Election Night II: Load Balancing Boogaloo
November 8, 2016 8:47 PM Subscribe

The US Election night isn't over, but the server's capacity to serve tonight's original election thread is, so we're kicking open a new one right here. Hold on to your butts, folks, and be good to each other; see also a MetaTalk logistics thread, and you can hang out in Chat for more free-form chatter; let's try to keep this focused on updates about the national race.

Previous thread is here, but please load gently.

posted by cortex (3034 comments total) 69 users marked this as a favorite

Aaaugh!
posted by bz at 8:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

I have never been this terrified in my life. Were there comforting words in the last thread?
posted by Andrhia at 8:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [13 favorites]

This is shameful.
posted by waitingtoderail at 8:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [11 favorites]

What is going on cortex, we've had threads way bigger than this
posted by boo_radley at 8:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

From Canada: I'm so, so sorry.

And of course I know we're fucked along with you...
posted by Beardman at 8:49 PM on November 8, 2016 [14 favorites]

How is this happening?!
posted by Hicksu at 8:49 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oh hello. Here is an election II theme song for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twdpYiW6B8A
posted by dame at 8:49 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

the most ragevomit inducing part of all this is how gleefully, viciously, hatefully empowered all his supporters will be from now on. literally no matter what the outcome is today, white supremacy is going to be stronger than almost any of us have ever seen within our lifetimes, and this time around they have so many more people to hate, so many more vulnerable people for them to brutally harm 100% free of consequences.
posted by poffin boffin at 8:49 PM on November 8, 2016 [216 favorites]

My heart goes out to Hillary. What must she be thinking?
posted by carmicha at 8:49 PM on November 8, 2016 [38 favorites]

Super Deluxe has all the latest happenings on their electoral map
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:49 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

New thread means we start the night over again. Right? RIGHT?
posted by guiseroom at 8:49 PM on November 8, 2016 [35 favorites]

There were no comforting words, just people nervously glancing at their watches, wondering when to call the time of death.
posted by RedOrGreen at 8:49 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

Well...

I have no words of comfort.

Let them gloat over their victory.

Remember when I said that there is no safety to be found in the Northern Hemisphere?

That still holds so very fucking true.
posted by PROD_TPSL at 8:49 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

MA is going to give me legal weed, but I'll be paranoid enough as is. Wisconsin, you could have given us back one of the best Senators in Feingold, instead you're going to help anoint Donald Trump as president of this piece of shit country.
posted by haveanicesummer at 8:49 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

Maddow: "Well, the math is getting easier."

Gallows humor that makes me long for the gallows.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:49 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

Love and courage to anyone who is scared right now. I sure as hell am.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 8:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [37 favorites]

So anyway, the faithless elector in WA state, will he come into play?
posted by TWinbrook8 at 8:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm numb.
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

I posted this in the Brexit thread. Apparently I was right. Sometimes I really hate being right.
posted by SisterHavana at 8:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Even Trump seemed to believe he was losing. The polls, and especially the media, have failed badly. It's going to be a long night of heave drinking. I hope the urbam count catches up.
posted by Gelatin at 8:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

Worth noting: Trump doesn't cooperate with anyone. Short of the finger-on-the-button scenarios (which, I admit, are scary enough on their own), the people on the right who called him out for being "too liberal" weren't wrong: he's not anti-gun-control so much as he's been convinced that "2nd amendment" is a magic phrase that means "you can't tell me what to do;" he's not anti-abortion so much as he's been caught by fictional horror stories (he's been pro-choice in the past), and he's absolutely incompetent on matters of actual policy. Oh, and everyone in his own party hates him, and it's mutual.

I want to say, "the next few years would be bumpy as hell but not as catastrophic as [insert name here]," but I can't quite. However, it is worth noting that he doesn't actually want Cruz's agenda, Walker's agenda, or Pence's agenda.

He won't be spearheading any changes - he's not the Ideas Guy. The issue becomes, whose lies does he listen to most; who does he agree to sign off on anything they bring to him. And how soon will he scare or anger enough of his party to get himself impeached.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 8:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [49 favorites]

Tonight is a victory for misogyny. A victory for racism. A victory for ignorance. A victory for violence and bigotry. America, you could have chosen a woman who was qualified, honest, and inclusive. Instead you chose a man who offers you nothing, and himself everything. I love you, America. I hate you, America.
posted by gumpstump at 8:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [147 favorites]

How is this happening?!

Perhaps not ones with so many hundreds of people desperately refreshing in search of some hope for humanity.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

Good work mods! I'm sure it's chaos - but thanks again for keeping the lights on best you can...
posted by inflatablekiwi at 8:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [13 favorites]

WHAT DO WE DO?

Can Obama still pull off a late-term dictatorship?
posted by dis_integration at 8:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [32 favorites]

Dissolute Desk?
posted by zoinks at 8:50 PM on November 8, 2016

Can't. be. happening.
posted by goofyfoot at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I just got home from being an election judge in my tiny township, and it went really well. Great weather, great turnout, no problems. Democracy!

I have beer now. I'm not sure I have enough.
posted by mgar at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Fuck all those people. The honeymoon will be short, like tomorrow morning when we see what happens to the economy.
posted by bongo_x at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [16 favorites]

Good lord, Trump is bad enough but the thought of Mike Pence freaks me the fuck out. Is this real life???
posted by futz at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [20 favorites]

lalochezia may i interest you in this useful twitter account
posted by poffin boffin at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

I don't even understand what's happening right now.
posted by xyzzy at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

I think NH and Mn will probably hold on but I can't be sure. PA is dead tight. But MI... I just don't think it can happen (and WI is gone anyway).
posted by Justinian at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

My niece and nephew, who are being raised Muslim, are almost 3 and 5.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

My heart goes out to Hillary. What must she be thinking?

"Do I run or do I stay and fight?"

Right now, I hope to god she runs.
posted by Talez at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

In 2008, I allowed myself to be taken in by optimism, just for a bit. Before returning to the safe blanket of ideological cynicism.

I really hoped tonight would have been a rerun of that night.
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

The Guardian map has PA, MN, and NV leaning blue. Assuming that holds, Clinton needs to pick up MI and WI or MI and IA. Which is still possible, from what I can tell, since some more Democratic-leaning cities in both states haven't fully reported yet?
posted by eviemath at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

I am myself a straight, white, cis, hetero male. But I am so fucking filled with rage about this that I cannot fucking stand it. I have to go to work tomorrow night and look at the smug shitty faces of the prolapsed anuses who helped this happen, whether "this" is utter catastrophe or just near-catastrophe.

WHAT THE GODDAMNED FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE. I AM NOT SURE IF THIS IS A QUESTION.
posted by Scattercat at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [99 favorites]

'Bigger than Brexit': markets, US dollar plunge as Trump takes Florida
posted by Mister Bijou at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

The good news is I've stopped crying!
posted by zeusianfog at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

Also the death penalty is having a successful night. Journalist's gallows humor could become frighteningly literal.
posted by haveanicesummer at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

So is our moral duty as rule-of-law abiding citizens to accept an electoral college loss if we manage to win the popular vote? Or are we allowed to hit the streets and shut down the country in the name of preserving actual majority rule? Do we have more allegiance to the constitution, or democracy?

If it's the latter, we would need to act tomorrow.
posted by chortly at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

Well guys. Let's move forward. In the worlds of Marquês de Pombal after the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake, "Bury the dead, feed the living."

Trump was right. We were wrong. The media elite were wrong, who knows what else we were wrong about. Let's move forward.
posted by Telf at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [18 favorites]

I have to respond to this from last thread:

Everyone, please, tone down the rhetoric here. We are going to wake up tomorrow and our kids and families will be fine.

Tell it to the Muslims, the Latinx, our queer friends, the African-Americans, the Natives defending out water at Standing Rock, and basically everybody who doesn't share a religion and skin tone with Archie fucking Bunker.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [234 favorites]

This is so so so so so so sad. I can't even understand this happening. We came planning a party tonight - now I want to go home and snuggle my cats.
posted by arnicae at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Interesting question posted on 538, rebutting my own position about people voting for outsider candidate against status quo: " If the justification for Trump’s candidacy was that people are sick of Washington and want change, why aren’t more incumbents losing?"

But I don't know if that refutes the theory. How many plausible outsider candidates were running against incumbents? Also, I think it's more likely there a multi-causal effects at play. But man, if you can't beat trump, who can you beat, you know?
posted by smoke at 8:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Is anyone else currently drinking champagne and feeling like their doing so on the deck of the Titanic?
posted by OntologicalPuppy at 8:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [14 favorites]

Remember this feeling the next time an election comes around. Volunteer, both for the polls or a political party. Do something, it distracts from the gnawing terror.
posted by halifix at 8:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

guys there's still a chance dark horse candidate Giant Asteroid could come out of nowhere and spare us a trump presidency
posted by entropicamericana at 8:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [43 favorites]

OMG CLUTCHES THREAD, you don't know the despair I felt when the thread went down. It was like every bad thing was instantly true because Trump is fucking winning.

Honestly, I am having so much personal distress that I want to stress something to everyone. Please don't do anything to hurt yourself. We need each and every one of us no matter what happens. We will all be there for each other going forward. Your family needs you, metafilter needs you, the country needs you. Hell, the "let's go strangle some third-party voting Floridians" kickstarter needs you.
posted by threeturtles at 8:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [27 favorites]

:(((((((
posted by DynamiteToast at 8:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

What the heck is going on? I've been away from the news all day, and come back to crazytown?
posted by Kevin Street at 8:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

also maybe we should close the other thread so that one godawful troll doesnt take advantage of its potential lack of moderation
posted by poffin boffin at 8:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

Octavia Butler must be spinning in her grave right about now.
posted by sutureselves at 8:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

... and this is why you don't laugh Joe Biden out of the room when he says you need to stop ignoring all the poor people in Appalachia.

God, and Feingold is losing too. I like Feingold.
posted by pan at 8:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [19 favorites]

Wisconsin, you could have given us back one of the best Senators in Feingold, instead you're going to help anoint Donald Trump as president of this piece of shit country.

Now I understand how people in Ohio and/or Florida felt in previous elections. [hangs head in shame and despair]
posted by carmicha at 8:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

I want to send love to the metafilter activists who have been on the phones trying to make the difference in this election. You serve as an example of how we need to move forward in the coming years.
posted by angrybear at 8:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [50 favorites]

It's devastating. Why even tell the truth, why be kind to people, if you can be a monster, literally talk about assaulting women on tape, and become president?
posted by Buckt at 8:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [69 favorites]

Short retype of a reply to:

“Worth noting: Trump doesn't cooperate with anyone”

After seeing how Jesse Ventura failed to get much of anything done in Minnesota, this might be a glimmer of hope.
posted by traveler_ at 8:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [17 favorites]

As a black man of an immigrant family, I am very fearful for my young nephews and nieces and my brother in law. I knew white America hated black and brown people and I hope this election finally puts any doubts to rest.
posted by RedShrek at 8:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [29 favorites]

Godspeed to our country, our fellow countrypeople, and the world at large.
posted by gucci mane at 8:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

Gotta make sure I don't accidentally wear a red baseball hat tomorrow.

I confess to leaving the President line empty on my ballot. Two very flawed candidates. But the more flawed one looks to be a winner. Scary. Not so much that he is winning, but that there are so many people in this country who feel so disenfranchised from the establishment, dem or repub, that they do the kamikaze vote for Trump.
posted by AugustWest at 8:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Whatever is going on here, it's more than just Trump. Trump is surfing the wave of decades of destructive rhetoric. There are a lot of votes yet to be counted, but this is a real national historical low point. I don't know what else to say about what's going on beyond that. I think at some point, it's going to be time for a long national look in the mirror.
posted by feloniousmonk at 8:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [18 favorites]

I am so sad and just terrified. Just when I think I'm as sad and as scared as I can be, I think something like, "Oh, yeah, he wants Newt Gingrich in the cabinet," or remember how much earlier in the evening, my brother-in-law in France texted to predict this very situation... AS A JOKE. Wow. Wow.
posted by Miss Scarlet with the Candlestick in the Lounge at 8:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

This would be the 'chicken butt' part of 'guess what?'
posted by srboisvert at 8:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [16 favorites]

The Fix: Four totally plausible paths to a Trump-Clinton tie.

I swear, if this thing goes 1800, I'm going to have some words for LMM.
posted by zachlipton at 8:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't think democrats failed to get out the vote. I think we worked harder than we've ever worked. Turnout numbers were huge and record-breaking.

It just turns out that more Americans are utterly fucking deplorable than we thought. No one needed to call them to get them to the polls. They came of their own accord. Fueled by hate.
posted by the turtle's teeth at 8:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [120 favorites]

I can't imagine MN going for Trump. But I couldn't imagine the US going for Trump either, so here we are. I feel so sick.
posted by Elly Vortex at 8:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

269-269 NBC.
posted by goofyfoot at 8:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I feel so sick. After everything that's happened this election season...I had no idea. None. I've been so full of hope, and now it's just sadness and shame.

If anyone wants to talk or commiserate or do the Facebook thing (not that I'm on much these days) and not crowd up this thread, please feel free to MeMail me. Sometimes a shoulder to cry on can be a help.
posted by Salieri at 8:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm confused and revolted.

I'm physically ill.

I'm numb.

All this, plus I don't want to laugh. Not just that I can't—I actually don't want to feel the sensation of laughing. I don't ever recall feeling this way.
posted by Rykey at 8:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

1933 Germany. God help us all.
posted by localhuman at 8:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [26 favorites]

Time to start scrubbing my internet presence
posted by schmod at 8:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [21 favorites]

My heart goes out to Hillary. What must she be thinking?

Well, she's probably not thinking that she should just give up on society. She's probably thinking about the very large number of people who _did_ vote for her, and wondering how all that can be harnessed for the future.
posted by amtho at 8:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [28 favorites]

Everyone, please, tone down the rhetoric here. We are going to wake up tomorrow and our kids and families will be fine.

Yes, but the damage will be on a more global scale. Trump's victory, or even near-victory is going to be a red flag to fascism around the world. There's already a tide of it flowing across the world (Europe, India, etc) but if the US, as a great global power had decisively rejected it, there would have been a chance to stem it. This is a fucking global disaster.
posted by tavegyl at 8:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [73 favorites]

This is so damned embarrassing. How could we pick such a monster? I'm just really frickin' sad right now guys.
posted by lovecrafty at 8:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm literally vomiting while my other half cries and hyperventilates.
posted by infinitywaltz at 8:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

I foolishly didn't go straight to bed this evening and now am stuck watching the results with sick dread. At least I have the good company of fellow MeFites. Good luck to everyone out there. We can make it through the night together at least.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:55 PM on November 8, 2016

via MSNBC, Senator Schumer will be the presumptive Senate Minority leader.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

What happens now?

I work in the arts. My partner is a civil servant. What will happen to us?

My parents are retired civil servants. My partner’s parents are an artist and the part owner of an restaurant employment agency. What happens to them?

I have friends who are queer, and people of color. What will happen to them?

What happens to all of us on the Trump Shit List?

The queer people, the people of color, the disabled, the refugees, the non-Christians. What will happen to us now?

What happens when all the gains we made over the last eight years… over the last century… are undone like a sword through a knot?

What happens now?

It’s the uncertainty that kills me.
posted by SansPoint at 8:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [39 favorites]

One deleted - ugly, stop, don't bring that in here right now, it's not time.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 8:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [24 favorites]

I'm one of those usually silent Canadian mefites. I'm watching from here with my friends and still hoping for the best. I'll go back to my silent lurking now.
posted by devonia at 8:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Well, she's probably not thinking that she should just give up on society. She's probably thinking about the very large number of people who _did_ vote for her, and wondering how all that can be harnessed for the future.

She's probably thinking that more people will have voted for her than will have voted for Trump. Does that make it better or worse?
posted by Justinian at 8:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

It just turns out that more Americans are utterly fucking deplorable than we thought.

Don't forget the complete gutting of the VRA.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

This would be the 'chicken butt' part of 'guess what?'
posted by srboisvert

Needed this laugh. Thanks.
posted by azpenguin at 8:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

“There is a wall of which the stones
Are lies and bribes and dead men's bones.
And wrongfully this evil wall
Denies what all men made for all,
And shamelessly this wall surrounds
Our homesteads and our native grounds.

But I will gather and I will ride,
And I will summon a countryside,
And many a man shall hear my halloa
Who never had thought the horn to follow;
And many a man shall ride with me
Who never had thought on earth to see
High Justice in her armoury.

When we find them where they stand,
A mile of men on either hand,
I mean to charge from right away
And force the flanks of their array,
And press them inward from the plains,
And drive them clamouring down the lanes,
And gallop and harry and have them down,
And carry the gates and hold the town.
Then shall I rest me from my ride
With my great anger satisfied.

Only, before I eat and drink,
When I have killed them all, I think
That I will batter their carven names,
And slit the pictures in their frames,
And burn for scent their cedar door,
And melt the gold their women wore,
And hack their horses at the knees,
And hew to death their timber trees,
And plough their gardens deep and through—
And all these things I mean to do
For fear perhaps my little son
Should break his hands, as I have done.”
- Belloc
posted by Smedleyman at 8:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [20 favorites]

I can't tell you how utterly crushed I feel. I have a 6 year old daughter who is the center of my life and I desperately wanted her to grow up knowing that a woman could be president and what the rest of the US is saying is that no we don't want a woman as president. We would prefer a racist, sexist, bigoted coward to a supremely qualified female candidate.

What the fuck is wrong with us? Why do so many Americans harbor such hate in their heart? Why do lots of good people need to be punished so that a white majority can maintain their privileged spot?

Seriously fuck this, I am so fucking angry that angry farmers from Wisconsin are fucking deciding this presidency right now. God luck with those family farms when the Republicans get to work.
posted by vuron at 8:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [49 favorites]

All these bloviators on TV now talking about whether Clinton's "unlikeability" explains tonight's result, or maybe white working class disillusionment, or Trump's ability to "tell it like it is," and nobody's got the goddamn gonads to mention racism and misogyny.

Say it loud, and say it bluntly: misogyny and racism powered this election.
posted by ActionPopulated at 8:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [80 favorites]

Time to start scrubbing my internet presence

too bad the nsa keeps back-ups
posted by entropicamericana at 8:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

I am so so so so scared. I know I'm in California, so that's some safety, but fuck. I am a Muslim American naturalized citizen. What am I supposed to do? My brother says we hold on for four years. I don't know that we can.
posted by yasaman at 8:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [43 favorites]

Someone in the old thread said:

Why does this feel different? Because Trump is worse?

It's different because Bush and Reagan, for all their flaws, were not sociopathic narcissistic xenophobes who openly said "We have nukes, why not use them?" A Trump presidency isn't four years of regressive policies we can reverse later--as bad as that would be. It's four years of the whole damn world holding its breath because we have no idea what that guy might do. I would gladly make someone like Romney president for life if it saved us from one term of Donald Trump.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [123 favorites]

I'm genuinely scared. I've been having a three hour panic attack that I can't seem to quell.
posted by gern at 8:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

I can see the cracks exposed in families, in people who had plans, in projected futures. I cannot find more words, because there are none.
posted by holgate at 8:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

A tie is decided in the House of Representatives - it is no salvation
posted by thelonius at 8:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

1933 Germany. God help us all.

. Start planning.

Start getting TIGHT with your city government, because the first order of business is to prevent the police from being an instrument of Trump's will.
posted by ocschwar at 8:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [20 favorites]

R senate, R House, Trump as prez, and multiple open SCOTUS seats.

I have difficulty looking at that and carrying on as if it's business as usual

Maybe it'll seem different tomorrow.
posted by Lord_Pall at 8:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

i tuned out for a few hours and just checked back in now.

wow.
wow.
posted by Golem XIV at 8:57 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

traveler_: "After seeing how Jesse Ventura failed to get much of anything done in Minnesota, this might be a glimmer of hope."

Donald Trump is going to have access to 100% of the security briefings. He's got quite a bit more embodied power than any governor.
posted by Mitheral at 8:57 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Just a thought - I wonder how corb is doing...
posted by RedOrGreen at 8:57 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

We're paddling hard to keep up, bear with us.

What is going on cortex, we've had threads way bigger than this

Multiplicative effect of large-ish thread and lots of people loading it.

cortex, Chat link is broken

Fixed!
posted by cortex at 8:57 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

We have an opportunity here. To go from the Winston Churchill quote:

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts."

To the Winston Churchill quote (adapted):

"If these United States should last for a thousand years, the people would still say: This Was Their Finest Hour."

We stay. We fight for what we believe in. We are not beaten.
posted by susiswimmer at 8:57 PM on November 8, 2016 [26 favorites]

If I go to bed now, this can be a bad dream that I wake up from, right?
posted by rmless at 8:57 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Don't worry, we can still impeach him.

He's got two court cases coming up in a few weeks, and they're not going away.
posted by Autumnheart at 8:57 PM on November 8, 2016 [35 favorites]

ocschwar: Start getting TIGHT with your city government, because the first order of business is to prevent the police from being an instrument of Trump's will.

It's too late for that. I live in NYC.
posted by SansPoint at 8:57 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

hope everyone who voted third party or left that blank feels real good about the next four years

thanks for sacrificing the rest of us on your altar of ideological purity
posted by Anonymous at 8:57 PM on November 8, 2016

After all we've done, every battle hard-won
Every hair gone gray in the name of this place
In a history plagued with incredible mistakes
Still I pledge my allegiance to these United divided States
posted by nicebookrack at 8:57 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

We lost. Time to hit the drawing board d
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:57 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Going through my head.
posted by gern at 8:57 PM on November 8, 2016

Chuck Tingle for president.
posted by ActionPopulated at 8:57 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Canada's immigration website has crashed. (real)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:58 PM on November 8, 2016 [17 favorites]

Oh god they just asked Rudy Giuliani which cabinet post he would like
posted by cacofonie at 8:58 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

I know I'm in California, so that's some safety, but fuck. I am a Muslim American naturalized citizen. What am I supposed to do? My brother says we hold on for four years. I don't know that we can.

Yes, I take the smallest bit of comfort that I also live in CA.

I am not going to tell you how to feel, I can't imagine. I can tell you that California will not let jack shit happen to you. Period. Tell people in the other states to move here if they are also afraid.
posted by Justinian at 8:58 PM on November 8, 2016 [11 favorites]

Don't worry, we can still impeach him.

Yeah, Mike Pence as the backup plan. That'll go well.
posted by waitingtoderail at 8:59 PM on November 8, 2016 [57 favorites]

This is going to be bad for tourism.
posted by clavdivs at 8:59 PM on November 8, 2016 [13 favorites]

Have all the early ballots been counted?
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:59 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

via MSNBC, Senator Schumer will be the presumptive Senate Minority leader.

That's good, because he made sure the Democrats are in the minority.
posted by Gelatin at 8:59 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

Everyone, please, tone down the rhetoric here. We are going to wake up tomorrow and our kids and families will be fine.

I have a Girl Scout meeting tomorrow night. My girls are Mexican American, the children and grandchildren of immigrants. They have been scared of Donald Trump for MONTHS. They know he hates them. They know he hates their families. We learned about government several meetings back and they wrote a letter to Barack Obama--in it they said "please don't let Donald Trump be President because some people want to stay with their families." No one told them to say that, this is what's on their minds--children 8, 9 years old are thinking about this and worried about this and scared for their families. And that was when we were all "sure" that Hillary would win.

Anyone saying it'll "be fine", please give me a script for how to talk to them tomorrow.
posted by phunniemee at 8:59 PM on November 8, 2016 [123 favorites]

This Canadian can't watch anymore. I am sorry my American friends; maybe there is still hope out there tonight, but it will have to find me in the morning.

Goodnight America. Stay safe.
posted by nubs at 8:59 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm genuinely scared. I've been having a three hour panic attack that I can't seem to quell.

Take care of yourself. We can get through this together, okay? We are not alone in this. *hugs*
posted by Defying Gravity at 8:59 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

My take? I am despondent but not too surprised to find myself living in a country populated with fucking idiots...
posted by jim in austin at 8:59 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

So Trump gets impeached and we get President Pence. Oh yay.
posted by Elly Vortex at 9:00 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

This is just so bizarre to me. I live in Minnesota, which is fairly liberal but not exactly California or anything, and I don't know a SINGLE open Trump supporter. In fact I know many working-class, white, retired dudes who are extremely vocally pro-Hillary. Yesterday, anyone in my circle who said they were even Trump-curious would have been ostracized. Clearly people are behaving very differently in the polling booth than they do in public.

But I am choosing to look on the bright side. The latent racism and sexism was always there; it was just hidden by social politeness. Yesterday, it was possible to say that a small percentage of America was hateful, but the majority was fine. Now that the hate has been exposed, we'll be that much more motivated and focused in working to fix it.
posted by miyabo at 9:00 PM on November 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

Wasn't expecting to spend the night trying to reassure my crying girlfriend that if the worst happens we will still find a way, any way, to keep getting her treatment for her brain tumor. Really going to be hard to coexist with people who want to fuck with her life and the lives of millions like her.
posted by jason_steakums at 9:00 PM on November 8, 2016 [111 favorites]

Things likely going up in smoke: Iran nuclear deal, Obamacare, Supreme Court, Roe v Wade, International Relations with China, International Relations with Mexico, what else?
posted by leotrotsky at 9:00 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

This is gonna really suck, isn't it? I mean like out loud like my parents used to talk about. Where you went to segregated dances and drank at fountains that said whites only?

Growing my beard and brushing up on my Farsi.
posted by Sphinx at 9:00 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Wonder what James fucking Comey is doing tonight.
posted by wildblueyonder at 9:00 PM on November 8, 2016 [18 favorites]

Anyone saying it'll "be fine", please give me a script for how to talk to them tomorrow.

step one: remind them of the importance of being a cis white heterosexual man

step two: welp
posted by poffin boffin at 9:00 PM on November 8, 2016 [28 favorites]

Oh, any kind of nuclear security, as well.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:01 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Trump will do everything possible to destroy Obama's legacy.

Mass deportations are not an impossibility.

My God, Secretary of Defense Flynn!

WOLVERINES!!!!!!!!!
posted by Golden Eternity at 9:01 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

How were not only the pre-election polls wrong, but also the exit polls? Like, all of them? How is that possible?
posted by indubitable at 9:01 PM on November 8, 2016 [20 favorites]

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
posted by kuatto at 9:01 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

So when do we start the underground railroad to help our queer or PoC or non-Christian or trans friends escape out of the country?
posted by FritoKAL at 9:01 PM on November 8, 2016 [17 favorites]

Things likely going up in smoke: Iran nuclear deal, Obamacare, Supreme Court, Roe v Wade, International Relations with China, International Relations with Mexico, what else?

Climate change treaties.
posted by nubs at 9:01 PM on November 8, 2016 [25 favorites]

It is not going to be fine. It may be fine for white, cis-gendered, hetero (or at least hetero-passing) people like me, but it is not going to be fine for everyone else. Do not pretend otherwise.

I'm going to bed. I have to go to work. While I still have a job to go to. Fortunately, my job is contingent on the demands of rich elites to have high class entertainment, which isn't likely to be impacted too much.
posted by SansPoint at 9:01 PM on November 8, 2016 [19 favorites]

As a Jewish woman, I am absolutely terrified. Granted, I live in a blue state, so that is some small comfort, but still...
posted by SisterHavana at 9:01 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

great_radio: "Can anyone provide a link of the original "This is fine. Everything is fine." comic?"

This is fine.
posted by t3h933k at 9:01 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

National Parks, Progressive Taxation, Equal pay, minimum wage, the EPA, Department of Education, NATO
posted by Lord_Pall at 9:02 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

Can anyone provide a link of the original "This is fine. Everything is fine." comic?

This is fine.
posted by carsonb at 9:02 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's not over. Not that we can do anything but pray. But if you can, do that now.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:02 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Better Pence than Trump. Pence has at least some passing experience with governing and the Constitution. Trump does not.
posted by Autumnheart at 9:02 PM on November 8, 2016

Some comments deleted. Don't go after each other, don't poke known sore points.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:02 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

So when do we start the underground railroad to help our queer or PoC or non-Christian or trans friends escape out of the country?

Please don't do this.
posted by zutalors! at 9:02 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

It wasn't a joke.
posted by FritoKAL at 9:02 PM on November 8, 2016 [49 favorites]

From Matthew Merlino:

Five stages of Democrat grief:

1. Blame third party voters
2. Call out non-voters for their white privilege
3. Call your opponents stupid
4. Hint at some revolutionary action after a year of calling anyone to the left of Clinton a dreamer with no real policy details
5. Agree to take the higher ground and cooperate with Republicans because we just have to put our noses to the grindstone

Yeah. The sooner we process this, the sooner we can go on fighting fascism -- together.
posted by grobstein at 9:02 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

posted by Rumple at 9:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [52 favorites]

I'm genuinely scared. I've been having a three hour panic attack that I can't seem to quell.

Same. My pulse is through the roof and I seem to have forgotten how to breathe properly. And it took several tries to type this with everything spelled correctly - hands are shaking.
posted by pemberkins at 9:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

Love and hugs to everyone, not really capable of forming any other thoughts about anything. Thank you to everyone who tried.
posted by Artw at 9:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [13 favorites]

Please don't do this.

Don't do what? I mean, we need to start organizing. it's not unreasonable to talk this way.
posted by Miko at 9:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [44 favorites]

Please don't do this

Why not? or were Trump's speeches just chit chat with friends in the locker room?
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 9:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [38 favorites]

The country just went full-on reactionary, as I've seen it do for my entire adult life. So in a way this is nothing new to me. I just wish we had the ability to stay calm, make sound investments in the future, and i don't know, actually give a crap about our level of discourse on the national stage.
posted by Room 101 at 9:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

The words "rogue nation" are gonna come up, frankly
posted by middleclasstool at 9:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

What the hell. Our government is going to be led by folks like Mike Pence. Newt Gingrich. Rudy Giuliani. Kellyanne. Kid Shitler. Chris Christie. Redpillers. Gamergaters. White supremacists. Trump's SCOTUS appointees. Paul Ryan.

Hell.
posted by darkstar at 9:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

anyone here remember when we used to have a Voting Rights Act?
posted by beerperson at 9:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [25 favorites]

Don't forget the updated version: "This is not fine!"
posted by bawanaal at 9:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

if not impeached you may have 16 yrs of Trump, Donald followed by Ivanka...
posted by Wilder at 9:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's going to be so much worse than any of us can imagine.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:04 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

The gun is not at our heads yet. I have lived trough times of no hope before and I think so has everyone here. I am going to stay alive, because when you live to TELL, you still win. I give everyone permission to run or fight as needed.
posted by blnkfrnk at 9:04 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

Focus on local elections and on 2018, folks. Consider running yourself - for water board, school board, county positions. The far right worked their way uo from these "minor" positions, and it paid off. Guess this our turn.
posted by msalt at 9:04 PM on November 8, 2016 [14 favorites]

I'd been joking with my partner that it was nice of Lin-Manuel to write Hamilton so that was a really beautiful and inspiring story of the American experiment before democracy as we know it is destroyed....I never thought that would actually be a possibility.
posted by TheLateGreatAbrahamLincoln at 9:04 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

This is going to be bad for tourism.
No way. Cheap holidays on the back of a busted buck, ahead.
posted by unliteral at 9:04 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Calling it a night. Lots of work tomorrow.

Lots of work for a while to come. Best to you all, and I hope you get a few minutes of rest.
posted by Mooski at 9:04 PM on November 8, 2016

My wife is asleep. I keep begging the universe to change this possibility before she wakes up and asks me.
posted by nakedmolerats at 9:05 PM on November 8, 2016 [20 favorites]

So painful. I am at a Washington democrats party and a dude was legislating the primary. Clinton isn't "inspiring". Barf. So yeah there's some under bus throwing.
posted by R343L at 9:05 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Please don't do this

Why not? or was Trump's speeches just chit chat with friends in the locker room?

Don't do what? I mean, we need to start organizing. it's not unreasonable to talk this way.

For one, I'm a PoC, and don't like the "our friends" language when we are right here. Two, I'd rather not be smuggled out of the country. Three, quit ginning up fear. Especially if you are white.
posted by zutalors! at 9:05 PM on November 8, 2016 [45 favorites]

Obama's only thought right now needs to be preemptively pardoning Hilary for any imaginary crimes.

It's going to be that bad.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:05 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

she can still win right? please tell me it's still possible.

Possible, but very, very unlikely.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:05 PM on November 8, 2016

I used to believe in America, that people were fundamentally decent. I don't know what to believe anymore. The thing we thought was the worst case scenario (Hillary squeaks by with a Republican Congress) is now the best case scenario. At this moment, this is not my country.
posted by dannyboybell at 9:05 PM on November 8, 2016 [11 favorites]

ErisLordFreedom : And how soon will he scare or anger enough of his party to get himself impeached.

This is the worst case I've been screaming about at the top of my lungs to anyone who will listen; Trump, if elected, /will/ get impeached. He has too many skeletons, too many shoes about to drop, too little self control, and a broad base of even-the-usually-faithful-Republicans against him.

And being president is a lot different than running. Running you can say all sorts of crazy shit because it isn't impacting policy yet, but once in office, people have a much lower threshold for bullshit. Particularly when that bullshit directly affects their lives.

So, /when/ Trump is impeached, we get the far more terrifying event; Pence as president. The man's stated platform is to undo any kind of abortion rights, undo gay rights, and generally do as much as possible to roll the clock back on the achievements of women's rights right back to the 1930s or so. Trump is a terrifying clown- he is chaos in orange. Pence is a specific and dangerous threat to pretty much everyone who isn't a straight white male. (who isn't an atheist.)

I went so far as to predict that if Pence gets into office, we might actually see the Pope chastise a sitting president. Pence's Catholicism clearly hasn't embraced many of the changes Francis has been putting in place, and I can absolutely see that causing friction.

And for a Catholic who is /so/ very faithful that policy is derived from your beliefs, having the Pope call you out is like being told you are headed for a quick trip to the hot place when you die.
posted by quin at 9:05 PM on November 8, 2016 [19 favorites]

So... if you're thinking, right now, that you may have to live the next four years of your life under President Trump, just remember that you might actually be getting your marching orders from Mike Pence. (Not that that's significantly better, mind you.)

One day this past May, Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., reached out to a senior adviser to Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, who left the presidential race just a few weeks before. As a candidate, Kasich declared in March that Trump was “really not prepared to be president of the United States,” and the following month he took the highly unusual step of coordinating with his rival Senator Ted Cruz in an effort to deny Trump the nomination. But according to the Kasich adviser (who spoke only under the condition that he not be named), Donald Jr. wanted to make him an offer nonetheless: Did he have any interest in being the most powerful vice president in history?

When Kasich’s adviser asked how this would be the case, Donald Jr. explained that his father’s vice president would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy.

Then what, the adviser asked, would Trump be in charge of?

“Making America great again” was the casual reply.
posted by Clay201 at 9:05 PM on November 8, 2016 [13 favorites]

IA is called for Trump according to the Guardian map. Which means we need some sort of Democratic surge in MI and WI... ulp.
posted by eviemath at 9:05 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

The astounding thing here is how many people lied to pollsters, not just on the phone, but exit polls too. Is this an indictment of people voting for someone they were ashamed to own even semi-anonymously, or for society for not allowing people to speak their minds? Maybe Clinton could have dug deeper on her message and program, and won, if she knew where the electorate really was, not where they felt compelled to appear to be?
posted by MattD at 9:05 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

she can still win right? please tell me it's still possible.

I don't believe so: "Clinton needs to win Pennsylvania. The problem is that her lead has dropped to about 7,000 with plenty of votes left to be counted in Republican areas. Meanwhile, the city of Philadelphia has had almost all of its votes counted."
posted by danb at 9:06 PM on November 8, 2016

At this point, even if Clinton wins, I think I'm still going to remain stunned by how many votes Trump got for quite some time. I've had to recalibrate my pessimism and cynicism multiple times already this election cycle. But apparently not enough.
posted by at home in my head at 9:06 PM on November 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

Dollar falling.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 9:06 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

"The Road" just got about a hundred years closer.
posted by Slinga at 9:06 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

Ahhh don't do this to me I need my MeFi

In election news, Florida legalized suicide, so clearly they want to drag America to hell.
posted by numaner at 9:06 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

aaaanyway i guess i don't really have to worry abt becoming addicted to painkillers anymore since i won't be able to get healthcare at any price
posted by poffin boffin at 9:06 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Dammit. I got married this year, and now the country is handing power to people who want to make my marriage illegal.
posted by rmd1023 at 9:06 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Good news, everyone! CNN sez Clinton currently ahead in PA by 0.1%.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:06 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Woke up because the baby was crying. He's back to sleep. We are wide awake. This is saddening in so many ways.
posted by sciencegeek at 9:06 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

I'm Australian, and I feel sick. Genuinely, pit-of-stomach sick. I have not met one single person who thinks this is good.

Trump viscerally horrifies me. America, you have my deepest sympathy.
posted by Salamander at 9:06 PM on November 8, 2016 [20 favorites]

Impeaching Trump still leaves Mike Fucking Pence as president.
posted by Catblack at 9:06 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

remember when the shrub won and everyone went "well, how bad could he be, really?" [ff 8 months past inauguration...]
posted by entropicamericana at 9:07 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

unliteral: "This is going to be bad for tourism.
No way. Cheap holidays on the back of a busted buck, ahead."

From where? Canadians and Brits won't have any money and Trump will be at quasi war with everyone else.
posted by Mitheral at 9:07 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

On another forum: "I'm not so upset about the new Macbook Pro any more."
posted by thelonius at 9:07 PM on November 8, 2016 [70 favorites]

Whoops I was being optimistic as recently as 30 minutes ago and now I'm favoriting all the defeatist comments. Well I'm in for the revolution guys.
posted by DynamiteToast at 9:07 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

The simple reality is that people are going to die because of tonight's result. The Republicans are going to dismantle Obamacare and some people are going to lose their insurance. Some of those people will just get sick and have to declare bankruptcy. Some of them will die. Some of those people are posters on the blue.

Don't patronize them with the world will go on because for a percentage of Americans their well-being just went out the fucking door.

All because Trump promised to talk big about jobs when those fucking jobs are never going to come back.

The truth is that Rural White America wanted a hero, and baring that they wanted a bully. A bully that could bully the rest of America like they feel they've been bullied. Sorry but I have nothing for contempt for those people.
posted by vuron at 9:07 PM on November 8, 2016 [129 favorites]

Any guesses on the possibility of a bank run tomorrow?
posted by lumpenprole at 9:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

to be fair though she didn't have a very good email setup
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [18 favorites]

I'm feeling... maybe this is just kind of numb, at this point.

I sent an email to my mother asking if she voted for him.

There's only one answer to this that means I can go home for Christmas and feel safe in her house.

I keep trying to tell myself that I've made it this far without support from my parents. If my dad is dead now, it's not like he was there for me before. If I never speak to my mother again, it's not like she was there for me before.

I'm Hispanic, and my mother is white, and I'm pretty sure she voted for him, and I'm distressed by the idea that he could win, but I'm not sure it makes my life any easier if he doesn't. I can only just barely deal with the knowledge that this much of the country is okay with voting for a man who openly abuses women and spouts racism at every opportunity. But it's not just the country. It's my mom.

I don't win this.
posted by Sequence at 9:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [17 favorites]

Make plans. Really, make plans, proper plans, the plans that Mormons are instructed to make by their history. The existence of California and Trumplandia in parallel is not a sustainable national settlement.
posted by holgate at 9:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

I just looked at the 538 snake and the WI votes. It looks to me like Clinton can *easily* win WI, MI, PA and the election.

The Trump P=.84 looks dumb to me. This is going to be a late night. There are way more than enough votes yet uncounted for Clinton to win. Aren't most of the uncounted votes in the biggest cities? What am I missing?
posted by bukvich at 9:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Is it too late to ask for Trump's tax returns? I'd still like to see what's in them.
posted by Room 101 at 9:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Impeaching Trump still leaves Mike Fucking Pence as president.

Even worse. If somehow how both get impeached, Paul Ryan becomes POTUS.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 9:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Raise your hand if you were for eliminating the filibuster about two hours ago and are suddenly finding yourself convinced by the arguments in favor of keeping it.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [13 favorites]

Dow, S&P 500, NASDAQ - all plunging.
posted by zakur at 9:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Don't blame me, I voted for Kod....Fuck, I'm not in a joking mood. This election is far from a laughing matter.
posted by bawanaal at 9:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

I consider this a call to action. Even if she wins.
posted by goofyfoot at 9:09 PM on November 8, 2016 [16 favorites]

The sea of red hats in the Trump headquarters is chilling. They're the new black shirts.
posted by apricot at 9:09 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Hey guys I'm about to board my Auckland to San Fran flight and I don't know what kind of country I'm landing in. My home isn't my home anymore. Having dual citizenship is cold fucking comfort at the moment. See y'all on the other side.
posted by supercrayon at 9:09 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

It's not going to be fine. I want to say it will but I can't. Yes there is so, so, much that Trump is going to do that will not be fine. But we only have a small window left to not completely fuck up the globe with climate change and America has just elected a guy and a party who thinks it's BS.

Not sure how anything can happen with the US on board. With Clinton there would have been still hope. Climate change is going to have reprcussions on everything and there is just no way that Trump and the dolts he's going to put on his 'team' have any ability or the intellect to deal with the consequences.

The only hope right now and a really hate to say it because it's so not good for the US, is for the rest of the world to band together against it. The climate change fight is not going to be pretty.

This is a nightmare come true.
posted by Jalliah at 9:09 PM on November 8, 2016 [14 favorites]

I know that being white and living in Massachusetts and having a job with health insurance makes me incredibly privileged in this dark universe we're about to enter into, so I promise, I'll find a way to be strong and do what I can to help all of you who are going to be going through even more hell than I am, but right now, I just feel so weak and despondent and terrified and just so so lost.

How did we get here? How do we keep going?

It all just looks so dark. I can't believe I have to wake up and head to work in the morning. How do we find the will to go on?
posted by litera scripta manet at 9:09 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

This is some real bullshit here.
posted by Sphinx at 9:09 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

vuron: "The simple reality is that people are going to die because of tonight's result. The Republicans are going to dismantle Obamacare and some people are going to lose their insurance. Some of those people will just get sick and have to declare bankruptcy. Some of them will die. Some of those people are posters on the blue."

People die in an economic crash from all sorts of reasons. The upcoming crash is going to be horrible; deep and wide.
posted by Mitheral at 9:09 PM on November 8, 2016 [13 favorites]

It's not going to be that bad, it's not going to be good, but it's not going to be the end of everything you hold dear. The US government is more than just one person.
posted by FallowKing at 9:10 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

My savings are now worth 12% less than 4 hours ago — a Mexican.
posted by Omon Ra at 9:10 PM on November 8, 2016 [11 favorites]

Impeaching Trump still leaves Mike Fucking Pence as president.

Pence is nightmarish. But not launch-the-nukes nightmarish.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 9:10 PM on November 8, 2016 [14 favorites]

I can't breathe.
posted by vibrotronica at 9:11 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

I just looked at the 538 snake and the WI votes. It looks to me like Clinton can *easily* win WI, MI, PA and the election.

She's already lost WI.
posted by dirigibleman at 9:11 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

So, /when/ Trump is impeached, we get the far more terrifying event; Pence as president.

I understand why people feel this way, but Pence, horrid as he is, is not going to call for a nuclear strike because someone pissed him off on Twitter at 3:00 a.m. Given Trump or Pence, I'd take Pence in a heartbeat.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:11 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

I was holding off on applying to schools to finish this degree until after today. One month to go with this phase. I was getting so excited about the next step, and now... why? What even is the point?

I hope I feel more optimistic in the morning.
posted by palomar at 9:11 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

The Republicans are going to dismantle Obamacare and some people are going to lose their insurance.

"Do we have a year to sort this out somehow? Or do we need another option now, no matter how bad it is?"

That's the conversation among high-earning people with chronic illness. Type 1 diabetics, people who've got past cancer in the past. Because if you don't think that the iffy-Trump GOP in Congress are now swearing fealty to a bullshit cause, then you are deluding yourself.
posted by holgate at 9:11 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

Why not? or was Trump's speeches just chit chat with friends in the locker room?

Well, actually... yes. While the people Trump wants to put in positions of power are truly vile and would cause us a great deal of damage, he goes back on his statements fairly often. His words convey what he's feeling, not specific plans.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:11 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

FUCK 2016
posted by en forme de poire at 9:11 PM on November 8, 2016 [51 favorites]

Yeah, my kid was born with a pre-existing condition and couldn't get health insurance until Obamacare. So fuck this glib repeal shit.
posted by vverse23 at 9:11 PM on November 8, 2016 [38 favorites]

The US government is more than just one person.

Yeah, but there's more than just one person that we have to worry about.

How far down the order of secession do we have to go to get someone not absolutely terrible?
posted by litera scripta manet at 9:11 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

While we're laughing at America for something like 48% of it voting for Trump, can we save some scorn for the 3% of us who voted for Gary "What is Aleppo" Fucking Johnson?
posted by tonycpsu at 9:12 PM on November 8, 2016 [41 favorites]

Jesus Christ, how?
posted by DynamiteToast at 9:12 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

It's not going to be that bad, it's not going to be good, but it's not going to be the end of everything you hold dear. The US government is more than just one person.

Trump didn't just win, Trump-ism won, resoundingly. They control all 3 branches. For at least 4 years. He can act with absolute impunity.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:12 PM on November 8, 2016 [28 favorites]

I know that being white and living in Massachusetts and having a job with health insurance

And even those things won't help you if you become chronically or severely ill and they repeal the Affordable Care Act, and along with it the provisions regarding preexisting conditions. A.k.a. what vverse23 said.
posted by limeonaire at 9:12 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm going to bed. I'm sorry. I was hoping to be leading rousing victory cheers. Hillary might still win but I am demoralizied, and I hate my country a bit tonight, and I hate that orange asshole, and I just can not imagine this shit right now. I'm sorry. I'll fight but I'll fight tomorrow.
posted by vrakatar at 9:12 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

The US government is more than just one person.

That is true but we have no idea what to expect from Trump. He could change the very structure of the country/world.

I hate when people are fatalistic but things seems pretty fucked at the moment.
posted by saul wright at 9:13 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

That's the conversation among high-earning people with chronic illness. Type 1 diabetics, people who've got past cancer in the past.

I do wish there had been more campaigning around this, but it's too late for what-ifs like that now.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:13 PM on November 8, 2016

Like enough people just didn't fucking care though. One of my spinning instructors is black and gay, and he was talking about the debates and laughing about the zingers Trump got in on Hillary. He didn't care. People just don't give a shit about politics. I'm considering being like them.
posted by zutalors! at 9:13 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

While we're laughing at America for something like 48% of it voting for Trump, can we save some scorn for the 3% of us who voted for Gary "What is Aleppo" Fucking Johnson?

I'm in Australia. No one is fucking laughing.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:13 PM on November 8, 2016 [34 favorites]

Jesus fucking hell. I still am rubbing my rabbit's foot and hoping, hoping, hoping something changes.......but. I'm heartbroken how many humans rejected balance and some form of decency for the misogynistic horror that is Trump. It's all so bad that I can't place my emotions and thoughts anywhere but in the deepest pit of sorrow out of which nothing escapes. It's a grotesque show. Where do we go now? I'm out of, well, anything resembling belief in the future. What. What. What.
posted by but no cigar at 9:13 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Well. I'm fucked.
posted by Annika Cicada at 9:13 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

How were not only the pre-election polls wrong, but also the exit polls? Like, all of them? How is that possible?

"Oh hai stranger I'm a racist misogynist Joker who wants to see the world burn". Admitted very few racist misogynist Jokers to someone's actual face.
posted by srboisvert at 9:13 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

Who has called WI for Trump?
posted by bukvich at 9:13 PM on November 8, 2016

They control all 3 branches. For at least 4 years.

Well 2. Midterms could change things. And we retain the filibuster.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 9:13 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm not a praying person. But this calls out for deep meditation.
posted by Rabarberofficer at 9:13 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

OK, time to make a plan for tomorrow morning.

Sign up to join and support
ACLU
Planned Parenthood
what else?
posted by Sublimity at 9:13 PM on November 8, 2016 [14 favorites]

So, that big fracture in the GOP, that's no longer going to be thing now. Great.
posted by klarck at 9:13 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

While we're laughing at America for something like 48% of it voting for Trump, can we save some scorn for the 3% of us who voted for Gary "What is Aleppo" Fucking Johnson?

Honestly, most of those guys were probably in the Never Trump crowd, so whatever. I've got no beef with them.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:14 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

Who has called WI for Trump?

Haven't seen it called, but it looks gloomy. Maybe urban counties can still save us?
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 9:14 PM on November 8, 2016

Sublimity, every large LGBT legal group you can find.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:14 PM on November 8, 2016 [11 favorites]

sooooo how 'bout those faithless electors....

joking. kind of.
posted by acidic at 9:14 PM on November 8, 2016

Rachel Maddow has had enough of Chris Matthew's shit. She keeps trying to explain what a Trump win really means and keeps being told it won't be that bad.
posted by charred husk at 9:15 PM on November 8, 2016 [22 favorites]

Well 2. Midterms could change things. And we retain the filibuster.

Yes, because the Democrats have famously high turnout during midterms.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:15 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

And we retain the filibuster.

Right, how long is that going to last?
posted by leotrotsky at 9:15 PM on November 8, 2016

Who has called WI for Trump?

Fox, but only them so far.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:15 PM on November 8, 2016

Obama's only thought right now needs to be preemptively pardoning Hilary for any imaginary crimes.

Also metaphorically blowing up as much as the security state as possible before he leaves. I don't even want to think about what Trump & co. would do with the massive accretion of executive power that's taken place since 9/11.
posted by indubitable at 9:15 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

FLOTUS 4 POTUS 2020?
posted by LMGM at 9:16 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Trump didn't just win, Trump-ism won, resoundingly. They control all 3 branches. For at least 4 years. He can act with absolute impunity.

They will have to destroy the filibuster for that. I... don't know if they will do it. I would have said no way a week ago, now I'm not sure. But they'd have to get rid of the filibuster to pass anything terrible.

Trump can do all kinds of bad things through non-legislative action though.
posted by Justinian at 9:16 PM on November 8, 2016

I've never been so terrified.
posted by theredpen at 9:16 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

This election was supposed to be a Clinton landslide, and Google now had Pennsylvania pink?

Good night, y'all.
posted by Gelatin at 9:16 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Honestly, most of those guys were probably in the Never Trump crowd, so whatever. I've got no beef with them.

Of course you do. If they're "Never Trump" by voting third party they handed him the election.

It's Nader 2.0. Do people never fucking learn? Can people finally understand what bullshit a "protest vote" is?
posted by Sangermaine at 9:16 PM on November 8, 2016 [28 favorites]

You can't pardon someone for something they haven't been convicted of.
posted by dilaudid at 9:16 PM on November 8, 2016

Oh, mercy. It's going to suck explaining this (or trying to, in vain) to my daughters in the morning, both of whom are in grade school and were super stoked about not having a racist misogynist as Chief Executive, but, instead, the first female president. How the hell did this happen?
posted by Bob Regular at 9:16 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

can we save some scorn for the 3% of us who voted for Gary "What is Aleppo" Fucking Johnson?

Turns out Aleppo was much bigger and more metaphorical than all us smarty pants thought.
posted by srboisvert at 9:16 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm definitively getting a new light saber
posted by clavdivs at 9:17 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

>>Well 2. Midterms could change things. And we retain the filibuster.

Yes, because the Democrats have famously high turnout during midterms.

That is, as they say, a problem. Maybe two years of Trumpism will convince us.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 9:17 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Everyone, please, tone down the rhetoric here. We are going to wake up tomorrow and our kids and families will be fine.

Speak for yourself. My shot to finally launch myself out of grinding poverty is heavily dependent right now on accessing medical care via programs which may not exist or go far any more (they're already bare bones, which is why a physical disability has been drawn out so long) imminently. If I can get over that hurdle, then I'll depend on educational access for the very poor, debt relief, and then the job market (for someone who will look "too old" to many employers due to the whole inhumanely protracted "journey" of "seeking medical treatment for a disabling illness while very poor" referenced above--what would have taken 3 weeks at Mayo to resolve has taken years and years just to properly diagnose outside of blue chip health care access). A grim, not-hopeful situation on the best days now looks utterly hopeless.

Pile on the fact that I found out that at least 50% of the nation has utter contempt for me and virtually everyone I care about or come into contact on a daily basis.

This isn't going to be OK for the most vulnerable. (I haven't even touched upon the terrifying possibilities for foreign policy, supreme court, and climate change, which will affect the most privileged as well.)I haven't felt this despondent in a long time, and I can't be alone.

The irony is that many actual Trump voters will find themselves just as devastated by the consequences of their actions, in due time. (What exactly do they think will happen to social security, Medicare, job markets, retirement accounts?) They just won't realize it tomorrow when they're all braying about this "victory."
posted by blue suede stockings at 9:17 PM on November 8, 2016 [121 favorites]

I'm in Australia. No one is fucking laughing.

Seriously. Everyone is fucking terrified.
posted by Salamander at 9:17 PM on November 8, 2016 [30 favorites]

Breathe.

1. Assume a comfortable posture lying on your back or sitting. If you are sitting, keep the spine straight, and let your shoulders drop.

2. Close your eyes if it feels comfortable.

3. Bring your attention to your belly, feeling it rise or expand gently on the inbreath and fall or reced on the outbreath.

4. Keep the focus on your breathing, Being with each inbreath for its full duration and with each outbreath for its full duration, as if you were riding the waves of your own breathing

5. Every time you notice that you mind has wandered off the breath, notice what is was that took you away, and then gently bring your attention back to your belly and the feeling of the breath coming in and out.

posted by mikelieman at 9:17 PM on November 8, 2016 [31 favorites]

And we retain the filibuster.

Please stop saying this like it's true. They're going to nuke that shit immediately.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:17 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

You can't pardon someone for something they haven't been convicted of.

Sure you can. Ford pardoned Nixon.
posted by waitingtoderail at 9:17 PM on November 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

Of course you do. If they're "Never Trump" by voting third party they handed him the election.

It's a fantasy to think any of them were ever going to vote Clinton.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:17 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

The journalists who utterly failed to do their jobs this election cycle, I wonder if they'll have some degree of self-awareness once they're imprisoned.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:18 PM on November 8, 2016 [35 favorites]

You can't pardon someone for something they haven't been convicted of.

What about Nixon?
posted by thelonius at 9:18 PM on November 8, 2016

I live in Australia with my American wife who has lived here as a permanent resident for 10 years. She just called me and we discussed her getting Australian citizenship, partly as a symbolic act and partly as a hedge against any crazy shit that might happen.
posted by nnethercote at 9:18 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

I ... think it's going to be even worse than has been predicted here. Much worse.

I know that makes me sound alarmist.

I'm sorry.
posted by kyrademon at 9:18 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

Here we thought Nate Silver was being too pessimistic and it turns out he was too optimistic.
posted by octothorpe at 9:18 PM on November 8, 2016 [37 favorites]

Which ever way this election goes - it's clear to me the that this site is awesome and we are going to need each other over the coming days. So fuck it - I finally got around to donating to Metafilter a few moments back, and signed on to pony up an Andrew Jackson every month. I'd ask that others who have the financial means to donate do what they can.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 9:18 PM on November 8, 2016 [11 favorites]

So, is Hillary Clinton going to prison, now?
posted by leotrotsky at 9:18 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

If Trump really is President and you really didn't vote for Clinton, I am looking forward to you holding him, his administration, the Legislature, and every other trickle-down organization associated with that outcome to the standard you felt Secretary Clinton was incapable of meeting.
posted by batmonkey at 9:18 PM on November 8, 2016 [63 favorites]

Yeah, and the thing is, the Democratic party is going to go to the right now.
posted by zutalors! at 9:18 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

Everything is fucking broken now. I can't understand how this is even possible.
posted by saulgoodman at 9:18 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm reminded a bit of the fact that the white supremacist terrorist that hit my midwestern home town came from midwestern suburbia.

While it's very popular among progressive white guys of my race and class to pass the buck for NIMBY racism onto the rural "hicks," the reality is that we created the most segregated cities in America using the "invisible hand" of the market. Our fathers and grandfathers were a class of American who moved over the city line rather than to share a street with people of color. And while the slurs were never spoken in polite company, there was still a wall, with resentments, fears, and oh, the sense of entitlement.

I guess I'm kicking myself in the rear for believing in the possibility of a different outcome. Instead, we (as a class) are knee-jerk reactionaries voting to protect our own, except when that's destroyed by gross mismanagement as happened with Bush II.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:19 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

FLOTUS 4 POTUS 2020?

They wouldn't accept a white woman. What makes you think they would accept a black one?
posted by teirnon at 9:19 PM on November 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

People I love are going to be tortured, robbed, and murdered because of tonight. People you love, too.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:19 PM on November 8, 2016 [17 favorites]

What is Aleppo

What is America.
posted by waterfrog at 9:19 PM on November 8, 2016 [30 favorites]

If there's someone out there who feels they cannot go home and feel safe for Thanksgiving or Christmas, you are welcome to come stay with me in Colorado. I have a guest room and a sweet dog. Serious.
posted by mochapickle at 9:19 PM on November 8, 2016 [19 favorites]

Trump now leading in PA. It is over.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:19 PM on November 8, 2016

All my nightmares have come true.

I am headed for bed. But my fellow humanists, there are a lot of us and we can fight. Let's remember we reclaimed this country in 2008 and on many other occasions. Hard times require strong people. We can protect our most vulnerable and stand up for what is right.

Change here is inevitable. We just need to wait, to resist,and to make it happen. If not in 2016, in 2018 or 2020 or 2022 or 2024.
posted by bearwife at 9:20 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

So, is Hillary Clinton going to prison, now?

She should think about leaving the country quickly.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 9:20 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

As someone with a disability who depends on SSI and Medicare, I'm kinda terrified at what a Trump led GOP could do to social services.

But I'd be more terrified if I were a person of color, LGBT, or an immigrant.
posted by bawanaal at 9:20 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

If you're seriously relying on the the filibuster as a bulwark against Trump, you haven't watched a single second of the last year. Waving a piece of paper is not going to stop the freight train. Norms no longer exist. Only power. And they have all of it.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:20 PM on November 8, 2016 [19 favorites]

what else?

Well that depends on your specific values, but: organizations representing racial/religious minority interests—Black Lives Matter will still be a thing but fat chance getting federal interest in systemic racism in Ferguson now. Muslims and Hispanics also have reasons to be nervous.

Also organizations helping anyone who would be protected by a social safety net in a proper first-world country, and only sort of is in the U.S. Their situations are going to be made more precarious most likely and they'll need to rely more heavily on local groups that fill in gaps.

If it were me, something to do with the environment. But probably there also think local and grass-roots. Much less chance of doing something very successful at a national level about global warming treaties or whatever in the next few years.
posted by traveler_ at 9:20 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

I voted for Clinton and I'm sorry.

Sorry that's all I did. Sorry I laughed off Trump as a joke.
posted by blairsyprofane at 9:20 PM on November 8, 2016 [34 favorites]

Also for all the talk about the youth vote, people who are actual children right now are going to be fucking pissed.
posted by zutalors! at 9:20 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

I don't get it. What happened to everyone who voted for Obama last time around? Was Hillary unable to maintain that support?
posted by asra at 9:20 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

My UU church planned a post-election healing circle tomorrow where we can hold and offer support to one another in song, meditation, and sacred space. Up until a few hours ago, I thought it was a little overwrought, and a tiny bit ridiculous. Now I will probably go, and I am sharing the opportunity with others.
posted by Fig at 9:21 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

Yeah, and the thing is, the Democratic party is going to go to the right now.

I'm not sure. Because what Trump won on isn't policy. It's racism and xenophobia. The Democratic party can't buy into that; the base is exactly the people targeted by racism and xenophobia. And I hope and believe that the Ds wouldn't buy into it even if it didn't spell disaster.

I don't know what the response it. Probably nominate a Biden-type figure next time around. I guess that's kind of moving to the right, sorta, on some issues, but it's not a major shift. Certainly I would have voted for Biden pretty happily just as I would have voted for Clinton or Sanders pretty happily.
posted by Justinian at 9:21 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

Raise your hand if you were for eliminating the filibuster about two hours ago and are suddenly finding yourself convinced by the arguments in favor of keeping it.

I retain my preference for removing the "I'm gonna filibuster" statement without an actual filibuster. And yes, that means the entire process, not that one bill, comes to a halt for the duration of the speech. That's the point: it's supposed to be used in situations where you say "it is better that nothing at all gets done, than that this thing gets done."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:21 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

> literally no matter what the outcome is today, white supremacy is going to be stronger than almost any of us have ever seen within our lifetimes, and this time around they have so many more people to hate, so many more vulnerable people for them to brutally harm 100% free of consequences.

The lead picture for the top NYT Trump story right now nails it, pictures well what I'm so terrified of.

(Link may be off, sorry; photo by Damon Winter, for article by Michael D. Shear: "At Donald J. Trump's election night event at the New York Hilton on Tuesday, supporters watched an announcement that he had won Ohio.")
posted by miles per flower at 9:21 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

I feel bad for late night comedians.
posted by johnpowell at 9:21 PM on November 8, 2016

My wife is on Social Security disability and Medicaid because of mental health issues. She went to bed terrified. I'm pretty much in a state of sheer terror right now.
posted by marxchivist at 9:21 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

I don't get it. What happened to everyone who voted for Obama last time around? Was Hillary unable to maintain that support?

Clinton got record margins in Democratic areas. But Trump ran up the score even more in rural and some suburbs. It was really a political realignment.
posted by Justinian at 9:22 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

When there's been a tragedy in the past, like a school shooting, my kids' school district would put out a letter instructing parents how to talk to their children about it. I need a letter right now, how to talk to my children about a Trump presidency.
posted by Dragonness at 9:22 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

Well we just got Nevada. That's a thing.
posted by octothorpe at 9:22 PM on November 8, 2016 [16 favorites]

Mark Burnett really needs to explain himself.
posted by Brainy at 9:22 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

I don't get it. What happened to everyone who voted for Obama last time around? Was Hillary unable to maintain that support?

Racism runs deep in this country but misogyny runs even deeper.
posted by vacapinta at 9:22 PM on November 8, 2016 [40 favorites]

Which one of you didn't TTTCS??
posted by numaner at 9:22 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

I don't get it. What happened to everyone who voted for Obama last time around? Was Hillary unable to maintain that support?

From 538:

Clinton is winning only 88 percent of the black vote. Exit polls in 2012 had Obama at 93 percent. Clinton is only at 65 percent among Latinos. Obama won 71 percent of them.

It seems she did worse among non-whites than Obama, and of course she did terribly with whites.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:23 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

I am looking to waking up tomorrow and finding out some outlandish thing like we get a do-over because hackers rigged the election, or Trump winning and not accepting the results of the election.
posted by otherchaz at 9:23 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

Well, I guess folks can't poke fun at Italy for electing Berlusconi now.
posted by darkstar at 9:23 PM on November 8, 2016 [23 favorites]

As my +1 just said, "I'm going to go to bed now and wake up tomorrow in 1984."
posted by sciencegeek at 9:23 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

Just a thought - I wonder how corb is doing...

Chugging gin in a pile of sadness. I am so sorry you guys. I am so sorry. I was feeling better about failing to stop him at the convention because I thought America was going to repudiate him anyway and now I just don't know. I am so, so sorry everyone.
posted by corb at 9:23 PM on November 8, 2016 [161 favorites]

Last time I checked, I'm forty five years old. I don't have many more elections to lose.
posted by Sphinx at 9:23 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

At the risk of sounding fatalistic at this point, I guess there are two major takeaways from this:

1. It pays to remember that Hitler was very popular in the 1930s, not just in Germany but in the US as well.

2. The main reason America as a whole vilifies Hitler is ultimately because he played for the wrong side, apparently.
posted by DoctorFedora at 9:24 PM on November 8, 2016 [23 favorites]

Mark Burnett really needs to explain himself.

For what?
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 9:24 PM on November 8, 2016

I feel bad for late night comedians.

Why; this will be a golden age for them, and liberal pundits too. Think of how many stars were made in the Bush years.
posted by acidic at 9:24 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

The funding-dependent provisions of the PPACA (Obamacare), such as expanded Medicaid and subsidies, can lapse if Congress and the President don't support it. But the regulatory portions, such as pre-existing conditions and coverage rules, would require 60 votes in the Senate. (Republicans have never shown a serious willingness to abrogate the filibuster.). As drafted you would argue the mandate and employer fines should be protected, but the Supreme Court deemed them to be taxes which arguably can be modified by budget reconciliation, i.e. plurality vote. However, you can't really have a pre-existing condition ban and no mandate at the same time without bankrupting the insurance companies, so the mandate and fines may stay intact.
posted by MattD at 9:24 PM on November 8, 2016 [19 favorites]

This is the most profound refutation of the American Dream in a generation. Imagine, a woman who toiled her entire life and did everything right just to approach the capstone of her career only to have it snatched away by a man who had virtually everything handed to him his entire life. Everything. Even the fucking benefit of the doubt he got. Over and over.

They didn't know they'd do so well. They had no idea! It was a fucking fluke!

All by people who felt they weren't getting their fair shake in life.

The author's lost the fucking plot.
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 9:24 PM on November 8, 2016 [147 favorites]

Maybe Hillary claims the election was rigged. If she wins popular vote but loses electorial. Maybe she won't concede if it is called for Trump.
posted by AugustWest at 9:24 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

corb, you did your best. It's everybody else who has shit to answer for.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:24 PM on November 8, 2016 [27 favorites]

At times like this I think of my father's wisdom, "Abe, my son, remember that people are no damn good. But don't let the bastards get you down."
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:24 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

I can't understand how this is even possible.

That's key. Understanding has to come first. I think a lot of people really do not understand why anyone would disagree with them. That understanding is the only way forward.
posted by amtho at 9:24 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

So is anyone else wondering about the possibility that electronic voting machines were perverted to favor Trump?

Please don't. Talk of rigging was ridiculous when Trump was doing it. Trump won because what he was selling was more appealing to more people than any of us were ready to accept.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:24 PM on November 8, 2016 [16 favorites]

Has Moscow finally pulled it off?
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 9:24 PM on November 8, 2016 [14 favorites]

What happened to everyone who voted for Obama last time around? Was Hillary unable to maintain that support?

In a word, yes. The misogyny was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Also, everyone who didn't like Obama's race and believed Hillary would be a continuation of his politics, was also happy to vote for Trump.

And Trump has celebrity status: people who really don't pay attention to politics at all, saw him on TV and thought, hey, I know that guy! And he sounds like he's gonna Get Shit Done!

Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Ventura... don't discount celebrity status.

Maybe we can talk Colbert into running in 2020.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:25 PM on November 8, 2016 [13 favorites]

You can't pardon someone for something they haven't been convicted of.
posted by dilaudid at 12:16 AM on November 9

*cough*

see Ford re: Nixon
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 9:25 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Raise your hand if you were for eliminating the filibuster about two hours ago and are suddenly finding yourself convinced by the arguments in favor of keeping it.

Frankly, I'm still largely convinced by the argument that Presidents should be able to appoint Supreme Court justices to fill any vacancies that come up during their entire term of office. And that those appointments should see an up or down vote within a reasonable amount of time for consideration and debate (the norm of inside 1-3 months seems good).

If we're looking for consistent principles.

I also, however, suspect that the Republican party in its current incarnation is not interested in consistent principles or any kind of past norm. And that they will absolutely end the filibuster if it suits them, and would do so whether or not a Democrat had ever broached the idea.
posted by wildblueyonder at 9:25 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Of course you do. If they're "Never Trump" by voting third party they handed him the election.

It's Nader 2.0. Do people never fucking learn? Can people finally understand what bullshit a "protest vote" is?

I honestly don't understand this sort of reasoning. Clearly, no individual's vote sways an election on its own, and it's not as if the people casting their votes belong to some hypothetical bloc that is guaranteed to vote in a single direction, so why shouldn't people vote in accordance with their personal views?
posted by C. Y. Hollander at 9:25 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

Don't really have the words to express my sorrow and anger tonight. Before I go to bed and stare up at the ceiling for hours, I do want to say a big Fuck You to everyone who voted for Trump, who didn't vote for either of them, or who voted for a third party candidate (this group of people includes my sister ("she's so corrupt"), my mother and brother ("they're both the same"), and my father ("Democrats are socialists")).

Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck. You.

Thank you to Secretary Clinton and to President Obama and to everyone else so worked so hard to prevent what has happened tonight. I will hold on to the memory of these eight past years and Hillary's campaign like a candle in the darkness.
posted by longdaysjourney at 9:25 PM on November 8, 2016 [68 favorites]

Clinton is winning only 88 percent of the black vote. Exit polls in 2012 had Obama at 93 percent. Clinton is only at 65 percent among Latinos. Obama won 71 percent of them.

This is from exit polls which are often unreliable. And the Latinx vote doesn't include much of California.
posted by chris24 at 9:25 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

Think of how many stars were made in the Bush years.

think how eager trump's supporters are to physically attack and call for the mob murder of members of the media, now, already.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:25 PM on November 8, 2016 [30 favorites]

I am totally confused about how Trump could have improved his standing with Latinos over Romney. I just... how? How can that be?
posted by Justinian at 9:25 PM on November 8, 2016 [18 favorites]

It is fascinating how wrong the polls were. I guess there really is something to this "Brexit effect" error. An early sign of Brexit in Britain was seeing regular Labor voters switch sides and it seems something similar has happened in the midwest. Makes me think Bernie might have made a difference.
posted by Golden Eternity at 9:25 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

OK, time to make a plan for tomorrow morning.

Sign up to join and support

democracy being mostly what we do between elections
let's get f***ing democratic
posted by philip-random at 9:26 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

Anyone checked on Samantha Bee? I think her next show is just going to be 30 minutes of her head hitting her desk.
posted by Mitheral at 9:26 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

Is Martha Raddatz crying past George's poker face?
posted by clavdivs at 9:26 PM on November 8, 2016

I'm just paralyzed with some combination of terror and disbelief.

Intellectually, I know there are emails I need to send and other shit I need to do before I go to bed, and I have to go to bed, so that I can be marginally functional at work tomorrow.

But everything in my head right now is just static.

I wasn't optimistic before tonight. I was anxious and scared and all that, but I hoped it was just my overactive anxiety getting the better of me.

But I wasn't scared enough.

It just does not compute. How do we all go on tomorrow?

I'm so sorry, everyone. Words aren't enough. Nothing is enough right now. I don't know what to say. I'm just gutted.
posted by litera scripta manet at 9:26 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a, it is widely believed that Burnett has video tapes of Trump using racial slurs and other comments about minorities.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:26 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

ah, that's true chris24. We'll see what the final results are. Exit polls could be very wonky for demographic breakdowns like the Latino vote.
posted by Justinian at 9:26 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Corb: you did a hell of a lot more than anyone and you stood by your principles. This isn't on you.
posted by zachlipton at 9:26 PM on November 8, 2016 [60 favorites]

Well, I guess folks can't poke fun at Italy for electing Berlusconi now.

We can't poke fun at anyone for anything anymore.
posted by saul wright at 9:26 PM on November 8, 2016 [20 favorites]

it is widely believed that Burnett has video tapes of Trump using racial slurs and other comments about minorities.

christ, if anything that would've earned him even more votes.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:27 PM on November 8, 2016 [20 favorites]

Hopefully two things come out of this:

1) the abolishment of the electoral college for a majority vote (i write this every 4 years)
2) revocation of the War Powers Act
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:27 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

I honestly don't understand this sort of reasoning. Clearly, no individual's vote sways an election on its own, and it's not as if the people casting their votes belong to some hypothetical bloc that is guaranteed to vote in a single direction, so why shouldn't people vote in accordance with their personal views?

Trump.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:27 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

so why shouldn't people vote in accordance with their personal views?

because sometimes intelligence must trump conscience ...

sorry about using the t word there
posted by philip-random at 9:27 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

Good news folks, I think I just figured out how to go to sleep: just get real terrified and turtle. I've decided to do that now.
posted by Nanukthedog at 9:27 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Clinton ahead in NH by 18 votes.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:27 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

it is widely believed that Burnett has video tapes of Trump using racial slurs and other comments about minorities.

Yeah, like that would have changed the outcome.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:27 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Meanwhile, NASDAQ and S&P500 futures trading is halted because they hit the 5% circuit breaker. Dow futures down -760 right now.
posted by zachlipton at 9:27 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

What in the world does Clinton say tonight if/when Trump wins? How do you word your concession to the most dangerously unqualified and immoral candidate in our history?
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:27 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

Ashton Kutcher and the ghost of Allen Funt can come out from behind the bushes already.

This isn't a funny prank and I'd very much like it to be over now.
posted by OntologicalPuppy at 9:27 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Why; this will be a golden age for them, and liberal pundits too. Think of how many stars were made in the Bush years.

Bush wasn't openly promising to jail journalists, much less comedians. The model for Trump is not Bush, it's Putin, Edrogan, el-Sisi and Qaddafi.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:28 PM on November 8, 2016 [39 favorites]

What did Trump actually see in Michigan which led him to go campaign there at the last minute?

Maybe happy (for Trump) accident. Go watch Michael Moore's films at the beginning - Blood in the Face (Moore was only on the crew for that one) and Roger and Me. Two extremes - the extremists, and then just people who were left behind. Add those two together and, well, you get tonight.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:28 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Talk of rigging was ridiculous when Trump was doing it.

Why is it ridiculous? EVMs have always seemed to me like a gift from heaven for cheaters.
posted by Coventry at 9:28 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

Brexit was a referendum though. Hillary has the popular margin, and the US system is by electoral college.
posted by polymodus at 9:28 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

1) the abolishment of the electoral college for a majority vote (i write this every 4 years)
2) revocation of the War Powers Act

How? They won everything.
posted by waitingtoderail at 9:28 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

It is fascinating how wrong the polls were.

The national polls are really only off by about 2 points from what we've seen so far. That's not that awful, though its not good. Clinton is almost certainly going to win the popular vote. Which is horrible to contemplate because it means so many people will feel like this is not legitimate. More than 2000 I believe because that was such a close election.
posted by Justinian at 9:28 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Just a thought - I wonder how corb is doing...

I stopped to buy more gin and now I am drinking it. I am sitting in a pile of sadness and horror and gin. I am so, so sorry you guys. I was sorry when we failed to stop him at convention but I thought at least the American people would repudiate him. I am so sorry now when it looks like he might actually be our president. I can't even believe this is real.

I'm also sorry for the #NeverTrump votes that went Johnson or McMullin, especially in swing states. We thought it would be safe. We were seeing the same polls you all were and we thought Clinton had a serious lead and was getting all the Democrats, and that if we just didn't vote for Trump he had no chance.

I am so sorry you guys. It's not over until it's over, but..I am just so sorry. Everything is terrible.
posted by corb at 9:28 PM on November 8, 2016 [81 favorites]

This was just an idea I had in the shower, and I considered it a mere fantasy at the time, but I thought that in the event of a Trump win the next Full Frontal show should just be Sam Bee screaming into the camera for a full half hour.
And now...maybe let's do that.
posted by uosuaq at 9:29 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

A Facebook friend in Canada that I've never met in real life just messaged me to let me know my family is welcome at his home if we need to get out. Even I don't think it's that's bad, for me anyway.
posted by COD at 9:29 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Yeah, Trump just broke the economy and he isn't even in fucking office yet.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:29 PM on November 8, 2016 [19 favorites]

So, since we've burned through so many cultural norms this year, it's time to burn the one about deference to the President.

No more "salute the rank if not the man."

Open and constant defiance and contempt needs to be the order of the day.
posted by ocschwar at 9:30 PM on November 8, 2016 [25 favorites]

People keep saying Clinton is going to win the popular vote, but the numbers I'm seeing on the WaPo site say otherwise.
posted by Superplin at 9:30 PM on November 8, 2016

I am so sorry you guys. It's not over until it's over, but..I am just so sorry. Everything is terrible.

You fought harder than any of us.
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:30 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

Who else is staying up until it's called?? I have to know. There's no way I can sleep if there's even a tiny chance she can do this.
posted by nakedmolerats at 9:30 PM on November 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

I just pointed this out on Facebook. But the markets are crashing and it's mere days from Black Friday. If this has a significant effect on consumer confidence, and there's no reason to think it wouldn't, then we could be heading right off the cliff at this very moment, into another recession.
posted by Autumnheart at 9:31 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

Superplin: California will give Clinton 3+ million vote margin. But it takes forever to report. So Clinton should win the popular vote but we won't know by how much for days or weeks. Winning the popular vote gets you a cup of coffee if you also have $5.
posted by Justinian at 9:31 PM on November 8, 2016 [20 favorites]

Some inspirational words from a man used to fighting "losing" battles:

In the American struggle for justice and freedom, moral dissent has always seemed impractical when it began. Yet people of conviction have responded to the psalmist’s basic question by answering, “Here I am. Send me.” In 1896, when the US Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of “separate but equal” in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, Justice John Marshall Harlan of Kentucky stood alone to write a dissenting opinion. By any political calculation at that moment, his words were simply a waste of time. But looking back, we can see that every legal challenge to segregation in the twentieth century was based on the careful reasoning of Justice Harlan, whom history would name the Great Dissenter. Without his words, NAACP attorneys could not have successfully argued for the desegregation of public schools nearly six decades later in Brown v. Board of Education. Justice Harlan lost by a landslide in 1896. But he won history.

- Dr. Rev. William J. Barber II

Social justice committee meeting at church tomorrow. Gonna take a pill and head to bed tonight. Tomorrow is going to start the process of figuring out where I'm sent.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:31 PM on November 8, 2016 [50 favorites]

It'll be days until California's votes are fully tallied. I'm going to guess that will send her over. Not that it matters at this point.
posted by yasaman at 9:31 PM on November 8, 2016

i cant go to sleep yet
posted by bq at 9:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Is there any hope left? Okay, hope is too strong a word, but is there any path to victory left for Clinton, short of this all being a horrible nightmare that we collectively wake up from tomorrow? I can't bear to do anything but watch this thread and occasionally refresh the percentage on 538.
posted by litera scripta manet at 9:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

We can't poke fun at anyone for anything anymore.

Humor is officially dead.
posted by dis_integration at 9:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't know that it will be called tonight. It's possible both MI and PA finish within 0.5% and trigger recounts with Trump ahead. Armageddon.
posted by Justinian at 9:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

I can't understand how this is even possible.

This is the culmination of everything the GOP has worked for for forty years, ever since Nixon decided to make Southern whites angry at the Civil Rights Act a major base of the GOP. This isn't an aberration. This is simply what the GOP, deny as it might, has been working longer than many of us have been alive to achieve.

There's a saying: Success requires no explanation, failure permits no alibis. Tomorrow dozens- maybe hundreds?- of #NeverTrump politicians will kiss Donald Trump's ring, or maybe over the next weeks.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [34 favorites]

HRC wins Nevada
posted by futz at 9:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I am so sorry you guys. It's not over until it's over, but..I am just so sorry. Everything is terrible.

Corb,

Echoing everyone who has been saying, "It's not on you!".

And as Yogi said, "It ain't over till it's over."
posted by mikelieman at 9:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm trying to think of what Barack Obama must be doing right now, knowing what's to come financially, and knowing he's got 9 precious weeks in office.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

This wasn't about Clinton failing to hold onto the Obama coalition. This was the white uneducated voter taking their rage out on the rest of the nation. They know Trump is a bully and a liar and that's what they want. They want a bully that will bully minorities and women and they want a liar who will continue to tell them lies like it's someone else's fault.

The simple fact of the matter is that the 50s aren't fucking coming back guys. The postwar boom that enabled so many white Americans to prosper was built around maintaining racist and sexist systems. It was also before the jobs of millions of Americans could be outsourced or automated.

The chucklefucks voting for Trump aren't going to be getting high paying factory jobs back because they simply don't exist anymore they don't exist here and they don't exist overseas. If they could be handled by cheap labor then great but automation does wonders as well.

So instead of walking ahead into the post-industrial future that is the absolute reality for the US we've got a plurality of Americans thinking that they could turn back time and return to a past that never really existed and honestly was pretty shit for a lot of people.

And the fucking accelerationist coming out of the woodwork with their I told you so bullshit is beyond fucking frustrating. America doesn't want the New Deal if that means giving stuff to black people I guess.
posted by vuron at 9:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [141 favorites]

I don't get it. What happened to everyone who voted for Obama last time around? Was Hillary unable to maintain that support?

Clinton may ultimately win by the skin of her teeth In Michigan. But there was a ton of pro-Trump sentiment in the vast rural areas of the state, and there a lack of enthusiasm for Clinton in heavily populated SE MI. Clinton lost a good deal of support with minorities and the blue collars that voted overwhelmingly for Obama.
posted by bawanaal at 9:33 PM on November 8, 2016

Nate Silver is mumbling about Alaska. Which, ha ha, but hey he's been right about everything else...
posted by acidic at 9:33 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

litera: Clinton's one path is winning MI and PA while holding NH and MN. I think MN will hold but its very close. I think NH may hold in recount territory. I think Trump will win MI and PA but maybe inside recount territory.
posted by Justinian at 9:33 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Obama isn't going to pardon Hillary; that would be disastrous for Dem campaigning in 2018/2020.
posted by Mitheral at 9:33 PM on November 8, 2016

I'm watching the CBC live feed, and Peter Mansbridge is gamely trying to find some consolation in how Trump might have to act like an adult now, only to be contradicted by all of his guests. One guy is saying that if Trump becomes president he won't need to tweet abuse at people until maybe the second or third year... then added "if we still use tweets." And that's the sober, low key guest.
posted by Kevin Street at 9:33 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Why is it ridiculous? EVMs have always seemed to me like a gift from heaven for cheaters.

For the same reason it was ridiculous when Trump was saying it. Trump coordinated a massive multi-state conspiracy to rig various different voting machine systems?

Or he just appealed to more people than expected which gave him the edge in races that were tighter than people thought.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:34 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Everyone, please, tone down the rhetoric here. We are going to wake up tomorrow and our kids and families will be fine.

Way back in the other fast-moving thread I mentioned my disabled brother and how the less-extreme wing of Republicans failed to stop the more-extreme one from taking away his meds.

Now I'll mention all the disabled veteran students I taught back in grad school who were living the consequences of our country being lied into Iraq. And my Muslim colleagues who were deported because of a paperwork snafu and because they were of skeery terrorist ethnic persuasion. And my uncle who lost his retirement savings because of medical bankruptcy reforms. And my cousin who almost didn't get the late-term abortion she needed to save her life from her already-doomed fetus that she really did want.

The more extreme policies of the Republicans, and sometimes individual politicians of that camp, have threatened my kith and kin in some extraordinarily visceral ways over the years. Let's set aside how much we have to do to reach them and take a stand for how far they'd have to come back from the brink to reach those of us THEY HAVE ALREADY HURT.

This rhetoric doesn't need toning down because it comes from a place of Truth.
posted by traveler_ at 9:34 PM on November 8, 2016 [62 favorites]

I am commenting only to howl into the void. The ache.
posted by amnesia and magnets at 9:34 PM on November 8, 2016 [21 favorites]

On PBS, Romney’s 2012 campaign chief strategist Stuart Stevens is flat-out saying this is racism, pure and simple. He dismisses the economic issues.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:35 PM on November 8, 2016 [47 favorites]

You know, Zuma being my president I can understand because despite being a corrupt buffoon he is a long time ANC operative, spent 10 years on Robben Island and was Vice Prez for near on 10 years. He was part of the ANC machinery for years.

Trump was the joke candidate who probably not been running had NBC not fired him from the Apprentice. Anyway who wants my title belt?
posted by PenDevil at 9:35 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

Holy guacamole. The US is going to be grudge fucked for corporate interests more so than they are right now. And it's going to go on for decades. Hope you're white and straight, otherwise you're boned.
posted by Sphinx at 9:35 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

find some consolation in how Trump might have to act like an adult now

Someone roll the dice again, this is definitely the darkest timeline.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:35 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

comeback kid? Please? Sniff.
posted by ian1977 at 9:36 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Dow futures down -760 right now.

So, good news, big business does not control our democracy.
posted by miyabo at 9:36 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

im white and straight and im pretty sure im boned too
posted by entropicamericana at 9:36 PM on November 8, 2016 [35 favorites]

>>so why shouldn't people vote in accordance with their personal views?
____
>Trump.
__
>because sometimes intelligence must trump conscience ...

If it's a legitimate argument that I should vote for, say, Clinton instead of Johnson because if all the other Johnson voters did so, she'd win, what makes it any less legitimate to argue that all the Clinton voters should have voted for Johnson, on just the same grounds? Whether we're talking about 30 or 3 million voters, the principle's the same—and just as impractical in either case.
posted by C. Y. Hollander at 9:36 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Map looks bleak. Is there any chance? What is the road to victory? It has to be a narrow one?
posted by futz at 9:36 PM on November 8, 2016

What states has Trump won by less than the margin of recount?
posted by corb at 9:36 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

That's key. Understanding has to come first. I think a lot of people really do not understand why anyone would disagree with them. That understanding is the only way forward.

