them to look deeper, if they're so anti-abortion how come after the kid is born they say "you are on your own". I have [or had] Republican friends and have voted for some in the past that have been moderates and stayed in the center. This is the first time ever I have voted straight Democratic. Maybe if the Republicans come back from the far right of the Nazi Party, I might vote for one again but as of now I plan to never vote for one again for the rest of my life. I have a feeling that even Hitler, Pol Pot, Mussolini and Stalin would say "Wow, you guys are too extreme even for me!"
> They don't have to show it live. Tape it and only show what's newsworthy.
CNN's head is on record saying that Trump rallies deliver ratings, and if they cut away, the audience leaves.
I agree. Except for people who were willing to believe that a group of beleaguered refugees trying to make it to the United States for a better life constitutes a national security crisis and supported a Supreme Court nominee who likely sexual assault, several Senate Democrats likely would have seen a different result.
I have to disagree. Beto's charisma, if you want to call it that, is a feature, not a bug.
No, he did not win. But he got closer than any other Texas Democrat in decades.
And it was reported that he had coattails. His supporters are credited for flipping a number of state legislature seats and even a couple of Congressional seats.
And Beto's message wasn't more heavy on social issues than jobs.
He all along said his issues were healthcare, jobs, im migration and climate.
I don't see any boutique social issues among them.
"disrespecting women" - You mean like Keith Ellison, Tony Cardenas, Bob Menendez, Bobby Scott?
The party holding the White House almost always suffers a setback in the midterms; the only time in the last few decades it didn't was in 2002, likely in the patriotic fervor after 9/11. At least one of the Congressional bodies flipping to blue was normal.
YEKIMI said:
“I have a feeling that even Hitler, Pol Pot, Mussolini and Stalin would say ‘Wow, you guys are too extreme even for me!’”
YEKIMI also said:
“the ignorance level of people is increasing.”
If Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot had a living PR rep they would send YEKIMI a bouquet of roses. You do those mass murdering monsters a favor when you compare them to Republicans. Your comment is revelatory in much the way the parallax effect reveals where a person is standing.
Slow the increase of ignorance. Read http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674076082
Yes, Liggie, very normal. Obama lost both houses of Congress in 2010.
Just speaking about the allegations against Bobby Scott, those were debunked since the woman making them was tied in with the conspiracies around the murder of Seth Rich.
"Agreed. I grew up in the '60s, seeing reports of blacks and others in the South being beaten and murdered in order to vote. It's a powerful weapon, and I cherish the right to have it."
Southern Democrats were pretty bad back then. They all agree they’re better now, but I believe they’ll never let go of mobbing up in the dark of night to strike terror in the hearts of people they don’t want around. They said they’re better now. They never claimed to be cured.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/protesters-chant-outside-tucker-carlson-home-fox-news-host/
-Bleeding Heart Republican
CarolMR: No, the Republicans didn't gain control of the Senate until 2014. In 2010, the Democrats (who had gained both the House and Senate in 2006) lost only the House.
Only during his first two years did Obama have unified Democratic government. Same for Clinton. It was in 1994, not 2010, that both the House and Senate switched to Republican control (and stayed that way for Clinton's six remaining years.) Maybe that was what you were thinking of.
Thanks for the correction, Gottacook.
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