That's some seriously insensitive shit given the very real worries people have about their physical wellbeing. It's not about some high-minded academic disagreement over policy. I'm tired of being told I should think about all the racists and sexists in this country like they're the real victims. Oh boy if only I understood why they think everyone who doesn't look like them can go die in a ditch.
posted by danny the boy at 9:37 PM on November 8, 2016 [45 favorites]

Hope you're white and straight, otherwise you're boned.

Most white and straight will also be boned. Hope you're rich.
posted by Mitrovarr at 9:37 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

Sangermaine, you're just begging the question.
posted by Coventry at 9:37 PM on November 8, 2016

>I just pointed this out on Facebook. But the markets are crashing and it's mere days from Black Friday. If this has a significant effect on consumer confidence, and there's no reason to think it wouldn't, then we could be heading right off the cliff at this very moment, into another recession.

I for one suddenly have zero desire to do any Christmas shopping this year with so much uncertainty ahead.
posted by Dragonness at 9:38 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

how was every poll wrong?
posted by triggerfinger at 9:38 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

In despair and anger I post this:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

posted by vac2003 at 9:38 PM on November 8, 2016 [17 favorites]

This is not about what Trump himself will do. He will be a merry Zaphod Beeblebrox, distracting from power rather than wielding it.

This is about a Republican Party that has demonstrated madness _and been rewarded for it_ with control of the nation. Sort of like how Dubya pranced for the cameras while the real party drivers did eight years of awful, selfish, evil shit.

It seems appropriate, in a way, that a positive period of goodness resurging gets followed by authoritarians striking back, seizing control and driving everyone not them into hiding and despair. Very Star Wars. It's a lot funnier if you're not going to suffer from climate change, or from health care slashing, or from economic recession, or from police violence, or from discrimination, or from warfare, or from blowback from foreign misadventures, or from those of the Only Our Kind Matters tribe who now feel empowered as fuck.

But you will be.
posted by delfin at 9:38 PM on November 8, 2016 [35 favorites]

Even Trump seemed to believe he was losing. The polls, and especially the media, have failed badly.

I know I sound desperate, but between Trump's Mirror/"The election is rigged!" and "something something Putin" is it possible that there's something going on behind these results?
posted by Room 641-A at 9:38 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

So how do we organize for the future?
posted by maurreen at 9:38 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

none yet, corb, but it could be possible in PA and MI. But it looks like it will come down above 0.5% but below 1.0% which wouldn't qualify.
posted by Justinian at 9:38 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

So some of you know I got sick this year due to a genetic illness. I now go to dialysis three times a week and I am on SSDI and soon to be on Medicare because my medical treatments cost upwards of $100K a year.

There are 120 patients at my dialysis center. The overwhelming majority are on disability and Medicare or Medicaid. Care for renal patients takes up a huge chunk of the money from those services. Many people at my center are in wheelchairs. More than I'd like to count come in on gurneys, and are lifted into their chairs for each session using hydraulic lifts because they can't stand up. Some are asleep the whole time. Kidney failure means you survive perhaps as little as 7-10 days if you don't get treatments, maybe a little more.

This awful man wants Americans to negotiate our own health care. I've even worked in healthcare and contracts and it's still way over my head. Most of my fellow patients are too sick to arrange their own transportation, much less advocate for their own care. Back in the '60s, they had death panels for people like us.

I'm so worried for my fellow patients and others who rely on Medicare, Medicaid, SSI, SSDI, and regulations that require insurance companies to work with us. If he saw how expensive it was, he'd slash our budget on Day 1.
posted by mochapickle at 9:39 PM on November 8, 2016 [70 favorites]

So is anyone else wondering about the possibility that electronic voting machines were perverted to favor Trump?

The Michigan result is so surprising, and so many other results seem implausible, given the observations in pre-election polls.

What did Trump actually see in Michigan which led him to go campaign there at the last minute?

Have you been to Michigan? Trump saw a depressed manufacturing state in the south with a blue collar/farming state in north. He was singing their song. Doesn't surprise me at all.
posted by cecic at 9:39 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Everyone, please, tone down the rhetoric here. We are going to wake up tomorrow and our kids and families will be fine.

Tell it to the Muslims, the Latinx, our queer friends, the African-Americans, the Natives defending out water at Standing Rock, and basically everybody who doesn't share a religion and skin tone with Archie fucking Bunker.

We need to do whatever we can, in whatever corner we're in, in whatever way we're able, to support the vulnerable. People like me (white, straight, in a very liberal town) don't need to worry about ourselves much, we need to worry about others. This may sound corny and ridiculous, but I really did get this in a fortune cookie the other night: "Action is worry's worst enemy". We do need to worry, so we need to take action. Any action. I'm no superhero or amazing activist, but I'm going to do something to help, I just don't know what it is yet because I don't have much money. When the shock and despair that we're all going through fades a bit, I hope each of us comes up with something to counter the despair and defeatism.This dickbag may've won the presidency but we can't let him win everything.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 9:39 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

Thank you to the lighthearted moment on MSNBC where we briefly saw Doris Kearns-Goodwin getting her makeup done.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:40 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

They know Trump is a bully and a liar and that's what they want. They want a bully that will bully minorities and women and they want a liar who will continue to tell them lies like it's someone else's fault.

Absolutely. I live in Michigan (sorry it's a horserace here at the moment, everyone; I'm as bummed as you are), and last night I watched that fucking prick stand at a rally in Grand Rapids and promise the audience that he'd bring auto manufacturing back to the state. And they just lapped it right up despite it being outrageous baldfaced lies. Sure, folks, and next week he'll restore the elevator operator career field to its former glory too.

And then I just now watched Pete "Evil Incarnate" Hoekstra on PBS refer to the loss of auto manufacturing jobs, and the anchorguy asks, "But wait, did that happen during the last 8 years?" And Hoekstra just sits there blank-faced and drooling for a few seconds and then admits, "OK, well, it mostly occurred over the course of a couple-few decades." Oh, I see. It's just pathetic.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:40 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

MSNBC just briefly cut to Doris Kearns Goodwin getting her makeup put on. Everyone's exhausted.
posted by zachlipton at 9:40 PM on November 8, 2016

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
posted by buzzv at 9:40 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

Rachael Maddow nearly referred to a Midwest "clusterfuck" before stopping herself.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:40 PM on November 8, 2016 [11 favorites]

how was every poll wrong?

Clearly, the Russians managed to clone every person in the LAT/Dornslife poll thousands of times.
posted by acidic at 9:41 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

For the same reason it was ridiculous when Trump was saying it. Trump coordinated a massive multi-state conspiracy to rig various different voting machine systems?

Well, the conspiracy wouldn't be Trump's conspiracy. I mean, I'm not actually suggesting this happened, but I do think suggesting Russians hacked this election is at least the tiniest bit more plausible than saying that Hillary rigged the election.

Hey, maybe the CIA and NSA and whatever other 3 letter group can frame the Russians and claim they hacked our voting and throw out the whole election and I don't know, give Obama another 4 years?

I'm sorry. I'm desperate. I don't even know what I'm saying right now.

But seriously, the only tiny glimmer of light and warmth in this deep dark abyss is mefi. This is so much worse than 2000 and 2004 in a lot of ways, but at least I don't feel totally alone. That's not a lot of comfort, but it's the only thing I can hold on to right now. I'm so thankful for all of you.
posted by litera scripta manet at 9:41 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

So how do we organize for the future?

Stop taking the Democratic Party machine as an authority figure, for starters. Take it over from below, like the Tea Partiers have with the Republican Party.
posted by Coventry at 9:42 PM on November 8, 2016 [22 favorites]

Trump will be a merry Zaphod Beeblebrox, distracting from power rather than wielding it.

I don't agree. True, I think he will have very specific targets rather than large-scale aims. But if anyone wounds Trump's ego he will use all his powers to humiliate them and defy anyone to stop him, and the cumulative effect, on journalism, on the judiciary, on hate groups, will be enormous.
posted by argybarg at 9:42 PM on November 8, 2016 [14 favorites]

NBC finally taking about misogyny. Surprise...?
posted by wenestvedt at 9:42 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

It'll come down to 47 hanging chad votes in Michigan...go to the Supreme Court. And it's a tie decision 4-4. Then we wake up and it's January 1st, 2016. Forever.
posted by ian1977 at 9:43 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

This is dumbass white rage, white rage that's susceptible to the big con that's been part of America since the outset.

I do not honestly know how California and Trumplandia co-exist. I think there will be a self-determination movement out of this, and I'm okay with that, because the USA is an arbitrary nation-state based upon an idea of continuity from east coast to west, and that's now fallen apart. Maybe the illusion of Trumplandia collapses quickly, maybe it solidifies into a toxic hallucination, it doesn't matter, America is not a country any more, it is a dysfunctional relationship that has lost the pretence of making do because the kids have now left.
posted by holgate at 9:43 PM on November 8, 2016 [13 favorites]

Regarding the rigging thing...

Y'know, if Hillary Clinton does turn this around, the Trump Camp can't really complain about it being rigged, can they?
posted by mikelieman at 9:43 PM on November 8, 2016

what makes it any less legitimate to argue that all the Clinton voters should have voted for Johnson, on just the same grounds?

You know the answer to this: it's simply false to approach this as if the two have equal chances. It will be one of the two major party candidates with a third party maybe getting a few points.

With this reality, in a close race the few percentage points third parties draw can actually change the outcome. In this race, that was true in several states.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:44 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

I do not honestly know how California and Trumplandia co-exist. I think there will be a self-determination movement out of this, and I'm okay with that

USA OUT OF CALIFORNIA
posted by entropicamericana at 9:44 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

I cannot bear to watch Hillary's concession speech. I just can't. My heart is broken for her. And for all women who supported her. And for all men who supported her.
posted by ramix at 9:44 PM on November 8, 2016 [51 favorites]

Maybe happy (for Trump) accident. Go watch Michael Moore's films at the

Trump had one of his first big rallies in Michigan, Birch Run I think, and did well crowd wise. michigan folk were pretty pissed off at Hillarys and Jenny's bullshit in 08' against Obama.
Sorry, she just fucked over to many people. The Republican Party may be dead but the Democratic party is next.
posted by clavdivs at 9:44 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

We may be living through the most successful Russian intelligence operation since the Rosenbergs stole the A-bomb.

--@davidfrum

And what do Trump and the Rosenbergs have in common besides Russia? Roy fucking Cohn
posted by zachlipton at 9:44 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

Pennsylvania looks like it's lost.
posted by octothorpe at 9:44 PM on November 8, 2016

Trumplandia will never let the rest leave because the blue parts pay for the red parts.
posted by Mitrovarr at 9:44 PM on November 8, 2016 [22 favorites]

All those flowers on Susan B. Anthony's grave.

All those eager centenarians born before the 19th was passed.

All those frightened racial, religious, and sexual minorities wondering if they would still belong.

All those people of conscience who put the welfare of the country over their own ideological interests.

They get to be runner up to a cartoon frog.

Feels bad, man.
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 9:44 PM on November 8, 2016 [99 favorites]

Russians hacked this election

No, they didn't literally hack into the voting machines. However, it's totally possible that a team of smart motivated Russians armed with a couple hundred million dollars figured out how to manipulate the US election better than anyone else through news releases, propaganda, and email hacking.
posted by miyabo at 9:45 PM on November 8, 2016 [14 favorites]

I mean, the gazillions of Trump voters have no clue at all that, if elected, he is going to totally bone them along with all the people they hate, do they?
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:45 PM on November 8, 2016 [11 favorites]

I've seriously heard from a half dozen business owners/founders who are all talking about scaling back their plans and conserving cash. The merely rich are freaking out.

I'm not very rich at all but recently I have been looking at replacing my car. Nope. Not taking out any loans now.
posted by azpenguin at 9:45 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

i mean really? where on earth is going to be safe? plenty of us right here right now are eligible to make aliyah but what horrors will the future hold for the entire middle east? is it worth the risk? jesus fuck

the cook islands i guess

im fucking allergic to fish
posted by poffin boffin at 9:46 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

It's also really freaking me out that after weeks of getting a gazillion emails from democrats a day, my inbox has been deadly silent for hours. Every democrat's campaign headquarters is as stunned and unprepared to deal with this as we are. They haven't said a word.
posted by the turtle's teeth at 9:46 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

unliteral: "This is going to be bad for tourism.
No way. Cheap holidays on the back of a busted buck, ahead."

Here is something I wrote here seven years ago, a few weeks into the Obama administration. The head of a big American tourism organization told us -- an Canadian audience of professionals in the same business -- how massively travel to the US had tanked during the W years. Let us ponder for a moment how much warmer the welcome for visitors will be under President Trump.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:46 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

The light in the room I'm in is on a timer and it just turned off. I'm sitting in the dark.

I'm terrified, betrayed, angry, profoundly sad, and just a howling abyssal fear that nothing matters, that hate and tribalism will always win over love and rationality. I'm not sure how I can raise my son to be a good person in a place like this.

Our economy is toast, our civil society is toast, everything we've worked for for the past 8 years is toast. All because half the country couldn't handle a black man and a woman as presidents and have decided to blow everything up instead. The thought of them all smugly proud of themselves right now makes me physically ill. Congratulations, you wrecked the country. I hope we can survive until 2020 in order to start from scratch all over again and fix what these people have done.

My well of empathy for Trump voters has been dry for a while, but it's a yawning black hole right now. Let someone else do that emotional labor. Let the white men mop some of that shit up for a little while. Women and people of color have been doing it for too long by themselves.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:46 PM on November 8, 2016 [92 favorites]

I just posted a version of this observation on Facebook (I'll tell you a detail that I am not able to share over there) -

In the 1990s someone sent me a "joke" email that consisted of a series of pictures of women, with male politicians' faces photoshopped onto their heads: Colin Powell, Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott....and the "punch line" at the end was "and they're all still prettier than Hillary!"

I am ashamed to be an American tonight. Not because of Trump himself - and not even because of all of his supporters. I am ashamed to be an American because we have proven that the majority of us don't give two shits about whether a person is intelligent or savvy or is capable of governing - all we care about and want in our leadership is charisma, flash, and titillation. That email proved it, Trump proves it. I am ashamed to be a citizen of a country that cares more about whether our president has style than whether everyone is fed, clothed, and housed.

My aunt was the person who sent me that email back in the 90s. She is on my Facebook feed, and I didn't mention names. If she comments to ask who sent me that, I don't know if I'll be able to stop myself from telling her.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:47 PM on November 8, 2016 [25 favorites]

I'm trying to think of what Barack Obama must be doing right now, knowing what's to come financially, and knowing he's got 9 precious weeks in office.

I imagine a lot of pardoning of federal prisoners. Honestly, that's his last chance to do good before he has to vacate.

If he could intervene in Standing Rock, that'd be nice as well, but I'm not holding my breath.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:47 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

I would like to say thank you to everyone here who tried to make the world a better place. I hope I wake up tomorrow to a surprise, but if not, God bless you all. It was (and is) a fight worth fighting for.
posted by double bubble at 9:47 PM on November 8, 2016 [11 favorites]

"I think there will be a self-determination movement out of this, and I'm okay with that, because the USA is an arbitrary nation-state based upon an idea of continuity from east coast to west, and that's now fallen apart. Maybe..."

I hear you but most Americans tune out to these things, presumably they relied on thier elected officials for this.
posted by clavdivs at 9:47 PM on November 8, 2016

Basically Nate Cohn via Josh Marshall nailed this as (might have been noted in the other thread) whites organizing as a minority identity group. They gave their votes to the guy who let them know they could organize like this with no badfeels.

On the flip, it isn't quite right that Dems took actual minorities for granted. It was that we asked minority women to bail us out time after time with no headway on the angry white block. We hit that credit card hard since 92. It worked so well for Bill that we must have thought that line of electoral credit was limitless. We were not in any way set up for Hillary to cash in. Instead we left her staring at an allballs ATM slip while we slink off.

This hit me hard pouring over turf looking for hail marys with 30 minutes to poll close.

There's no quick fix for this.
posted by drowsy at 9:47 PM on November 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

I do not honestly know how California and Trumplandia co-exist. I think there will be a self-determination movement out of this, and I'm okay with that

Secession won't happen. But state governments will have to do more of the functions of the federal government now.

Here in MA, we have to plan for the next Sandy. Only without FEMA.
We have to redo Romneycare to prepare for Obamacare going away.
The state DEP has to act like there is no EPA.

Start thinking about these things.
posted by ocschwar at 9:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [31 favorites]

The Trump recession is in full swing, ladies and gentlemen. Stocks are dying, which is a precursor of things to come. This is an Trump recession. Might turn into a depression. He hasn't done anything yet but his ideas are killing the economy. His ideas are killing Wall Street. They need some certainty, and now everybody in the Drive-By, "We don't know who Trump is."

- Rush Limbaugh, tomorrow morning. Not.
posted by bz at 9:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

They know Trump is a bully and a liar and that's what they want.

Yep. I was in a thrift store over the weekend and there was a Rush Limbaugh book there, and I joked with my dad:
"you can just tell this guy is an asshole from his book cover."

And that's the problem, half the population says "hey, this guy is an asshole and that sucks!"
And there are an awful lot of people that say "hey, this guy is an asshole, and that's awesome!"

There's no confusion about that, everyone agrees this guy is an asshole, but there are a lot of people who want an asshole to rule them.

I don't get that.

But yeah, great, we're going to be governed by the drudge report on a good day.
posted by lkc at 9:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Ironically, most of the white, straight people who voted for Trump are going to be boned the hardest

Yeah, honestly, they're a lot more screwed than I am as an educated (Asian) PoC. I'm not at all happy about that.
posted by zutalors! at 9:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

One plus may be that Trump's own nature might limit the damage he'll do. There was a story a few months back that Trump made a VP offer to Kasich that would have put Kasich in charge of all domestic and foreign policy.

I don't think Trump is particularly interested in actually governing. He wants the pomp and ceremony. Pence and others will likely do most of the decision-making.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

It looks to me like Trump is going to take both WI and PA, and if so--that's the map.

If that is true, think about this: When Obama swept in to power in 2008, the Republicans sat down and figured out how they were going to stop him.

If they did it, so can we. Obviously, the stakes are even higher now. But it is a time to put our heads down and work--not despair.
posted by flug at 9:49 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

Yeah that's a plus alright.
posted by mynameisluka at 9:49 PM on November 8, 2016

As a Dane, all these election threads have been wonderfully insightful and encouraging (if exceedingly long). It has provided me hope and reasons to hope.

Now it turns out that we are living in the /r/The_Donald reality. The future is fraught. I can only guess at the consequences of this election in my part of the world. An emboldened Putin, climate deals shot to hell, etc, etc.

I am sorry for your loss, America, but I think you do not stand alone in having lost.
posted by bouvin at 9:49 PM on November 8, 2016 [11 favorites]

I was really looking forward to that taco truck on my corner..
posted by djseafood at 9:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [11 favorites]

" the cook islands i guess"

Sorry to say but at least four years of delay on climate change if not outright reversal means that the Cooks are going to be under water even sooner. Like, this is terrible news for many people inside the US, but the long term consequences for everyone everywhere else are bleaker too.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 9:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

Well, we can all agree with Trunp on one thing: The media is dishonest.
posted by Gelatin at 9:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

when scotland succeeds with indyref mark 2 can we ask them to take us back as the original 13 colonies again
posted by poffin boffin at 9:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

So is anyone else wondering about the possibility that electronic voting machines were perverted to favor Trump?

What's to wonder? He's been quite open about the election being rigged.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oh boy if only I understood why they think everyone who doesn't look like them can go die in a ditch.

No one's saying you have to like them or feel sorry for them. But you can't deal with a complex system without trying to understand it.

It's like getting mad at a car for not working right if you've never bothered to learn to drive a stick. It's controlled by a manual transmission. You can't change that. Either learn how to work it or don't go anywhere.
posted by amtho at 9:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Mochapickle: my partner is in the same boat. Dialysis at home 4 days a week. And now with a condition which means frequent transfusions. Oddly enough, I think people with end stage renal disease will come out the best in the post-Obamacare chaos, at least at first, because they're able to get on Medicare even when they're below 65. I don't think anyone will target Medicare for a while due to the old white vote. I'm probably wrong but want to hold on to some small bits of optimism.

But this condition probably puts Canada, and most other western nations, out of reach for us. We have a nice stockpile of cash that could buy a house somewhere not in Toronto or Vancouver, but they'd never let us in when she would have to get health services immediately. I probably wouldn't go into exile even if I could, but there's a small part of me that's panicking because it's not an option.
posted by honestcoyote at 9:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

Someone tell Tehhund to stop while he's ahead.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [75 favorites]

I don't think Trump is particularly interested in actually governing. He wants the pomp and ceremony. Pence and others will likely do most of the decision-making.

oh good conversion therapy and fetus funerals for everyone
posted by beerperson at 9:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [22 favorites]

I think I understand now. There's a large number of white middle-aged men who saw the debates, saw that Hillary Clinton was vastly more competent than the other guy, and instead of wanting her to lead their country, decided that she needed to be punished.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [112 favorites]

Im going into the office for 2-3 hours tomorrow because I have a meeting with people above me I can't vent to.

Then I'm leaving early to buy a gun. And seriously consider deactivating all of my already limited public outlets including this Mefi account, sorry everyone. Unfortunately I have to work directly under a Trump administration in a couple months. I feel for the people we serve mostly, but I'm way too low level to really do anything about it. I'm not sure I can continue to comment in a public forum. Every do what you feel you must.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [27 favorites]

MSNBC asking is there's even any possibility for Clinton. The answers seems to be no.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 9:52 PM on November 8, 2016

Don't worry about this election being rigged -- worry about the next election being rigged.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [13 favorites]

My son was born two weeks after Obama was elected. He voted for Hillary in their election at school. He watched the results come in on PBS with me tonight and cheered every time Hillary was shown ahead.

I'm not looking forward to him asking me who won when he wakes up tomorrow.
posted by DakotaPaul at 9:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

Thank you guys and gals for fighting the fight.

My wife is Latina and here on a green card and she is scared. My nine year old son asked me this afternoon whether Trump was going to kill him. I told him no.

My wife tells me Trump plans to revoke automatic citizenship for Puerto Riquenos. I hadn't heard that before. Shouldn't start a rumor.

I'm half-Latino and look very Gringo. I'm worried that when I go to work tomorrow people will be looking at me like I'm to blame. (I live in Puerto Rico.)

Good night.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 9:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

What is Hillary thinking right now? She is going to have to go out there, smile and admit she lost to Donald Fucking Trump. I cannot imagine having to do that humiliation in such a public way. Much easier to hide under my covers here on my couch.
posted by AugustWest at 9:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

I think that the divisive Democratic primary created damage that the Clinton campaign wasn't able to repair. The recent actions of the FBI also probably helped Trump surge. I can't believe the outcome would have been the same if the election was Oct 15.

I watched a 9:15 movie hoping for good news when I turned on my phone

Now I will be getting drunk

Hello darkness...
posted by knoyers at 9:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Pence is shit but at least he's sane. That's sadly the best we can hope for right now.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:52 PM on November 8, 2016

All Right.

Independent Republic of Cascadia.

Let's do this my American bretheren.
posted by mannequito at 9:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

Calling WI or PA looks premature here.

Trump *needs* WI or PA or MI.

Clinton *needs* WI and PA and MI.

There is no way she has given up and if you have given up you maybe want to think that over?
posted by bukvich at 9:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

As someone who got laid off last week from a job that was also the source of my wife and I's health insurance, I would like to just fucking GUSH good cheer and congratulations at angry downtrodden gun-fondling Strict Constitutionalists like my mother. Or at people who parrot Hillary Is A Communist Gun-Grabber Treasonous Crooked Criminal Who Has Her Enemies Murdered Facebook rants like my father does.

Not being in as much immediate danger as many others for whom this election result directly risks their lives is only minor comfort.
posted by delfin at 9:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

If we are to be defeated please let us be kind to each other and even to Hillary. We are the kind people.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [41 favorites]

If I were Obama I'd be tempted to issue blanket pardons for everyone Trump might target. And I mean blanket pardons. Like, pardon them for every single crime they may or may not have committed in the past.
posted by Justinian at 9:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

Secession won't happen. But state governments will have to do more of the functions of the federal government now.

Here in MA, we have to plan for the next Sandy. Only without FEMA.
We have to redo Romneycare to prepare for Obamacare going away.
The state DEP has to act like there is no EPA.

Start thinking about these things.

Yes, I have to concur with all of this. We'll have to lean hard on federalism to protect as many people as we can going forward. It's just really fucking unfortunate that most of the most vulnerable are living in solid-red states.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Am I okay with a four-year clusterfuck of a Trump presidency, knowing that it will ruin the lives of millions of people, if it turns out that the country eventually rebels against its decision? No, I'm not. I can't handle those four years.
posted by perhapses at 9:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

I'm vacillating between numb shock, bottomless fear and total denial that somehow the numbers will change, that's there's still time, there's still hope. I've been at work this evening so I couldn't watch blow by blow so I'm still processing this because this is so fucking unreal. Part of me refuses to give into despair no matter how deluded that is. I can't decide if it's escapism or resiliency.

At least you guys are here, thank you for that.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 9:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

I'm just... there are so many things swirling around in my head right now. My brother starts officer training in January. How will Trump try to use him? I need a right to choose. My crush needs to be treated like a human being as a black Muslim man. How could college educated white women have voted for Trump with a 4% margin? What am I going to do with my life as I try to go into academia in a field funded through the NSF studying evolution? What about USAID programs? What about the UN? What about NATO? What about immigrants? How could there have been Jews who voted for this? What happened to Never Forgetting? I'm just flabbergasted and dumbfounded and disillusioned and embarrassed and angry and so, so sad. What happened to love trumping hate?
posted by ChuraChura at 9:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [21 favorites]

My sweet little boy went to the polling place with me today and charmed the ladies handing out the ballots by asking to shake their hands. He told me that a lot of kids in his first grade class said Hillary Clinton is mean, but he doesn't think so.
Historically, elections are hard on my mental health. 2000 was pretty rough, but 2004 left scars and I tuned out after that. As the forecasts turned tonight, I kept an even keel for him. I'll maintain, because he deserves not to be afraid.
posted by pajamazon at 9:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

This is really absolutely unthinkable. And the worst part about a Trump Presidency, among the vast multitude of terrible parts, is that we don't know what is the exact point when all hell is going to break lose or what will cause Pandora's Box to come screaming open. The man makes no sense and possesses no consistency or restraint and spews absolute lies all the time. He does not respect the rules of democracy. This is not just another presidency. All that we know has broken underneath our feet. Which of our rights and freedoms will be the first to go? How can Americans stay safe in this new America? And personally, will I ever feel safe again? The fact that finding out about my trans status is as easy as searching my SSN history terrifies me. And so much for the tide turning on the whole stupid bathrooms issue with the Supreme Court pick.
posted by sevenofspades at 9:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [17 favorites]

FelliniBlank:

I mean, the gazillions of Trump voters have no clue at all that, if elected, he is going to totally bone them along with all the people they hate, do they?

If there's anything Trump and the GOP spin machine are good at, though, it's convincing those voters that it's [insert enemy] doing the boning.
posted by Rykey at 9:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

Clinton's probable popular vote margin is actually going up. She could win the popular vote by 2 million. 2 MILLION. And still it means nothing.

This has to change. It must.
posted by Justinian at 9:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [20 favorites]

It may very well be that Trump delegates as much as possible, but there is no real reason to believe that Pence will have a particularly important role in the administration. Constitutionally, VP has close to zero authority, he gets to do exactly as much as POTUS lets him. And based on the numerous reports of antipathy between Trump and Pence, and how Pence was never really his first choice in the first place, I wouldn't be surprised if Pence is left on the sidelines and the power players who emerge are people Trump happens to like. Especially in roles beyond cabinet secretary that have essentially no oversight.
posted by skewed at 9:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

We're currently living in an electronic panopticon that's been largely hands-off for non-lawbreakers or for people breaking merely minor laws. That could change very quickly.

i really hope this is not one of those comments that looks incredibly pessimistic at first and incredibly prescient a few years later like rebecca blood's comment on 9/11
posted by entropicamericana at 9:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

Reminder to everyone that now would be a good time to reify your IRL non-electronic social networks, chatting face to face with friends and establishing safe words and signals when discussing potentially-sensitive information.

On that note, any Boston area mefits up for an IRL commiserating meetup? Or just a straight up misery meet up? Maybe we can start making a plan about what we can do in the dark days ahead.
posted by litera scripta manet at 9:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

Neil deGrasse Tyson: "This is the end of nothing. This is the beginning of something new and solemn and so important. You must be part of what comes next."
posted by Dragonness at 9:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [43 favorites]

I don't think anyone will target Medicare for a while due to the old white vote. I'm probably wrong but want to hold on to some small bits of optimism.

Me too. I'm 41 and fortunate to be able to use these services due to the exceptions signed into law several decades ago. I just think that if the old white vote sees the Medicare money that goes to renal care, they'll do a hungry hungry hippo and try to take it for themselves in the proud tradition of our new president.
posted by mochapickle at 9:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Clinton's one path is winning MI and PA while holding NH and MN.

That only gets her to 269. Which would throw the election to the House, but that still ends up a Trump win. Fantasies about House Republicans coming to their senses and electing someone other than Trump are just that: fantasies.

(Also, the House can't just choose anyone, they have to choose from among the top three in the EV count, but that's actually the lesser obstacle to this fantasy because it would require only a single faithless elector to offer the House a third option. The greater obstacle, of course, is that House Republicans have no spine.)
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

When Obama swept in to power in 2008, the Republicans sat down and figured out how they were going to stop him.

If they did it, so can we.

By extension, this would suggest the Democrats send an ineffectual technocrat out in 2020 and have the party hijacked by a polarizing TV star in 2024. I am not sure that seems like a good plan.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

Coventry: "Stop taking the Democratic Party machine as an authority figure, for starters. Take it over from below, like the Tea Partiers have with the Republican Party."

I don't see how that can help? What would a grass roots take over accomplish? They can either move the platform more left and lose the middle or move right and still lose to the -ists.
posted by Mitheral at 9:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

So there's about a trillion dollars we don't have anymore. Or, as we now call it, 1,000 1-year Trump losses.
posted by zachlipton at 9:56 PM on November 8, 2016

Even rich people are potentially in huge trouble under a Trump administration. This is a guy who has no problem screwing borrowers and has already said he'd "renegotiate" the national debt, i.e., sovereign default. What do you think that would do to the debt markets and who do you think holds that debt?
posted by indubitable at 9:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

Welp. Definitely not the kind of news you'd want to wake up to. Time to start exploring my long-term career options because somehow I don't think the Russians will have any use for an English to Estonian translator.
posted by daniel_charms at 9:57 PM on November 8, 2016

Historically, elections are hard on my mental health. 2000 was pretty rough, but 2004 left scars and I tuned out after that

Same. It took 10 years for me to recover enough from 2004 to dip my toe back in the water.

But I know that I'm stronger and more stable than I was back then. So that's why I know I have to find a way to hold it together and do whatever I can to help. It feels like anything I could do would be paltry and insignificant, but I feel like I have to try.

But right now, I'm focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, and I'm praying to the god I don't believe in that we have some kind of miracle.
posted by litera scripta manet at 9:57 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

My well of empathy for Trump voters has been dry for a while, but it's a yawning black hole right now.

If these results are genuine that's likely part of the problem. It would have been harder to activate angry whites if establishment media and politicians hadn't been so openly contemptuous of them. If someone was calling me a deplorable for my political views, I would for sure be going out of my way to vote against them.
posted by Coventry at 9:57 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

Owen Ellickson has retired his Trump Twitter story: tweet I know it's a small thing, but he helped me with his humor and I'll miss it.

Take care of yourselves; we'll be counting on each other for support. We really are a community, widespread as we might be.
posted by Silverstone at 9:57 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

i really hope this is not one of those comments that looks incredibly pessimistic at first and incredibly prescient a few years later like rebecca blood's comment on 9/11

Same. And, you know, most people probably don't get to get that paranoid. But the folks who do know who they are.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:58 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Real question for those of us with Clinton regalia on our cars and in our lawns: do we remove them, or not?

I certainly will not remove anything, but I'm a white male in a liberal area. People should definitely think about their safety, but those who can should continue to show opposition.
posted by thefoxgod at 9:58 PM on November 8, 2016

I had to turn off TV. MSNBC was talking to Rudy. And when they were going to visit the Trump ballroom - well I can't even. I think I will have to avoid broadcast media for the rest of my life. I can read about this but I don't think I have the strength to watch it. Plus, I will never ever forgive the broadcast media for their complicity in this.

There are so many things I can't get my mind around. That he is the handpicked favorite of Putin. The people he has surrounded himself with. The racism. The vengeance. The ignorance. First lady Melania. His sons emboldened.

Hillary, how she can bear this. The Obamas. I just can't.
posted by madamjujujive at 9:58 PM on November 8, 2016 [60 favorites]

Oh the media were 100% complicit in Trump winning tonight. They could've put the nail in the Trump coffin over and over again but instead we got endless both sides are equally bad bullshit and endless fucking discussion about emails as if a private email server was anything nearly as bad as Trump's continued malfeasance.

The media wanted a fucking horse race so they gave Trump billions of dollars in free advertising. They 100% share the blame for this bullshit. I hope that every journalist who tries some lame ass pass the buck routine gets ridiculed for being the hacks they are. I hope that they feel their beltway insider status will protect them from the worst of the effects.

But the truth is that the fourth estate utterly failed us and the parallel one that describes everything as being the fault of the Democrats is victorious. Is this how German journalists in the Weimar Republic feel?
posted by vuron at 9:58 PM on November 8, 2016 [95 favorites]

That only gets her to 269.

There's the Omaha congressional district in Nebraska, worth 1. Possibly.

But like I said it doesn't matter, Clinton is going to lose PA by 1% or less.
posted by Justinian at 9:58 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

“Take it over from below, like the Tea Partiers have with the Republican Party.”

Seconded. Bernie Sanders was really popular, and among a lot of people you wouldn't expect to support a socialist. The demand is there and the sentiment is there, not so much to reach the angry ones who voted for Trump, but to reach the angry ones who fizzled into this sort of thing. Make the Democratic party realize where its people (and its gettable new people) are.
posted by traveler_ at 9:59 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

Neil deGrasse Tyson: "This is the end of nothing. This is the beginning of something new and solemn and so important. You must be part of what comes next."

In this dark moment, what do I have left but pointless pedantry? That wasn't tweeted by the actual Neil deGrasse Tyson, (@neiltyson), but by a parody account, @DrNeilTyson.

Still good words, though.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:59 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

By extension, this would suggest the Democrats send an ineffectual technocrat out in 2020 and have the party hijacked by a polarizing TV star in 2024. I am not sure that seems like a good plan.

Not so much this, but I do think we should take a page from the Republicans and focus on the down ballot races. That has to be a big part of the answer to what's next.

Start small, aim big. Try not to let the despair swallow you up completely.

I know it's going to be a tall order.
posted by litera scripta manet at 9:59 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

One of the commentators on PBS said that Trump outperformed Romney among whites by just 1%, but Clinton markedly underperformed compared to Obama among non-whites. I.e. this is partly a reflection on Clinton and not merely on Trump. If we're looking for a Democrat who can appeal to non-whites like Obama could, sounds to me like we're looking at Cory Booker 2020.
posted by crazy with stars at 9:59 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

Independent Republic of Cascadia

I'm ready. I'm beyond ready. This...AMERICA SAY NO TO THIS. Fuck.
posted by corb at 10:00 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

The "fourth estate" has always failed us.
posted by Sphinx at 10:00 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

If someone was calling me a deplorable for my political views,

I do no consider white supremacy a political view.
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:00 PM on November 8, 2016 [67 favorites]

Real question for those of us with Clinton regalia on our cars and in our lawns: do we remove them, or not?

I live in the Boston area, so i'm leaving mine on, but if I didn't live in a liberal blue oasis, I probably wouldn't. I can't blame anyone who decides to lay low.

Stay safe, everyone. That's the top priority.
posted by litera scripta manet at 10:01 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

6 AM here

I must sleep
posted by kyrademon at 10:01 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

As weed legalization is looking good tonight, it's good to remind ourselves of:

Half the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election /
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction.

-- Paul Simon (given as a birthday present to Leonard Bernstein (c. 1971)
posted by zachlipton at 10:01 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

It begins dec 9, now that the GOP has nothing to fear and no need to bargain.
posted by ctmf at 10:01 PM on November 8, 2016

I'll be interested to see how the male vs. female lines up for minority voters. Could be misogyny, or could be Clinton derangement syndrome. If it's the latter, it'll be somewhat even; if it's the former, it'll be all male.
posted by Mitrovarr at 10:02 PM on November 8, 2016

I'm trying to be positive, but here's the thing: a few months ago, my 7 year-old asked if he would to have to leave the country if Trump got elected, as he's Latino. I assured him that no, of course that wouldn't happen, especially as Trump wasn't going to become president.

Now? I don't THINK that would happen. But the very fact that I'm not 100% sure of it just pisses me off so fucking much.

Fuck you if you voted for Trump. Fuck you for making my child frightened. Fuck you.
posted by nushustu at 10:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [34 favorites]

I do no consider white supremacy a political view.

Another way to look at it is try to understand what roll this racism and nationalism is filling. Why are these people turning to this? Is there something the Democrats can do or offer that would provide an enticing alternative?
posted by Sangermaine at 10:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

not over the phone; same room. Your number one plan right now should be how you and your friends will facilitate information exchange with

And turn on the radio, spot for hard writing surfaces.

Also, "If a case officer or his agent is to stay a long time in the hotel so that his bill will be large, it is imperative that he establish a good credit impression at the outset. (This may be a particular problem when an agent's hotel bill is to be paid not by him but by mail."

-'The Hotel In Operations'
posted by clavdivs at 10:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

On that note, any Boston area mefits up for an IRL commiserating meetup?

We won't be able to organize it in here, but I would. You should make a post on IRL!
posted by danb at 10:03 PM on November 8, 2016

This whole thread, but this in particular.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

If someone was calling me a deplorable for my political views,

The crazy thing about that is that Clinton was very clear that she wasn't referring to all Trump voters, only the one motivated by racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and then people raised their hands to say "yep, that's me!"
posted by Pater Aletheias at 10:04 PM on November 8, 2016 [53 favorites]

Handily, the Australian Immigration Department released the revised skills list today for those wishing to emigrate.
posted by wilful at 10:04 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

Is there something the Democrats can do or offer that would provide an enticing alternative?

The Democrats are offering actual goddamned solutions to their problems, and that's apparently not enticing enough.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:04 PM on November 8, 2016 [50 favorites]

The governments funding via continuing resolution ends December 9. We may be hosed.
posted by datawrangler at 10:04 PM on November 8, 2016

Clinton's "underperformance" among African Americans has to be taken in perspective. She won 88% of their vote or so, compared to like 93% for Obama. This was not a failure of AA, it was a failure of non-college whites.

It's about turnout though, not the percentage. And people are going to have to crunch the numbers in the next few days as to whether NC's voter suppression efforts, which were specifically targeted to make it harder for black voters to vote, made the difference in that state.
posted by zachlipton at 10:04 PM on November 8, 2016 [17 favorites]

Could be misogyny

Yeah. That's my opinion.
posted by mikelieman at 10:05 PM on November 8, 2016

my kids were eating dinner with the news on in the background and I was, well clearly worried, and so I tried to simplify it for their 2 and 3 year old selves. "We're choosing a president tonight and mommys worried, because one of the people is mean. But hopefully we'all get the good president. Hopefully the president will be a girl." And my two year old daughter says "a girl! like me!!"

Fuck.
posted by pennypiper at 10:05 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

My heart goes out to Hillary. What must she be thinking?

I hope Obama pardons me before he leaves office. And Bill. Chelsea, Marc, baby Charlotte and baby Aidan too. Just in case.
posted by space_cookie at 10:05 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

The deplorables were the ones wearing "reporter tree rope" t-shirts. The rest ought to be wondering who they're lying down with and why they have all those fleas. Votes that can be swung by blowing smoke are not reliable, leave them to the last-minute canvassers. For the next election two years from now, darn right I'm going to challenge people who claim "I'm not one of those deplorables" to prove it.
posted by traveler_ at 10:05 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh the media were 100% complicit in Trump winning tonight. They could've put the nail in the Trump coffin over and over again but instead we got endless both sides are equally bad bullshit and [...] The media wanted a fucking horse race so they gave Trump billions of dollars in free advertising. They 100% share the blame for this bullshit.

I'm inclined to lean this way. Specifically, I think that there was a certain cynicism at work in BIG media wherein they didn't want Trump to win, they believed him to be a no-hoper, but that was bad for biz, so they kept giving him enough rope ...
posted by philip-random at 10:05 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

Jesus - it just occurred to me that Kasich, as awful as he is, might actually try like hell to keep Ohio actually functioning out of sheer orneriness. Like, I might have to vote for the guy in '18 just out of self-preservation.
posted by soundguy99 at 10:06 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

I do no consider white supremacy a political view.

I've been saying, there is a lot more to Trump's appeal than racism and misogyny. He is tapping in to a sense that a large group of people are being left behind and ignored by the country's elite. Clinton was the wrong candidate for that kind of politics.
posted by Coventry at 10:06 PM on November 8, 2016 [22 favorites]

It's about turnout though, not the percentage.

True, but note that Nate Silver says that we should not take those demographic exit polls as worth much at all; the results we are seeing in terms of the vote count does not match what you would get if those exit polls were correct. IE, Trump is probably doing better with non-college whites than in the exit polls and worse with AA and Latino voters than in the exit polls.

I think when all is said and done Clinton will have done very, very well with both AA and Latino voters but Trump just brought out massive numbers of non-college whites in the upper Midwest.
posted by Justinian at 10:06 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

A few comments deleted; again please don't poke at obvious sore points, this is not the time.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 10:06 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Democrats are offering actual goddamned solutions to their problems, and that's apparently not enticing enough.

Right, it's not. If we want to win in the future then we need to figure out what is. Maybe different goddamned solutions. But whatever is on the table now clearly isn't enough.
posted by Sangermaine at 10:07 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

We won't be able to organize it in here, but I would. You should make a post on IRL!

Yeah, I don't want to derail this thread, but when the dust settles a bit, or maybe once I get a few hours of sleep, I'll throw something together and post it over on IRL. I feel like we're all going to need all the support we can get.
posted by litera scripta manet at 10:07 PM on November 8, 2016

I just keep thinking about the "sorry, everybody" meme from 2004 and how I wept over it... I think it'll be starting up again before morning.

In fact: Sorry, everybody. Those of us who oppose hatred tried.
posted by TwoStride at 10:07 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

Well, he's not going to bring back steel mills, coal mines, or manufacturing. So the next Dem candidate can run on the phrase: Are you better off than you were four years ago?

And to my Trump-voting brother, your stocks just tanked. How secure do you feel now?

ETA: Trump-loving. I'm not sure he actually voted.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 10:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

The Clinton campaign must have thousands of lawyers and others trying to intervene in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, etc right? I mean, they must have had an army ready, right?

I mean, the way results numbers seem to have slowed way down looks like something is happening, anyway.
posted by rokusan at 10:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

I've been saying, there is a lot more to Trump's appeal than racism and misogyny. He is tapping in to a sense that a large group of people are being left behind and ignored by the country's elite. Clinton was the wrong candidate for that kind of politics.

And I keep saying you're wrong.
posted by bongo_x at 10:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

But the sense that people are being left behind and ignored is STUPID AND BULLSHIT. They are not being hit ANY HARDER than anyone else, and the things that help the "others" also help them. The answer to their concerns is "No, you're mistaken."

HOW THE FUCK DO YOU DEAL WITH THAT IF THEY REFUSE TO BELIEVE IT?
posted by Scattercat at 10:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [62 favorites]

Bit of a story here, but I'll tie it into this election — bear with me a second.

So, I own a small business and we're in the midst of seemingly never-ending renovations. We've got a contractor who I strongly suspect screwed us on a flooring job and used outdoor-only sealant on part of the space (we're doing one half at a time). The fumes have taken a week to subside; it was only when we rented (at our own expense) a super-serious, heavy-duty ventilation system and ran it all weekend that they finally died down enough that our employees said they could bear to work in the other side of the space and NOT have to wear gas masks to work.

We're in a retail space with apartments above and behind, and our landlord has had to pay for hotel rooms for some of the tenants, chemical testing, and a variety of other things, and has told me he intends to bill us for it. Shit just keeps rolling downhill, and I don't have the money to pay for this crap.

I'm talking with our attorney and insurance company to see what our options are — long story short, it looks like we'll be going after this dishonest contractor and/or his insurance company for damages. Whatever he and/or his insurance company (assuming he has one) can't cover, our insurance should be able to. I wasn't sure I wanted to do this, because the guy seems kind of like a dumbass and overall kind of nice, and he subbed out the flooring job, and I suspect he honestly didn't know what happened.

But I'm also about 90% sure he's a Trump voter. I can just tell.

After tonight . . . fuck it, I'm going after him, guns blazing. Fuck this guy.

Oh, and while I may be a business owner and in the top 4%, income-wise, I'm also a person of color who's heard my own customers say stupid shit about my own ethnic group on My. Own. Fucking. Sales. Floor. (My skin tone is kind of ambiguous; people don't necessarily know my ethnic background by looking at me.) And one of my stores — my flagship store, and the one currently under renovation and the one that just got fucked over by said contractor — happens to be in the capital of the old confederacy. So I suspect this guy's a good ol' boy.

Well, fuck this guy. You get the next four years. In the meantime, I get your house.

(Yeah, we're supposed to be better than this, and eventually I will be. But I also have a 21-month-old girl who was born during Obama and who I wanted to see grow up during Hillary's administration, even if I was initially a "BernieBro." Now I won't see that happen. I need somewhere to put this anger. Eventually, I'll channel it somewhere more productive. Right now, at 1:08 AM on election night, it's going toward this contractor who could potentially kill my business.)
posted by CommonSense at 10:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [36 favorites]

Handily, the Australian Immigration Department released the revised skills list today for those wishing to emigrate.

Ooh, agricultural scientist! I wonder if a master's degree is enough?
posted by Mitrovarr at 10:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

I believe it was Bob Dylan, (the Nobel Laureate,) who said, "Can't hate nothin' at all, but hatred."
posted by Oyéah at 10:09 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Pence is shit but at least he's sane.

As a former Indiana resident, take my word on this - HE IS NOT SANE.
posted by ryanshepard at 10:09 PM on November 8, 2016 [44 favorites]

The rage I have for Republican politicians who ever pretended to be serious people and then didn't stop this is boundless. I hope all of those fucking cowards are panicking behind their rictus grins right now. You people did this. I refuse to participate in a left circular firing squad. REFUSE. There are far, far more people who are way way guiltier. I hope they all get their just desserts.
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:09 PM on November 8, 2016 [25 favorites]

I feel utterly lost and powerless. I'll probably be able to weather the coming storm, but I know so many others will have it so much worse, and I don't know what I can do for them. I don't know what I can offer them.
posted by Dalby at 10:09 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

The worst part of this is that even if it does wind up that Clinton squeaks by with a win when all of the votes are counted, we've still found ourselves in a situation where we asked five friends what to do for lunch and three said "pizza" and two said "kill you and make a soup from your bones." Like, even if we do get pizza in the end, that line's already been pretty well crossed.
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:09 PM on November 8, 2016 [82 favorites]

Jesus, Trump in the White House. Fuck. I'm going to bed.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:09 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

good god. grabbed 4 hours sleep. i'm so sorry for you guys. what a world we are going to live in.

looks like nate silver was pretty smart. heh. and that la times poll...

oh boy. what a mess.
posted by andrewcooke at 10:10 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm still catching up, but I wanted to say that after lurking for years, the last few election threads finally nudged me into creating an account. I'd like to thank all of you for informing and calming me, and for this bastion of community and sanity.
posted by Fish, fish, are you doing your duty? at 10:10 PM on November 8, 2016 [19 favorites]

Man, Nate Silver is getting *reamed* on twitter. Talk about killing the messenger. He did not go to Pennsylvania and cast 100,000 votes for Donald Trump. I think people just need to express their anger somehow and he is, unfortunately, an easy target.
posted by Justinian at 10:10 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

I am starting to think that the Democrats cannot run as moderate centrists anymore--the only thing that can challenge authoritarian populism is a very robust leftist populism. Medicare for all. Free public colleges. Universal basic income. Offer a bold vision. I think the Trump phenomenon is mainly a racist, xenophobic, sexist backlash, but there might be enough genuine economic anxiety to put together a winning platform if the Dems can convince people that they have their backs in the struggle against insane corporate greed and power.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 10:10 PM on November 8, 2016 [98 favorites]

Sorry but if your world view is white males > everyone else then I have nothing but contempt for you. I'll try to coexist and if my job requires it work with you but nah my tolerance of intolerance is pretty much at it's end.

I really don't see how coexistence is possible if a sizable percentage of Americans feel like it's okay to discriminate against people for their sexual or gender orientation or the color of your skin. There are 100% people who believe that African Americans are less civilized.

The truth of the matter is that even if there are good Republicans out there they've said that maintaining their privilege or their wealth is more important than the wellbeing of their fellow citizens. The election of Trump is 100% a vote for "Fuck you I've got mine" and what's said is that a huge percentage of rural America that is dealing with large scale unemployment and drug abuse just decided to make shit worse because medicaid expansion just went bye-bye.

It'll be interesting to see how much of the safety net Republicans manage to dismantle this time just because White people don't like sharing with brown people.
posted by vuron at 10:10 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

With all the recounts and legal challenges that both campaigns must right now be typing out, there's no real way this can be settled tonight, is there.
posted by rokusan at 10:10 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

y. He is tapping in to a sense that a large group of people are being left behind and ignored by the country's elite.

they felt "left behind and ignored" because a black man was uppity in the white house
posted by poffin boffin at 10:11 PM on November 8, 2016 [57 favorites]

I don't know how as a female POC I am supposed to connect to people who hate me. Just seems like people think they are shouting into the white echo chamber.
posted by zutalors! at 10:11 PM on November 8, 2016 [31 favorites]

Nate Silver, to everyone's disdain, turns out to be the most correct. Again.

(He pisses off both sides equally, as it turns out.)
posted by rokusan at 10:11 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

Nebraska voted to reinstate the death penalty. Jesus wept.
posted by triggerfinger at 10:11 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

Man, Nate Silver is getting *reamed* on twitter.

Crazy. He's vindicated, compared to everyone else I saw making predications. Nate always had lower odds for Clinton than the others.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 10:12 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

I canvassed for the last time today. I cried coming back to the office, because while action is an antidote to worry, this whole election has been so awful and I was afraid that even all of the beautiful actions by so many volunteers and staff all over the US wasn't going to be enough. And then I tried to convince myself to quit being maudlin and set my damn shoulders and get on with it. I'm awfully fucking sad right now. Perhaps there are miracles and surprises in store in the morning and perhaps he has won and that will be worse than we can or have imagined. I don't know. I'm going to bed and perhaps I will dream of an explanation for my children. Many people are good, lots of people are awful, shit's complicated, my loves, and I love you and I'm so sorry and we must carry on. We can cry first, and rage, and hold each other, and then we get to work. I don't mean to be glib in the face of real fears and so much uncertainty, but I find a small sliver of comfort in the prospect of action on the side of love.
posted by danielleh at 10:12 PM on November 8, 2016 [14 favorites]

So over the last hour or so, Clinton went from 14% to 21% on 538. Does that mean anything? I'm grasping at straws right now.

I can't fucking believe this.

I mean, I know even if by some absolute miracle Clinton pulls this off, that doesn't mean we're out of the woods, but even that dim future seems like such a panacea compared to the far, far more likely scenario that is facing us.
posted by litera scripta manet at 10:12 PM on November 8, 2016

.
posted by astapasta24 at 10:12 PM on November 8, 2016 [11 favorites]

Am I the only person who just feels a sort of numb fatalism, like anything could happen at this point and it wouldn't be a surprise? Military/CIA coup because the Russia story is true? Wouldn't surprise me. Sniper taking potshots? Sounds about right. Events are in that surreal state where anything seems possible, even a Clinton win and a future where I can laugh this comment.
posted by feloniousmonk at 10:13 PM on November 8, 2016 [36 favorites]

In Utah, according to the NYT the votes aren't in at all in Salt Lake County, and several others. It is all zeros, in huge tracts of Utah. I am not in denial here, but I am in Utah.
posted by Oyéah at 10:13 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

With all the recounts and legal challenges that both campaigns must right now be typing out, there's no real way this can be settled tonight, is there.

It's just not quite close enough in PA and MI to make a recount something that would feasibly change the result in the absence of some sort of indication of widespread voter fraud.

And remember we're the ones who have made the point repeatedly that widespread voted fraud is not a thing.

Now, widespread voter suppression may well have given this to Trump. How many people didn't wait in line to vote when they saw the lines were 3 hours long? And those lines were only in the Democratic areas.
posted by Justinian at 10:13 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

I mean, what happens now? I don't think they can call it for certain tonight. Hillary's people can't sit in Javits forever.
posted by mochapickle at 10:13 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I live in rural Michigan amongst a literal sea of trump voters. In a few hours I have to get up and tell my kids that Clinton lost and that it's probably best that they keep any political opinions our household holds under wraps for a while, if not permanently. I literally feel ill right now thinking about it.
posted by Chrischris at 10:13 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

I don't see how that can help? What would a grass roots take over accomplish?

I think I persuaded about twenty people to the polls today. At least four, because they were walking to the polling station when I left their house. I picked the poorest, least Anglo neighborhood in Manchester, NH. In seven hours of walking around there, I saw one other person with a clipboard. Local establishment Dems are neglecting neighborhoods like that, because the people there aren't useful to them. No one I talked to said "you guys again?" like there'd been any Dem outreach to them. But you can be damn sure, if Bernie had won, there would have been.

Those are the kind of people the Dem party needs to reach out to, but the party needs a shift in character before it can do that.
posted by Coventry at 10:14 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

He is tapping in to a sense that a large group of people are being left behind and ignored by the country's elite.

And those people are racists and misogynists, and the way you can tell that is that they look at Trump and they think he's okay. People who are not misogynists do not think that a serial sexual abuser is an appropriate candidate for president. Period. People who are not racists do not think that a man who talks about minorities the way that Trump does is an appropriate candidate for president. Period.

You only forgive people for those things if you think they're only minor errors, not grievous faults of character. I could believe that it was a thing about culture or economics in any other fashion if it was just someone who'd made vague comments, if it was just someone who generally seemed to treat women and minorities respectfully but had incompatible political ideas, that would be one thing. But this isn't that. This isn't "you say you're pro life but why aren't you funding services for children"--this is "you say you respect women but you seriously just admitted to sexual assault and this is backed up by tons of women who've actually had to deal with you". The two just... aren't even comparable.

I'm not a big fan of conservatives generally, but this is a whole different thing. My housemates voted for Trump. They are not young women who just feel economically left-behind. Believe me, I've heard them talk about minorities, especially when they're drunk. What this election is is a count of the people who didn't make racist comments in front of you before but are really basically okay with the people who did.
posted by Sequence at 10:14 PM on November 8, 2016 [119 favorites]

Oh, I've never believed in widespread voter fraud, and still don't. Election fraud, sure, but voter fraud is a red herring.

No, this is something else.
posted by rokusan at 10:14 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

zutalors! we get to spend the next 4 years being told that this was our fault, if only we had listened to white people more instead of being all mean and smug and rude and irrational and playing victim and uppity and

hold on i need to pour another drink
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 10:14 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

The Huffington Post ending editor's note that called Donald Trump 'racist'
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:15 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't think that Hillary's ideas lost. This election was hardly about ideas; Trump does not offer any. So I don't think that she was too centrist. And I think now that Sanders also would have likely lost to Trump, maybe even more so, for different reasons. Sanders and Trump together were able to successfully paint Hillary with an exaggerated negativity (that had a grain of truth) and she didn't have the charisma that Trump apparently has, although I don't really see it
posted by knoyers at 10:15 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

>Nebraska voted to reinstate the death penalty. Jesus wept.

Though unfortunately not surprising considering that both major candidates and their parties are pro-death penalty.
posted by beau jackson at 10:15 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

> Democrats send an ineffectual technocrat out in 2020 and have the party hijacked by a polarizing TV star in 2024

Heh. We don't have to go that far.

My point is, they didn't give up. They made a plan, they followed it, and they ended up winning elections down the line.

We can do the same.

How about taking back the House in 2018? It's always hard for the part in power to retain control of the House at midterm and it's going to be very easy to campaign against the shitstorm that a Trump presidency is certain to bring in its wake.
posted by flug at 10:16 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

And I keep saying you're wrong.

they felt "left behind and ignored" because a black man was uppity in the white house

People are rightly very emotional and angry right now, but this is clearly wrong. On MetaFilter itself there is a constant refrain that the current system isn't working. The rich get richer and everyone else gets ground down more and more.

The reaction for some people experiencing this is to look for easy explanations, explanations like racism and misogyny and jingoism that can be exploited. Of course this is not acceptable. But dismissing this group as irrational bigoted monsters precludes any chance of finding alternatives to the problems these people perceive that could sway them.

As a practical matter, what choice do we have? This is obviously a powerful voting bloc that needs to be dealt with or we'll keep losing.
posted by Sangermaine at 10:16 PM on November 8, 2016 [32 favorites]

With all the recounts and legal challenges that both campaigns must right now be typing out, there's no real way this can be settled tonight, is there.

That's what I'm starting to realize. I really was planning on staying up until this thing was called, but with the current outlook so grim, and the likelihood that we won't know for sure until much later, I may have to call it a night soon because somehow I have to find the strength to get up and go to work tomorrow and be engaged and teach a class even though it feels like nothing in the world matters any more, and I'll need a few hours of sleep to do it.
posted by litera scripta manet at 10:16 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Right, lets not leave out the racism. It is absolutely true that Trump tapped in to a large group of non-college white voters who believe they are being ignored by the elite. And the way in which they believe they are being ignored is that they think they are being shafted in favor of minorities and (some) women.

Ignoring the second part is like talking about States Rights and the Civil War. You kind of have to mention that the State Right in question was slavery.
posted by Justinian at 10:16 PM on November 8, 2016 [28 favorites]

And those people are racists and misogynists, and the way you can tell that is that they look at Trump and they think he's okay.

So, ok, sure, this is 100% true. But if they're a dominant fraction of the electorate... what do we do about it?
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 10:16 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

How many people left lines because they couldn't wait three hours, and figured what does a Vote matter, Hillary already aced this anyway.

How many people voted Johnson or Stein last minute because of how excited they were about the early voting news?
posted by mrzarquon at 10:17 PM on November 8, 2016 [11 favorites]

But the sense that people are being left behind and ignored is STUPID AND BULLSHIT. They are not being hit ANY HARDER than anyone else,

They're being hit harder than they're used to. I - I can't tonight, but tomorrow maybe I'll try to figure out a way to get them to not feel so much hate but tonight I just don't have the words in my mouth. There's still hope but I'm just heartbroken right now.
posted by corb at 10:17 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

I'm heartsick. I'm going to bed, to toss and turn for the next five hours until I have to get up and somehow face this reality again.
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:17 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Jon Ralston: Now that it's legal in NV, I think I may try pot. Seems like the right night to do it.

You and me both, Jon.
posted by Justinian at 10:18 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

How about taking back the House in 2018? It's always hard for the part in power to retain control of the House at midterm and it's going to be very easy to campaign against the shitstorm that a Trump presidency is certain to bring in its wake.

Democrats won 2012 popular vote in the house by a point and Republicans got six points over on seats. The house is a god damned lost cause. It's not coming back this generation, perhaps ever.
posted by Talez at 10:19 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm still in shock. All morning students have wanted to discuss the selection and I've had to tell them I just can't do that right now. There's a knot in my throat when I try to articulate my thoughts and feelings on the subject.
posted by bardophile at 10:19 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

But what can you DO when your manual transmission won't shift from first gear unless you scream racial epithets at it? Like that's not an option, here. What can you do about people who are just fucking awful and will choose awful things and only awful things?

You stop. You think. You start planning how to handle this problem.

You've identified one thing that works: scream racial epithets. Obviously a solution that involves you screaming racial epithets every time you want to change gears isn't workable, but, in taking the time to understand the problem this much, you can start analyzing further:

- Is it the epithet, or the screaming, that's the key?

- How frequently must this be done?

- Are particular phrases more effective? Do they have a greater or longer lasting effect?

Then you can start thinking about how to make the thing actually go when you want.

Maybe you can make a machine that handles the yelling automatically. Maybe you can figure out a way to fine-tune or muffle the whole apparatus so that you aren't distracted by the noise.

Or, maybe you learn from the analysis something that points to the root of the problem; maybe the car is doing this because it needs a different kind of fuel, or a new fuse, or maybe if you just take out the radio it will work fine.

Eventually, you could wind up with a great running car that gets you places like your job or a doctor's office.

But none of this would be possible if you hadn't stopped and analyzed the problem.
posted by amtho at 10:19 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

If you've never lost someone you love, if you've never faced serious illness, or even been fired, if you don't remember past political shockers, that surreal feeling you have is is grief, shock, numbness, fight or flight and depression all combined.

Buoys and gulls, my immediate concern is what do I -many years working but for not a great income and with no bennies -do for healthcare when my ACA plan goes away. Seriously asking. MeMail me.

Of course, theoretically I'm several years away from Medicare and Soc. Sec. Hahahaha...

[What were those, Old One?
Well, Young Ones, for some time before the Great Conflagration brought upon us by our own arrogance and the demon god Donald, the world was good, and people took care of each other...]
posted by NorthernLite at 10:19 PM on November 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

Maybe this country is just too big.
posted by Golem XIV at 10:19 PM on November 8, 2016 [18 favorites]

I hope he and his followers are not expecting to hear her concede, especially given that he wasn't willing to say he'd accept the election results.
posted by datawrangler at 10:19 PM on November 8, 2016

current google searches:

- quinoa farming for dummies
- emotional support alpacas
- panama real estate
- fake own death? how
- vanguardism in 12 easy steps
posted by poffin boffin at 10:20 PM on November 8, 2016 [33 favorites]

I think we really need to focus on circling the wagons and limiting the damage over the next four years, but also have to seriously focus on how to win back Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, that means reaching out to older white people.

I think there is really something to this:

@Chris_arnade: They got turned racist over last few years because they didn't read Vox articles explaining how great shit was?Chris Arnade added,
@AlecMacGillis: Please, tell me more about how Clinton losing northern white working-class people who voted twice for Barack Obama is all about race.

They are perhaps not voting that rationally or in their best interests, but it is probably also true that these states (many of which used to be solidly Democratic) are not doing all that well, and are very concerned about their future. I do think Bernie was able to appeal to them more than Hillary, even though I may actually agree with Hillary on some of their core issues. A big part of the problem may be the success of FOX News and conservative media (also with Brexit I perhaps?). I don't think MSNBC, PBS, and CNN are reaching these communities as well as FOX.

Frumm comes off as a really horrible person to me in this podcast, but I think it is worth listening to as he does have some interesting observations about politics.
posted by Golden Eternity at 10:20 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

This is bad. I knew the storm would come in my lifetime, but I didn't think it would be this soon. I thought there would be more time.
posted by eagles123 at 10:20 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

They are not being hit ANY HARDER than anyone else,

They're being hit harder than they're used to.

It doesn't matter that your sister's been in and out of the hospital and just got out of surgery. She got ice cream and you didn't get any and ITS NOT FAAAAIR.
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 10:20 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

And the way in which they believe they are being ignored is that they think they are being shafted in favor of minorities and (some) women.

So how can you change that? Why isn't the message reaching them? How can we better connect with them?

What's the alternative to doing this? Scream at these voters that they're disgusting racists and misogynists? That's not going to change minds and more importantly it won't change votes.
posted by Sangermaine at 10:20 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

They feel left behind and ignored because they literally have no shoes. The democratic party abandoned the lot of them.
posted by pan at 10:21 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Maybe this country is just too big.

nah, the world needs fewer borders
posted by philip-random at 10:21 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

It doesn't matter that your sister's been in and out of the hospital and just got out of surgery. She got ice cream and you didn't get any until dinner and ITS NOT FAAAAIR.

Again, it's not that this characterization is incorrect, but when 50.001% of the electorate feels that way.. what do we do?
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 10:22 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

But if they're a dominant fraction of the electorate... what do we do about it?

They're not! Clinton is going to win the popular vote by something like 1.5 or 2million! (Hard to say exactly because of California). The problem is that the electoral college couldn't cater to those people any harder if it were designed that way. In a sense it WAS designed that way, though the founders couldn't necessarily have forseen the shifts of the last 200 years.

The electoral college is basically a giant gerrymandering on a national scale. Actually that's exactly what it is, no "basically" about it. Just as gerrymandering lets Republicans hold the House of Representatives despite more people voting for Democrats, Trump has given the Republicans a roadmap for how the electoral college gerrymander can let the Republicans hold the Presidency despite more people voting for Democrats there as well.

Not forever. But maybe long enough for them to do irreparable damage.

Really, they will now control all three branches of government because of what amounts to gerrymandering. I... guess Trump was right about the system being rigged.
posted by Justinian at 10:22 PM on November 8, 2016 [26 favorites]

“They're being hit harder than they're used to.”

What's maddening is I had relatives who I knew had been personally helped by Obamacare passing around articles on social media about other people whose insurance rates were going up, and commenting about how Obamacare hadn't done any good and they didn't need it and oh how stupid and corrupt the Democrat politicians are.

I just don't even know what to do. A four-hour lecture with charts and numbers? Bullying "nu-uh"s like the guy who just won?
posted by traveler_ at 10:23 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

I think the Trump phenomenon is mainly a racist, xenophobic, sexist backlash, but there might be enough genuine economic anxiety to put together a winning platform if the Dems can convince people that they have their backs in the struggle against insane corporate greed and power.

I think the lesson here is that an egalitarian answer to fascism has to combine economic justice and social justice. Racism, hatred, bigotry and misogyny are potent wedges.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:23 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

When we got Obama elected I figured there'd be a terrible price. Giant white-hot ball of rage and all that. I guess it's finally time to pay the piper.
posted by mmoncur at 10:23 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

We've known what to do about racism and misogyny for a very long time - take people seriously. Listen to their concerns. Defend them when you see them being denigrated, attacked. Look, even here on MeFi it's a constant refrain of "does that really happen?" in response to things that, yes, have really happened.

Anyway I saw so much courage and support. So very much. People got out and talked to others. This is heartbreaking.
posted by fraula at 10:23 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

They'll continue to be left behind, no idea how that's going to go. From the example of the UK it doesn't seem to make anyone any more sensible.
posted by Artw at 10:23 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm out. Oddly fitting outro video from the trenches here in the United States of Trump. Sorry but it's true.

I'm just glad my two girls are young enough that I spend most of my time talking about the importance of going poo in the potty instead of geopolitical instability. I'm sad that they get to spend part of their growing years on a planet that obviously doesn't deserve them.
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:23 PM on November 8, 2016

@AP_Politics: BREAKING: Republicans retain control of the Senate with victory in Pennsylvania.
posted by bryon at 10:23 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Let me clarify that the idea of screaming racial epithets at the gearbox is meant to be a metaphor for invoking and strengthening racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, religious discrimination, and basically every other horrifying genocide-causing emotion in human history and giving it actual power of law. Since that is not a goddamned motherfucking option, what do we do about the portion of the electorate that apparently does not care about anything other than "fuck the n*****s, fuck the q****s, fuck the k***s, fuck the... ad nauseam"?

I will not support becoming racist or apparently racist in order to win them over to voting in their own fucking shitty asshole SELF-god-damned-INTEREST.
posted by Scattercat at 10:24 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

So. Inauguration Day 2017. Million ass salute to our new President, or million fiddle players to serenade in the flames?
posted by inflatablekiwi at 10:24 PM on November 8, 2016

My Bestie just sent me the following text, and these are her exact words:

"WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF FUCKING MCFUCKITY FUCKING FUCKING FUCK GOD DAMNIT FUCKING FUCK"

That....kind of says it all, really.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:24 PM on November 8, 2016 [16 favorites]

However this shakes out I'm glad to have been with y'all as I did my part in Wisconsin and cast my first vote for a Democratic presidential candidate.

You must be part of what comes next.
Parody or not, I believe this.

Hope and change, friends. Hope and change.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 10:25 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

I mean, what happens now? I don't think they can call it for certain tonight. Hillary's people can't sit in Javits forever.

Correspondent from Javits on the PBS stream was noting the venue's booked for a broadcasting convention at 8 a.m. and in theory have a drop-dead time of 2 a.m. for the Clinton event. Though you have to wonder if the booking on that was done by someone familiar with US presidential elections.
posted by cortex at 10:25 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

The electoral college is basically a giant gerrymandering on a national scale. Actually that's exactly what it is, no "basically" about it.

It's also the rules of the game, and it's not going away any time soon. We can bitch about it all we want, but if we want to win then we need to change strategies to win in the system we have.
posted by Sangermaine at 10:25 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

So how can you change that? Why isn't the message reaching them? How can we better connect with them?

It does seem that Bernie was able to appeal to them better than Hillary. I'm guessing part of this may be his protectionism and anti trade-agreement stance. But as Frumm points out in the podcast I linked to above, a big part of politics is making people believe you are really there for them and on their side. Conservative media succeeded in convincing them Hillary was not. Even if this is all bullshit, and it probably mostly is, it is unfortunately what matters in politics. Obama was able to do it.

But on the other hand, it does seem like a part of their culture is turning in a more racist, more bigoted direction, and if that's true, I'm not sure what can be done about it. Obviously, there is an example from early last century of this sort of culture only getting worse.
posted by Golden Eternity at 10:26 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

And he's gonna say "I told you so." He'll say that.
posted by Golem XIV at 10:26 PM on November 8, 2016

This isn't on minority voters. This is 100% on white people. Yes it would've been great if Latinx and AAs and other parts of the rainbow coalition could've saved us from ourselves but the reality is that OH, MI and WI don't have enough minority voters to make a massive difference and Democrats needed those states.

Florida was so close but the rural areas where the old south remains supreme came out in fucking force and swallowed up the Latinx and AA vote.

Apparently the bailout of GM wasn't good enough for Midwestern voters. Apparently trying to keep the US from going under from the last Republican's mismanagement wasn't good enough.

The reality is that these guys just voted for the end of their way of life within the next couple of generations. Global warming will turn large parts of the Midwest into deserts and eat up huge areas of the Florida coast but I guess Trump and company will continue to tell them it's a liberal plot.

And I know that while I can shield me and mine from most of this mess for the next 4 years I am deeply saddened to know that there are millions of people out there that don't have the resources to absorb 4 years of Trump bullshit in the White House.
posted by vuron at 10:26 PM on November 8, 2016 [46 favorites]

So, how long until the Regrexit polls?
posted by TWinbrook8 at 10:26 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

When we got Obama elected I figured there'd be a terrible price. Giant white-hot ball of rage and all that.

yeah, the whole 8 years i've been low level poised for extreme horrors but it's always been a constant fear of violence against him and his beautiful perfect family. it didn't really register with me that these people would sit on that hatred and actually CHANNEL it into doing something over the long term. idk why, considering how long i personally am capable of holding a grudge.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:26 PM on November 8, 2016 [17 favorites]

current google searches:

- quinoa farming for dummies
- emotional support alpacas
- panama real estate
- fake own death? how
- vanguardism in 12 easy steps

Are you spying on me?
posted by bongo_x at 10:26 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Sangermaine:How can we better connect with them?

Maybe my last comment was unfair, but how exactly do we (wherever the boundaries are being drawn this week) connect with them, when they outnumber us and apparently have more power than us? You might get some nastiness for this comment, but I'd like you to consider that I don't see myself or "us" in a superior position to the white majority of the western world.

How can we be expected to fix them, when we're just fighting for space and recognition....and losing?

Apologies if incoherent. am drunk.
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 10:27 PM on November 8, 2016 [20 favorites]

Why isn't the message reaching them?

Often, it's because they get all their "news" from Fox and Rush Limbaugh. Maybe Drudge and a bubble of Facebook conservatives if they're Internet-savvy.

I seriously have no fucking idea how to reach them, because they literally live in a different reality than I do.
posted by soundguy99 at 10:27 PM on November 8, 2016 [24 favorites]

So should the upset in MI during the primary have been a warning sign that polling was super off in Rust Belt-y states? Or is that over-interpreting? (Note: this is a question about polls and not about the relative merits of the primary candidates)
posted by en forme de poire at 10:28 PM on November 8, 2016

In my six decades of life, this is the first US Presidential election night that I've been reduced to uncontrollable crying. Dog help the USA and the rest of the world.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 10:28 PM on November 8, 2016 [32 favorites]

Welcome to the darkest timeline. No, not a Trump presidency, but six more weeks of election coverage followed by... a decision. Either we get a SCOTUS decision or we get an Electoral College decision. Wonderful. Neither verdict will satisfy the public and will lead to civil unrest. I'm not saying all out civil war or even rioting. What we are looking at is a divided country, were one side has a metric fuckton of guns and crazy. What happens then is up to the media, not even the mainstream media, but the alt media. The internet. How we react as a culture will decide our future.

All in all, I'm not feeling optimistic.
posted by gideonswann at 10:29 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

So democrats have now won the popular vote 4 out of the last 5 elections? Weird how are country works.
posted by skewed at 10:29 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

>When we got Obama elected I figured there'd be a terrible price. Giant white-hot ball of rage and all that. I guess it's finally time to pay the piper.

Obama won twice. Perhaps a similar candidate could have won again.

That is not to say that racism isn't a real factor in this election. But looking past the flaws of Clinton as a candidate won't help us do better in the future.
posted by beau jackson at 10:29 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

Well, though not quite likely yet, the down the line chances for the first military coup in American history has entered the realm of the possible.
posted by y2karl at 10:29 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

"Them" is the majority. At least the majority of the land area, which is what matters under our system. This is not the country we thought it was, it's their's, it's Trump's.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:29 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

5 out of the last 6.
posted by argybarg at 10:30 PM on November 8, 2016

The House Republican majority isn't really due to gerrymandering in the traditional sense, its because of population clustering and the Voting Rights Act.

Democratic-majority neighborhoods, towns and counties tend to be more heavily Democrat than Republican-majority neighborhoods, towns and counties are. This means that if you draw NON-gerrymandered districts, i.e. ones that are compact and respect existing community boundaries to the extent possible, you will elect a somewhat smaller number of Democrats by landslides and somewhat larger number of Republicans by narrower margins.

The Voting Rights Act usually seeks to create supermajority African American or Latino districts, while leaving white voters (of whatever political persuasion) outside the boundaries. Result, once again, Democrats elected by landslides (often actually or effectively unopposed) and white Republicans elected in adjacent districts by often large, but not AS large, margins.
posted by MattD at 10:30 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

HI AMERICANS (and all mefites!)

It's 4:45 pm on Wednesday here in Sydney, Australia as I type this comment and the world is still standing. I had the appointment with my therapist that I mentioned in the previous thread and he gave me some great advice, not about your election in particular (although we did discuss it briefly), but about managing worry and anxiety broadly. I don't know how useful you will find it, it might have been stuff you've heard before, but I liked it a lot and I am shelling out AU$200 a session for it so I figure why not spread the word? Even if most of you are probably asleep. So, briefly:

1. OPERATIONALISE YOUR DEFINITIONS

It is no use telling yourself or anyone else 'don't panic', 'don't worry', 'stop freaking out', 'calm down'. What even is 'panic' or 'worry' or 'calm' or 'freaking out'? As instructions these are about as effectual as squirting a spray bottle into Niagara Falls. They are not concrete. They are the opposite of concrete. Instead, think about things that you can do that normally make you more happy or calm. Have a bath or shower! Play with your pet! Play with your partner! Have something to drink, sure, why not. I don't know what it will be for you specifically but give yourself a little plan of calmness to follow and then bloody well follow it. This plan cannot involve having 538 or the NYT (you masochist) or even MetaFilter open. Sorry.

2. TRY BEING MINDFUL

It's not woo, I promise. Mindfulness is, essentially, focusing on the sensory data you are receiving right now and simply being aware of what it is instead of processing it within the wider context of your life. You must consider the sensory data as positively as you can. For example, pick up an apple. Don't just think 'oh, this is an apple.' Think: what a nice shade of green. It's interesting how it has that distinctive shape. There's that lovely zingy smell that foretells a delicious, sweet-sour tang when you bite into its white flesh. That texture when you're chewing—firm but not brittle—and those juices that flood your mouth. Walk into the shower. Don't just think 'oh, this is a shower.' Think: oh, the water hasn't heated up yet but that little shock of coolness is nice. I love the feeling of a stream of droplets beating against my skin. And the roar of the water as it pushes up through the pipes, is forced out the shower head and hits the floor. I'm looking out the window now on the 9th floor of my university library. I love how the clouds sit thickly in the sky like this when it's going to rain. They're so dark; we haven't had a proper thunderstorm in a while. Look at all those trees, popping up between rows of buildings. It's perfectly air-conditioned in here. Okay? Put down the laptop or smartphone, focus on something else and evaluate only its positive characteristics.

3. SHUT DOWN THE MONKEY BRAIN

Even after you do the other things I posted above, you might still be confronted by irritating negative thoughts bubbling up into your consciousness, like 'Wisconsin and Michigan', 'evil orange fascist', 'nuclear armageddon', 'third-party voters' etc. This is your monkey brain running in the background, still trying to get you to focus on all your dangers and problems. How to switch it off? Play little games with yourself. I like listening to music that has a shit ton of percussion in it and trying to jiggle my leg or tap my thigh or move my head or use a pen like a drumstick against the desk, trying to lose myself in all the different rhythms. I also like playing a podcast episode that I've heard a gazillion times before and focusing on only what the words that are being said, and not evaluating them within the overall narrative arc of the podcast, kinda like I'm trying to transcribe it in my head. Play a game of 2048 as quickly as you possibly can. (Play a game of 2048, timing your inputs to the beat of a song?) My therapist used the example of picking four different numbers between 1 and 10, and just keep adding 1 to each of them in turn. 2 3 5 9, 3 4 6 10, 4 5 7 11... you'll find it hard to focus on anything other than the game. All other thoughts will just be pushed out. Find a high-focus game that works for you and play it.

ok i hope that helped

YOU ARE ALL LOVELY, INTELLIGENT, BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE. It's pretty bad, yes, but there is zero point in focusing in on the badness right now. You will get through this; you will regroup; you will come out the other end fighting. Thank you for all the fascinating posts and hilarious comments you have posted on this site. Take care of yourselves!! <3 <3 <3
posted by Panthalassa at 10:31 PM on November 8, 2016 [120 favorites]

I remember when Reagan won. I remember when Bush won. So disappointed in America. Where to now? What country? FUCK?
posted by Windopaene at 10:31 PM on November 8, 2016

I think the oft quoted lesson is that since the 80's and the proliferation of around-the-clock media, the more charismatic candidate always ends up winning. Fewer people care about actual issues and fewer still remember them. More people like a "winning smile" and projected confidence.

The Dems merely needed to put someone in the race who had better stage presence than Trump. They didn't. Obama could have run as a communist and would have wiped the floor with Trump. The Democrats repeatedly underestimate the tendency of most people to make major decisions based on their gut instincts.

A lesson for the future.
posted by neeta at 10:31 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

I seriously have no fucking idea how to reach them, because they literally live in a different reality than I do.

We have to stop living in different realities. We have to talk to each other. Someday.
posted by corb at 10:31 PM on November 8, 2016 [13 favorites]

This feels like a bad dream. I'm going to try to sleep this off and wish for a miracle.

These election threads have been my constant companion for months now and I have learned so much from all of you. I'm grateful to everyone who canvassed and phonebanked. I love you all.
posted by mochapickle at 10:31 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

So democrats have now won the popular vote 4 out of the last 5 elections? Weird how are country works.

If there were enough Republican voters to win a fair election, Republicans wouldn't have to resort to gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement, and other forms of election fraud. They know the numbers, and they know they couldn't win a real election.
posted by IAmUnaware at 10:31 PM on November 8, 2016 [19 favorites]

is it clear democrats have the popular vote? republicans ahead, no?
posted by andrewcooke at 10:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I suspect that a lot of the Trump voters are unconcerned about the dollar and the stock market crashing, some because they were left behind/out of the economic benefits, and others, the True Deplorables, who thought it was all the People Not Like Us (yeah, definitely the Jews) who have all the money, even while they watch their own 401Ks evaporate.
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

Tomorrow at work I just know there will be people saying everything will be all right. But that's out of habit, not clairvoyance. They don't know and none of us do. Proceed with caution but do proceed.
posted by datawrangler at 10:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

it does seem like a part of their culture is turning in a more racist, more bigoted direction

Trump must have been pretty spot-on with his rhetoric and advertising, so let's look at the sort of things a plurality of American voters believe:

Mexicans are rapists and thieves, who steal American jobs.
Muslims are terrorists.
Refugees are very possibly terrorists, whether they're Muslim or not.
African-Americans are uneducated people who live in bad areas that are filled with crime.
There is an global banking conspiracy aimed at keeping Americans poor, and it is headed by Jews.

This is downright terrifying.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [46 favorites]

I know that it's absurd thinking, but for some reason, I keep blaming that moving odometer thingie on the NYTimes page.
posted by roll truck roll at 10:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

I don't know what to do :( I was hoping Clinton would win easy and I could get back to focusing on my school work, etc. I've been an anxious wreck the past week and I was hoping that would end but it's only going to get worse.
posted by Gymnopedist at 10:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [13 favorites]

I haven't been able to focus my eyes well for most of the last hour and I've got jimmy legs--both signs that it's far past my bedtime and I'm stressed out. I need need need to hear Hillary talk tonight, but I don't have it in me to stay up and wait for whenever that might come. People who can stay up and weather this storm: I wish you luck.
posted by phunniemee at 10:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sangermaine: "It's Nader 2.0. Do people never fucking learn?"

Apparently not, since Ralph Nader absolutely, historically did not lose the election for Al Gore. Seriously, not that many people voted for Nader, and there were a LOT of other factors in that election. Let go of the stupid lie that Nader voters were voting for Bush.

And let go of the illusion that ANYBODY but white people - particularly white males - gave this election to Trump. White men are scum. And I can say that because I am one.
posted by koeselitz at 10:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [26 favorites]

Is anything else going to happen tonight?
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:33 PM on November 8, 2016

My coworker told me that he thought that people weren't admitting to pollsters that they supported trump. I told him bullshit
posted by knoyers at 10:34 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

is it clear democrats have the popular vote? republicans ahead, no?

Yeah, Trump is ahead in the popular vote by about a million.
posted by corb at 10:34 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

The House Republican majority isn't really due to gerrymandering in the traditional sense, its because of population clustering

Population clustering is exactly what makes gerrymandering most effective. You can't separate the two things.

Sangermaine: I agree, simply throwing up our hands about the elector college is not a viable strategy. But its important to come to grips with what exactly the problem is, and a big part of the problem is the electoral college is an anti-democratic anachronism. One we have to deal with but stilll.
posted by Justinian at 10:34 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

@AP_Politics has reworked its previous tweet: "BREAKING: Republicans will retain control of Senate after win in Pennsylvania if they hold Louisiana, Alaska as expected."
posted by bryon at 10:34 PM on November 8, 2016

Guys, Trump is ahead in the popular vote because California takes forever to count. It is always thus.
posted by Justinian at 10:34 PM on November 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

pbs: the only segment trump won was married men. bigly.
posted by andrewcooke at 10:35 PM on November 8, 2016

If Team Clinton has even a fraction of the nasty dirty political trick machinery that they've been alleged to possess, now might be a good time to deploy it.

Please?
posted by rokusan at 10:35 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Dear friends employed in any job positioned to help those likely to suffer in the foreseeable future,

Tomorrow is the best day to act.

Example: as an admissions guy at a small-beer community college, my first act tomorrow will be to filter applicant and prospect lists to prioritize anew anyone from underrepresented demographic categories likely to be adversely affected by election results, and to contact them immediately to offer help. And then I'll contact everyone else, too, since their lives will be affected, whether they see it yet or not.

If you are a pro in something, work that acre. You can do good work.
posted by Caxton1476 at 10:35 PM on November 8, 2016 [19 favorites]

Y'all, I work for an organization that resettles refugees in the United States....and gets a sizeable chunk of its funding from the state department.

I'm getting scared.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:35 PM on November 8, 2016 [13 favorites]

Don't just think 'oh, this is an apple.' Think: what a nice shade of green.

But this apple is red. oh god im already doing it wrong
posted by Sangermaine at 10:36 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

A PSA reminding you that it is illegal to say "I want to kill the President of the United States."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:36 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

I remember when Reagan won. I remember when Bush won. So disappointed in America. Where to now? What country? FUCK?

Spider Jerusalem gets a new column.
posted by mikelieman at 10:36 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

He is tapping in to a sense that a large group of people are being left behind and ignored by the country's elite.

they felt "left behind and ignored" because a black man was uppity in the white house

This is exactly it; Trump's average supporter made 70k a year. They weren't left behind by shit. 8 years of a black president just brought out the asshole brigades in droves. It began with teapartiers and now this. The thought of a black man, then a woman? Too much for the reactionaries to take.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 10:36 PM on November 8, 2016 [32 favorites]

I'm so fucking sorry, you guys. I kept thinking I should do more, talk to more people, donate more, but I just couldn't believe Trump could ever even be a real threat. Fuck.
posted by KGMoney at 10:36 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Just putting this out there: Transgender people are an easy fucking target for the next political cycle. We've got the ugly, uncomfortable kind of visibility (with NC HB-2 and the lawsuit from Obama's DOJ) without any legal protection, without enough support from the electorate, with enough actual hate in the electorate to make discriminatory laws a popular selling point. Kind of like all the anti-gay-marriage ballot measures a few years ago.

The Obama administration wrote a lot of policies aimed at making life easier for transgender people. Those are gonna evaporate, if Pence or his ilk have any say in policy at all.

I don't think they can interfere with Medicaid, but the state insurance commissioners can. The Obama administration would probably sue the state, just like they're suing NC. Trump's will not.

It's possible that none of this will happen!!! Sure!! But it will be super super easy to score some political points targeting trans people.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 10:36 PM on November 8, 2016 [23 favorites]

I suspect that a lot of the Trump voters are unconcerned about the dollar and the stock market crashing

Tonight, I saw someone post a screenshot of the stock market, all green, to show that the everyone is lying about the markets. I thought they actually worked in fiance, but they still don't know the difference between the price at market close and futures. #YOLO
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 10:37 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

It's totally fixed, just not in the way I originally guessed! Interesting!

I guess it's safe to say now that Trump is the candidate of global organized crime interests that opposed the interests of that other globalized power elite - and they convinced folks who were smart enough to know something was wrong with our system that THIS was an antidote.

The only bright spot is we're not going to war against Russia (or China) now.

The bad news is that this will be like that story arc in the Sopranos where Tony's crew decimates Robert Patrick and his sports store, stripping it of all worth.

Then we have civil unrest to look forward to. Wow. Still, the other power elite are a bunch of criminals too, and they invested in this result. No one thinks airplanes make building disintegrate in their footprint or that the largest seaport in the US was accidentally completely flooded. I made a joke in LA 2 weeks ago that," at least there won't be any terrorist attacks between now and the election" to someone and they laughed and agreed.

The bill came due. When you lie long enough, no one believes you anymore. Throw in some crazypants and prolonged economic hardship while 1% or fewer are enjoying unprecedented financial gains... and this is the result.

What annoys me most as a pacifist-love-everybody type person was that it was the crazypants mean-spirited misogynist racists who heard the message and then misconstrued the cause.

Fuck.
posted by jbenben at 10:37 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

HEY GUYS I'M VIBRATING WITH RAGE
posted by palindromic at 10:37 PM on November 8, 2016 [22 favorites]

I think we're going to hear a lot of overanalysis of the disaffected Heartland, and the blue-color rage. This was suburban also, remember.

We're going to hear about Trumpism. I don't think this was about Trumpism, it was about Trump.

Trump is a bizarre, weirdly charismatic person. Completely un-selfconscious, completely confident to a terrifying degree. Really nasty and shameless and entertaining. An anti-hero — we're in the age of that (e.g, Walter White, a character that never would have found a home in American culture in any other era). He's a sociopath, a bully. People like that demand attention and get it — they hold sway over other people.

There is no candidate who would have beaten him this year.
posted by argybarg at 10:37 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

is it clear democrats have the popular vote? republicans ahead, no?

Yeah, Trump is ahead in the popular vote by about a million.

He's ahead now but there's a ton of California votes to be counted still. The NYT speedometer estimates Clinton will win the popular vote by 1.2%. Assuming a 140 million electorate, that's a 1,680,000 lead.
posted by chris24 at 10:37 PM on November 8, 2016

I think the media's big mistake was in thinking this election was somehow exceptional because Clinton is a woman or because Trump is so awful. Democrats almost never retain control after a 2 term incumbency, even when people lurve that president. Indeed, it's quite rare for a party to stay in power more than 8 years. I think we all (especially "elites") couldn't believe Trump was possible but people vote for change. It's just an American thing, a historical truth that should have been more strongly represented in our prediction models.

Most of the people I know who voted for Trump saw it as either an anti-Hillary vote or a generic vote for change. Revving up white pride got them to the polls but once there, this outcome always had a really good shot. Any generic Republican would have been the favorite this year.

I wish I hadn't allowed myself so much hope. I thought women would carry this. So many things happened today that will take us decades to understand.
posted by annekate at 10:37 PM on November 8, 2016 [23 favorites]

so I figure why not spread the word? Even if most of you are probably asleep.

I always come back to this:

Well-being Despite It All.

Also, since we were so badly wrong about our predictions:

The Path of Mistakes. (Audio.)
posted by Coventry at 10:38 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

and gets a sizeable chunk of its funding from the state department.

There's always the filibuster. I don't think the Democrats will let him cut that.
posted by corb at 10:38 PM on November 8, 2016

It turns out you can replace a GOTV operation, millions in ad spending, a digital operation, and all the other hallmarks of a remotely competent campaign with lots of racism and sexism and that's enough.

Abetted by voter suppression, russian hacking, and gutless horserace-loving editors. Also the FBI. But it needed the racism and sexism to work.
posted by sebastienbailard at 10:38 PM on November 8, 2016 [30 favorites]

And let go of the illusion that ANYBODY but white people - particularly white males - gave this election to Trump. White men are scum.

Sure, but that scum votes. And wins election. This election. If you don't want to lose more elections, figure out how to get some of that scum to vote for people you support.
posted by Sangermaine at 10:38 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

I honestly don't know how the US holds as a nation-state after this. You can be a nation-state on ten million or twenty million or thirty-odd million.

It creates so many blue oases in a sea of dumfuck bought-the-snake-oil red, but the jokes about self-determination after Bush in 2004? Dear god, there are realtors who are going to make a pretty penny out of this shit as people abandon states like NC that had promise, represented what America was becoming, and now think let's get the fuck out of here fast.

And now every interaction I have is going to be a fraught one.
posted by holgate at 10:38 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

PBS: Trump wins PA
posted by darkstar at 10:38 PM on November 8, 2016

My dumb thoughts on this From Twitter:

America is a weird country. I feel less like I fit in here than ever. Still, my kids are American, I'm in it for the long run.

I don't have any anger or blame left in me right now, though still a lot of fear, and if I think about some things it's terrifying, I just have to help everyone with fights ahead of them, same as it was before. And be kind to those in need.

(Blame and anger are fine, BTW. Just don't have energy to go that way anymore. It's been burnt out of me.)

Sorry. Disappearing up my own ass in the wake of this.

Everyone in the UK has been through a couple of elections and a referendum like this of course, the referendum being the worst. I felt cast adrift by that, now maybe everyone is, everywhere.

There may now be a period of free fall where people don't quite know what the fuck they've gotten themselves into.

Fingers crossed for the world really, given how this is how we are before climate change has fully begun to bite.
posted by Artw at 10:39 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Trump got PA. It's over.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 10:39 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

And to think I thought GWB's election was embarrassing.
posted by bongo_x at 10:39 PM on November 8, 2016 [19 favorites]

It would be a little better if we had a Democratic Senate. But now everything is gone.
posted by zutalors! at 10:39 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

This is downright terrifying.

oh let's not forget that muslims should have to wear some kind of badge or armband in public at all times and also register their muslim status with the government

and that only the volksgemeinschaft should be allowed to vote
posted by poffin boffin at 10:39 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Is anything else going to happen tonight?

the rapture would be fucking ideal
posted by poffin boffin at 10:40 PM on November 8, 2016 [58 favorites]

We elected an actor once. We can elect a REALITY TV STAR. Fuck.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 10:40 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

It turns out you can replace a GOTV operation.

I'm not sure anyone needs to, really. I was mulling this over as I made one after another completely pointless GOTV call today and compared it with 2008. What is the fucking point when everyone screens and has caller ID and changes phone numbers every six months or something, as they apparently do? And the few people you do reach who are even voting for your candidate mostly just feel harassed and assailed by unsolicited political calls.

I actually backed out of doing the online phonebanking when I got a load of the ridiculous byzantine interminable scripts they expected one to slog through and expected some poor slob to sit still for while their dinner gets cold or whatever. Seriously, I'm going to ask a grown adult to tell me what time of day they're going to vote and whether they're going to walk or drive and that's not patronizing as all fuck? If they need that much help and reminding, maybe we should just forcibly tattoo "Remember to go vote for Sammy Jankis" on their forearms.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:40 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

One of the many, many emotions I am feeling right now is a determination that my own country, New Zealand, does not go down the path of Trumpism. We have our own racist and nativist politicians here who are only too willing to exploit the rage of the dying of the white, "the fucking morons of BumbleFuck county", in Senor Cardgage's immortal and much favorited phrase. Those politicians inhabit both the left and right part of the political spectrum here in Aotearoa.

I am an ageing baby-boomer, cis white male, the archetypical white privilege person who has nothing personally to lose by the rise of Trumpism. Yet I utterly reject the fascism of Trump and while I can do little about the US, I am goddamned determined not let that disease spread here.

Today the governing conservative National Party and the Māori Party, reached an agreement on an important piece of legislation concerning the management of natural and physical resources such as land, air and water. Partnership over bigotry. It can happen. It must continue to happen.

I truly feel sorry for what has happened today in America. But not here, not ever.
posted by vac2003 at 10:40 PM on November 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

NBC Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel on NBC News just said something to the effect that generals are reading the constitution to see what their options are when ordered to lock people up or other things. Buckle up.
posted by feloniousmonk at 10:41 PM on November 8, 2016 [26 favorites]

Winter is here.
posted by adept256 at 10:41 PM on November 8, 2016 [25 favorites]

I wonder if Muslims in the USA might have a case for refugee claim in Canada going forward.
posted by beau jackson at 10:41 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Also as I was saying to someone, I think something in the world broke a while back, maybe in 2008, maybe earlier than that. Broke everywhere. And this is part of that, not some seperare thing or something out of the blue. What we do with that I don't know... feels like this particular itteration is tiem being lost we don't have though.
posted by Artw at 10:41 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

This is the worst election night of my life, and I hope to God that record is never broken.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 10:41 PM on November 8, 2016 [36 favorites]

The reality is that while there will be some attempts to meet these white disaffected voters where they are in the end chasing after white voters is a losing strategy.

Trump went with a strategy of polarizing the entire electorate around white people vs everyone else and in the end it was successful in getting him the Presidency.

However keep in mind he's lost the popular vote and furthermore white voters make up roughly 2% less of the electorate per year. Also keep in mind that he simply can't deliver on any of his promises. Also keep in mind that he's not going to be running against Clinton and 8 years of Obama he will be running on his own record and it's 100% apparent that the House can't even govern itself.

This is a phyrric victory for Republicans. They might've won a battle but this is one war they are definitely losing in the long run because holy fuck if people hate Trump now they are going to loathe him in 4 years.

So fuck chasing white voters that live in a bubble of Dittohead bullshit. They decided to roll the dice with Trump and they need to live with the consequences of that shit.
posted by vuron at 10:42 PM on November 8, 2016 [14 favorites]

figure out how to get some of that scum to vote for people you support.

there are at least two angles open to democrats. (1) outsider candidates. one reason for hilary's unpopularity is that she was an insider. (2) economic inequality. a lot of trump's supporters are better-off whites, but if you could attract the poorer whites that might be enough... (so: not chasing whites, but more emphasis on the poor in general).
posted by andrewcooke at 10:42 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm in shock, I can only imagine how Americans must be. I wanted to feel like today wasn't all loss and there was something positive to be taken out of it, so I went and donated to my favourite charity. I know it's not much and it doesn't change anything, but it might make a difference for some stray dogs/Syrians/cancer patients/whateveryourcauseof choiceis. Give it a try. If enough of us kick some coins in, who knows, some good can come out of this.
posted by Jubey at 10:42 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

You guys, I stopped drinking a few years back, except for special occasions; weddings, funerals, elections. I bought champagne this afternoon when I got all the taco fixings. Everyone else wandered away by 9, and I've just been watching results and reading metafilter and drinking champagne, like a character from Boccaccio's Decameron, as I watch everything I've ever believed in and worked for, ground under the heels of racist, misogynist, hypocritical authoritarian celebrity worshipers.

I've finished the champagne, and moved on to the armegnac. I have to get up in 5 hours, and do those thing we all do every morning, make breakfasts and lunches and make sure homework is in backpacks and computers made it to the car. Somehow, we have to get up tomorrow, and go through the day like the world hasn't ended, and...y'all, I'm just moving on autopilot at this point.

I have always believed in the inherent goodness of humanity. I really, really believed that underneath the tribalism, humans were thinking, ethical beings capable of evaluating their own agency and the repercussions of actions.

And maybe it's just the grapes mixing with previously undiscovered depths of fatalism, but I cannot ever remember being this sad and disappointed in my fellow Americans. People will die because of this. Every single one of us with with a "preexisting condition" will lose our ability to access medical care. Racists will feel emboldened to attack people of color. Men will feel empowered to assault women without repercussion. Hate crimes will rise, gun sales will rise, violence will rise, and we get closer and closer to the extinction event.

Jesus y'all, how did this fucking happen? I've never worked so hard, or donated so much to a campaign in my life, and I've been politically active since Vietnam was a thing. I felt so empowered, surrounded by strong women, doing things to change the world, reading PN stories and weeping about how much ground we had gained, inch by inch, reading mefi threads of all of our stories, and I had so much hope. So much. I really thought we were breaking through.

This reminds me of Romney's people, when Obama crushed him, and they just couldn't believe it, because it just didn't make sense to them that it could be true, and I am having such a massive cognitive dissonance event, that I just don't even know how to cope. How do I tell kids about this? How do I make the latinx kids in my neighborhood feel safe? Or their parents? I'm running through my head the number of people in this town who know I'm middle eastern, or a democrat.

I'm probably being irrational. Like I said, I don't really drink any more, and I've probably had more tonight than in the last 3 years, and yet, it just isn't making the pain and sad and disgust any more bearable.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 10:43 PM on November 8, 2016 [38 favorites]

How The Electoral College Favors White Voters: Non-white voters are more likely to live in “safe” states, sapping their electoral power.
posted by chris24 at 10:43 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

Oh god. This is worse than 2000. This is theReagan Revolution all over again. This is 12 or more years of rabid conservatives in power, Think of the AIDs crisus, only in a hundred different areas. Think of a generation lost, think of Gamergate and Stormfront in charge in the real world. All this nasty fucks we thought we were winnjng against, won. The progressive society we thought we were making? All over.

I cannot comprehend how bad it's going to be. I survived Regan, but this. How the fuck could this nightmare happen.

Tomorrow I'll start thinking of how to set up safe online spaces. But for now, I'm just crying.
posted by happyroach at 10:43 PM on November 8, 2016 [20 favorites]

America is a weird country. I feel less like I fit in here than ever. Still, my kids are American, I'm in it for the long run.

Oh yeah, maybe I should read that NY Times article now.
posted by Golden Eternity at 10:43 PM on November 8, 2016

I am in utter and complete shock, like I'm sure everyone else here is.

I know the threats of "if so-and-so wins I'm moving to XYZ" always seem unfounded, but damn if it hasn't crossed my mind in a serious way tonight. I am a female scientist that works in the energy/oil & gas industry. My options for a viable career outside of this country are either a) Canada or b) the middle east. Either of those is currently looking better than spending the next 4 years in what is looking more and more to be a complete U.S. shitshow. And I'm white, straight, and cis. I can't imagine what others are feeling.

I'm trying to think of a reason to not start panicking, but I'm coming up short.
posted by tryniti at 10:44 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

.
posted by rmannion at 10:44 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

BBC says it's done.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 10:45 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

.
posted by Golden Eternity at 10:45 PM on November 8, 2016

C-Span just called it for Trump.
posted by corb at 10:45 PM on November 8, 2016

The Turkeys have voted for Thanksgiving. OMG.
posted by Rumple at 10:45 PM on November 8, 2016 [14 favorites]

I don't know that I can bring children into this world now.
posted by biogeo at 10:46 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

Okay everyone, don't panic. This just means that like Futurama predicted, nuclear winter will cancel out global warming. We're all saved, except those of us who live in or near cities.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 10:46 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

I know the threats of "if so-and-so wins I'm moving to XYZ" always seem unfounded, but damn if it hasn't crossed my mind in a serious way tonight.

Won't help. If he pulls out of NATO or tries to "renegotiate" US debt, the effects will happen everywhere.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 10:46 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

Maybe best to treat this like the loss of a loved one.

Traumatic -- not fatal.

Grief feels natural and appropriate. But I have faith in our hardiness.

There's life after January.
posted by seinwave at 10:47 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

In case this isn't all cheerful enough. Let's not forget Scalia's replacement. The obstructionism has paid off.
posted by markr at 10:47 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

This election is strange because even Republicans aren't really happy with Trump. I don't know the exact numbers but only a plurality actually wanted him. He's not like Reagan whose base genuinely and overwhelmingly supported him. Trump's actual supporters were bolstered by Republicans holding their noses and voting Not Democrat.
posted by Sangermaine at 10:47 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

Josh Rogin
Evan McMullin: Conservatives must now abandon the Republican Party:

But McMullin’s core campaign message, that the Republican party had forsaken its principles and allowed itself to be hijacked by a parasite named Trump, was validated by the incoming results, he told the crowd of supporters here in Utah. As of late Tuesday night, Trump led McMullin by at least a 2 to 1 margin in his home state.

“The Republican Party can no longer be considered the home for conservatives,” McMullin said. “Conservatism is about protecting the fundamental rights: That we are all equal, regardless of the color of our skin, the faith that we practice or our gender. But tonight there are millions of Americans, I’m sad to say, who are now in fear that perhaps their liberties will be challenged and threatened under a Trump administration that has made a campaign of targeting people based on their race, religion and gender.”

McMullin’s campaign, which had long promised to build a new conservative movement, will now transition to a more permanent structure entitled, “The New Conservative Movement.” There will be a formal launch Wednesday. But Tuesday night, he focused his speech on calling for conservatives to leave the GOP and find another way to advocate for conservative principles.

Egg's building a movement.
posted by zachlipton at 10:47 PM on November 8, 2016 [39 favorites]

Metafilter, I need to go to sleep, because tomorrow the kids at my kid's school who are Muslim, immigrants, poor, homeless, LGBTQ, and disabled are going to be scared and sad and stressed out. I hate that I have to be one of the grownups who has to tell scared kids that it's going to be all right when I have no idea if that's true or not.

Love yourself, love each other, and get ready for some bad craziness.
posted by RakDaddy at 10:47 PM on November 8, 2016 [17 favorites]

Outside of trump tower...there's dump trucks full of sand all around the block...it's ominous. I'm moving to France or Italy asap.
posted by sexyrobot at 10:47 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

One thing the Democrats can do is learn from 2004 and put Sanders in charge of the DNC with a mandate to clean house. I wasn't happy with a lot of things about his primary campaign (failing to engage with non-blue states, mostly), but at the same time it's clear that the Democratic party needs a fresh start.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

Victory Speech
posted by Strass at 10:48 PM on November 8, 2016

This is fascism in America. There is no other way to put this. I just have no words for what I feel.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 10:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [30 favorites]

I've spent the last seven years helping my mom fight cancer, and the last two months dragging her back from the brink after a very bad summer.
I thought electing the first woman president would be a positive thing we could build on... but this, Trump is going to kill my mother. We're beyond broke at this point and if Obamacare is repealed I don't know what we'll do.
So damn tired.
posted by Tenuki at 10:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [16 favorites]

Corb:There's always the filibuster. I don't think the Democrats will let him cut that.

Republicans will eliminate the filibuster on the first day of the new session. This is a bloodless coup, which started with voter suppression and the Supreme Court blockade.
posted by msalt at 10:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

I don't agree with McMullin (no more Egg from me) on much policy wise but I absolutely think he is a man of principle and I hope we can work with people like him to preserve the country.
posted by Justinian at 10:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [13 favorites]

Wow. Pooler @danmericaCNN reports that Clinton campaign chair John Podesta just left HRC hotel to come to Javits solo. She is not coming.

--@albamonica

This could get interesting depending on when the networks call a few remaining states. Presumably, Trump goes with a Fox News call.
posted by zachlipton at 10:49 PM on November 8, 2016

You know what was terrifying? I was watching election results and an ad came on for The Man In The High Castle, and it was literally the scariest combination.
posted by corb at 10:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [22 favorites]

Trump gets to replace Scalia. He gets to appoint dozens of other judges. He gets to sign an ACA-repeal into law. These are the worst things on the horizon as a result of this election.

I don't even want to think about his willingness to bomb Iran, or turn a blind eye to Russia's action in Syria or the Ukraine, etc.

What happens to those young undocumented immigrants who Obama deferred acting on? Does Trump now kick them out of the country (and now that they've let themselves be put on official registers, they can't hide from it, either).
posted by darkstar at 10:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

So, ok, sure, this is 100% true. But if they're a dominant fraction of the electorate... what do we do about it?

I don't know. I am starting to feel like the answer is "have more children, engage in as much activism as possible, and wait for people to die". I don't think that's entirely coming from a rational place, but that's what I keep thinking. I don't think people like my mother can be fixed. Unless she restores my faith at some point tomorrow, I think that at this point these attitudes are so ingrained that, yes, parents will in fact even choose them over their own children.

I can't keep going through my life assuming that most people I meet are fundamentally decent people. They aren't. I can't assume that all these things I grew up with thinking were solved problems are actually solved. Racism is real. Misogyny is real. Antisemitism is real. It's like I woke up this morning in 2016 and I'm going to bed in 1956. But--I woke up thinking that 2016 was a better place than it really was, and now we know we have to start treating it like we're trying to create change for 20 years from now, not for today.
posted by Sequence at 10:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [11 favorites]

I was hoping that after today we could retire Trump's Razor and Trump's Mirror permanently. But right now (checks PA, doesn't look good) it's looking like they are going to be getting some long term use.

In honor of this moment, I suggest we add a new item to Trump's dressing kit: Trump's Pants.

They spontaneously burst into flames whenever Trump starts talking.

We're going to need some humor to get through this, too. And I'm sadly afraid that we're going to get a lot of mileage out of Trump's pants . . .
posted by flug at 10:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Bare trees filling sky
The coldest winter looming
Bundle up with hope
posted by numaner at 10:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

So, I guess it's rolling coal, toxic masculinity, racism, bigotry and misogyny for us. Yay.

I don't speak for all men, and I don't speak for all whites, but jesus butt-fucking christ is my demographic one full of drooling morons. I'm sorry. I'd be happy to enter the wicker man, if that is the price of every fellow white male joining me. At some point, even if you're a decent version of this demo, you have to own up that nuking us from space is the only way forward, since we're a cancer on the body politic.
posted by maxwelton at 10:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [24 favorites]

We have our work cut out for us. The Clinton political machine needs to be redirected to state and local races, to build from the ground up—the same strategy that got the Republicans to this point. Roll up your sleeves.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

A PSA reminding you that it is illegal to say "I want to kill the President of the United States."

Wow, it's roughly true:

18 U.S. Code § 875 - Interstate communications

(c) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

posted by Coventry at 10:51 PM on November 8, 2016

There's always the filibuster. I don't think the Democrats will let him cut that.

How, when the GOP has also taken the fucking Congress?

And a filibuster isn't a panacea. It's not like garlic to a vampire or anything.

Meanwhile, we are now up to four governors of four states who have pulled out of the national resettlement program already.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

.

I am so sorry US metafites.
posted by daybeforetheday at 10:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

Al-Jazeera commentators are saying such as I are feeling disenfranchised. Oh, my, no. I lived through Reagan. I'm energized.
posted by goofyfoot at 10:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

Lenny Bruce may not be afraid but I'm scared shitless.
posted by Talez at 10:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Egg's building a movement.

Frankly, at this point, I'm in, if it means repudiating what happened today. Will see how I feel tomorrow, I guess.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 10:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

All due caveats about exit polls, but this is not looking like a revolt of the jobless. It's about identity: race, nationality, gender
posted by tobascodagama at 10:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

There's always the filibuster. I don't think the Democrats will let him cut that.

The filibuster is gone. All it takes is a majority vote when the Senate is officially establishing its rules at the beginning of a term. With 50+ GOP Senators, the Dems cannot stop the filibuster from ending.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 10:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Unless the Democrats filibuster the Scalia replacement, I don't see the Republicans eliminating the filibuster, and even then, only for that specific case -- after all, they lived with it in analogous circumstances (Republican President and Senate majority) from 2002 to 2006. Senators are always and everywhere for the power of individual Senators, which the filibuster (and many other rules) supports. And of the 51 or 52 Republican Senators on January 20, how many campaigned for Donald Trump -- maybe 30? I don't see a lot of Republican Senators in a rush to take an ax to their own power for a man they don't especially like.
posted by MattD at 10:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Sorry, world.

Did voter suppression definitely deliver places like NC for Trump, or was it really the "surge" of angry whites?
posted by TwoStride at 10:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

33% of hispanic men for trump. bad hombres.
posted by andrewcooke at 10:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

The earth can't wait 4 more years.

Cascadia now!
posted by Joe Chip at 10:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

People are saying that Clinton lost voters that Obama won, but is that really true?

They're making that claim on the basis of sketchy demographic exit polling of black and latino voters. It won't be clear any time soon.

538 says that the maps we are saying isn't very consistent with the idea that Clinton underperformed with those groups though so I am skeptical.
posted by Justinian at 10:54 PM on November 8, 2016

People are saying that Clinton lost voters that Obama won, but is that really true? Looking at raw #s, Tump brought out rural white people who didn't vote in 2008 and 2012. Trump incited white hate and this is the result.

Well, it's almost impossible to know this for sure. But I do think your conclusion has merit.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:54 PM on November 8, 2016

My boyfriend has been encouraging me to mentally prepare for a Trump Presidency just in case and now I'm kind of glad he did that.
posted by zutalors! at 10:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

This could get interesting depending on when the networks call a few remaining states. Presumably, Trump goes with a Fox News call.

After Gore, the last thing anyone is going to do is concede until there's a clear winner.
posted by mikelieman at 10:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

What cabinet post does the KKK guy get to fill?
posted by From Bklyn at 10:55 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

_{In case, you know, something might happen...}
posted by mikelieman at 10:55 PM on November 8, 2016

Did voter suppression definitely deliver places like NC for Trump, or was it really the "surge" of angry whites?

Voter suppression + Comey's letter may absolutely have been enough to flip MI, PA, and NC. Don't know about Florida because I don't know a lot about voter suppression there.
posted by Justinian at 10:55 PM on November 8, 2016

there's still 14% left of this fucking year

why can't 2016 just be over already
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Hahahaha thinking Sanders can somehow deliver elections in 2020 is beyond delusional.

Keep this in mind, the working class voter in 2016-2020 is a female PoC. These people already vote for Democrats in large numbers.

The average Trump voter is voting to keep these people down. Witness the average income for a Trump voter.

Instead of chasing vindictive white voters how about getting candidates that will drive Latinx and AA turnout. White liberals need to realize that our day as leaders is over and that if we want a more inclusive future we have to be working harder than ever to support the minority voters and candidates that make up the bulk of our reliable voting block.
posted by vuron at 10:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [31 favorites]

What cabinet post does the KKK guy get to fill?

Housing and Urban Development, of course.
posted by mikelieman at 10:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm trying not to dwell on it overly much, because I'm the one who has to keep us going from here, but we have just about 70 days until, if the worst comes to pass tonight, we have a president who doesn't care about any of the things we've done to build a life for ourselves, or how we're both truly hard workers who have made the most of bad circumstances in our lives to get to a point where we have a house, and has pledged to make one of his first acts something that could plunge my family and many others like us into deep debt within a short period of time. The Affordable Care Act is totally flawed, but that provision prohibiting denial of coverage for those with preexisting conditions is lifesaving. It's hard enough having a chronic illness or being the spouse of someone with a chronic illness—every other month, or sometimes every month if it's bad enough, you feel like the floor has dropped out from under you again when things flare up and you have to head into the hospital—but this casts all of our plans into doubt yet again. My significant other got out of the hospital again less than a week ago. How is America going to be made great for us, exactly? When do we catch our break?

Ah, but we're Jewish—tricksy people who clearly don't deserve to live healthy, pain-free lives. Never mind that my ancestors on the other side were on the Mayflower. We are flawed from birth, and it is our lot to suffer and bring about end times, I think is the twisted logic of the fascist right in this country. I haven't even looked at Facebook yet to see how my friends who are also Jewish, Muslims, people of color, LGBT, etc. are doing, because I don't want to see the smugness there from those people I know who voted against all of our best interests. You'll recall I grew up down the road from Ferguson, in a land of radioactive contamination. All of us are facing some terrible realities if this comes to pass. The vague sense of unreality I've had lately is moving toward something else entirely. I'm young, but I'm at a point in my life where I'm beginning to doubt whether the things we've hoped and planned for will be realized. None of this is going to help.

I don't know what else to say. I already feel like I've said too much. I'm afraid of the consequences of revealing these things about myself, though I know I already have here bit by bit, and I'm afraid of what might occur if we don't talk about it. Even, at best, those of you out there who thought this was about people coming to take away your guns or the myth of a return to the days of great American manufacturing or your petty dislike of whatever will have done us a great disservice. I feel like I did during those terrible months of waiting for a decision in Ferguson—I deeply wanted to stand with my friends of color, and I did so in whatever ways I could as a journalist at the time, and the things I said and wrote and stood for, even as I walked the line and tried to stick to simply correcting the record, were held against me in a professional context, jeopardizing my significant other's health and health coverage in the process. They have played us all against each other, again and again and again, and with 50,000 journalism jobs lost in the past decade, those covering the news are as terrified as anyone. And they can't talk about it, at least not while they hold the jobs they have.

I was recently having this what-if make-believe discussion with a friend about what our ideal island would be like. I guess I'm a killjoy, because I kept thinking of problematic scenarios, like, you know, people needing life-saving medication that isn't made on the island. I'm sorry, I'm a terrible, nasty woman. But fuck it, when is it our turn; when do the sick and broken get to say that their country is truly looking out for them, and not just paying lip service and saying "there, there, I'm so sorry" while actively erecting fiery hurdles to leap through? When do I get to relax with a drink without the fear that I might have to be a nurse or ambulance driver for a chronically ill person that night, or go deeply into debt if we make the wrong choices? I say this as someone who's in a better place financially than I've ever been, knock on wood: I still stare into the abyss with this.

I just, yeah.
posted by limeonaire at 10:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [35 favorites]

Honestly my biggest hope and concern right now is that election fraud may have happened at a national scale. It seems bizarre and unusual for the polls to heavily lean Clinton by several percentage points across the board and swing so consistently against Clinton after votes are cast. If a small percent of ballots were altered in each county, that alone would explain the night's results relative to the polls.

What would happen if that were the case?
posted by LSK at 10:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

People are saying that Clinton lost voters that Obama won, but is that really true? Looking at raw #s, Tump brought out rural white people who didn't vote in 2008 and 2012. Trump incited white hate and this is the result.

Someone on NPR was saying that the white vote was actually down overall a bit from Romney, but those who did vote, voted for Romney in a higher percentage - particularly non-college educated people. But the thing is some of these states were very blue states before. That needs to be understood. Perhaps we are seeing something of what Thomas Frank wrote about in "What's the Matter with Kansas spread to other states?

I wonder if unions being perhaps less powerful and/or actually voting for Trump may be part of the problem.
posted by Golden Eternity at 10:57 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't see a lot of Republican Senators in a rush to take an ax to their own power for a man they don't especially like.

It wouldn't be for the man, it would be for their party. Ultimate power for their party. Look how the evangelical voters marched in force in support of Trump, a man almost designed as the polar opposite of everything they stand for. They weren't doing it for Trump, they were doing it for a Republican win.
posted by Sangermaine at 10:57 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump reportedly en route to the Hilton.
posted by zachlipton at 10:57 PM on November 8, 2016

I watched every moment of every debate. I watched a ton of Trump's speeches. I don't think I can watch his victory speech. Sorry guys.
posted by Justinian at 10:58 PM on November 8, 2016 [20 favorites]

I got home from working the polls today at 10pm PT and had my first access to the internet since my lunch at 2pm. I can't stop crying.
posted by samthemander at 10:58 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

given the small venue, hopefully there won't be "lock her up" chants.
posted by andrewcooke at 10:58 PM on November 8, 2016

I am so shocked and heartbroken. Like I just met my country tonight, and it is not what I thought it was.

My apartment building is usually kind of noisy -- people in and out at all hours, chatting in the halls -- but it has fallen suddenly and ominously silent. I never thought I'd miss the noise.
posted by Fish, fish, are you doing your duty? at 10:59 PM on November 8, 2016 [21 favorites]

What would happen if that were the case?

Unless there was a good evidence, little could be done, but I doubt this is the case. Someone here was saying that people high up in the Michigan Democratic party were saying very early on that things looked very bad.
posted by Golden Eternity at 10:59 PM on November 8, 2016

Okay. I've won my bet, and I'm thousands up on that, but I'm tens of thousands down on my stock investments so THANKS FOR THAT, AMERICA.

Everybody who complacently failed to get out and vote today on the grounds that this was nothing at all like Brexit and Hillary obviously had this: you're a bad person and you should feel bad.
posted by flabdablet at 10:59 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

The emails and leaks and all the fucking noise around them seem to have disappeared from all the post election analysis.
posted by Artw at 10:59 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

It was close. There was overconfidence. There's been a huge culture shift and the people who felt the shifting of their secure primacy pushed back...very hard. We can push back harder, or we can fall over. Pushing back might not win anything, but falling over certainly won't.

I'm full of shit. I'm tired and having a hard time breathing and want to crawl under a rock. My husband has been telling me over and over again that it isn't the end of the world. Tonight, it is the end of the world. Tomorrow, we get back to work.
posted by pearshaped at 11:00 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

Yeah, I won't be watching Trump's victory lap. I'm not exactly sure what to do now except keep digging out a gigantic slime farm in my Minecraft world.
posted by xyzzy at 11:00 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Frankly, I think every voter who had to wait more than 15 minutes has experienced a distributed denial of service attack.
posted by mikelieman at 11:01 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

About the whole "emigrate to XYZ" thing -- if it turns out that you personally need to do or consider that to be safe yourself or to keep someone you love cared for, safe travels. If you are a vulnerable person in one way or another, then of course you need to do whatever it takes to protect yourself.

But I think people like me who are in, comparatively, more secure or less "othered" positions should, even if we have the wherewithal to relocate, contemplate our responsibility to stay put and stand with fellow citizens who are more vulnerable or unsafe than we are and who may need support and shielding.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:01 PM on November 8, 2016 [26 favorites]

I went totally into non-stock stuff a few months ago. I just couldnt bear the risk. So many people didn't have that option, though, and frankly I'm afraid Trump could tank bonds and income funds too. I have no idea what's safe now. Maybe I should have been cash.
posted by Justinian at 11:01 PM on November 8, 2016

MSNBC projecting 3 Maine EVs for Clinton, 1 for Trump.
posted by XMLicious at 11:02 PM on November 8, 2016

It's nearly 6pm here in Sydney, Australia. It was dry all day, but just as my tears started, the rain came too. There is thunder rumbling now. A storm is coming.

We're sad and disappointed and angry and scared too. So upset.
posted by stellathon at 11:02 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

Podesta speaking live now.
posted by zachlipton at 11:02 PM on November 8, 2016

Who would have thought it was Hillary who would be the one not to concede.
posted by AugustWest at 11:02 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Everybody who complacently failed to get out and vote today on the grounds that this was nothing at all like Brexit and Hillary obviously had this: you're a bad person and you should feel bad.

Sorry the stock market tanked but this isn't helpful.
posted by futz at 11:02 PM on November 8, 2016

There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

Periodicity at work.
posted by delfin at 11:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [16 favorites]

I wonder if unions being perhaps less powerful and/or actually voting for Trump may be part of the problem.

In large swaths of the Midwest, "union" = "white, male, non-college, $ 50-90K per year", so, yeah, that's kinda the Trump base right there.
posted by soundguy99 at 11:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

It's over. Trump has 270. I'm going upstairs to cry myself to sleep.

Don't cry for me though. I'll be fine. I weep for the millions who will see SNAP evaporate, the ACA dismantled, and minimum wage sent back to the states, the immigrants rounded up and forcibly deported, the families that will be torn apart, the hate crimes that will come soon like they did post-Brexit.

I weep knowing that 2018 won't get much better, that 2020 will be a battle that nobody will even know how to fight, and that liberalism is politically dead in this country again.

Our new motto might as well be "Fuck You I've Got Mine" because it sure as fuck ain't "E Pluribus Unum"anymore.
posted by Talez at 11:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [27 favorites]

The emails and leaks and all the fucking noise around them seem to have disappeared from all the post election analysis.

That would require introspection, which is the one thing the media is not capable of.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

I don't understand this - didn't Trump say, repeatedly, to watch out, this one is gonna be rigged.

Sigh

My utterly fabricated and groundless hope is that Trump does, in fact crater the institutions that have calcified around the process of nominating a candidate and ...

But Jesus, Trump has to go out to the rest of the world as a representative of... what?

I can take chaos and mayhem, but Pence and the religious fanatics grabbing power in the aftermath - that's what makes my bowels feel loose.
posted by From Bklyn at 11:03 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

All due caveats about exit polls, but this is not looking like a revolt of the jobless. It's about identity: race, nationality, gender.

No.
Shit.
Sherlock.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:04 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

podesta: wait a little longer.

looks like no concession speech tonight.
posted by andrewcooke at 11:04 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Who is the guy on the BBC: American accent, white, older gent, balding gray hair, black glasses? He seems to be thoughtful and he's made some good points when my mind stops ping-ponging around and I can focus on what he's saying.

Podesta: "go home, get some sleep, she's not done yet"
posted by TWinbrook8 at 11:04 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Podesta saying it's too close to call, every vote counts and they're still counting them, so go home and get some sleep and we'll get back to it tomorrow.
posted by cortex at 11:04 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Podesta: "We can wait a little longer, can't we? They're still counting votes and every vote should count. Several states are too close to call, so we're not going to have anything else to say tonight." Everybody go home and sleep, "we'll have more to say tomorrow. I want every person in this hall and every person across the country who supported Hillary to know that your voices and your enthusiasm mean so much to her and to Tim and to all of us. We are so proud of you. And we are so proud of her. She's done an amazing job and she is not done yet, so thank you for being with her. She has always been with you. I have to say this tonight, good night, we will be back, we will have more to say, let's get these votes counted, let's bring this home....You are in all our hearts."
posted by zachlipton at 11:04 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

I guess on the bright side, I'm paid in not-USD so I'll at least be able to take advantage of the plummeting dollar

honestly, at this point it's gone beyond "looking for a silver lining" to "hunting for salvageable-looking kernels of corn in the toilet bowl"
posted by DoctorFedora at 11:05 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

I have no idea what's safe now. Maybe I should have been cash.

Not even sure hard currency will be safe. Not hard to imagine the dollar losing a lot of value in the aftermath.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:05 PM on November 8, 2016

If Podesta is saying come back tomorrow, then his campaign must still think there's a chance to win.
posted by Kevin Street at 11:05 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

I can't even. I didn't think we were genuinely this awful. Maybe this country deserves trump nuking us all. Maybe it's time to just secede already because when the winning side would be happy to see us all dead, what else is there?
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:05 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

i am (paid in usd). and i forgot to convert this month's paycheck to clp. :(
posted by andrewcooke at 11:06 PM on November 8, 2016

Honestly my biggest hope and concern right now is that election fraud may have happened at a national scale.

Election fraud did occur on a national scale. Voters were disenfranchised and intimidated, districts were gerrymandered so that the electoral count wouldn't represent the people's will. Nobody will do anything about it because it was all legal.

Is there any legal recourse regarding the fact that the election may well have turned on the closing of hundreds and hundreds of polling places in states like Georgia, which was only able to happen due to the gutting of the Voting Rights Act? Can some sort of lawsuit be pressed? Is there anything at all we can do within the legal system?
posted by IAmUnaware at 11:06 PM on November 8, 2016 [13 favorites]

I hope she doesn't concede until every last vote has been counted. FIGHT.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 11:06 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

I think Podesta did the right thing. It's nearly certainly over, but the speech can wait until the morning. No need to make the call right now.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:06 PM on November 8, 2016

Oh, GREAT, now I'm getting zero sleep tonight.
posted by mikelieman at 11:06 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

More cynically I think the Clinton camp needs to write a concession speech.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 11:07 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

I just got back from sixteen hours of working the polls here in San Francisco (we had to wait for sheriffs to come and get the ballots, etc.). We were all trying really hard not to look at results from about 6 p.m. onward, but I started getting freakout texts from my friends and the panic set in.

All this while we were giving stickers to cute little Latinx kids who were running around joyously while their parents voted.

My neighbors down the street are having a party and told me to come along no matter what the time. I walked by their house on the way back from the polls and the lights were on but the house was silent. Then I came indoors, put on MSNBC, fired up Metafilter, and now I want to puke. I feel really lousy and alone, but I can't face going back out..

At least this means I can cancel the NYT, give up cable news and HBO, and just hunker down with books and my cats and my friends. I don't know how I'm going to sleep, but I just cannot watch this. My heart breaks for all of us.
posted by vickyverky at 11:07 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

A little bit of good news.

Criminal justice reformers ousted incumbent DAs in Tampa & Houston; follows set of primary wins in Chicago, Cleveland, Jacksonville, Orlando

--@Taniel
posted by zachlipton at 11:07 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Podesta did basically what Kerry's campaign also did, except in that case they had Jon Bon Jovi break the news to the crowd.
posted by feloniousmonk at 11:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

So it's like Raiders? "Come back tomorrow." "Why?" "Because I SAID so, that's why."
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:08 PM on November 8, 2016

@deray
I'm tired of people saying that Trump had no ground game. His ground game was white supremacy. He had a ground game & it made an impact.
posted by chris24 at 11:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [17 favorites]

LSK: "Honestly my biggest hope and concern right now is that election fraud may have happened at a national scale."

"I wrote this morning about this election’s status as the first since a Supreme Court decision struck down portions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, prompting states to close hundreds of polling places. Among the states affected were three crucial states won by Trump: Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina."

posted by Rhaomi at 11:08 PM on November 8, 2016 [28 favorites]

Is there any legal recourse regarding the fact that the election may well have turned on the closing of hundreds and hundreds of polling places in states like Georgia, which was only able to happen due to the gutting of the Voting Rights Act?

I don't think so, no. If there's any chance to flip one of those states, I assume it'll lie in provisional ballots that aren't being counted tonight?
posted by tobascodagama at 11:08 PM on November 8, 2016

Podesta has just given a not-yet-conceding-nothing-more-until-tomorrow announcement.

Good call.

The only thing to find out tonight is will Trump claim victory?

Because PA & WI & MI are very very close.
posted by bukvich at 11:08 PM on November 8, 2016

I'm so sorry, America. Welcome to Amerikkka.
posted by MetalFingerz at 11:09 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

I don't understand this - didn't Trump say, repeatedly, to watch out, this one is gonna be rigged.

Yes, and everyone should take him at his word and investigate the shit out of it.

(I'm serious.)
posted by Sys Rq at 11:09 PM on November 8, 2016 [18 favorites]

NBC saying PA may have 3% of ballots cast provisionally. It's going to be goddamn chads again.
posted by zachlipton at 11:09 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

I am a brown mixed man with a mixed wife and beautiful three and one year old sons. This outcome is scary. But I want you white people, all people here, not to despair. Reach out to your neighbors who may be in danger soon, or may face trouble from those who hate. We must still stand together, even if our leaders and fellow citizens would tear us apart.

I ask this selfishly because I want my kids to prosper.

Eventually we must reach out, somehow, to those that are angry and decided that Trump was the answer. Not today. Maybe when we can accept thIs reality in a day or week or month. But soon, since our nation won't be truly united until we can figure that out.

MeFi, I want so badly for us all to have a big hug. Take care of yourselves.
posted by Mister Cheese at 11:09 PM on November 8, 2016 [37 favorites]

What's interesting is that the US and the rest of the world can still bankrupt Trump. Continue to boycott his properties and he'll continue to lose his wealth. Make him suffer for his false promises.

And that's ignoring the ability of the Chinese and the Saudis and the international banks to call him to heel at a moment. Attempt to much saber-rattling and those billions of assets that are parked in the US will flood out in a devastating manner.

His base might not feel the pinch but the Republican elite definitely will and they will make their pleasure known even if it means supporting Democrats in 2018 and 2020.

Because the reality was that virtually ever member of the 1% and the .1% were actually hoping for a Clinton win because Clinton meant predictability and predictability is good for the market and things good for the market means the elite continue to get richer.

The second Trump threatens that a whole host of shit that is still hidden from view will crash down on him.
posted by vuron at 11:10 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

Les All'mands étaient chez moi
On m'a dit: "Résigne-toi",
Mais je n'ai pas pu.
Et j'ai repris mon arme.

Personne ne m'a demandé
D'ou je viens et où je vais
Vous qui le savez,
Effacez mon passage.

J'ai changé cent fois de nom
J'ai perdu femme et enfant
Mais j'ai tant d'amis
Et j'ai la France entière.

Un vieil homme dans un grenier
Pour la nuit nous a cachés
Les All'mands l'ont pris
Il est mort sans surprise

Hier encore nous étions trois
Il ne reste plus que moi
Et je tourne en rond
Dans la prison des frontières

Le vent passe sur les tombes
Et la liberté reviendra
On nous oubliera!
Nous rentrerons dans l'ombre.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 11:10 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

Well, at least Question 4 passed in MA, cause we're gonna fuckin' need it.
posted by not_on_display at 11:10 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

I think people like me who are in, comparatively, more secure or less "othered" positions should, even if we have the wherewithal to relocate, contemplate our responsibility to stay put and stand with fellow citizens who are more vulnerable or unsafe than we are and who may need support and shielding.

This is absolutely correct. The way to push back against "Fuck you I got mine" is "How can I help?"
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:10 PM on November 8, 2016 [16 favorites]

From a moms' group on Facebook on what to tell the children:

Some developmentally-sensitive scripts:

0-5 years old: "Grown ups are so silly! Can you believe that a lot of grown-ups voted for a meanie? I know, those grown-ups are so silly! We'll vote for someone better next time. Now let's play outside..."

6-10 years old: "I am so sad and disappointed. I really wanted this to be different. We have a LOT of work to do now! There are lots of ways that our family, community, and our friends are going to protect each other and work together to make sure that we have a kind and fair leader of our country in the future. Let me tell you about some of the things we can do...."

11-13years old: "This is not the first horrible thing that has happened in the United States (refer to the history) and it won't be the last, but for every horrible thing that has happened, there has also been a group of people committed to fighting against it. Have you heard the word "revolution"? That's when people know that so many things are wrong and that the only way to fix them is to change them completely. Let's think about some of the things we could do to make a revolution happen in the United States...."

14+: "Let's look at the exit poll statistics closely so we can see which groups of people voted for Trump". Review BLM platform and demands. Review INCITE! vision statement. Make a family vision statement that includes social justice commitments. Mark organizing dates on family calendar."
posted by Dragonness at 11:11 PM on November 8, 2016 [87 favorites]

After brexit we had people telling us to shut up and accept it. That we'd lost (which was true) and that we should stop being vocal. Don't let anyone try to do the same to you after today.

Obligatory Hislop
posted by edd at 11:11 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

What cabinet post does the KKK guy get to fill?

ministry of racial purity
posted by poffin boffin at 11:12 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

If someone was calling me a deplorable for my political views,

For a whole year, Donald Trump has called China, the country of my grandparent's homeland, a place that has only succeeded because it's cheated and lied. Not because it suffered it's own century of defeat and shame at the hands of imperialism and managed through hard work to pull itself into some form of stability and success.

For a whole year, Donald Trump has put people like me, an immigrant, front and center on why America is in decline. How there are "good" immigrants and "bad" immigrants and only good white Americans can decide.

I think that is much worse than being called deplorable and yet, I still feel it's important to understand the Trump voter's perspective and try to help them. But all of a sudden, it's because Clinton has lost because she for one moment decided to do what Trump does, and "tell it like it is".
posted by FJT at 11:12 PM on November 8, 2016 [23 favorites]

Well, now the Republicans get to show the nation they can solve this country's problems. Or are the cause of them.
posted by Gelatin at 11:12 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

NBC saying PA may have 3% of ballots cast provisionally. It's going to be goddamn chads again.

Which is why Clinton sure as hell isn't going to give anyone the optics of a concession speech and subsequent retraction.
posted by mikelieman at 11:12 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

I wonder how much of the Trump vote was a protest vote; they didn't really think he'd win and Clinton had it in the bag. I wonder how many people are going to be regretful in the next few days.
posted by bongo_x at 11:13 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

oh ffs. BBC interviewing a guy from Muslim-Americans for Trump and he says Trump didn't mean it when he said he'd shut down immigration from Muslim countries, he'd just ban the terrorists. BBC interviewer is not having it.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 11:13 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

This is not the time to admit defeat. This is the time to retreat to the next defensive line, the next set of barricades, and sharpen the blade for the next battle. Are secret police literally knocking down your door? Are the new nativist laws passed and in action. No. Not yet. Vent, rest, and recover. But there's still far, far more to do until the true time for despair. Because the easiest way to let evil succeed is to invite it to win.
posted by Apocryphon at 11:14 PM on November 8, 2016 [22 favorites]

The first thing I plan to do is stop by Planned Parenthood and apply to become a volunteer escort. I've been wanting to do this for a while. Also try to arrange interfaith outreach between my Zen sangha and local mosques. Seems like now is the time, regardless of the election. It feels necessary to act.

Beyond that... Maybe J-school? I've thought about that too. Not sure.

My instincts are screaming at me to run away and hide, but I can't live like that. I refuse to give away my power anymore, especially not to these people. Too many lives hang in the balance, not to mention my sanity.
posted by krinklyfig at 11:14 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

Kevin Street: "If Podesta is saying come back tomorrow, then his campaign must still think there's a chance to win."

Nah, I think they are just dicking with the Trump campaign. There be less energy in the acceptance speech tomorrow.
posted by Mitheral at 11:14 PM on November 8, 2016

Apocryphon, thank you.
posted by samthemander at 11:15 PM on November 8, 2016

I love you all. Please take care of yourselves. We are all going to need each other.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:16 PM on November 8, 2016 [28 favorites]

After brexit we had people telling us to shut up and accept it. That we'd lost (which was true) and that we should stop being vocal. Don't let anyone try to do the same to you after today.

Yes; but the Brexit referendum is different to an election between two candidates, one of which will have won.

If Hillary Clinton or many of her supporters 'refuse to accept' the results, that's calling the government itself illegitimate. I'm... Honestly, I'm not going to make a moral judgement on whether that should be done, at this point. But it is a serious challenge to the structure of government in a way that opposition to Brexit is not.
posted by tivalasvegas at 11:16 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I... forgot about provisional ballots. This could take forever.
posted by Justinian at 11:17 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah I think the most likely scenario is the same thing that happened in 2004, when Kerry waited until the next morning. But it gives them time to look at the provisional ballots and uncounted mail-in ballots before doing anything.

Not to mention the fact that forcing Trump to speak after the stock market opens is straight up good political theater, and they know what they're doing there.
posted by zachlipton at 11:17 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

And that's ignoring the ability of the Chinese and the Saudis and the international banks to call him to heel at a moment. Attempt to much saber-rattling and those billions of assets that are parked in the US will flood out in a devastating manner.

It doesn't really work like that, either in terms of being able to pull out in that way or being able to do so without massive harm to those pulling out. Hence the old chestnut of dubious origin “if you owe a bank thousands, you have a problem; owe a bank millions, the bank has a problem”.
posted by Sangermaine at 11:17 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Beyond that... Maybe J-school? I've thought about that too. Not sure.

In case I wasn't clear above: If you want to actually be able to stand for and speak out about the things you believe in beyond a narrow definition of First Amendment rights and "balance" and whatever else, save your money and look elsewhere.
posted by limeonaire at 11:17 PM on November 8, 2016

I don't know, it's still really close in important states. It might be better to come back tomorrow after a lot of counting has been done.
posted by Kevin Street at 11:17 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm kind of glad Podesta said that, actually. I was this close to writing a Facebook post coming out as transgender to talk about how I'll be more vulnerable under a Donald Trump presidency, and it's probably better that I wait it out and come out on my own terms.

I'm worried about what this will do to my depression; I don't have time for the five stages of grief right now. :(
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 11:17 PM on November 8, 2016 [20 favorites]

In times like these we must reaffirm the values we cherish and have fought for: equality, justice, the care of our planet. We must stand up defiantly to any dark or divisive acts, and look out for the most vulnerable among us. It is more important than ever.

I've managed to hold off actually crying until now, but it looks like it was Takei that put me over the edge.

And, surprisingly, I feel the tiniest spark of...not really hope, but determination. Not that the results will miraculously change, but that maybe I can do more on a personal level to connect with people around me. Because something is really rotten in our society, and I don't have any clue how to fix it except to do better in my own life to reach out to people. I can do more and I should do more, and I should have been doing more before now.

So I'm going to keep the Clinton/Kaine bumper sticker on my car proudly, because I'm going to wear it as a reminder of the best parts of this country that we saw during the Democratic convention, as well as a personal challenge to do better to live up to those ideals.

I may have to take a personal day tomorrow and find a way to decompress, but then I need to find a place where I can make a difference for the people who will be hurting the most from this mess. Otherwise I'm worried that the numbness and hopelessness I'm feeling tonight will turn into cynicism.
posted by Salieri at 11:19 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

I would just caution people that Kerry waited to see provisional stuff too, and we know how that turned out. And this is two states, not one.
posted by Justinian at 11:19 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

I am literally trying to remember everything that happened in 2000 so I can anticipate the next few days.
posted by corb at 11:20 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

Nah, I think they are just dicking with the Trump campaign. There be less energy in the acceptance speech tomorrow.

Maybe, but if so it'd be a pointless feint. Any assumption that Trump will refrain from giving an acceptance speech tonight because it would be gauche or shameful to do so in the face of the Clinton camp not yet conceding fails to account for Trump's litany of shameless guacheries over the last 18 months and the decades preceding.

Trump's imperviousness to niceties and norms is as big a part of his candidacy as anything. It's who he is.

I'm inclined to think the Clinton camp is actively gaming out the situation, even if they don't particularly like their chances. Holding the concession speech feels to me more like not being done yet than just political juking.
posted by cortex at 11:20 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Peter Thiel won again, folks.
posted by lkc at 11:20 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

What's with this bullshit twist ending 2016? Who's writing this shit? Fucking M. Night Shyamalan?!?
posted by kirkaracha at 11:21 PM on November 8, 2016 [14 favorites]

Remember the Brooks Brothers Riot? 2016's version of that sure will be fun. (Note: EXTREMELY HEAVY SARCASM.)
posted by tobascodagama at 11:21 PM on November 8, 2016

I voted. So did my husband and one of my daughters. And even though Oklahoma went red, it was the right thing to do.
Tomorrow the sun will rise, we will all come together and get through the next four years with as much grace as we can muster.
That such a group of strong individuals can come together for a common purpose, and hold each other up, is a testament to our shared sense of right. We believe, and will continue to believe, that this country is a good place. It can be better.
We aren't going away. And there will be more elections in two years.
This was not a landslide.
posted by TrishaU at 11:21 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Hello new thread just finished the old thread.

Thoughts: no Trump TV?

WTAF. Just when I thought it was safe to be unabashedly myself. I quit my job in a pique of disgust for working with Trumpers and figured I'd make my own way. Entreprenueting! Nope. Time to dye my hair and try to find a safe corporate job (never mind that I've been interviewing steadily for three years).

I am guttered here in Florida, worse than 2000 and 2004.
posted by tilde at 11:21 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

MeFi, I want so badly for us all to have a big hug. Take care of yourselves.

I've never been to an IRL, but now might be a good time. Maybe I should start one for SE Michiganians. (Heck, I'd travel overnight/out of state for something.)
posted by NorthernLite at 11:22 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

For self-care / perspective I'm watching C-SPAN Washington Journal videos from December 2000.
posted by mikelieman at 11:22 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I am desperately hoping holding the concession is a sign of feist and fight.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 11:22 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Who's writing this shit? Fucking M. Night Shyamalan?!?

If he had, I wouldve guessed the ending 10 minutes in.
posted by NorthernLite at 11:23 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

And imagine how pleased with himself Scott Adams must be. That's not the worst part of this, not at all, it's just annoying that it appears he was right about Trump winning. He called it ages ago.
posted by Bella Donna at 11:23 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Actually... I'm not sure what the provisionals can gain the Clinton camp. Even if they flip PA and MI they've lost Wisconsin. It could make this election razor thin electorally and with a 1.5+million vote popular vote lead for Clinton, but does that accomplish anything except tell us how badly we got rogered by the system?
posted by Justinian at 11:24 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I love you guys and am so grateful to have been with you all Through this. Starting tomorrow I'll start working on how I can help protect and support the people who are going to be hurt for the next bunch of supreme court terms. Right now, I'm in shock. All I have to offer you guys is love.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:24 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

Trump is reportedly headed to the Hilton, and nobody knows what he's going to say.
posted by zachlipton at 11:24 PM on November 8, 2016

Thank god Jimmy Fallon will be on soon. /s
posted by gideonswann at 11:24 PM on November 8, 2016

People are talking about "Time to hunker down and get determined" and I really want to know what I can do in New Jersey and New York. I think the best path for me is developing media skills, actually, to support political campaigns in that respect. Our individual votes - my own, and the people around me I can talk to - don't seem to mean a whole lot.

The NJ-7 campaign that I've been pulling for lost, by the way.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 11:24 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm dreading the Trump speech. But I can't not watch it.
posted by tivalasvegas at 11:25 PM on November 8, 2016

Thoughts: no Trump TV?

There will still be Trump TV. It'll probably be taxpayer funded, now.
posted by dirigibleman at 11:25 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Thank god Jimmy Fallon will be on soon. /s

If he had any shame, he'd spend his next show just apologising until the feed gets cut.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:26 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

I got through 2000-2008 by just watching The West Wing and not consuming actual news.

Please post coping strategies.
posted by 0xFCAF at 11:26 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

First priority is to think of some way to block every single one of Donald's Supreme Court nominees. IF the Republicans could do it to Obama for 8 months, we can try for 4 years. If the court shrinks down to 6 justices, then so be it.
posted by FJT at 11:26 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Watch The West Wing and don't consume actual news.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:27 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

deplorable

Lumpenproletariat - Wikipedia

"Lumpenproletariat is a term that was originally coined by Karl Marx to describe the layer of the working class that is unlikely ever to achieve class consciousness and is therefore lost to socially useful production, of no use to the revolutionary struggle, and perhaps even an impediment to the realization of a ..."
posted by polymodus at 11:27 PM on November 8, 2016 [16 favorites]

I was going to chirp that Frankie Boyle's doing a postmortum on this election, but some poking around suggests that was in the UK some months ago. (I don't think I'd have had the energy to watch it.)
posted by sebastienbailard at 11:27 PM on November 8, 2016

God, the front page of the NYT is surreal. It's like the first five minutes of, well, an alternate history movie.
posted by tivalasvegas at 11:28 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I got through 2000-2008 by just watching The West Wing and not consuming actual news.

Please post coping strategies.

Watching it again.
posted by ymgve at 11:28 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Please post coping strategies.

Well, I blocked my parents and in-laws and posted some video clips from Easy Rider.

But maybe we'll share some recipes tomorrow. My peppers haven't bloomed!

(nite nite)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:28 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

I've thought a lot about what to say to my young kids when they come back from their mom's this Friday. They think Trump is an idiot, and they are right. He's the butt of playground jokes. Should I teach them to respect the president no matter what? I don't think I can. The stuff they teach kids in elementary school about kindness, respect, and sharing (you know, "hippie shit") is the correct way to live. If the person in charge is antithetical to those ideals, he must be resisted at all costs. I don't teach them to respect authority, I teach them to respect those who earn it.
posted by freecellwizard at 11:28 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

We were so close. We had marriage equality and we were working on getting the voting rights act restored. Black lives mattered and planned Parenthood was going to be refunded. We were going to pass the DREAM act. Women were being listened to and we're about to break the last glass ceiling. We were getting so close to a livable minimum wage and we were about to get universal healthcare.

That's how much they hate us.
posted by Sophie1 at 11:29 PM on November 8, 2016 [129 favorites]

Well that was a nice democracy you had there, States of America. Shame it was left in the hands of a nation of the spineless, stupid, and indolent. You may take heart in the fact that my country of Australia is also packed to the gills with the spineless, stupid and indolent - it's just that we have the advantage of being utterly unimportant.
posted by turbid dahlia at 11:29 PM on November 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

.

Trump has a date in court on November 28, doesn't he?
posted by Mister Bijou at 11:29 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

I agree to a point Sangermaine but Trump is a threat to the entire system of international agreements which keep the world's primary powers from fighting directly with each other. The EU will look at the elections in the UK and the US as a sign that we are no longer an effective partner and that NATO cannot be trusted and they will move to replace us as the leash on Russia.

The other partners in the spheres of international trade will also make explicit their concerns if we so much as attempt to back out of trade deals. Those ties that bind the neo-liberal economic system together will not tolerate a bunch of angry white people in the midwest threatening decades of order and stability.

Trump will prance and preen but he is owned perhaps to an even greater degree than we suspect by those faceless technocrats that we like to rail against. And in the end that plus the various systems of checks and balances will prevent him from doing too much harm.

Granted his buddies will undo the last 8 years of progress and people will suffer but there is absolutely zero chance that Trump will somehow undo the US in the space of the next 4 years.
posted by vuron at 11:29 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

Jesus, I see it guys. If they flip PA and MI with provisions its a 269-269 tie with Trump winning the maine CD and Clinton winning the Omaha CD.
posted by Justinian at 11:30 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

I've been amazed at how many people say their spouse was voting for Trump and I honestly don't understand how that works. But that was when it seemed like he was going to lose. How does that work now? What's the divorce rate going to be like in the near future?
posted by bongo_x at 11:30 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

It is not just the potential repercussions of of a Trump presidency that worry me, it's the thought of spending the next 4 years surrounding by a country of people that I know voted for a racist, misogynist, xenophobic dictator that really, really makes me ill.

My only solace is that I live in a deep blue parish of a dark red state. At least my social circle is as horrified by this turn of events as I am.
posted by tryniti at 11:30 PM on November 8, 2016 [19 favorites]

Well, at least Arpaio is out. No telling what kind of evil fuckery he would have participated in with a Trump administration.

Thing is, he's now available for appointment to a top position. If Guiliani gets a Supreme Court position, he could get Attorney General over Christie.
posted by msalt at 11:31 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Fidelity: We're entering a world of 'unprecedented' political risk

Dominic Rossi, Global CIO Equities at Fidelity International, has given a very sobering assessment of the situation:

“We are heading into a world of unprecedented political risk which calls into question the pillars of the post WWII settlement. It’s unsurprising investors are heading for cover.

.......
posted by Rumple at 11:31 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

Trump has a date in court on November 28, doesn't he?

I think it's a civil action, and won't meet the "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" standard.
posted by mikelieman at 11:31 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I never thought I'd say this but -- Justinian, you're being too optimistic. Crank up your panic level.
posted by tivalasvegas at 11:31 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

It's a tie that goes to a GOP house so it doesn't matter anyway.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 11:31 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

There's life after January.

I mean. If ACA gets repealed, I'm going to lose my health insurance and probably become uninsurable to boot, and then I might die from one of my two chronic illnesses, which, what do I care, I'll be dead, but it would ruin my parents' lives, so. There's that.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 11:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [29 favorites]

I think this is a lot simpler than 2000, more a matter of counting every vote before having an actual decision. In 2000 the whole thing got weird over how to count possibly-improperly-punched ballots ("hanging chads") and the oddly printed ballots in some southern Florida counties that led to, like, an implausible number of retired New Yorkers/New Englanders voting for Pat Buchanan.
posted by soundguy99 at 11:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

MARINE LE PEN: CONGRATULATIONS TO THE NEW PRESIDENT TRUMP
posted by TWinbrook8 at 11:32 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh, its not going to happen, tivalasvegas, I'm just trying to figure what contesting PA and MI with provisionals gains. The best case scenario I can find for the Clinton camp is pushing for a 269-269 tie. I can't see any way they win with those provisionals, that's all.

It could pad Clinton's popular margin as well. Which... yeah.
posted by Justinian at 11:33 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Welp, he's got the French neo-Nazi vote, so...

Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right Front National party, has congratulated Donald Trump on his likely election victory.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:34 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I have no idea how to tell this news to my daughter in the morning. She wore white today. She accompanied me in the voting booth.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 11:34 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

AP calls it for Trump.
posted by AugustWest at 11:34 PM on November 8, 2016

OK, I went on Facebook, and I'm glad I did. There's a lot of love being shared among the people I know who didn't want us to be in this position now. For once I'm glad for whatever filters are showing me the side of people I want to see right now.
posted by limeonaire at 11:34 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

AP says Trump has Wisconsin and the election.
posted by bryon at 11:34 PM on November 8, 2016

I don't think I've ever hoped for a CIA/NSA coup before.
posted by localhuman at 11:35 PM on November 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

AP calling it for Trump
posted by RedShrek at 11:35 PM on November 8, 2016

Let's don't worry about ACA repeal yet. I still have problems seeing how insurance companies and medical providers don't get that shut down in committee.

More worrisome is whether we'll have a continuing resolution, as early as this fucking year of 2016.
posted by tivalasvegas at 11:35 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I have no countries left to be proud of.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 11:36 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm sorry, I know that was morbid. I'm just scared. Thank you all for being here.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 11:36 PM on November 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

Fox news has not called it and the PBS guy is freaked about it.
posted by bongo_x at 11:36 PM on November 8, 2016

If nothing else, can we please all commit to being sincerely dedicated to being prejudiced against Trump voters? It should be easy with upcoming financial collapse, but still... don't hire, don't promote, don't in any way give any more privilege to anyone you know who supports Trump. Act locally to punish this bullshit. If someone admits to you that they support Trump, please just immediately respond with "Okay, I can't morally interact with you".
posted by team lowkey at 11:37 PM on November 8, 2016 [15 favorites]

Drunk post, but fine.

Fine.

I left at Bush2. Yeah, took the passport plunge. Went the expat way. I was good liberal in my time, I voted in every election that would have me.

For years, I've explained America as a country seized by an insane contingent of racists in 2000 and 2004, but that we got our sanity back and we were ok, the bad people were by and large gone now, and my people would continue their steady but stumbling march toward our developed-country destiny as a Scandianavian-ish liberal democracy where by god things get done according to some crazy rules but they're crazy because in the end they work it's because America respects local autonomy or something good about our idiosyncrasies.

Now? I mean...I was thinking about coming home. I was thinking about leaving the diaspora. I was this close to a revolution in the making that would make my people finally stand up and lead the world again. We were this close.

Now...I don't know. My industry depends on the US economy doing well, and that assumes I stay in place. If Trump pooches it between the US and China, my only option will be to come home. To Trump country. A place where this August a retirement-age saleswoman at the local grocery store was happy to see "one of the right kind of people" back in town. If you catch my white drift. I live in Asia already. That is not home.

You'll never get it, will you, America? I have to explain this. I just ate dinner with an Italian and a Chinese person, roommates in fact, and I had to say, "Don't ask me about it, don't even bring it up." What do I say to them?

Seriously, what do I say?

I say that I was right to leave.
posted by saysthis at 11:37 PM on November 8, 2016 [25 favorites]

Can't wait for Press Secretary Milo Yianiawhatsit.
posted by PenDevil at 11:37 PM on November 8, 2016 [12 favorites]

PBS also just called it for Trump.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:38 PM on November 8, 2016

Well, I tried to sleep. That didn't work. I just kept playing various nightmare ways in my head of the global disasters of the next four years. What now?
posted by dannyboybell at 11:39 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

I want to reiterate to people that more Americans voted for Clinton than for Trump. Probably by almost 2 million. This is not supposed to make you feel better... how could it? But it does mean that most Americans are not with this bullshit. Far too many are. But it's still not most.
posted by Justinian at 11:39 PM on November 8, 2016 [28 favorites]

So what do we do now?

I don't have kids to reassure and teach to do better next time. I can't take solace in my family, who will be celebrating. I want to do something in the coming days, weeks, and years, but I just don't know what.
posted by tryniti at 11:39 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

In light of this victory what does this say about the Obama presidency? Did he win off a population tenatively reaching out for liberal values or one just fatigued with Iraq/Afghanistan and the associated GWB presidency?
posted by PenDevil at 11:39 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Let's remember part of Lincoln's First Inaugural speech: "I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

My country, why are you such a slow learner?
posted by TwoStride at 11:39 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Clinton has called Trump to concede per BBC via Kelly O'Donnell.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 11:39 PM on November 8, 2016

I think it's a civil action, and won't meet the "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" standard.

My understanding is that "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" is undefined, so it's basically whatever the House says it is. The question is if Republicans will be williing to bring him up on charges. My guess is no, particularly as it would have a nonzero chance of causing an actual insurrection, unless the deplorables have turned on Trump for some reason.
posted by tivalasvegas at 11:39 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Also over here the date is 9/11 so at least that makes it easy for me to remember.
posted by turbid dahlia at 11:39 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

Commiserations and a heartfelt good luck from another Australian. Thunder and lightning in Sydney right now, very appropriate. I'm getting drunk in solidarity.

Me and my housemate have discussed offering our futon to American friends - I said there would be American refugees interned on Nauru as illegal immigrants soon enough, and I was barely joking.
posted by other barry at 11:40 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

BBC states Clinton conceded to Trump via phone.
posted by longbaugh at 11:40 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I want to reiterate to people that more Americans voted for Clinton than for Trump. Probably by almost 2 million

Where are you seeing this? The popular vote totals I'm seeing still have Trump up 1.5 million.
posted by corb at 11:40 PM on November 8, 2016

And PBS reports that Hillary called Trump to concede.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:40 PM on November 8, 2016

Fox just called it too fwiw
posted by AugustWest at 11:40 PM on November 8, 2016

The popular vote from California--mostly going to Clinton--isn't in yet.
posted by TwoStride at 11:41 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Not that this helps or anything, but here's a French headline:

«Fuck, fuck, fuck» : à Miami, nuit de cauchemar pour les démocrates
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:41 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

corb: I keep saying (err, that sounds salty, I don't mean it to be, it's just a fast thread) the same thing. California counts slowly and is going Clinton HARD. It is going to deliver Clinton a huge margin.
posted by Justinian at 11:42 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Clinton, why? Why would you concede with provisional ballots to be counted? Why?
posted by corb at 11:42 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

What have we done.
posted by SansPoint at 11:42 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

Charles Pierce: This Is the Worst Election Night of My Life:

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA—Let me take this opportunity to tell you about the three worst election nights of my life.

posted by palindromic at 11:43 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

.
posted by AugustWest at 11:43 PM on November 8, 2016

I can't say exactly but my best guess is that Clinton is going to win the popular vote by between 1.,5 and 2 million. This is more than triple Gore's margin, and I consider it basically a worst case scenario for the country. 2 million people more will have voted for the "loser".
posted by Justinian at 11:43 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

This is not happening...

This is not happening....

*weepingwailing*

this is america. this can't be happening.
posted by blessedlyndie at 11:43 PM on November 8, 2016

.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:44 PM on November 8, 2016

could use a quick bingo card for trump's speech...
posted by andrewcooke at 11:44 PM on November 8, 2016

The review you had on this election, which was merely a two word review, just said "Shit Sandwich."
posted by kirkaracha at 11:44 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

It's a tie that goes to a GOP house so it doesn't matter anyway.

Can someone better versed in edge cases tell me if this scenario is possible?

1) One or more faithless electors casts an electoral vote for Paul Ryan (or McMuffin or Cruz) who then is in the top 3 candidates by EVs

2) EV ties as a result, or Trump's total is below 270.

3) vote goes to House of Representatives

4) after some number of votes, a majority of states vote for the third candidate to prevent Trump from winning, perhaps with the Dems throwing all of their states to #3.
posted by msalt at 11:44 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

From one of the finest Canadian politicians of my lifetime, "Love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear." --Jack Layton.

Strength in the days ahead, America.
posted by peppermind at 11:44 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

Clinton, why? Why would you concede with provisional ballots to be counted? Why?

Because she's smart enough to do the math, and good enough to do what she believes is the right thing for American democracy.
posted by tivalasvegas at 11:44 PM on November 8, 2016 [25 favorites]

oh god, they're coming on stage.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 11:45 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

can we for the love of god at least start a campaign for a constitutional amendment abolishing the electoral college? The loser of the popular vote taking the white house twice in 16 years is just fucking ridiculous.
posted by skewed at 11:46 PM on November 8, 2016 [23 favorites]

1) A faithless elector casts an electoral vote for Paul Ryan (or McMuffin or Cruz) who then is in the top 3 candidates by EVs

I don't think any faithless elector situation is plausible. Even if it were, the House will absolutely not overturn the electoral vote. It would be political suicide, if not literal suicide.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:46 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is worse than 9/11.

It sounds hyperbolic, but more people will die as a result of tonight. And it can't be blamed on just 19 people.
posted by Rhaomi at 11:46 PM on November 8, 2016 [38 favorites]

headline: Japan finance officials in emergency talks after U.S. election shock.

It's starting.
posted by Justinian at 11:46 PM on November 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

.
posted by stolyarova at 11:46 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Clinton, why? Why would you concede with provisional ballots to be counted? Why?

Presumably she and her people have done the math and determined that the provisional ballots can't change the outcome. They probably have very detailed information.
posted by IAmUnaware at 11:46 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Holy cow. I'm exhausted, and stressed out, but too shocked and distressed to sleep. And too numb to feel anything but stomach pain and misgivings. Probably the uncontrollable crying jags will arrive right when I have to go out into the world tomorrow and try somehow to look normal and professional rather than devastated and profoundly disturbed. "Oh, we'll all feel so much better when this nightmare of an election is finally over." Ha. Ha. Ha.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:47 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Pence takes the stage. "This is a historic night. The American people have spoken and the American people have elected their new champion. America has elected a new President and it's almost hard for me to express the honor that I and my family feel that I will have the honor to serve as your Vice President of the United States of America [USA chants]. I come to this moment deeply humbled, grateful to God for his amazing grace. Grateful to my family. [lists off family] I'm deeply grateful to the American people..And I'm mostly grateful to our Presdent-elect whose leadership and vision will Make America Great Again."
posted by zachlipton at 11:47 PM on November 8, 2016

.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 11:47 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

So, anyway... When's that Trump University fraud trial, and can we expect the full wall-to-wall O.J. treatment?
posted by Sys Rq at 11:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

God, Trump is walking out now to the Air Force One theme. I cannot even.
posted by corb at 11:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

How other countries would vote in the American election.

It would seem that Hillary was right in stating that while she loves us, the USA is not Denmark.
posted by bouvin at 11:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Fuck I can't sleep and this feels like the worst thing ever.

Stolen from Facebook:

The winner of tonight's election is the Voyager space probe, launched in 1977, which is currently traveling at 62,137 km per hour away from the Earth into interstellar space...

Sense of humor: we're gonna need it
posted by angrybear at 11:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [66 favorites]

OK we are going to get a victory speech at 2:45 in the morning in New York.

This ain't any mandate for what that is worth. Maybe the press will be watching him 24/7?

(That is the hope part for the new hope & change crew.)
posted by bukvich at 11:48 PM on November 8, 2016

I am so ashamed of my country.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 11:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [24 favorites]

This is worse than 9/11.

It sounds hyperbolic, but more people will die as a result of tonight. And it can't be blamed on just 19 people.

I especially feel bad for the people in Syria and other countries that Russia threatens. Trump doesn't have the spine to stand up to Putin.
posted by IAmUnaware at 11:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

So this is actually funny. HFA in NJ and PA kept poaching canvassers from my congressional race, NJ-7, and our field director kept bitching about it. Pennsylvania's a lock, he said. It's a waste of time, he said.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 11:48 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

It truly is one of those nights.
Only thing that makes sense is a death
metal cover of Losing My Religion.
posted by philip-random at 11:49 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

Well yes in the long term I guess we can probably be smug in the fact that the Midwest will lose a decent number of Congressional seats and Electoral College votes in 2020 as the Great Northern migration continues to reverse.

Between reverse migration and the realization that a sizable number of white "Reagan Democrats" are a bunch of racist and misogynist dickbags I think the reality is less and less attention will be focused on the problems of the Rust Belt. People like Scott Walker have already shown that the midwest salt of the earth types are perfectly willing to vote for useless Republicans who promise to punish the undeserving.

Help those remaining there who want better to get the fuck out of there and leave the carcass to the deplorables. Let them see just how capable the Republicans are at fixing their problems but don't be shocked if things like Flint become the norm.
posted by vuron at 11:49 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh god President Trump on stage with Death Star music playing
posted by davemee at 11:49 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I feel like I'm in a Philip K. Dick novel.
posted by Mrs. Buck Turgidson at 11:49 PM on November 8, 2016 [19 favorites]

Will they chant "LOCK HER UP"? Will he promise again that he will, triggering a constitutional crisis at the very beginning of his term?
posted by koeselitz at 11:49 PM on November 8, 2016

He sure likes clapping for himself.
posted by mazola at 11:49 PM on November 8, 2016

David Corn: Hate Trumps History: A Reality TV Star Wins the White House in a Broken America. There's no telling what comes next.
posted by homunculus at 11:49 PM on November 8, 2016

What do we do? Legitimate question. What possible way forward is there?
posted by mynameisluka at 11:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Naomi Klein ‏@NaomiAKlein 3h3 hours ago

Whatever happens, it's time to bury neoliberalism. We need genuine wealth + power redistribution. Only a real left can fight fascism.
posted by Trochanter at 11:50 PM on November 8, 2016 [33 favorites]

I am Australian, a defence force member's partner. He's already done tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. I am very scared of what our lives may be like from here. Time for valium and wine, else fearful crying. I'm so sorry for those of you in the US, who are closer to imminent harm than we are, sharing this fear. I wish I could hug you.
posted by pseudonymph at 11:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

May in the UK, Trump in the U.S. - it's like the '80s all over again. Authoritarians and demagogues in many nations great and small besides. Is it a new era- neo-neoliberalism? Retro-regressivism?
posted by Apocryphon at 11:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oh god President Trump on stage with Death Star music playing

O.k. America. This is so fucking weird.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:51 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

When they go low, we go high.

Even when my father, in a rage about an election neither of us can even vote in, threw a lump of sod in my face and grabbed me by the neck and accused me of being controlled by my girlfriend, who he called kike and a cunt, I kept calm and didn't lose my temper, but fuck, maybe I should have. I'm not sure I would even visit him on his deathbed now, and it took tonight to bring me to this point.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 11:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [19 favorites]

can we for the love of god at least start a campaign for a constitutional amendment abolishing the electoral college?

Support the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
posted by pmdboi at 11:52 PM on November 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

I feel like I'm in a Philip K. Dick novel.
nope. margaret atwood. sorry.
posted by j_curiouser at 11:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [56 favorites]

Trump: "Thank you. Thank you very much everybody. Sorry to keep you waiting, complicated business, complicated. Thank you very much. [much shouting] I've just received a call from Secretary Clinton. She congratulated us, it's about us, on our victory, and I congratulated her and her family on a very very hard fought campaign, I mean she fought very hard. Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country. I mean that very sincerely. Now it's time for American to bind the wounds of division, have to get together, to all Republicans, Independents, and Democrats across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people. It's time. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be President for all Americans, and this is so important to me. For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, and there are a few people, I'm reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so we can work together and unify our great country. As I've said from the beginning, ours was not a campaign but rather an incredible and great movement."
posted by zachlipton at 11:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

I didn't vote for Clinton because I wanted Trump voters to suffer or learn a lesson. I voted for Clinton because I wanted better things for me, my family, my friends, and also for everyone who voted Trump. Our country has so many problems, and I thought that Clinton stood the best chance of making progress on them. I realize that makes me a know-it-all elitist, but it's the truth. I can only hope that Trump won't be as disastrous as all my fears.
posted by foxfirefey at 11:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [25 favorites]

I'm sorry, perhaps I will soon look back on what I have to say now as somewhat less than perspicacious, but I'm really tired, and here is what I'm thinking, reading Twitter: This isn't real, right? This is just a really bad dream I'm having. I mean, I had a bad dream earlier this week that I was late for a meeting and then I woke up and everything was fine. This is probably like that, right?
posted by limeonaire at 11:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

Maybe the press will be watching him 24/7?

Funniest joke I've seen tonight. Thanks for that, I needed the laugh.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

It's painful how presidential he is trying to be with this speech.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 11:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

in a perfect world they'd all be swept off the stage by an eldritch icy gust and then the ghost of ralph stanley would sing o death as those creepy grabby demon hands from ghost dragged them all to their just rewards
posted by poffin boffin at 11:53 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

Very very sad and shocked, sending love and solidarity from Germany. I have so much admiration and respect for all the courage, hope, decency and humanity I saw in these threads. Cashiers in Berlin supermarkets and Iranian refugees in Berlin shelters are dismayed along with you.
posted by runincircles at 11:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [11 favorites]

This is just terrible. It will be terrible for my family because we will once again have to find money for medical care for my family member who is on the medicaid expansion, it will be....oh, god, it will be terrible for everyone worldwide.

All over the world evil people are celebrating. I feel physically sick and afraid.
posted by Frowner at 11:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [13 favorites]

Honestly, I'm relieved that Trump is doing the standard "let's all come together" speech, and not "She'll be in jail before I finish saying 'So help me God.'" At least this isn't "I have won; fear me, fools."
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [24 favorites]

You guys, I'm sitting in my living room alone, wife long ago in bed, with an elementary school parent teacher conference in a few hours. When I heard HRC conceded I just started crying uncontrollably. I'm a pretty stoic dude, but I surprised myself.
posted by freecellwizard at 11:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [38 favorites]

His poor son... Hope he gets to bed soon.
posted by Coventry at 11:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

This Trump strategist on NPR just said some interesting things about Trump's "ground game."

1) They had 100k volunteers in California calling into Wisconsin and other swing states a large percentage of whom had never voted before.

2) Trump didn't need a great ground game in swing states like Wisconsin because the GOP already had a great ground there (Wisconsin had Walker, Priebus, and Ryan).

3) Many Trump supporters hadn't voted much before but were highly motivated to vote for him. His rallies etc spoke directly to them. They are incredibly difficult to poll.

The GOP has had lots of success at the local level in many of these states, so Trump may have been able to piggy-backing on the GOP ground game that gave them control of the House.
posted by Golden Eternity at 11:54 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

I'm not even a very political person, but I can't see this as anything more than the downfall of America. I'll be fine, but that our electorate could support this awful person... it's unbelievable. And as the economy fails, are these voters going to be able to connect the dots that this election was the cause? It's baffling.
posted by team lowkey at 11:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

Why does he keep repeating himself?
posted by Kevin Street at 11:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Jesus. His speech started okay with the unity part and thanking Hillary, but now he just went full fascist.
posted by Golden Eternity at 11:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

The 45th is the vogueing president.
posted by davemee at 11:56 PM on November 8, 2016

Because he's a fucking idiot.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 11:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

I don't even have a frame of reference for this.

I remember Bush winning in 2000 and 2004 (the latter being the first Presidential election I could vote in.) I was sad, and angry that Bush won, but not afraid. Not like this. How does one even begin to process? Help me understand, so that I can figure out what to do next.
posted by SansPoint at 11:56 PM on November 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

... and then this f***ing thing comes on.

if you can't hold on ...
posted by philip-random at 11:56 PM on November 8, 2016

I can't fucking do this. I tried to play Overwatch to get zen and the goddamn pepe brigade is crowing in match chat about Trump winning and being "the good guy."
posted by Scattercat at 11:57 PM on November 8, 2016

His poor son... Hope he gets to bed soon.

That is not a kid who is reluctantly there. Something is very, very wrong.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:58 PM on November 8, 2016

I'm so, so sorry for you all. Sincerely.
I really don't know what to do to support you, at this point. All of you, my American friends, I love you, come visit, I'll buy you a drink.
But I'm pretty sure I won't be spending any money in your country anymore.
Because what in the actual fuck.
posted by chococat at 11:58 PM on November 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

Is that Chris Christie on the stage?
posted by crazy with stars at 11:58 PM on November 8, 2016

Wonder what B Obama is thinking now?
posted by TWinbrook8 at 11:59 PM on November 8, 2016

What do we do?

Wallow in despair for quite a while.

But seriously I highly recommended turning off the tv and unplugging for a while. I know I can't stand it.
posted by angrybear at 11:59 PM on November 8, 2016

Yes. Only Rudy was hiding in the bunker.
posted by rokusan at 12:00 AM on November 9, 2016

Is that Chris Christie on the stage?

Yes.

And Rudy.

America, this shit is gonna be fuckin' harsh.

And I'm so, so, sorry this is happening to you.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Wonder what B Obama is thinking now?

As a former smoker, I'm guessing, "Fuck I need a Marlboro."
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [27 favorites]

This is so weird, shouting out specific surrogates like Rudy and Christie and Sessions and Carson. Are we completely off the teleprompter now?
posted by zachlipton at 12:00 AM on November 9, 2016

Did y'all hear someone yell "Kill Obama" during Trump's speech? I really think I heard that.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 12:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Fuck you, you fucking fuck, fuck you and all those who voted for you, because you have fucked over my life, thelife of those I love the most, the lives of those I am far from knowing but I know in the echoes I hear, fuck you because I just deleted a hundred posts because who fucking knows what you'd do with them, fuck you because I have to fucking judge every fucking social interaction for the next four years based upon whether the person fucking voted for you.
posted by holgate at 12:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [55 favorites]

.
posted by fritillary at 12:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

Did y'all hear someone yell "Kill Obama" during Trump's speech? I really think I heard that.

I heard "Jail Obama!" if that makes it any better.
posted by peeedro at 12:02 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Humanity I Love You
e.e. cummings

Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both

parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard

Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you’re flush pride keeps

you from the pawn shop and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house

Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down

on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity

i hate you
posted by but no cigar at 12:02 AM on November 9, 2016 [55 favorites]

Secretariat and the big bronze bust?

Omg

What have we done.
posted by clavdivs at 12:02 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Priebus seems like a guy from one of the loser fraternities.
posted by Golden Eternity at 12:02 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

God damn Lord, Trump was just introducing his murderer's row of evil - Guliani, Carson and their ilk. Jebus.
posted by bawanaal at 12:02 AM on November 9, 2016

Did y'all hear someone yell "Kill Obama" during Trump's speech? I really think I heard that.

I heard something, but it might have been about Obamacare. You are not the only one to ask this, and there is ongoing discussion in that thread.
posted by zachlipton at 12:02 AM on November 9, 2016

"our partnership with the RNC was so important"

So we're rewriting history now.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 12:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Oh dear god what is that speech what is reince doing what is happening i can't even
posted by mazola at 12:03 AM on November 9, 2016

Went outside to walk the dog. Oakland is silent.

What we can do now:
1) Strengthen the abortion underground railroad - find women in restrictive states and get them the health care they need. Rides or plane trips, a couch to crash on, and money for the services they need. Fortunately, this is not remotely illegal, and an org-minded person or group could set up a nonprofit with a national social media network... and if it's started soon, it can be in place before states area allowed to make individual laws banning it.

2) The Lysistrata strategy. Relevant posts: Stop Fucking Him; ILU 486.

3) Work locally - get involved in your city council meetings. Show up. Take notes. Record, if that's allowed. Talk about the results on your social media sites of choice. Become "that nut who cares whether the 5th street stoplights are working" so that when they start discussing which weapons the local cops need more of, you are a known and respected voice.

4) Smile and nod. When you are facing an overwhelming hostile force, active resistance gets people killed... and often, those people are not the able-bodied white middle-class-or-above male angry protesters. Set aside all the glorious freewheeling data and emotion exchange we've become accustomed to, and start using actual *secret* email lists, code phrases, and in-person meetings to disagree with the powers who want to oppress and torment us.

5) Hail Eris; this too will pass. Hold to what's dear to you, and remember that our government is built for maximum fragmented gridlock.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 12:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [54 favorites]

The reality is that Wisconsin has been increasingly sketchy territory for Democrats for a while now.

There just aren't enough people in places like Madison to negate the rest of the state. Michigan Democrats have typically depended on places like Detroit and Ann Arbor to negate other areas. Ohio Democrats have relied on Cincinnati and Cleveland and Columbus. The problem is that these population centers just don't have the same number of voters that they used to and furthermore they can't negate a massive groundswell of support for a nativist candidate.

I was hoping that Florida and NC would deliver but I guess the weakening of the VRA under the Roberts court might've prevented that.

Anyway I'm going to go to bed and try to figure out how to tell my daughter that the candidate she was supporting lost.
posted by vuron at 12:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Wonder what B Obama is thinking now?

His heart is breaking. As is mine--for him, for Michelle, and for HC.

And for my ten-year-old daughter, who filled out the bubble for HC at the polling place this afternoon, while I told her she was helping to elect the first woman president.

I have to wake her up in the morning and tell her Trump is going to be president. I want to throw up.
posted by torticat at 12:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [35 favorites]

I heard "Jail Obama!" if that makes it any better.

It actually does.

Dear God.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 12:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Secretariat and the big bronze bust?

Omg

What have we done.

We elected Caligula is what we done.
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

I really really needed to not have to listen to Trump anymore. I've had a year of increasing anxiety and depression as the election has ground on and gotten worse. Now his fucking stupid face is going to be on television constantly.

why

why
whyhwywhwywhwh

fuc it

i'm going to try to sleep
posted by Scattercat at 12:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 12:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

lol with the extra "thank you to Mike Pence [because I basically forgot about him]" at the end.
posted by zachlipton at 12:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Most qualified woman in the world loses to the least qualified man in the world. In case If you were confused about what misogyny looks like.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 12:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [110 favorites]

Two or three years?
posted by Golden Eternity at 12:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

And it's "You Can't Always Get What You Want" at the end. That's it. That's the last even. I was saving one. But nope. Evenless.
posted by zachlipton at 12:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [19 favorites]

You can't always get what you want plays.

SERIOUSLY???
posted by TWinbrook8 at 12:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Is it logistically possible for Obama to decommission our entire nuclear arsenal in 9 weeks?
posted by anastasiav at 12:06 AM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

OMG Omerosa.
posted by Golden Eternity at 12:06 AM on November 9, 2016

This is honestly the best speech Trump has ever given, by a ridiculous degree, which just on its own is pretty weird.
posted by Blasdelb at 12:06 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Is it logistically possible for Obama to decommission our entire nuclear arsenal in 9 week?

I seriously hope they try.
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:07 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

God damn Lord, Trump was just introducing his murderer's row of evil - Guliani, Carson and their ilk. Jebus

Maybe that David Icke was right after all... there really are shapeshifting reptilain humanoids... I swear I got a glimpse of some of them standing on that stage close to Trump.
posted by Mister Bijou at 12:08 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

He never acknowledged Pence until the very end as an afterthought.
posted by peeedro at 12:08 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

aw hell, I'd forgotten the Supreme Court for a few minutes.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 12:08 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Van Jones, Near Tears on CNN: This Is a ‘Deeply Painful Moment’ in America

People have talked about a miracle. I'm hearing about a nightmare. It's hard to be a parent tonight for a lot of us. You tell your kids, don't be a bully. You tell your kids, don't be a bigot. You tell your kids, do your homework and be prepared. And then you have this outcome and you have people putting children to bed tonight. And they're afraid of breakfast. They're afraid of, "how do I explain this to my children?"

I have Muslim friends, who are texting me tonight, saying, "Should I leave the country?" I have families of immigrants that are terrified tonight. This was many things. This was a rebellion against the elites, true. It was a complete reinvention of politics and polls, it's true. But it was also something else.

We've talked about race--I mean, we've talked about everything but race tonight. We've talked about income, we've talked about class, we've talked about region. We haven't talked about race. This was a whitelash. This was a whitelash against a changing country. It was a whitelash against a black president, in part, and that's the part where the pain comes. And Donald Trump has a responsibility tonight to come out and reassure people that he is going to be the president of all the people who he insulted and offended and brushed aside.

Yeah, when you say you want to take your country back, you've got a lot of people who feel that we're not represented well either. But we don't want to feel that someone has been elected by throwing away some of us to appeal more deeply than others. So this is a deeply painful moment tonight. I know it's not just about race. There's more going on than that, but race is here too and we gotta talk about it.

posted by kirkaracha at 12:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [43 favorites]

It's more feasible for Obama to institute what amounts to Nuclear Veto Power by requiring first strikes to be approved by someone else in the chain of command.
posted by SansPoint at 12:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

Maybe that David Icke was right after all... there really are shapeshifting reptilain humanoids... I swear I got a glimpse of some of them standing on that stage close to Trump.

Those are just his oldest sons. They're human, unfortunately.
posted by SansPoint at 12:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I should have known things were so much worse than we hoped. Having to rely on courts for LGBT rights, the governorships, social media movements like Gamergate and the Rabid Puppies. I just wanted to believe that overall things were getting better.

But this is our reality for the next 12-16 years; social progress is a myth, the haters won. I just don't have any hope right now.
posted by happyroach at 12:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

.
posted by thinman at 12:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

There are fucker among us. Look around ye.
posted by holgate at 12:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

An American Tragedy (David Remnick, New Yorker)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 12:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

“The Republican Party can no longer be considered the home for conservatives,” McMullin said. “Conservatism is about protecting the fundamental rights

A handful of Senators going Independent in affiliation and caucusing with the opposition would speak a lot louder than the voice of one third party candidate crying in the wilderness.

And if sympathetic Senators, perhaps from McMullin's religious/cultural cohort, might think that the horse Evan rode into the limelight was a white one rather than a dark one, now would be a good time to convince them.

My breath, it is not held.
posted by weston at 12:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Liberals put him there. couldn't agree more.
posted by deadwax at 12:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

It's more feasible for Obama to institute what amounts to Nuclear Veto Power by requiring first strikes to be approved by someone else in the chain of command.

Ooh, can he do that? In a way that Trump can't revoke by executive order?
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 12:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

What was that battle in the middle ages where a tiny force outflanked a much larger force spread out in a line, and routed them? Then the losing general, who was the Queen's brother, said "I can't believe it!" I feel like that guy.
posted by Coventry at 12:11 AM on November 9, 2016

It's more feasible for Obama to institute what amounts to Nuclear Veto Power by requiring first strikes to be approved by someone else in the chain of command.

Anything Obama can order, Trump can un-order.

The only way to ensure that Donald Trump does not gain access to weapons that can destroy the world is to physically decommission the nuclear arsenal.
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:11 AM on November 9, 2016

@srosenholtz
Most qualified woman in the world loses to the least qualified man in the world. In case If you were confused about what misogyny looks like
posted by chris24 at 12:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Is it logistically possible for Obama to decommission our entire nuclear arsenal in 9 weeks?
posted by anastasiav at 12:06 AM on November 9 [+] [!]

I don't want to think that it's something he must try.

Can you imagine every single CIA/NSA Spook who is going to have to interact with Trump for the next four years? (Many of these people are 'smart'.) How are they going to deal with...

There are things that need to get done, the President can't do it all (obviously) so his cabinet becomes ... and we're looking at Giuliani and Christie? Does Howard (Stern) get a post too?

This is so ... making the rounds here (Germany) people are tweeting/facebooking

"11/9"
posted by From Bklyn at 12:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

I can't believe we're seriously having this conversation. Fucking surreal.
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Yeah so. I bought some American beer to drink tonight and when things started going bad and I felt sick with dread I stopped. Then I said screw it and started again. And no offense but this is the last American beer I can drink for a while. It was supposed to be in honor of a celebration and well..Bud is forever going to be connected with tonight. I'm gonna finish this last one and hopefully it will be enough for me to just conk out. I can't sleep.

I also know I need to cry, like really cry and I can't cry. I'm not angry either and I should be. I'm just numb. Just emotionally numb. I've already called my sisters just to say I love you. And a bunch of other people I've haven't talked to in years have reached out through social media and we're all feeling the same thing.

My only other solace is that I have here because frankly besides my own family and friends this is the only place, and especially an online place that feels remotely safe right now.

I feel like I've stepped through a portal into another world where I don't know the rules anymore. There are no rules. Just gone. I dunno. This is just right fucked up.
posted by Jalliah at 12:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Most qualified woman in the world loses to the least qualified man in the world. In case If you were confused about what misogyny looks like

I know, I've been alternating between tears and rage.
posted by torticat at 12:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I feel like I've stepped through a portal into another world where I don't know the rules anymore.

Seen on FB: We're living in the "Upside Down" (from Stranger Things) now...
posted by TwoStride at 12:15 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

71 days to OD on coke.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 12:15 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Why did he say two years? He looked like a person surprised their plan worked and they already want out of it. What a joke.
posted by systematize at 12:15 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I need to either 1) wait for my feelings to cycle around, or 2) go to sleep immediately after posting something optimistic, because I've worked myself all the way around to a despairing numbness again and I don't know what to do.

I don't know how to talk to anyone about this.
posted by Salieri at 12:16 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Welcome to the America your grandparents talked about

Quick note from Balkan: ugly things happen in other places, to other people, until they're suddenly happening to you. Take this seriously. (via dingsbums)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 12:17 AM on November 9, 2016 [24 favorites]

Talking about people who "just didn't like Hillary"

it's like saying "I don't like my care, so I won't get the brakes fixed." And then continuing to drive.
posted by From Bklyn at 12:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

I'm sitting here turning the phrase "President Trump" over and over in my mind. It's got the mindfeel of whacking a puppy with a meat tenderizer. It's just so, so damn wrong on so many levels. I thought we had hit bottom with Dubya. Tonight I learned there is no bottom. There's just down, down, farther down.
posted by bryon at 12:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Also what a FUCKING LYING BAG OF SHIT. That speech he just gave was so 100% different from how he ever campaigned. "People of all colors," "his or her potential," bring all Americans together, my fucking ass. Oh and "WE did this, not I. WE." Thanks DT for finally admitting it's not all you; and to all the WE he was addressing, fuck you too.

Etch-a-sketch indeed.
posted by torticat at 12:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

I haven't watched any television broadcasts of the end of this process, because I don't want to see a confirmation of the fact that this result is something that an actual real country in the world I live in would vote for and actually want to happen. So I will take your anecdotes and assertions that this is a thing that is actually happening to be factual descriptions.
posted by chococat at 12:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

We gotta get our THACO up.
posted by clavdivs at 12:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

I've never been out of favorites before.

I can't sleep. I keep almost dozing, only to wake up again when I realize this is real.

I'm terrified. This is so incredibly worse than anyone could imagine.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 12:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

The long eighteenth century, 1688–2016, is finally over. Everywhere. Historians will debate only whether it ended on 23 June or 8 November. James II is back on the throne.
posted by Sonny Jim at 12:20 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

Liberals put him there. couldn't agree more.

Really, are we already are starting the blame game? Dude, seriously. It's gonna be a long 4 years. Let's keep our shit together, cause we are gonna have be in a total Testudo formation in order to fend off every fucking thing the Republicans are going to try on federal, state, local, social, mental, and personal levels. I've already heard fireworks being released in my neighborhood. Stop with the FUCKING infighting and start thinking of ways to oppose this.
posted by FJT at 12:20 AM on November 9, 2016 [44 favorites]

Fuck. Where are the mods when everyone needs [more than] a hug!?
posted by Namlit at 12:20 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm in the Midtown Hilton on the penthouse floor in my room by myself. I can't tell but something seems to be going on outside. I can hear screaming and sirens.
posted by Alison at 12:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

So what happens now for Paddy Power, the Irish bookmaker that payed out early for Clinton bets?
posted by MrFTBN at 12:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

What a time to be alive.
posted by ZipRibbons at 12:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

How many Supreme court picks does he realistically have? Scalia's seat is open and how long can RBG hold out?
posted by PenDevil at 12:22 AM on November 9, 2016

Oh, god. What's he going to do to the Oval Office?

it's like saying "I don't like my care, so I won't get the brakes fixed." And then continuing to drive.

To continue the analogy: When I hear "We need someone who's not a politician," I think "I've been screwed over by mechanics before, so I'm only having dentists work on my car from now on."
posted by dirigibleman at 12:22 AM on November 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

Going to bed before I go into a full-on rage tirade. I didn't follow these threads along with all of you, but condolences for enduring a devastating evening. Especially to those of you who may have had a specific, personal, fear-inducing stake in this election. :) :) Please keep your heads up.
posted by torticat at 12:23 AM on November 9, 2016

Paddy Power pays out the Trump bets, too. IIRC their Presidential election handle is a fraction of their handle on a very ho-hum premiership match, so not a big issue for them.
posted by MattD at 12:23 AM on November 9, 2016

It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.

Assata taught me this.
posted by koeselitz at 12:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Scalia's seat is open and how long can RBG hold out?

honestly if i have to sacrifice 1 million innocents to satan himself i will ensure that rbg lives forever

there's prolly a million third party voters in the tri state area right
posted by poffin boffin at 12:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

ooh staten island
posted by poffin boffin at 12:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

Ronnie didn't have the itchy fingers that Donnie does, though.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 12:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Here's some scary for you... First Lady Ivanka Trump. She's like the anti-Jackie Kennedy.
posted by gideonswann at 12:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

From way up thread: In light of this victory what does this say about the Obama presidency? Did he win off a population tenatively reaching out for liberal values or one just fatigued with Iraq/Afghanistan and the associated GWB presidency?

What it says to me is that Shrub was an amiable dog-whistler, but when he didn't get around to actually outlawing abortion and Teh Ghey and making all schoolkids read the Ten Commandments every morning and learn about how Jesus rode dinosaurs and making it a federal crime for a black man to look at a white woman and shutting down welfare so "those people" had to "actually work for once in their lives" and the Iraq thing wasn't a 90-day videogame wonder like the first Gulf War, a whole bunch of white people lost interest in politics. Maybe a few voted for Obama hoping he would magically restore their coal or steel or whatever jobs, and when he didn't they got mad.

Then Trump shows up saying in public everything they'd said in private for years, and those motherfuckers crawled out from under their rocks.
posted by soundguy99 at 12:25 AM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

Funnily enough the idea of trump being president and Clinton NOT being president hit me in two emotionally separate gut punches.

I hear there's a reset button on the bottom of the washington monument, and if you hold it down with a paperclip for ten seconds America resets to the beginning, it's worth a shot
posted by Rinku at 12:25 AM on November 9, 2016 [33 favorites]

I have to wonder what's going to happen to media now, once the corporations see which way the wind is blowing. Is Steven Universe going to be canceled? Will Kamela Khan disappear? Will all the LGBT artists and writers I follow find it too dangerous to show their work? This may sound trivial, but think of this as the canary in the voal mine.

The internet was already an unsafe place for anyone who wasn't a straight white male. Now with a racist misogynist in power, there may be no more safe spaces.
posted by happyroach at 12:26 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Here's some scary for you... First Lady Ivanka Trump.

Step 1: Pardon her for visa violations and green-card fraud.
posted by mikelieman at 12:26 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

i know it's easy to confuse it, since he behaves very creepily around her, but ivanka is his daughter. melania is his wife and therefore the first lady.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:26 AM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

Trump's popular vote lead is down to 750k from 1.0m and California still has another million five or two million to deliver to Clinton. It's possible the final result will be less than 1.5m+ for Clinton nationally but also possible it will still be closer to 2. We won't know for quite a long time though Clinton should pass him fairly soon.
posted by Justinian at 12:26 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Why? The other major nuclear power is Russia and we are I presume fast friends now.

Oh, I get it now. We're living in some weird Watchmen echo universe.
posted by Apocryphon at 12:27 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

i know it's easy to confuse it, since he behaves very creepily around her, but ivanka is his daughter. melania is his wife and therefore the first lady.

I got burned by it too, apparently.
posted by mikelieman at 12:28 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

The long eighteenth century, 1688–2016, is finally over. Everywhere. Historians will debate only whether it ended on 23 June or 8 November. James II is back on the throne.

Yeah, that's sort of what I was thinking - that we had...well, I was thinking of it as the long 19th century, but we might as well say the long 18th. And now it's done. We had a sort of historical period where democratic expansion had the most traction, even though it was always a fight. And that's been in decay since 1989, and now it's finally exhausted.

I just genuinely don't know what's going to happen. The left is going to fragment over this, too, such as we are, because we'll be busy blaming each other. Blaming women, for one thing. It's not that there's no point in trying to understand what went wrong, it's that this process will fragment us because of the stakes.
posted by Frowner at 12:28 AM on November 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

poffin boffin, get out of here you kidder
posted by gideonswann at 12:28 AM on November 9, 2016

And not all Americans survived Reagan.
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:28 AM on November 9, 2016 [25 favorites]

I am having actual serious difficulty believing this is real.
posted by corb at 12:28 AM on November 9, 2016 [43 favorites]

We survived Reagan.
posted by goofyfoot at 12:29 AM on November 9, 2016

Oh, I get it now. We're living in some weird Watchmen echo universe.

Next four years is going to be a grand time to be a dystopian writer.
posted by mikelieman at 12:29 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Just as a quick note to remind folks that for brief existential screams of anguish mefi chat is open, so we are deleting a lot of stuff that's just like "Fuck!" etc., not because we disagree, but just to keep this somewhat readable. Hugs to everyone, and please let's delay blame game stuff and similar until later. We'll have plenty of time to dissect it all when nerves are a bit steadier; for now, please be kind to each other and yourselves. We'll get through it all together.
posted by taz (staff) at 12:29 AM on November 9, 2016 [32 favorites]

Yes; but the Brexit referendum is different to an election between two candidates, one of which will have won.

In some important ways yes, in other equally important ways no. Brexit was a vote for isolationism, for fear of the other, for denying the role immigration has on building a nation, for denying the culpability and responsibility an imperialist nation has on accepting refugees, for fuck-you-I've-got-mine, and for fuck-you-I-no-longer-have-mine-and-it's-your fault. Trump said "they'll call me Mr Brexit" for more reasons than I think he was aware.

I'm so sorry for you guys, and as someone who watched in horror on Jun 23, and woke up on Jun 24th feeling like I was finally, definitively, no longer a part of the country I grew up in, and is going through a horribly similar echo of those feelings right now, I get it.

But I still believe you'll get through this.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:29 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

And not all Americans survived Reagan.
and vice versa
posted by Namlit at 12:30 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I can't wait for him to start walking back building the wall (he will because it's literally fucking impossible), cause when he does, that's going to play real great with all the Trumpatchniks around here.
posted by Chrischris at 12:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

None of the liberal justices will retire under Trump. Ginsburg is 83 and Breyer is 78 ... so at least some chance of either's passing during Trump's term.

It gets more interesting with Kennedy and Thomas. Kennedy is 81 -- but probably thinks that Trump's Justice wish list is too right-wing to be happy to retire. Would need to be some kind of handshake on a more moderate replacement. Thomas is 68, and doesn't seem to enjoy being on the Court much -- maybe he'd like to retire when still young enough to enjoy retirement. He presumably loves Trump's list.
posted by MattD at 12:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm just so worried - is this going to be like Brexit where we have a surge of racist violence? I live in mostly non-white, substantially Muslim part of town; I feel so worried about my neighbors, who don't exactly have it easy at the best of times. I always thought London, for example, was pretty cosmopolitan, and then everyone on here was telling all these stories about white Londoners hassling any Londoners of color or even just dark-haired people. And Minneapolis isn't London.
posted by Frowner at 12:33 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

I'm wondering how much Team Racism-Misogyny can gut Obamacare without getting pushback from the electorate?
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:33 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I can't wait for him to start walking back building the wall (he will because it's literally fucking impossible), cause when he does, that's going to play real great with all the Trumpatchniks around here.

You'll never hear about it again, since he never said that.
posted by mikelieman at 12:33 AM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

I realize that I would be scared and worried but I wouldn't be terrified to the level of my inner being if you all didn't have frikken nukes. Not to be a downer or anything. I'm just not sure how in the hell I'm going to deal with that fear and act like life is the same and go on with normal plans for the future blah blah.

I'll be honest. I hope that Donald fucks up so royally some how and goes away. I know how horrible Pence is but I don't feel like he's going to get mad and nuke someone.
posted by Jalliah at 12:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

I get that, and Reagan-Thatcher-Chicago Boys-the '80s brought us neoliberalism and basically led to the economic world order we see today. Which includes Trump. But the point is, Reagan as president was also a surreal and insane and criminal and surreally criminally insane time, but the United States didn't fall apart. So I mean, yes brace yourselves but this isn't the end yet.
posted by Apocryphon at 12:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

I can't wait for him to start walking back building the wall (he will because it's literally fucking impossible)

With drone automation it's totally feasible to make the border much harder to sneak across. Probably even fairly cheap.
posted by Coventry at 12:34 AM on November 9, 2016

Yes, ideologically Brexit and Trumpism share many commonalities; but specifically regarding what it looks like to oppose Brexit post-referendum vs. opposing the results of the election of (my god, I can't believe it still) Trump as President is a different level of worm-can opening.

The UK parliament is supreme and can still legally not go through with Brexit. Whereas Trump (again, my God!) appears to have been legally elected and to cast doubt on that would cause, at the very least, a constitutional crisis and quite possibly armed conflict.
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:35 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

That shining city on a hill... look closer, it's surrounded with razor wire.
posted by 2N2222 at 12:35 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

America survived Reagan, who not only was far more popular, senile, and had perhaps ideologically crazier advisors, but was in office when we were in a nuclear rivalry with Russia. At least the last might be mitigated somewhat. The U.S. has been through crazy shit again. Take the lessons from the last time and use it to survive

I think you're trying to be comforting, but Reagan's time in office did horrible damage to the fabric of our country in ways that we have not yet even begun to recover from, including but not limited to the complete shutdown of our government's mental health apparatus (which is having all kinds of echoes, probably including at least some of the horrific shootings that seem to occur every couple of weeks) and of course the further entrenchment and expansion of wealth inequality. Your post reads a bit like "I know you still haven't healed from that gunshot wound, but you haven't died yet, so you'll probably survive this one too."
posted by IAmUnaware at 12:36 AM on November 9, 2016 [53 favorites]

Reagan as president was also a surreal and insane and criminal and surreally criminally insane time, but the United States didn't fall apart. So I mean, yes brace yourselves but this isn't the end yet.

Perspective:

Wavy Gravy

I have survived a Nixon, a ray gun and assorted
Bushes and I say unto you that this too shall pass, Some fine day we will dump the gobbledygook that is the electoral
College and go with popular vote,
Until then stay in the light and keep on keepin on,

Wavy g,

posted by mikelieman at 12:36 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

This is much worse than Reagan or Bush Jr.
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:36 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Eight years ago I sent warm congratulations to my American friends and delighted in the exuberance of post-election Metafilter. This year I send my heartfelt wishes for the well being of each and every one of you.
posted by Thella at 12:37 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

I will love it if Trump was President and the Wall of Mexico turned out to be his "read my lips: no new taxes."
posted by rhizome at 12:37 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

kos is in it for the long haul
posted by j_curiouser at 12:37 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

And not all Americans survived Reagan.

And the ones who died of AIDS did so largely out-of-sight and unmourned by much of the country, and it was many years before their deaths were rightfully laid at his feet. That's how we'll die in President Trump's America. In hate crimes he's encouraged. Of slow poisoning, like the children in Flint. Of hunger and untreated illnesses. In workplace accidents without justice. Shot by an emboldened and untouchable police force. Alone and unmourned.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 12:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [79 favorites]

Reagan ignored the AIDS crisis for years so yes, people did die.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 12:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

We survived Reagan.
Not yet. When he killed the alternative energy industry and pumped up the fossil fuel business, he essentially started us on the Climate Change path we are only starting to really feel the effects of now, and which the best efforts of a President who is NOT Trump may be unable to save us from. All Trump can do is accelerate the timetable to disaster, but it was back then that I made the personal decision not to bring any children into this world, a decision that is looking increasingly wiser.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [38 favorites]

The wall is ridiculous and impossible, but "ridiculous plan for stopping illegal immigration" isn't even in the top 10 list of problems with a Trump victory. Maybe not top 50. It's symbolic though.
posted by Justinian at 12:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

And I mean that's before the inevitable nuclear winter!
posted by Snarl Furillo at 12:39 AM on November 9, 2016

WORST ELECTION EVER
posted by philip-random at 12:39 AM on November 9, 2016 [23 favorites]

The Wall of Mexico was a metaphor for xenophobia. There will still be plenty of undocumented people around. They'll just be persecuted more.
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:39 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I avoided news and the horse race all day until 9pm when I was driving out to my Mom's, where the news would no doubt be cranked up to 11, and on the radio I flipped past a Mexican station who, between songs, threw out the EV count around 244/204. I was like "well there just has to be a bunch more states to count." I still can't believe this is happening, and it will be a while for me to accept "President Trump" if in fact it comes to pass.
posted by rhizome at 12:39 AM on November 9, 2016

I am legit shaking from fear and anger here. Wow. I thought the country was better than this.

This Buzzfeed article on scientists freaking out pretty much describes everyone I know, and there are a lot of people looking into extending foreign grad student or postdoc stints, or starting foreign job searches. We are terrified.
posted by ubersturm at 12:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

All I have to say tonight is that I am fucking angry.

And I am not going to let this racist, misogynist bullshit tsunami that's coming crush me. I am not going to let it bury my loved ones. And I sure as hell am not going to let decades of sacrifice for basic freedoms and dignity go under. I will not stand for it.

I'm gay and Latina and every damn day is enough of a struggle as it is. So you better believe this means I'm going to be the loudest hell-raising bulldyke this miserable world has ever seen.
posted by otenba at 12:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [59 favorites]

I'm just so worried - is this going to be like Brexit where we have a surge of racist violence?

I would be honestly surprised if there isn't. We saw how his racist supporters were emboldened at his rallies; Trump's victory won't have made them more peaceful. Law enforcement in the USA is executed by a million separate jurisdictions and it's a fair bet that some of them will be inclined to turn (another) blind eye.

The question is whether the racist violence is ultimately put down, and whether it gets blamed on the perpetrators or the victims. If the latter, then things may get very bad indeed.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

If this was some Watchmen alternative universe, I'd be getting laid. This one is just cold, dark and lonely.
posted by Sphinx at 12:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

More as a note to myself, but I ran out of favorites about 1230, but so many of you are saying things that I appreciate and would favorite if I could. I'm so glad we're all here together.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 12:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

We survived Reagan.

The uncritical veneration of the super-rich that Reagan ushered in is how Trump became famous in the first place.
posted by dirigibleman at 12:42 AM on November 9, 2016 [30 favorites]

Charlie Hebdo: Obama redevient un citoyen comme les autres. Superbe une de Charlie Hebdo par Juin.
posted by Golden Eternity at 12:42 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I too can't sleep, and my stomach is roiling, and I have to get on a plane at dark o'clock and go see my dying Wellesley College-centric mother who will be devastated. So I reached out my hand towards mr. carmicha, who saw Trump's victory coming and so lay sleeping, acclimated already, and touched our sweet cat instead. He murped at me and rolled onto his back so I could rub his belly, and he was so trusting and innocent that it broke my heart and I thought I was about to get the good cry I desperately need. But no. I can't comprehend it yet, but fur and a friendly kitty helps.
posted by carmicha at 12:42 AM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

Markets are already tanking. Trump scares the shit out of everyone, everywhere.
posted by Klaxon Aoooogah at 12:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best-case scenario before I crash (after ten hours of canvassing in vain in fucking Florida):

Trump looks at Obama's high approval rating and realizes his win was a rebuke of Clinton rather than an endorsement of Trumpism. To broaden his appeal, he sheds the overt bigotry and goes full populist, openly feuding with the perennially unpopular congress to fight for sorely-needed reform. Corporate America and the GOP are outraged, but they're steamrolled by a Trump/Sanders movement that actually succeeds in draining the swamp without too much collateral damage. National healthcare, public works, and basic income for all.
posted by Rhaomi at 12:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

The real thing is, "How do Trump appointees do with the Career Civil Service folk that do all the acutl government"?

Could be, not a heck of a lot gets done in the next couple of years.
posted by mikelieman at 12:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Can I say, "we have survived worse?" No. But I can say, we have never been more ready to face a fascist in office. And I can say, there are plenty of people who have survived worse, and we can learn from them.

Find your communities, your allies, and find ways to connect with them that aren't dependent on gov't approval. Probably we won't be seeing anything worse than the continued erosion of Roe v Wade, more poverty for the people who aren't already wealthy, and a reduction in health care, education, and general quality-of-life, with a side order of violent bigotry for everyone who's not in the privileged group. But there's a substantially non-zero chance that those won't be the limit, in which case...

Study the history of the civil rights movement: what worked, what didn't? What worked with a high cost in lives? Look at the 60's anti-war movement and the recent Occupy movement: a lot was pointless fluff, but some progress was made. (In the case of Occupy, "income disparity" wasn't even a point of discussion before 2011; it was an odd bit of economic statistics.) Study Europe, 1930-1945. (We're post-Godwin, right?) Figure out how he won, despite polls and debates and every tracker we had saying he was losing, because we can't take back our country if we don't know how we lost it.

Be thankful that we know damn well Trump doesn't do research and resists all efforts of other people to teach him; his first 100 days are less likely to be "I'm gonna do THIS and THIS and THIS" and more "I'm gonna... wait, whaddaya mean I can't use my phone?" and "I'm gonna... wtf is this camera thing doing? Doesn't that shut off?" and "I'm gonna... WHERE ARE YOU GOING I'M NOT DONE YET come back here I'm the President!"

Hold out tiny shreds of hope for faithless electors, but do not expect them to exist. Hold out more hope that the 2 lawsuits that kick off in Nov and Dec scramble things badly for him. Pence will happily drive the country back to the 1950s but he won't be driving it off a cliff.

Research all that astounding pre-WWW hacker methodology, which now can be done with astounding off-the-shelf tech. Make a pirate box for your friends, for fun. Build the Illuminati in your basement; unleash it on the world in 2018.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 12:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [43 favorites]

A market drop is a gift to Trump's friends.
posted by rhizome at 12:44 AM on November 9, 2016

Gold up; investors pulling out of the dollar and into the yen; Asian markets down but FTSE down but cautiously optimistic something something Trump promises to stimulate business (BBC)

What are the stages of grief?
posted by TWinbrook8 at 12:45 AM on November 9, 2016

Who even knows if there's going to be a federal budget, even the endless stream of CRs we've had under Obama?
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:45 AM on November 9, 2016

If nothing else this proves that the 2nd amendment worshippers arent interested in defending us against tyranny, just tyranny they don't inflict.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 12:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

I can't wait for him to start walking back building the wall (he will because it's literally fucking impossible)
When I first heard him propose his Great Wall of Trump, he as specifically talking about himself having the ability to build it, which clearly sounded to me like it was a construction job that would be handled by contractors he has a personal interest in. Cha-ching!! Even if he doesn't get more than a few miles of wall built, I'm sure he expects a profit from it in the Billions. The mass deportations he can't make money off, so that's where his enthusiasm will more likely trail off.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Please MeMail me if you find any credible writing about how Trump's campaign was thinking about this election from a strategic and organizational perspective. Really, really curious. I thought he had nothing.

He did have nothing. He fell right into a rich vein of white supremacy, and mined that shit all the way to the White House.
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [26 favorites]

Who even knows if there's going to be a federal budget, even the endless stream of CRs we've had under Obama?

Oh I assume there will be, but it will be a nightmare beyond certain specific areas (read: defense). The budget shutdown at least had the theoretical possibility of a positive resolution.
posted by ubersturm at 12:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

He did have nothing. He fell right into a rich vein of white supremacy, and mined that shit all the way to the White House.

That's true, but the RNC did have a strong operation in exactly the area Trump won the electoral college; the rust belt. Which they deployed with full force for their downballot races. This had the effect of bringing Trump voters to the polls.
posted by Justinian at 12:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Nah, you guys don't understand; they expect a literal wall. They will demand a literal wall.

And he'll tell them he built one and made Mexico pay for it, and they'll believe it because they believe every outlandish fucking thing he says with no evidence whatsoever.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

Anyway, this is all to weird and I feel like an alternate reality got flipped over by mistake. Hope everyone breathes easy soon.

And my brain is so numb and trying to find some sort of comfort that I'm having weird thoughts like 'oh hey, yeah multiple realities, this is the 'alternate' one, and right now there's another one where this didn't happen and there is another me so at least that version is having a good time'. (yes I know the beer isn't helping).

Which is really not good because I know damn well that I'm not the only one feeling disoriented in ways that they just not used to dealing with. People are going to need lots of coping help in the coming days and I'm not sure I'm up for it. I'm usually the coper helper type and I don't know if I can summon the emotional labor to do it anymore.
posted by Jalliah at 12:49 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Longtime lurker here who has read every comment in every election thread and finally signed up. I've been so moved by so many comments and it is devastating that this is how it ends. I wish I had something useful to say.

Perhaps it might be a good time for Podesta to leak government documents pertaining to the existence of aliens\ufos as he's wanted to do. Perhaps that could distract the Republicans from ruining the nation...see, nothing useful.
posted by Mayra in L.A. at 12:49 AM on November 9, 2016 [33 favorites]

Putin has sent congratulations to his puppet.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 12:50 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Somebody in all this was wondering if this news is what a terminal diagnosis feels like.

A doctor once told me I was probably terminal, and I can say that this does feel remarkably close. There's that crushing horror, that feeling that this simply can't be true, that it's too awful and strange to be real. Reality doesn't work like this. Things like this don't happen. And yet here we are. We actually elected that swollen sack of evil and put an absurd, orange Mussolini on the throne. There will be a Republican Congress and Senate, a Republican Supreme Court, Obamacare's gone, the right to choose is gone, there will be many more Katrinas. Rome is gonna burn, while Nero is busy having 3 AM Twitter wars.

Maybe we'll muddle through the next four years. But I think we may have doomed ourselves tonight. We may have doomed the whole fucking planet.

Maybe we all just got a terminal diagnosis.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 12:51 AM on November 9, 2016 [85 favorites]

this just popped up in my Facebook [warning: mention Bernie ... but in a fresh way]

Dear USA friends: Cheer up! I would like to suggest to you that Trump and Hillary have already both lost. Berni was right, his campaign was not about him. It's about you. You have a lot of work ahead of you. It follows that it's not about the losers that represent the two major parties, that the majority of you don't like, either. Don't get distracted by their bullshit. Be strategic. Don't let them manipulate your emotions. You are all actually doing a great job at seeing through the lies of the wealthy elite that corrupt your government. The war mongers are using your government to wage continual war on the whole world, including the part you stand on. The train wreck of this last election is evidence to the whole world, that the structure of your administration is breaking down and can not be re-built into anything that resembles what it was. You have actually made amazing progress if you take a long view. Voting is important but it is not what is changing your country. You can do that any time of year. You can do that all year long.
I support you in peace and the betterment of your selves and the world.
posted by philip-random at 12:53 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Racism, mysogyny, and fascism. As American as Mom and apple pie.

Stubbornly ineducable, proud of their ignorance. At this late date in the American democratic experiment these traits remain the hallmarks of half its people.

Three or five delighted leaps backward for every tenuous step forward. Our neighbors do not believe in the biblical nor constitutional tenets they proclaim. They reek of death and destruction as they opine about life.

How many times more must we rage in the ape cage before giving ourselves permission to embrace love and let go fear? When will the entire 99.99% of us abandon pretension of fitting into that .01% and just evolve past these selfish power games of death?

What in actual fuck happened at the end of 2012 when the Mayan calendar ended and we passed through the center of the galaxy???
posted by riverlife at 12:53 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Welcome, Mayra in L.A.

For my part, I am just flat-out drinking in numb despair. I had thought to jump on Overwatch to mindlessly shoot things (Reapers! And Mei. My great nemeses.) but someone above mentioned people cheering about Trump on there and suddenly that's palled. Any ideas for 'I need to think about something else, something light and not liable to make me think 'Oh god, my dude is going to be sent to war/death by this maniac'?
posted by pseudonymph at 12:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

The most promising aspect of Trump's success is that in ALL his previous endeavors, he let down and screwed over some if not all of the people he was depending on. So there's a solid likelihood that he'll abandon his racist followers as so much human baggage, and the unusually (for him) conciliatory tone of much of his victory speech tonight may be the first sign of that happening.

Well, as long as we're trying to be hopeful...
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:55 AM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

It may turn out to be bad, but I just can't get with the blood in the streets rhetoric yet. That's what they responded to.
posted by rhizome at 12:55 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Liberals put him there. couldn't agree more.

Look, I voted for Sanders in the primary too, partly on some of the same logic. But here's how you can tell his article is at least partly bullshit:

"The even larger problem is that there is a kind of chronic complacency that has been rotting American liberalism for years, a hubris that tells Democrats they need do nothing different, they need deliver nothing really to anyone."

Like. Hell.

Charges of overinvestment in the neoliberal consensus can be made to stick pretty easily, given that the whole damn country is at least a little invested in it (and anyone with more than modest success is more likely to push a camel through the eye of a needle than abandon it) and no matter who takes office they are going to face powerful calls to answer to that portion of their constituency.

But it is not hard to find substantial discussion of things Clinton (let alone all Democrats) want to deliver in terms of safety net, labor protection, education, health care, whatever. If that's what you want to talk about, instead of vague aspersions about emails and donations to a charitable foundation.

Could the Democrats have run a different candidate? Yeah. Maybe we should have. Clearly I thought so when I cast my ballot for Sanders in the primary. But it would have been one where a lot of the daylight between them was symbolic, and not likely one more talented or caring in either coming up with policy and doing what it took to deliver.

And maybe that wouldn't have made a difference. Or maybe Sander's albatross would have been endless handwringing over his age, his Jewishness, his moonbat socialism instead of vague shade about emails and donations to a charitable foundation, and the election was always going to be about identity politics and racism rather than class once Trump made it on day one about race.
posted by wildblueyonder at 12:55 AM on November 9, 2016 [28 favorites]

Running out the clock on the SCOTUS nom now looks like a brilliant move. We don't move forward as a nation after tonight, not in my lifetime. The end of the American Century.
posted by Slap*Happy at 12:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Oh, I am here and I can definitely tell you that shit is going horribly wrong.
posted by gingerbeer at 12:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Could the Democrats have run a different candidate? Yeah. Maybe we should have. Clearly I thought so when I cast my ballot for Sanders in the primary. But it would have been one where a lot of the daylight between them was symbolic

Precisely! Biden may well have won this election (we'll never know for certain obviously) but he's actually less liberal than Clinton.

This election was not won or lost on policy. It was won on nativism and xenophobia.
posted by Justinian at 12:58 AM on November 9, 2016 [46 favorites]

Full steam backwards.

All these frightened, angry white people are going to have a rude awakening when the twin realisations that things are never going back to the way they were and that AI automation is bound to decimate what's left of their niche. Donald can do nothing for them except placate them with the blood of Other people's misfortune.
posted by flippant at 12:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

2016 continues on with it's low, murderous slog. Annus horribilis indeed. This particular Canadian has watched in horror as an out and out racist has become president. My sympathies for all of you, I am really still in a state of shock and I can't quite seem to find the words here.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 1:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah the markets aren't some crazy nonsense, it's literally a matter of can my parents afford to retire or will I ever own an apartment or how will I take care of my family if I can't work for a lot of people. I know that simply having savings puts someone in a privileged position in this country, and concerns about money utterly pale in comparison to the very real fears people have for their safety right now, but yeah, it's reasonable to be concerned about people's retirement accounts and college funds, whatever their size.
posted by zachlipton at 1:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

Trump had no plan - as the Archdruid Report pointed out (and has been pointing out for months, and I really, REALLY wanted him to be wrong), he tapped into a well of rage and despair that affluent liberals don't understand, and by "affluent," I'm including minimum-wage workers in the SF Bay Area, who have access to a surfeit of cultural and social wealth even when they're couch-surfing or living in cardboard boxes.

Even among Trump’s most diehard supporters, it’s common to find people who cheerfully admit that Trump might not change things enough to matter; it’s just that when times are desperate enough—and out here in the flyover states, they are—a leap in the dark is preferable to the guaranteed continuation of the unendurable.

We knew this - we'd heard it from many directions, many sources - and ignored it, either because we didn't want to believe they were *really* that desperate, or because we didn't believe enough of them were. Or maybe we did, and didn't have any answers, any serious hope to offer them that things would get better... Hillary made a lot of promises in that direction, but none that could reach past decades of being lied to and watching their lives get worse.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 1:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

About the markets, New York bourgeoisie, etc:

The thing about the markets tanking is that the complex of financial stuff that produces a market collapse has a bad effect on jobs in all kinds of ways. It's not "the markets have collapsed, my million dollar stock portfolio lost value". Also, there's a lot of people whose retirement - such as it is - is in the markets. Everyone's 401K, pension funds, etc - that's all the markets. Such working class people as have union or state pension funds - that's all markets. I have a union gig (and expect a wave of deunionization after the Supreme Court hears the big fair-share case next year, too) and in 2008 our pension fund took a huge hit.

With a right wing president, we can presumably write off Social Security as an entitlement, too, so that's always something. I mean, on one hand it's spoiled to think "oh, instead of maybe being able to squeak out a retirement on social security and my pension, now I will work until I die, if I'm lucky", but I'm thinking that and it isn't making me any happier.
posted by Frowner at 1:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

It's like America held a bedshitting contest and then everyone was shocked when America shit the bed?

Half of the U.S. voted against the Donald, and the other half voted against the Hillary. How could this possibly have a good ending?
posted by BYiro at 1:01 AM on November 9, 2016

Ha ha: On electoral-vote.com:

Are you unhappy with the election results?

If you are thinking of leaving the country and happen to be a college senior majoring in computer science who is interested in doing an English-language masters at one of the top universities in Europe (in beautiful and exciting Amsterdam), then click here.

posted by Coventry at 1:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Sorry for any confusion, but a few deleted. Concern about the markets is definitely connected to the welfare of regular people. Please don't start fights about "the bourgeoisie."
posted by taz (staff) at 1:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

With a right wing president, we can presumably write off Social Security as an entitlement, too

This would require nuking the filibuster. Call me naive but I am still, even now, not sure the Republicans will cross that Rubicon.
posted by Justinian at 1:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

So there's a solid likelihood that he'll abandon his racist followers as so much human baggage

And why not? It's what Democrats do to the further-left, I can see it being a perfect Achilles Heel for Republicans. The US Right has not had a version of hippie-punching to my knowledge, and the Republican Party would probably have no defense for that strategy, and it would certainly fit with Trump's apparent, "no strategy" strategy. I mean, why have one if all you have to do is stoke fires. It was the "blah blah GINGER" of campaigns. The party apparatus essentially left him alone to do whatever, which made things easier for him to take it over.
posted by rhizome at 1:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm not trying to minimize Trump, partly because I have no bloody idea of what he actually wants. The man has always been masks and masks. He was for UHC and immigration reform once. He says all types of shit. But I think on the issue of WWIII- well, yes, his ego and temper are considerable. But who would he even start a war with? If he really is crypto-KGB, then why would he attack his Russian benefactors? Why would he attack their Iranian allies? So- China? With whom he has all sorts of business ties to? Maybe in some sort of dickwaving over the South China Sea (Duterte vs. Trump?)? I mean, yes, it's risky that such an unknown, temperamental person is in the Oval Office. But, what's the scenario here even.
posted by Apocryphon at 1:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Trump will probably be most interested in being a ceremonial president. My real fear is that a Republican Congress will be running the country.
posted by fuzz at 1:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [19 favorites]

This is a nice thought, and i'm going to think about it a whole lot tonight, in a deliberate attempt to just shut out the horror until tomorrow, when I can summon some strength and 'aight, let's get back to it':

WeRateDogs™ @dog_rates 6h
PSA: DOGS WILL STILL EXIST IN THE MORNING
posted by pseudonymph at 1:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

Call me naive but I am still, even now, not sure the Republicans will cross that Rubicon.

You are naive.
posted by 0xFCAF at 1:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I'm not trying to minimize Trump, partly because I have no bloody idea of what he actually wants.

I dunno either, but based on my observations of his words and actions, he seems to want a) self-aggrandizement at all costs and b) vengeance against anyone who doesn't cooperate with his acquisition of a).
posted by FelliniBlank at 1:06 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

I just realized... Reid is out. Who is going to be Senate Minority Leader. They may well be the only person standing between us and ruin. I'm not sure there has ever been a more important minority party election for leadership.

Schumer maybe? I like him but I don't know... god I wish Reid were staying. The man is a rock whether you liked his actions during the Obamacare negotiations or not.
posted by Justinian at 1:06 AM on November 9, 2016

The only microscopic upside of Trump's vengefulness is that Paul Ryan may be in for some good, funny times, and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
posted by FelliniBlank at 1:08 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Literally my only consolation right now is that I'm not sure the GOP even has an agenda and I feel it's somewhat likely they will be happy just de-regulating things and cutting taxes on the wealthy.

Compared to nuclear war, internment camps, civil war, holocaust 2.0 etc, I would be shockingly happy with that outcome.
posted by annekate at 1:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yes Justinian, it's going to be Schumer.
posted by Uncle Ira at 1:10 AM on November 9, 2016

The truly depressing thing to me is that I don't think Trump has to do much to make the far right happy. They're delirious now and they will stay delirious with joy as long as he emboldens them to strut around triumphing over all whom they see as lesser. And they've already got far more freedom than they ever imagined to do that.

Trump can screw them over five ways to hell and they will still revere him.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 1:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I feel it's somewhat likely they will be happy just de-regulating things and cutting taxes on the wealthy.

I don't think anyone has an actual plan at this point; Trump's too erratic for anything beyond their baseline. How many times did he change campaign managers?

How many Secretaries of State are we expecting in the next few years?
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 1:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

One of Trump's main points in his acceptance speech was his plan for a lot of public works. I could easily see that passing Congress since Dems will support it.
posted by ropeladder at 1:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Friend said he would quit his job and dedicate his time to the California secession movement if Trump won. Got his BCC'ed resignation letter an hour ago and I still can't comprehend this is actually happening.
posted by idealist at 1:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [35 favorites]

The analysis on Electoral Vote is excellent.
posted by Coventry at 1:15 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

One of Trump's main points in his acceptance speech was his plan for a lot of public works. I could easily see that passing Congress since Dems will support it.

Possibly, I'm not convinced they wouldn't tie it to tax cuts and such for the wealthy. Would Democrats swallow that pill?
posted by Justinian at 1:15 AM on November 9, 2016

I said it earlier before the results were in, but: Godspeed to our country, our fellow countrypeople, and the world at large.
posted by gucci mane at 1:17 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I went to sleep and they were about to call Florida for Clinton. What is this reality?
posted by angrycat at 1:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Still trying to grasp this.

(From Electoral Vote linked above)

everything we thought we knew about campaigning was apparently in error. Conventions? Don't matter. Debates? Don't matter. Endorsements? Don't matter. High-profile defections? Don't matter. Missteps? Don't matter? Commercials? Don't matter. Ground game? Doesn't matter. An All-Star team of campaign surrogates, including one former president, one sitting president, and a wildly popular first lady? Doesn't matter. The "blue wall"? Not a thing. [...]

What will Trump's relationship with the GOP be like? Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) held him at arm's length, he clashed with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) was nothing but disdainful, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) slammed Trump at his own convention. Meanwhile, there are going to be plenty of new officeholders who owe their jobs to Trump's coattails.

posted by TWinbrook8 at 1:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

Jesus Christ, I'm now officially sincerely nostalgic for the good ol' days of Nixon.
posted by FelliniBlank at 1:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Reminder to everyone that now would be a good time to reify your IRL non-electronic social networks, chatting face to face with friends and establishing safe words and signals when discussing potentially-sensitive information.

On that note, any Boston area mefits up for an IRL commiserating meetup?

I've been making friends on FB from PN and I would welcome any Texas Mefites as FB friends as well. I'm disabled and don't leave the house all that often, but I do own land and if the apocalypse happens I will let you come camp on it.
posted by threeturtles at 1:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

While we're laughing at America for something like 48% of it voting for Trump, can we save some scorn for the 3% of us who voted for Gary "What is Aleppo" Fucking Johnson?

Gary Johnson gave (some) anti-Trump Republicans a way to cast a vote for president that would let them sleep soundly at night — a vote for two former Republican governors who want to cut taxes and spending, without Trump's liabilities. (Of course, that doesn't apply to all anti-Trump Republicans, e.g. those who can't accept his views on marijuana.)

The third-party candidate who more clearly takes away from Hillary Clinton is Jill Stein. She's very liberal all around, whereas Johnson is conservative on many issues and liberal on many others.

Now, if you want to keep mocking Johnson for his Aleppo gaffe, go ahead. I don't know why you find it worthwhile to dwell on a third-party candidate's gaffe after the election is over, but that's fine. But don't assume he helped Trump win. If not for Gary Johnson, Clinton might have had an even worse loss.
posted by John Cohen at 1:23 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Oh God, Ted Cruz. He must be curled up in a ball right now.
posted by rhizome at 1:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

So I would say that Nov 28 should be interesting but at this rate we should probably expect Judge Curiel to just, like, hand Trump a billions dollars or something
posted by beerperson at 1:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

The electoral vote thing is indeed interesting. He makes the very real and very true point that those blue collar white voters who want their jobs back? They will never get their jobs back even if Trump goes full protectionist and slaps a 100% tariff on steel and such. All the factories will be automated with some white collar engineers and only a skeleton crew of blue collar people.

What happens when Trump can't bring them their jobs? Do they realize they've been sold a bill of goods or do they revert even further into xenophobia?
posted by Justinian at 1:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

As others have pointed out, 35 years ago a lot of us had to start saying "President Ronald Reagan" with a straight face.

The world didn't end then, it won't end now.

I didn't say it was good
posted by sidereal at 1:25 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

It was bad enough to have to watch this clusterfuck happen over the last several hours. I'm not sure I can bear having to see all of slumbering MetaFilter (and the rest of the US) awaken to the dystopian fucking nightmare we now apparently live in.
posted by FelliniBlank at 1:26 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

When President Nixon finally resigned all my hate drained away, replaced by joyless relief. A few hours later, President Ford echoed the sentiment of many: "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over... Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule." This morning I felt no joy at Trump's victory, just short lived relief that our long national nightmare was over. That was soon followed by the grim realization of how difficult it will be to repair the damage of the last 8 years.
posted by Homer42 at 1:27 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I live in CA and am surrounded by dems so I didn't request one before as I felt I didn't need it... (Maybe that was the wrong choice, sigh.) Is it too late for someone to send me a Pantsuit Nation invite?
posted by samthemander at 1:27 AM on November 9, 2016

Video of an interesting "please explain" session with Washington Post's polling director Scott Clement.
posted by Coventry at 1:27 AM on November 9, 2016

I'm going to tune in to some American Journalism right now to find out what happened, they'll explain it

o wait
posted by sidereal at 1:27 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I live in the Middle East so I'm particularly unenthusiastic about about a Trump victory. A young Indian man did some work in my home today and saw I was watching election news. We talked a bit and I just said, "It's just very sad."
He replied, "The whole world is sad today."
posted by PHINC at 1:28 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

I would love to be more positive, and probably should be since I'm a white guy all-but-married to a Dominican lady who could easily pass as white with a simple name change, but since I'm a realist at heart, I'm going to lay out the consequences that are going to be hitting all of us, even those who aren't the direct target of the racist and misogynist fucks who form the core of Trump's support. (But do keep in mind that Trump won't have half of the votes, much less the support of half our compatriots)

First, the financial market carnage that is previewed by the futures markets will continue for a bit. They'll probably only take a dramatic plunge for a few days. By next week things will likely stabilize and maybe even inch upwards. How long that holds will probably depend on how holiday spending looks and how much of a rebound we end up having. The dollar will probably lose some value, but probably not as much as the pound has since Brexit. In a lot of ways, Brexit will be a decent guide to the short term financial effects.

We'll probably be OKish financially through the new year if Trump keeps quiet about his plans.

After that, there are two ways this could go. If he does fulfill his promises to spend on infrastructure and can get Congress to go along, things won't be too bad in the sense that the bottom won't fall out. That will hold true even if he passes his moronic tax plan. I suspect we'll see something akin to the 2002-2007 Bush economy with tepid growth, further increases in debt, and maybe a couple of stumbles along the way, but nothing too major, assuming he doesn't get us into any wars, threaten to repudiate the debt, track seriously towards protectionism, or any other shit like that. Economically, it won't be a whole lot worse than what we've had recently, but things won't be getting better if you aren't a top 5-10%er. The Fed can keep things from going truly to shit in this scenario.

The alternative, which I think is more likely, is that he basically cedes control to the Republicans in Congress, which gets us real austerity, along with his bigly tax cuts. That will lead to an economic slowdown here in the US that will reverberate across the world, dramatically amplifying the effects of Europe's continued refusal to do anything about their stagnation. That will, in turn, shoot back across the pond and throw us into a severe recession starting in at most 24 months. Even in this scenario, the Fed has some tools to soften the blow and keep us out of a true deflationary spiral, but it'll be pretty bad. Not 2008 bad, but pretty bad.

If he goes farther than that and makes noises about not paying our creditors (which, by the way, is still mostly us; that's how enormous our economy is) and throwing up serious impediments to trade. Not the "roll back the IP and WTO tribunal" kind, but honest-to-god tariffs high enough to force manufacturing back to the US kind, it will make 2008 look like goddamned child's play. The rest of the world will evacuate the dollar, giving it up as a reserve currency. That will devastate banks all around the world even worse than 2008 because there will be no safe haven assets like there were then, aside perhaps from gold and other precious metals. The worst part is that the Fed won't be able to stop it this time. If he even believably hints at forcing bondholders to take a haircut, you can stick a fork in it.

Right now, we can do basically whatever we want economically because we are the global reserve currency. Our money is the world's store of value. There aren't enough precious metals to do the job. Our government is seen as very stable and willing to make good on its debts in the short term and an economy that can feasibly out-earn the growth in said debt. It is seen as essentially zero risk on any time scale that investors consider and businesses need. Some worry that it might be a bit of a risk 30 years from now, but nobody worries we won't redeem their bonds or drastically inflate our currency a month from now, a year from now, or even ten years from now.

If Trump says and does things to make people stop believing in that stability (note that this is orthogonal to his persecution of certain classes of people and all the other social baggage), we are all well and truly fucked. It won't matter who you are. The republic will not survive that in a recognizable form. It will be like someone pre-WWI seeing the country today. It is still going under the same name and the same notional system of government, but it has changed so drastically as to appear completely foreign to them. I don't think it is particularly likely he'll do anything quite that stupid. He has, after all, long had a penchant for saying whatever he has to to close the deal and then done almost the opposite.

Problem is, the mere risk of him following through will cause short term pain as the market prices in that uncertainty. It won't unravel anything between now and inauguration day, but people will be on edge so volatility will be high.

Overall, I'm thinking we'll probably see scenario 2, and if we're really lucky something closer to number 1. The man isn't stupid, he just lacks the wisdom to listen to advice and the self-restraint to keep from saying stupid shit. But if the results hold, we are a hell of a lot closer to the next global financial crisis than we were yesterday, and if that hits, I think that will pave the way for our worst fears in terms of possible fascism and bloodshed in the streets. If Trump does grenade the economy that badly, his supporters will very likely lash out and blame everyone else for sabatoging the country, and we are all quite keenly aware of where that usually goes.
posted by wierdo at 1:30 AM on November 9, 2016 [53 favorites]

I've cried myself out and am going to try to sleep for two hours before I have to explain this to my son. I'm so sorry to all the mefites that wake up to this timeline.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 1:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

My internet (comcast) was just out for 50 minutes. That probably didn't cause me any anxiety at all. (My phone was choking on mefi.)

I keep coming back to the thing where we need to go high when they go low, etc., But right now I honestly don't even know how to cope let alone actually DO SOMETHING. I have been doing something my entire life. And I've already been told by a male tonight that I shouldn't be so upset about this election or the amount of hate the win involved. And just. FUCKING NO.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 1:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oh, I meant to note that one strong reason why I think it'll take a year or two for it to really play out: The bureaucracy. Civil servants and the Fed will be bailing his ass out the entire way, but eventually all their obstruction of his terrible ideas will reach its limit. And at that point (assuming he does what he told the deplorables he'd do), it's off the cliff we go.
posted by wierdo at 1:33 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

So what the heck happens on November 28 when Trump plans to testify before Judge Curiel in the Trump University case?
posted by zachlipton at 1:33 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Nothing that we thought matters actually matters.

The pessimistic view is that we really are in late capitalism where the postwar order has well and truly fucked, people are so angry so the usual rituals of American democracy are both quaint and ineffective in the face of a candidate who can tap into that anger. And indeed, not simply America but everywhere from Britain to India to the Philippines to Japan to Turkey and on and on and on are embracing similar characters.

I think it's partly that, but also because Trump taps into something unique to the American psyche: celebrity. He's a pop cultural icon, and instantly recognizable. The news networks were falling over themselves to get stories of his next outrageous exploit. They were his ground game. So he didn't need any of what mattered. It was the time for the outsider.
posted by Apocryphon at 1:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I don't know how many people are still watchiing the votes but Michigan is actually razor tight. To the point where if it were decisive in the electoral count it would absolutely be worth Clinton asking for a recount and a full count of provisional ballots.

Not sure they will do that since PA flipped red, though.
posted by Justinian at 1:34 AM on November 9, 2016

So what does matter?

Trump said something in his victory speech about it being "not a campaign, but a movement." Maybe the answer lies there.

The top comment on HN seems to reflect this, though I don't know if I agree with its prescription:

It is possible to view this as an isolated event or a trend. Coming on the heels of BREXIT this is a trend.

The attempts at building an interconnected globalised world are beginning to fail. A bunch of elites decided to create their own trans-national utopia unchecked by borders and dismissed all criticism as racist or bigoted. The globalisation project has been rejected by a majority of the population. Whether it is for economic reasons or just plain bigotry is something for the sociologists to study and not something I can pontificate on.

Also people seem to care a LOT about immigration and preserving their culture. Instead of patronising these people it's time we tried to understand their concerns and try to assuage them.

There is no genuine leftist alternative. It's a choice between center-right "left" that's sold out to the establishment and the far right.Economists need to stop acting like priests in the medieval ages who justified the existing order . The rural voter who lost his job doesn't care about the theory of comparitive advantage.

If this trend holds this will soon take hold in France and other European nations. This is a return to the world of the 1920s. Not gloom and doom but a much more unstable global order with every country for itself. Not what we need when we face planet scale threats like global warming. Get out of your bubble.

Hang out more on subreddits you don't agree with.

The divide is bridged one person at a time.

posted by Coventry at 1:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

denial
anger
bargaining
depression
acceptance
posted by TWinbrook8 at 1:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

They're going to abrogate the Iran nuclear deal just like Bush II did with the N. Korea deal, leading to who knows what kind of geo-political consequences. They're going to ignore every climate change deal in place and actively work against any future deals. They're going to put at least one and probably more than a few hyper-conservative justices on the Supreme Court and try to roll back every civil rights gain of the last forty years. Is Obamacare over? I don't see how it isn't. A renewal of the Voting Rights Act? No chance. The Wall? I personally think it's kind unlikely but mass deportations and increased, aggressive ICE enforcement are much more likely and plenty bad on their own. They're going to appoint an attorney general who will at best be unsympathetic to the Black Lives Matter movement and at worst considers it a domestic terrorist organization. Like with Brexit, there'll be an increase in the day-to-day hostility towards minorities, especially Muslims and Latinxs. If feel like crying and puking at the same time but somehow can't muster the strength.
posted by mhum at 1:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [34 favorites]

Twinbrook8: I chose to skip the middle three.
posted by Coventry at 1:36 AM on November 9, 2016

I mentioned before that we were going to try in vitro, my husband and i.

We've changed our minds. We're not going to bring a brown child into this world.
posted by Tarumba at 1:36 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Currently blasting Yorktown to get myself to leave my hotel room and go do my fucking job.

"When you knock me down, I get the fuck back up again"
posted by mrzarquon at 1:37 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

If anyone would like any other fabulous historical omens, as people have been pointing out on a certain listserv I subscribe to, today is the 217th anniversary of 18 Brumaire, 9 November 1799, when Napoleon seized power. See Matt Ford, A Thermidorian Reaction, The Atlantic (27 July 2016), for additional date coincidences.

I bet that article felt fun to write at the time ...
posted by Sonny Jim at 1:37 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

A San Francisco street corner late tonight.
posted by zachlipton at 1:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Can't fall asleep, so decided to write down the pie-in-the-sky things I'm focusing positive energy on:

1. Obama will be meeting with him. Make those meetings extensive, and free from advisers, and maybe Obama can scare him about the magnitude of the job and convince this former Democrat to flip on at least some issues or tone down his horribleness.
2. That Ivanka and Jared Kushner bring in some liberal influence and not just to their pet causes. That Jared's brother Josh (who founded the ACA insurer Oscar) might be able to influence them to keep some form of ACA.
3. That WE, THE PEOPLE are able to bait him into Twitter wars with GOP leaders and give the Dems an opportunity to pass some stuff with him (infrastructure, etc).
4. That he is too busy raiding the government to help his hotels and friends to do anything else.
5. That some Democratic leaders have the grace, patience and charm to bend his ear and gain a little influence. This guy is a friendless creep and all of his supporters are losers. I think he knows that.
6. Bill Clinton reaches out to him and they restart their utterly gross friendship, for the good of the country.

Yes in essence I propose we try to "turn" him (insert Mike Pence joke then weep). I mean why not? He has no lifelong principles/goals other than making money and feeling important.
posted by acidic at 1:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [47 favorites]

I just wonder when they knew.

Her campaign went quiet about 6 hours ago, as the pundits were starting to say things like "we didn't expect him to do so well in these swing states". I assume that's when they started to get numbers. Those poor people. I can't imagine what they must be feeling right now, to have run so long and so hard into.. this.
posted by fight or flight at 1:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [24 favorites]

I'm assuming we are going to see a rust belt exodus. The blue cities will be growing in population, the gerrymandering is only going to leave us at a disadvantage, but I don't blame any at risk person from wanting to move to a state where they are going to accept you.

I am seeing state vs federal show downs now around immigration, deportations, and things like legalization of marijuana at such a scale. I really hope CA is able to just exonerate / expunge those criminal records before Trump ever gets into power.
posted by mrzarquon at 1:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

As someone who comes from a politically unstable country: Hillary needs to get the fuck out of the country right now.

France does not extradite, AFAIK
posted by Tarumba at 1:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

This was a surprise because a *lot* of people lied to the pollsters. Not shamefully. Gleefully. A big 'FU' to the whole establishment, media included. They knew what they were doing. Polling agencies are going to need to develop strategies to handle bad actors like this in future.

This victory was nothing more than a primal scream. 'I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore'. Racism, homophobia, sexism -- we have to go up a whole level of consciousness to get to that. At this level, it's just raw reptilianism -- fear of exstential threat and a disturbing lack of empathy. And a group of elite bullies are using that to coast to power.

And the dread liberals feel tonight is pretty much what conservatives felt 8 years ago, rightly or wrongly. Welcome! You too can spend 4-8 years terrified by what the other side is going to do to you.
posted by zaixfeep at 1:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

I think her speechwriters did prepare one as a matter of course, but once she realized it was real and how devastated most of us are, she wanted to write something better.
posted by acidic at 1:47 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I am horrified and uncomprehending. My parents lived through fascist Italy and WWII and this is what they've always described it as: hate, fear, anger at the other, grandstanding incompetence, self serving hunts for power aided by those with a vested interest in controlling and subjugating the people. I feel real icy terror for my children's future. It's like I just saw it vanish.

But I believe that we are stronger together. I know that. So let's get to work, friends. Let's get to work.
posted by lydhre at 1:47 AM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

Y'know how your mind drifts off, like I'm supposed to be working but I've got the tv on in the background and then suddenly I snap to and it hits me and I realize this really happened. I just really can't grasp it. How did this happen?
posted by TWinbrook8 at 1:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Whoever said "When fascism comes to America, it will come draped in the flag and carrying a cross" was apparently being optimistic. All it took was "Hey guys, I'm a fascist. Who's with me?"

:(
posted by faceplantingcheetah at 1:51 AM on November 9, 2016 [77 favorites]

I feel like every bully, crank and sexual harasser I've ever encountered has been emboldened and their views enshrined in law and I am in despair.
posted by Space Kitty at 1:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [43 favorites]

From Richard Rorty’s Achieving Our Country: (1998)

Many writers on socioeconomic policy have warned that the old industrialized democracies are heading into a Weimar-like period, one in which populist movements are likely to overturn constitutional governments. Edward Luttwak, for example, has suggested that fascism may be the American future. The point of his book The Endangered American Dream is that members of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers—themselves desperately afraid of being downsized—are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else.

At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for—someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots. A scenario like that of Sinclair Lewis’ novel It Can’t Happen Here may then be played out. For once a strongman takes office, nobody can predict what will happen. In 1932, most of the predictions made about what would happen if Hindenburg named Hitler chancellor were wildly overoptimistic.

One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past forty years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. The words “nigger” and “kike” will once again be heard in the workplace. All the sadism which the academic Left has tried to make unacceptable to its students will come flooding back. All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet.
posted by Apocryphon at 1:55 AM on November 9, 2016 [102 favorites]

The more I think about it, the more I'm struck by how we're living in a topsy-turvy bizarro version of the pre-WW2 universe. Amidst a period of economic weakness and global uncertainty, the US, UK, and Russia (plus potentially France) are being swept up in a fervor of xenophobic nationalist movements with authoritarian/fascist overtones. Meanwhile, Germany is the linchpin holding together an increasing fragile postwar coalition of democracies via its status as the financial powerhouse of Europe, with a leader who's acting as the world's strongest political advocate for open borders and multiculturalism.

It makes me genuinely wonder if we're headed for WWIII, and if this time America will be on the wrong side of history...
posted by prosopagnosia at 1:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

This is interesting... The DNC tried to shape the discourse to elevate Trump.
posted by Coventry at 1:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

I'm still watching the vote come in though I think I'm about done.

Clinton is virtually certain going to win the popular vote as stated but I think the electoral college results are way closer than we realized a few hours ago. Not in terms of who is going to win; Trump. But the margins he's winning by in the rust belt are tiny. He might end up just 10k up in Michigan out of 5,000,000 for example. So that's pretty agonizing.
posted by Justinian at 1:58 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Oh, also, we have to really hope that he does make it his personal mission to destroy his primary opponents and GOPers who disparaged him. Don't care what happens to them, but it'll run down the clock. Too bad Kasich's not in Congress; he's a great target.

This is also the first president who can be tweaked by listening to someone talk on CNN. It's like we have a direct line to the Oval. We should use it.
posted by acidic at 1:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I feel like every bully, crank and sexual harasser I've ever encountered has been emboldened and their views enshrined in law and I am in despair.

every rapist on earth has just received the ultimate validation for their acts

im ready for the meteor
posted by poffin boffin at 1:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [41 favorites]

This is also the first president who can be tweaked by listening to someone talk on CNN. It's like we have a direct line to the Oval. We should use it.

I like this, although nation-states may also realize this.
posted by StrawberryPie at 2:02 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

It makes me genuinely wonder if we're headed for WWIII, and if this time America will be on the wrong side of history...

If we're really going to remember Weimar, are we going to look forward to a Corbyn-Trudeau-Hollande alliance to liberate us? Merkel too, for the maximum irony.
posted by Apocryphon at 4:35 PM on March 29
posted by Apocryphon at 2:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

This is interesting... The DNC tried to shape the discourse to elevate Trump.
posted by Coventry at 1:57 AM on November 9 [1 favorite +] [!]

Welp, that sure backfired. Had they but known of the masses of angry rural voters whose livelihoods were destroyed by NAFTA!
posted by Beethoven's Sith at 2:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I saw comments that implied people replying to polls lied, but I didn't catch references to evidence. Was this actually the case? Was there an organized effort to lie to poll-takers?
posted by StrawberryPie at 2:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

thanks for sacrificing the rest of us on your altar of ideological purity

no, thanks for giving us the same old, same old to vote for instead of real change, which is what the people wanted - even at the cost of electing a fascist buffoon

i was with her, but i'm afraid i'm done - done with the democrats, done with the system, done with our government, done with much of my country

it is time to prepare ourselves for the long road of real change and perhaps revolution - something that i know i probably won't live to see at my age

we tried it the democrat way and it hasn't worked
posted by pyramid termite at 2:06 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

This is interesting... The DNC tried to shape the discourse to elevate Trump.

What's the provenance of that screenshot?
posted by Sonny Jim at 2:08 AM on November 9, 2016

It's not clear yet, StrawberryPie. The more likely explanation is that the pollster turnout models were WAY OFF.
posted by Justinian at 2:08 AM on November 9, 2016

I guess demography is only destiny if everybody votes.

Everyone saying you can't win on White Nationalism alone was dead wrong.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:08 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I like this, although nation-states may also realize this.

I think they already know.
posted by vbfg at 2:09 AM on November 9, 2016

pyramid termite: The Democratic Party seems like the only practical avenue for the left.

The Tea Party showed how to do it.
posted by Coventry at 2:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Here in Germany this morning, the front page of the national non-tabloid newspaper Die Zeit has been coloured blood red. Hearing lots of 'Good morning and, yes, this is real' on the radio.
posted by romanb at 2:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Sonny Jim: Wikileaks, apparently. I found it here.
posted by Coventry at 2:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

CA and the other blue states don't have to put up with this shit. I've always said that but it will be interesting to see how it plays out now that the traditional barriers to "getting involved in politics" for business people media figures are gone.
posted by fshgrl at 2:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Another reason to look to 2018: A ton of Governor races are coming up then. We need to control as many states as possible in time for the next round of congressional redistricting otherwise we're never gonna fucking get out of this mess.
posted by en forme de poire at 2:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

If nothing else this has shown the weakness of modern leftist rhetoric built around call out culture and shouting about various -isms. It presumes people are playing by the same rules and find it shaming. But the model breaks down when people don't think they're racist and the wheels come off completely when that's considered a feature by a large portion of the population.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 2:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

I don't like it when my mind starts insisting on ruminating on lines of "The Second Coming"
posted by angrycat at 2:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I know you're not supposed to say this (denial) - but think about it. Everything Trump accuses of his opponents he is guilty of himself. Meanwhile, the polls have never been this far off since Dewey/Truman and back then they had a very primitive system compared to what we have now. You think Republicans are above cheating? I sure as fuck don't.
posted by fungible at 2:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet.

All this time, Bernie-leftists were saying it was economics, and Clinton-liberals were saying it was racism and identity politics. (Emphasizing those separate bits, at least.) Turns out one is influenced by the other. Both sides were part right, just neither could effectively create a combined plan to address both. (Not that they didn't try.)

Partly, as it's been mentioned before elsewhere, in America class isn't merely based on income or wealth. It's also a cultural perception thing. What the Democrats were selling to offset race-based resentment and economic frustration, it didn't culturally speak to all of those Rust Belt voters who wanted to stick it to the college profs and urban elites.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

fshgrl: I posted in the state thread, but I am proud of CA today. It's small comfort obviously but we did good. Massive margins, mostly good proposition results, good state races. And, like I said, massive margins. Bigger than either '08 or '12 for Obama by a couple points.
posted by Justinian at 2:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

For the more politically astute, I just posted a question about the odds of Obamacare surviving a Trump presidency in AskMeFi. Yes, it's a grim depressing topic, but please check it out.
posted by Beholder at 2:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

fungible: They learned from 2000. You don't have to fuck with the vote totals when you can stop people from voting in the first place. This wasn't voter fraud it was voter suppression+Comey. They didn't change the votes, they stopped the opposition from casting them in the first place.

That's my read anyway.
posted by Justinian at 2:15 AM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

Nothing unites people like mutual hatred.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 2:15 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Nah, you guys don't understand; they expect a literal wall. They will demand a literal wall. We need to keep reminding them about that wall. Day 105 of trumps presidency: where is the wall? Day 210: wall not even started. Day 355: no wall. Remember the wall? I saw 2 undocumented folks today. Where is the wall?

But reality and facts doesn't matter anymore. Go read Jay Rosen's final reflection on the press. This all started back with the rejection of "the reality-based community" and the GOP's "retreat from empiricism" in 2004. Romney, the spreadsheet-reading private capital guy, was the reality-based community's last stand. We're in fantasy-land now.

What's that have to do with a wall? Simple: you just point to a chunk of the border fence that already exists, hype up how many drones you've got patrolling the border, put out press releases about the deportations ICE already conducts right now under Obama, and you've got yourself a wall without ever building anything.*

I mean, they just about got away with Mission Accomplished; getting away with not building a wall is easy.

* The biggest problem, of course, and it's the one that has me just utterly crushed right now, is that DACA and DAPA can be ended with the stroke of a pen.
posted by zachlipton at 2:15 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

I remember the polls being more positive for Sanders vs. Trump than Clinton vs. Trump during the primaries, but polls also said Clinton was more likely to win during the general election. It was a non-incumbent election. It's very well possible that no one the Democrats ran would have been able to win this year.
posted by FJT at 2:16 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh God, it really is like Brexit+

Worst year ever. It's not that America elected a mysogynistic idiot for President or that the UK is leaving the EU that worries. It's the rhetoric. Even after shamelessly standing on a rascist platform they won.

I'm starting to think that it's liberal ideology that is an anomaly. People really just ain't no good. I'm done with the affairs of man. The Planets got a fever and we elect politicians who will just keep raping and pillaging her for printed paper.
posted by twistedonion at 2:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

He might end up just 10k up in Michigan out of 5,000,000 for example. So that's pretty agonizing.

Tell me about it. I know it's totally irrational, but I feel personally responsible for that shit on some level because in my MI county, 10,305 people voted for Trump.
posted by FelliniBlank at 2:21 AM on November 9, 2016

I can't do this. Today, in the high school office where I work (along with one other American, two Brits, a Kiwi, and a Canadian), there was hushed shock, and Japanese teachers asking us what happened. I had to leave the room because it just isn't in me to try to answer. That's not a cute turn of phrase, it's the literal truth. I don't have the strength to face their well meaning questions. I don't know how, in the morning, I'll deal with junior high students who have no idea what just happened, and who are more than likely to think it's hilarious.

I thought I'd burned all the hope out of myself a long time ago, thought I'd rid myself of any last vestige of faith in humanity, and holy shit, there's a burning pain in me telling me I hadn't.

I honestly don't want this world. I don't want to *be* in this world. I'm done with people, I'm done with belief or faith in any concept of any innate goodness in humanity. And I think I really need to quit teaching. Teachers have to have some hope that what they're doing has meaning, that the work they do is for a long term good, and I don't believe in any of that anymore.

I'll go on, because it's what I do. I'll wake up tomorrow, go to work, get through the day. And the day after that. But I can't see any way that I'm going to be living out my life just going through the motions, because I'm not willing to ever have hope or faith again.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:23 AM on November 9, 2016 [43 favorites]

I don't look forward to explaining this to my kids.
posted by drezdn at 2:25 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

OK, I'm too old to deal with this nonsense. Keep the Social Security and Medicare taps turned on and I won't bother you. If you voted for this asshat he's your problem. Let me know how it turns out. I'll be busy elsewhere...
posted by jim in austin at 2:27 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

All the talk about desperate people voting for Trump because they are willing to take any change at all is complete bullshit. I know it's what the media was mostly pushing last night, but the facts just don't bear it out. If it were just the uninformed failing to realize that Hillary's platform would be better for them and not knowing the Republicans are the main reason nothing has gotten done, I might believe it.

However, this was not a change election in the slightest. If people really were just fed up, they'd have also thrown out Senators and Congresspeople left and right. They didn't, for the most part. The median Trump voter's income is above the median national income. Not only that, but above the median income for white people.

No, not change. Not economic desperation (for the most part, but I do suspect it got enough extra folks to the polls to give Trump his tiny margins to go with his tiny hands), almost entirely racism and misogyny. Trump voters knew precisely what they were doing. Trying to excuse them by saying they were desperate for change, any change, is a complete misread. It's worse than the mandate the media is already handing him. Amazing how when Republicans squeak by the media gives them free reign, but when Democrats win by much larger margins no such mandate is given.
posted by wierdo at 2:28 AM on November 9, 2016 [54 favorites]

no, jim in austin, something's got to be done
posted by pyramid termite at 2:28 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

In a couple of hours, I am going to go teach a class with a number of Muslim students, a number of recent immigrants, and all but three are black. I don't what to say to them. I really, really don't.
posted by angrycat at 2:29 AM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

I didn't know where to look for comfort, and then I remembered. JK Rowling's twitter account doesn't disappoint. Her message is that we continue to stand strong and fight, no matter what. She also says to eat chocolate. 🍫🍫🍫

Seems like I'm not the only one who went to her for comfort.

You can read her feed here
posted by Tarumba at 2:31 AM on November 9, 2016

Nah, you guys don't understand; they expect a literal wall. They will demand a literal wall.

IOKIYAR.

Seriously, they didn't want a physical wall. They wanted a WALL. They wanted a wall of prejudice, oppression of immigrants, and dominance of white people. They want Mexico to pay. They want all brown people to pay.

Oh, there will be some program or initiative. Thee will be photo ops. There will be billions of dollars spent, and lots of speeches. News segments about heavily armed guys wearing aviator glasses roaring around in humvees. And there will be a lot more people who will be stopped and asked for papers, if they're in the wrong neighborhoods. And the people working in the fields, factories and restaurants, who will still find ways into the US because they're needed for the economy, will find a different sort of wall.

There will be a wall. And people will die because of the wall. And he will be celebrated for that.
posted by happyroach at 2:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [33 favorites]

My state has been single party across the board since 2011. The one thing we could rely on was Obama and to a lesser extent the Supreme Court. That's gone now. Every bad idea that the Republicans have been pulling at the state level is in play at the Federal one. SIFUABS
posted by drezdn at 2:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'd like to congratulate President Putin, Julian Assange, Alex Jones, as well as the heads of ISIS and Al-Qaeda, and the KKK. Also, Jill Stein.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [50 favorites]

No, not change. Not economic desperation (for the most part, but I do suspect it got enough extra folks to the polls to give Trump his tiny margins to go with his tiny hands), almost entirely racism and misogyny.

I think the Keepin' It 1600 folks had it right, as usual, that 3 types of people voted for Trump:

1. Trumpistas who dug the angry hate messages, etc.
2. Republicans who, when it comes down to it, vote red no matter what kind of mammal the party puts in the slot.
3. People who hate Hillary Clinton.

No one of those would be enough to do it. But there were enough highly motivated 1s and 3s to compensate for the probably smaller than usual number of 2s.
posted by FelliniBlank at 2:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

The post-enlightenment dream of progress towards a rational future has sustained all kinds of politics of hope. There are deep problems with that. But if it is any comfort to anyone facing that today, it might be worth noting that there is no point in the history of humanity when the world was not full of crazy and when the figures of authority were not the craziest and most dangerous. It's been a bit quiet since WW2, for sure, but it is, unfortunately, business as usual.

An ethical stance starts with your lived centre, not with "society", which is, and will remain, turbulent. Seeing the mess that is society doesn't for a moment relieve or rob you of your ethical stance, your centre, your values.
posted by stonepharisee at 2:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

If anti-NAFTA/out-sourcing was the thing, why the fuck did people vote for the guy who outsources!?!?!?!
posted by drezdn at 2:35 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

I am going to go teach a class with a number of Muslim students, a number of recent immigrants, and all but three are black. I don't what to say to them. I really, really don't.

You say, nations have weathered worse; sometimes it gets ugly, but they survive. You say, the shock of this is caused by people who believe their friend and their friends' friends and think that "those idiots" can't possible believe "that garbage." And you say, none of the disastrous things the worst trumpists want are going to happen right away, and many of them won't happen at all - Trump is a blowhard, not a schemer. He'll happily let the economy collapse and add arbitrary restrictions on immigration, but as far as kicking out people who are already here... that costs money and takes planning, and Trump sucks at both of those.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 2:35 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Probably fewer and more lukewarm 2s, that is.
posted by FelliniBlank at 2:35 AM on November 9, 2016

EMRJKC94, don't forget the media that normalized Trump while pounding on the "Clinton email" nothingburger. And James Comey, for that matter.

Donald Trump ran a bad campaign and had qualities that should have disqualified him a dozen times over. Yet the polls utterly failed to perceive a Republican wave election. Figuring out what happened there has to be the first step -- looking at the data, I'm sure we all thought Clinton had it in the bag. I know I did. But this year the Blue Wall fell.
posted by Gelatin at 2:37 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I wonder if he can be bribed with real estate. He loooves that stupid Old Post Office. Can Paris lease him some prime property in exchange for staying in the Paris Agreement?
posted by acidic at 2:37 AM on November 9, 2016

so many thoughts tonight.

I think the half-way-there approach to health care had a lot to do with this. You have millions of people paying increasing fees to the insurance companies that healthcare reform was meant to protect them from, with the threat of federal penalties if they don't. The Dems needed to throw out the usurers, and they failed. The republicans certainly played a large part in that failure by not implementing the ACA properly in the red states, and increasing the pain felt by their base, while laying the blame on the coastal elites. And the result - though well-intentioned on the part of the dems - looks like a big, continuing fuck-you from the federal government, who continue to roll around with the insurance companies.

I've observed this pain first hand in my brother, who lives in St Louis, who didn't get a college degree, who has struggled from one shit job to the next for years because of a bullshit conviction on his record. He's a good soul, and firmly in the anti-everyone camp politically.

And yeah, we almost certainly did get the best reform possible under the actual on-the-ground circumstances. But it wasn't enough. And the failure of the American system to create meaningful reform has pushed us into even further division.

Our system is broken. It's on a trajectory where creating further problems - emphasizing its broken-ness - is a path to power for... well, people like Trump. It begins to look like a self-reinforcing cycle of decay.

We need to focus on changes that bring up those who are low in the world, and focus on unequivocal goods, on reforms which objectively remove the pain. We need to start organizing in new ways. We need to stop unfriending people and start talking to them. We need to move out of the bay area, and stop ignoring the rusting interior. We absolutely have to stand up for racial justice, stand up for the environment, stand up for a better future. We have to be the ones who actually throw out the usurers. And that, it's clear now to me, means taking care of our brothers, and spreading love to the darkest parts of this nation.
posted by kaibutsu at 2:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

Too tired to read more about it right now so it'll have to wait until tomorrow but I see reports online that Dem sources believe that the Comey letter did swing the election to Trump. The margins are smaller than the effect they saw from the letter. That's really not good.
posted by Justinian at 2:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

Ha, I just remembered this is also the administration of Christie and Giuliani. It's like unfolding a nightmare map; you've think you've got the whole thing unfolded and there's another fold and guess what there's the land of flaming dragons and also bugs that crawl into your orifices as you sleep.

John Bolton as Secretary of State? Oh man. It's like it's gotten so bad it's funny. Just a brief respite but hell I would welcome any relief, including unconsciousness at this point.
posted by angrycat at 2:39 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Newt Gingrich in some position of power, presumably.
posted by drezdn at 2:41 AM on November 9, 2016

Woke up wondering which universe I had woken up in, checked news- turned out to be the crazy one again.

Christ, back in 2000 folk wrote about "the end of history", how everything was all sorted and we would have no more wars as we were all so advanced and cool. Then 9/11 which was used as an excuse for much fuckery. We'll look back on Islamic terrorism concerns as a fucking golden age- "Remember when we used to worry about a few maniacs? Anyway, back to the trenches lads."

How do you explain to a 5 year old that the guy you have called a bully, a racist and a fool is going to be the most powerful person on Earth? How do you teach kids about democracy when the system leads to periodic bursts of mentalists taking control appealing to the basest fears and insecurities?

Is our system so fucked that the "anger" from those who feel themselves disenfranchised is legitimate, or must we look them square in the eye and call them cowards and the enablers of evil?

They say in a democracy the people are asked what they want, then they get it given to them good and hard.

The temptation to wards nihilism is strong- to soothe your disappointment knowing that the folk that voted for evil will suffer (cf Brexit voting fools whose money and opportunities are cut off due to their blindness) but while this is true, those who voted against will suffer more. The change in atmosphere as to what is acceptable to say/do to minorities got so much worse post Brexit (400% rise in hate crimes in London is a figure the London Met has published). I am worried that in the US a minority of arseholes will take this as carte blanche that their hateful agenda is the will of the majority.

Historically high life expectancy and living standards. The ability to communicate practically for free with people across the globe. Technology that would have got you burnt as a witch previously, nestled in our pockets. Enough food to feed the world (albeit the way it is distributed means that it doesn't). Centuries of scientific improvement. The opportunity to learn from our past mistakes. All for nothing?

This year has been one continuous kick in the teeth.
posted by Gratishades at 2:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

also, this is a thing I've been thinking about a lot:

"The emergence of new forces of urban factions, rural voters, and others, engaging in continued conflict with each other for their own interests, meant that the problem of effective governance awaited resolution. The populist government of the Gracchi had come to an end by violence; and this provided a brutal precedent that would be followed by many other rulers of Rome."

Irreconcilable differences between the rural and the urban don't lead to good places. When the strong-man takes power and fails to deliver on the promised change, the next thing to do is start blaming the remaining parts of the old order, or any other scape goat that can be found. And that's how you get to violence, purges, and the complete dismantlement of the democracy. A Trump presidency is extremely alarming; a failed Trump presidency is absolutely terrifying.
posted by kaibutsu at 2:44 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

I slept for 2 hours then woke up with a screaming panic attack. I don't know how I'm going to work today. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't stop shaking. Is it going to feel like this for the next 4 years?
posted by soren_lorensen at 2:45 AM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

Outside the Mormons who voted for McMullin, and prominent business and political figures who were embarrassed by/at Trump, the great Republican divide simply didn't happen. The people who voted for Romney voted for Trump, with some working class people who were dismayed by Romney's private equity stuff added in. The Romney --> Trump people chose to be quiet about it, though, having no personal percentage in being called names.

It will be fascinating to see the exit poll cross tabs about what the people who voted for Obama in 2012 did. I think they overwhelmingly voted for Clinton, with maybe some reduced turnout among marginally attached voters. But I think that could easily be wrong. Maybe those new Trump voters were former Obama voters?
posted by MattD at 2:45 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I've switched over to Al Jazeera and their summary of the Trump campaign just hit all the lowlights. "Her loss is more of a reflection of a broken electoral system" "If he has a strategy, it's nothing more than demagoguery"

Straight talk.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 2:45 AM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

This year has been one continuous kick in the teeth.

Yup.
posted by drezdn at 2:45 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

https://thenib.com/this-is-not-fine
posted by Ziggy500 at 2:49 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Wow I got pretty quick to the NO MORE phase of news. I think it might have been Krugman's wondering whether or not we were a failed nation state that did it.
posted by angrycat at 2:50 AM on November 9, 2016

A Trump presidency is extremely alarming; a failed Trump presidency is absolutely terrifying.

and inevitable - i've often wondered if our next president would become the scapegoat for the inevitable crash that's coming for us - now we have that jackass for president and he's going to be like a deer in the headlights when the shit hits the fan - or he actually does something that sets things off early

the thought of trump as national scapegoat is appealing but it won't be worth the cost - even if the country is ruined, i wonder if that will be enough to wake up the people who voted for that man
posted by pyramid termite at 2:52 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

the problem being that a sizable percentage of the american people suck and our culture is broken because of it
posted by pyramid termite at 2:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

Guys I spent some time in a pretty dark place earlier and was on the phone with the local suicide hol line and am now feeling better and have new rounds wirh my therapist set up. If you're despairing, take care of yourself. We can't help fight if we're not here. Love again.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [102 favorites]

This year has been one continuous kick in the teeth.

Yup, except for that one lovely, joyous if comparatively inconsequential thing that happened last week, which is now poisoned by being inextricably associated from now on with this other unthinkable thing. Thanks, you bastard.
posted by FelliniBlank at 2:54 AM on November 9, 2016

MAKE AMERICA VOTE AGAIN
posted by chavenet at 2:55 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Wow I got pretty quick to the NO MORE phase of news.

SAME. Lasted about ten minutes with NPR this morning after I went to bed early in an anxiety spin and woke up to Fear realized, knowing that I need to, for example, eat but not sure how.

I'm waiting for my spouse's job offer to land today - our ticket out of the South. Wondering if I should re-up my IUD early or just go straight for tubal ligation to be safe...
posted by circle at 2:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Our country is about to be in ruins :( I know it wasn't the greatest country by any means, and there's always been fucked up things behind the scenes, but I love this place, I thought (and still think) that we can do better. How could this happen to us? 55 million+ people just told me and all of my friends and so many of you that they don't give a fuck about us. This is the most depressing day of my life.
posted by gucci mane at 2:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [25 favorites]

LA was bidding for the 2024 Olympics to be announced next year. The IOC are not fans of our new leader.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 2:58 AM on November 9, 2016

Did he not pay them?
posted by vbfg at 2:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I really wish The Toast were still around.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

LA was bidding for the 2024 Olympics to be announced next year. The IOC are not fans of our new leader.

Like Brexit, the Trump vote is likely to have all sorts of unintended consequences.
posted by Mister Bijou at 3:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

The IOC are not fans of our new leader.
They are too much alike... unsubtle frauds.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I haven't been giving much rational and calm thought to these results but the one thing I keep coming back to is: how much damage will Trump have to do to get people to rethink things?

I don't mean to sound like I'm advocating for burn it to rebuild it because I'm not. I'm trying to grasp where the majority of American's point of action is. Obviously he has said so many horrible things and his policy is basically terrible but a heck of a lot of people just don't care or even like that.
posted by JakeEXTREME at 3:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I can't believe Wisconsin re-elected useless suit-filler, Ron Johnson. Feingold was probably the closest politician to Bernie running as a Dem yesterday and he lost again to Ron "I only really care about Benghazi and Obama-care" Johnson.
posted by drezdn at 3:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

My wife (who is from Russia) finds it all darkly hilarious: "See? This is where democracy gets you. You let stupid people decide what happens to your country".

Actually I have some complicated thoughts about it. I didn't celebrate when Thatcher died, because I've lived in a country with Putin and there are levels to this shit. Brexit screwed us up in the UK, but that's a regional problem, and there's a fair chance Scotland will stick with the EU (again it's, y'know, the implication that is horrifying). But it sounds like the political establishment in the US is going to be completely lopsided for the next two years, and merely being elected has not rendered Trump capable of doing the job. Plus a critical lost 4 years for climate change (human rights can be won back, coastlines less so). And the fact that a large number of Americans listened to what he had to say and voted for him anyway (see above re: implication).

Weirdly though, both political tantrums this year prove that democracy works. Even if it's harmful for the country, if it's crashing the economy, if it's everything that international elites don't want: the people vote, and it happens. It's like finding a bit of bone in your hamburger - it proves it's real meat. Cold comfort when you're choking on the bone though...

I guess for the near future it's a case of take care of yourselves and each other, and prepare for rising intolerance and sea levels.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 3:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

In all seriousness I hope someone is able to make America great again.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 3:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I wouldn't be shocked if, under Trump, the Republicans will start drafting every piece of legislation they can to limit voting.
posted by drezdn at 3:02 AM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

Today's weather with Keegan-Michael Key

Posted before, but I needed to watch it, so maybe others will be soothed somewhat by the graveyard humor
posted by angrycat at 3:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

how much damage will Trump have to do to get people to rethink things

Not to Godwin or anything but just look at history. So long as they remain populist they can get away with horrific crimes.

First thing Trump wants to do is ship immigrants home. Second, stop funding the fight against climate change and spend it on building more pointless shit.

Both these things would increase jobs for his core white male vote. Whether he gets to do these things is another thing, but the intent is there. If he isn't able to follow through on policy he looks good as he is fighting the system.

Not going to end well.
posted by twistedonion at 3:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

another thing - if the republicans get tired of him and decide to impeach him, let's hope the democrats say no to conviction

"you break it, you bought it, you're stuck with it"
posted by pyramid termite at 3:08 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think there's almost no chance in hell of the Republicans impeaching him. They voted for the guy.
posted by drezdn at 3:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Tell me I'm over-reacting when I fear my children may not get to vote in a free election. Ever.
posted by papercake at 3:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

i think you underestimate just how inept and stupid he really is
posted by pyramid termite at 3:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

I want to hear someone's definition of the "elite" that this election is supposed to be repudiating because I feel pretty fucking repudiated right now and I'm pretty far from an elite anything.
posted by soren_lorensen at 3:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [32 favorites]

I'm calling it here first: Time Person of the Year 2016 will be "Stupid White Men"
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 3:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I pray for an ineffective and inept 4 years.
posted by Nanukthedog at 3:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

He personally doesn't have to be effective. Paul Ryan will be. Trump just needs to be willing to sign anything Congress puts in front of him.
posted by drezdn at 3:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

I wouldn't be shocked if, under Trump, the Republicans will start drafting every piece of legislation they can to limit voting.

Oh, honey. The laws they have now obviously worked, so that's waaaaaaay down the Honey-Do list. O-Care is obviously first. Then abortion. Then what's left of the safety net. Then killing the EPA. Maybe OSHA, too. Then selling-off the parks.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

I'm not trying to minimize here, but it felt a lot like this when Bush won as well.
posted by davey_darling at 3:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

But, what I really want to know is how soon PrezTrump will have the columns on the White House gilded?
posted by Thorzdad at 3:15 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm trying to grasp where the majority of American's point of action is.

We passed it. This *was* their action.
posted by mordax at 3:16 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Side thoughts:

Not since Jimmy Carter's family was a first family so mocked. After Carter was out of office it continued, though respect grew for some people like Miss Lillian and for his sister Jean.

Hollywood insiders must be apoplectic.

Who's going to play at the Inauguration Ball...Ted Nugent? Charlie Daniels?

DT will need to stay at the White House, which (really isn't) a Trump property.

Now I'm off to work, where the mood will be funereal and we'll be preparing for a potential shutdown. Hands shaking as I type this.

/sidethoughts
posted by datawrangler at 3:17 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I want to hear someone's definition of the "elite" that this election is supposed to be repudiating

According to Trump, you could start with the 50 national security officials who signed a letter denouncing him the other day.
posted by Coda Tronca at 3:17 AM on November 9, 2016

When Walker "dropped the bomb" on Wisconsin, I was frustrated with the rest of the state, such that I didn't want to travel outside of the city much. I feel like that now. Hell, I planned on going to the train show this weekend and I don't even want to do that because it skews conservative and there will be ridiculous pro-Trump bits.
posted by drezdn at 3:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Anybody in the arts who wants to keep their enterprise funded by government dollars will play ball, but it's going to be very hard to watch that process.
posted by datawrangler at 3:20 AM on November 9, 2016

"We have met the enemy and he is us." -Walt Kelly, "Pogo"
posted by the painkiller at 3:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

DT will need to stay at the White House, which (really isn't) a Trump property.

I have a feeling he'll refuse to, or find a way around this.
posted by drezdn at 3:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm not trying to minimize here, but it felt a lot like this when Bush won as well.

Admittedly I was in my early 20s, but this is qualitatively different from both 2000 and 2004 for me in that at least you knew mostly what you were getting with Bush. It sucked, but it was largely predictable.

What are the next four years going to hold? I don't think anybody really knows. Trump isn't just a rubber stamp yes man. He will do crazy, uncontrollable things that embarrass all reasonable people and torch America's name.

We just don't know what those things are yet.
posted by uncleozzy at 3:22 AM on November 9, 2016 [29 favorites]

DT will need to stay at the White House, which (really isn't) a Trump property.

I am looking forward, in a bleak sort of way, to the Oval Office redecoration.
posted by tavegyl at 3:25 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm not trying to minimize here, but it felt a lot like this when Bush won as well.

Yeah, and that ended with 6000 American troops dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, half a million dead Iraqi civilians, and ISIS. And that's just off the top of my head.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 3:26 AM on November 9, 2016 [32 favorites]

I feel like I'm in a Philip K. Dick novel.
nope. margaret atwood. sorry.

Closer, but I think Kafka: “There is an infinite amount of hope in the universe ... but not for us.”
posted by kozad at 3:26 AM on November 9, 2016 [19 favorites]

To me, this feels utterly fucking different than 2000. In 2000, I thought we were just going to get a shitty Republican president, but that the rules of the game were fundamentally going to stay the same.

More fool me, since 9/11 let the Republicans redefine our social fabric.

My husband is sitting in the half-light in the other room, holding our infant son who woke up yelling a few minutes ago. I having no fucking idea what kind of world my child will grow up in, or whether, as a visibly non-white person who may be queer, who may become disabled, who may fight in the ground wars that flow out of this presidency, he will have a chance at all.
posted by joyceanmachine at 3:27 AM on November 9, 2016 [28 favorites]

So I went to bed last night knowing this wasn't looking good. At all. Then I couldn't sleep, but was too terrified to look at my phone. At what point in the night did our world shift into a dystopian nightmare? How is this real?

I am calling out sick today. To those of you able to go to work and function, you are awesome and a more civil person than me.
posted by nightrecordings at 3:27 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

I will be entering a self-imposed media and social media blackout for a while, as I grieve for the future that was lost last night, come to terms with the world in which we are now living, and give the wounds in my heart some time to begin healing. If you are feeling distraught, anxious, despondent, or otherwise upset after last night's results, I suggest you consider doing the same. Either way, let's all take time to gather with our loved ones, to grieve, and to take care of ourselves. For we must fight on. We must not give in to despair. There are hard times ahead, and we must prepare to meet them head-on. I will be gone from this space for a little while, but I will return. I love you all, and I wish you peace, strength, and safety.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 3:27 AM on November 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

Can we stop saying that it was people hurt by things like NAFTA that won it for Trump. Voters making under 50k backed Hillary. Trump won people over 50k.
posted by drezdn at 3:29 AM on November 9, 2016 [32 favorites]

Closer, but I think Kafka.

JG Ballard seems the obvious choice here. I just finished Millennium People and it made for some f-ing deeply unnerving election reading, let me tell you.
posted by ryanshepard at 3:30 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

A man who had the enthusiastic backing of the Ku Klux Klan was elected to the most powerful office in the world. The sickness and moral rot in this country are just beyond words, and no amount of brave talk can cover it up.
posted by informavore at 3:30 AM on November 9, 2016 [65 favorites]

I'm not American and don't live there. I'm Canadian-but-legally-British living in the UK. I just send the same email to a friend, verbatim, that I sent post-Brexit. The short version:

In a weird way this proves democracy works. The international business elite and the global neo-liberal structure did not want this. At all. And yet, here we are.
posted by generichuman at 3:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

I am calling out sick today.

It's tough and I'm not even American. Good luck with your day, remember all despair gives you is a headache and sore stomach. Anxiety is the enemy.
posted by twistedonion at 3:32 AM on November 9, 2016

This was a surprise because a *lot* of people lied to the pollsters.

The simpler explanation is that the pollsters asked the wrong people. Maybe their "likely voter" lists didn't reflect the actual voters.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

.
posted by klausness at 3:32 AM on November 9, 2016

Hey, he's a reputed billionaire property developer, reality-TV star, brand manager... what can possibly go wrong?
posted by Mister Bijou at 3:33 AM on November 9, 2016

Trump isn't just a rubber stamp yes man. He will do crazy, uncontrollable things

I honestly don't know. The last week or so before the election, where his access to Twitter was cut off, and he seemed almost calm at rallies? That showed he can be handled. He's a blowhard and a bully, and they are susceptible to flattery. The GOP will have a babysitter taking care of him, assuring him that all these great bills are his idea, and he should sign them. Sure, they'll let him have his moments to vent, but for the most part, the republicans have free reign for the next two, if not four years. And even better, we've got a businessman who's solution to failing is bankruptcy. Hopefully someone can explain how that doesn't work with nations.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Distraught American liberals should apply to migrate to Australia.

Between us, we should be able to ensure no RWNJ government is ever elected here again.

Plus, there's always New Zealand as our fallback option.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:36 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

They'll just start the titles of all the bills with "The Donald Trump Act to Make America Great Again by [terrible thing]" and he'll sign it.
posted by drezdn at 3:36 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

JG Ballard seems the obvious choice here.

Or maybe Norman Spinrad?
posted by Dr Dracator at 3:36 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm having trouble articulating any thoughts right now. Mostly I'm curious about exit poll data because that will give us a better idea of what the hell happened (and why). People were angry and motivated to vote.

Clinton just passed Trump in the popular vote count on NYT, though! 58,875,708 votes to 58,842,289. That is a heartening fact that nobody should forget, despite its lack of real-world consequences at this point.
posted by ropeladder at 3:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Trump isn't just a rubber stamp yes man. He will do crazy, uncontrollable things

He's a lazy CEO. He's not the idea guy. He's just the promoter of whatever idea his "team" thinks is best. The BIG question is who will be the main idea man behind him? Pence? Ghouliani and the rest of the Cabinet? That's where you need to be looking for clues.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

On the one hand, Trump didn't just beat Hillary, he beat the establishment candidates in the Republican party also, everyone single one. For a lot of reasons (some good, some not) people are very glad to go with something totally new, even if its dangerous. That's understandable in the general.

On the other hand, just had someone in distant family passively aggressively gloat at me on Facebook and my first thought was not a pretty one, so strap in, Thanksgiving will be not be fun.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:39 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Hey, he's a reputed billionaire property developer, reality-TV star, brand manager... what can possibly go wrong?

He is America's Silvio Berlusconi, but beyond worse.
posted by nightrecordings at 3:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Just deleted all the political feeds from my Twitter, Facebook and Newsblur. I just can't. I may have to drop away from Metafilter for a while. I love you all but I need to tend to my physical and mental health. Keep well.
posted by octothorpe at 3:42 AM on November 9, 2016 [56 favorites]

I just want to thank everyone for the wonderful community we had here. I am going to take Anticipation's suggestion:

I will be entering a self-imposed media and social media blackout for a while, as I grieve for the future that was lost last night, come to terms with the world in which we are now living, and give the wounds in my heart some time to begin healing. If you are feeling distraught, anxious, despondent, or otherwise upset after last night's results, I suggest you consider doing the same.

I'll be leaving Mefi for at least a few days, and Facebook probably longer. I have to take care of myself and my family and then I can think about what to do for the future.

Thanks to the mods for letting this technical and social nightmare dominate their time. I wish everyone well.
posted by mmoncur at 3:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I can't wait for him to start walking back building the wall (he will because it's literally fucking impossible)

The wall is already being built. Not with bricks and mortar, but...I work for an NGO that, in part, resettles refugees here. Just yesterday in a new-employee orientation, we discussed how there are four governors that have recently announced that they are dropping out of the naitonal program to resettle refugees in their state. It's the federal government that resettles refugees, so technically that's an empty gesture, but still, four states stood up and publically said "not here." And it was after Trump spoke in 2015 about banning Syrian immigration that thiey started dropping out.

The wall is already being built. It is being built with people say "not here", saying "we don't want you". It is being built each time it's someone in power who says that.

The refugee resettlement initiatives are federal programs, and we just had Trump elected president. Trump didn't build the wall, he himself is the last brick.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [49 favorites]

By the way, my understanding is that white people in every single demographic broken down on age, gender, college education -- they went for Trump.

Meanwhile, every single nonwhite version of those demographics went for Hillary.

So every single white person even thinking bout posting some billshit to Metafilter about how this was about how the Democrats shoulda nominated a leftist or this was about NAFTA or any fucking thing at all besides how far many, many, many of your fellow white people will go to enforce the systems that protect white people at the expense of everyone else, whether that was in the form of actually voting for Trump or voting third party or posting the nonsense that you are about to do

take a long, hard look at yourself

and then come collect your goddamn trash.
posted by joyceanmachine at 3:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [97 favorites]

Post title to be used sometime within the next four years: Oceans Rise, Empires Fall
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 3:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

I'm not sure the poll data was horrible based on who was polled. I just think huge chunks of people weren't polled such as middle age people who voted for the very first time. I can name at least five people that I know who all voted for the first time and they are all 45 years old+.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 3:44 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

my understanding is that white people in every single demographic broken down on age, gender, college education -- they went for Trump.

less than 50% of young white voters, and less than 50% of college educated white voters, voted trump.
vice.
(sorry, after posting, i read the rest of your post and realised i ended up "defending whites" which wasn't really my intention; i just saw the first few lines and noticed they were wrong, factually. i agree white voters in general have a lot to think about).
posted by andrewcooke at 3:47 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Meanwhile, every single nonwhite version of those demographics went or [sic] Hillary.

No, that's not the case.
posted by Mister Bijou at 3:47 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I honestly don't know. The last week or so before the election, where his access to Twitter was cut off, and he seemed almost calm at rallies? That showed he can be handled.

He only seemed "almost calm" by the incredibly low bar he set for himself. Even in the final stretch, he continued to repeat lies like the claim that the US is the highest taxed country in the world (not even remotely close), his campaign had people claiming a protester with a sign was an "assassination attempt," surrogates like Conway and Hughes continued to pedal nonsense, "joked" we should just cancel the election and give it to him, had a surrogate tweeting racist tweets, ranted about the election being "rigged" because lots of people were in line late at night to vote in Nevada, and even just today, his campaign sent a construction lawyer to badly argue a ridiculous lawsuit in Nevada over the same issue.

Not starting a Twitter war at 3am and doing a terrible job reading off a teleprompter are really, really low standards for a President.
posted by zachlipton at 3:47 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

One deleted. Sorry folks, but we won't be having any "kill them before they kill us" type of posting here, or violent fantasies / proposals. Also, if you are feeling the need to rage, I totally get you, but pretty much every single person here is in pain and coping as well as they can. Please don't use this as a place to lash out. Thanks.
posted by taz (staff) at 3:49 AM on November 9, 2016 [28 favorites]

I don't think that the reason the Democrats lost an election that hinged on white nationalism is the failure to nominate a Jewish socialist.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:49 AM on November 9, 2016 [116 favorites]

So here's a fun line of thought: what happens after Trump scuttles the Iran deal, Iran starts spinning its centrifuges again because why not, and the Saudis get nukes to stand off with Iran. What do we need in such a world? Whose firm, steady hand will guide us through these shoals? Donald J. Trump.

*lady peeing her pants in fear gif*
posted by angrycat at 3:50 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

I think my alcohol is wearing off and I still am afraid to go to sleep. Because if I try to sleep I will have to think, instead of just reading comments. But I feel a need to try to take personal stock.

I'm in a much better personal position to face this disaster now that I was a few months ago. Our income is better, and we have employer-provided health insurance, even though it is actually costing us significantly more than our ACA plan. So we're not facing literal death if the ACA is repealed. Us personally, with both of us having chronic conditions.

There's no option of us moving. Not out of the country, not to a blue state. This was the first conversation we had this morning.

I run two small businesses. It's so impossible to even think about them right now. How do I ask people to buy frivolous stuff from me when I want to advise them all to save their money in case of apocalypse. During the Bush administration I was a social worker, not a capitalist. I only do this now because I couldn't physically be a social worker anymore.

I was barely worrying about the election this week because I have been stressing so hard getting ready for a vending event this coming weekend, and dealing with my health getting in the way of that. Last night I came close to writing the whole thing off and cancelling because the bother just wasn't worth it. Surely no one will be buying stuff they can live without NOW. But some people who will be there talked me round. So at least I'll be with friends. But I'll also be with a lot of Trump voters. I'm going to be so, so drunk.

Oh, and I may have started smoking again tonight. I haven't cried yet. I'm afraid if I do I won't stop. I keep turning it round into anger. But I had to stop reading FB or I was going to lose it. Final straw was a black man, a friend, posting about how we need to take care of the people more vulnerable than us and stand with immigrants and women and trans and queer people.
posted by threeturtles at 3:51 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

So, now that the media has succeeded in their decades-long quest to take out a Clinton, maybe they can use some of their newly found free time to do some fact-based reporting?

Just a thought.
posted by tocts at 3:51 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

The one thing I'm hoping for now is that Trump gives the horrible Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke a spot in his administration.
posted by drezdn at 3:53 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

So, now that the media has succeeded in their decades-long quest to take out a Clinton, maybe they can use some of their newly found free time to do some fact-based reporting?

In terms of available man-hours, the media's free time has only shrunk. The Internet has reduced the number of people being paid to report on stuff.
posted by ocschwar at 3:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

what happens after Trump scuttles the Iran deal, Iran starts spinning its centrifuges again because why not, and the Saudis get nukes to stand off with Iran

i think the current hope is that nuclear winter fixes global warming.
posted by andrewcooke at 3:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is me: ‘I Feel the Hatred.’ Mexicans Reel in Shock After Trump Victory
posted by Omon Ra at 3:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

What do we do? I'm all for working within the system, generally, but there are a number of actually life-and-death things going on here, between the Republicans in general and Trump in particular being completely unqualified to deal with the current diplomatic/military situation and of course the climate change issue that requires seriously for real right now drastic action, and in four years things will be worse and the system will be even more rigged against change. It will be too late for many, and those of us that make it will have to deal with the fallout of those years probably until our deaths. "They go low, we go high" isn't going to work because a lot of us will be too dead to go high. We need something that can start working immediately.
posted by IAmUnaware at 3:55 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

I can't bear to go to work today. I haven't slept much. I feel so much despair and fear and I keep crying. For the first time I've had the thought that I'm so glad I don't have grandchildren. I am taking Anticipation's advice to stay away from media and social media for a while until I can gather some strength to fight again. I never want to see Facebook again. Just for today I'm giving myself permission to stay in a cocoon of sleep, novels, and quiet. Tomorrow I will get back out in the world and stand up for what is right. But there are some people in my life that I really never want to see again. Thank you for being here, Metafilter.
posted by a fish out of water at 3:55 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

Andrewcooke, the standard isn't whether more tha 50 percent in each category.

It's that more white people in every single category voted for Trump outright, and then when you throw in the third party or other viewers -- yeah.
posted by joyceanmachine at 3:56 AM on November 9, 2016

sure - i clarified my post a little, which may not have made the insta-feed. oh, no. i'm still misunderstanding. i think i got you now after reading another reply.
posted by andrewcooke at 3:58 AM on November 9, 2016

It's that more white people in every single category voted for Trump outright, and then when you throw in the third party or other viewers -- yeah.

But what's the relationship between the observed votes and a hypothetical third candidate? I think that's what's confusing some people here.
posted by polymodus at 3:58 AM on November 9, 2016

If Trump is going to align us with Putin, he needs to make some sort of peace with their ally, Iran. Maybe he'll rewrite the existing treaty in word salad and offer it to them, claiming he invented it himself.
posted by Apocryphon at 3:59 AM on November 9, 2016

.
posted by tofu_crouton at 3:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I am asking my congress lady today:

1. That she not attend the inauguration.
2. That she not attend any other white house function, or the SOTUs.
3. That she not shake his hand even if given the chance.

Grind the guy down by making it clear that no, the nation will not unite behind such a scumbag.
He's old. He has a fragile ego. He can be ground down the way Obama wasn't. And he has to be.

Everyone who has slighted him risks retaliation from the boss of the NSA. The list has to GROW now, and grow quickly, to protect those of us who have already stuck their necks out.

If he can be ground down, then we just have to deal with his retinue. They are the scum of the GOP, since all the Republicans with decency are also being sidelined. But they are not narcissistic and delusional like Trump himself.
posted by ocschwar at 4:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

Threeturtles, don't start smoking.

I think the prospect of a truly shit president is new to most of you, but it isn't for me.

Things are unfair and uncertain, but first you need to take care of yourself. If that means taking a break from the Internet, then do that. Look into transitioning to a more predictable income, somehow. Be pragmatic and deal with this the same way you would deal with a natural disaster. Maybe offer different products, maybe get a part time job. Maybe wait and see if people will still buy stuff while you develop a plan B.

When you're in a better place mentally, you can start with activism or volunteering. Keep yourself informed but not in an overwhelming or psychologically dangerous way.

For real don't smoke. Don't let circumstance control you. We all do what we can. You're not helping anyone by damaging your health.
posted by Tarumba at 4:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [19 favorites]

it's the thought of spending the next 4 years surrounding by a country of people that I know voted for a racist, misogynist, xenophobic dictator that really, really makes me ill.

I got ill in pretty much exactly that way after finding out that 2/3 of my compatriots thought our then-new "anti-terrorism" laws, which give the Australian Security Intelligence Organization the power to detain and interrogate "terrorist suspects" without charge for extended periods in enforced secrecy, were a good idea.

Coming to terms with the fact that one's own social circle is but a tiny fragile bubble floating in a sea of maliciously stupid ignorance is just hard.

I don't know how I'm going to work today. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't stop shaking. Is it going to feel like this for the next 4 years?

No. Pretty soon the numbness sets in. Then comes the depression. Then after a while the Trump era is over and we can all wake up and get on with cleaning up the incredible pile of shit it left in its wake. Well, those of us that the depression didn't actually do in.

One of Trump's main points in his acceptance speech was his plan for a lot of public works. I could easily see that passing Congress since Dems will support it.

No, not "public works". "Infrastructure". The difference being that "infrastructure" is something you can contract out to the private sector. Expect more toll roads and bridges, more private hospitals, more private schools, more private prisons, more of everybody's hard-earned trickling up toward the 0.01%, because for-profit infrastructure is all you're ever going to get under a regime as heavily invested in tax cuts as Cheeto Mussolini's.

even if the country is ruined, i wonder if that will be enough to wake up the people who voted for that man

how much damage will Trump have to do to get people to rethink things?

i think you underestimate just how inept and stupid he really is

If history has taught us anything, it's that "surely this" is a forlorn hope.

The simple, sad fact is that there will always be a vast contingent of irredeemably gullible idiots ready and willing to support the genuinely vicious in their ceaseless efforts to fuck everything up for everybody. The chickens are never going to stop voting for Colonel Sanders, and expecting them to wake up and smell the burning feathers is an exercise in futility.

Resistance to the consequences of this is an endless grind and a complete pain in the arse but the need for it will always be there.
posted by flabdablet at 4:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

I'm politically fascinated by all of this, though. Like, the actual mechanisms of election reporting, campaigning, GOTVing - apparently none of that matters. Apparently you can run a troll campaign, make numerous fuckups, break all the established norms, have no ground game, no real advertising, no GOTV strategy, tweet about sex tapes at 3am, praise a dictator, have no coherent policy positions at all, and still win.

Polling, election reporting, ground game, GOTV efforts, policy documents. Will those things ever matter again? Did they ever actually matter? Apparently we don't need any of that stuff at all! Maybe we never did.

My background is in digital advertising stuff. We've joked in our industry that part of the reason that print and old-fashioned advertising spend is falling while online is increasing, is that for the first time advertisers can actually measure results. Maybe print ads and billboards and tv spots were actually never that effective. People just thought they were. It just took something else to come along to demonstrate it. This feels the same.

I think this could mean a change for political campaigning. The age of the demagogue, where being outrageous and viral and shareable beats* all the traditional ways to campaign.

Brexit was a warmup act, an initial experiment. Trump proved it works.

I wonder if our side can learn to do it, too.

* I really had to stop myself from saying Trumps. He's taken that word from me.
posted by generichuman at 4:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [32 favorites]

Somebody, I forgot who, asked about self care. What activities can we do to keep from wallowing in despair. This is a tough one for me, since I have an awesome imagination, and it's going into overdrive right now.

So right now, I'm delving into rereading Band vs Band, comic, which is the brightest thing ever, and also enjoying the really enthusiastic commentary section of the latest two postings of Strong Female Protagonist.

So my recommendation for people, is grab for the things that keep you sane. Grab them, wallow in them, nourish them, and hold them tight. Because sooner rather than later, they may need you more than you need them.
posted by happyroach at 4:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Can we go back to philosopher kings because there were true advantages to that system.
posted by angrycat at 4:06 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Apparently you can run a troll campaign, make numerous fuckups, break all the established norms, have no ground game, no real advertising, no GOTV strategy, tweet about sex tapes at 3am, praise a dictator, have no coherent policy positions at all, and still win.

It seems kinda important to point out that you forgot to include "... if you're a white man, running against a woman.". Like in so many cases, the point at which the established rules of the game seem to suddenly stop mattering is when non-whites and/or non-dudes are trying to play.
posted by tocts at 4:08 AM on November 9, 2016 [36 favorites]

nur ein gott kann uns retten

.
posted by dis_integration at 4:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

If exit polls are accurate, Trump won a third of Latino men, and a good percentage of white women. The sexism and the white nationalism are a huge part of his act, yes. But surely there's more to it as well. Some sort of generalized demagoguery that allows him to stir up the worst impulses from different groups, to set tribe against tribe. I know of friends' parents, Asian immigrants, who were pro-Trump. My own dislike him, consider him unfit, but don't hold any particular fear or animosity towards him. There's reports from exit polls that minority turnout were lower than 2008 and 2012. There's a generalized perception from white liberals that there's a racial war being waged against minorities. Maybe so, but many would-be victims themselves don't seem to be forming a united front.
posted by Apocryphon at 4:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [23 favorites]

This was a surprise because a *lot* of people lied to the pollsters.

The simpler explanation is that the pollsters asked the wrong people.

Having been through two of these "WTF was THAT?" votes in the UK recently, my best guess is that whatever has changed in how we do democracy has also broken polling. Polling just doesn't work any more. Also not working: the media, the idea of having actual policy ideas, putting any value around experience and expertise, strategic campaigning, some at least baseline level of honesty... It seems that a whole lot of things we thought of as essential parts of the system no longer are, and a whole lot of other things we thought we'd long since ditched from the system are back with us, like strongman politics or proudly-worn xenophobia. So I don't know exactly what went wrong with the predictions in these three votes - maybe it wasn't even the same thing going wrong - but fundamentally, the accuracy of polling works on the basis that we understand how elections work and how voters act, and I don't think we do any more.

I'm really sorry, America. This seems so horrifically bleak. I don't even have any words, apart from to wave my arms around wildly while saying "fuck" a lot. But, ugh, if this is what politics is becoming across the globe, then at least there are more and more people worldwide to work on a solution and find a better way. I have no idea what that solution could be but at least there's hundreds of millions of us trying, right?

I have mostly lurked on the election threads, but I was so, so impressed by how many MeFites were working hard to get out there for Clinton's campaign, knocking on doors and making phone calls. (And when I read any "Americans Do Foolish Thing!" type of coverage in our international media, I'll be remembering all those valuable things done too and I won't let the horror block out the good.) That kind of energy and effort and belief, it matters. I am possibly being wildly optimistic here, but I still stand by this: even if everything seems upside down to the point where polling doesn't work and campaigning doesn't work and whatever else, that kind of effort from people wanting to make their country a better place does work, eventually. It might take us a bit of time to work out how to use that energy in this type of bizarro world politics, but in the end, we'll find a way.
posted by Catseye at 4:16 AM on November 9, 2016 [33 favorites]

Hannity must be elated not just because Trump wins, but because this will probably screw over Megyn Kelly in a major way. Murdoch Jrs were all ready to shift Fox news to the middle under Hillary but I bet those plans just got thrown in the shredder.
posted by PenDevil at 4:17 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I've got zero patience with all the rhetoric in my feed about "it's not that bad, the sun's still rising, we'll fight on." Yeah, sure, of course we will. But I am sitting here considering that they've run the table. An R President (who happens to be crazy), R House and Senate, who will then nominate an arch-conservative to the vacancy on the Supreme Court? Game over. Checks and balances gone. For a long time to come. We're going to lose Obamacare almost immediately, and all our social gains are in question with the next gay-marriage, campaign funding, and reproductive-rights cases to go to the court. Ryan is going to make nice and set the agenda; Pence will be his henchman.

Sorry to be so pessimistic; I'm sure I'll rally, but the "when you walk through the storm" people seem to me right now out of touch and hopelessly naive. And that's before I even reflect that, when I walk out into the world now, I will always be conscious that 50% of this country thinks that as a female, I am so much lesser that they will elect a dangerous shitstain before a competent and qualified woman. I have clearly been told I'm 2nd-class. So, it's going to take a while to absorb this new reality, and I'm not going to feel sunny, rah-rah or "let's organize" about it for some unforeseeable about of time yet. It feels more important to get my papers in order.
posted by Miko at 4:17 AM on November 9, 2016 [125 favorites]

By the way, my understanding is that white people in every single demographic broken down on age, gender, college education -- they went for Trump.

Not quite (538).

Non-college white men went huge for Trump (+49)
Non-college white women went a little less huge for Trump (+28)
College white men went big for Trump (+15)
But college white women went for Hillary (+6)

So basically, an education wasn't enough to overcome the racism and sexism of white college men. She lost because white collar guys are still largely deplorable. And I say that as a college educated white guy. The poll miss in the college educated vote is because white college men came home to Trump regardless of what they told pollsters.

* usual caveats about the accuracy of exit polls
posted by chris24 at 4:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

Trending on Russian Twitter: #трампнаш (our Trump). So not everyone's sad.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 4:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I went for a walk in the snow with my dog. I recommend being around animals if you can, they are good company. It helps a little. Thank you so much to the mods, for your work.
posted by tardigrade at 4:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

OK, I'm too old to deal with this nonsense. Keep the Social Security and Medicare taps turned on and I won't bother you. If you voted for this asshat he's your problem. Let me know how it turns out. I'll be busy elsewhere...

'Inner emigration', huh? Your Social Security is going to be handed over to Paul Ryan. This isn't someone elses' problem.
posted by thelonius at 4:20 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

After tossing and turning for a long time, I finally got to sleep. Then I had that terrible moment, where for a few brief sleepy moments you forget that the world has come crashing down around you, and then it hits you.

I didn't even need to open up mefi. I saw the NYT notifications on my phone.

I haven't been able to stop crying since I woke up. I wish I could call in sick to work, but that's not really an option for me. Still, maybe it's better than wallowing in my grief all day at home alone. At least I know that all my coworkers will be similarly horrified. Unlike 2004, when I was surrounded by very happy people, which only made the Kerry loss so much worse. I'm so sorry to those of you who will have to face friends, family, and coworkers who voted for Trump.

I just don't know how we go on. I know I felt this way in 2000 and 2004, but GWB for all its horrible fuck ups wasn't even at the level of Trump.

And it's not just Trump. It's the people in this country that elected him. It's crushing.
posted by litera scripta manet at 4:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

This article A miss bigger than a missed story from PressThink was published on November 6 but I think it really gets at what happened last night. It's not just "reality-based politics" that's being rejected, for a segment of the population it's reality-based reality itself. Of course I thought Clinton was killing it- she had facts and figures and plans! Trump never cared about any of that and he was never seriously challenged on it. I've noticed this with the anti-vaxxers I've encountered- you can argue and argue and cite study after study and it just does not matter.

I don't know how to fix it, but that's a big part of what happened last night I think.
posted by TheLateGreatAbrahamLincoln at 4:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [42 favorites]

I'm very worried for the people of the United States right now.

I'm even more worried for the people of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:27 AM on November 9, 2016 [39 favorites]

How did Republicans who repudiated Trump do last night? I'm worried for their safety.
posted by waitingtoderail at 4:32 AM on November 9, 2016

I think the civic institutions and traditions of America are in for one hell of a stress test.
posted by srboisvert at 4:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

~College white men went big for Trump (+15)
~So basically, an education wasn't enough to overcome the racism and sexism of white college men.

The idea that college somehow enlightens a person's thinking died a long, long time ago. College in 2016 is little more than a job training treadmill. People go in, drink a lot of beer, make connections, get a business degree and get out. There aren't too many colleges out there anymore proudly trumpeting their "liberal arts" bone-fides. It's all "preparing for the future" which, in 2017, means getting job training. Basically, if you go in as a sexist, racist creep, chances are very good that's how you're going to come out.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [62 favorites]

if you go in as a sexist, racist creep, chances are very good that's how you're going to come out.

To be fair, that's how it's been for most of the history of college. The 60s and 70s were a total anomaly in that regard.
posted by Miko at 4:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm calling it here first: Time Person of the Year 2016 will be "Stupid White Men"

Oh God, not again. I won like three times already.
posted by sour cream at 4:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

How long will it take for the cheetoh charlatan to crumble? Faites vos jeux mesdames et messieurs!
posted by mareli at 4:35 AM on November 9, 2016

I think the civic institutions and traditions of America are in for one hell of a stress test.

The stress test was his candidacy. This is the crack. The institutions are crumbling. The world order is now broken.

I am terrified.
posted by dis_integration at 4:35 AM on November 9, 2016 [25 favorites]

What Thorzdad said. If you want to meet some impressively anti-intellectual people, feel free to swing by my academic department and sit in on a variety pack of 300-level courses. And that's in liberal arts.
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:36 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

The institutions are crumbling. The world order is now broken.

I'm just hoping this is the left's version of "Obama is coming for our guns."
posted by Obscure Reference at 4:37 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

So basically, an education wasn't enough to overcome the racism and sexism of white college men. She lost because white collar guys are still largely deplorable.

One other thing on this; obviously there are lots of deplorable white collar guys and always have been. As a former Republican who lived in Texas I know a bunch of them. But they all voted R before. What is surprising about this result is that it seems a number of college white men who voted Obama in 2012 went Trump in 2016. I guess that shows the power of misogyny.
posted by chris24 at 4:37 AM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

Interesting exit polling data. No, it doesn't seem to be the working poor who supported Trump. People with higher incomes were more likely to vote for him. He did particularly well among men, uneducated white people, and people who live in small towns or rural areas. Looks like more people voted for Trump because they disliked Clinton than voted for Clinton because they disliked Trump. A lot of people voted for Trump even though they think he's not honest and trustworthy, while hardly anyone voted for Clinton if they thought she was not honest and trustworty.

Of course, given the general failure of polling in this election, exit polls probably need to be taken with a pillar of salt. But still interesting.
posted by klausness at 4:39 AM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

The idea that college somehow enlightens a person's thinking died a long, long time ago. College in 2016 is little more than a job training treadmill.

Not even that. It's a credentialing mill. Lots of people with BAs that leave them with neither an education nor job skills, but still put them ahead of those who don't have a BA.

This is part of the problem today.
posted by ocschwar at 4:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Now we get to see the comedy-tragedy of Trump trying to govern. The Republicans have a golden opportunity to turn the Supreme Court to the right for a generation -- and it infuriates me that McConnell's bad faith in blocking Garland's nomination has been validated -- and there's little doubt that the Republicans will undo much progress, but they also have to deliver on a lot of promises that either aren't so easy or will have obviously negative effects on their own constituents. Ryan now has to repeal Obamacare, and what, if anything, will replace it?

The last time the American people got a taste of full-on Republican governance was under Bush the Lesser, and it was such a miserable failure that the party faithful had to rebrand themselves as the "tea party."

And the demographic tides may not have been enough to overcome the white racist vote, but neither can electing Trump entirely change the direction in which the country is moving. Today the fight to make Trump a one-term president begins.
posted by Gelatin at 4:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Real question: how much danger is HRC in right now of being imprisoned?

I keep thinking back to my grandparents in Paris and how they did not have their papers in order when the orders came to start rounding up the Jews. How long is long enough to wait? Until HRC is jailed like Yulia Tymoshenko? Some other sign? I'm not asking rhetorically.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 4:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [27 favorites]

The people have spoken etc etc etc
My interest at this point is in what the so-called data was telling us. Polls of every kind, aggregated; betting markets--all predicted a strong case for the Dems to win...Only that prof who predicts, and Michael Moore, and Donald Trump seem to believe Trump would win...why, how did so many "pundits" go wrong?
posted by Postroad at 4:41 AM on November 9, 2016

I'm just hoping this is the left's version of "Obama is coming for our guns."

That would be nice, but I think it's reasonable to say. The old world order is crumbling, because this is profoundly destabilizing to our alliances and international position - let alone our domestic security. Things are going to be changing.
posted by Miko at 4:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

To the non-reality thing, I keep wondering how climate change/diminishing resources play a role in this. Because I have not been able to ever grok climate-change deniers. I mean at some point wouldn't you be all *maybe there is something to this science thing, even if evolution is a theory of Satan* or whatever bugs you about science.

But if reality is whatever you think it is, well then, why not happily deny climate change and whatever else suits your fancy?
posted by angrycat at 4:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

why, how did so many "pundits" go wrong?

Bad polling's the answer, as stated above. Not enough consideration of organizing by internet.
posted by Miko at 4:43 AM on November 9, 2016

Real question: how much danger is HRC in right now of being imprisoned?

It would be very wise for anyone who has been outspoken against the President-elect to lay low and be very mindful of their surroundings.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 4:44 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Polls of every kind, aggregated; betting markets--all predicted a strong case for the Dems to win...

Same thing happened with Brexit. Polling seems to be broken now - whether its the methods, demographics, or people just lying about their intentions, they are way off.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 4:44 AM on November 9, 2016

I think trump and his creeps will forget about HRC, truly.
posted by zutalors! at 4:44 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Yesterday morning, I thought I might be waking up today with a combination of still drunk and hung over, but I didn't really think I'd be doing so after less than three hours of sleep.

I also didn't think that one of my first tasks would be to mine last night's original election thread for favorites that I could recover for use in this thread on comments expressing the same combination of outrage, grief, fear, despondency, and shame that others have expressed since the "maybe we might be headed for some recounts" time I finally passed out around 2:30 and the "no, this is not a drill, DJT (I can't even bring myself to use his full name) is going to be the fucking President" now that we're apparently living in.

I work for an R1 university, but my paycheck comes from sponsoring agencies in the federal government. As a strong believer in a healthy, functioning federal government, this is usually a source of immense pride for me. Right now, it just adds to my worries.

Springsteen played "Long Walk Home" at Hillary's Philly rally on Monday night, and yesterday it was stuck in my head all day. It's kind of a melancholy song at times, but by the time the bridge kicks in, it takes a hopeful turn:

Here everybody has a neighbor
Everybody has a friend
Everybody has a reason to begin again

My father said "Son, we're lucky in this town
It's a beautiful place to be born
It just wraps its arms around you
Nobody crowds you and nobody goes it alone"

"Your flag flying over the courthouse
Means certain things are set in stone
Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't"

That last verse there is ringing pretty hollow to me right now. America's full-throated repudiation of multiculturalism, inclusiveness, and basically the entirety of the enlightenment puts me in a place where I really don't know where the limits are. What seemed like the floor 24 hours ago might be miles above where the ceiling is now. The likelihood of a popular vote victory is the coldest of comfort -- yes, it might mean can say technically Trump doesn't speak for a majority of us, but if your Chipotle burrito consisted of 47% or 48% norovirus, I don't think you'd eat it.

I just don't know where we go from here, but I hope that through my network of friends, family, and this community I can find answers in the coming days and weeks. To the many of you who are in a much more vulnerable position than me and my family, all I can offer right now other than sympathy is a promise to try to be part of the solution, whatever that may reveal itself to be.
posted by tonycpsu at 4:45 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

Trump as president is one thing. But a Trump administration stacked with all the Trump cronies you couldn't stand looking at during the campaign? And Trump-nominated Supreme Court justices (only requirement is that they praise Trump) with a Trump-friendly Senate to rubber stamp them?

Meanwhile, I'm living not far from Europe's current border with the Russian empire while CNN says "Donald Trump victory shocks world, pleases Putin."
posted by pracowity at 4:45 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

I have to be down on my local university's campus later today, and it's going to be very hard to see a student wearing a hijab and not really fear for their safety in the coming weeks.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:45 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Regarding self-care: I've written several times on AskMe about the best coping technique I know: Improve, Appreciate, Connect, Protect. I'm practicing it this morning and it helps, it really does.

An action in the "protect" category is... sharing the best coping technique I know. If you have friends who are completely at a loss, I invite you to share this with them, too.
posted by Sublimity at 4:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [38 favorites]

I can't believe that at this time yesterday, I was so pumped up about casting my vote for the first woman president.

And now this.

Aside from all the other horrors, as a woman, I just feel so defeated. We really can't win, can we? No matter how qualified, no matter how much support and money we have, no matter how much we want it, the world still sees us as fundamentally less than.

I have a tendency to be very outspoken, sometimes even abrasive. I know that rubs people the wrong way sometimes, and this is just one more reminder that most of society only wants us if we know our place.
posted by litera scripta manet at 4:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [85 favorites]

I think this year has permanently killed my capacity for optimism. My only goal for 2017 is to brace myself for whatever's coming and to try and do something useful in the face of whatever it is. The idea that somehow progress will be a thing has faded completely from my mind; my only - weak - hope is that we somehow avoid or minimise the worst kind of regression.

Here is my favourite baby panda, anyway.
posted by Aravis76 at 4:47 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

One term? Hah, he could be dictator for life. At the very least he gets two terms because there is literally nothing he could do that would make people not vote for him, down to shooting PoC on the White House lawn. We're outnumbered. I hate white people.

I went to bed at midnight and I have been wide awake since 3 a.m.

Let's work on secession, because there is just no resolving this. West Coast, let's get out of here.

I don't know what is wrong with our species that (a lot of) men just hate the motherfucking goddamned shit out of women, but they do. I don't know if this is solvable or something we can ever get past either.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [28 favorites]

Whitest U.S. counties are voting for Trump by an astonishing and unprecedented margin.
posted by Golden Eternity at 4:52 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

We planned to leave if this happened. Not "planned" in the sense of making a concrete plan, but we had discussed it. The entire reason my husband exists is because his family, at various times, fled various oppressive regimes. We have multiple citizenship as a result. We don't want to ignore the instructions of history. But now faced with actually doing it - it seems like the right decision but how do you even execute on that plan? And when? By the time you know for sure, will it be too late? And is there anywhere a Jew can go with an EU passport that would actually be safer right now?

I'm so scared right now. I don't know how to move forward.
posted by melissasaurus at 4:52 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

On that note... later when I have taken care of house-hold chores neglected so I could work for Hillary, I will down the miniature of Jameson's I meant to toast the centenary of the Easter Rebellion of 1916 with. I was ill that week. Mr. Roquette and I both drank last night. He doesn't like to drink one drink left him feeling yucky. It helped me. I've got a messed up shoulder and I had a nightmarish IBS flare which was actually HELPED by hard cherry cider.
I am so glad my mother did not live to see Hillary beat so bad. She loved Hillary.
Yes, I was for Bernie, but I did get on board and help Hillary. I never bought into the hate toward her. I just preferred Bernie. Now neither can run again at their ages. Her political career is over. The Clintons are over.
I do hope Trump moderates some stuff. Pence is even worse than him, so I hope Trump stays healthy.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 4:52 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Its small in light of everything else, but Nevada just elected Catherine Cortez Masto as its first female and the nation's first Latina Senator. I'm going to hold on it for now.
posted by florencetnoa at 4:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [28 favorites]

There have been several facebook posts so far this morning from people who have been smugly self righteous about their third party/abstain status the last few weeks that start out "regardless of who won..." and similar.

Facebook is pretty hopping right now, and it's been somewhat gratifying seeing their posts get ZERO reaction. You didn't help, stfu, we are not going to come over the next morning and validate your actions.
posted by phunniemee at 4:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

So I was wrong and admit it. 358 EV for Clinton? What was I smoking? An inherent belief in the common good of humanity in general and the progressive nature of the american populace in particular I suppose. Well, anyway, this was both highly shocking and totally depressingly predictable. Sorry, but I've just got to say it: I am so glad I've already expatriated myself. Thank you Glibpaxgirl for giving me a new country.

Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is almost over. hooray.
posted by Glibpaxman at 4:56 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

What a Trump presidency would wreak on Europe and the Middle East: Carl Bildt (former prime minister of Sweden) writing a month ago.
posted by stonepharisee at 4:56 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oh, I've already seen people saying everything will be about the same as if Clinton had won,since both parties are just the same, ya know.
posted by thelonius at 4:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

At the very least he gets two terms because there is literally nothing he could do that would make people not vote for him

I disagree. Obviously the "anti establishment" narrative the media loved so well was false -- all those incumbent Republican senators got re-elected, thank you very much, Charles Schumer -- but Trump got to run as a blank slate, making big promises, and blaming Republican problems on Obama. There's no evidence at all to suggest that Trump will run a competent administration, and with at least two and probably four years of a Republican Congress, they will have nowhere to hide.
posted by Gelatin at 4:58 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm trying and failing at reading all your comments during lunch. I'll have to get back later.

But two things have been on my mind: this is so 2000 again, except with an even less informed republican candidate than Bush. There is a pattern there: with Reagan we were incredulous that Americans would vote for someone that ignorant, Bush was a bit dumber, and now Trump has trumped both. And also: Florida Green voters, Mother Earth wants to put you in detention, but she is too busy preparing for the coming eight years of abuse.
The other thing is that the worst thing about this is that it is the political version of revenge porn. Bush just wanted to lower taxes for the rich and lower welfare for the poor. Trump - and his voters - want to do that, and then also get back at all the "elitists" they feel they've been snubbed by. For Trump, those are the political and social elites. For his voters, the elitists are school teachers, community workers, IRS employees, workers at national parks.. well everyone knows the list.

On the Danish radio I heard a debate between different failed "experts" about what the f*** just happened. Most were actually fairly good. But in the holy name of unbiased media there was also a right wing politician and right wing journalist. Since Denmark as a whole lies far to the left of Hillary, no one thought any good of Trump, but the right-wing people tried to draw some parallels to our own politics, make some sense of it all etc. What was funny was that the right wing politician kept on calling Trump "Drumpf". On a depressing day, that made me giggle a bit..
posted by mumimor at 4:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Europe's populist and extreme-right parties jubilant
posted by Mister Bijou at 5:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

At this point I'm clinging to "This too shall pass."
posted by drezdn at 5:02 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Since Denmark as a whole lies far to the left of Hillary, no one thought any good of Trump, but the right-wing people tried to draw some parallels to our own politics, make some sense of it all etc.

Seems like he should have some compatriots in the DF.
posted by hoyland at 5:02 AM on November 9, 2016

Sorry, but I've just got to say it: I am so glad I've already expatriated myself.

I left a few months before Obama won. I enjoyed not having to explain W to people anymore. Eight years later, I got excited about what America could be again. I wasn't going back, life is here now. But I was staying here, instead of staying away from there. I'm not sure how true that is anymore.

Our daughter is two. She's starting to realize there's a mama-language and a papa-language, understands them both, but mostly speaks Swiss German.

She's not old enough to know she's an American, too, yet. And I'm happy that we have a few years before we have to tell her.
posted by Vetinari at 5:02 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Get out of major metropolitan areas if you can.

The little screaming blue dots in this sea of red? Cities are the only place I will ever belong. I'll take my chances and stay.
posted by phunniemee at 5:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [71 favorites]

.
posted by SNACKeR at 5:03 AM on November 9, 2016

Metafilter helped me move from antipathy toward Hillary Clinton to enthusiastic support, and Metafilter helped me get through last night by letting me know that other people were feeling the same grief I was. Thank you all for both of those things. For my own self care, I've done some Facebook cleanup and I'm going to try to step away from the news for a few hours. Do what you need to get through today. There's lots of work to do tomorrow.
posted by maurice at 5:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [25 favorites]

.
posted by drezdn at 5:04 AM on November 9, 2016

Get out of major metropolitan areas if you can.

I don't drive, due to a disability, and my partner and I have fairly city-specific jobs right now. So.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I will down the miniature of Jameson's I meant to toast the centenary of the Easter Rebellion of 1916 with

Have one for me. My old poison of choice.
posted by thelonius at 5:05 AM on November 9, 2016

.
posted by jiroczech at 5:07 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Hm, I really hope that nobody tries to say *but they were both bad* today. NOT TODAY is the thing I expect to be yelling until at least 2018.
posted by angrycat at 5:07 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

But now faced with actually doing it - it seems like the right decision but how do you even execute on that plan? And when? By the time you know for sure, will it be too late? And is there anywhere a Jew can go with an EU passport that would actually be safer right now?

Yeah, I'm torn between feeling like I should stand and fight and wanting to run far, far away. But I only have US citizenship. My most obvious alternate country option is to make aliyah but going to Israel sort of feels like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

No where is safe. No one is safe.

Can Canada just like annex New England? And maybe California and Washington and Oregon? Actually, maybe just the whole East Coast above the Mason Dixon line. NY, NJ, Delaware, Philadelphia (not so much the rest of Pennsylvania), Maryland, NoVa (but not the rest of Virginia). Oh and we keep DC too.

Of course, we also would grace period where anyone from the rest of the US wants to escape this burning trash fire can come too. Or fuck it, I'm happy to help smuggle people over the border.

There are a few kinks to work out, but I think this plan has promise.
posted by litera scripta manet at 5:08 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Europe's populist and extreme-right parties jubilant

Never in my name, never in my name, never in my name
posted by freya_lamb at 5:08 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Get out of major metropolitan areas if you can.

I don't think fleeing into a klan celebration is a solution.
posted by srboisvert at 5:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

Oh, and thanks to whoever linked to JK Rowling's twitter account. It's one of the few things that has made my morning a little brighter.

At least the crying has stopped. I feel like this is one of those days where I need to bring my makeup with me to work so that I can do touch ups when I start crying again.
posted by litera scripta manet at 5:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I can't stop thinking of all of the terrible things this means for our country. I considered listing some, but why burden everyone here with what they're already thinking. I don't know what to do today, or for the next four years... It's like I've had my future ripped away from me.
posted by codacorolla at 5:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Seems like he should have some compatriots in the DF
Not really - DF are very strongly for socialized healthcare, solid pensions for everyone and LGBT rights. They are just racist and anti-EU as well.

Re: my comment above, after checking I realize that the Greens share the responsibility with libertarians. My bad.
posted by mumimor at 5:10 AM on November 9, 2016

Thought I might slip my recent AskMe in here: What are some comforting depictions of a more or less functioning society?

The West Wing has been covered.
posted by Rinku at 5:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Facebook is pretty hopping right now, and it's been somewhat gratifying seeing their posts get ZERO reaction. You didn't help, stfu, we are not going to come over the next morning and validate your actions.

I'd really like to see that sentiment expressed towards Facebook itself.

I have more than a creeping suspicion that events like Brexit and this election are fuelled more than we think by Facebook's algorithms that present people with echo chamber views of what others are supposedly thinking & saying.

By presenting mainly only posts that validate the Facebook users' preexisting values & allegiances, it creates spaces where facts are irrelevant compared with opinions and even deliberate lies.

Once it was that mainstream media could sway electorates towards whichever candidate or party the media's owners preferred. Over here (and elsewhere), moguls like Murdoch still hold an incredible amount of undemocratic power, but I suspect it will become more clear over time that a lot of what is going on in the world is driven less by intent than by the clustering and siloing of opinions and interests by faceless algorithms.

Facts and verifiable truth or journalistic integrity don't seem to be able to match up to these echo chambers, and for some reason it's the xenophobic and hate-filled populists that appear to be either playing the systems better, or else inadvertently gaining the most advantage from the new media.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [45 favorites]

The one slim ray of--I can't even call it hope, really, unless it's hope for schadenfreude--is that the people who will be hurt worst by the Trump regime will be the people who put him there. Trump won't build any fucking wall, this country depends too much on undocumented labor in too many industries and it will depend even more when the economy tanks (further). The Clintons don't have to worry because they run an international foundation and could literally leave tomorrow. And--and this is something that you can cling to--there are still big blue areas of the electoral map. Trump did not win by the overwhelming landslides that Nixon did in '72 or Reagan in '84.

And, ultimately, Trump will go for the easy con over the tough con. He will soak the people who put him there, because they put him there. It's the old parable of the scorpion and the frog all over again; it's in his nature.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [28 favorites]

One thing about the US is that firearms are everywhere. You do not need to be a right-winger to learn to use them and own them. A lot of the world is also messed up politically right now. Get out of major metropolitan areas if you can.

Get out of major metropolitan areas? No thank you. I would so much rather be here in the Boston area than a lot of the alternatives.

I mean, I know there's the whole terrorism target thing, but I think the biggest danger right now comes from more mass shootings and hate crimes and whatnot. Being out of major metropolitan areas won't help with that.
posted by litera scripta manet at 5:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

So I feel like donating money to organizations that will help everyone who was defeated tonight.... Any suggestions? Where should I donate to help Black Americans, Muslim Americans, LGBTQ Americans, Women, Disabled Americans?

I want to donate to organizations that do good work. Also tell me if I'm missing anyone because that's just the list off the top of my head while trying not to puke.
posted by SarahElizaP at 5:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Justin Trudeau, please adopt New England.
posted by theredpen at 5:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

Looks like more people voted for Trump because they disliked Clinton than voted for Clinton because they disliked Trump.

I think the importance of the Supreme Court pick is also huge. I suspect a sizeable portion voted neither for Trump nor against Clinton but to ensure that the Republicans placed a anti-choice and/or anti-gay and/or pro-gun Justice. Those are pretty much the biggest single issue voter interests and all of them are best controlled via the Supreme Court rather than the presidency.
posted by Candleman at 5:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

By presenting mainly only posts that validate the Facebook users' preexisting values & allegiances, it creates spaces where facts are irrelevant compared with opinions and even deliberate lies.

Facebook is part of it, but the internet is a great place to have what ever you believe be reinforced.
posted by drezdn at 5:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Fifty years ago, America was readying to elect Richard Nixon, there were states in which mixed-race couples couldn't legally marry or rent a room together, homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder, and prominent leftists were being assassinated or waiting their turn.

Forty years ago, the Equal Rights Amendment went down in flames, and conservative evangelicals were gathering together to wield political muscle because they didn't want minorities in their schools.

Thirty years ago, the two-bit actor reelected as President was mocking AIDS as a "gay plague."

Twenty years ago, the government shut down over fighting over Medicare and education spending, as a wave of anger had handed Congress to the Republicans on a platter.

Ten years ago, we were just getting around to the notion that same-sex couples should be allowed to have sex in their own homes.

Let's not pretend that this John Birch resurgence is a new development in America, or that America is by its nature a good and welcoming Shining City On A Hill. The reactionaries have been here all along, even in recent history. The history books -- if any remain by the next election -- will go nuts trying to explain what just happened but it's another trip around the same awful circle.
posted by delfin at 5:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [106 favorites]

It still shocks me to think that Trump has only one degree of separation from Joseph McCarthy.
posted by drezdn at 5:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

No, we were taught that if you lived in a metropolitan area you'd be killed instantly, which would be a blessing compared to hiding in a farm basement with Steve Guttenberg.
posted by angrycat at 5:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

We should at least listen to Michael Moore, Taibi, Jacobin Magazine, Chapo Trap House, Bernie, etc. Imo. I think they were right about some things in this election.

But I don't agree with them as much that economics are the root cause of the problem. It is appealing to these demographics politically that is important. Not that Dems need to compete with the GOP on racism, but they needed to provide some alternative appeal that could draw them to the Democratic party. It's probably a very tough task with the GOP now so firmly rooted in the heartland.

Losing the house and local governments is a catastrophe for the Dems.

The conservative media machine is probably a big part of the story.
posted by Golden Eternity at 5:15 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Ok I really, really am going to try to get some sleep. But I wanted to share something I wrote in closing of a post I made on FB:

I was hoping to go back to not paying attention to politics for a while but nope. It's all hands on deck time like it's 2000-2008 again. Make every inch they take be a war. Make them fight for each step they take.
posted by threeturtles at 5:15 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

The one slim ray of--I can't even call it hope, really, unless it's hope for schadenfreude--is that the people who will be hurt worst by the Trump regime will be the people who put him there.

Nope

They'll be hurt, but they'll pass twice the pain to women, minorities, the disabled and LBGTQ.
posted by Emmy Noether at 5:16 AM on November 9, 2016 [41 favorites]

I have more than a creeping suspicion that events like Brexit and this election are fuelled more than we think by Facebook's algorithms that present people with echo chamber views of what others are supposedly thinking & saying.

I've also been thinking about the role of Facebook. But I don't think the damage is in filtering (I, for one, seem to see plenty of hate-filled crap from people in my feed even though I belong to no such pages). I think the damage is in excising content from its context and turning it into confetti. That's why propaganda from right-wing websites gets passed around as a "news story, " and one of the reasons people with low media literacy and critical thinking skills believe they are perceiving reported fact instead of alt-right agitprop. People no longer understand reporting and media coverage in the context of a journalistic style and trajectory; they react to news/faux-news items piecemeal, and share, trade, read, and promote those things without any of the corrective processes, opinion-column debates, or retractions that might naturally follow oversteps in the case of more responsible outlets. This happens on the left, too. I think it's been especially pernicious and have even wondered whether a Facebook with a total ban on "news" content would be better. At the same time, I also see its power to organize (a la Pantsuit Nation, the pipeline protest, etc. Of course, "power to organize," clearly, cuts both ways.

As to the leaving-the-country discussions: I have had those thoughts myself. I was given pause this morning by a FB comment on the page of a Native friend who talked about the nervousness she felt having just bought a ticket to go help the #NoDAPL protests, deep in the heart of red country. Some people on her wall said the likes of "Im out of here" while another Native activist said "That's a settler mentality. Settlers can always pull up stakes and go to some other settled part of the world." Being able to leave, and willing to do so because of a lack of milennia-long ties to land, place, and culture, is privilege for sure.
posted by Miko at 5:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [45 favorites]

I've been so anxious and terrified about this election that I don't think I've had two hours sleep in the past 31 hours. Right now I'm on about the fourth stage of grief, depression, and acceptance is going to be a long time coming.
posted by lordrunningclam at 5:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Clinton was killing it- she had facts and figures and plans! Trump never cared about any of that and he was never seriously challenged on it. I've noticed this with the anti-vaxxers I've encountered- you can argue and argue and cite study after study and it just does not matter.

Maybe people like stories more than facts. They hear a story that resonates with them and will go to surprising lengths to misread or avoid facts that jar with the story.

Trump told a story. Not a true one or a nice one, but maybe it resonated with some people the way horoscopes do, so they shut their ears to anyone trying to pull that story apart.
posted by faceplantingcheetah at 5:23 AM on November 9, 2016 [26 favorites]

Facebook is part of it, but the internet is a great place to have what ever you believe be reinforced.

And there's a lot of that on this site as well, of course.

I have to admit being horrifically partisan in (Australian) politics, but regarding this election I'm adopting a more "huh, so what was that about?" attitude, and the bit I'm finding most interesting right now is the idea that all those awful red / midwest / country people are probably actually voicing in their own way something of a spirit of the Seattle protests.

As with Brexit, there's a swing going on against neoliberal economics, globalisation, free trade and the outsourcing of jobs and free movement of labour (which in the west means immigration) that these ideas entail.

"Elites" will tend to be more shielded from these changes, because hey - if you've got multiple degrees & postgrad qualifications you'll probably be alright anywhere. But the people on the ground in jobless towns, pissed off that Mexicans / Chinese / Indians not only have the towns' former jobs, but they're ALSO coming over here...of course they're going to hate the hell out of PhD economists who argue this creates efficiencies of trade, markets, and lower prices for TVs.

That's roughly how it's looking to me right now, both Brexit and Trump. And I feel it would help not to see cohorts of voters as evil or deluded, but to try & understand what economic pressures they are facing, and why voting a particular way might have seemed like the best way of protecting their interests.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

The "Midwest Math, or Welcome to Our Rust Belt Brexit" item in the Moore piece I linked above is critical. The Dems, obviously now, should have focused more there, but maybe there isn't much they could have done.
posted by Golden Eternity at 5:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

So...Who will it be for SCOTUS? Justice Ghouliani, or Justice Christy?
posted by Thorzdad at 5:25 AM on November 9, 2016

Trump told a story. Not a true one or a nice one, but it was a story and maybe it resonated with people the way horoscopes do, so they shut their ears to anyone trying to pull that story apart.

And it's the classic populist story -- how you deserve better and you should have the power and you should have the jobs and you should have the money and you should be able to do what you want but THEY are stealing it all from you.

The composition of THEY varies from time and place to time and place. But it resonates regardless.
posted by delfin at 5:25 AM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

Being able to leave, and willing to do so because of a lack of milennia-long ties to land, place, and culture, is privilege for sure.

I get where you are coming from here but honestly, I think it is pretty toxic to other people for their perceived rootlessness. It's not so far off from Coulter's nonsense.
posted by enn at 5:27 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

The Turing test just got easier.
posted by srboisvert at 5:27 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I have one consolation: it's starting to look like Hillary might end up winning the popular vote after all.
posted by Slothrup at 5:28 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm not gonna make many predictions right now, but here's one I'm confident in: we will see the birth of a new literary, musical, or cinematic genre/movement, and whether this is its name or not, we can describe it as the "New Nihilism."

Because if the greatest country in the world could do this…

…anyway, I have no other words.

.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 5:28 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

The Onion:

Nation’s Optimists Need To Shut The Fuck Up Right Now

Report: Things Finally As Bad As Trump Claims

Man Wearing ‘Jewmerica’ T-Shirt Never Dreamed He’d See This Day
posted by palindromic at 5:30 AM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

11/9

"The world turned upside down."
posted by dbiedny at 5:30 AM on November 9, 2016 [34 favorites]

This is the part I'm talking about:

Midwest Math, or Welcome to Our Rust Belt Brexit. I believe Trump is going to focus much of his attention on the four blue states in the rustbelt of the upper Great Lakes – Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Four traditionally Democratic states – but each of them have elected a Republican governor since 2010 (only Pennsylvania has now finally elected a Democrat). In the Michigan primary in March, more Michiganders came out to vote for the Republicans (1.32 million) that the Democrats (1.19 million). Trump is ahead of Hillary in the latest polls in Pennsylvania and tied with her in Ohio. Tied? How can the race be this close after everything Trump has said and done? Well maybe it’s because he’s said (correctly) that the Clintons’ support of NAFTA helped to destroy the industrial states of the Upper Midwest. Trump is going to hammer Clinton on this and her support of TPP and other trade policies that have royally screwed the people of these four states. When Trump stood in the shadow of a Ford Motor factory during the Michigan primary, he threatened the corporation that if they did indeed go ahead with their planned closure of that factory and move it to Mexico, he would slap a 35% tariff on any Mexican-built cars shipped back to the United States.

posted by Golden Eternity at 5:30 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Far too many of my co-workers are chipper this morning.
posted by drezdn at 5:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

So...Who will it be for SCOTUS? Justice Ghouliani, or Justice Christy?

Nope.
posted by waitingtoderail at 5:32 AM on November 9, 2016

My Mexican friends, neighbors, and fellow girl scout leaders are starting to tag family members in posts about making organized plans to go "back home" before things get bad.
posted by phunniemee at 5:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

You know as nice as it would be to blame/credit one or two things for the trump win, it's much more complicated than that.

Unfortunately, "it's complicated" is also the main reason that Hillary lost.
posted by SteveInMaine at 5:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

The anti-Hillary smear campaign started in the Clinton years. It worked perfectly. A whole lot of people acted on a set of demonstrably false propositions.
posted by Jode at 5:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [26 favorites]

My Mexican friends, neighbors, and fellow girl scout leaders are starting to tag family members in posts about making organized plans to go "back home" before things get bad.

My heart breaks for them.
posted by drezdn at 5:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

I am compelled to say something in this thread so I'm just going to post what I wrote on FB and lay low for the rest of the day. I hope it is of some comfort to someone.

OK.

When I began volunteering for Secretary Clinton in Ohio, I told everyone I talked to that I wanted to get involved because America was embracing a kind of hatred that would last well beyond the elections, regardless of the results. For the better part of a year I have felt like dark times were just around the corner and now, I feel, they are here.

I gave a lot of time this year to Secretary Clinton - and I would do it again, a million times over. During the campaign it was easy to not despair overmuch despite the now-President's-elect continued comfort as the spokesperson for white nationalism. The path was simple: go to this event. Call these people. Knock on these doors. It gave me an outlet, something to do, and I feel blessed to have to talked to so many wonderful people in that time.

But now I look forward and think "What now? How do I move forward?"

These two thoughts kept me awake for most of the night. I don't have a twelve-point policy solution that will end racism and misogyny in America. However, despite my enthusiasm for volunteering this year, I have never believed for a minute those problems would solved by the top down anyway. What we are left with, then, is try and solve these problems face to face, from the ground up. And, to that end, here is my path forward.

When I feel angry, I will remember that anger is a poor navigator and not allow it to determine my path.
When I feel scared, I will remember to look for someone to help
When I feel despair, I will remember those whose suffering is greater than my own
When I feel sadness, I will remember that I can be a source of joy for others
When I feel anxious, I will remember that my security and wellbeing were never guaranteed

That's my path going forward. What is yours?

Finally, if you are someone who is rolling your eyes at people's reactions to this election (whether you voted for Mr Trump or not) to take the day to reflect on the expressions of other people and how that informs their reality. How did they come to this? What must it be like to feel this way?
Please do not dismiss their feelings because you do not understand them. Try to understand them and, if you can't, try at least to help.
posted by Tevin at 5:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [52 favorites]

I'm dubious we "mostly knew what we were getting" with Bush v2, uncleozzy. At least we never understood his VP Cheney would jump on the opportunity to start wars everywhere, although maybe we should've foreseen that from them being oil men.

We cannot predict Trump either. Yet, any American president faces an endless array of advisors recommending war, so I'll bet on more wars than Obama, even if Trump himself wished to be non-interventionist to focus on other shit, like putting his name on things.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:34 AM on November 9, 2016

Oh, also, we have to really hope that he does make it his personal mission to destroy his primary opponents and GOPers who disparaged him.

Omarosa Says Trump Is ‘Keeping a List’ of Republicans Who Voted Against Him
posted by Room 641-A at 5:35 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

drezdn said: At this point I'm clinging to "This too shall pass.", and yeah, me too ... that and being able to come to Metafilter and commiserate.

I went to bed fairly early last night, but did not sleep well. I already could see which way the wind was blowing and am so so sad that my gut feeling that Trump would win has come to pass. My husband kept arguing with me during the campaign, but I just had a really strong premonition this would happen (and particularly when Comey pulled that email thing), but, as a woman, the misogyny element to this is really disheartening. I've got some tears in my eyes even typing this.

Since I am officially going to be "old" (60 is coming up soon), I can only try to console myself by trying to take the long view, and thinking about stories my parents and grandparents told me, and what my 90 year old father (lifelong liberal progressive democrat) would say to me if he were still alive. One thing he would remind me of is that my grandmother could not vote till she was well into adulthood (she was a bit of a suffragist and marched in Washington). And that my parents lived through the Depression, and World War II (as a draft age man, he was pretty terrified on December 7, 1941).

And 1968, which I am old enough to remember, was god awful guys, just awful ... the assassination of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Vietnam and Nixon. ....

The Reagan election. Mr gudrun and I were just out of college and had moved south from the rust belt in search of jobs. We'd managed to get some pretty crappy temp jobs in D.C. and were making ends meet by being pretty careful about everything we did. I remember seeing people heading off to inaugural events from hotels in the area ... just a sea of fur coats, cowboy hats, and jewels, and wondering if they lived in the same world as me. (Actually I blame Reagan and his staff still for a lot of the bad political stuff that has happened since ... including Trump ... Reagan, Bush, and I also think the effects of Sept. 11th are still reverberating.)

So ... I'm rambling, because no sleep ... but my father's point, were he still alive, is that real social change has happened, when you look at how things are now vs. the past. He would tell me to take a couple of days to cocoon, and then pick myself up and start working to protect things on the local level (thank you Northern Virginia for being a mini blue state within a state, but we have more to do to pull Richmond and the rest of the state out of Trump think land). Keep active, keep working, to improve your school boards, and mayors, and county governments ... grassroots, to inspire and educate the young kids to hopefully do better than we have been able to do. Start looking for viable candidates for the next election and work for their organizations. Give money, if you have it, to organizations you support. Heck, since I know the new administration will not be helping refugees any time soon, that is one of the first things I'm looking to donate to ... organizations who are helping them.

The *one* thing that made me laugh today was someone saying that Melania must be terrified (I'm sure she has no clue what a tough gig being First Lady actually is ... particularly coming in on the heels of Michelle Obama, and raising a kid in the White House is no fun whoever you are.)
posted by gudrun at 5:36 AM on November 9, 2016 [22 favorites]

Does anyone have any insight into Hillary delaying her concession speech?
posted by Waiting for Pierce Inverarity at 5:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

All this talk of understanding. If we only understood them more. If we could just understand a little harder. Understand what? There's this persistent belief that if we just listen to them more and more that there will be some grand pull-back reveal where: hey, they aren't racist or misogynist or just plain fucking stupid and ignorant but we just need to fix x and y for them and they'll totally be reasonable! It's not going to happen!

I said this on the Brexit threads too, but there's a lot of suggestion that liberals don't know these people. Some/lots of us do. We hear them in private where they make the racist/misogynist comments, we heard them as children, we've heard them our entire lives. They aren't mysterious people we need vox-pops (I'm never, ever watching another vox-pop again) to understand.

My two small contributions are that I will be brave, and try to counter racism and sexism where I can. And i will continue to raise my toddler in our ethnically diverse community, and teach him that women are his equal. It's not much, but it feels like the best I can do right now.
posted by threetwentytwo at 5:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [51 favorites]

FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States
posted by chavenet at 5:39 AM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

Actually Trump talked about giving Peter Thiel a SCOTUS seat, waitingtoderail and Thorzdad. I suppose Thiel might dislike the job, well he already quit law once, but who knows.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:39 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Does anyone have any insight into Hillary delaying her concession speech?

If I were her, I'd not offer one.
posted by ocschwar at 5:42 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Just heard hate crimes are up 15% in Los Angeles since start of Trump's campaign.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:42 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Waiting for Pierce Inverarity: I don't know anything official, but it makes a lot of sense to me that, after Gore, she's not going to concede until she's really sure every vote is counted. Not likely, but who's to say Florida won't open a box of 300,000 mail in ballots and flip blue? (I mean, I know that's not going to happen... but that'd be why I'd guess she's not conceding.)
posted by Zephyrial at 5:42 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh, also, we have to really hope that he does make it his personal mission to destroy his primary opponents and GOPers who disparaged him.

Oh, really?

Do you really want the ruling party of the United States to be made up entirely of spineless scumbags?
posted by ocschwar at 5:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Actually Trump talked about giving Peter Thiel a SCOTUS seat.

I would like to return 2016 for a full refund. I have receipts.
posted by joyceanmachine at 5:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

Investors pile into one of the Masters of War... BAE Systems, one of the biggest weapons manufacturers in the world, has seen its shares hit a record high today on that Trump victory
posted by Mister Bijou at 5:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Ready to start knocking on doors for you here in Iowa, Senator Warren. Give us the green light.
posted by starman at 5:44 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I was talking with a friend last night about how we're both... you know, we were the Gifted Kids in school, that's how we met, why we're friends. And this has made us both realize that we have made a lot of assumptions about the public that assumed we were, you know, not really that much smarter than them. Surely we weren't. We grew up with this notion that IQ wasn't supposed to make you better than anybody else, that it was bad for us to think of ourselves as exceptional, and we sort of took that to mean that the general public had a capacity for reason that was surely as good as ours for all practical purposes.

It's not. But I don't know what I do with that, now. I'm afraid that this is starting to mean that this segment of the population will not be saved from themselves. They will not be led by anybody they perceive as smarter than them. This is where I mentioned that I'm afraid we're trapped right now by waiting for people to die because they cannot be convinced by feminism and multiculturalism. I'm afraid that this has broken my ability to really believe in people--as in, in democracy, as a concept. It's like living in a country that is going to be governed by an electorate of toddlers. I don't know how to get a fundamental respect for other people back--or what one does with oneself after that's gone for good.
posted by Sequence at 5:44 AM on November 9, 2016 [43 favorites]

I've also been thinking about the role of Facebook. But I don't think the damage is in filtering (I, for one, seem to see plenty of hate-filled crap from people in my feed even though I belong to no such pages). I think the damage is in excising content from its context and turning it into confetti. That's why propaganda from right-wing websites gets passed around as a "news story, " and one of the reasons people with low media literacy and critical thinking skills believe they are perceiving reported fact instead of alt-right agitprop.

Yeah, that was partly what I was trying to get at. That, plus the algorithm-based filtering.

There was an episode recently of - uh, I think it was Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything (from *PRX*) where he was describing talking to his dyed-in-the-wool Republican uncle, and saying that actually, migration from Mexico was at a low, and that contrary to what some media talking heads were saying, there was never a period of zero immigration into the US, and in fact Obama had repatriated a record number (I think about two million) Mexicans; more than any President in history...

...and the uncle was all "Nah, that cannot be true"

BW: "But these are facts straight from the government statistics!"

Uncle: "Nah, that cannot be. If it was true I would have heard about it"

So that's an example, I think, of what you describe as confetti. Love it; great metaphor. Random invented factoids get spread about, removed from all fact & context. "We are being inundated by waves of increasing illegal immigration!" (Actually, the US is not, just as Australia wasn't ever faced with an insurmountable exponential increase in refugee boat people).

But the shift away from (even biased) mainstream media towards liking & forwarding social media confetti, combined with echo chamber filtering, helps people to see these confetti as truths, and even when the reality is only a google search away we are not taking the time to verify facts in the way that we previously expected journalists to verify before publishing.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [31 favorites]

ocschwar: "Does anyone have any insight into Hillary delaying her concession speech?

If I were her, I'd not offer one."

Yeah, that would be classy.
posted by chavenet at 5:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's weird, I thought I never really believed Hillary would win, but it turns out I didn't really believe Trump would win, either. This feeling is so confusing and terrible. I mean, Jesus Christ. What is going to happen?
posted by something something at 5:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's a good time to donate to the ACLU since Trump might embolden numerous forces wishing to curtail free speech.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:47 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

Hang in there, Ruth.
posted by schmod at 5:49 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

A lot of people voted for Trump even though they think he's not honest and trustworthy, while hardly anyone voted for Clinton if they thought she was not honest and trustworty.

Sorry, I meant to say that a lot of people voted for Trump even though they thought he didn't have the temperament to be president, while hardly anyone voted for Clinton if they thought she didn't have the temperament to be president. (The "honest and trustworthy" figures are actually pretty similar for Clinton and Trump)
posted by klausness at 5:50 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Beyond the Obvious...

Look, he's not going to be able to make good on his promise to bring all the manufacturing jobs back with a wave of his hand. He's not going to be able to bring back any of those jobs. His trade wars and his very presence will push us closer to economic turmoil -- it's already happening -- and the Ryan/Koch economic agenda will do to America what Bobby Jindal did to Louisiana and Sam Brownback did to Kansas. I'm one of the few people who thinks Trump will take at least preliminary steps toward building the wall, but it won't get far.

Last night, my wife and I were talking about the certainty that Trump can't deliver on his promises, and her immediate reaction was that when he can't deliver and the public becomes restive, he'll just start a war. But maybe the war he'll use to distract the public will be a war against the Clintons and their aides. I think this will be Rudy Giuliani's principal focus as attorney general, under direct orders from the president. Many in the political establishment will express horror at this, and say that this is what Third World dictators do to their political enemies. But they said that when Trump promised on the campaign trail to lock Clinton up, and America didn't care.

posted by tonycpsu at 5:51 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

They will not be led by anybody they perceive as smarter than them.

“I think people in this country,” declared Vote Leave’s Michael Gove, “have had enough of experts.” His fellow Brexiteers were quick to back him up. “There is only one expert that matters,” said Labour MP Gisela Stuart, also of Vote Leave, “and that’s you, the voter.” Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip, suggested that many independent experts were actually in the pay of the Government or the EU. All three reminded voters of occasions when “the so-called experts” had made mistakes."

To think, 24 hours ago, I thought that the US election was going to have a much happier outcome than the referendum.
posted by threetwentytwo at 5:53 AM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

Yeah, that would be classy.

We all know Trump is assembling his list of people to retaliate against as soon as he is in the White House.

We all know that it's his first priority.

There is nothing classy about sugarcoating it.
posted by ocschwar at 5:53 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm sorry I have nothing to add to any of this except I am heartbroken for all of you. We watched the whole thing to the bitter end last night and I still woke up this morning thinking it was a bad dream. The kick in the stomach is reminiscent of the morning after Brexit. Take care of yourselves and each other.
posted by billiebee at 5:53 AM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

I put this up on facebook before my brain gave into utter despair. It's funny, because when I was writing it, I realized that some of my wording that would have been fine here might not have gone over well in the world outside the blue, and I worry that, unchanged, it might not go over well here, but, well, here goes:

I can't stop picking at the scab. I looked at the county results from Michigan, and it led me to checking the results from pretty much every state. Clinton won nearly every major American city, handily. Cities, the places where people from all sorts of backgrounds live together, side by side, and have to learn how to get along with people who are different from them.

Trump won the countryside, the place where people live in largely homogenous areas, where they are suspicious of people who "aren't from around here." Where pretty much everyone looks, talks, acts, eats, prays, and sounds just like them (or if there are some who don't fit in, they at least learn to hide their difference until they can run off to the city).

America, you're falling apart. The idea that we've become separate nations is perilous, poisonous to the very fabric of the country. A white, Protestant family in Kansas is every bit as American as a Muslim family in Detroit, a black family in Mississipi, or a gay family in Chicago. Acting like you have nothing in common won't make things better, and it won't make the other side go away.

All of the people, myself included, stunned at the divide between college educated voters and voters who didn't graduate? We're not helping things by making jokes about uneducated people. Instead, we should be working to figure out how the education system failed, to find ways to get people to recognize each other as Americans, first, rather than "different."

This isn't, in anyway, intended to give white sexism or bigotry a pass. People who only felt uncomfortable about Trump bragging about molesting women because they have a daughter, or a wife? It's time to look beyond the edge of your yard. Just because it's not your daughter doesn't make it okay. People laughing at poverty, making fun of People of Walmart, or insisting that "All Lives Matter" while they vote to block access to healthcare, or funding for education? Those are Americans you are hurting.

America needs to look itself in the fucking mirror, then throw the goddamn mirror away. America doesn't look like you, the person reading this. It looks like well over 300,000,000 people, from all backgrounds, races, religions, and lifestyles, all with their own trouble, their own pain. Shouldn't our priority be to make sure we aren't hurting each other? To take care of each other when we fall? Republicans hating Democrats, the left hating the right, everyone shouting at each other, until only the loudest, wildest, ugliest voice wins out, that's how we get Trump, and the damage the next 4 to 8 years will bring. It doesn't matter who started it, it matters who will be the person to start listening, to start discussion because otherwise, the next election will only be worse. Much, much worse.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [33 favorites]

Whenever I would get too confident about the election result I would think back to kickingtheground's 2004 comment about Obama and Hillary's chances of becoming president. His analysis still holds up after all these years. Being a female candidate for president is hideously difficult in a fundamentally sexist society. It didn't matter that she was clearly ready for the job, or how accomplished she was as a politician and human being, because a society awash in misogynistic stereotypes was going to find ways to trip her up. In my heart of hearts I believed that the America I knew had moved further, but I guess not. A lot of other things had to go wrong, but the tide of sexism was there in the end to pull her candidacy under.
posted by Kattullus at 5:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

Josh Marshall flagged this Nate Cohn post from June as prescient last night. I don't know what sort of contemporaneous response Cohn's analysis got from pollsters and aggregators, but this might be something to look into as we try to figure out how the polling was so tragically wrong.
posted by tonycpsu at 5:55 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

My daughter woke up, her Hillary temporary tattoos still on each cheek (and also her hands and arms because she wanted all the tattoos) and the dam burst. I am pulling my campaign kitsch down from my walls and windows to put in a box, so that one day she'll know we tried.

We tried.
posted by palindromic at 5:55 AM on November 9, 2016 [63 favorites]

Jokes failed us, but Colbert didn’t:

On the kind of night most pundits thought we’d see—the night Colbert and his team clearly expected—that joke might have killed. So, too, would a fake Nick Offerman-starring ad for off-season yard signs, or a bit where a naked man came out bearing news about the election in the form of a notecard taped to his penis. But none of the prepared stuff lands—not the Jeff Goldblum Jurassic Park jokes, nor the Nate Silver bit, nor the montage of Colbert swearing on The Late Show. They neither obliterate the darkness nor acknowledge it, and more importantly, they don’t feel the least bit genuine.

Colbert’s obviously unsettled, and it’s not clear how much news he’s heard. The only thing that’s certain is that he’s got at least some idea that something big is happening, a fact made clear in the single most honest moment in the episode’s first third: after a joke about the naked man’s ass, Colbert shoots a frantic glance offstage and blurts out, “keep it light!”

It’s a futile mission, and one abandoned fairly early.

posted by palindromic at 5:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

I thought we *were* reaching out.

I thought trying to get healthcare for everyone *was* reaching out. I thought trying to give a greater share of the tax burden to the rich *was* reaching out. Growing the economy and growing jobs. Trying to preserve what was left of the unions. Taking care of veterans. Doesn't all this affect Trump voters as well?

Illegal immigration *is* down. Employment *is* up. It's basically been acknowledged that the movement to ban firearms has been lost and the only thing on the table was some sensible measures with majority support like background checks. On the terrorism issue, the Obama administration is hardly turning a blind eye to it.

If it's because pointing out racist and sexist things was taken as a fuck you, what were supposed to do? Let it slide?

We're supposed to engage? HOW do we engage? I have a friend -- former friend, maybe, now? -- from high school who's a Trump supporter. I'll admit, I blocked her facebook feed when it got too upsetting for me. I checked it today. She's thrilled right now, of course. All right. But a little further down, her feed is also filled with links to places like Infowars with comments like, "Few people are aware that the majority of the evil globalists are Satanists and use children for sex and sacrifice in their rituals. So this article does not surprise me one bit that Clinton's campaign chairman is into the occult."

How can I possibly engage with that? Tell her it's not true? Why would she believe me?

When people say engage, empathize, understand, what do they mean? What should we be doing that we weren't already trying to do?
posted by kyrademon at 5:58 AM on November 9, 2016 [178 favorites]

Some of my takeaways from the NYT exit polling data:

* Trump doesn't win on policy (surprise surprise): large majority of voters support legalization of illegal immigrants already here, majority of people oppose a border wall, voters close to evenly split on benefits/drawbacks of trade
* Hillary would have crushed Trump 59-35 without the white evangelical/born again vote. This is pretty different from Obama 2012, who won non-(white-evangelical)/born again by only 1% 49-48.
* Hillary won 52-42 on those with economic concerns listed as most important issue (which was by far the most important issue listed); lost on immigration and terrorism

Mentally I'm zeroing in on the white evangelical bit. It's a nice tidy explanation for authoritarianism and brinkmanship and general faith in bullshit. Oh and I guess the Supreme Court issue fits with that as well.
posted by ropeladder at 5:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Being able to leave, and willing to do so because of a lack of milennia-long ties to land, place, and culture, is privilege for sure.

Once again, don't make assumptions about how and why people might contemplate leaving. If I leave the country, it's going to be for my own safety and/or because it's the most effective thing I can do. I'm well aware that, as a white, upper-middle-class male, I have a TON of privilege but before I go anywhere, you can rest assured that I'll use that privilege to help those with less to get out.

I expect it to take years to get to that point and I'm hopeful that we'll see some kind of shift against Trump and the Rs in the mid-terms (because what else can I do?). There is still a ways to go before I consider jumping ship and I'll do what I can to make sure that we never make it that far.

But if it does, my privilege and I will do as much as we can before I go and if things are bad enough that I'm leaving, it means that I'm probably coming back with a rifle in my hands.
posted by VTX at 5:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is disturbing. Obamacare will be repealed, yet insurance rates will stay right where they are now, if not go higher. There will be no wall. Gas prices will go up, as will unemployment. At some point there will be a major recession. I feel like we are through the looking glass.

Smallest silver lining - we have a history of putting a Democrat in place to clean up the mess of the previous administration. But this is gonna be one hell of a mess.
posted by I_Zimbra at 5:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

When people say engage, empathize, understand, what do they mean?

Froth at the mouth with explicit racism, and promise to kill your enemies. Promise glory in battle.
posted by dis_integration at 6:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

My downstairs neighbor sells tamales from our stoop every morning. Today there was a little group gathered there, worried faces talking quietly and hugging. This is the menace he wants to eradicate.
posted by phunniemee at 6:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [51 favorites]

At some point there will be a major recession.

Not only will there be a recession, but they'll blame it on Obama.
posted by drezdn at 6:02 AM on November 9, 2016 [39 favorites]

Just a quick reminder for those reading, if you are not nearing retirement age, especially.

The market is going to tank today. Your 401K is going to lose a lot of value.

Do not make any investment decisions today. Do not liquidate and lock in your losses. Remember that if you are buying in with your paycheck, you will be buying low for the next period.

Relax and worry about other things. God knows there's plenty to stress over.
posted by selfnoise at 6:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [30 favorites]

Investors pile into one of the Masters of War... BAE Systems, one of the biggest weapons manufacturers in the world, has seen its shares hit a record high today on that Trump victory

BAE: come over
Investors: but I'm busy
BAE: the Democrats aren't home…
posted by panic at 6:06 AM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

kyrademon, you know, you're right. I guess that was a holdover from my last moments of thinking there might be a way around this. Listening when all that's being said is hate and paranoia doesn't do anything, does it? Talking, when all that's being heard is twisted through filters and selective hearing doesn't work. Maybe there isn't a coming back from this, maybe things are just too far gone.

Honestly, one of the things I'm starting to worry about is that it's going to take someone incredibly charismatic to get people to stop hating each other and work together. The only problem is, I can't see anyone with the kind of charisma it would take to lead us out of this mess not being some sort of cult of personality huckster.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:09 AM on November 9, 2016

Uncle: "Nah, that cannot be. If it was true I would have heard about it"

A few jobs ago, my work arranged for a guy from Ipsos Mori to come and talk to us about surveying the general public here in the UK.

He led us through a series of (frankly terrifying) bar charts and graphs illustrating that, for instance, when asked in a survey most British people will say that they feel on average 31% of the population are immigrants. The actual figure is closer to 13%. Teen pregnancy is thought to effect 15% of girls when in fact it's closer to 0.3%. Most people are wrong about nearly everything.

How do they get this false info? Rumours, maliciously spread. Media campaigns. Lies from politicians. This shit doesn't spring up from nowhere. It's all a vicious, oroboros-looking cycle.
posted by fight or flight at 6:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [39 favorites]

"I was there the day the strength of Men failed."
posted by leotrotsky at 6:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [25 favorites]

wtf, i'm still going through the seven stages of grief all at once, i'm worried about a friend who was having chest pains last night, and my heart is finally broken by america and i have to go to work, be safe people
posted by reedcourtneyj at 6:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is disturbing. Obamacare will be repealed

Sucks.

We've had universal healthcare since the 1970s.

The other week, lil ubu broke his arm. Went to the ER, x-rays, orthopedic surgeon not around until the next day, OK - spend a night in hospital. Treatment by surgeon in operating room, about 30 hours in hospital all up, followup x-rays and consultation with the same specialist a week later, and then today again.

At no point anywhere did anybody raise a question about how we were going to pay for this.

It's on Medicare, of course.

I'd hate to think what a night in hospital plus multiple specialist consultations would cost in the USA. About $20,000 maybe?

Ensuring that a kindergarten kid's arm heals properly and he doesn't suffer any pain or long term effects: priceless.
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

I went to bed early morning entertaining the worst case scenario and now that I'm awake it's reality. It's scary how uncertain and incoherent the world suddenly has become, not just for Americans but most of the world.

I take some solace in that Mefi will be there for all of us no matter what.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 6:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

These pesky voters and their pesky votes! Just wait until 2020! We'll be back.
posted by buzzman at 6:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is going to have huge ramifications for the tech industry (well, every industry, but tech is the one I know). It’s going to be much harder for American tech firms to recruit and retain talent (around 1/3rd of engineers at big companies are immigrants). The new volatile, high-interest-rate environment will have pretty negative effects for startups.
posted by miyabo at 6:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

At no point anywhere did anybody raise a question about how we were going to pay for this.

In the U.S., I'm currently paying off a $400 medical bill where the Doctor's solution to my son's problem was "wear high-tops."
posted by drezdn at 6:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

Fifteen minutes until all our 401(k)s drop 15% in value.
posted by Talez at 6:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Part of me wants to believe that Trump is so steeped in showbiz that he will laugh all the campaign rhetoric off and actually not be a vindictive asshole. But that would go against everything I've seen from him so far: he is going to paint himself as the victim at the first possible opportunity and use it to justify unleashing the enormous amount of power he now possesses.

Obama needs to actively dismantle significant parts of the security state apparatus right now. If he doesn't he is partially liable for Trump's use of it.
posted by ropeladder at 6:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Still numb. The weather in NY is overcast and everyone I see seems shellshocked.

Where I've come to, morning after, is this. I really believe that if Bloomberg had decided to run, he would have won. Possibly even if he had decided to be a third-party spoiler, since if he had decided to run he would have made sure to get himself on the ballot in every state. And there was more than one time that he looked like he might jump in.

To me, the fact that he didn't - I really believe that everyone gave Hillary a fair shot. I am pissed at the media's treatment of her throughout - but they also overwhelmingly endorsed her. I am pissed at the Bernie Bros, but Bernie himself said the right things, supported her in the end, made it clear he saw her candidacy as in step with his own. Even many of the establishment Republicans made her case for her. The country really did let her have her shot.

I hate that we are a country that rejected her. I hate that she could be that qualified, that passionate, that competent and still be rejected by an America that I don't even recognize. I hate that the last 8 years of progress are probably about to be not just erased, but gleefully eviscerated. But I can't fault anything she did. Her GOTV was on point. Her message was clear. She even stood tall despite everything he did to fling feces at her during every debate.

But I don't feel like doing any armchair quarterbacking on this one. I don't feel any creeping if-onlys. I still believe in what she stands for, and I still believe in an America that does.

It hurts to be incorrect in your basic assumptions. But I don't feel like I was wrong. So there's that.
posted by Mchelly at 6:15 AM on November 9, 2016 [45 favorites]

I know many Christian people who have struggled to find the words to explain why they voted for Donald Trump. They knew, as we all did, that he is a bully, and a bigot, and has no respect for women. But, even so, there were still aspects of his platform that were important to them and in the end, they felt they had no choice. It's peculiar to me, though, that they could never figure out how to describe this decision. There is, after all, a perfectly common phrase that everyone understands for this... and it's a phrase that comes from Christianity. When you side with someone you know is evil because they promise you something you want, that's called "Making a deal with the Devil."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:15 AM on November 9, 2016 [80 favorites]

I'm legitimately scared for the future of my girls. An authoritarian sexist racist anti-semite who has never held elected office and has no substantive policy positions just got elected president.

What is wrong with our country?
posted by leotrotsky at 6:16 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

> What is wrong with our country?

According to the polls, uneducated religious rural white people
posted by beerbajay at 6:17 AM on November 9, 2016 [22 favorites]

Does anyone know how to find precinct level outcomes? I'm in Franklin county Ohio if that matters. Some quick googleing turned up nothing this morning.
posted by noneuclidean at 6:17 AM on November 9, 2016

Libby Anne: Tomorrow We Fight:

My second grader began yesterday evening with excitement. She made her own charts to track electoral college wins. By the end of the night, she was in tears, sobbing. I had to look her in the face and say . . . something. I have never in my life felt so at a loss for words. Parents are supposed to tell their children that it’s going to be okay, but they’re also not supposed to lie to them. I think? I’m not always up-to-date on parental etiquette. As I tried to figure out what to say, she started talking about her friends at school, because she goes to a heavily Hispanic school and that’s what this election has always been for her—immigration. She knows very little about Trump’s other policies—on trade, of foreign relations, and so forth.

Last night, my daughter lost her innocence. She had thought we lived in a world of possibilities, a world where a woman could be president and her young immigrant friends could share in the American Dream. Today that world has changed. Today she lives in a country that elected Donald Trump. I lost my innocence too, my faith in the progress I thought we had made. But progress is not a linear thing. My mind keeps turning to Germany, where the Weimar Republic fell to a fascist strongman.

posted by palindromic at 6:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

MeFi's own John Scalzi: Early Morning Thoughts on the Day After

A lot of my friends are scared of Trump’s America, in other words, and they should be. As Maya Angelou once said, when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. Donald Trump has shown us over and over again who he is; the worst of his supporters — the ones who will now feel like they have free rein to indulge their various bigotries — have shown us who they are, too. And while not every Trump voter is among the worst of people, they share the responsibility of having made anyone who isn’t straight, and white, and male, and well-off, less secure, less safe, and more frightened. That’s what they bought for us when they pulled the lever for Trump.

posted by Gelatin at 6:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [35 favorites]

My message to my very left-leaning Facebook this morning:

Yo white cis dudes of my feed:

I'm pretty damn sure none of you voted for Trump. I mean it when I say that's an amazing start. Next steps though; can y'all stand up to your Trump loving relatives for me and tell them that my friends' and communities lives matter too? Can you tell known sexual abusers that they are not welcome in your spaces? (This goes double for "radical" spaces.) Can you lead by example and show that masculinity doesn't have to look like xenophobia and misogyny and valuing guns over people?

Toxic masculinity and racism tipped this election, all other analyses be damned. The only way out of this mess is challenging those concepts that got us here. Good luck. I'm counting on you.
posted by ActionPopulated at 6:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [33 favorites]

Some people in my office are grieving. A few are so cheerful.

I..I will remember who you are.
posted by Tarumba at 6:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Van Jones: "People have talked about a miracle — it’s hard to be a parent tonight for a lot of us. You tell your kids, ‘Don’t be a bully.’ You tell your kids, ‘Don’t be a bigot.’ You tell your kids ‘Do your homework and be prepared.’ And then you have this outcome and you have people putting children to bed tonight, and they’re afraid of breakfast. They’re afraid of how do I explain this to my children. I have Muslim friends who are texting me tonight saying, ‘Should I leave the country?’ I have families of immigrants that are terrified tonight.”
posted by leotrotsky at 6:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [22 favorites]

According to the polls, uneducated religious rural white people

Nope, white people in general. College educated white women were the only white demo that didn't go for him, but even that wasn't as big a gap as you'd hope for.

This is on all of us.
posted by middleclasstool at 6:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Someone posted I need to feel like I can do something. Please give me hope. in askme, and I really want to know what I can do too. Please go there and post things that people can do.

I really thought Clinton would win despite my fear. :(

Now I am afraid for immigrants, people of color, women, trans friends, gay friends, queer friends, muslims... what kinds of things can I do to protect people?
posted by bleary at 6:20 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

and actually not be a vindictive asshole.

But that's practically his defining feature. It's like the first thing people mention about him.
posted by drezdn at 6:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

> Does anyone know how to find precinct level outcomes? I'm in Franklin county Ohio if that matters. Some quick googleing turned up nothing this morning.

Nevermind, I found it. The haze of this morning must be affecting my Internet skills
posted by noneuclidean at 6:21 AM on November 9, 2016

This is on all of us.

Fuck no it isn't; I didn't vote for him.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [43 favorites]

The European reaction to this is as bad as mine. The article is breathless, and full of panic. It suggests that Europe should more or less completely separate itself from America, that Americanism is dead, that Europe needs to forge its own path forward now if it wants to preserve the liberal, democratic ideals of Western Civilization. No longer can we look to America to lead the way in freedom.

And also, this: "Trump, daran kann kein Zweifel bestehen, erhöht die Kriegsgefahr weltweit." There can be no doubt about it: Trump raises the danger of war worldwide.
posted by dis_integration at 6:22 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

> This is on all of us.

Yeah, no.
posted by beerbajay at 6:23 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

In re white people: does anyone know how white LGBTQ people broke, vote-wise? I would like to see how many of us voted for Trump and from which sub-demographics.

People are just shocked here.

I had a terrible dream about a man attacking me and me running into traffic to try to stop cars so someone would help me, and he was telling me that no one would help me because no one cared. He had a rope.
posted by Frowner at 6:23 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

I woke up at 2am and saw John Podesta tell the Hillary supporters to go home. I went back to bed and cried, and read the new metafilter thread, and cried some more. I've stopped crying because I know what I need to do. I'm writing Hillary an apology letter, because I could have and should have done more to help her campaign. Next I'm figuring out how to be better informed about State and local politics, as that's where I can have the greatest most immediate impact, and there are local elections in March, May, August and November (proposals mostly in the first two, but elections just the same). I can't change the past, but I can still work on changing the future. I am, and always will be, with her and it's past time for me to get to work.
posted by Meeks Ormand at 6:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Is a recess SCOTUS appointment out of the question at this point?
posted by jetsetsc at 6:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

My family in Texas voted for Trump. I've never talked with them about politics much because it's too painful. Should I start to try? Learn how to persuade people about my beliefs and what I hold dear? I never thought that would work. Should I still write them off? I know about Cultural Cognition Project... but I've never read all of their papers because I never felt like I was the one who could communicate.
posted by bleary at 6:25 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I also have to say, when I finally fell asleep last night I was really worried I would wake up to news of celebratory mosque firebombings. It's such a small thing to be happy about, that violent xenophobia didn't result, but if it's true that for most of the Trump voters this is a rejection of politics-as-usual (and anyone named Clinton or Bush had no chance in that case) and not an embrace of racism, that maybe there's hope things won't go too pear-shaped. A bunch of angry Trump supporters after he lost could have done a lot of violent, democracy-challenging things. A bunch of complacent Trump supporters who will soon learn that he isn't going to lower their taxes or get them their factory jobs back or dismantle NAFTA or even build that stupid wall? They'll turn on him before they turn on society. At least that's what I'm hoping.
posted by Mchelly at 6:25 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

This is on all of us.

I didn't vote for him, and I campaigned -- and donated -- for Clinton.

This isn't on my shoulders, and it's up to people better than me to feel sympathy for the assholes who are responsible for this fiasco. (That includes people who voted for the third party candidates and people who chose to stay home.)

I'd like to write a letter to Clinton, or something. She's got to be miserable -- she's far, far more vulnerable than any defeated candidate we've had, ever, and she did very little wrong.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 6:26 AM on November 9, 2016 [23 favorites]

Is a recess SCOTUS appointment out of the question at this point?

Yes. The senate decides when it is in recess, and it won't go into recess until Trump is inaugurated.
posted by dis_integration at 6:26 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Fuck no it isn't; I didn't vote for him.

Nor did I, but blaming this on backwoods hillbillies isn't supported by the evidence and doesn't help us fix this. White people overwhelmingly supported him. Educated people, wealthy people, handicapped people, urban city dwellers. We need to address this or we wither and die as a nation.

The time for defensiveness and "not all white people" is done. And I'm not addressing you specifically here, I want to be clear: I mean white people in this country across the board. If you didn't vote for him or a third-party candidate, then thank you for your efforts. I didn't either, but that wasn't enough.
posted by middleclasstool at 6:27 AM on November 9, 2016 [22 favorites]

How Scientists Reacted to the U.S. Election Results:

Nature rounds up reaction from researchers to Donald Trump's election as the next US president. Trump, a Republican, had trailed his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, in polls leading up to the 8 November election day, but pulled out a surprising victory.

posted by palindromic at 6:27 AM on November 9, 2016

Yes. The senate decides when it is in recess, and it won't go into recess until Trump is inaugurated.

Doesn't the Senate have to go to recess at some point in early January?
posted by drezdn at 6:28 AM on November 9, 2016

This may seem tiny to worry about. I feel dumb for worrying about it. but I'm afraid for what this means for all the open/libre source initiatives made during this organization. open data initiatives. is all that going away? Those were all good things for providing transparency in to the government, data for figuring out policy...
posted by bleary at 6:29 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Procedural tricks. Obama isn't going to get to appoint a justice.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 6:29 AM on November 9, 2016

Not just a segment of white voters, but WHITE VOTERS. A majority of white people put him over. They are letting me know that they hate me, people like me, and people who aren't like them.

They want ALL of the rapidly-dwindling pile of goodies that the world has to offer for themselves and thier kind ONLY, and they are more than happy to put a boot in the faces of others forever (or at least until the possibility for human life on this planet is destroyed) if that's what it takes, which is what Brexit boils down to as well.

Too bad for them that Trump and his kind are only going to throw a bone or two, and otherwise just let the white rabble have their way with us, as long as it keeps them from focusing that fear and grasping away from the rich who are their real problem. But eh. Even dumb white people know this. They just don't want to confront those rich white men, either out of knowing those dudes could incinerate them in a second, or under some delusion that one day, they'll be just like the rich white people, too, boy howdy!
posted by droplet at 6:30 AM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

I haven't smoked in 15 years and this morning for the first time n 14 years and 11 months, I am craving a cigarette. I won't give in to that but the pull is strong and I say it because it makes me think how I have heard many people here say they have been sober for x years ... these events are a powerful button-pushing for addiction, please stay sober, don't let these evil people take away a bigger piece of you than they already have!

All of us need to do whatever we can to take care of our mental health right now - I liked the suggestion of spending time with animals - or young kids. Take care of yourself, take care of your friends. We will need our wits about us going forward. We will need to be strong in the face of what is to come.

This is the.worst.thing.ever but somehow we will get through it. It will be horrible, terrible and scary but we will get through it.
posted by madamjujujive at 6:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

Recess details here, from our Garland/Scalia threads.

Recess has to be 3 days long, and the Senate can avoid that by having someone show up and do some meaningless nonsense.
posted by dis_integration at 6:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

My friends in West Africa are joking that I can spend a year in each of their towns/villages until the four years are over. I can help them grow corn. Gosh, it's tempting. At least I'll be able to afford the medical care!

More seriously, I'm in a field that relies heavily on NSF and NIH grants, and I'm worried about our future. I think the work we do is important, but it is precisely the kind of work that is most vulnerable to cuts because it doesn't have immediate, practical, and lucrative applications.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

Anyone thinking "this isn't on me" would do well to read this thread on reddit talking about shy Trump voters.

"It's not shocking at all to me. As a bartender, there have been many a group discussion on politics while CNN played on the TVs. Everyone would murmur how "both candidates suck" and how we're screwed.
However, once the crowds cleared and there was nothing left but one-on-one conversation with the guests and I, their pro-Trump colors would show."

It was the exact same with Brexit. Thousands of quiet, white, suburban people quietly voting against the left because they feel alienated and disillusioned.

Maybe it's not on your vote, but the next time you assume you don't know anyone who would dare vote Trump, next time you talk about stupid fascist hillbillies in front of a group of friends, consider who you're driving right into their midst.

I say this as someone who has done all of the above and is just now learning that maybe the pride that needs to be swallowed is my own.
posted by fight or flight at 6:33 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

All of my irrational anxieties and fears that came up when Trump started running are coming up again. I was afraid of so many things, one of them being that Muslims are going to be sent to concentration camps. How likely is that? Should I start preparing to figure out how to keep people from being sent to concentration camps?
posted by bleary at 6:33 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

John Hodgman: ‘Look the bullies in the eye today’: John Hodgman unleashes defiant anti-Trump tweetstorm:

I don't talk about my kids a lot here. But both cried like a loved one died. We all want to stay home. But we're all going to work today.

posted by palindromic at 6:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [32 favorites]

I'm 68, my family health history isn't that great. I'm truly pissed off that my final years are going to be spent with this idiot in office.

We manage a couple of trust funds for my spouse's mother and aunt, not a lot of money, about 100k total. This morning we moved it out of investment into cash accounts, I suspect we lost a few % last night and today, but I'm trying to minimize the loss. I also encouraged my wife to submit a letter of retirement today (if she quits at her current age she can withdraw from her retirement account with no tax penalty), again, hoping to avoid losing half of the investment she worked for.

I just wanted to check in here one last time. I've decided that avoiding media, social media, news, and the internet in general is probably a good idea for me. I'm going to spend some time raking leaves, walking the dog, fishing and drinking decent cheap wine. I may not be able to out live this fucker but I sure can ignore him. (and, good luck, government, on getting any tax money from me, by the time you catch up to that lack of payment I'll be long gone).

My pain is for those of you that are young. You've a long hard road ahead of you, I wish you the best.
posted by HuronBob at 6:36 AM on November 9, 2016 [83 favorites]

I'm so broken-hearted. I kept waking up to feed the Metafilter Election Thread Baby over the late hours of last night and the early hours of this AM, and every time I check the news it's just ... devastating. I'm so disappointed in America and I'm so sorry for Hillary, I feel like we failed her, and I'm so angry that this country turned November 2016 into a flaming heap of trash when I had such hopes it would be one of the most amazing months of my life.

My only consolation is that at least Alleykitten is too young to be scared or for me to have to explain any of this to her. Hopefully, by the time she can ask questions about all of this, we'll have gotten some of this sh*t sorted and be on a better path.

Thanks again to everyone in this wonderful community in the past days and months. Community is more important than ever now; I hope you all take care of yourselves and yours.
posted by alleycat01 at 6:36 AM on November 9, 2016 [36 favorites]

This is on all of us.

Alistair Cooke wrote an essay about how quick people were to say "Who killed Robert Kennedy? We all did." His answer: Bullshit. And that's my answer to this.
posted by argybarg at 6:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [22 favorites]

everything we thought we knew about campaigning was apparently in error. Conventions? Don't matter. Debates? Don't matter. Endorsements? Don't matter. High-profile defections? Don't matter. Missteps? Don't matter? Commercials? Don't matter. Ground game? Doesn't matter. An All-Star team of campaign surrogates, including one former president, one sitting president, and a wildly popular first lady? Doesn't matter. The "blue wall"? Not a thing. [...]

having a penis. having a penis is, apparently, all that fucking matters
posted by aiglet at 6:39 AM on November 9, 2016 [39 favorites]

We need to address this or we wither and die as a nation.

Address what, though? What are the magical sequence of words that will convince these people to vote differently? I'm with Sequence, upthread, in that I think there's a strong possibility that many people would like to ignore, that its impossible without them just dying off.

Ed Miliband tried to pander to the centre right in the last UK general election. He promised controls on immigration, cutting the deficit, no benefits for recent migrants, all the sort of stuff they claim to care about. Didn't work, didn't come close to working. Never will work. That might be a horrible fact that we might have to come to terms with.
posted by threetwentytwo at 6:39 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I was driving to drop my kids off at preschool today and there was a woman cop stopping traffic to help elementary students of all races cross the street. In the town next to mine, an African-born Muslim was elected to the city council. This morning people who need time on a computer or a place to be, or want to learn will file into the public library, and the soup kitchen workers and shelters on Oxford Street will spend another long day doing their best.

This is my hometown. I know Pious and was proud to vote for him yesterday.

At my son's school, 40% of the kids speak a language other than English at home. In his class, he has our Senator's granddaughter and refugee children. I love my little progressive blue city.

But. But. My son has already -- last spring -- had to stand up for his classmates as other kids told them they'd be deported. He and I talked this morning about his privilege - using that word - as a blonde, blue eyed boy with an English name. How he needs to stand up for other kids if he sees them being bullied, particularly this week. Over breakfast we talked bout what it means to be an ally. What it means to have the privilege to stand up and say - "Don't do that. This is not ok. I will protect you.

My son is 10. He has an ASD diagnosis. We live in a city where 73% of voters voted for Clinton. But he still - STILL - is going to have to stand up for his classmates, to protect them.

I'm so afraid for those children. And for the abuse my own son will endure standing up for them.
posted by anastasiav at 6:39 AM on November 9, 2016 [37 favorites]

I’m one of the few known liberals in my division (at a major financial institution on wall street); and it’s been a little rough. Two senior folks sought me out to commiserate; one was my boss (who is Canadian) the other, our most senior woman, who happens to be a woman of color with two children and she was devastated. She and I just cried a bit in her office as we talked about repercussions. At least 3 people came by to talk us off the cliff, and each time we just pointed out how screwed we are for at least 2 years. She also made the point of noting that her children have a safer environment than she and I do to grieve today. That she knew she was sending her daughters to a safe liberal school surrounded by friends, but in Finance, who the hell knows.

I guess it's time to start figuring out how we're going to land this ship. shit.
posted by larthegreat at 6:42 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

It is time to reorganize and fight.

I've been lax, despite my political interest I haven't been part of my local Democratic party. I am now.

There is only one thing that can effectively fight right wing populism, and that's left wing populism.

Trump will fail, that's inevitable. The high paying factory jobs he promised to bring back simply don't exist any more. Even if we cut off all trade with China the only factory jobs that would be created would be low skill, low pay, high turnover, type jobs, not the sort of blue collar middle class jobs Trump was promising.

And when he fails he will try to double down on blaming the Other for the problems. This pattern has been seen time and again and there's no reason to think we won't see it happening in America. Trump will blame the economic catastrophe he created on Latinx people, black people, gay people, foreigners and immigrants (legal and otherwise), women, liberals, intellectuals, the usual right wing hate list.

We're up against what corb described earlier, though I doubt she'd agree with my framing of it: the tendency of poor Republicans to oppose anything that would actually help them. Poor Republicans hate Obamacare, despite benefiting from it tremendously. Poor Republicans hate minimum wage increases, despite benefiting from them tremendously. Basically any economic justice package we propose they'll see as straight from the hell pits of Communism.

Couple that with a racism that would make a great many of them vote to be punched in the face as long as black people got punched twice, and that's the problem.

We can overcome this only through left wing populism, only by a very big, very public, no holds barred, assignment of blame where it truly belongs. The time has come for the Democrats to stop their own dog whistles and start openly calling for the rich to take a massive tax hike to pay for programs to help everyone else.

We can't win by pussyfooting around, it's time to go left and go left hard.

And I'm going to be at my local Democratic party raising funds, working for local officials, and organizing to get the 2018 vote out and get as many Bexar county offices in Democratic hands as possible.

I'm also going to be, however ineffectually as a newcomer, urging that a left populist approach. I am absolutely convinced it is the only thing that can work.
posted by sotonohito at 6:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [37 favorites]

Well I guess the 2012 autopsy is dead and buried now.
posted by Talez at 6:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Address what, though? What are the magical sequence of words that will convince these people to vote differently? I'm with Sequence, upthread, in that I think there's a strong possibility that many people would like to ignore, that its impossible without them just dying off.

I admit that I haven't the faintest clue. But I thought that when my generation came to middle age and political power, that would be the death knell of racism and sexism in this country. Surely when my grandparents' and parents' generations start dying off, surely then we'll move past all this, I thought.

Didn't happen. In fact, I am convinced that if you did anonymous polling and people felt safe enough to be honest, you'd see a tremendous groundswell of support for rolling back enfranchisement to white male landowners only. Maybe even to bring back slavery.

I don't know how we fix this, but it doesn't just die off with old bigots.
posted by middleclasstool at 6:45 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

On a shitty day of a shitty year, you know what keeps rattling around in my head? Here in this thread we are all collectively trying to process and grieve and cope, and yet to some alt-right shitlord somewhere, this very thread is their own personal /r/the_meltdown, where they're masturbating furiously to the nutrients of our tears.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Here's a silver lining: I am looking seriously into local offices that I could run for. School board, state rep, city council - I will make myself part of the Democratic Party bench, because I NEED TO DO SOMETHING
posted by palindromic at 6:47 AM on November 9, 2016 [45 favorites]

Philosophically speaking, I grew up under Reagan and came out of the closet under GHW Bush. I participated in protests on the first round of anti-marriage bills that swept the country by popular affirmation in state after state after state. (Which as I've said, were never really about marriage, but about piecemeal rights.) I protested when the statehouse attempted to defund my University over LGBTQ student services, that protest "won" when an angel donor created those services as a perpetual endowment. My little bi slice of the community had two non-pornographic works in print (one of them a clinical work), a handful of scattered urban organizations, and three usenet groups.

Things will be bad, but many of us are in communities that are stronger than at any point in our history. Unpack your compass. Get in touch with your local community, whether they be queens or butches, old church ladies or young kids, the business owner or the guys at the soup kitchen. Create culture, create safe spaces, create sisyphean networks of care.

Take breaks from the computer and make connections with people who hug, shake hands, and cry together, because internet "activism" can hollow and burn you out like an old wine barrel. I've been there. I'm skeptical it does much of anything.

But, and I think this is important, unpack your compass or find one. Keep that book, that file, that DVD close at hand. Mark it up with ink and post-its. It can be some secular work of political philosophy, the words of one of America's prophet-activists, or the promise of scripture. One point on my compass is Alan Ginsburg's perfectly Dharmic, "Ahh, Carl, while you are not safe, I am not safe, and now you're really stuck in the total animal soup of time." Yours might be a psalm, Karl Marx or Emma Goldman, your child, or a tree on a corner.

Read Barber. He's not my religion but his thoughts about the need to build coalitions and push for change as a multi-generational struggle are relevant here.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:47 AM on November 9, 2016 [27 favorites]

There was a discussion on NPR today on how Democrats in general have been ignoring (or downplaying) the white demographics in their projections/analysis/strategizing and Bernie Sanders (in private) cautioning against that.
posted by asra at 6:47 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is on all of us.

I don't know if it's on all of us, but as a white person, I've had to hold back from just apologizing to every PoC I see or heard from on twitter or facebook. My community did this and I really thought they were better than that. Not much better, but enough of them would stop this from happening.

I'm going to try to do something more constructive instead. I shouldn't be apologizing on behalf of people who aren't going to change their actions, I can only change mine.
posted by dinty_moore at 6:47 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I can't tell if I'm the one catastrophizing or if other people aren't panicked enough. My parents are very sanguine (dad is not a citizen, mom voted Johnson because she drank the Clinton Derangement kool-aid) about the whole thing and I went. off. on my mom and drove away and then had to drive back and apologize.

Got a big hug from my colleague who is former Obama field staff and former Obama Commerce Dept. He's a stats and econ guy and he's utterly baffled. This office is pretty uniformly With Her but I think me and him are taking this the hardest.

I've put a lot of my eggs into this online-socializing basket but I'm suddenly feeling the need for irl friends and irl social contact.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

Drop me a MeMail when that happens, palindromic. I'm right down the street, and while unelectable myself, I'll work my ass off for you.
posted by Etrigan at 6:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

this very thread is their own personal /r/the_meltdown, where they're masturbating furiously to the nutrients of our tears.

I say let 'em. My tears are poisonous.
posted by drezdn at 6:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

My POC co-workers are crying and hanging onto each other in the office kitchen this morning. They had to tell their children the news this morning. I had to take a Xanax to calm my JCPL down enough to even get a few hours of sleep, and the only reason I came in was with the thought that I could at least bury myself in work for a few hours while I wait for the shock to wear off. It was either that or huddle under the covers crying all day.

Not cool, America, not cool.
posted by Preserver at 6:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Drew Magary: Donald Trump's Election Is Like Any Other American Tragedy:

I’m alone in a hotel in North Carolina right now. The room is spare, with a TV and a bed and a free ironing board and white stucco walls. The hotel itself is located a little more than 50 miles outside Raleigh, N.C., deep in the heart of Trump country… a swath of America that turns out to be far larger, both in population and spirit, than isolated numbskulls like me ever thought it could be. I could walk outside this hotel and go to a truck stop or a bar and stumble upon the kind of Trump voters you’ve heard from for over a year now (I made the safari tour myself in Iowa way back when this whole thing started). But really, what more do you need to hear from them, or from me, about any of this? What can anyone say at this moment that matters… that could possibly drown out the primal wail that erupted out of White America last night?

posted by palindromic at 6:49 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Address what, though? What are the magical sequence of words that will convince these people to vote differently? I'm with Sequence, upthread, in that I think there's a strong possibility that many people would like to ignore, that its impossible without them just dying off.

"When all these damned old fools are dead
We'll have another lot instead"—Denis Glover
posted by Sonny Jim at 6:49 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

My company A) employs a lot of Indians (of varying citizenship and immigration statuses), and B) gets most of our money helping states run their Medicaid programs.

No work is getting done today.
posted by Etrigan at 6:51 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Rudy as AG.
Newt as Sec. of State.
Reince as chief of staff.
Corey as RNC chief.

God help us all.
posted by Talez at 6:51 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I've put a lot of my eggs into this online-socializing basket but I'm suddenly feeling the need for irl friends and irl social contact.

Yeah. I have no IRL support network, and now I am trying to figure out how I am going to (a) manage to get a job in my field (STEM academic) with looming cuts to science funding, and then (b) support my aging parents who were depending on the ACA for health coverage. There's no possibility their healthcare needs will be affordable without insurance. No other family to contribute to this. I have no idea where we go from here.
posted by pemberkins at 6:51 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

I'm unclear if I actually saw this or fever-dream imagined it. Were Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews fighting sometime around 2am on air about whose fault this whole thing is?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well at least we'll get Newt's moon base.
posted by Damienmce at 6:54 AM on November 9, 2016

hey guys i just had the worst nightmare of my life.. man...

[loads nyt]

...fuck
posted by entropicamericana at 6:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

On the plus side the Dow hasn't cratered yet.
posted by Talez at 6:55 AM on November 9, 2016

Financial markets are.... stable?
posted by schmod at 6:55 AM on November 9, 2016

I don't know how we fix this, but it doesn't just die off with old bigots.

One of the elders in my family is slowly changing from a very obnoxious party-line Republican to, well, something else. Changes in her church community have been a big part of that as new leadership creates a somewhat more diverse congregation. I suspect the realization that her children are quietly queer (at least in her presence) and not Christian has opened her mind a bit.

Then there's the death of the family patriarch, which had been such a big focus of the family for over a decade.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:56 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I thought HRC was supposed to speak at 930?
posted by anastasiav at 6:56 AM on November 9, 2016

The End of American Greatness:

The worst has come to pass. America has chosen Donald Trump for President, and delivered significant Republican majorities to the House and Senate. The obvious irony of the morning after is that Donald Trump's victory is the end of American greatness. What happened last night was not necessarily a uniquely American event, however. Quite the opposite: It was the world catching up to America. The United States, under Obama, had more or less escaped the authoritarian xenophobic trend sweeping the rest of the world. No longer. Now it is just like everybody else.

Following so closely on Brexit in England, the election of Donald Trump signals that the West as we have known it since the Second World War is over. That order was determined by a few motivating and widely shared principles: that war was to be avoided at all costs, that global negotiations would be rules-based, and that openness to trade led to broader prosperity and that that prosperity ensured deeper peace. That system, despite its many flaws, produced a period of peace and prosperity the likes of which the world has never seen. It lasted 70 years. If Trump keeps his word, NATO will be, at the very least, intensely diminished. TPP will be abandoned. The Pax Americana is defunct. Its dates were 1945 to 2016.

posted by palindromic at 6:56 AM on November 9, 2016 [32 favorites]

Tom Brady is still not a good friend to Donald Trump.
posted by bukvich at 6:56 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well at least we'll get Newt's moon base.

But it'll be built by Trump's contractors.
posted by drezdn at 6:56 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Financial markets are.... stable?

Not everybody's markets. SEA cratered.
posted by Talez at 6:57 AM on November 9, 2016

Paul Krugman: Ending the American Romance:

Some morning-after thoughts: what hits me and other so hard isn’t just the immense damage Trump will surely do, to climate above all. There’s also a vast disillusionment that as of now I think of as the end of the romantic vision of America (which I still love).

What I mean is the notion of US history as a sort of novel in which there may be great tragedy, but there’s always a happy ending. That is, we tell a story in which at times of crisis we always find the leader — Lincoln, FDR — and the moral courage we need.

posted by palindromic at 6:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

What are the chances, if any, that Clinton might call for a recount? Or would that have already been announced?
posted by fight or flight at 6:58 AM on November 9, 2016

Boy did McCain make a mistake in that Town Hall debate when that crazy lady stood up and accused Obama of being a Muslim.

Instead of telling her that Obama was a Christian and a good man he could've just said "You're damn right he is!" and here we would be watching Sarah Palin declaring victory for her first term.
posted by PenDevil at 6:58 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

In other news, Kelly Ayotte is currently losing her senate seat by 870 votes to Maggie Hassan, with all but 7 precincts reporting. So I guess there's that at least. Small victories.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:58 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

She conceded last night so I assume zero.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 6:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

On the bright side it is once again edgy to be liberal.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

What are the chances, if any, that Clinton might call for a recount?

None. It wasn't a close election.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

this is the first time I've teared up at the Hamilton soundtrack.
posted by angrycat at 6:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Anyone mention to Trump he got less votes than Romney?
posted by drezdn at 6:59 AM on November 9, 2016

this is the first time I've teared up at the Hamilton soundtrack.

It's quiet uptown.
posted by drezdn at 7:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

Trump's message was almost uniformly horrible. But one part of it helped him win PA and WI and it's worth staring at for a bit.

That message was that the poor and middle class are getting screwed economically and no one gets held accountable. That much is true. Corporations slash jobs and pay no taxes and banks rip millions off and businesses pollute resources for profit and _no one goes to jail_. No one gets put on a stake and held up as an example. And while Hillary certainly could not have fixed that by herself, Trump thundered that she and her husband were part of the system that produced that for decades _and it keeps happening_.

Now.

Is the Republican Party predominantly responsible for all of the above? You bet your ass. Is Trump hypocritical as hell for blaming Dems for it? You bet your ass. But Trump babbled and a lot of people thought, hey, he's talking to ME, someone's finally saying out loud that shit is badly broken. And they looked at Hillary and thought, hey, she's part of the machine that helped cause this. And they rejected reality and voted for their own. He lied his ass off about the root cause of the problem but people responded to populist addressing of it.

For all the talk of enthusiasm gap, note that Trump's vote total was about even with Romney's. Hillary got about five million fewer than Obama 2012. That's a lot of demoralized people.

The rest of us need to get on the phone and stay on it come January, howling that if the remaining Dems don't use every procedural trick and every public appeal to fight for the new 50.1% minority and block what little they can, they are next to go. This is war again, it's going to the mattresses, and it will require passion and cunning and finding ways to motivate people to survive.
posted by delfin at 7:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [33 favorites]

What we're looking at here is a coup. Hear me out.

So through their Red Map project, Republicans have control in state legislatures that is almost impossible to remove because they have partisan control over districting. This also applies to Congress and the Senate, now. It is impossible to remove them because they have zero scruples with undemocratic, permanent control. Now, with the Voting Rights Act struck down, they have Voter ID laws that further enshrine their control, stopping whatever demographic losses they suffer. How long until they re-enact Jim Crow? They are invalidating and diminishing the votes of PoC wherever they have not made it essentially illegal to vote in the first place.

Having seen all the posts people made about low early voting turnout in some places, I'm convinced that these changes threw the election to Trump, as much as the terrifying white nationalist vote of almost all white people helped. The problem is that all their measures to eliminate the PoC vote won't disappear, ever. Unless they stop being the white supremacist party, no one will ever overthrow them.

Meanwhile the soft genocide of deporting millions of Latinos will most certainly turn back the clock on white people becoming a minority by around 2040. Halting immigration from anywhere non-white, which I'm sure Trump is eager to do, will also further that cause. Some Republicans are probably quietly crossing their fingers for a race war to win. Their rhetoric indicates as much. Frankly, I'd call this a one-sided race war already. It's disgusting.

Last, we have this precedent of criminalizing non-Republican candidates for president. The FBI is now a Republican political apparatus. With a permanent Republican dual-house, no one will ever complain as they arrest each new democratic candidate for bogus charges. 2020 will be, "Racketeering," while 2024 will progress to, "Unamerican activities".

I really don't think it will be long before the constitution is amended to make a one party system. Apartheid is next.

Say goodbye to abortion, action on climate change; a world without megastorms every summer, a diverse America, a functional economy, a world without hot trade wars, an America where you don't have to bribe police officers, freedom of the press, etc.

I'm genuinely wondering whether I'll be drafted for some hot trade war in Southeast Asia, with China, or something. Or maybe I'll be sent on some "Peacekeeping" mission where I'll be expected to help Turks ethnically cleanse the east of their country. Or a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

For all the emphasis on cuckoldry, I'm astounded that hard righters chose someone so weakly vain and profoundly venal. His buffoonery will make Bush's look cute. It mortifies me to think someone with so many invisible appendages (re: points of leverage) will be president. Everyone will be bending him over, and most white folks will pretend not to see it.

I'm starting to ramble in anger, here. Took off work because I am devastated.
posted by constantinescharity at 7:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [42 favorites]

Charles Pierce: The Republican Party Is a Machine. Trump Used It Better Than Anyone:

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA—The streets went quiet a little while ago. There was the occasional whoop and holler from down a dark alley but, by and large, right about the time the networks flipped this state from Hillary Rodham Clinton to president-elect Donald Trump, Philadelphia seemed resigned to go to bed and hope to wake up to a better day.

The more I think about it, I think the most consequential developments in the 2016 presidential election happened long ago. For example, in 2007, ruling on a case called Crawford v. Marion County Election Board et.al, the Supreme Court by a 6-3 majority upheld a law passed two years earlier in Indiana that required a voter to present an ID at the polling places.

posted by palindromic at 7:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Never in my life have I been so glad I don't have children.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 7:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [72 favorites]

Anthony fucking Weiner.

ANTHONY FUCKING WEINER.

Sure, we'll never know for sure. But if that was possibly the tipping point...Huma must be beside herself.
posted by andruwjones26 at 7:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

One of my facebook friends said this election shows that major change is possible, instead of incrementalism. I don't think that's what yesterday showed at all. The Republicans have chipped away at everything so slowly, pushing the overton window every chance they get, until they can block a supreme court nominee for nearly a year and it doesn't cost them votes. They slowly erode voting rights, until they run nearly everything. Then, when they have complete control, as they do now, they implement every part of their agenda.

They did it in Wisconsin and now they're going to do it at the national level.
posted by drezdn at 7:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [32 favorites]

Never in my life have I been so glad I don't have children.

I don't either and Dubya's second election is part of why. I dig your impulse.
posted by delfin at 7:06 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

ANTHONY FUCKING WEINER.

That was the excuse. It wasn't the reason.
posted by Etrigan at 7:06 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

Depressed in complicated ways, right now. 2016 has nearly destroyed my faith in just about everything. I have a dim hope that after Trump fucks up everything someone a la Malcolm X shows up to tell them how much they've been had.
posted by jonmc at 7:06 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Huma must be beside herself.

I have this image of several people in the HFA camp throwing tumblers of whiskey against walls last night and then collapsing in a fetal position. It makes me want to cry for them.
posted by Rhomboid at 7:07 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

megastorms every summer

And the lack of government funds to actually address any of them. Not to mention that you're helping grow them around the rest of the world who will be spending all their government monies to fix this shit too.
posted by p3t3 at 7:07 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

That message was that the poor and middle class are getting screwed economically and no one gets held accountable.

Employment numbers don't support this. This election was all about race. And misogyny.
posted by My Dad at 7:07 AM on November 9, 2016 [33 favorites]

guys i am truly terrified of the intelligence-security state apparatus in the hands of a government dominated by republlcans in all three branches. i mean, too-scared-to-speak-out scared.
posted by entropicamericana at 7:07 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

AskMeFi looks like Ian A.T.'s comment fable right now.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:08 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

That message was that the poor and middle class are getting screwed economically and no one gets held accountable.

Employment numbers don't support this. This election was all about race. And misogyny

Right, I don't know how we're going to get anywhere if we have to keep reminding people of this.
posted by zutalors! at 7:08 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Anthony fucking Weiner.

ANTHONY FUCKING WEINER.

Sure, we'll never know for sure. But if that was possibly the tipping point...Huma must be beside herself.

Might as well point fingers at Bill Clinton thinking it would be wise to meet Loretta Lynch on the tarmac which lead to her recusing herself from the probe.
posted by asra at 7:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Here in CA amidst the mountains of propositions, people voted to not only keep the death penalty, but to kill people faster. Don't strain yourself patting your own back for legalizing weed, CA.
posted by themadthinker at 7:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [19 favorites]

why do you have to have compassion for them? they won.
posted by zutalors! at 7:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

538 is dead to me. Not because I'm blaming Nate Silver or anything - he's only as good as his data. The problem is that we have been shown that this data is utter horseshit. He had Clinton at 70%+, and even Trump's people thought he was gonna lose and lose badly. I won't waste time with the polls or aggregators anymore. They mean nothing. As I said, not Silver's fault that the data was wrong, but if the data is that bad then there's nothing useful to read.
posted by azpenguin at 7:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

Right, I don't know how we're going to get anywhere if we have to keep reminding people of this.

Stop counting 20/hr/week, $9/hr jobs as "employment."
posted by Thorzdad at 7:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [25 favorites]

Will Democrats have the sense to repudiate the Democratic Leadership Council? The Third Way? CLINTONISM??/!!
posted by Trochanter at 7:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I assume I'm one of many people who have dropped to the bottom of the thread and posted about their horror and despair.

I don't know what to do. I'm so scared.
posted by meese at 7:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Never in my life have I been so glad I don't have children.

Mad respect and empathy for those that do, tho.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [19 favorites]

Well; how long until the NRA authorized Trump #45 .45 caliber special edition pistols start to arrive? With all procedes going to charity; of course.
posted by buzzman at 7:12 AM on November 9, 2016

The math guy in me does want to know what was wrong with the polls. Systemic sampling error? Bradley Effect? I mean, we'll never know, but even the exit polls were hilariously wrong.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 7:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Remember that game where you tried to help a civilization make it to warp?

In 2016, A nation of Earth elected a populist leader with no experience governing. The ensuing climate change threw the planet's delicate ecosystem wildly out of balance, bringing about the end of Human civilization.
posted by Talez at 7:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

>Not because I'm blaming Nate Silver or anything - he's only as good as his data

I agree, he did the best with what he had. At least he was fully upfront about Trump having a real chance at winning this election. Huffington Post had Clinton at 98% chance of victory and were so, so smug about it.
posted by beau jackson at 7:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

I really believed in us.

I don't know what to do. I'm gay, and I'm sick, but I'm white. If I get the chance to leave and go somewhere where I can get medical care, I think I have to. And I can't bear the thought of leaving everyone else behind.

No one I know knows what to do.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

I'm fairly certain the Democratic Party is dashed on the rocks. God knows what will be left in 2018.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 7:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

But one part of it helped him win PA and WI and it's worth staring at for a bit.

Indeed. He ran ads tearing into NAFTA, blaming it on losing jobs, while there is a solid academic case to be made for NAFTA saving the auto industry by allowing Mexico to make car parts cheaper, and competing with China doing the same for Asia. Nobody made that case and the blue wall crumbled in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Then there is the little cultural problem of guilt-loading voters into believing that the election was about how one should feel about themselves after they vote, and how it ever got successfully entrenched on the liberal side.
posted by Brian B. at 7:15 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

The kids are not all right. At least not much more right than other whites.

@asmamk
Young whites, ages 18-29, seem to have opted for Trump, per exits 48%-42%. (That wasn't something we saw in the polling ...)

* Not trying to blame millennials. just posting it as a weird surprising stat.
posted by chris24 at 7:15 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

How do I continue to have compassion for them

Yeah, really, don't. Have compassion for the Muslim/Latinx families freaking out right now. Worry about the women getting groped by their boss. Worry about the trans kids and the happily married gay couples.

Not the people who just won. Shun them.
posted by threetwentytwo at 7:15 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Anyone thinking "this isn't on me" would do well to read this thread on reddit talking about shy Trump voters.
"It's not shocking at all to me. As a bartender, there have been many a group discussion on politics while CNN played on the TVs. Everyone would murmur how "both candidates suck" and how we're screwed.
However, once the crowds cleared and there was nothing left but one-on-one conversation with the guests and I, their pro-Trump colors would show."

Yeah. Quoting myself from mid-September:

I'll add another data point here. My wife and I went out to dinner with her parents this weekend, and afterwards my wife and her mom wanted to stop to do some shopping. This left me in the car with my father in law with about 30 minutes to fill. First thing out of his mouth was "did you hear about the bombing in Syria" and I hadn't yet, but that was close enough to politics that he just blurted out how he couldn't believe how awful both candidates were, and that he'd never vote for Hillary but that he "doesn't want to vote for Trump." Translation, he's voting for Trump because Hillary is Hillary.

So against my better judgement, I tried to figure out exactly what his reasons were, and it's exactly the type of vague "too untrustworthy" / "too ambitious" bullshit you're citing here. This is a very articulate guy, but I've never seen him stammer and stutter the way he did trying to explain why he hated her so much. He mentioned Bill's affair, as if that was somehow her fault, and when I pointed out it wasn't, he pivoted into how she'll do anything to get elected, which I guess means he's buying the whole "she just stayed with him for her political career" canard, and then he brought up BENGHAZI! and I told him that was bullshit, and... It was fucking exhausting.

I guess there are a lot more people out there like my wife's father than we realized. I don't know how we change their minds -- heaven knows I tried -- but I don't really have a plan B, either.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:16 AM on November 9, 2016 [24 favorites]

I had been thinking about the election like this: I had always known that a woman could be president, but I would be so relieved to see that a woman could be elected president.

Only, she wasn't. She couldn't be. We elected a stupid, fascist, narcissist over a competent and experienced woman.

Now I know my place in society.
posted by meese at 7:17 AM on November 9, 2016 [51 favorites]

I am not saying that it was NOT about race and misogyny. Because it was. We all know it was. A big chunk of America would vote for Charles Manson if he promised to make America white and male again.

I am saying that people are staring at these states and asking, the racists didn't win here in 2012, what the fuck changed this time? And that has to be examined.
posted by delfin at 7:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

What will Trump do if more damning shit comes out about his business dealings, ties with Russia, or sexual predation? Especially once the honeymoon is over and there isn't the boogeyman of a Democratic president during an election to keep voters stuck to him? He's going to be very unpredictable. I wouldn't put it past him to use war as a tool of distraction from his personal failings.
posted by beau jackson at 7:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

To those in disbelief over this, it's really not a stretch that a protectionist candidate did better than an internationalist in the rust belt. People who lost jobs to outsourcing were looking for payback, and voting for Trump was their one chance to stick it to the establishment. Yes, that's called cutting off your nose to spite your face, but human nature gonna human nature, and the right wing are experts at exploiting human nature. The results worry me (hugs Obamacare), but they do not surprise me.
posted by Beholder at 7:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Someone please tell me this: how the fuck do I face the fucking monsters I know who voted for Trump?

My mother voted for Brexit and so literally contributed to me being fired shortly after (small company in an industry very reliant on European business). The weekend after, I was supposed to go see her for the first time in months. I couldn't bring myself to do it, to be in the room with someone who betrayed me like that. I couldn't face her.

Part of me now regrets that anger, but at the same time I know that I would have regretted blowing up in her face even more. So my advice is this: if they are friends and loved ones, stay away from them until you have regained your center and your calm. Come to them from a point of compassion as much as you can, because in this fucked up 2016 bastard world, human connections matter even more.

That said, if they say one smug word, if they're long-distance friends-of-friends - man, just block and delete. Don't force yourself to weather that storm if you don't have to. Nobody has time for that.

Hugs for you and everyone hurting in this thread. I felt this in June and it fucking sucks. But we're all still here. We will still be here no matter what.
posted by fight or flight at 7:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

Does anyone know where a live stream of her speaking will be? She's supposed to speak in 10 minutes.
posted by Sophie1 at 7:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I said I would not watch TV news, but I feel I owe it to Hillary to watch her statement. If she has the courage to give it, I want to offer her the respect to hear it.
posted by madamjujujive at 7:20 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Suggested thread title for the next one "We're going through the unimaginable."
posted by drezdn at 7:20 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

I posted a version of this on Facebook last night and just updated it. Am sure I missed some points....

As a result of yesterday's election, Republicans now control the Executive and Legislative Branches here in the US. They will soon control the Judicial branch.

What this means:
* Obamacare is over. 40 million+ people are going to lose their healthcare. Some of them will die without it. Insurance companies will no longer be required to cover people with pre-existing conditions.
* Roe v. Wade and abortion rights are likely over.
* Marriage equality is likely at an end.
* Immigration reform is dead.
* Relationships with some allies will probably be destroyed.
* NATO has been put on notice that we will not honor our commitments.
* The oppression of Democrat/minority voting rights will continue or accelerate.
* SCOTUS will be taken over and controlled by Conservatives for the foreseeable future.
* Climate change reform is finished.
* The fight for a livable minimum wage is done.
* Progressive taxation is no longer on the table.
* Privatization of Social Security and possibly also Medicare are on the table.
The Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Education will probably be targeted for deregulation and deconstruction.
* Our ignorant, xenophobic, reactionary President-Elect has all but declared war on Muslims, Latinos, immigrants and other minorities.
* Our country will become less safe, less tolerant and more openly racist, sexist and anti-Semitic. And it was pretty fucking intolerant, racist, sexist and anti-Semitic to begin with.
* We have a 50/50 chance or worse of becoming embroiled in a war over the next four years, because our new President is astonishingly thin-skinned and has no impulse control.

Our goal for the next four years is going to have to be limiting the amount of damage the bigoted, racist, narcissistic, sexist, fascist, unAmerican pig will do to our nation. Assuming of course that he isn't jailed for defrauding students through his so-called "Trump University" scam. His running mate believes in "gay conversion therapy" and wanted women who ended a pregnancy to be forced to hold funerals for them. So if Trump is forced to resign or is impeached, his successor may be less likely to start WWIII, but is apparently a stone-age relic and misogynistic fanatic. So it's not like we'd be trading up.

I'm quite honestly ashamed to share a country with the 59 million people who voted for him.

Today, November 9th, is the 78th anniversary of Kristallnacht.
posted by zarq at 7:20 AM on November 9, 2016 [174 favorites]

I guess there are a lot more people out there like my wife's father than we realized

Fox News is the most popular cable news network. There are millions of people who get most of their news this way. This is the lens through which they see the political world.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 7:20 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

There’s no way around it: Donald Trump is going to be a disaster for the planet:

This is happening. Donald Trump is going to be president of the United States.

And there’s no way around it: What he’s planning to do looks like an absolute disaster for the planet (and the people on it). Specifically, all the fragile but important progress the world has made on global warming over the past eight years is now in danger of being blown to hell.

Trump has been crystal clear about his environmental plans. Much of the media never wanted to bring it up, never wanted to ask about it in debates, never wanted to turn their addled attention away from Hillary Clinton’s email servers to discuss what a Trump presidency might mean for climate change.

posted by palindromic at 7:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [23 favorites]

I was sort of hoping that when I went to bed and woke back up, that things would have changed.
posted by Archelaus at 7:22 AM on November 9, 2016 [23 favorites]

President Trump will have a Republican House and Senate, and will get to appoint someone to SCOTUS right away, since McConnell has been holding that open for him. Literally the only thing stopping him from doing whatever the hell he wants to do is John Roberts, who I think is a genuinely competent and thoughtful person, though conservative. If Trump pushes an unconstitutional law through and it gets challenged in the courts, I could see Roberts joining with the liberal justices to quash it.

That's my fraying thread of hope.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:23 AM on November 9, 2016 [27 favorites]

Does anyone know where a live stream of her speaking will be? She supposed to speak in 10 minutes.

PBS claims to have a stream but it's not live yet.
posted by Rhomboid at 7:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

That message was that the poor and middle class are getting screwed economically and no one gets held accountable.

Employment numbers don't support this. This election was all about race. And misogyny.

These are not contradictory positions.

The #1 trait that identified Trump supporters was hostility to women. Trump appealed to bullies. And bullies are always happy to hear, "you deserve better; you've been cheated out of your rightful gains; someone else has what you earned."

Trump said, over and over, "those schemers in Washington have cheated you; join me and let's kick the bastards out." Doesn't matter that he's every bit as much a schemer and cheat as he accused them of being, nor that "kick the bastards out" isn't actually one of the president's abilities. His message resonated - and Hillary's "I have a plan to make everyone better" didn't.

The embittered didn't believe her, and bullies don't want everyone to be better off. We just didn't know the nation had this many bullies.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 7:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

@charlesmurray: When someone has been so strategically right so early, he deserves acknowledgment:

The "Sailer Strategy" from 2000
posted by Golden Eternity at 7:25 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

On my way into work today -- calling in sick would just be me doing the same thing I'm doing now but with fewer mandatory distractions and access to the liquor cabinet -- MSNBC had a couple of pundits on, and the host, Stephanie Ruhle I think, was asking leading questions about how things went wrong for Clinton. One of them was her expressing incredulity about "transgender bathrooms", as in somehow Democrats not throwing trans people under the bus was a significant causal factor in Hillary's loss. Then she launched into some kind of argument about hypothetical small businesses that don't want to pay for mandatory maternity leave.

Yeah, that's your "liberal" network right there. Maybe we should let Fox News be Fox News and figure out what the fuck is going wrong with the non-yet-hopelessly-batshit media outlets.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:25 AM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

> We just didn't know the nation had this many bullies.

Wasn't that how election 2004 was decided? Evangelicals are almost by definition bullies.
posted by beerbajay at 7:26 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Does anyone have advice for how to deal with pro-Trump smugness in the workplace today? I've been hearing things like "everyone who voted for Clinton needs to GTFO out now!" and other nastiness in my office (red state, blue county). I want to stand up and shut that down when I hear it, but it turns out I'm deeply outnumbered here and don't want to become a target for their poison.
posted by Servo5678 at 7:27 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Someone please tell me this: how the fuck do I face the fucking monsters I know who voted for Trump? How do I continue to have compassion for them? I'm in full on crisis mode and I'm totally gutted this morning.

I'm in the same place, and I have to go teach some of them in an hour and a half. I was I had some advice, but at least it's not just you.
posted by joycehealy at 7:28 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

2004 had a lot of queer electoral results, too.
posted by Coventry at 7:28 AM on November 9, 2016

Can someone briefly make a soothing argument that I shouldn't be worried about nuclear war?
posted by craven_morhead at 7:28 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

The math guy in me does want to know what was wrong with the polls. Systemic sampling error? Bradley Effect? I mean, we'll never know, but even the exit polls were hilariously wrong.

I have been hearing that likely-voter screens incorrectly filtered out first-time and infrequent white voters. I think celebrity is an under-analyzed factor here. Look at the last time Wisconsin went red—it was for Reagan, another screen personality. There used to be a critical view of celebrity culture on the left; recently it seems that this has shifted and this culture is viewed as harmless at worst, and potentially even empowering when it makes space for token members of oppressed groups. I think we/they are wrong. People conceive of the people on television as surrogate friends, even though the interaction is only ever one-way, and allow those celebrities unearned and unexamined influence over their thoughts and beliefs. It's toxic and dangerous.
posted by enn at 7:28 AM on November 9, 2016 [24 favorites]

Can someone briefly make a soothing argument that I shouldn't be worried about nuclear war?

Here's one. Unless you were born before 1945, you should have always been.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:29 AM on November 9, 2016 [22 favorites]

Can someone briefly make a soothing argument that I shouldn't be worried about nuclear war?

nuclear war would at least be relatively quick and painless

(oops, that wasn't the kind of argument you meant, was it?)
posted by entropicamericana at 7:30 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Stephanie Ruhle I think

Yeah, she finished up her hour by congratulating Kellyanne Conway, saying you worked hard and put up with a lot and now you get to dump on everybody else. Fuck her.
posted by chris24 at 7:30 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Does anyone have advice for how to deal with pro-Trump smugness in the workplace today?

No joke, I turned on Pandora to put literally anything on headphones to avoid the chatter, and evidently the last station I listened to was Christmas music.

So my answer is Christmas music. It is almost-but-not-quite soothing.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Unless you were born before 1945, you should have always been.

You're a real comfort.
posted by zarq at 7:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Here's the MSNBC segment I mentioned earlier, for those who are appropriately prepared for the horror of watching the left pole of cable news openly advocate for turning away from "botique issues" like "transgender people and women are people."
posted by tonycpsu at 7:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt: The Food Lab: 18 Comfort Foods, in Case You Need Comforting Now
posted by palindromic at 7:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

Can someone briefly make a soothing argument that I shouldn't be worried about nuclear war?

Putin and Trump will be on the same side?
posted by asra at 7:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

I salute all the newspapers who relentlessly put Trump on their front pages, giving him all the advertising he needed to become the 45th president of the US. I will never look at the NY Times, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, or the Washington Post again. I will also never read the SL Tribune, nor even think about politics in the US again. I WILL move to a blue state. I will relentlessly wear earphones in public, and maybe move to one of the inner Amazon cities of Brazil. I'm done.
posted by Oyéah at 7:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I just sent a text to my family letting them know that I'm not speaking to them right now. I can't be civil. I'm going to explode and hanging out with them is not going to be possible for me right now. I will miss my father's birthday this week because he voted for Trump. They can't take it back and I can't pretend that they didn't do it.
posted by Sophie1 at 7:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [28 favorites]

Putin and Trump will be on the same side?

China's not.
posted by anastasiav at 7:34 AM on November 9, 2016

Can someone briefly make a soothing argument that I shouldn't be worried about nuclear war?

Bad for business, messes up property values.
posted by sammyo at 7:35 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I'm maybe being optimistic, but I don't think this will be any worse than GWB. Maybe we can flip some seats in 2018. I mean as long as anything's anyone's guess at this point.
posted by zutalors! at 7:35 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

School of Life posted this video called Resilience In Hard Times...
posted by Foci for Analysis at 7:35 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I plan on dealing with trump supporters this way: I'm just going to explain the specific ways in which I am now scared about my own well being.

I'm relatively well off: the biggest concern for me (I mean, other than nuclear war) is the repeal of Obamacare: my husband and I will go in debt until bankruptcy and my husband won't get the care he needs.
posted by meese at 7:36 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

My parents are going to be destroyed financially by loss of my disabled brother's health insurance.
posted by thelonius at 7:37 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

> I don't think this will be any worse than GWB

Yeah, and he only destabilized the entire mideast, murdered 100k people in Iraq, caused the flood of refugees which pushed europe's politics to the right, ignored climate science, brought religion into federal government programs, etc etc etc
posted by beerbajay at 7:37 AM on November 9, 2016 [40 favorites]

But economic anxiety.

@JeremyWarnerUK
Exit poll breakdown of where Trump's support comes from - male, white, over 45, middle income earners
NYT: Election 2016: Exit Polls
posted by chris24 at 7:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I've been hearing things like "everyone who voted for Clinton needs to GTFO out now!" and other nastiness in my office (red state, blue county). I want to stand up and shut that down when I hear it, but it turns out I'm deeply outnumbered here and don't want to become a target for their poison.

DO NOT ENGAGE. There are times to "speak truth to power," and when you are surrounded by angry thugs - possibly angry thugs with guns - is not one of those times.

There is absolutely nothing to gain by trying to speak out now. They are going to gloat; they are going to be smug assholes. Save your energy for when they turn to actual violence, to ripping off Muslim women's hijabs and cornering shy women in the office against a wall and groping them.

Don't make yourself a target before they've found one on their own - not only for self-preservation, but because it won't stop them from finding other targets later.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 7:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

Maybe we should let Fox News be Fox News and figure out what the fuck is going wrong with the non-yet-hopelessly-batshit media outlets.

Based on my more-than-cursory viewing over the past two weeks and the results of the election, there are no non-batshit crazy media outlets. Believing that MSNBC is in any way qualitiatively better at reporting/predicting/analyzing election results is an exercise in futility. Watching Rachel Maddow last night trying in agony to make sense of what was clearly and unequivocally unfolding (and trying to conceal the agony) was a painful experience.
posted by blucevalo at 7:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

What does this mean for the Trump University case?

I'm not a lawyer, but my guess is many of Trump's outstanding cases will be post-poned.
posted by drezdn at 7:38 AM on November 9, 2016

Do republicans hold enough power to pass constitutional amendments now? (Not that it matters much bc SCOTUS)
posted by melissasaurus at 7:38 AM on November 9, 2016

Here's the MSNBC segment I mentioned earlier, for those who are appropriately prepared for the horror of watching the left pole of cable news openly advocate for turning away from "botique issues" like "transgender people and women are people."

2000 and 2004 again, when in doubt, blame us queers.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 7:39 AM on November 9, 2016 [19 favorites]

Can someone briefly make a soothing argument that I shouldn't be worried about nuclear war?

Odds of conflict with Russia have likely gone down, because they'll be closer allies. China does not want to lob nukes so long as they can keep selling stuff abroad to keep their economy from collapsing. If there's a land war, they'll likely attack Russia before us.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

What does this mean for the Trump University case?

It means he'll have Secret Service guards when he has to testify. Being president-elect doesn't give him any special legal rights. Same with the hearing in December on the rape case.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 7:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Do republicans hold enough power to pass constitutional amendments now? (Not that it matters much bc SCOTUS)

Not even close. It's 2/3 of each house.
posted by Etrigan at 7:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Can someone briefly make a soothing argument that I shouldn't be worried about nuclear war?

Well, I'm not certain even China would make much a fuss if North Korea was vaporized.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:41 AM on November 9, 2016

Do republicans hold enough power to pass constitutional amendments now? (Not that it matters much bc SCOTUS)

3/4 of the states need to ratify.
posted by chris24 at 7:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Do republicans hold enough power to pass constitutional amendments now?

They might, they'd only need to control 66 percent of statehouses.
posted by drezdn at 7:41 AM on November 9, 2016

Wait, looks like I'm wrong.
posted by drezdn at 7:41 AM on November 9, 2016

>same with the hearing in December on the rape case.

This case was dropped by the complainant.
posted by beau jackson at 7:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think we'll find that the error in the polls is due to a growing reluctance among the electorate to admitting their "politically incorrect" opinions to pollsters, but once they get behind that voting booth they can safely be deplorable. I think the same thing happened with Brexit.
posted by rocket88 at 7:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Do republicans hold enough power to pass constitutional amendments now? (Not that it matters much bc SCOTUS)

3/4 of the states (38) would need to ratify. Seems unlikely.
posted by anastasiav at 7:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Do republicans hold enough power to pass constitutional amendments now? (Not that it matters much bc SCOTUS)

No you 2/3 of both houses of congress or 3/4 of the state legislatures.
posted by nathan_teske at 7:42 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Same with the hearing in December on the rape case.

The rape case was dropped. The girl and her legal team were receiving death threats so she's backed down and gone into hiding, essentially.
posted by fight or flight at 7:42 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Do republicans hold enough power to pass constitutional amendments now? (Not that it matters much bc SCOTUS)

You need 2/3 of the States to approve them. THey must be proposed by a 2/3 majority of Congress or by a special convention called by Congress if 2/3 of the States want that.

So it is possible, but still difficult, that the 2017 regime could get, say, a Right To Life or Balanced Budget amendment through.
posted by thelonius at 7:42 AM on November 9, 2016

We've changed our minds. We're not going to bring a brown child into this world.

I read this and then cried for 10 minutes. Then I woke up my daughter and told her the news. She cursed, and I didn't even care.

She's been playing with identifying as white at school lately, and it always bothered me. Now I can't help but think, it will be safer. Thank God I gave her a white name.

I hate everything that isn't you today.
posted by corb at 7:42 AM on November 9, 2016 [71 favorites]

Clinton still not speaking? Is something going on?
posted by waitingtoderail at 7:42 AM on November 9, 2016

This case was dropped by the complainant.

Aww, damn. I missed that announcement. :(
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 7:42 AM on November 9, 2016

I have been looking at the genealogy from my Father's side of the family. My great grandmother was born during the civil war, and they had slaves, and the Native Americans had slaves too. I think my grandfather was born to ex slaves of the Choctaw. Those individuals were given full membership in the tribes, but in order to have rights, they moved over to California and passed as Choctaw or Cherokee. Just looking at the naming, and the diaspora, there was a lot of co-agreement, co-raising of children, cooperation in the run up to the institutional racism that formed in the south. The Oklahoma dust bowl, and the evacuation to California meant much more than immediate survival, it meant the survival of generations as whites. While at home in the south, the blood quantities dropped, whitening the Scottish clans that co-mingled, and the Native Americans remained on their land ghettos, and the African Americans that remained, face this election today. It is not all that long ago, they were slaves. Here's to you racist, misogynist, cowardly, America, genetic crucible of lies. Americans were afraid for the economy? Sure.
posted by Oyéah at 7:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm feeling very distressed and just realized that I felt similarly when the first plane hit the tower on 9/11. This has happened, is still happening and right now there isn't anything anyone can do about it (other than donate and volunteer to help control the damage/ fallout). My husband is currently in the U.S. for work, in a red state, and can't wait to leave. Our hearts are with you.
posted by Laura in Canada at 7:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

omg attica locke just told it how it is to some mealymouthed npr white dude on morning edition, calling out racism and sexism. he tried saying "not all trump supporters" and she was all "nah"

i needed that.
posted by entropicamericana at 7:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

You need 2/3 of the States to approve them

my bad - it is 3/4
posted by thelonius at 7:45 AM on November 9, 2016

Ok well, facebook is getting me through the stages of mourning today. I put up a post about how I'm reminding myself this morning that God wins in the end (I am religious), but really I'm just heartbroken and having trouble encouraging myself, etc.

Trump voter "friend" posted "Wish you could say that with faith and conviction." Yes folks, I just got publicly faith shamed by a person who voted for Donald J. Trump. In Florida.

I just about broke my finger clicking the x on that comment, and started transitioning from heartbroken to fighting mad. I am ready to oppose this madness, all the time and everywhere.

Now to figure out how the hell to do that.
posted by gerstle at 7:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [23 favorites]

@DomenicoNPR
Turnout
2012 Obama: 65.9m
2016 Clinton: 59.1m = -6.8m
2012 Romney: 60.9m
2016 Trump: 59m = -1.9m

You tell me what happened
posted by chris24 at 7:47 AM on November 9, 2016 [40 favorites]

Being president-elect doesn't give him any special legal rights.

As someone reminded me on chat last night, even if he's jailed all he would have to do is wait a few months and then pardon himself.
posted by corb at 7:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

soundguy99: “A resurgence of really excellent music 4 to 10 years from now is cold comfort.”

I know it's still cold comfort, but that "resurgence of excellent music" that a lot of us older folks have been predicting might happen in the future, given the current political situation? It's already happening. Black culture is going through a renaissance which is squarely focused on the current American struggle; we just have to wake up to it.
posted by koeselitz at 7:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

>Can someone briefly make a soothing argument that I shouldn't be worried about nuclear war?

Clinton lost and she said several times that she wants a no-fly-zone over Syria. And this would lead to a direct confrontation with Russia. So there is that.
posted by bdz at 7:49 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

My jewish wife said to me this morning that she's considering changing her (jewish) last name to mine.

Fuck this election.
posted by Talez at 7:49 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

from Chaplin:

Douglas Fairbanks: Charles, you're a foreigner; you're still an outsider. You've never understood this country.

Charlie Chaplin: It's a good country underneath, Doug.

Douglas Fairbanks: No, it's a good country on *top*. Underneath, that's what starts showing when we're scared.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:50 AM on November 9, 2016 [56 favorites]

Maybe im just exhausted, disillusioned, scared, and its eating into my ability to think clearly but why not cast Obama as the architect for reshaping the party and the country's politics.

He is, after all, an expert on constitutional law, community organizing, and government obstructionism. This is knowledge we will need.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 7:51 AM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

Nicole Chung's twitter thread on how she talked to her daughter about the election this morning.

I also needed to hear that it's okay to feel any way I feel about this.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 7:52 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

why not cast Obama as the architect for reshaping the party and the country's politics.

I think that was already his plan.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:53 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Below is the text of The Final Speech of the Great Dictator, delivered by the character, the Jewish Barber, in Chaplin’s 1940 film, The Great Dictator. The Jewish Barber was played by Sir Charles Chaplin.

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible- Jew, Gentile, black men, white…

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others’ happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls; has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind.

We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery ,we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all.

Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me, I say “Do not despair.”

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder!

Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men—machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have a love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate!

Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!

In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it’s written “the kingdom of God is within man”, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power.

Let us all unite.

Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill their promise. They never will!

Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people!

Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance!

Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:53 AM on November 9, 2016 [25 favorites]

Yesterday I joked that Jake Arrietta would be Curt Schilling in 20 years. Welp. Looks like he already got there.
posted by drezdn at 7:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't have much to add here. I'm gutted by this too. Just wanted to check in since these threads have been helpful for me throughout this campaign season. I'm waiting for Hillary's election statement to begin.
posted by wondermouse at 7:55 AM on November 9, 2016

Polling is also a factor that influences voting. Maybe it wasn't (so) far off at the time, and the huge margins emboldened people who were only behind Clinton for strategic reasons to vote with their conscience etc.
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:55 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

As someone reminded me on chat last night, even if he's jailed all he would have to do is wait a few months and then pardon himself.

He's not facing jail; it's a civil suit. He's facing monetary fines.

... Here's hoping that something in the case will demand his financial records. Proof of money he made, maybe. Or his own side insisting he didn't make money from Trump University, followed by a demand of tax records for proof.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 7:56 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I had a terrible dream about a man attacking me and me running into traffic to try to stop cars so someone would help me, and he was telling me that no one would help me because no one cared. He had a rope.

Wow. That is very similar to a dream I had. I wondered why I had it, since I haven't had a nightmare in a decade. Now I understand. It's such a heartbreaking metaphor.

I was working at a home for foster children. As time went on, I realized that more and more resources were being siphoned off by caretakers, while the children's needs of structure, support, and love weren't being met. I did what I could, asked for help, suggested procedures (especially following ones already in place!), and... no one listened. Not a one. The children became predictably more unruly as their needs for guidance and care went unmet; the caretakers became increasingly distant and neglectful. They didn't care, they were getting their paychecks. Finally I realized I couldn't stay; I gave notice for that day.

However, that same day, there was a bus tour to another town. The kids got on the bus, then the adults. As I was the only adult who still bothered to take care of the kids, I walked down the aisle checking that each of them had on their seatbelt. I was near the end of the bus when it suddenly swerved and went over a cliff. Because I'd been standing, and a window was open, inertia threw me out the window and onto the cliffside. By some freak coincidence I was unhurt. But the bus full of children was at the bottom of the ravine, and there was a deathly silence...

Once the shock had worn off, I noticed a white man in his 30s or 40s next to me. "Sir, would you mind helping me up?"
He seemed not to hear me.
"Sir? Sir?" He looked at me. "Would you mind helping me up?"
He sneered at me with clear contempt.
Now energized by anger, I shakily stood on my own. I looked him straight in the eye: "Why on earth would you not help someone who asked you?"
He sneered again and said, dripping with disdain: "well obviously you're able to help yourself."
Pissed as hell now, I said to him: "If you want a world of war, that kind of selfish behavior is exactly what will bring it. I want a world where people build each other up. Goodbye, sir." Surprisingly, he went pale and was disconcerted; I'd thought he would have a retort.

I walked down the cliffside to the bus to check on the children. Woke up there.

I feel now, in real life, like I did at that point in the dream. Dread at what reality will hold.
posted by fraula at 7:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

You know how they (and by "they", they mean Justice Brandeis originally) call the states "laboratories of democracy"? I've been thinking what a Trump-lead executive with a Tea Party-controlled legislature would really look like. Wouldn't it look something like Brownback's Kansas, Walker's Wisconsin, or McCrory's North Carolina (only with also the largest military in the world by far and diplomatic powers)? These are not comforting visions of the future to me.
posted by mhum at 7:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Not only will there be a recession, but they'll blame it on Obama.

Who also, according to Republicans, was to blame for the recession that started on Bush's watch. ("Bush who?")
posted by Gelatin at 7:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

She's been playing with identifying as white at school lately, and it always bothered me. Now I can't help but think, it will be safer. Thank God I gave her a white name.

Christ this is hard. I'm half Puerto Rican. Relatively light-skinned, raised by my (very white) mother in a very white neighborhood. I don't speak Spanish (except what I learned in college), and I've always identified as white just as a matter of course, even though I have a Hispanic surname.

I have a two-year-old daughter who looks just like me. I don't know if she reads as Hispanic to anybody else, although she shares my name.

I am spitting mad right now. We are going to make some fucking pasteles this weekend. I feel like I need to assert our boricua, now more than ever. I just don't know what else to do.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

>Right, I don't know how we're going to get anywhere if we have to keep reminding people of this.

Stop counting 20/hr/week, $9/hr jobs as "employment."

Stop thinking a high school education (or less) "entitles" you to a job. Deindustrialization and an economic shift has been going on for 35+ years.

Stop making excuses for the poor little antisemites and pussy gropers.
posted by My Dad at 7:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

So now that we are going to have a republican president I would appreciate a memo from establishment democrats on how exactly we will manage the timing of our switch from being pro war to being anti war again.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 8:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm watching the USTV youtube livestream, and wtf is up with the musical choices while we wait for her remarks? It's flipping between Sousa marches and weird tense music that I would expect from, like, sneak-around-and-shoot-people video games.
posted by Vibrissa at 8:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Travis McElroy has posted an audio message. No answers or assurances, except that you are not alone and we must not surrender. That anxiety gator must be full up.
posted by yellowbinder at 8:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

One of the uplifting things about this election was seeing and hearing new allies. Airing out some laundry. Revelling in POC narratives and offering my support. And to hear Hillary's words about reproductive freedom and abortion so clear and open... you can't take that away from me, from women. I felt like this was a conversation that so many of us have been aching to have and now it just fades away. Back to plausible deniability afforded by boring, white male supremacy.

Trump will be a puppet president. I'm not as scared of him as I am of the people in the shadows around them – from the blindly incompetent to the brilliant schemers. Rich men always have their toadies to take care of but I think he's got no idea the kinds of people that will be pulling his strings. And no matter what, for the next four years, when it is necessary – women, children, minorities, disenfranchised will be available to throw under the bus.

He was a stunt campaign designed to "shake things up" and had no intention of being the President. Now we have a Berlusconi of our very own. I bet Trump is really regretting right now not shooting that person on 5th Avenue.
posted by amanda at 8:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

Note to uterus-owning Mefites: look into getting long-term birth control ASAP before December if you're not looking to get pregnant, while you're still covered.

Ditto anyone on meds or with health issues you've been putting off. Get that shit done before they take it away. Make plans to source meds another way, or plans to taper off if you are able to/need to.
posted by fight or flight at 8:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

wtf is up with the musical choices while we wait for her remarks? It's flipping between Sousa marches and weird tense music that I would expect from, like, sneak-around-and-shoot-people video games.

It's whatever is royalty-free.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 8:01 AM on November 9, 2016

@realDonaldTrump from 2012: "The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy."
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:02 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

~Stop counting 20/hr/week, $9/hr jobs as "employment."
~Stop thinking a high school education (or less) "entitles" you to a job.

There are people with Masters degrees working at Subways because they can't find employment. And no one said anything about entitlement. Jesus.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:02 AM on November 9, 2016 [27 favorites]

I don't even know if I can deal with Obama's speech later today if it's going to be all about reconciliation and unity and overcoming our differences to work together for a better America, while Trump is busy assembling his purge list and fantasizing about all the power he just acquired. I want the anger translator, not the communicator.
posted by dis_integration at 8:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

I have been so sad for the world all day today that I came home to work from here, as I started crying every time someone at work mentioned the state of things.

If anyone would like a spotify playlist of soft comforting things, may I offer this. It's my comfort in sound today.
posted by greenish at 8:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Stop thinking a high school education (or less) "entitles" you to a job. Deindustrialization and an economic shift has been going on for 35+ years.

Write 'em off. Crush their unions. Ship their jobs away.

Yes. Yes, I see it now. THAT's the path to victory.
posted by Trochanter at 8:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Some hope....

@ebyard: This how the future voted.
posted by zarq at 8:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

Write 'em off. Crush their unions. Ship their jobs away.

Well that's a hell of a straw man. The union-busting candidate won.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Write 'em off. Crush their unions. Ship their jobs away.

Well that's a hell of a straw man. The union-busting candidate won.

The protectionist candidate won. He didn't go on and on about his union-busting bonafides.
posted by Etrigan at 8:07 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Anil Dash has some good advice.
posted by Catblack at 8:07 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

Well that's a hell of a straw man. The union-busting candidate won.

And lost.
posted by Trochanter at 8:08 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Lots of anger, anxiety, sadness here, on twitter, elsewhere... I found this article from from the Denverite helpful: After a stressful and historically divisive election, how do we heal?

This is a bad day, but there is hope. We're down, but not out - we have each other. Stay strong.
posted by jazon at 8:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Stop thinking a high school education (or less) "entitles" you to a job.

This is clearly a hugely compelling argument to the American voting public.

Not even a college education entitles anyone to a job. Not even a college education plus several years of work experience entitles anyone to a job. Not even having done excellent work at previous jobs and having good references entitles anyone to a job. Putting all the sheer racism and misogyny aside, a lot of that resentment is what led to people electing Trump and almost electing Bernie, the perceived outsiders. But the GOP isn't exactly known for helping the less fortunate improve their life situations, so, well, that's too bad.
posted by wondermouse at 8:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Stop making excuses for the poor little antisemites and pussy gropers.

It's not excuses. They are deplorable. Nobody is saying the deplorables aren't deplorable, or that the election wasn't really about race and gender. We are saying, that's not the entirety of the message they responded to.

Trump got as many votes for "I'm gonna bring back steel and coal jobs" as he did for "I'm gonna throw out radical Islamic terrorists." He got as much support for "Washington insiders are ruining your life" as he did for "brown invaders are taking your jobs."

I am absolutely not saying support for those issues aren't entwined with racism and sexism - but to get through this, we need to know what rhetorical tricks worked, and why, and insisting the election was "really about race" won't give us that.

Yes, it was. The white power people were front-and-center here. But that wasn't the message Trump won with. He won with "your life sucks and I'm going to beat the hell out of what makes it suck." He won with "you are caged in by bizarre and complicated laws and I'm going to get rid of them."

Those were his dog whistles, the message that reached out to people who would never consciously stand behind is overtly racist and sexist statements. Those were what let them believe that his most offensive statements were "locker room talk."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 8:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [27 favorites]

The protectionist candidate won. He didn't go on and on about his union-busting bonafides.

That's a distinction without a difference. He is what he is, not what he ran as.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:10 AM on November 9, 2016

So many "thanks DNC". Standard reply is now "yes, because if there's one thing that could have stopped a right wing populist running on a platform of white supremacy it's a socialist jew".
posted by Talez at 8:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [27 favorites]

Hey y'all. Just stopped by to say THANK YOU to every one of you who has been on this Wild Ride with me, and another special THANK YOU to the mods. Who, when it looked like it was going to get normal again, went another order of magnitude crazy.
posted by mikelieman at 8:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

@ebyard: This how the future voted.

Yeah, and Carter beat Reagan with under-30s by 6 points nationwide in 1980 (cite). Now that cohort voted overwhelmingly Trump.
posted by tclark at 8:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

So it turns out you can fit 59,215,097 people in one basket.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

Jesus, this is like 21st century Reconstruction.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

I'm in the anger stage, where ever that is on the grief timeline.
The candidate who spent the most money won the election. The catch is that Trump didn't even need to spend the money, he got an amount of free advertising from the networks and cable news networks that is unparalleled. Now I'm going to climb on my elliptical and listen to Rage Against the Machine.
posted by I_Zimbra at 8:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

We cannot understand the moral Universe. The arc is a long one, and our eyes reach but a little way; we cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; but we can divine it by conscience, and we surely know that it bends toward justice. Justice will not fail, though wickedness appears strong, and has on its side the armies and thrones of power, the riches and the glory of the world, and though poor men crouch down in despair. Justice will not fail and perish out from the world of men, nor will what is really wrong and contrary to God’s real law of justice continually endure.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

zarq, that is glorious. Thank you. A beautiful reminder that the current wave of bigotry and incompetence is something we need to endure, not overthrow.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 8:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't think Trump supporters expect him to deliver. He will fail them and in the end they will just say they voted for him because of Hillary Clinton.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 8:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

People at work are treating me like I've had a death in the family. Lots of quiet, reassuring talk and asking to let me know if there's anything I need.

It probably didn't help that I walked in the door "ok" but started crying and hugging a coworker the second I saw her and started blubbering madly about my neighbors and my girl scouts.

I'm still wearing my Hillary buttons and have H logos on my fingernails. I don't know how to convey that this isn't about me; I start crying every time I open my mouth.

Also, fun fact: apparently I've reached the point in my life where idgaf about crying at work. Milestone achieved.
posted by phunniemee at 8:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [38 favorites]

So, who's Kanye West going to pick as his running mate for 2020?
posted by radwolf76 at 8:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Well, at least we'll have the "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" arrow in our quiver.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm attending a major tropical medicine conference next week with heavy international attendance. I have to imagine that a pall has been cast over the whole proceedings.
posted by palindromic at 8:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

There is no moral universe. Hobbes was right.
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

I'm also crying at work, although I appear to be the only person who has bothered to show up yet. At all. I unlocked the building. How long do I have to stay here looking functional in case someone stops by before I can go home and hide in a blanket cocoon again?
posted by pemberkins at 8:15 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

ErisLordFreedom: Trump got as many votes for "I'm gonna bring back steel and coal jobs" as he did for "I'm gonna throw out radical Islamic terrorists." He got as much support for "Washington insiders are ruining your life" as he did for "brown invaders are taking your jobs."

Looking at the exit polls, Trump won for his anti-immigration and anti-terrorism positions.

Clinton won the people who were most concerned about the economy.
posted by clawsoon at 8:15 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

If anybody missed it, the Dakota Access pipeline operators chose yesterday to bury the news that they're going to go ahead with drilling under the Missouri river, with the project due to start within two weeks.
posted by fight or flight at 8:16 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

kanye/jessamyn 2020
posted by michaelh at 8:16 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Greenwald : Democrats, Trump and the Ongoing, Dangerous Refusal to Learn the Lesson of Brexit
posted by jeffburdges at 8:16 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

if there's one thing that could have stopped a right wing populist running on a platform of white supremacy it's a socialist jew

Maybe it's time to admit that the only effective alternative to fascism is Jewish socialism.
posted by No Robots at 8:17 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Far too many of my co-workers are chipper this morning.

Everyone here is stone-faced, and I half suspect everyone suspects everyone else of betrayal. I know we have some conservatives here, a few of them vocal. Many of them were dismayed to have such an assclown as their nominee, but I'm pretty sure one supported Trump anyway because he hated Hillary so much. But then, his face looks like he ate something extremely disagreeable this morning so who knows?

I want to go home, scream and cry and sleep and drink and sleep some more and listen to some extremely fucking violent music and then move to maybe Denmark. Except for the music and probably the crying, these things are not going to happen today.
posted by Foosnark at 8:17 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Greg Nog, Trump was a candidate who openly bragged about sexually assaulting women. Even just that one thing should have ended him, if it had ever been about the candidate. It wasn't.
posted by lydhre at 8:17 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

When is this Hillary speech starting?
posted by wondermouse at 8:17 AM on November 9, 2016

andrew kaczynski ‏@KFILE As someone who spent 15 months researching Trump's past statements, if anyone says they know what a President Trump will do they're lying.
posted by waitingtoderail at 8:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

There is no moral universe. Hobbes was right.

None but that which we create.

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
posted by leotrotsky at 8:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Many, many other men and women. Clinton was not one of them.

Who? Maybe Biden. Maybe/doubtful Warren. Curious who you think would be a slam dunk.
posted by chris24 at 8:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

PSA: if you plan on doing any kind of activism opposing Trump, get Tor. Get Signal. Learn how to use them. Enable two-factor on all of your email accounts. You're not beneath notice. He now controls the NSA.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [31 favorites]

"And have brought humanity to the edge of oblivion: because they think they are white"
James Baldwin
posted by Alcedinidae at 8:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

leotrotsky: "Jesus, this is like 21st century Reconstruction."

Someone on Twitter said something to the effect that for every Reconstruction there is a Redemption.
posted by mhum at 8:20 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

A brief moment of respect for Misty Snow and Misty Plowright, the first trans candidates for national office in the US. While they were both soundly defeated last night, consider them sacrificial lambs, taking beatings for the Dem team in unwinnable contests and laying the groundwork for trans candidates to come. They were there, they spoke, and many people heard them. And that matters, for the future.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:20 AM on November 9, 2016 [39 favorites]

This is accurate, yes, though overly-narrow. Many other people could have beaten the impatient huffing addled gasbag that was Trump. Many, many other men and women. Clinton was not one of them.

She's the one who actually did run against him. Cool you ran through all the other timelines to see how they turned out though.
posted by zutalors! at 8:20 AM on November 9, 2016 [25 favorites]

The people I have to work most closely with are mostly okay, today, but the rest of the extended team was joking around about how funny it's going to be that the presidency is now going to be like a reality TV show for the next four years. I feel sick.
posted by Sequence at 8:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Damon Young: I Will Never Underestimate White People's Need To Preserve Whiteness Again:

In this election, White people did not vote against their self-interests. They may have voted against a self-interest — a few actually — but not their most important one: The preservation of White supremacy. Retaining the value of a Whiteness they believed to be increasingly devalued superseded everything else. Including their own livelihoods; their own physical and financial well-beings; their own Christianity; their own agency; their own money; their own educations; their own futures; their own children’s futures, their own country’s legacy; their own country’s status with the rest of the world; their own environment; their own food, air, and water; their own rights; and their own lives.

And please note that I am not including any qualifiers. For working class Whites. Or Whites from rust-belt cities. Or White men. Or White people who didn’t graduate from college. Or rural Whites. Or Midwestern Whites. Or Southern whites. This is on ALL White people. Who are complicit even if they didn’t vote for Trump. Because they obviously haven’t done enough to repudiate the mindsets existing in their families and amongst their friends; possessed by their co-workers and neighbors; shared during private holiday gatherings and public city townhalls. Who have shown us that nothing existing on Earth or Heaven or Hell matters more to them than being White and whichever privileges — real or fabricated; concrete or spiritual — existing as White in America provides.

posted by palindromic at 8:22 AM on November 9, 2016 [26 favorites]

Clinton was not one of them.

She got more votes then he did so shrug.
posted by drezdn at 8:22 AM on November 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

T.D. Strange, can you point me to a tutorial?
posted by stolyarova at 8:22 AM on November 9, 2016

"Love Trumps Hate," was the right words, but in the wrong order.
posted by zippy at 8:23 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

how funny it's going to be that the presidency is now going to be like a reality TV show for the next four years

I would not be at all surprised if he turned it into one.
posted by waitingtoderail at 8:23 AM on November 9, 2016

And here we go:

Rand Paul: Congress Will Spend First Month Repealing Obama Regulations:
posted by palindromic at 8:23 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

FYI Clinton's concession speech is starting.
posted by beau jackson at 8:24 AM on November 9, 2016

"Love Trumps Hate," was the right words, but in the wrong order.

Nah, right order, but it's more that the voters just seem to love Trump's hate.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

It's clear that Trump won largely because he is not Clinton, Foci for Analysis.

Clinton's Pied Piper Strategy of using media contacts to promote Trump during the Republican primary, has backfired spectacularly

Actually I disagree with that assessment about Clinton's Pied Piper Strategy. We'd see numbers closer to, or better than, Romney for anyone but Trump, so pushing Trump in the Republican primary was actually Clinton's best shot. It's just that Clinton could never hope to beat any of them, while the party elite wanted her anyways, maybe due the Clinton's famed loyalty.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

She's the one who actually did run against him.

I know, she lost

Yes, and here you are to blame her and everyone else for not nominating your ten other men and women who didn't run in the primary but would have totes beaten Trump in a mythical parallel universe.
posted by zutalors! at 8:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [39 favorites]

He now controls the NSA.

Reminder: Nobody controls the NSA, but they may find it expedient to work with him.
posted by entropicamericana at 8:25 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Hillary's live statement

Edit: It seemed like she was just about to come out (people were clapping and chanting "Hillary") but they just started playing the background music again.
posted by wondermouse at 8:25 AM on November 9, 2016

I'm not ready to walk into the world and look other women in the eye yet, so I am staying home to gather all of the strength I will need for them. For all of you.

I know the saying goes that we have no idea how much men hate us, but if we didn't before, a whole hell of a lot of us are pretty well aware now.
posted by amnesia and magnets at 8:26 AM on November 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

Animal Collective Play “Pride And Fight” For The First Time In 15 Years As Trump Wins Presidency:

Animal Collective endorsed Hillary Clinton yesterday, urging their fans note to vote third party and expressing their regret over voting for Ralph Nader rather than Al Gore in 2000. And last night, as it became evident Donald Trump had been elected president, the band performed “Pride And Fight” from their 2002 live album Hollinndagain for the first time in 15 years. (Key lyric: “And I’ll stand here with my pride and fight.”)

posted by palindromic at 8:26 AM on November 9, 2016

Sail on, sail on
O mighty ship of state!
To the shores of need
Past the reefs of greed
Through the squalls of hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on...
posted by oulipian at 8:26 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sorry I may have jumped the gun saying that the speech is starting. I heard cheering and thought she was entering.
posted by beau jackson at 8:26 AM on November 9, 2016

I am not ready for the circular firing squad today, folks. I know it's what we excel at, but could we give it a rest for 24 hours?
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:27 AM on November 9, 2016 [48 favorites]

This playlist is tone-deaf right now.
posted by stolyarova at 8:27 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

so pushing Trump in the Republican primary was actually Clinton's best shot.

It may have been the best shot for her, but not for our nation.
posted by corb at 8:28 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

This playlist is tone-deaf right now.

Failure to devote resources to the "bummer" playlist is not something I'm going to lose too much sleep over.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:29 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Rand Paul: Congress Will Spend First Month Repealing Obama Regulations:

"Not only are you not going to get the things you want, we're going to actively take away the things you have because fuck you."
posted by Servo5678 at 8:29 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

oulipian: "Sail on, sail on
O mighty ship of state!
To the shores of need
Past the reefs of greed
Through the squalls of hate
Sail on, sail on , sail on ..."

Sail on, sail on...
You're screwed!
Titanic!...
posted by charred husk at 8:29 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Just a thought.

If you suspect that at some point in the future you may need to organise with others to actively oppose things the government does, now is a very good time to lock down your communications - learn about decent encryption, how to combat traffic analysis, the details of how to use mobile phones and wireless data without being intercepted or even noticed, all that sort of thing.

One of the tools the new order has inherited is a massive intelligence system, which will now not have oversight or democratic control. The state will also need to find enemies within, to blame when state incompetence risks angering its support base, and that will be us. At least, it will be if we're doing our jobs as human beings with intent for a better future and regard for our fellows, and I plan on remaining in that club.

I'm probably going to work on a how-to about this, once my head has cleared from the shock of the last 24 hours, but don't wait for me. Learn how to do it, learn how to teach others to do it, while you still can.
posted by Devonian at 8:30 AM on November 9, 2016 [60 favorites]

Greg Nog: Many other people could have beaten the impatient huffing addled gasbag that was Trump. Many, many other men and women. Clinton was not one of them.

Looking at the exit polls again, a lot of Trump support came from late deciders, and a lot of Trump support came from people for whom Clinton's email server was a big issue. With headlines happening in a different order, Clinton could have won the election; the final result was not a because-essence-of-Clinton inevitability.

(With no electoral college, of course, she would have won the election.)

More people trusted her on foreign policy, so it's possible - though it might be hard to wrap your head around - that if Russian or Chinese aggressiveness had been the story in the last week instead of Clinton's email server, she might've won on the basis of that, and we'd all be shocked and surprised by that apparent turnabout.
posted by clawsoon at 8:30 AM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

>> so pushing Trump in the Republican primary was actually Clinton's best shot.

> It may have been the best shot for her, but not for our nation.

Oh, great, so now we're blaming Clinton and her campaign for using their superpowers to make sure Trump won the primary.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:30 AM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

Couple comments removed, fucking cool it.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:30 AM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

The markets might not have crashed all at once, but it won't be long until we start to see the effects of this madman governing the world's largest economy. I work for a medium-sized technology company. We have offices in the US and in Europe, with a fair bit of mobility between the two. As I am typing this, the adjacent cluster of desks is huddled up, discussing the best way to get their visas transferred from ones created by NAFTA over to H1B, because Trump has promised to repeal NAFTA, which will cause tens of thousands of people to be deported despite having lived and worked here for a decade or more. Something like 1/3 of the company is non-resident, and none of them are at all convinced that they'll be safe. We are not unique. And this is in that most hallowed of industries that are Making America Great, the one place where we're still a world leader. How many companies do you think are going to be able to expand with a labor force fearing for their naturalization status? How long is it going to take Wall Street to notice?

Over the past month I've had the occasional conversation with people in the tech community here in the Ontario tech triangle about how Trump win could effect us. Totally hypothetical because no one thought it would happen. Most thought it would be good because of many of these exact reason. Canada's tech areas would look a whole lot more inviting. Problem right now is that we've got a Gov't who is theory is all about Tech people and companies come to Canada the hoops needed to do so are outdated and cumbersome.

Maybe they'll get off their buts to do something to reform them especially if the demand suddenly increase. For years we've been hearing about the 'brain drain' to the US. Now I'm wondering if this is going to reverse.
posted by Jalliah at 8:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

get Tor. Get Signal. Learn how to use them. Enable two-factor on all of your email accounts. You're not beneath notice. He now controls the NSA.

Not yet - you have a couple of months to learn new the tech, to develop the habits that will protect your privacy.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 8:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Was crossing a hella dangerous intersection today in my wheelchair. A guy in a monster truck looked me dead in the eye and started to turn in the crosswalk. Now I have lot of new yorker in me, and on other days the truck's actions would have prompted a hearty fullisade of f bombs because I've almost died at that intersection twenty times.

But I saw the white guy in the monster truck and I was scared. I don't get scared. I screamed excuse me like a scared lady

Today I'm scared.
posted by angrycat at 8:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [40 favorites]

please explain how we can protect against quantum computing and devices with built-in backdoors

tia
posted by entropicamericana at 8:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Blaming the American public for Trump’s victory only deepens the elitism that rallied his voters in the first place. It’s unquestionable that racism and sexism played a crucial role in Trump’s rise. And it’s horrifying to contemplate the ways that his triumph will serve to strengthen the cruelest and most bigoted forces in American society.

Still, a response to Trump that begins and ends with horror is not a political response — it is a form of paralysis, a politics of hiding under the bed. And a response to American bigotry that begins and ends with moral denunciation is not a politics at all — it is the opposite of politics. It is surrender.

[...]

This is a new era that requires a new type of politics — one that speaks to people’s pressing needs and hopes, rather than to their fears. Elite liberalism, it turns out, cannot defeat right-wing populism. We can’t move to Canada or hide under the bed. This is a moment to embrace democratic politics, not repudiate them.

Megan Erickson, Katherine Hill, Matt Karp, Connor Kilpatrick, & Bhaskar Sunkara, Politics Is the Solution, Jacobin Magazine (9 November 2016).
posted by Sonny Jim at 8:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I mostly checked out around 7pm last night 'cause I could see how it was going. Think I'm gonna have to stay checked out for the day 'cause I can't really deal with anyone's hot takes or victory speeches or whatnot. We're going to step up and get through this, because we have to, but I'm gonna have to take today to unplug and reset my sleep cycle and my stomach since they both took a beating last night. Along with my heart.

We're gonna have to try real hard to be good to each other from here on out.
Thank you for being here, MeFites. And thank you, mods, for all you've done and continue to do.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Some thoughts.

"Economic anxiety". Let's assume that this is a real concern. If that's the case, then we can view this election as Obama not doing enough in his eight years. (Wonder why that could be... *cough*congress*coughcough*) When you vote for change, and change passes you by, promising more of the same is a tough sell. Especially when the counter-argument is one that plays to the good old American desire for easy answers and someone to blame. Racism and sexism are huge factors, because Trump stoked those burning embers to use them as an answer to "economic anxiety".

The question now becomes, how do we teach economically anxious whites that racism won't accomplish a damn thing towards fixing the real problems of their economic situation, and that we need to lift everyone up?

I have no answer for this.
posted by SansPoint at 8:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Maybe they'll get off their buts to do something to reform them especially if the demand suddenly increase. For years we've been hearing about the 'brain drain' to the US. Now I'm wondering if this is going to reverse.

It was difficult to be a Republican and an engineer 4 years ago.

Now it's damn near impossible. Oh, yes, there will be a brain drain.
posted by ocschwar at 8:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yes, and here you are to blame her and everyone else

The Democratic party failed the American people by not grooming and fielding suitable candidates, yes. Her only credible opposition during the primaries wasn't even a Democrat. There are some of us who warned you of this early on, and we were dismissed as misogynistic Bernie Bros. Well, fine. Look where we're at.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:33 AM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

I typed out all of this when Jo Cox was assassinated. It seems appropriate this morning too.

Arthur was tired out. He had been broken by the two battles which he had fought already, the one at Dover, the other at Barham Down. His wife was a prisoner. His oldest friend was banished. His son was trying to kill him. Gawaine was buried. His Table was dispersed. His country was at war. Yet he could have breasted all thee things in some way, if the central tenet of his heart had not been ravaged. Long ago, when his mind had been a nimble boy's called Wart-- long ago he had been taught by an aged benevolence, wagging a white beard. He had been taught by Merlyn to believe that man was perfectible: that he was on the whole more decent than beastly: that good was worth trying: that there was no such thing as original sin. He had been forged as a weapon for the aid of man, on the assumption that men were good. He had been forged, by that deluded old teacher, into a sort of Pasteur or Curie or patient discoverer of insulin. The service for which he had been destined had been against Force, the mental illness of humanity. His table, his idea of Chivalry, his Holy Grail, his devotion to Justice: those had been progressive steps in the effort for which he had been bred. He was like a scientist who had pursued the root of cancer all his life. Might-- to have ended it-- to have made men happier. But the whole structure depended on the first premise: that man was decent.

Looking back at his life, it seemed to him that he had been struggling all the time to dam a flood, which, whenever he checked it, had broken through at a new place, setting him his work to do again. It was the flood of Force Majeur. During the earliest days before his marriage he had tried to match its strength with strength-- in his battles against the Gaelic confederation-- only to find that two wrongs did not make a right. But he had crushed the feudal dream of war successfully. Then, with his Round Table, he had tried to harness Tyranny in lesser forms, so that its power might be used for useful ends. He had sent out the men of might to rescue the oppressed and to straighten evil-- to put down the individual might of barons, just as he had put down the might of kings. They had done so-- until, in the course of time, the ends had been achieved, but the force had remained upon his hands unchastened. So he had sought for a new channel, had sent them out on God's business, searching for the Holy Grail. That too had been a failure, because those who achieved the Quest had become perfect and been lost to the world, while those who had failed in it had soon returned no better. At last he had sought to make a map of force, s it were, to bind it down by laws.. He had tried to codify the evil uses of might by individuals, so that he might set bounds to them by the impersonal justice of the state. He had been prepared to sacrifice his wife and his best friend, to the impersonality of Justice. And then, even as the might of the individual seemed to have been curbed, the Principle of Might had sprung up behind him in another shape-- in the shape of collective might, of banded ferocity, of numerous armies insusceptible to individual laws. He had bound the might of units, only to find that it was assumed by pluralities. He had conquered murder, to be faced with war. There were no Laws for that.

The wars of his early days, those against Lot and the Dictator of Rome, had been battles to upset the feudal convention of warfare as foxhunting or as gambling for ransom. To upset it, he had introduced the idea of total war. In his old age this same total warfare had come back to roost as total hatred, as the most modern of hostilities.

Now, with his forehead resting on his papers and his eyes closed, the King was trying not to realize. For if there was such a thing as original sin, if man was on the whole a villain, if the bible was right in saying that the heart of man was decietful above all things and desperately wicked, then the purpose of his life had been a vain one. Chivalry and justice became a child's illusions, if the stock on which he had tried to graft them was to be the Thrasher, was to be Homo ferox instead of Homo sapiens.

-TH White, The Once and Future King.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 8:33 AM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

The live stream has started.
posted by waitingtoderail at 8:34 AM on November 9, 2016

This picture is from Furgeson on the anniversary of Michael Brown's death, but it sums up my feelings at the moment.
posted by peeedro at 8:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Kaine onstage now.
posted by kalimac at 8:34 AM on November 9, 2016

There are some of us who warned you of this early on

I voted for her because I wanted her to be the President. Bernie had no minority outreach or sufficent attention to women's rights issues. I voted my principles just as much as the Bernie people did.
posted by zutalors! at 8:35 AM on November 9, 2016 [61 favorites]

What's with the sound?
posted by waitingtoderail at 8:35 AM on November 9, 2016

gold fringe on the flags!
THIS MEANS SOMETHING
posted by entropicamericana at 8:35 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

If Trump Wins, Don’t Move To Canada — Move To Mexico
posted by Omon Ra at 8:35 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

"Economic anxiety". Let's assume that this is a real concern.

Let's not, given all of the Trump signs I saw on new cars and in front of million-dollar homes. For all those who are truly economically anxious and voted Trump, they're chasing unicorns.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:35 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Oh, stop making me cry again, Tim Kaine.
posted by vverse23 at 8:37 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I saw SarahElizaP ask this and saw a couple suggests but no good round ups. I found this on the huffington post, but it has an auto-playing video and could maybe be more comprehensive. Does anyone have a good shareable link with a good round up of things you can do/donate to?

Also found this on the huffington post, thought it was quite beautiful and I shared with a few of my friends. Sorry if it's been shared already, but there's a lot of links in this thread.

Stay strong people. I love you all.
posted by mayonnaises at 8:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Kaine looks like he also wants to cry with us.
posted by corb at 8:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Haven't read the full thread yet. Went to bed before the results were called last night and didn't check the news until I woke up this morning. I'm sure everyone has already said most of what there is to say, but in case this hasn't yet been said:

This could have been the election where we said to young girls, "As a woman, you can be anything you want. You can be president." Instead, the fucking majority of this fucking country said to young boys, "As a man, you can *do* anything you want, and people will still elect you president."

I just can't understand it.
posted by mudpuppie at 8:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [87 favorites]

Devonian I would love a good encryption thread.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:39 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

Let's not, given all of the Trump signs I saw on new cars and in front of million-dollar homes. For all those who are truly economically anxious and voted Trump, they're chasing unicorns.

Right. I mean, shit, this is exactly the kind of logic that President Clinton (a unique qualifier until Chelsea runs, I guess) used to tack to the center. Those votes aren't gettable via the true Sanders message. For every one you get you'll lose two who just care about keeping their taxes low and making sure the wrong people don't get help. These dime-a-dozen counterfactuals about other candidates who could have run really aren't making a compelling case about where the mandate for a left governing majority is going to come from.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:39 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

So, I'm on the board of the Massachusetts ACLU, and I'm finding their message helpful this morning. Here it is in case anyone else finds it helpful as well:

ACLU friends,

Starting today, let us redouble our commitment to civil rights and civil liberties, focusing on state-based and nationwide resistance to policies that threaten immigrants, the poor, people of color, women, LGBTQ people, and dissidents. We stand in solidarity with those whose rights are most at risk.

When the threats to civil rights and civil liberties are greatest, the ACLU must be - and we will be - at our finest.

ACLU was founded in 1920; we've been preparing for this for almost 100 years. The executive director and staff of the Massachusetts chapter who I've met are inspiring -- smart, young, effective, many women and people of color, who I get to support while they fight and win.

To take action: You can find a local affiliate to volunteer for here, or sign up to be a member here. If you would like to join the ACLU and cannot afford to make a donation right now, please memail me and I will make the donation in your name, for as many as I can afford.

Just to set expectations, I think volunteer contacts will be swamped right now, but reach out anyway -- it's a great way to make a difference.
posted by john hadron collider at 8:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [43 favorites]

Hillary needs to get a 30 years in waiting amount of applause.
posted by cashman at 8:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Jill Filipovich: What to Say to the Women in Your Life Today:

Today, American women woke up in a country where the so-close possibility of a female president has been foreclosed upon (at least for now). We woke up in a country soon to be run by a man who has boasted about committing sexual assault, who ran a contest wherein women were paraded on stage to be judged on their aesthetic appeal, who demeans women at every turn, and whose fans and followers regularly threaten women with violence and toss misogynistic slurs in our direction. We woke up in a country that may soon see the demise of safe and legal abortion and of health insurance that fully covers contraception. We woke up in a country that reneged on the assurances young women have grown up hearing: That if you work hard enough, you'll be rewarded; that decades of feminist progress means the playing field is now level; that you can be anything you want to be.

This is a sad, dark morning. While most American women voted for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, American men, most of them white, ushered Donald Trump to victory. This was not a triumph of the American dream, but a win for smallness, for xenophobia, for misogyny, for racism, for wall-building and humanity-banning, for a particular kind of American ugliness many thought we had overcome. So many of us have been rendered shocked and speechless. What is there to say?

posted by palindromic at 8:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [41 favorites]

What the future holds
Politico - Meet Trump's Cabinet-in-waiting.
Fortune - Here's What Donald Trump's Cabinet May Look Like If He's President.
The Intercept - Donald Trump Recruits Corporate Lobbyists to Select His Future Administration.
posted by adamvasco at 8:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

One of the tools the new order has inherited is a massive intelligence system, which will now not have oversight or democratic control. The state will also need to find enemies within, to blame when state incompetence risks angering its support base, and that will be us.

It never had "oversight or democratic control." That's what many, including myself, were railing about when many establishment democrats were just fine with state surveillance while Obama was in power. As well as the fact that Obama wouldn't be president forever.

The same goes for assassination by drones and the constant low-intensity operations that we have been conducting all over the world since 911.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 8:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Seems fine on the NBC stream

That's better. I was on the NPR one and it was extremely low.
posted by waitingtoderail at 8:41 AM on November 9, 2016

They kept applauding her past five calls. My heart is breaking for her, she is clearly struggling and god, I would too. I am.
posted by corb at 8:42 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

One of my friends posted on FB about how this election was not Trump's victory, but hatred's. Some dude commented that 'The White Male is the most hated species on the planet.' She responded, 'No, they are the most feared.'
posted by palindromic at 8:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [41 favorites]

Senator Clinton, speaking with more grace that I ever could.
posted by mochapickle at 8:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

So - this is early yet, and I'm sure there will be time for it later, but - I'd like a pointer to a list of things that have now been shown not to matter in US Presidential Elections.

For example:
* Tax returns do not need to be released.
* Debates do not matter at all. (Three debates - three times this guy was shown to be a clown - and the country shrugged and said "sounds good"? Debates don't mater.)
* GOTV and phone banking is a lot less useful than presumed.
* Being a foreign intelligence asset is not a problem.
* "Taste" and "decency" is for suckers; tackiness is fine.
* Gaffes don't matter - you can be on tape insulting disabled people, war heroes, Gold Star parents, confessing to sexual assault, and that's all fine.

Just don't be female, I guess?
posted by RedOrGreen at 8:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [91 favorites]

Guys, maybe hold off until tomorrow with the "I told ya so"s?
posted by tonycpsu at 8:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

You people who can even watch this are brave. I can't cry at work right now.
posted by zutalors! at 8:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

She's got so much more faith in America than I do.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:44 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

One of my local radio stations is only playing "The End of the World as we Know It" this morning.
posted by nubs at 8:44 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

she is clearly struggling

I strongly, strongly disagree. She looks great up there. She looks positive and sounds full and heartened. She sounds confident and able. Her voice is resolute and she's borderline defiant.
posted by cashman at 8:44 AM on November 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

"This is painful, and it will be for a long time. Remember this, our campaign was never about one person or one election...about building an America that is hopeful, inclusive, and big-hearted....I still believe in America and I always will. If you do, then we must accept this result and look to the future."

She is talking about the rule of law because literally that is the only thing that can be clung to. CHRIST this is hard. I am crying again.
posted by corb at 8:44 AM on November 9, 2016 [88 favorites]

You people who can even watch this are brave. I can't cry at work right now.

SAME.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:45 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Her voice is resolute and she's borderline defiant.

Sorry, I phrased myself badly. I think that she is having a hard time believing that this is our outcome. She's a fighter, of course she is fine, but like - god it must hurt to stand up there, and I think it's okay if we see that.
posted by corb at 8:45 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

I tried to cry last night and the tears wouldn't come. Now, watching her, I'm bawling.
posted by acidic at 8:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

If she is struggling it doesn't show. She's more coherent, collected and inspiring now in her saddest hour than Trump ever was in his finest.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 8:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

Sort of hoping HRC's weird satin tux jacket thing means she's about to pull a magic trick and produce an extra hundred thou PA absentee ballots from her sleeve.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

While I appreciate Clinton's call to civility, I will say that I do not owe Trump anything -- I do not owe him the benefit of the doubt or the chance to be my president. He made it abundantly clear during his campaign that he seeks to be a leader for a select few. I am proud to not be included in that group. The only thing I owe Trump is the full force of my resistance.
posted by cubby at 8:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [78 favorites]

Volunteered at least 200 hours in the last 2 months. I am so sorry to you all that we couldn't do it. I feel crushed and am still in shock. Take care of yourselves and your nearest and dearest.
posted by Excommunicated Cardinal at 8:47 AM on November 9, 2016 [25 favorites]

Thanks for the liveblogging of the speech. I cannot watch it. Just reading what she's saying is making me cry. I'm trying so, so, so hard not to feel defeated and it's not working. And every time I see "President Trump" I just feel like throwing up.
posted by cooker girl at 8:47 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Are Young, White Males Being Radicalized Online?:

One of the narratives going into Election Day was that there were millions of undercover Donald Trump voters. These were people interested in voting for the Republican candidate but afraid of the stigma associated with doing so publicly. The thinking went that they would say one thing in polls, then go to the voting booth and do another.

Whether that was a widespread phenomenon is still unclear, but one observer, Siyanda Mohutsiwa, thinks that may have been the case with young white Americans in the so-called "alt-right." Perhaps more crucially, though, Mohutsiwa points to a pattern of online radicalization where in-group members are insulated from dissenting information and encouraged to camouflage their allegiances.

posted by palindromic at 8:47 AM on November 9, 2016 [38 favorites]

Leitch calls Trump victory ‘exciting message that needs to be delivered in Canada as well.’

Silly me, here I was thinking that I had already used up my entire quota of the word 'fuck' for the rest of the calendar year.

I know right? Dad was reading this when I went down for breakfast. I just stood there and got really cold and steely. Swear to the universe the cons try bringing this shit to the forefront and they're going to have a fight on their hands. My Canadian friends and aquaintenaces are horrified, sad, angry in despair and feeling the same sort of world upside down feeling that many in the US are feeling. This will effect us, like it or not. Economically it's all up in the air now as we are so closely tied to together. We also get social and cultural effects. Nature of the beast. But so many in their despair last night also expressed things along the line of 'well we also have to be vigilent that this Trumpism shit doesn't get in here because we sure as hell know there are some, like Leitch, that want it to'

And watching Hillary right now is good. Because yeah there are many of us that will fight here because of all the things she is saying right now.
posted by Jalliah at 8:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

I think Bill is actually crying.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 8:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Shot of the audience. Not a dry eye there.
posted by mochapickle at 8:48 AM on November 9, 2016

If you're able, I suggest you watch this. It's heartening to me. It's not a sad affair.

She just referenced Pantsuit nation (not by name).
posted by cashman at 8:49 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Pantsuit Nation shout-out!
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:49 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

"I will always be grateful to the creative, dedicated, talented men and women at our headquarters in Brooklyn and across our country. You poured your hearts into this campaign...I want each of you to know you were the best campaign anyone could have expected or wanted."

She's hat-tipping to Pantsuit Nation. "even in secret, private Facebook groups"
posted by corb at 8:49 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

One of my local radio stations is only playing "The End of the World as we Know It" this morning.

As I said elsewhere: that's all very well but I don't feel fine. Not even a little bit.

They should be playing this instead.
posted by flabdablet at 8:49 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I didn't think she could possibly lose, even though I knew she was flawed and risky and unpopular, because, you know... Trump! Even with all the tone deafness steps and echo chamber logic, I figured the Democrats would pull this one out anyway because, you know… Trump!

But man, the way the DNC works really needs to change, because the party turned out to be so much better at shooting itself then I understood.

This was a manufactured defeat.

A different result will require different machinery.
posted by rokusan at 8:49 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Call out to Pantsuit Nation.

And now my tears have finally come. I haven't cried yet. This did it.
posted by Jalliah at 8:50 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

She said for (Pantsuit nation) that she wants everyone coming out from that. The message of this speech is we are here. We have our visions and our goals, and we need to press forward, past losses and setbacks. "Fighting for what's right is worth it".
posted by cashman at 8:50 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

"to the young people in particular, I hope you will hear this. I have..spent my entire adult life fighting for what I believe in. I've had successes and setbacks..many of you are at the beginning of your..careers. You will have successes and setbacks too. This loss hurts, but please never stop believing that fighting for what's right is worth it" AND I AM BAWLING AGAIN.
posted by corb at 8:50 AM on November 9, 2016 [48 favorites]

There is no moral universe. Hobbes was right.

Sounds more like something Calvin would say.
posted by Paul Slade at 8:50 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Clinton thanks her supporters and those secret facebook groups, encouraging all of us to come out from behind them.
posted by mochapickle at 8:50 AM on November 9, 2016

sad though the concession speech is, that jacket is fucking baller

It's clever, because she's almost but not quite wearing black today.

Like most people I see on the street.
posted by rokusan at 8:51 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

The Impact of This Election on Abortion Access Will Be Devastating:

It’s a new era in America, and Republican Donald Trump is now the going to be the next president of the United States. Plus, with Republican majorities in the House, the Senate, and in two-thirds of the state governors' mansions, Trump will likely be able to enact his agenda with almost no resistance from Democratic lawmakers.

And yes, that could well mean the end of safe, legal abortion in the country.

posted by palindromic at 8:51 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

"We need you to keep up these fights now and for the rest of your lives. To the women..and the young women who put their faith in this campaign and in me. Nothing has made me prouder than to be your champion."
posted by corb at 8:51 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

.. I thought I wouldn't cry...
posted by Zalzidrax at 8:51 AM on November 9, 2016

Watching her speak right now is the longest unbroken stretch of not-crying I've had since I woke up this morning.

She's so fucking confident and capable and brave. I needed to hear her voice today.
posted by phunniemee at 8:51 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

As far as the "what the future holds" questions, here's some definites:

1. Obamacare - gone. But not immediately. Even Trump isn't stupid enough to leave GOP consituents uninsured. He'll replace it with something. Not necessarily something better. Just... something.

2. Roe v. Wade - this will be gone once Ruth Bader Ginsburg is dead... which won't be long. First will come Scalia's replacement, then hers. Once that happens, say goodbye to abortion rights. Not even Roberts having a moment of clarity will save it.

3. The Wall - the only good thing about this thing that's going up... and it will go up... at the cost of billions to taxpayers because Mexico is inflating their giant middle finger as we speak... is that this will be his administration's biggest failure. Because he'll put it up and illegal immigration will still rise.

Beyond this, it's just a question of which and how many dictators he will convince to go to war with us. That's just his unpredictability getting a chance to play a little bit.
posted by prepmonkey at 8:51 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I am really fucking glad she is giving this in the morning, in the full light of day, probably wearing the pantsuit she was planning to wear as a symbol of the red states and blue states coming together. No fucking concession speech and then slinking home at 1 am.

What did Donald say was her best trait again?
posted by joyceanmachine at 8:51 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

"To all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams."
posted by corb at 8:52 AM on November 9, 2016 [41 favorites]

And to all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful.
posted by mochapickle at 8:52 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I didn't think she could possibly lose, even though I knew she was flawed and risky and unpopular, because, you know... Trump! Even with all the tone deafness steps and echo chamber logic, I figured the Democrats would pull this one out anyway because, you know… Trump!

It is absolutely astounding how far we'll go to keep a woman out of power
posted by beerperson at 8:52 AM on November 9, 2016 [32 favorites]

T.D. Strange, can you point me to a tutorial?

Start with these
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:52 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

She is a fucking ROCK. She's made of fucking steel. She's 10x stronger than I can imagine anyone being in that same situation. Mitt was weepy, McCain seemed small. Hillary seems powerful and again, resolute.
posted by cashman at 8:53 AM on November 9, 2016 [83 favorites]

Goddammit. Nobody is "owed" the presidency but I really feel like America cheated this woman out of her rightful role.

Oh, it did.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 8:53 AM on November 9, 2016 [29 favorites]

"Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart."
posted by corb at 8:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [23 favorites]

"Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart."

It's hard when you don't see any light at the end of the tunnel.
posted by Talez at 8:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I wept because I am ashamed.
posted by klarck at 8:55 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

C-Span says RNC leaders are up next live, so I'd better switch to watching on a small screen so I don't throw my laptop through my television.
posted by corb at 8:55 AM on November 9, 2016

The world has many countries and many people. Exercising one's civic duty in any country in which it is possible is caring for that country's people, regardless of anything else. However, because the US is influential due to its wealth, population, and arms, exercising one's civic duty there impacts the rest of the world to a disproportionate degree. Therefore, even if it were possible -- even if it were easy -- for me, personally, to live as another country's citizen and exercise my civic duty there instead -- the path of greatest good is for me to stay and try to help turn things around. Not love of country (which in so many cases is an accident of birth or the forcing of one's hand) but duty to the world.

There is perhaps a question of when the situation deteriorates beyond trying to turn things around by exercising one's civic duty, but we have perhaps not reached that point, so the duty is the same.

(It's moot anyway, because of my mother. We can't both leave our jobs, and I definitely can't leave her to be alone in this country. But knowing that there are reasons beyond this is something for me to keep in mind.)
posted by inconstant at 8:55 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm already done with people who voted for a hate mongerer giving lectures on FB about being civil and respectful of the process.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:55 AM on November 9, 2016 [42 favorites]

I cannot forget everything he said during the campaign. I WILL not forget anything he said during the campaign. Frankly, it would be unpatriotic to forget what he said. My open mind is reserved for people who haven't gleefully smashed nearly every standard for human decency in the name of applause. Because he means nothing, the man may be a cipher, but he is not a blank slate.
posted by DeWalt_Russ at 8:56 AM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

Mission statement for the morning:

Joined the ACLU, will volunteer. Looking for opportunities to get into local politics and start organizing for 2018. Wept with my friends but resolved to fight fight fight. Will raise my son to be a feminist. Will raise my daughter to be as strong and composed and powerful as HRC.
posted by lydhre at 8:56 AM on November 9, 2016 [27 favorites]

Hillary out greeting the crowd, hugs all around. Her opponent would have left in a puff of dust and a crack of thunder.
posted by mochapickle at 8:56 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

RedOrGreen: Debates do not matter at all. (Three debates - three times this guy was shown to be a clown - and the country shrugged and said "sounds good"? Debates don't mater.)

One thing that I'm surprised to not see in the exit polls is a question about abortion. Based on what I've read in Evangelical blogs, the debates did matter, because they clarified for single-issue abortion voters that Trump was the pro-life candidate and Clinton was the pro-choice candidate. I was heartened to see Clinton take the clear stand that she did, during the last debate, on abortion. But what I heard from the most religious voters - and the more religious they were, the more they voted for Trump - was a consistent refrain of, "He's a bad, horrible, lying, cheating man, but he'll appoint an anti-abortion Supreme Court justice, and that's all that matters."
posted by clawsoon at 8:58 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

Anyone who is still whining about how any other candidate should have been able to beat Trump is fundamentally misunderstanding what happened in this election. Trump won because an electoral majority of angry white men were enraged that America had a black president for 8 terms, and felt like it made them losers, and needed to bring back their honor in the form of the biggest loser this country could find. The things you are all talking about as if they were weaknesses-- the racism, the sexism, the vulgarity, the pathetic appearance and personality and intellect-- all of these were core reasons Trump's fanbase-- half the country-- voted him in. I cannot think of a single Democratic candidate who could have combated that kind of cultural zeitgeist. The KKK is as we speak dancing in public in North Carolina. If we want to fight this, we can no longer afford to be in denial about what it is that's ruling us. You cannot continue to cling to the belief that this was a normal election that could have been won with superior normal strategy. You must look this moment in history in its face.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 8:58 AM on November 9, 2016 [115 favorites]

morning edition more like mourning edition amirite
posted by entropicamericana at 8:58 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I didn't cry last night. I was literally in shock. This morning I cannot stop crying. My mother has been sending me evil messages all morning. She is on a narcissistic rampage and I am crushed. I wish Hillary was my mother.
posted by Sophie1 at 8:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [45 favorites]

It's worth retreading what john hadron collider's comment : If you want to fight this between terms then support the ACLU because they're they ones who actually stand up to legislative and executive abuses of power.
posted by jeffburdges at 9:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

I received this message from the dean of my school:

"Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in the face of certain defeat"
Ralph Waldo Ellison, Invisible Man

Colleagues:

This morning many of the UM-SPH community face a political reality that is fundamentally different from the one hoped and worked for. The coming hours and weeks will require thoughtful reflection and a reordering of priorities by all – regardless of vote cast.

True, this has been an unorthodox and rancorous election season - frequently giving voice to the base emotions and fears in all of us. However, public health has always been a higher calling. A calling that requires courage, strength and a need for the foundations of our discipline - evidence, wisdom, and a willingness to serve - no matter the political, physical, economic, or sociological landscape that confronts us.

Nevertheless, before we move forward in service to all, MSPH will create opportunities for students, staff and faculty to share and reflect on the recent past and the path forward. I encourage you to participate in dialogues and conversations that will be held in our school and across campus in the coming days. Our Office for Student Engagement and Practice will announce events as they are organized.

As I awoke in my adopted country this morning, my optimism remains uncompromised. Why? Because of you. All unified in the singular mission of improving health for all - Unified in Doing a World of Good.

Yours in the peaceful transition of political power.

posted by palindromic at 9:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

"He's a bad, horrible, lying, cheating man, but he'll appoint an anti-abortion Supreme Court justice, and that's all that matters."

It's ironic because Trump seems like, of all presidential candidates so far, the most likely to have made someone get an abortion.
posted by drezdn at 9:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

I wish Hillary was my mother

Ok didn't cry till I read this
posted by zutalors! at 9:02 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

You had ONE job, America.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 9:02 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

I wish Hillary was my mother.

Right there with you.
posted by Sequence at 9:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

who are they going to blame everything on when the country goes to hell in a handbag the next four years?

Obama.
posted by zutalors! at 9:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [60 favorites]

who are they going to blame everything on when the country goes to hell in a handbag the next four years?

Obama. You have to ask?
posted by radwolf76 at 9:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

It's ironic because Trump seems like, of all presidential candidates so far, the most likely to have made someone get an abortion.

Oh, jesus fuck, reading this just made me think about how Trump's assault victims must be feeling today. I can't even comprehend.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [22 favorites]

who are they going to blame everything on when the country goes to hell in a handbag the next four years?

Minorities
posted by ghharr at 9:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

I was numb for most of last night and had a few tears before bed. But just watching that speech of Clinton so resolute and faithful as she was walking on stage I burst into tears. When she brought up the Obamas, I haven't sobbed that hard in ages. It's hard to type due to the tears welling up. I have to be at work in a little bit and all I have in my system is coffee. I hate my job because it takes too much out of my system physically that I can barely function afterwards to clean up and eat before sleeping. I need a new set up as I try to move through this and truly become active again on the local scene to fight for my neighbors and climate change. I don't know how I'm going to face my SE Asian immigrant parents who voted Trump. Thank you so much everyone for keeping me and so many others sane through the election, and I'm sure we'll keep doing so in the next two, four years. I'm not even sure why I'm bothering to type this out but I'm alone and just need to do more than scream hoarsely into a twitter void. Again, thank you.
posted by one teak forest at 9:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Here's a BBC breakdown of the voting results.
posted by I-baLL at 9:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

My sister to my nephew this morning:

My sister: I need to tell you something and I don't want to say it out loud. Trump won.

My nephew: Fuck.

He's a 13 year old Canadian kid and my sister says she is blown away by how much he and his friends know what's up in the world. She's right when she said that when we were his age we barely knew who our Primeminister was let alone had much clue or care about what he did and the ramifications.

He also got 3 day pass on swearing in front of Mom and Dad. Sister and her husband decided that being allowed to swear for a few days without worry was a household need.
posted by Jalliah at 9:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Isn't Trump legally obligated to give up control of all of his financial holdings before he can be sworn in?

How is that going to work? Is he just going to sign everything over to his kids and keep "Trump" on everything?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

who are they going to blame everything on when the country goes to hell in a handbag the next four years?

A "stab in the back" by minorities. If history is any indication.
posted by corb at 9:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [27 favorites]

Isn't Trump legally obligated to give up control of all of his financial holdings

I don't believe so. His son said on one of the Sunday morning shows that he would, but it was never couched in a "he has to" way, so I don't think he has to, so of course he won't. He'll use the presidency to shift as much money as he can to his family and friends. He'll probably bankrupt the country, enrich himself, then leave.
posted by cashman at 9:07 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

The question now becomes, how do we teach economically anxious whites that racism won't accomplish a damn thing towards fixing the real problems of their economic situation, and that we need to lift everyone up?

I'd like to say "wait for them to die" but then I look at Reddit's self-educated fascist manchildren and think no, this isn't going away soon.

For Hillary to stand up there and know that the most solid plank of her opponent's platform is for her to be imprisoned... I have no words.
posted by holgate at 9:07 AM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

One of my local radio stations is only playing "The End of the World as we Know It" this morning.

As I said elsewhere: that's all very well but I don't feel fine. Not even a little bit.

They should be playing this instead.

Fair enough, and "Ship of Fools" might be a better choice.

The DJs just "threatened" the Trump supporters who are complaining about the programming choice with giving them an endless day filled with this
posted by nubs at 9:08 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Vomiting and even dry heaves have stopped, and I joined the ACLU a couple of minutes ago.
posted by infinitywaltz at 9:08 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

please explain how we can protect against quantum computing and devices with built-in backdoors

For quantum computing, use the same techniques you'd use to defend against unicorn attacks. To be completely sure of avoiding devices with built-in backdoors, you'll need a large budget, an impractical level of paranoia, or a willingness to give up on the Internet and use ham radio instead. Probably best to assume you're already pwned and on the list of Enemies of the Trump.
posted by sfenders at 9:08 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Isn't Trump legally obligated to give up control of all of his financial holdings

That law specifically exempts the President (and, I think, the VP).
posted by Etrigan at 9:09 AM on November 9, 2016

Last night, watching election night go from happy times to a dystopian nightmare was extra surreal because three small children were playing happily with balloons in the same room.

On reflection, I suppose playing happily with balloons while your parents get grimmer and grimmer is probably pretty surreal, too.
posted by gurple at 9:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Here's hoping the Clinton Foundation kicks on the afterburners now.

Here's hoping at least some of the donations were not cynical, and they don't dry up completely now that there aren't any Clintons soon to be in power.

Going to be one of the interesting 10,000 things to look back at a few years from now, I guess.
posted by rokusan at 9:10 AM on November 9, 2016

We Are Here To Stay (Lambda Legal statement on the election results)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Oh crap. I think my Mom and Dad must have watched the speech. My Mom is having a meltdown right now.
Fuck. *deep breath* I know I have some emotional energy reserves here somewhere.
*wipes tears and heads downstairs*
posted by Jalliah at 9:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Trump Did Better With Blacks, Hispanics Than Romney in '12: Exit Polls

Trump claimed 29 percent of the Hispanic vote on Tuesday compared to Romney's 27 percent in 2012. With blacks, exit polls show Trump claimed 8 percent of the vote to the previous Republican nominee's 6 percent.

That means Trump — who called Mexicans "rapists" and "killers" — garnered more support from Hispanics than a candidate whose most controversial position was telling undocumented immigrants to "self-deport."

posted by tonycpsu at 9:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

I can't wait until the reddit/4chan crowd find out about the inevitable security "monitoring"/internet privacy bills that will be happening over the next few years. I bet it'll make the Snooper's Charter look like a Sunday hymn.
posted by fight or flight at 9:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

She's still in the audience comforting people.

I have to think the comforting is mutual, even if she's enough of a pro to hide any outward sign that she's in need of it.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

So much for a system of checks and balances. Well, at least for two years, plus whatever hell we have to pay for Trump's supreme court pick(s).
posted by filthy light thief at 9:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

The question now becomes, how do we teach economically anxious whites that racism won't accomplish a damn thing towards fixing the real problems of their economic situation, and that we need to lift everyone up?

I wish racism could just be turned off with education, but it can't. The information is out there and easy to access. I don't think they are actually economically anxious anyway, since they voted for a man whose economic policy was "me and my friends will ransack the public coffers" after eight years of economic recovery. I think "economic anxiety" is a cover for "racial anxiety," and that anxiety is actually the extinction burst of white privilege desperately reasserting itself.

So how do you convince white people that racism is not the solution to the fact that they don't get to benefit from racism anymore? I don't know that you can. Racism actually does benefit white people, and they don't like losing that benefit.
posted by maxsparber at 9:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

I think there's a really healthy chance that Trump's built-in vulgarity and stupidity - not to mention the possibility that when he turns on the Republicans who didn't support him, they actually stay firm and fight back - that the Senate will flip in 2018. That could mean he only gets to rubber-stamp one Justice. And can only push through so much changes to legislation. The Democrats may be too conciliatory, but they also saw what the Republicans did. How the rules have changed. I just pray if that happens a Democratic Senate will grow the backbone they need to hold the line.

I do not believe Trump will win a second term. Especially if he tanks the economy, as he seems ready to do.
posted by Mchelly at 9:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Looking at the bright side, the comedy shows will be so much funnier than under a Clinton presidency.

Until they’re shut down or sued into submission, that is.
posted by sour cream at 9:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Can someone briefly make a soothing argument that I shouldn't be worried about nuclear war?

Who would we even be fighting against?
posted by Apocryphon at 9:15 AM on November 9, 2016

I hope that this result encourages anyone who has serious dirt on Trump to spill. At this point they're practically in mortal danger. There must be some willing martyrs that cannot tolerate this. I'm holding out for it. What would happen if he was implicated in actual criminal wrongdoing? Could congress choose not to impeach?

Also, to other Americans: What do I do now, as an American who has lived abroad for 15 years? I have a 100$ savings bond from when I was a child. Should I grab it, regardless of the fact that it's worth so little? Am I vulnerable to any tax changes he has talked about? How do I prepare myself?
posted by constantinescharity at 9:16 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Today is the first I've heard pretty much anything about the election from some people on Twitter. I think this is, in part, because their Twitter participation is related their jobs and they wanted to try to keep it non-political.

Well... it feels a little late for you to be suddenly chiming in with your views, honestly.
posted by ODiV at 9:16 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump Did Better With Blacks, Hispanics Than Romney in '12: Exit Polls

So if this election was about white supremacy, how do we explain this? Misogyny?
posted by Foci for Analysis at 9:16 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Hey, before this thread gets much longer, I just wanted to thank you all collectively for being here. Even with all the despair and anger going around, I'm glad that I got onto the sane corner of the internet. Like my new senator, Tammy Duckworth, you're a slim ray of hope in a vast sea of darkness.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:17 AM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

First, big shout out and thanks and tons of gratitude to those of you who volunteered and got on the grind for HRC. I have nothing but respect and admiration for you and all your hard work.

Big up to the mods here on MeFi. I've said many, many times that I couldn't do your job without making mortal enemies, losing my mind and becoming a heavy drinker, and you were on point in every election thread. Thank you.

I even want to thank people who voted for Trump: I'm grateful to you for doing your civic duty, and I would much, much rather engage with you than with those who wear cynicism like badges of honor, claiming that the cool, wise, and beneficial thing to do is to declare both sides equally bad and check out of the system altogether.

I spent much of last night wondering how this would come to pass. As a PoC, I've been gaslighted by so-called moderates and people who are "pretty far to the left, but..." for decades of my life, being told that there actually aren't that many racists in the USA; or that, sure, okay, there's some racism but it's not really that big a factor in the lives of PoC; or that the real racists (and misogynists and Islamophobes homophobes and transphobes and classists and....) are in the Democratic party, but I never bought it.

I always knew that the R party counted on those who hate and fear difference in their brothers and sisters for their support. And I knew that contingent would turn out for this election. I just didn't think there'd be this many.

And reflecting on it some more, there were other harbingers. Like the this recent study that revealed that poor kids who do everything right don't do better than rich kids who do everything wrong. You can level your way up from nothing or nearly nothing like HRC, but you have a tough slog against silver spooners like Trump who will always fall upward.

And a recent study that found that Americans' respect for police is at an all time high, despite many scandals and outrageous killings, economic oppression, and crushing of 1st Amendment rights for PoC nationwide.

So it seems a lot of people want the rich to keep getting richer and they want to see those who differ too greatly from them kept in check. That's comforting to them, the way things should be. It's heartbreaking.

I don't know exactly what to do from here on out, and I don't know what the future looks like, but it doesn't include me giving up. It does include me continuing to be an ally to the groups at risk of being hurt tremendously by a Trump presidency. (And I think that while Trump will continue to do and say outrageous things, it is Pence, McConnell, Ryan, and the incoming Cabinet that will do the most harm to the world and the nation.)

Finally, words to share that comforted me greatly this morning:

"I get up. I walk. I fall down. Meanwhile, I keep dancing."
– Rabbi Hillel
posted by lord_wolf at 9:17 AM on November 9, 2016 [29 favorites]

She's still in the audience comforting people.

I got an amazing hug and pep talk from one of Katie McGinty's sisters last night and it helped so much. I'm pretty sure if I got a hug from Hillary, I would become an immortal powerhouse.

(I really just want to give her a hug, tbh.)
posted by kalimac at 9:17 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I'm maybe being optimistic, but I don't think this will be any worse than GWB.

To be fair, we are running out of nations to invade.
posted by Apocryphon at 9:17 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

So if this election was about white supremacy, how do we explain this? Misogyny?

This may come as a surprise, but it's possible for problems to have more than one cause.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

they actually stay firm and fight back

Right. Who? I just...okay, I just don't see it.

I do not believe Trump will win a second term.

Who's going to stop him? He just has to show up and say 'look at me' while the other person goes all out. And who is this person? At this point, the only way he isn't in there for 8 years is if he has health issues or decides not to run again.
posted by cashman at 9:18 AM on November 9, 2016

Trump Did Better With Blacks, Hispanics Than Romney in '12: Exit Polls

What are we doing still listening to polls!
posted by upplepop at 9:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

So if this election was about white supremacy, how do we explain this? Misogyny?

Some people just really respond to fascism, I guess.
posted by maxsparber at 9:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

maurreen: So how do we organize for the future?

Mitheral: Stop taking the Democratic Party machine as an authority figure, for starters. Take it over from below, like the Tea Partiers have with the Republican Party.

Note: the Tea Party was not a grass-roots movement - it was funded and started by the Koch brothers.

But that is not to say there's still a potential for ground-up development: Brand New Congress has the bold vision to recruit and run "400+ candidates as a single, unified campaign for Congress in 2018" to "pass a radical and practical plan to get everyone good jobs, get incomes rising again and rid our government of corruption."

Before yesterday, I thought "that's a bold idea to create liberal changes, but they could start with President Hillary before 2018." Now, I like this plan a lot.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

Trump voters? Some numbers:

Whites: 58%
Hispanic: 29%
Asian: 29%
Black: 8%
Other: 37%

More at BBC

EDIT: Link sorted
posted by Mister Bijou at 9:19 AM on November 9, 2016

So much for a system of checks and balances.

Oh, he's going to need to write a lot of checks before his offshore balances are anywhere near satisfactory.
posted by flabdablet at 9:19 AM on November 9, 2016

if you squint hard enough there's some possible optimism here:

Maybe America just got constipated - hear me out. After 220 years of completely unchallenged rule, white men got a little careless and ingested 2 stupid wars, an economic crisis, and a demographic reckoning. We prescribed some Barackodium but America refused to take his medication and eventually ended up with a very bad case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome and eventually the only thing thats gonna clear out this problem is a king sized orange laxative. Watch out, cause there is gonna be a literal ton of shit spewing out of that sphincter now. But, and this is the good news. As soon as it all clears out... I think we should be good to go.

Right?
posted by Glibpaxman at 9:20 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Who would we even be fighting against?

The main danger with respect to nuclear war is probably not World War Three, exactly. But that Trump's cavalier attitude about nuclear nonproliferation, disinterest in nuclear reduction, and interest in saber-rattling increase the risk that nuclear weapons fall into the hands of terrorists, or that human and/or technical mistakes lead to the accidental or mistaken launch of nuclear weapons.
posted by AndrewInDC at 9:20 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

Obama is speaking now.

"I said the sun would come up in the morning, and that is one bit of prognosticating that actually came true. The sun is up."
posted by corb at 9:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [38 favorites]

I'm maybe being optimistic, but I don't think this will be any worse than GWB.

That's optimism?
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Before yesterday, I thought "that's a bold idea to create liberal changes

If your "bold idea to create liberal change" includes removing a couple hundred liberals in addition to a few hundred non-liberals, I think there may be a problem.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:22 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

"I have instructed my team to follow the example Pres. Bush's team gave and make sure this is a successful transition for the President Elect. Because we are now all rooting for his success..the peaceful transition of power is one of the hallmarks of our democracy."

...

"Everybody is sad when their side loses an election. But the day after we have to remember that we're all on one team....We're patriots first. We all want what's best for our country."
posted by corb at 9:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

What's up with the stock market? Overnight we were looking at 9/11 level drops, but now we are up almost 200 points. Was Wall St expecting Obama to send the 82nd Airborne to seize Trump Tower overnight or something?

sideshow, my expectation is that people freaked out over the idea of Pres Donald, then when other people realized everything was on sale, prices jumped back up. (And/or there were computer systems set to pick up certain stocks at certain thresholds, which automated much of the process.)

The market is just a bunch of people, and people are hard-wired with a herd (or mob) mentality.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

To be fair, we are running out of nations to invade.

But Russia’s just getting started.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

To keep 2016 from being a complete loss, we need to think of cultural icons that we need to keep alive through the rest of the year....

Off the top of my head:
Stevie Wonder
George R.R. Martin
Paul McCartney
posted by drezdn at 9:25 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

tonycpsu: If your "bold idea to create liberal change" includes removing a couple hundred liberals in addition to a few hundred non-liberals, I think there may be a problem.

Good point. Baby, bathwater, etc.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:26 AM on November 9, 2016

I was going to try for a baby in the next year. Now I'm thinking it would be better to get an IUD while I still can.

Got more uncontrollable crying to do right now I guess.
posted by the turtle's teeth at 9:26 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Obama is speaking now.

Biden looks like he is coming from and going to a serious cry. He is wiping his cheeks in a familiar way.
posted by palindromic at 9:26 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

So if this election was about white supremacy, how do we explain this? Misogyny?

yes, emphatic fucking yes

this is a huge, giant fucking problem that is a monstrous fucking cancer on our ability to have a free and functional civil society and boy howdy do I not have a lot of patience for the chin-scratching about how the DNC or Hillary's particular baggage or "economic anxiety" is the reason that mendacious piece of shit won this election
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:27 AM on November 9, 2016 [62 favorites]

Looking at the exit polls, certainly white men contributed a lot to Trump's victory. They are 34% of the electorate and 58% voted for Trump.

But the real group that pushed Trump over the top was white born-again/evangelicals. They represent 24% of Americans but went 81% for Trump, an even larger factor than white men.

America is now run by evangelicals, men and women, who voted for the "grab them by the pussy" guy. Sorry, but I can't abide any more talk about tolerance for evangelicals. These people are awful hypocrites that promote racism and misogyny.
posted by JackFlash at 9:27 AM on November 9, 2016 [93 favorites]

Don't put up with Trump voters lecturing you today on civility or respect for our nation's longstanding institutions.

Paul Ryan was on earlier talking about the need for unity. After his years of pouting and obstruction. The nerve of it.
posted by mochapickle at 9:27 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

I was going to try for a baby in the next year. Now I'm thinking it would be better to get an IUD while I still can.

Don't let this change your mind. The world needs more awesome people. Making some yourself is a fine thing to do.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:28 AM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

Biden is definitely trying to cry quietly enough that the cameras don't pick it up.
posted by kalimac at 9:28 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Don't let this change your mind. The world needs more awesome people. Making some yourself is a fine thing to do.

The world has a lot of awesome people who need loving parents already, and adoption is still a thing, so I'd say anyone who doesn't want to bring someone into this world but does want to be a parent should at least consider it.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:29 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

During that gracious speech, Hillary Clinton was booed on the Wall St trading floor with shouts of "loser" and "lock her up."

I weep for us all.
posted by madamjujujive at 9:29 AM on November 9, 2016 [48 favorites]

The main danger with respect to nuclear war is probably not World War Three, exactly. But that Trump's cavalier attitude about nuclear nonproliferation, disinterest in nuclear reduction, and interest in saber-rattling increase the risk that nuclear weapons fall into the hands of terrorists, or that human and/or technical mistakes led to the accidental or mistaken launch of nuclear weapons.

And the risk that he might decide to launch nuclear strikes against ISIS, or some country that pisses him off.
posted by tivalasvegas at 9:30 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

This could just be the vanity of wanting to believe that my work is not completely meaningless right now, but this We Need Diverse Books post (Facebook) is keeping me going today. I have to talk to a frigging college class this afternoon about mixed-race Asian American representation in children's books, which seems like such a joke right now, but I plan to open by reading that letter to them.

Some motherfucker spray-stenciled "I Voted For Trump" all the fuck over the sidewalk on Second Street in San Francisco. Amazing.
posted by sunset in snow country at 9:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

During that gracious speech, Hillary Clinton was booed on the Wall St trading floor with shouts of "loser" and "lock her up."

Rick Santelli fanfic come to life.

I'm sorry, 2016 this just isn't going to work out.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Can someone briefly make a soothing argument that I shouldn't be worried about nuclear war?
Who would we even be fighting against?

Trump might nuke someone for a tweet for all we know. Or just nuke California. He could do ANYTHING.

Trump won because an electoral majority of angry white men were enraged that America had a black president for 8 terms, and felt like it made them losers, and needed to bring back their honor in the form of the biggest loser this country could find. The things you are all talking about as if they were weaknesses-- the racism, the sexism, the vulgarity, the pathetic appearance and personality and intellect-- all of these were core reasons Trump's fanbase-- half the country-- voted him in. I cannot think of a single Democratic candidate who could have combated that kind of cultural zeitgeist.

Yup, this is it. This is backlash and our punishment. If our nation is THAT racist, and apparently it is, I don't see any way to combat that level of massive hatred. Unless we spend the next 8 years to indefinite catering to every (jerkass) white man's need. And oh yeah, sexism to boot, because yes, we're that sexist too.
Seriously, at this point I'd leave if I could, and I wish secession was an option except see above comment about nukes. There is no coexistence any more, if there ever was.

My NaNoWriMo book this year is about presidents. Boy, am I not in the mood any more. The Presidential podcast updated too and I can't bear to listen.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

During that gracious speech, Hillary Clinton was booed on the Wall St trading floor with shouts of "loser" and "lock her up."

The despised, left-behind white working class speaks!
posted by tivalasvegas at 9:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [101 favorites]

Hillary Clinton was booed on the Wall St trading floor with shouts of "loser" and "lock her up."

velociraptors in human suits
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:31 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Earlier tonight I was quite prepared to (partially) blame third party voters. But nope. The margins for the battleground states that Hillary lost:

State       Margin Pct   Margin Votes   Green Votes
---------------------------------------------------
MI (16EV)     +0.3%          14,617       51,420
PA (20EV)     +1.1%          68,012       48,998
FL (29EV)     +1.3%         120,952       63,911
NC (15EV)     +3.8%         177,529            -
OH (18EV)     +8.6%         454,983       44,310

With the exception of MI, you can't blame Green voters as spoiler votes. I'm assuming Johnson took away very few Clinton votes, but maybe not. She just flat out lost, there's really no way of spinning it as being the fault of spoilers.
posted by Rhomboid at 9:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

The despised, left-behind white working class speaks!

Surely, Hillary just needed to reach out to them more and listen to their concerns. It's how Bernie would have wanted it.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:33 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

During that gracious speech, Hillary Clinton was booed on the Wall St trading floor with shouts of "loser" and "lock her up."

Nobody, but nobody, will turn on you faster than someone in finance.
posted by Etrigan at 9:33 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

I just want you to tell you, good luck, we're all counting on you.
posted by delfin at 9:33 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

what about libertarians, rhomboid?
posted by sporkwort at 9:33 AM on November 9, 2016

they made their fucking bed, and they've pushed us down onto it with them.

...and they're threatening to sue us when we report it.
posted by mochapickle at 9:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Nobody, but nobody, will turn on you faster than someone in finance.

Do you seriously think the guys in the NYSE trading pit were With Her?
posted by tonycpsu at 9:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm assuming Johnson took away very few Clinton votes, but maybe not.

Johnson votes this year - at least, those that are higher than 2012 Johnson votes - are mostly #NeverTrump Republicans, who did not anticipate Trump actually bringing new voters in, and figured it would be a safe compromise.
posted by corb at 9:35 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Here's a good guide to communicating and safe data in a surveillance environment.

Very keen to learn of other guides like this, and will be happy to curate or expand on anything related to this that people might find useful.
posted by Devonian at 9:35 AM on November 9, 2016 [26 favorites]

Is it too naive to hope we don't have a sudden rash of hate crimes within the next few weeks?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:35 AM on November 9, 2016

Nobody, but nobody, will turn on you faster than someone in finance.

Do you seriously think the guys in the NYSE trading pit were With Her?

I'm gonna guess they weren't booing her at those other speeches.
posted by Etrigan at 9:36 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Johnson votes this year - at least, those that are higher than 2012 Johnson votes - are mostly #NeverTrump Republicans,

Do you have any sort of polling to support this claim?
posted by tonycpsu at 9:36 AM on November 9, 2016

Really glad to see people taking secure communications seriously. It's been important for awhile, and it'll be important if a democratic president is elected in four years too.
posted by michaelh at 9:36 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

So if this election was about white supremacy, how do we explain this? Misogyny?

NPR: Women's voting preferences haven't shifted much since the time when they preferred Obama by 11 points. However, men swung more heavily Republican, by the latest exits. In 2012, men preferred Mitt Romney by 7 points. This year, they preferred Trump by almost double that. [...]

The exact counts are still likely to shift a bit but, right now, 24 percentage points separate America's women from America's men in the latest exit polls — that is, women preferred Clinton by 12 points, while men preferred Trump by 12 points. If that ends up being the final tally, it will be the largest gap measured by exit polls since at least the 1950s.

NYT: Mrs. Clinton was lifted, by contrast, by women, urban voters and those with more education. She also held onto the people who formed the backbone of President Obama’s coalition in both 2008 and 2012, though in lesser numbers: blacks, Hispanics, unmarried women and young voters.

VICE (via CNN): White women made up 37 percent of voters
53 percent of them voted Trump
43 percent voted Clinton

Misogyny and racism alone does not answer why, if Trump is an existential danger to everyone who isn't outside of his core base, there were still a hefty population of minorities and women who voted for him, or did not vote for Clinton. One in five people of color voted for Trump. There's got to be more than "he's a bigot, obviously" when people are seemingly voting against their own self-interest or failing to vote at all.
posted by Apocryphon at 9:37 AM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

Is it too naive to hope we don't have a sudden rash of hate crimes within the next few weeks?

Not at all - I hope the same thing, and to a certain extent, I even believe it.

It's the post-inauguration that frightens the bejesus out of me.
posted by Mooski at 9:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

So is there any comfort in all that we might be able to do some kind of damage control in the 2018 election or is that just wishful thinking?

I'm trying real hard to get into a "things are bad but not as bad as you think they are and ultimately we'll make it somehow" frame of mind here.
posted by Gev at 9:38 AM on November 9, 2016

i presume the mods must have taken shifts to give the threads 24 hour coverage.

I am so sorry. thank you for your work building this community and keeping it strong.
posted by rebent at 9:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [46 favorites]

I'm gonna guess they weren't booing her at those other speeches.

The fact that their corporate masters paid six figures to have her show up has nothing to do with their political leanings. And I don't think it's routine for workers attending a speech put on by their company to boo the invited guests.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:39 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Do you have any sort of polling to support this claim?

Only internal Republican polling of registered Republican voters still on the lists, and report backs from other #NeverTrump Republicans with access to those lists. I don't know how accurate the polling is.
posted by corb at 9:39 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Don't put up with Trump voters lecturing you today on civility or respect for our nation's longstanding institutions. If they gave two shits about either of those things, they wouldn't have voted for Trump. They're not offended at the your tone while coming after them for having done something horrible, they're embarrassed because they know in their gut you're not wrong.

Just had someone comment about 'agreeing to disagree' after a ' HA HA this is great' comment.

I replied back, "Great thing about free speech. No rules say I have to agree to disagree. I can just disagree".

Well. That did not go over well at all. YOU MUST AGREE TO DISAGREE!!!!! And blah blah Trump is awesome, blah, blah.

So I decided for the time being that does this is going to get the Trump treated. Heck if he can do and they like it then why not? Plus it's a really easy, pretty brainless way of arguing that doesn't take a whole lot of energy.

Person "blah blah blah blah blah"

Me: "Wrong"

Person "blah blah blah ablha"

Me: "Nope never said that."

Me: "Wrong"
Me" Nope"
Me "What a nasty man you are."
Me : "Wrong"

I've done that with two people so far and surprise, surprise they don't like it much. Bonus is that it really doesn't take a whole lot of energy. You can get some satisfaction at turning words and methods around. It takes some power back. Other people that see you do it will 'get it' and there is some solidarity there. Some dark humor is a bonus. You don't have to waste your time arguing which is likely pointless right now because they're on a high but you feel like you've said and done something.
It's not the high road, but it's also not the low road. I think it's a medium road which is a good compromise as far as I'm concerned.

Plus there is just something so satisfying at type a simple and basic response leave it at that. "Wrong". Yep that gets down to the nuts and bolts of it.
posted by Jalliah at 9:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [83 favorites]

there were still a hefty population of minorities and women who voted for him, or did not vote for Clinton

There are women who hate women, and some minorities who hate minorities. Not necessarily an explanation, but it is true.
posted by drezdn at 9:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

i presume the mods must have taken shifts to give the threads 24 hour coverage.

That's how we do it all day, every day, really. But this has been a hell of an unusual 24 hours and we've all been around to lend a second-hand to the extent that we've had the energy and emotional capacity. I really appreciate folks having made a decent effort overall to keep things workable, there.
posted by cortex at 9:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [41 favorites]

I think Trump's interest in and support from the militarized wing of the Border Protection is something far more practically disturbing than the vague threat of random nukes. In his RNC speech he all but said directly he was going to have a deportation and border force that would shoot on sight.

Minutemen as janjaweed, fuck
posted by Apocryphon at 9:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Hillary won the popular vote.
posted by wondermouse at 9:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [19 favorites]

Random thought: I hope the Obamas can ensure the White House service staff -- especially the women -- can secure comparable or better positions elsewhere before they leave. Also, I hope all women leaders, Congresspeople, etc., take care never to be alone in a room with President Trump.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:42 AM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

Misogyny and racism alone does not answer why, if Trump is an existential danger to everyone who isn't outside of his core base, there were still a hefty population of minorities and women who voted for him, or did not vote for Clinton.

Nothing is ever a single factor for this sort of thing, but I think people underestimate that there are a number of people in minorities who are still pretty damn misogynist, and a number of women who are pretty damn racist, and that's before you get to the fact that the GOP for awhile now has been trying to play blacks and Hispanics against each other, and that conservatives for way longer than that have been trying to scare women in more traditional households that feminism is out to kill their babies. These things are all "misogyny and racism".
posted by Sequence at 9:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [60 favorites]

My mother has been sending me evil messages all morning. She is on a narcissistic rampage and I am crushed.

My mother's emails get filtered into a folder marked "zzmom" (so it's at the bottom of the list and I don't normally see it) and I haven't looked in it for more than 7 years.

It's hard cutting family out of your life, but it can be done, and it can be worth doing. I ran across a quote in As a Mom Thinketh:

“For the first forty years of my life, I compounded every negative opinion I had about myself by sharing them with my mother. What a glutton for punishment! I knew she would make me feel worse, and she did! The day I stopped calling her to confide my fears was the day I overcame them. When I was able to find just one person who said go instead of stop and can instead of can’t, I changed my life forever.”

I stopped all contact with my mother when I realized that every conversation I'd had with her since I was 16 was some variation of, "let me tell you how to fix your fucked-up life."

If your mother is toxic, cut off contact. Reroute her messages to a folder to read later. "Later" doesn't have to be this year. Or next year. Or this administration.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:45 AM on November 9, 2016 [32 favorites]

Trump Picks Top Climate Skeptic to Lead EPA Transition

More recently, Ebell has called the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan for greenhouse gases illegal and said that Obama joining the Paris climate treaty “is clearly an unconstitutional usurpation of the Senate’s authority.”

..

His lobbying clients in 2016 include Koch Companies Public Sector LLC, Southern Company Services, Dow Chemical Co. and Competitive Power Ventures Inc., according to public disclosures.
posted by bluecore at 9:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

System justification theory: it is less psychologically costly for minority outgroups (as well as majority ingroups) to challenge the system than to discount reasonable objections to it & identify with the socially dominant group i.e. false consciousness

(Or, half of us are really velociraptors)
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Trump himself is a huge unknown. He could do anything, including pivot away from his campaign direction. He's not a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, and is definitely not a social conservative nor an evangelical. He said what needed to be said to win the deplorables, but I don't think he's necessarily one of them at heart.
What scares me most is the stable of potential cabinet appointees. Giuliani? Gingrich? Palin? Carson? One or more of the Steve's? We know exactly what they will do, and it's going to be ugly.
posted by rocket88 at 9:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Forget the whole "why would the people who voted based on appeals to white nationalism elect a Jewish socialist?" argument for a second. My question is why would the people who voted for Trump vote for Sanders when they just categorically rejected Sanders-style policies? They voted against health care, they voted against child care, and they voted for lower corporate taxes, lower taxes on the wealthy, and higher taxes for an alarming percentage of single parents. They voted against basically everything Sanders wants to do.

Except, of course, that nobody gave a damn about policy because the entire election turned into appeals to emotion and a referendum on the human dignity of hundreds of millions of Americans.
posted by zachlipton at 9:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [23 favorites]

I just woke up from a few hours sleep. Check on FB. A friend who is a middle school teacher said the first question she got today was "Will Black people be slaves again?"
posted by threeturtles at 9:49 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

I just wrote a text message to a dear friend whose married to my college best friend. he and I were texting away the pain and he mentioned that she (his wife) is at a loss for how to deal with her mother who voted for Trump. I don't have children or a parent who voted for trump, but I cannot fathom how tempting cutting them out of their grandchildren's lives would be and its really really difficult articulating what the great loss of that would be.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 9:49 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

>Hillary Clinton was booed on the Wall St trading floor with shouts of "loser" and "lock her up."

velociraptors in human suits

Now now. I know we're all upset here but it's important to remember that while they share certain predatory behaviors with investment bankers, raptors are actually warm-blooded creatures. Let's not conflate them unnecessarily.
posted by tivalasvegas at 9:49 AM on November 9, 2016 [22 favorites]

This chart showing how The Youngs voted is very, very nice. All we need to do now is get rid of all The Olds.
posted by cooker girl at 9:50 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Our best hope is that Trump starts hanging around reasonable people again and it rubs off on him.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:50 AM on November 9, 2016

Don't put up with Trump voters lecturing you today on civility or respect for our nation's longstanding institutions.

This, this, this.

I have zero fucks to give about Trump voters' feelings, and if I even hear them utter "respect the office, not the man", I'm going to tell them to go fuck themselves. They've spent the last 8 years disrespecting Obama, and the last few decades disrespecting every possible longstanding institution of civility in our political process. Literally the only time they claim to care about mutual respect or longstanding tradition is when it is in their favor. Giving even the tiniest shit about civility is a losing game with them, because they will never reciprocate.

Fuck 'em.
posted by tocts at 9:51 AM on November 9, 2016 [57 favorites]

Except, of course, that nobody gave a damn about policy because the entire election turned into appeals to emotion and a referendum on the human dignity of hundreds of millions of Americans.

It's like those interviews with Brexit voters shocked by what they had just inflicted upon themselves. It's doubtful most of those Trump voters understood the economic implications of voting for him. And doubtless they didn't know what the economic implications voting for Clinton was.
posted by Apocryphon at 9:51 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

All we need to do now is get rid of all The Olds

In the fullness of time. Though I am bitterly skeptical that that will do the trick.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 9:51 AM on November 9, 2016

Erik Loomis: The Aristocrats!

The United States: A 225 year joke that ended last night with that punchline. [...]

That said, there are plenty of disturbing trends. The first is that Hillary Clinton simply did not inspire people to vote. Hillary’s total was down a solid 4 million or so voters from 2012. Union support for Clinton was the worst showing for a Democrat in at least 20 years. African-Americans in key cities like Milwaukee and Philadelphia simply did not come out in the needed numbers. Why? This is a critical question. Second is that racism won the day. Trump won all categories of whites. America is a racist nation. Appealing to white nationalism works. We have not even begun to deal with our legacy of racism. Third, misogyny also won the day. That Trump did better than Romney with both Latino and African-American males is the big jaw-dropper of the election. Misogyny is a big part of the story here.

What is however sadly clear is that in fact Democrats cannot win without white working class voters in Rust Belt states. Whatever that means in creating policy and appeal, it is true. We have to deal with this point. Watching CNN last night, the county maps of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan between 2012 and 2016 were telling. Erie County, PA, for instance, is a classic old-school union Democratic county. Trump won it. The country that Scranton is in, Joe Biden’s home town, went from about 60% Obama in 2012 to 50% Clinton in 2016. This is ultimately the people Democrats need to win. The demographic changes to the nation, which are real enough, are also not enough. Democrats did great in the West. Everything that needed to happen there happened, including Cortez Masto holding Reid’s Senate seat with surprising ease. That’s not enough. Democrats have to win in the Great Lakes or in the South. These are pretty white states. That does mean appealing to white voters.

And let’s not beat around the bush–yes, the election of Trump is a great triumph for American racists. But a sizable number of these voters did vote for Barack Hussein Obama on two occasions. It’s not just racism, even if it is indeed racism. It’s also people who legitimately feel left behind in the global economy. It doesn’t even matter if it’s true. It’s how they feel. Actual good job creation at home in the places where people live is part of the answer. People want to feel hope in their lives. In western Pennsylvania, they do not. It’s not as if Trump’s policies are going to give them that real hope. But if there’s one thing we know, it’s that the white people in Wisconsin and North Carolina and Kansas and Louisiana and other states that are dominated by Republicans will respond to the terrible policies of their officials by doubling down on resentment and white supremacy and voting for them again.

I also think it’s pretty clear that presidential candidates need to be inspiring leaders more than any other quality. No one cares about policy. People care about leadership and inspiration. That’s true whether it was Bill Clinton in 1992 or George W. Bush in his 2 elections, or Barack Obama or Donald Trump. These four people have very little in common except that people saw them as an individual which they could either relate to personally or someone they see as a leader to improve their lives. And that they are men. Women have a much harder row to hoe on these sorts of things and that’s a terrible thing to realize. But in order to actually win a presidential election, the single most important skill is charisma. We need to consider this going forward.

(Please note once again that linking is not endorsement -- I just think Erik raises some important points that I'm not quite sure where I'm at on right now.)
posted by tonycpsu at 9:52 AM on November 9, 2016 [29 favorites]

Every generation thinks that the Youngs are enlightened and the future and that the Olds just need to hurry up and die.

Then the Youngs become the Olds.

30 GOTO 10
posted by delfin at 9:53 AM on November 9, 2016 [53 favorites]

Yah, echoing Sequence above, this exit poll from NBC breaks down:

Conservative women: Trump 78%

White women 45-64: Trump 58%

White Protestant women: Trump 64%

White women total: Trump 53%

Which to me in aggregate says that there was a hefty number of older white Christian conservative women who came out for Trump.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Though I am bitterly skeptical that that will do the trick.

I have a sneaking suspicion that millennials will grow up to become boomers, except pissed. That is not a good thing.
posted by Apocryphon at 9:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

System justification theory: it is TOO psychologically costly for minority outgroups (as well as majority ingroups) to challenge the system. It is EASIER to discount reasonable objections to it & identify with the socially dominant group i.e. false consciousness

(on 0.5 hrs sleep. sorry.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I understand where it's coming from, but let's keep in mind that no group is a monolith and certainly who did what in the national vote and who did what here on MetaFilter are likely pretty different things. Our community is made up of folks both young and old, and I'm glad all of you are here.
posted by cortex at 9:55 AM on November 9, 2016 [19 favorites]

All we need to do now is get rid of all The Olds

~~Nuclear fusion~~ Socialist utopia is only 20 years away, and always will be.
posted by rocket88 at 9:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Trump Picks Top Climate Skeptic to Lead EPA Transition

Congratulations, Florida: you voted to commit suicide.
posted by theodolite at 9:58 AM on November 9, 2016 [77 favorites]

"Then the Youngs become the Olds.

30 GOTO 10"

More like 70 GOTO 20 you know what I'm sayin?
posted by komara at 9:58 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

There are women who hate women, and some minorities who hate minorities. Not necessarily an explanation, but it is true.

So true, members of groups can certainly hate those they share commonality with. It isn't even that uncommon. For example, I've pretty much been hating on white guys for quite a while now and feel no shame about it at all.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:58 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Dammit you guys I was holding on to a shred of hope for the future.

WHY MUST YOU TAKE THAT FROM ME
posted by cooker girl at 9:58 AM on November 9, 2016

If elections are decided by emotions... I think, how can people not hear Freedom and Justice for All, any American not instinctively hear that and think that's something worth fighting for? How can anyone who calls themselves a patriot bear to vote for someone who called on foreign spies for help, to idolize foreign dictators more than their own leaders?

Like I get the arguments about people being betrayed by the elites... but this seems like a sickness. Something worse...

If there's one thing I disagree with a lot of the left on, it's the need to appeal to nationalism. And not ceding it to white nationalism. It's hard, when the American dream has excluded so many, when freedom and justice has been for only a select few. But we need a national myth, a new national myth, a better one, that acknowledges the crimes and injustices of the past, but gives us hope for the future, gives us an identity centered around justice and freedom.

Because if patriotism keeps being just for racists and rednecks, there won't be a country left.

I know people reject patriotic thinking - and with good reason: it divides us from the rest of the world and hardens our empathy to it - but it is also a powerful tool. And right now that tool is being used for things evil and unAmerican and I don't see how America finds its way without it.
posted by Zalzidrax at 9:58 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Ebell has called the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan for greenhouse gases illegal and said that Obama joining the Paris climate treaty “is clearly an unconstitutional usurpation of the Senate’s authority.”

This is going to be one of the worst outcomes in terms of what the US will be like twenty years from now, Big Coal running the EPA. Earth Sciences are likely effectively defunded for the duration. Not just climate change research, but any emerging pollutant issue. NASA's satellite programs* will take a big hit, and may vanish entirely to NOAA. That could be a big problem---not that NOAA can't do it, but that it's an easy way to defund it.

OTOH, NASA may get a boost, but only for stuff like manned missions and maybe some robot missions. But most sciences, NSF, NIH, and all the rest will see cuts I expect, to fund tax reductions.

*the earth observer ones I mean.
posted by bonehead at 9:58 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Well, Michael Moore was right all along.
posted by CommonSense at 9:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I helped elect President Barack Obama twice. I'm proud to have been involved. I'll be sad to see him go. I didn't agree with everything he did, but like all Presidents, I believe he was trying his hardest doing the world's most difficult job, under enormous pressure and with tremendous resistance from many people.
Including me, on some issues.

I've contacted, by email and snail mail, President Obama and let him know what I felt about the way he was handling issues that I care about. And joined and helped organize resistance to certain policies, including and especially fossil fuel extraction and use policies and lgbt-rights. He campaigned against gay marriage, which he didn't turn around on until it was politically necessary, and seems pretty much OK with fracking and various pipeline projects. I did my best to hold him accountable.

Of course I intend to keep it up with the next president, Donald Trump. As I would have done had Hillary Clinton, whom I voted for, won the electoral vote along with the popular vote. And, considering President-elect Trump's spoken and written positions on energy policy, which do not include the word "renewable," I'll have my work cut out for me.

I hope those who helped elect Donald Trump will join me in holding him accountable. He has the Senate and the House in his party, and probably has his pick of the next one to four Supreme Court justices. He told us he would replace Obamacare with something better. So, let's see it. He told us there would be plentiful high-paying jobs in manufacturing. Great, bring it. He said he would do it all quickly. and he should have no meaningful obstruction from any branch of federal government or any coalition of state governments. If you voted for Trump and things don't get better for everyone (his promise) real quick-like (also his promise), I hope you will express your displeasure, meaningfully and effectively.

As for Progressives, let us practice solidarity. Let us continue to fight for our ideals. Our movement didn't start or end with the election of any president. Our work is never over. Progress is never finished, we can and must always work to make the world a better place. There will always be setbacks and obstacles to overcome. But we can and always must educate, engage, empower, and organize.
posted by Cookiebastard at 9:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Weird thing: the Obamas will still live in DC for the next 3 years until Sasha graduates from high school. Could be good, to keep him involved.
posted by acidic at 9:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Needless to say, the harassment of Jewish journalists didn't magically stop today. And the reports of racial street harassment continue to roll in.

And the saddest picture of the day is President Obama putting his arm around Biden as they walked away.
posted by zachlipton at 9:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Metafilter's own cstross:

I think I'm going to give up on writing near-future SF, unless it's to go for the most ghastly crapsack shitlord-ruled dystopia I can imagine. (Key phrases for our grim meathook future: "voting qualifications", "permanent transferrable employee record", "beta males get the elastrator if they don't shape up", "corrective rape".) Instead, I'm going to switch to high fantasy and far-future space opera, where reality can't knee me in the balls and maybe I can help some folks with their reality-induced depression issues.

And 2016 is fired for gross misconduct in office.

posted by bouvin at 10:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [45 favorites]

Well, Michael Moore was right all along.

This is a pretty clear stopped-clock situation -- he was saying the same things in 2012, and just switched "Romney" to "Trump" for this cycle.
posted by Etrigan at 10:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

I've reached a point where I'm just watching Buffy's final speech on repeat and trying to steel myself for the fights ahead. Are you ready to be strong?
posted by yellowbinder at 10:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

Hey America, remember Bill Clinton's presidency when the GOP tried to convince us that no matter how much we liked a candidate's platform and plans, if it turned out he was a morally repugnant human being privately, he wasn't fit to hold office? Those people mostly voted for a guy who brags about sexual assault yesterday.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [67 favorites]

Metafilter's own cstross:

damn, the Black Chamber under a Trump administration
posted by Apocryphon at 10:02 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Thanks to Tim Kaine—who would've been an awesome VP—for a quote that I've written on my whiteboard at work as a reminder:

"Well, Kernel, they kilt us but they aint whupped us yit, air they?" (William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!)
posted by the sobsister at 10:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

So true, members of groups can certainly hate those they share commonality with.

I think the even more common case is that people forget that there are people within those groups who have some pretty huge differences. Married conservative Christian women with children can make a lot of decisions that hurt women as a whole while being insulated completely from the consequences, and have been told repeatedly that feminism has resulted in worse job security for their husbands and less respect for motherhood. Hispanics can and often are totally racist against Black people to the point of buying into the idea that we need Law and Order because Those People are going to make Our Neighborhoods dangerous. Cubans and border-crossed-us Mexican Americans can believe that "illegals" from Mexico are the reason that people don't treat Hispanics well. The GOP has turned blaming the Other into an art form. The majority of women and POC aren't buying it, but that doesn't mean nobody is. But it's the conservative leadership who I blame for this, not members of downtrodden groups who choose to believe there's a way they could get people to treat them better.
posted by Sequence at 10:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [35 favorites]

This chart showing how The Youngs voted is very, very nice. All we need to do now is get rid of all The Olds.

I'd like to see a comparison of how many youngs vs. olds voted.

In the meantime I'll be trying really hard to not take offense at somebody who wants to get rid of me, simply because of my age.
posted by SteveInMaine at 10:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

You know, I've been sort of jokingly on the anti-Hamilton bandwagon all year. I've never actually listened to any of it, though.

At some point in the last few months, I decided that as a sort of reward/post-election thing I'd save my first listen of Hamilton until today. And now --

I don't know if I want to listen at all. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to really enjoy it.
posted by tivalasvegas at 10:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Don't put up with Trump voters lecturing you today on civility or respect for our nation's longstanding institutions

They won't do that today. They're still too busy gloating.
posted by flabdablet at 10:06 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

In the meantime I'll be trying really hard to not take offense at somebody who wants to get rid of me, simply because of my age.

I'm really sorry. I'm 46 so I consider myself rather old and I didn't mean to make anyone think I actually want to get rid of them.

My gallows humor in time of crisis doesn't always translate and I truly apologize.
posted by cooker girl at 10:07 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

As nervous as I am (and my wife tells me I look like a wreck right now - thanks, hon), I think we just have to do what we've always done - look out for each other, support the causes we believe in, and do our best to be examples of why that works.

That said, I always admired the hell out of the people who were willing to be harassed, beaten up and jailed for doing what's right, and was secretly glad I didn't have to make the decision to put myself in that position (yet another privilege), 'cause I worried what decision I'd make.

Guess I might get to find out after all. I hope not to disappoint.
posted by Mooski at 10:08 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

They won't do that today. They're still too busy gloating.

They are absolutely doing that today. Somehow, now that they've elected the foul-mouthed racist who loves to hurl insults, they've justSOBhadSOBenough of all of the meanness and the negativity!
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

As I read all the news and comments here, I keep coming back to what has always stuck in my mind and my heart about Hillary Clinton's campaign. That was the message that we would have to work together to bring about change. She has no illusions that any one person can move us forward into a more inclusive, more compassionate future. In her campaign I heard a call to step up and work with others to effect the changes we hope for. I was looking forward to doing that with support from national leaders. It still needs to be done without those leaders.

Like most people, I have not been active in my community; I have worked and come home and watched television or turned on the internet(shorthand for whatever we do isolated in our own homes) instead of looking for opportunities to serve. I am a major introvert. I am shaking with anxiety at the thought of putting myself out there. I don't know yet where I will find that place to serve, but I will find that place. I will see Hillary Clinton as an inspiration to do what I can.

My heart is very heavy this morning. I am stunned that the voters in my country have elected this miserable excuse for a human being. I am sad that so many people believe that they are entitled to force their will on me and others who are different. It makes me sick to think that people are so short sighted in the name of religion.

I am sixty-two, a woman who has been working in tech, the earner in a one-income household, I don't have a job, I have run out of unemployment, I have no idea what will happen to my healthcare, and the tiny blossoming of hope I had for moving forward has been crushed. I am stunned, tears are running down my face and I am too numb to make any plans right now. I will not look at my 401k today. I don't want to know how much I lost last night or how much I will lose when trading is reinstated. It will be hard to be optimistic when the shock wears off. It will be hard to step up to the challenges in front of us. I will find a way.

I have family members who are married LGBT and family members who are PoC - african american, native american, japanese, latinx. What does the future hold for these people I love so much?

Thank you everyone for sharing your stories and your concerns and your hopes. I will try my best to follow Hillary's creed as the world I have known disappears.
posted by Altomentis at 10:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [55 favorites]

My phone buzzed a little bit ago with a notification saying "You have new elected representatives. Find out who represents you."

I had a moment of sheer terror before I realized Facebook was reporting the news, not what ~~Skynet~~ Facebook had done on our collective behalf.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 10:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

On the other hand, Kristallnacht is trending on facebook, so maybe fuck it all.
posted by Cookiebastard at 10:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Roy Edroso: The Age of Il Douche

Sure, Trump stirred up the Nazis, but look on the bright side, he made the liberal elites sad! I think this was a big part of the winning formula. I doubt Trump voters seriously believe their man will make international trade more advantageous to the U.S., or settle race relations, or bring global peace. But they don't like the people who are actually working on these things; they are delivering unsatisfactory results and, in the Trumpkin mind, that isn't because these things are difficult and complicated, but because they spend too much time thinking about their friends the blacks, the women, the foreigners, and the gays. Never mind your so-called rights, widget sales are fluctuating, now how'm I going to afford that second home? It's gotta be the fault of liberal elites!

You don't have to be a yokel to think like that -- hell, you don't even have to be a Republican. You just have to be a certain kind of American who's always wondering where's his.

There was never really any reason to feel sorry for these guys before, and there sure isn't any now. They're going to get what they asked for good and hard, and so, alas, are we.

We could feel sorry for ourselves, but that trick never works. Best I can tell you is to keep your head up and don't let 'em talk you out of the truth -- or your sense of humor. Those are the two things their kind most despise, in part because they can't take them away from you.

posted by tonycpsu at 10:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

The question now becomes, how do we teach economically anxious whites that racism won't accomplish a damn thing towards fixing the real problems of their economic situation, and that we need to lift everyone up?

I think this is missing the point and a little patronizing. It's worth noting Trump's surprisingly good showing among both female and Hispanic voters. Beating Romney's numbers, with 30% of Hispanic voters choosing an orange buffoon promising the ethnic cleansing of their own people over Hillary Clinton. Why? Because she offers nothing but tinkering around the edges and too many people, even if outwardly doing okay, are teetering on the precipice. Life expectancy is going down among the people who went most strongly for Trump. "What have you got to lose?" resonates with these people because the alternative is tinkering with the parameters of a system that has already sucked the hope out of them.

At my old job, I got to watch while my company did the work of this system. I saw lives, too many to count, ruined perhaps forever because of one unpaid Visa, one lost job, one illness. I would listen to people living in a trailer without water or electricity sobbing while they arranged to wire us cash from a predatory loan on their only means of transportation. Listening to the recording to confirm that yes, our collectors stayed within the law while we perpetrated this moral obscenity. Recently foreclosed people living in places with tarps for roofs, who used to have a good job that paid the bills, and now find themselves living in squalor with ten garnishments on their paycheque. This system elevated people like Clinton into the stratosphere of wealth and privilege, and it's this system that Clinton has been defending as better for all of us when for so many that is simply risible. Every day, more and more, as Steinbeck said, "in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath." I saw that anger festering, worried about where it would be channeled, and I guess now we know. For years the GOP had the nascent makings of a fascist movement waiting for that anger, and on the left there was nowhere for that anger to go, just a meek acquiescence to the wisdom of the liberal establishment.

Trump was selling a bill of brazen, disgusting lies, but at least he was selling something.

Those of us in the professional class, the same class that since McGovern has made up the liberal base of the Democratic Party, have once again failed completely while remaining safely ensconced in a bubble of upper-middle class comfort that allows us the privilege to cheer on a representationalist version of social justice promising that you too can throw the loaded dice, and if you're lucky join us here on top of the heap, it doesn't matter if you're a woman, or black or Hispanic or queer.

Hopefully liberalism in the US—and maybe worldwide—has been dealt a fatal blow to its power. With any luck there will be no more establishment to bully the left into acquiescing to an agenda that promises nothing but tiny, almost imperceptable technocratic changes to a widely reviled status quo, and appealing to shared values of social justice and the spectre of fascism while they stumble on inadvertently creating the conditions where fascism can flourish. After assuring us that don't worry, the adults are in charge—not those dreaming, unrealistic leftists—the feckless liberal think-tank wonks and their cozy punditry, consulting, strategy and lobbying ecosystem have fucked everything up again, and we shouldn't be forced to endure any more of their smug lectures. I want people like Matthew Yglesias and Ezra Klein and David Roberts and Samantha Bee (and her segregationist husband) to just shut up and go away forever. They offered asprin for a broken arm.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 10:10 AM on November 9, 2016 [29 favorites]

Congratulations, Florida: you voted to commit suicide.

I just cannot even.

I spent yesterday volunteering as a poll worker in a mixed-income mixed-ethnicity neighborhood in Oakland. It was awesome. People streamed into the polling station all day long, most of them long-time residents, often coming in family groups. More than once someone checked my log, identified a sibling who had not yet voted, and called or texted them to vote. I checked in African-American, Latino, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Middle-Eastern, and Chinese voters, some of whom had never voted before and many of whom had been voting for forty years.

There were problems: many many people voted provisionally because they were registered as permanent vote-by-mail, or their polling station had moved, or they had moved and their registration had not caught up with them. Some people honestly did not know that the registration deadline was over two weeks ago, and were disappointed to learn that their vote (if they cast it provisionally) would not be counted. There are problems with our systems that need to be addressed, to ensure that everyone has the information and support they need to participate.

But everyone was patient with the lines, kind to those of us trying to make sense of a terrifically complicated system, and good-natured in their investment in democracy. Except for the white guys, especially the one young hipster conspiracy theorist who called County election workers the r-word and was convinced that a mailed-in-ballot would be flipped to the opposition by those same county workers.

Oddly enough, we had DOJ election monitors at the station with us all day, who were there to make sure that we had the right kind of materials and support for the eight major languages represented by the local population. Their monitoring made us nervous, but in reality they were there to protect the rights of the citizenry to vote.

We were busy all day, and I wasn't able to even check my phone after about 3pm. And then I went home at about 10PM, after a 15+ hour day, to learn that this lovely community is the very people that 60% of the country loathes and wishes would just die already.

I'm white, educated, employed; and I want to apologize to every one who was so kind to me yesterday, so enthusiastic about voting, so invested in this country.

Fucking hell, America. What the hell is wrong with you.
posted by suelac at 10:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [46 favorites]

Don't put up with Trump voters lecturing you today on civility or respect for our nation's longstanding institutions

Trump's refusal to condemn violent assaults by his supporters, even going so far as to call some assailants "passionate" when they beat the shit out of a homeless man here in my city, mean that to me, "civility" will only result in condoning and emboldening more of the same.

The president elect is a scumbag. And a chickenshit.

He's the next president. He's still a scumbag. This has to be said. And repeated. And repeated.
posted by ocschwar at 10:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

I don't know if I want to listen at all. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to really enjoy it.

I'm something of a latecomer to Hamilton, and I say yes (maybe not today, but soon), now more than ever.

(Suggested next post title, if there is a next post: "They are going through the unimaginable")
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I just woke up from a few hours sleep. Check on FB. A friend who is a middle school teacher said the first question she got today was "Will Black people be slaves again?"

I've been asked this three times today by kids as young as 1st grade.
posted by archimago at 10:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

I just got verification from my mother that she did in fact vote for him, and I told her that I'm not coming home for Christmas and that I won't feel safe there for as long as I know that they were willing to support a serial sexual abuser and a racist.

On the up side, I guess, that means I don't need to use my scarce time off to make a trip back home at a time when travel's always chaotic anyway.
posted by Sequence at 10:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [73 favorites]

This is bizarre, but all this week I've been having weird nightmares. First was the one about runaway climate change that transformed Earth's atmosphere into a uniform gray haze. The night before last was a horrifying dream about a Harlan-Ellison style spike-covered AI machine that ruled earth and chewed apart everything in its path. I'd assumed at the time they were work-anxiety related since I was almost totally confident in a Hillary win (fuck you, media). I'm not saying these were precongitive dreams or anything, but it is so bizarre to be sitting here this morning feeling like I am now inhabiting a fascist world not too far off from those places I've been relieved to wake up from.
posted by whistle pig at 10:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump was selling a bill of brazen, disgusting lies, but at least he was selling something.

Just when we thought the bar couldn't get any lower.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:15 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

I can only conclude that while Americans really like Obama, they don't care much for the Democrat party.

"Democrat party" is a slur; it's the Democratic Party.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:16 AM on November 9, 2016 [22 favorites]

It is really important we draw the right conclusion from this race:
Obama 08 69,498,516
Obama 12 65,915,795
Hillary 16 59,458,773

Bush 04 62,040,610
McCain 08 59,948,323
Romney 12 60,933,504
Trump 16 59,265,360

Yea, the 2016 numbers will inch up a bit, but the important point is, the media is being really misleading. Trump wasn't carried to victory by a white wave, Hillary Clinton lost. What happened to the ten million missing Obama 08 voters and why didn't they want to vote for Clinton?
posted by getting_back_on_track at 10:17 AM on November 9, 2016 [65 favorites]

also, a different take on empathy.

(storified version of:
this tweet thread)

Thanks for posting this.
posted by Jalliah at 10:17 AM on November 9, 2016

With any luck there will be no more establishment to bully the left into acquiescing to an agenda that promises nothing but tiny, almost imperceptable technocratic changes to a widely reviled status quo, and appealing to shared values of social justice and the spectre of fascism while they stumble on inadvertently creating the conditions where fascism can flourish.

What kind of revolution do you envision unfolding with fascism in full bloom (and not just in the US)?
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Trump was selling a bill of brazen, disgusting lies, but at least he was selling something.

Say what you will about national socialism, dude. At least it's an ethos.
posted by ocschwar at 10:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

I don't think we're in a lucky moment, particularly.
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

The question now becomes, how do we teach economically anxious whites that racism won't accomplish a damn thing towards fixing the real problems of their economic situation, and that we need to lift everyone up?

Personally, I think the idea of Trump's supporters feeling economic anxiety is just wrongly placed, it's always been identity anxiety, which expresses itself through racial and sexist fear. That's how so many of his supporters truly don't think of themselves as racist, because, to them, they aren't seeing it so much as a race issue directly, but as a social issue regarding a too rapidly changing world they don't understand and are voting for alleged security. Identity in this way, though it clearly is about race from the outside, is more about confusion and comfort from the inside and it's something that often accompanies aging, particularly when things are changing quickly.

These people largely have jobs and trust that they'll be able to keep those jobs as long as things don't go haywire, which is what they feel could happen when things they don't understand start to occur more frequently within their field of vision. They aren't suffering, but if the boogey man comes as they fear, they might somehow.
posted by gusottertrout at 10:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

ugh i woke up and it's still real, F- would not wake up again
posted by poffin boffin at 10:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [78 favorites]

Jay Smooth has something to say.
posted by droplet at 10:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

At this point I'm clinging to "This too shall pass."

I'm seeing people say this everywhere, but it's not comforting in the least. Have you ever passed a kidney stone?
posted by Kabanos at 10:20 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

Media obsession with a bullshit email scandal helped Trump to the White House

The problem is that if you think of campaign journalism as not just a series of stories but a collective effort to produce public understanding as an output, then we have failed.

You see it right there in the Gallup graphic. People heard loud and clear that Clinton was in some kind of trouble related to email whereas the stories about Trump — with the exception of the sexual assault allegations, which came after this study — do not seem to have broken through. Indeed, there’s the alarming possibility that Trump actually benefited from the sheer range of negative stories about him. To cover any one Trump story — his refusal to disclose his income taxes or to commit to putting his business holdings in a blind trust — as extensively as the Clinton email story was covered would have necessarily required that less attention be paid to other important lines of inquiry into Trump.

But by trying to cover all the different negative storylines about Trump, the press created a muddle in which nothing in particular stood out.

Conversely, the fact that there actually weren’t very many negative angles to pursue against Clinton ended up blowing the email story out of proportion. If you have journalists assigned to cover Clinton, they need to do some kind of stories. And they’re going to want to do some tough stories. So if the only topic to do tough stories about is emails, you’re doing to get a lot of stories about emails. And a natural implication that people are going to draw is that Clinton’s email server is a crucially important story.

posted by tonycpsu at 10:20 AM on November 9, 2016 [34 favorites]

Progressive folks who think we can move the Democratic Party to the left after this are far more optimistic than I am.
posted by palindromic at 10:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I am feeling slightly sustained by schadenfreude. News of the Trump camp's plan for GOP congresscritters does not look great.

He's going to fall on them like Roko's Fucking Basilisk.
posted by Slackermagee at 10:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

What happened to the ten million missing Obama 08 voters and why didn't they want to vote for Clinton?

Oh wow, that was a crazy look. I had no idea the difference was that high.
posted by corb at 10:22 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

the rapture would be fucking ideal

And Trump would still be here.
posted by lkc at 10:23 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I am feeling slightly sustained by schadenfreude. News of the Trump camp's plan for GOP congresscritters does not look great.

Yeah, great news. Once all the ones with morals are purged, the worst will be left free to show their passionate intensity.
posted by ocschwar at 10:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

What kind of revolution do you envision unfolding with fascism in full bloom (and not just in the US)?

Realistically? I see the labour left and the Sanders/Warren wing assuming control of a Democratic Party that is about to spend a decade in the wilderness, as their liberal bloc decamps into reluctant moderate social democrats or fascist sympathizers, in probably equal numbers.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 10:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

What happened to the ten million missing Obama 08 voters and why didn't they want to vote for Clinton?

Because of the years and years and years and years of lies about Hillary, and misogyny.
posted by cooker girl at 10:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [42 favorites]

Yea, the 2016 numbers will inch up a bit, but the important point is, the media is being really misleading. Trump wasn't carried to victory by a white wave, Hillary Clinton lost. What happened to the ten million missing Obama 08 voters and why didn't they want to vote for Clinton?

The Voting Rights Act was gutted and it became really fucking hard to vote many places.
posted by hydropsyche at 10:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [56 favorites]

Siyanda Mohutsiwa: "If people followed the alt-right groups on Reddit, they would know that young white Americans were told to hide their support of Trump."

Read this whole thread.
posted by guiseroom at 10:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

What happened to the ten million missing Obama 08 voters and why didn't they want to vote for Clinton?

A combination of "They're both ~~equally baaaad~~" and disenfranchisement?
posted by inconstant at 10:25 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Here's Everything Donald Trump Has Promised to Do on His First Day as President

That's from September, so I'm pretty sure he added some things. Isn't he also ending crime on Day 1?
posted by kirkaracha at 10:25 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

What happened to the ten million missing Obama 08 voters and why didn't they want to vote for Clinton?

Well, the media was hammering the "both sides were terrible" hard for months, why is this surprising? How can anybody be shocked by that after hearing people going on about emails for all this time? The average person had zero idea that this was a nothing story. Nobody ever explained it to them.
posted by Sequence at 10:25 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Trump Did Better With Blacks, Hispanics Than Romney in '12: Exit Polls

So if this election was about white supremacy, how do we explain this? Misogyny?

It's like the ending of The Hateful Eight just happened to America.
posted by Strange Interlude at 10:26 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

There was a disturbing uptick in hate crimes in the UK after the Brexit vote. It is not a happy thought.
posted by Bee'sWing at 10:27 AM on November 9, 2016

I have never been so discouraged as a woman. Ever. To know so many people don't want you to be represented or heard...or equal. I don't know what to do with this feeling.
posted by agregoli at 10:28 AM on November 9, 2016 [31 favorites]

I think the even more common case is that people forget that there are people within those groups who have some pretty huge differences.

I think despite the accomplishments the left has made since the '60s, American liberals have underestimated the power of tribalism, and the ability for any unhappy group- not merely whites, nor white males- to embrace those who appeal to their tribalism. Whether overtly, or covertly ("oh, he doesn't mean me- just those people"). All along this campaign, Trump has had a couple of prominent POC supporters- sure, it's easy to denounce them as traitors or opportunists, but at the same time it leads to underestimating his capacity to appeal to minority groups.

American liberals have operated under this post-'60s, post-'90s concept that bigotry is a simple baseline for polite society. And for a long time, it's mostly worked. Yes, there's horrible problems still under the surface, but the main idea is that it is wrong to be a bigot, that you can't call someone "macaca" and still have a political career, or say racist shit and still own the L.A. Clippers. That you should get ostracized for being a bigot. That you're ignorant, and should be a social pariah.

We're seeing the backlash against that concept. I don't think our culture has regressed so far that even Trump can go in public throwing racial slurs (though sadly, it seems like it's easier to get away with misogyny). But the very fact that the current counterculture- the alt-right - is based on rejecting "PC culture" has to mean something. Despite the horrible issues with racism and sexism and other -isms in our society, they still see themselves as oppressed. The epithet of "racist" and "sexist" lose their sting every day, dismissed as slurs from oversensitive cosmopolitans. How do we disabuse them of these notions? Ostracism is clearly not working. You can't ostracize tens of millions of the electorate.

I guess my main point is that for a long time the war against prejudice has been clear, even rose-colored, in American society. MLK Jr. and Susan B. Anthony and a Manichaean struggle of clearly good against obviously evil. But a lot of your fellow citizens don't see it that way. They don't even see themselves as bigots. And a substantial part of the victims- one in five, this time- aren't seeing themselves as part of a united front. Racism and misogyny is a key part of Trump's appeal but the point is that, like with economic protectionism, it isn't the only part of his appeal.

So it's not enough to say those people are fucking stupid, they're what's wrong with this country. They're our neighbors. We need to figure out how to live with them, somehow.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:28 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

An Iranian who moved here, set up a business and then went bankrupt is working downstairs, in the parking garage, parking cars. He's been weeping and can hardly speak.

When my wife woke up this morning, she checked her phone, rolled over to cuddle and commenced weeping in my arms.
posted by uraniumwilly at 10:29 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

Still relevant - Vox: Why women are still voting for Trump, despite his misogyny

I think it’s absolutely true that as whites and as males a lot of the most vociferous and vicious supporters of Trump have an unjustified sense of entitlement that they should get first pick on jobs, wages, and promotions. But their sense that they've been screwed over is not unjustified, as those jobs have gotten more insecure, real wages for less-educated men have fallen by 30 percent since 1979, and benefits have been systematically taken back.

And they understand, even when they blame Mexicans and immigrants, they actually understand that corporations have screwed them over, that politicians have screwed them over, that businessmen have not been fair to them. And so I think what happens here is just the general sense of “I am absolutely powerless against these bigger forces and I have to look to someone who is more powerful than they are — and in the meanwhile vent my anger on people over whom I am more powerful.”

I was very struck by the female supporter who said Trump is like the bully you want to beat up on the other bully. There is longstanding social science evidence that people with fewer resources, educational or economic, tend to look heroes — or villains even— to stand up for them. Somebody they think has some kind of power that they don’t have.

posted by ZeusHumms at 10:29 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Here's an idea: let's hire the people from Silver Shamrock to make special Inauguration Day Trump & Pence masks for their faithful. And when they all tune in to watch the ceremony, they need to make sure they have 'em on!
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Can Obama come back to organize our communities?
posted by Brainy at 10:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Realistically? I see the labour left and the Sanders/Warren wing assuming control of a Democratic Party that is about to spend a decade in the wilderness, as their liberal bloc decamps into reluctant moderate social democrats or fascist sympathizers, in probably equal numbers.

If the kind of discourse that could animate that is even allowed to happen... I'm imagining McCarthy-type lockdowns from above, and even more, & more venal propaganda fuelling roaring hoardes on the ground, leaving silence, confusion, splintering, and finger-pointing in the middle
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:33 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Shkreli dropped some of his Wu Tang tracks as promised.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 10:36 AM on November 9, 2016

quip just now: "Sure am glad the Democrats have spent time dismantling the post 9/11 surveillance state and drone assassination programs lest it fall into the wrong hands."
posted by Apocryphon at 10:36 AM on November 9, 2016 [27 favorites]

From Ken White at Popehat: Getting Back To Work The Day After

Donald Trump will be the President of the United States in January. I support and defend the United States of America. That means that, though I do not support Trump personally or based on policy, he is my President. He is the President delivered by the Constitution I love and want to defend. I wish him well — meaning that I wish for him the health and strength and resolve to meet the challenges he'll face. I do not wish him success on many of his stated projects, but I hope that he will perform his Constitutional obligations effectively and to the benefit of the country. I will not be saying "not my President" but "for better or worse, my President." Though I hope he will not succeed in many parts of his stated agenda, I do not wish failure on his Presidency, and I do not think that defeating him in the next election should be his opposition's top priority. Our top priority should be opposing bad programs and policies he proposes, making the case for the rightness of our positions, and trying to use what consensus we can find to better govern America.

The entire essay is quite good, capturing the frustration and disappointment we are feeling, along with thoughts on a way forward. In summary: think about what values are important to you, think about how best to come together to fight for them, and fight.
posted by jazon at 10:37 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Regarding listening to Hamilton: I have the soundtrack playing in my head and it's not helping today. I also tried listening to some video of a guy who rewrote the opening song for someone's wedding and...normally I'd be enjoying it, but not today. It's very good, but at the moment it's too hopeful for me to take hearing, because I'm with waitingtoderail: it seems like the American experiment ends.

We so far have one Trump-voting coworker, a country girl. On the one hand, she is not gloating. On the other hand, she is being cheerful in general today and in general this is a bit hard to take. She came in here wanting to chat to me about my Mr. Potato Head and show a video of her grandson with one. (Sample conversation: "How are you doing?" "No comment." "Oh, come on! It's Hump Day!" like it's just another day.)
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:37 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Relevant, from way back in February.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 10:37 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I am seriously afraid that this is the start of the end of the American experiment. I think we need to be prepared for a split up - we need to be prepared to help those who need to leave their situation. I hope I'm wrong. I fear I'm right.

I know you're right. Hate has been vindicated. It has no reason to hide behind a veil of decency anymore. We're not going to recognize this country a year from now. You thought 2016 was terrible? 2017 is going to be the worst year of American life since the second world war.
posted by dis_integration at 10:37 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Well said, ZeusHumms, thank you.
posted by Melismata at 10:37 AM on November 9, 2016

Today, on this grim day, all the employees at my office learned that we will be getting a new health care plan next year. All the costs are going up, but especially notable: an ER visit will now be a $150 copay. An urgent care visit will now be a $75 copay. No more coverage for mental health care, including neurological problems.

And this is before the ACA is taken away. I can’t even imagine how much sicker our country is going to be, and how many people are going to die of preventable causes, once it is gone. I feel so despised, so fungible.

And my day at work is being spent cleaning up multiple messes of a mediocre white man who thinks he knows how to do everything (he doesn’t), so the whole day is one big rotten metaphor and I can’t stand it.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:39 AM on November 9, 2016 [23 favorites]

Amanda Marcotte: The Misogyny Apocalypse:

No one should be surprised that it was men, especially white men, who handed Trump this election. It’s been exhaustively established that the majority of white men in this country are consumed with resentment at being expected to treat women and racial minorities as equals, though of course some liberal journalists — usually white men themselves — kept valiantly trying to claim that it was “economic insecurity” that somehow drove the most prosperous group of Americans to kick angrily at those who objectively make less money and have less status than they do.

But many people hoped that women who typically vote Republican — enough of them, anyway — would see Mr. Grab Them by the Pussy as a wake-up call about how the men in their lives really feel about women and would, if only this once, quietly vote against hate and for their own dignity and that of their daughters.

That did not happen. Instead, as CNN exit polling has shown, 53 percent of white women, compared with 63 percent of white men, voted for Trump.

To be clear, a substantial portion of that vote was sheer racism. Make no mistake, there are women in this country who don’t care if Trump eschews the Bible and instead is sworn in with his hand on the pussy of an unwilling woman, so long as he does so while threatening to screw over Mexicans and Muslims. As the essays about benevolent sexism have warned, women can be just as vile and hateful as men.

posted by palindromic at 10:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

Scandinavia and the World presents: America's Makeover.
First time, IIRC, that a major character has been redesigned. Desperate times call for like measures.
posted by bouvin at 10:41 AM on November 9, 2016

Note: Elections have consequences.

Reminder: This may hurt A LOT.
posted by Annika Cicada at 10:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

who are they going to blame everything on when the country goes to hell in a handbag the next four years?

For those not old enough to remember the last couple of D->R transitions, just bear in mind that the Democratic Party will be to blame for all that is bad and horrible, even those things that can be proven in the historical record to be attributable to Republicans.
posted by aught at 10:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

"Sure am glad the Democrats have spent time dismantling the post 9/11 surveillance state and drone assassination programs lest it fall into the wrong hands."

I've been worried about this, deeply, for a while. I had forgotten my worry when it looked like Clinton was going to do a clean sweep, but now my worry returns. Power is dangerous, and it's important to make sure that it's limited, so that now, when we have a monster with access to the toolbox, we won't all die.

I have no faith in us all not dying.
posted by corb at 10:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

Yeah, like we're going to elect some rich narcissist with no experience and a penchant for starting stupid Twitter beefs.

The hero we'll need.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:42 AM on November 9, 2016

I know you're right. Hate has been vindicated. It has no reason to hide behind a veil of decency anymore. We're not going to recognize this country a year from now. You thought 2016 was terrible? 2017 is going to be the worst year of American life since the second world war.

As a well-meaning left-leaning liberal, I have gotten myself out of the habit of prognosticating the horrors of the future that will primarily affect other people, as things are tough enough without us looking into our crystal ball and seeing pain for others ahead.

As a Jew, I think I'm one of the ones who would have pain ahead, and would rather, at this moment, not to have my friends and allies insist that it must come, it is inevitable.
posted by maxsparber at 10:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [28 favorites]

that it must come, it is inevitable.

I don't think it must come or is inevitable. I am just afraid it will happen.
posted by waitingtoderail at 10:45 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I just want to say. I grew up in Georgia. My entire family voted for Trump, and they were always the politically "moderate" ones amongst my friends' parents. No confederate flags, no hate speech in the home, fostering a strong culture of volunteering and helping others in my brother and me. But their world and that world is so, so, small.

On a scale of 1 to "woke" I think in my fondest dreams I'm hitting somewhere around a 7, maybe. And it's because, largely, of metafilter, and the people I've met and known in real life because of mefi. People unafraid to call each other on their shit, people who are active and engaged, people who speak up for the smaller voices. Metafilter has made me a better person.

So thank you. And thank you all for being here making me feel less alone.
posted by phunniemee at 10:45 AM on November 9, 2016 [79 favorites]

Regarding the progressive wing of the Democratic party, I get that everyone's upset about Trump and that the desire is there to believe Bernie or another candidate could have done better than Clinton. Who knows? Maybe so, maybe not. Counterfactuals are fiction, there is no other option now. If you truly believe a more progressive candidate would have done better, great. Keep that belief and work for it and maybe in our next elections we can test that theory out and try and elect that person. I'm all for it and I'm sure most other left leaning folks will support the candidate too if that election comes.

What I will ask though is to think about refraining from blaming Clinton and past candidates and those who supported them and making this a us vs them battle on the left. I ask this not because you may or may not be right, which there is no way to prove, but because the desire to express that feeling isn't helpful and can hurt those who would be your allies. I'm suggesting that the urge to express specific anger at past candidates may have something more to do with placating one's own sense of frustration more than it does in helping work to defeating those on the right. Expressing belief in the values one supports is great, trying to figure out better ways to proceed is fine, but blame doesn't go anywhere useful, so I ask people to reflect a bit when they want to use it and see if there is a productive purpose involved.

This, of course, also goes for people who supported defeated candidates, arguing about their's truly having been better. That too is pointless other than looking at what seemed to work or not in the campaign. Don't try to make yourself feel better about a defeat by trying to bring someone else down.

Everyone deeply involved in elections is putting a lot of their emotional worth into the candidates they strongly support and work hard for, tearing each other down over the choices in candidates can be deeply hurtful in that measure. Let the past go and work for the future. Look at things that might be made better in a campaign or for elected officials, but try to leave the need for personal validation of one's belief by tearing down others on the same side out of it as much as possible. I would have been as proud to support Bernie as I was Hillary, and in any future contest I'll be pleased to support any other candidate along the same lines as either. Work in party to get the candidate you want, then work with party to get their candidate elected. That's the only way this works right now. Bickering after the fact is about us as individuals, not elections.
posted by gusottertrout at 10:45 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

I have gotten myself out of the habit of prognosticating the horrors of the future that will primarily affect other people, as things are tough enough without us looking into our crystal ball and seeing pain for others ahead.

Yes, thank you, I am really frustrated by this practice. White liberals, if you don't take these problems on as your own we'll never solve them.
posted by zutalors! at 10:47 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Ugh. All of my muslim coworkers are shaken...inspite of them being US citizens. So many concerns about bullying at their kids schools as well.
posted by asra at 10:47 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

As a Jew, I think I'm one of the ones who would have pain ahead, and would rather, at this moment, not to have my friends and allies insist that it must come, it is inevitable.

I get that. I'm sorry. I'm heartbroken. I feel like my dog just died.

But I'm not exactly bullish on the power of protest to change the direction of the country. But the Iraq war is what did that to me. People are saying: get involved in your local municipality! But I don't see an actual actionable path to stopping the GOP's political juggernaut at this point. They're going to make law. Your municipality can't defy the law as a form of protest. The worst elements of our society are getting what they want and they're getting it soon.

But please, talk me down from the precipice.
posted by dis_integration at 10:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

I am watching Malcolm Turnbull, the Australian PM, talk about this. He seems like he's trying to convince himself that everything isn't going to burn down. "The American people do fight their contests hard." but "Our relationship will continue to be strong and we will work together as we have done."
posted by corb at 10:48 AM on November 9, 2016

Joy Behar: Trump’s win proves ‘men can get away with anything and women can get away with nothing’:

Noted conservative Candace Cameron-Bure responded saying she understands the pain felt by her co-hosts, but hoped the country can come together with humility “because god says ‘when we humble ourselves.’”

“God says a lot of wonderful stuff, he really does,” Whoopi Goldberg responded. “And I like god a lot. But I have to say, given the bigger picture of what Donald Trump represents, it is not so comfortable for me because not only does he now threaten how things are going to be done with kids of color, with women’s rights, with my right to decide what is right for my body, not what somebody else says what is right.”

Goldberg asked “whether we are a nation who believes in people’s rights as they are Constitutionally guaranteed.”

“You know what I learned,” Behar replied. “I learned that, as usual men can get away with anything and women can get away with nothing. That’s what I learned.”

“He was unbelievably decisive, bigoted, racist, homophobic, against handicapped people, against John McCain, and yet he won,” she continued. “She made some mistakes, but not like that.”

posted by palindromic at 10:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [62 favorites]

Greenwald in TheIntercept:

The indisputable fact is that prevailing institutions of authority in the West, for decades, have relentlessly and with complete indifference stomped on the economic welfare and social security of hundreds of millions of people. While elite circles gorged themselves on globalism, free trade, Wall Street casino-gambling, and endless wars (wars that enriched the perpetrators and sent the poorest and most marginalized to bear all their burdens), they completely ignored the victims of their gluttony, except when those victims piped up a bit too much — when they caused a ruckus — and were then scornfully condemned as troglodytes who were the deserved losers in the glorious, global game of meritocracy.

And Jim Newell in Slate:

The party establishment made a grievous mistake rallying around Hillary Clinton. It wasn’t just a lack of recent political seasoning. She was a bad candidate, with no message beyond heckling the opposite sideline. She was a total misfit for both the politics of 2016 and the energy of the Democratic Party as currently constituted. She could not escape her baggage, and she must own that failure herself.

Theoretically smart people in the Democratic Party should have known that. And yet they worked giddily to clear the field for her. Every power-hungry young Democrat fresh out of law school, every rising lawmaker, every old friend of the Clintons wanted a piece of the action. This was their ride up the power chain. The whole edifice was hollow, built atop the same unearned sense of inevitability that surrounded Clinton in 2008, and it collapsed, just as it collapsed in 2008, only a little later in the calendar. The voters of the party got taken for a ride by the people who controlled it, the ones who promised they had everything figured out and sneeringly dismissed anyone who suggested otherwise. They promised that Hillary Clinton had a lock on the Electoral College. These people didn’t know what they were talking about, and too many of us in the media thought they did.

posted by Trochanter at 10:50 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

"Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

"Grab them by the pussy."
posted by tonycpsu at 10:50 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

On the one hand, I am grateful and proud to live in a diverse community where the people around me are of all backgrounds and mostly were against Trump. It makes it feel a little less hopeless and lonely. On the other hand, it is not at all abstract to my son what is at stake now. He knows his friend Faizan and his family face the possibility of being treated like potential terrorists. He knows his classmate Emilio may have his Dad sent away. He knows his babysitter and her bride may have their marriage made illegal before their ceremony. He's a smart kid with a big heart and he is surrounded by people with skin in the game and he's hurting for them.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:52 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Some of today's other US winners: infrastructure providers, banking stocks, big pharma, private prisons. oil and energy companies
posted by Mister Bijou at 10:52 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

was a bad candidate, with no message beyond heckling the opposite sideline.

Wait, what?
posted by Slothrup at 10:52 AM on November 9, 2016 [23 favorites]

She was a bad candidate, with no message beyond heckling the opposite sideline.

No message. Do they get Internet in the universe where Jim Newell lives?
posted by tonycpsu at 10:52 AM on November 9, 2016 [34 favorites]

Really good piece by Dylan Matthews: America is not, it turns out, better than this
posted by homunculus at 10:54 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Jeet Heer: Donald Trump Is the New World Disorder: By electing the Republican nominee, America has abdicated its role as the guarantor of the international liberal order.
posted by homunculus at 10:55 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

No message that was covered by news channels, maybe.
posted by dinty_moore at 10:55 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Here's what terrifies me the most.

The Missiles Are Flying.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:56 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't think I'll ever live to see a female president get elected now. I never thought this growing up, but this year I did. Shame on me for actually believing people weren't totally awful.
We have all kinds of drama going on at my work that boil down to "we need more people." Now as we end up with another Great Depression 2, we'll never hire anybody again and god knows we're not going to even have the option to get another job. I'm lucky that this one, even though it makes me crazy and my therapist is at wit's end as to what to say about it any more, has health insurance.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:56 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

She was a bad candidate, with no message beyond heckling the opposite sideline.

Oddly, this was a theme amongst my pro-Trump/anti-Clinton friends over the last week or so of the election -- "Clinton spends millions on ads attacking Trump's character but doesn't talk about what she would do if elected!"
posted by Etrigan at 10:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Tierney Sneed: What Happens To Obamacare Now?:

First, Republicans won’t be able to repeal the law full-stop. Without 60 votes to overcome a Senate filibuster, they will have to depend on the budget reconciliation process, which only requires 50 votes to strip out the budgetary aspects of the law. This was the template for a repeal bill Republicans passed last January, before its demise by President Obama’s veto pen. The exercise was described as a “test run” for just the scenario -- a GOP House, Senate and White House --they’ll find themselves in two months.

“This Congress, this House majority, this Senate majority, has already demonstrated and proven we're able to pass that legislation and put it on a president's desk,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said at a press conference Wednesday morning, when asked about the prospect of an Obamacare repeal.

In that bill, the law’s Medicaid expansion program, insurance subsidies, its tax penalty mandate, and other taxes to to fund its other programs would be scrapped. But its non-budgetary provisions, like its requirements that insurers don’t drop consumers on the basis of pre-existing condition and that they allow young people to stay on their parents plan until they’re 26, would continue to stand. The irony of this bootleg repeal method is that Republicans would likely inflict even more damage to Americans' insurance rates than a full scale repeal. Such an approach would leave some of law’s requirements in place without the sticks and carrots to make them work, and the whole system could be kicked even further out of order.

posted by palindromic at 10:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

And of course Kellyanne Conway is already saying that Trump has a mandate. The guy that got fewer votes than his opponent. As did Bush v. Gore. It's always a mandate if you are a Republican.
posted by JackFlash at 10:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [43 favorites]

Here's my quick list of what's going to change/be challenged

1. The ACA will be challenged/repealed
2. The DOJ Dear Colleague Trans support letter is now garbage
3. Gavin Grimm's supreme court case is now a question
4. Texas Versus ALL THE TRANS will gain support and reach the supreme court
5. the Supreme court will become regressive and conservative for 25-50 more years
6. HB2 styled laws will gain support nationwide with favorable conditions at the federal level.

It is my belief that if you are a trans person, you should be considering if this is the signal that our civilization is slowly dimming toward a darker age.

Much,much, much love. I'm here for anyone who needs to talk.
posted by Annika Cicada at 10:58 AM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

I am seriously having a problem being around men today. Even men I know

Me too, also the Bernie supporter white guys who feel emboldened to tell us all how right they were.
posted by zutalors! at 10:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [33 favorites]

Oddly, this was a theme amongst my pro-Trump/anti-Clinton friends over the last week or so of the election -- "Clinton spends millions on ads attacking Trump's character but doesn't talk about what she would do if elected!"

I don't think it's "oddly" in light of the horseshoe effect. Leftists and Trumpists using the same arguments is unremarkable at this point.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I am seriously having a problem being around men today. Even men I know

I'm a man and I was nervous going out to Target today.
posted by waitingtoderail at 11:00 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I don't think I'll ever live to see a female president get elected now.

Gabbard/Duckworth 2020. See Trump try to slur two vets.
posted by Apocryphon at 11:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

The party establishment made a grievous mistake rallying around Hillary Clinton. It wasn’t just a lack of recent political seasoning. She was a bad candidate, with no message beyond heckling the opposite sideline. She was a total misfit for both the politics of 2016 and the energy of the Democratic Party as currently constituted. She could not escape her baggage, and she must own that failure herself.

This is just not true. I don't know what "political seasoning" means, but her campaign had a clear message: the best triumphs in our history have been the times when we've lifted ourselves and each other up, America is at its best when everyone succeeds, and I'm the candidate who will do that. Voters said, "forget that, America is at its best when white men succeed."

There are plenty of opportunities to criticize the Clinton campaign for its tactical decisions. There were definitely times I wished it was a more policy-focused campaign, but I remind you that her policies were just soundly rejected, by the standards of the electoral college anyway, by voters who put repealing Obamacare as one of their top priorities for the country. And it wasn't about "heckling the opposite sideline," it was about standing up for the fundamental human dignity and rights of hundreds of millions of people. The election was about the issues, the ones that matter to a whole lot of people, apparently a slim majority in fact: misogyny, racism, and xenophobia.
posted by zachlipton at 11:01 AM on November 9, 2016 [38 favorites]

I'm a white guy having to fight down the urge to apologize to every woman and POC I see today, as though it wouldn't be insane and awkward for me to start pleading with strangers in line at the gas station, "NO NO NO I WAS ONE OF THE GOOD ONES WE ARE ALL COOL PLEASE SORRY."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:02 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Kanye 2020? Fuck it, I'm in
posted by thelonius at 11:02 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

traveler_: After seeing how Jesse Ventura failed to get much of anything done in Minnesota, this might be a glimmer of hope.

Mitheral: Donald Trump is going to have access to 100% of the security briefings. He's got quite a bit more embodied power than any governor.

Trump's refusal to accept intelligence briefing on Russia stuns experts (October 14, 2016 - Chicago Tribune)

Just because he has access to resources doesn't mean he'll use them (wisely).
posted by filthy light thief at 11:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Just read the words "Trump Presidential Library" somewhere. I guess at some stage that will be a reality. I'm torn between despising the very notion of it, and hoping it happens as soon as possible as that means his term ended and it ended in a world where buildings/libraries/books still exist.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 11:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Alex Pareene: Fuck Everything and Blame Everyone:

Blame white people. Blame white men in particular, but reserve plenty of blame for white women. Blame old people, too. Blame rich people, as always. Blame the public at large for Donald fucking Trump getting more votes than Donald Duck. Democracy enacts the will of the public; this is what the public wants.

Blame the Founders for enshrining white supremacy in our constitution and making it nearly impossible to fully expunge. Blame a political system that advantages rural areas at the expense of urban ones, mostly in order to preserve our white supremacist heritage. Blame the electoral college and blame the people in power who have done nothing to stop this exact circumstance—a candidate winning the popular vote but losing the election—from happening for the second time in 16 years. Blame the people who put them in power without a mandate to fundamentally change the mechanisms of a system designed for an 18th-century slave society.

Get this done up as the most depressing Trainspotting poster ever.
posted by palindromic at 11:04 AM on November 9, 2016 [31 favorites]

First, Republicans won’t be able to repeal the law full-stop. Without 60 votes to overcome a Senate filibuster, they will have to depend on the budget reconciliation process, which only requires 50 votes to strip out the budgetary aspects of the law.

This assumes they don't do away with the filibuster and any other means of Democratic obstructionism. They may very well go full scorched earth while they have the chance.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 11:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

(Putin advisor) Markov denied Russian interference in the election, but said “maybe we helped a bit with WikiLeaks.”
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:05 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Gabbard/Duckworth 2020. See Trump try to slur two vets.

The Curious Islamophobic Politics of Dem Congressmember Tulsi Gabbard

No thanks.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:06 AM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

I don't think I'll ever live to see a female president get elected now.

Warren, Nina Turner, Zephyr Teachout. Women with more to offer than more neo-libralism, their gender and their ambition.
posted by Trochanter at 11:06 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

She could not escape her baggage, and she must own that failure herself.

One thing women know for definite is that they cannot escape their baggage. Ever. Men can have pasts, murky, horrible pasts, sexually abusive or murderous pasts even. Women must be perfect from the very moment they hit puberty otherwise they are "fair game".

I'm oddly reminded of a comment I saw recently regarding the trajectory of Winona Ryders career following the shoplifting, versus the accusations regarding Johnny Depp's alleged abuse and him continuing to receive roles in blockbuster movies.

No mistakes, women.
posted by threetwentytwo at 11:06 AM on November 9, 2016 [141 favorites]

Brittney Cooper: Donald Trump's Triumph Is a Victory for White Supremacy:

I begin with racism, when perhaps I might have begun with sexism and patriarchy, because white women voters didn’t vote their gender interests. They voted for their racial interests. Based on exit polls, 53 percent of white women voted for Donald Trump. These women voted for a man who bragged about sexually assaulting women. They voted for a man who routinely insults women and reduces them to sexual objects. These same exit polls indicate that 64 percent of white Protestant women voted for a man who doesn’t even know the correct name for his favorite book of the Bible.

Ninety-six percent of black women voters voted for Hillary Clinton. Those percentages of support are on par with our levels of support for President Obama. Seventy-four percent of Latina women supported Clinton. Women of color voted for their gender and racial interests, while the majority of white women voters have decided that shoring up the project of white supremacy is what matters most. It is women of color, and black women in particular, who keep on saving democracy. We have been most deeply committed to a progressive agenda that moves the nation forward inch by inch in a way that includes vulnerable populations like children, the elderly, those with disabilities, immigrants, and queer communities. Last night, our rescue mission was thwarted.

posted by palindromic at 11:07 AM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

This is interesting... The DNC tried to shape the discourse to elevate Trump.
What's the provenance of that screenshot?

I've seen it before, it's from Wikileaks. It's from the attachment to this Podesta email.
posted by cosmic.osmo at 11:07 AM on November 9, 2016

It's comfortable liberal elites obsessed with their make-believe president from the Bush years and their hip-hop Schoolhouse Rock that sleepwalked us into this disaster. Throwing out that security blanket is way overdue.

ThinkProgress: "Josiah Bartlet Was A Mediocre President"
The American Prospect: "The Case Against Jed Bartlet:"

At least Frank Underwood's America Works could have reached out to disaffected working class whites
posted by Apocryphon at 11:07 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

That's nice, but I think my reasons may be a little different.

Undoubtedly.
posted by waitingtoderail at 11:08 AM on November 9, 2016

Charles Pierce: I Am Sure of Nothing Now
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:08 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

A fascist’s win; America’s moral loss

I asked people to see the worst in our country so that we could preserve the best of it. American exceptionalism was never real. It was a myth of hubris, and a deep denial of the past. We are a country founded on slave labour and stolen land. We are a country where white mobs lynched blacks for entertainment, and white parents told their children to gather around and cheer.

Children are taught in school that these injustices are exceptions, but they are the rule. The willful blindness to injustice is the real American exceptionalism. We deny our worst instincts. And now we may have elected them.

posted by gladly at 11:08 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

My only pleasure at the moment is anticipating which of the toadies around him Trump will throw to the wolves the first moment he feels like it. Or he gets mad that he can't do something.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 11:09 AM on November 9, 2016

Alex Pareene leaves out "Blame Alex Pareene for being a total dickweasel in trying to justify his 'I'm too good for voting' stance."
posted by tonycpsu at 11:09 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Alex Pareene: Fuck Everything and Blame Everyone:

Alex Pareene two days ago:

I guess I’m one of the mythical “undecided voters,” in that I am undecided as to whether I will vote at all. There are surely more undecided voters like me than of the other type, those civic-minded numbskulls who populate televised town halls and Frank Luntz focus groups because they are positive they will vote, but are somehow unable to choose between the two major-party candidates. If the Democrats needed my vote I’d cast it, but they don’t, and so I don’t really know why I’d bother...

This might be my favorite New Yorker cartoon ever, by the way.
posted by Trochanter at 11:11 AM on November 9, 2016 [22 favorites]

They offered aspirin for a broken arm.

I feel like Trump's solutions amount to inexpert surgery on the other, unbroken arm, so that's not a huge comfort even if right.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 11:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Ari Berman: The GOP’s Attack on Voting Rights Was the Most Under-Covered Story of 2016. This was the first presidential election in 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act.
posted by homunculus at 11:12 AM on November 9, 2016 [36 favorites]

In that bill, the law’s Medicaid expansion program, insurance subsidies, its tax penalty mandate, and other taxes to to fund its other programs would be scrapped. But its non-budgetary provisions, like its requirements that insurers don’t drop consumers on the basis of pre-existing condition and that they allow young people to stay on their parents plan until they’re 26, would continue to stand. The irony of this bootleg repeal method is that Republicans would likely inflict even more damage to Americans' insurance rates than a full scale repeal. Such an approach would leave some of law’s requirements in place without the sticks and carrots to make them work, and the whole system could be kicked even further out of order.

Can there be an individual insurance market where pre-existing conditions are covered and there's no mandate and no subsidies? Surely prices would skyrocket, leading anybody not in dire need of insurance and enough money to pay for it to drop coverage, leading to an increasingly sick risk pool, leading to higher prices, until the market has death-spiraled away. Insurers will just pull out of the individual market entirely, it was happening a bunch even before the ACA, and tens of millions of people, healthy and sick, well off and poor, will have no option for health insurance whatsoever.
posted by zachlipton at 11:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Just read the words "Trump Presidential Library" somewhere.

you go inside and it's literally just a Sharper Image store from the early 90s
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [41 favorites]

Alex Pareene leaves out "Blame Alex Pareene for being a total dickweasel in trying to justify his 'I'm too good for voting' stance."

I guess the rant is wrong, then.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Curious Islamophobic Politics of Dem Congressmember Tulsi Gabbard

Hillary Clinton's Anti-Islamophobia Campaign Is Nothing but Veiled Opportunism

It's a long road until 2020 anyway.
posted by Apocryphon at 11:13 AM on November 9, 2016

My daughter is in Secondary School and reported (in hushed exasperation) that in the mock election at her school it was 85% for Trump.

I reminder her than in her class of 25 students, only one or two can be counted upon to even listen in class. Teenagers are idiots and like to provoke people; it's in growing up and learning that they change.

I noted that this national result enforces the idea that some people never grow up.
posted by NiteMayr at 11:13 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

phunniemee: Anyone saying it'll "be fine", please give me a script for how to talk to [my girl scout troop] tomorrow.

If nothing else, deportations won't happen as quickly as Donald has claimed (11 million people deported was his goal, and deportations have peaked recently at about 400,000 a year). It's not an "everything will be fine" statement, but "they can't get everyone right away." Still really terrifying, so I'm not sure if it's any comfort to young kids who recognize someone in their family could be one of those 400k in the next year.

(when typing "how quickly," the first suggestion from Google Chrome was "how quickly can you get a passport." If you're looking for an exit, here's a Reddit write-up on getting dual citizenship with Luxembourg, which my wife joked about a few days ago, but mentioned last night as something we should probably do, to take advantage of the opportunity that ends December 31, 2018.)
posted by filthy light thief at 11:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Warren, Nina Turner, Zephyr Teachout. Women with more to offer than more neo-libralism, their gender and their ambition.

So sorry that Clinton's decades of public service was "nothing to offer" for you. Or that her focus on women's rights just meant "offering us her gender". Also BTW, "ambition" just comes with the package if you want to be leader of the free world.
posted by zutalors! at 11:14 AM on November 9, 2016 [104 favorites]

"I am seriously afraid that this is the start of the end of the American experiment. "

I think it kind of ended a few years back: The Senate and Electoral College were already skewed, and over-represent rural interests. Then the GOP gerrymandered the House, making it very much the same. Then they refused to vote on a SCOTUS nominee. So all four bodies of American government are sewn up for the party in power, and there are neither checks nor balances that could undo any of it. That's when it ended.
posted by jetsetsc at 11:16 AM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

GRRM: "Winter is coming. I told you so."
posted by homunculus at 11:17 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

On the bright side, at least we won't be hearing about deficits and the debt ceiling for at least four years.

First up, repeal of the Obamacare taxes on the rich which will increase the deficit.
posted by JackFlash at 11:17 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

in some ways I find the expressions of idiot joy from the assholes who actually wanted Trump to win less irritating than the I-told-you-soing from our friends on the lefty-left who are thrilled to see "neo-liberalism" die while extreme-rightism is bouncing around full of spit and energy right behind them
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:18 AM on November 9, 2016 [64 favorites]

Friends, I kept my composure through last night growing dread, through this morning's surreal headlines, through Hillary's strong, principled speech today.

And then I just couldn't anymore.

I was broken by two high school kids talking. I overheard them in a common area of the high school I visit each week.

One, a senior, shared his dismay and despair at explaining to his mom why her vote for Trump was a bad thing. He tried to get her to acknowledge that she was empowering people who would like to see him, a gay man, dead. He said she laughed and told him Trump only cares about the economy.

His friend, an African American in her junior year, said she has been barely holding back tears all morning and feels powerless. Her eyes were just brimming with tears.

I wanted so badly to sit down with them and just listen, but I had to leave for my next appointment. I got to my car and just lost it.
posted by Caxton1476 at 11:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [35 favorites]

Islamist extremists celebrate Trump’s election win

ISIS, Putin, and the KKK got the candidate they wanted.
posted by bluecore at 11:19 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Ashley Feinberg is tweeting about some of the anti-semetic tweets she has gotten since the election.
posted by drezdn at 11:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

>Islamist extremists celebrate Trump’s election win

"Trump’s victory is a powerful slap to those promoting the benefits of democratic mechanisms,” tweeted Hamza al-Karibi, a media spokesman for Syrian jihadist group Jabhat Fatah al-Sham,

hard to disagree
posted by cotton dress sock at 11:21 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

#NotAllWhiteGuys#juststatisticallymorethanlikely
posted by Damienmce at 11:22 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Brian Beutler: Shame on Us, the American Media:

A key component of successful journalism is the unearthing and relaying of facts, and on this score the media—faced with an historically opaque candidate and one with an instinct for opacity but a long public record—did a good job. Despite Trump’s best efforts, we know much more about him today than we did before this election started. Through less laborious processes we also know more about Hillary Clinton.

But another key component of journalism is the framing and contextualizing of events and new information: How do you take that raw material and present it in ways that don’t just provide consumers with new data points, but help them suss out how critical those data points are and what they mean in the scheme of things?

Here, major media outlets failed abysmally.

posted by palindromic at 11:22 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I love Sam Bee, John Oliver, and Trevor Noah, but I really wish Larry Wilmore still had his show right about now.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:22 AM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

What was that about "all out of evens"?

I'm of the opinion that we're nowhere near rock bottom, but we're hurtling downwards at a steady clip now.

But really, I'm done. I'm checking out for the next few days because my mental health kinda demands it. But when I come back I'm going to be itching to know WHAT THE FUCK WE CAN DO TO HELP FIX THIS (especially as someone with nearly crippling social anxiety among other things).

Good luck to all of you, especially those put most at risk because of this. And a big that you to MeFi for being here through the entire thing. I finally became connected with this fine, fine community through this disaster, and I don't know where my mental state would be without you.
posted by Gaz Errant at 11:23 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

"We have nothing polite to say right now." - Bernie Sanders' camp.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [47 favorites]

We will see a woman as President. We are one of the final few free nations that hasn't had one yet. It'll happen.

And the Democratic Party is absolutely full of very qualified, scandal-free, popular women who will make very good candidates in the future. And next time, hopefully, they will actually run, rather than fall in line and wait their turn, which didn't work out so well last night.

So yesterday's candidate didn't work, no. But tomorrow's can.
posted by rokusan at 11:24 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

This might be my favorite New Yorker cartoon ever, by the way.

Huh, I thought it was going to be a drawing of trump with the caption: "Christ, what an asshole."
posted by OHenryPacey at 11:26 AM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

I'm confused though: if the GOP will soon control all three branches of federal government (including both legislative houses), a majority of the governorships, and a healthy majority of state governments in general, who are they going to blame everything on when the country goes to hell in a handbag the next four years?

I believe they don't have a plan to govern, just to loot. I don't think this means the Republicans have new life, or that the party is not in disarray. They have only known how to be the victim and yell about how much better things would be if they were in power. Things will not be good. I'll bet that the party and Trump will crash and burn quickly.

This doesn't at all mean I am optimistic. We will all crash and burn with them.

It's taken until my 50's but I have finally realized this is not the world I thought it was.

I've had a lot of doubts over the last 20 years, and felt we were on the cusp of big change, and not for the better. Most of it though had to do with things like art, music, and the general mindset of people who don't seem to be looking forward, or moving forward. Society has seemed stagnant. The Trump thing is a symptom. I have felt, in ways that are hard to describe, about various dots that are hard to connect, that we are moving into one of those periods of history that people will be trying to understand later.

Every so often people seem to just lose their minds collectively and burn everything down. I don't think anyone knows why. At the moment of 911 my overwhelming thought was "everything just changed and will never come back". This is all connected. Al Qaeda, ISIS, they to burn it all down too. This isn't just something happening in the U.S. I can't help but think of Fight Club.

I'm not sure this is a bump in the road. I think there is a good chance Conservatives will meltdown and Liberals will make a comeback. I don't know if that will be too late. But people don't learn. The history books will just say that somehow this terrible period happened, but somehow people made it through it.
posted by bongo_x at 11:26 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

A few comments removed. I know this is a rough fuckin' day after and there's lots to be frustrated by, but let's try to keep it cool, and keep reporting of experiences more on the "here's where I am" front rather than "this is how they are", etc.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:26 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

re: The exit poll numbers floating around. Are we suddenly trusting polls again? Or are they a significantly different beast (or lining up well enough with actual results)?
posted by ODiV at 11:27 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I love Sam Bee, John Oliver, and Trevor Noah...

Me, too, but I also remember they all played a role in putting Trump on TV for 23 hours every day. I expect some introspection is coming.

Just... well. Fuck 2016.
posted by rokusan at 11:28 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Speaking of the New Yorker and Kanye West and 2020...
posted by Apocryphon at 11:29 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

They can't possibly have counted every single ballot so far. What about absentee ballots?

What.about recall elections ? Sure, he roofied half the country but that shit will wear off with the second or third major fuck up.
posted by y2karl at 11:30 AM on November 9, 2016

Donald Trump’s election is a disaster for gunmakers. Really.

Here’s one theory for what’s going on: In recent years, gun sales have been driven by fears of gun confiscations. Gun sales soared after Obama’s election in 2008 and again when he was reelected in 2012, as people worried that the president would begin to confiscate the nation’s firearms.

In contrast, gun owners have little to fear from a Trump presidency or a Republican Congress. So gunmakers are likely to make fewer sales over the next four years.

Donald Trump’s presidency is going to be a disaster for the white working class

Lower-income whites are not going to suffer from Trump’s restrictions on Muslims traveling, or from his mass deportations, or from his cavalier attitude toward police brutality. But Trump has promised an economic agenda that will increase the ranks of the uninsured by tens of millions, which will eliminate crucial safety net programs for low- and moderate-income Americans, which could start a trade war that drives up prices and devastates the economy, and that will put in place a tax code that exacerbates inequality and leaves many families with children worse off.

That affects all Americans — and with Republicans retaining control over the House and Senate, it stands a very good chance of passing.

posted by tonycpsu at 11:30 AM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

The exit poll numbers floating around. Are we suddenly trusting polls again? Or are they a significantly different beast (or lining up well enough with actual results)?

The exit polls have been shown to be broken. They do not line up well with actual results. We have no way of knowing how demographics actually voted, just how they said they voted.
posted by corb at 11:30 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

My assumption is that a Berlusconi type disaster will be a win.
posted by uraniumwilly at 11:30 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I can't stop cleaning everything in my house. It needed it, but it feels compulsive.
My dog has spent the morning under the couch.
I just donated to the ACLU.
I am thinking of volunteering at Planned Parenthood near my house. Why, yes, that is the one that was shot up nearly a year ago.
posted by mochapickle at 11:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

Since people are talking about rock bottom, here's an article detailing the cause and result of declining living standards in Trump Country.

Has nothing to do with Obama. Doesn't really have much to do with the GOP. It's a simple inevitable result of a way of life that depends on more infrastructure spending than it can possibly gather up in taxes.

The decline is not going to stop under Trump. And he may still not be blamed for it, so long as those rootless cosmopolitans daring to live in the city and ride a bike are available as scapegoats.

So we are still nowhere near rock bottom.
posted by ocschwar at 11:32 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

My assumption is that a Berlusconi type disaster will be a win.

So could someone explain to me what happened with Berlusconi, I tried his wikipedia article but it seemed mostly positive?
posted by drezdn at 11:33 AM on November 9, 2016

This is Hell.
posted by asteria at 11:33 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

And the Democratic Party is absolutely full of very qualified, scandal-free, popular women

Honestly, the idea of anyone being "scandal-free" after decades of public life, more so a woman, is vanishing unlikely. Whether the scandal is real or manufactured.
posted by threetwentytwo at 11:33 AM on November 9, 2016 [24 favorites]

HL Mencken might have predicted this outcome.

“...Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly.”

http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2011/09/no-one-ever-went-broke-underestimating.html
posted by knoyers at 11:33 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I am seriously having a problem being around men today. Even men I know.

As a dude, I totally get and respect that and wish you well. Do what you feel is right for your well being and safety.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:33 AM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

Look, I don't care if he didn't vote, because it's true that he lives in NY and it didn't matter, but I saw this time and time again-- people living in safe states writing/tweeting glibly about not voting, about how awful Hillary was, so on and so forth. Did they think that nobody from a battleground state was reading?

Ok Pareene is a shitheel and his "undecided voter" nonsense enraged me too, but I'm sure I'm not alone as someone who had serious, serious misgivings about Clinton from the beginning who tried to keep them quiet because I felt it was the responsible thing, to try not damaging the likely nominee.

I don't even really blame Clinton, though I was never sold on her skills as a politician. She would be top of the list for me as far as humane and thoughtful people who nonetheless defend an inhuman and mindless machine because she thinks we are powerless to choose an alternative and she lives at a safe remove from its victims. She's a damn sight better than John Kerry and she was a much better establishment choice than Jim Webb or the inexplicably popular Joe Biden. But she was the symbol of this system, whether we like it or not. That Trump wasn't a symbol of this in even greater measure is an injustice, and indeed one that lay rooted deeply in racism and especially misogyny, but that is beside the point.

There simply weren't enough fascists to get Trump into the White House if the righteous anger of so many left behind could have found a home on the left. Instead, it was shut out in favor of the cozy clique of sycophants that smiled the toothy grin of someone who could afford dental care and assured us that everything was all right, and Secretary Clinton was the seasoned hand to guide this totally still functioning democratic and economic systems.

God, I wish the Draft Warren movement hadn't died. I know she has been great where she is in the Senate, but I'm convinced she would be President Elect Warren right now.

At least there's 2020 maybe? Please? I want her in the White House and I want out of this timeline.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 11:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

so long as those rootless cosmopolitans daring to live in the city and ride a bike are available as scapegoats.

Could I ask that we be careful with that phrase?
posted by maxsparber at 11:34 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

Trans people. Get your passports NOW.
posted by AFABulous at 11:35 AM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

God, I wish the Draft Warren movement hadn't died. I know she has been great where she is in the Senate, but I'm convinced she would be President Elect Warren right now.

Here we go again.
posted by cooker girl at 11:36 AM on November 9, 2016 [23 favorites]

Don't let anyone tell you that you are out of touch with America because you voted with 60 million Americans instead of a different 60 million Americans.
posted by ckape at 11:37 AM on November 9, 2016 [83 favorites]

Honest question for the "death of neoliberalism" crowd: what would you like to see? Because as I see it, Clinton wasn't running on neoliberalism. She was running on government social programs like child care, expanding and improving the ACA (including a public option), and helping students afford public colleges. She was running on raising the minimum wage, higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and increased use of government regulation to protect people and the environment. And whether anybody believed her or not is a reasonable question, but she came out against TPP pretty early in the primaries, and as the number of people chanting during her DNC acceptance speech made abundantly clear, people were going to hold her to that.

Could she have gone farther? Certainly. Was her record spotless on these issues? Of course not (though some of that involves imputing her husband's record on her, and some is on her). Did you distrust her and think she'll ignore everything she ran on? Some people surely did. But I don't see any of the hallmarks of neoliberalism in her campaign. She wasn't running on "the era of big government is over." She didn't spend her time talking disdainfully about "big government bureaucrats" and cutting spending and the deficit. She didn't run on privatization and entitlement cutbacks and the deregulation of the financial sector.

So what does the death of neoliberalism mean in terms of actual policy, rather than "I don't like this candidate so I've applied this label?"
posted by zachlipton at 11:37 AM on November 9, 2016 [49 favorites]

I am related by blood to a lot of white Trump supporters - male and female - and you know why Hillary didn't work for them but they all voted for her husband in the 90's?

Because she had Mothers of the Movement up on stage. Because she talked about "systemic racism" and white privilege. Because she hugged a black man that they hated more than anything.

Until we talk about that side of white America, we're going to keep running into this problem. It's not about Hillary not being perfect enough. It's about the cancer that is eating America from within.
posted by asteria at 11:38 AM on November 9, 2016 [78 favorites]

I'm deeply concerned that we are seeing the emergence of the sultanism failure mode of presidential systems of government:

[T]he essential reality in a sultanistic regime is that all individuals, groups and institutions are permanently subject to the unpredictable and despotic intervention of the sultan, and thus all pluralism is precarious.

Examples include "Haiti under the Duvaliers, the Dominican Republic under Trujillo, the Central African Republic under Bokassa, the Philippines under Marcos, Romania under Ceauşescu, and North Korea under Kim Il Sung."

Presidential systems are inherently unstable. America has long been the lone exception, but the Republicans under Trump threaten to permanently break it.
posted by jedicus at 11:39 AM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

Well, let's see. Friday I got laid off from my job, which means I have about three weeks left of healthcare benefits from there. Yesterday, this clusterfuck. Today, I found out that my family doctor of three decades died suddenly a couple of weeks ago and his office is now closed permanently.

I know that conservatives wanted to change the face of American health care but WHAT THE FUCK AT LEAST PACE YOURSELVES A LITTLE
posted by delfin at 11:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [41 favorites]

We've been quoting Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton quite a bit. Here's a quote from the actual Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist No. 68, on the topic of the electoral college:

The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.

Hamilton was a genius, and that may have been true for a long time, but we've seen it fail twice in recent history, and fail in a tragic way this year. As it functions now, the electoral college is the inverse of what Hamilton envisioned. It allows someone with nothing but "talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity" to ascend to the presidency with by eking out a victory in the right combination of states while the more qualified candidate convinces enough citizens of his or her merit to win the popular vote. We saw that in 2000, and we saw it yesterday, when we had two candidates with the largest gap in experience, demeanor, and qualifications in American history and the electoral college gave us a fascist buffoon. The process does not do what it was designed to do, and it's time we realized that and scrapped it in favor of something else.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [36 favorites]

If you didn't watch that Jay Smooth Ill Doctrine video that droplet shared earlier, consider watching it. Its worth it.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:40 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Whether the scandal is real or manufactured.

Remember, this year's Clinton scandals included Hillary's lesbian relationship with Huma and her being an actual witch. These were real things that real people believed. How does someone like Elizabeth Warren get out of that? There's no way out of that. I think there's a huge number of people in the US right now, still, who will not believe that a woman has risen to power without simultaneously believing that she must be doing other things that are against what they consider to be social norms. All this talk about Hillary's allegedly horrible behavior, especially the most sensational bits is just code for, "She's here, so she must have done something wrong, why isn't she home being a grandma right now."
posted by Sequence at 11:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [28 favorites]

as I see it, Clinton wasn't running on neoliberalism

The question for the Democrats will be whether she should've.
posted by jpe at 11:41 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

So could someone explain to me what happened with Berlusconi, I tried his wikipedia article but it seemed mostly positive?

I'm sorry I don't have anything definitive. You might try the Economist articles for a conservative perspective on his legacy. He was a disaster but he didn't actually kill western society by way of some Trumpian spastic reaction to a crisis or by causing a depression or going to war.
posted by uraniumwilly at 11:42 AM on November 9, 2016

The process does not do what it was designed to do, and it's time we realized that and scrapped it in favor of something else.

Support the passage of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact in your state! If it passed in every state that Clinton won plus PA and MI, it would need only 9 more electoral votes worth of states to become effective. It already has 61% of the necessary EVs, and the most recent states to pass it did so this year, so it's very much a live project.
posted by jedicus at 11:42 AM on November 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

I am watching the Facebook feeds of women who are mourning Hillary Clinton's loss. The men are jumping in and jabbing, mansplaining then saying they are just playing with them. To all of you I say, just click on the name of the troll, and block them. Ban them everyone. These guys, and women too, have no respect, and just step right in to let them know how depraved and thoughtless they were to begin with, block them. Consider it a gift to yourself, to keep your pages how you want them to be.
posted by Oyéah at 11:42 AM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

On the plus side my email this morning was about 1/3 or 1/4 of usual, and I thought something was wrong until I realized it was all the missing political emails. I did get this message from the Democratic Party though;

We're now only hours away from making history by electing our first woman president, not to mention one of the most qualified people ever to hold the office...

Jesus people, that hurt.
posted by bongo_x at 11:43 AM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

News from the absurd: CBS' Big Brother: Production will reveal election results to houseguests — exclusive
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:43 AM on November 9, 2016

My fear: Supreme Court Justice Ted Cruz
posted by Aubergine at 11:44 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Hamilton did not envision that Electors would be selected by popular votes in a simultaneous national campaign and on slates irrevocably pledged to a specific candidate. A system where Electors were personally elected, or even appointed on a merit-based system, without any pledge ... would be a very different Presidential election system, and, indeed, would result in a pretty different sort of President.
posted by MattD at 11:44 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

There simply weren't enough fascists to get Trump into the White House if the righteous anger of so many left behind could have found a home on the left. Instead, it was shut out in favor of the cozy clique of sycophants that smiled the toothy grin of someone who could afford dental care and assured us that everything was all right, and Secretary Clinton was the seasoned hand to guide this totally still functioning democratic and economic systems.

God, I wish the Draft Warren movement hadn't died. I know she has been great where she is in the Senate, but I'm convinced she would be President Elect Warren right now.

I'm having trouble reconciling these two paragraphs. The righteous anger of Trump supporters is a vastly different flavor than the righteous anger of Warren supporters. Deplorables are not Occupiers.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:44 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

NYT, WashPo, MSNBC, CBS, Bloomberg, AP, tronc (tronc!), NPR (DTMFNPRA), and the rest of the MSM - gone.

I don't twit and I don't Facepal so it looks like you and me ol' Bluey.

Good ol' Bluey.
I'm so glad we had this time together
Just to have a laugh, or sing a song
It seems we just get started, and before you know it
Comes the time we have to say - so long

See you next week, MetaFilter!
*tugs ear*
posted by petebest at 11:45 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

And of course Kellyanne Conway is already saying that Trump has a mandate. The guy that got fewer votes than his opponent. As did Bush v. Gore. It's always a mandate if you are a Republican.

This is what I always remind people who say that they're going to not vote, "to make a statement." Literally nobody cares about votes that were never cast by anyone. And if that non-voter truly believes that there is literally no difference between the two candidates who have a chance of winning, then they're being the worst kind of willfully ignorant.

I'll never forget how physically sick I felt the first time Bush, Jr. declared that he had a mandate. I swore I could never take that again,and yet here we are because some people just can't be bothered to grow the hell up.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:45 AM on November 9, 2016 [28 favorites]

In contrast, gun owners have little to fear from a Trump presidency or a Republican Congress. So gunmakers are likely to make fewer sales over the next four years.

Expect to see an uptick in "liberals beware, the conservatives are armed so you'd better arm yourself because they're coming for you" style think-pieces and marketing in the next bunch of years. I see an ad image of a Duck Dynasty style dude with a Confederate flag and a shotgun and a caption like "He's armed - shouldn't you be, too?"
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

"He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know but could have learned from books: that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city."
-Camus
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:46 AM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

I don't fear Cruz as a Supreme; I think he may be on the president-elect's short list of people to destroy.

I am afraid of what the near future holds for the Court, though. That's just about the only thing that can't be fought or bargained with in this whole mess, and I don't think we have any idea what an 'activist' court truly is yet.
posted by Mooski at 11:47 AM on November 9, 2016

I see an ad image of a Duck Dynasty style dude with a Confederate flag and a shotgun and a caption like "He's armed - shouldn't you be, too?"

Have gun companies ever done that? Will they start taking ads out in MaximumRockNRoll?
posted by drezdn at 11:48 AM on November 9, 2016

faced with an historically opaque candidate and one with an instinct for opacity but a long public record

This is total nonsense. Clinton has been the most transparent candidate in history.

She released 37 years of her tax returns.
She released her medical records, which is why you know she has hypothyroidism and had a blood clot in her head.
She released the names and amounts of donations to her charity even though not required to.
She released all of her emails while in office, something never done by any major figure in government in history.

If she hadn't voluntarily released her medical records, Trump wouldn't have been able to lie about her having "seizures."

If she hadn't voluntarily released the charity information, the NYT wouldn't have had any story to trump up about donors and she might be President-elect right now.

If she had just deleted her emails like her predecessor Colin Powell, there would be no Comey Surprise and she might be President-elect right now.

This idea that Clinton was opaque is a lie perpetrated by the media that even Democrats bought into and why a lot of them stayed home.
posted by JackFlash at 11:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [159 favorites]

Expect to see an uptick in "liberals beware, the conservatives are armed so you'd better arm yourself because they're coming for you" style think-pieces and marketing in the next bunch of years. I see an ad image of a Duck Dynasty style dude with a Confederate flag and a shotgun and a caption like "He's armed - shouldn't you be, too?"

Very, very thinly sliced to advertise only to white liberals.
posted by Etrigan at 11:48 AM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Expect to see an uptick in "liberals beware, the conservatives are armed so you'd better arm yourself because they're coming for you" style think-pieces and marketing in the next bunch of years. I see an ad image of a Duck Dynasty style dude with a Confederate flag and a shotgun and a caption like "He's armed - shouldn't you be, too?"

I understand we may go off on silly paranoia as we contemplate the future, but the expectation that some conservative is coming for me with a gun is definitely not on my list of expectations.
posted by uraniumwilly at 11:50 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Days like this I really wish I had an active, healthy Humanist or Ethical Culture community nearby.
posted by audi alteram partem at 11:50 AM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I just can't stop crying.

But I yearn for better thoughts in my head, and ways to keep myself connected to that inspiration and hope that Hillary sparked in us.

Apologies for quoting the whole thing, but - Ani DiFranco's "Joyful Girl" is helping me right now:

i do it for the joy it brings
because i'm a joyful girl
because the world owes me nothing
and we owe each other the world
i do it because it's the least i can do
i do it because i learned it from you
and i do it just because i want to
because i want to

everything i do is judged
and they mostly get it wrong
but oh well
'cuz the bathroom mirror has not budged
and the woman who lives there can tell
the truth from the stuff that they say
and she looks me in the eye
and says would you prefer the easy way
no, well o.k. then
don't cry

i wonder if everything i do
i do instead
of something i want to do more
the question fills my head
i know there's no grand plan here
this is just the way it goes
when everything else seems unclear
i guess at least i know

i do it for the joy it brings
because i'm a joyful girl
because the world owes me nothing
and we owe each other the world
i do it because it's the least i can do
i do it because i learned it from you
and i do it just because i want to
because i want to

And trying to take heart:

"Let us not grow weary, let us not lose heart. For there are more seasons to come and there is more work to do." - Hillary Clinton

Tears today. Onward tomorrow.
posted by kristi at 11:50 AM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

Hamilton did not envision that Electors would be selected by popular votes in a simultaneous national campaign and on slates irrevocably pledged to a specific candidate

True enough, but as it stands now we have the worst of both worlds. Enough popular vote in the system to let fools ascend, but not enough for them to be stopped by the majority of voters statewide.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:50 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

If gun companies started specifically targeting the left, wouldn't that practically be bordering on "Have you considered armed insurrection?"
posted by drezdn at 11:52 AM on November 9, 2016

If gun companies started specifically targeting the left, wouldn't that practically be bordering on "Have you considered armed insurrection?"

You say this as if that isn't central to their message already in the form of their industry lobby.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:53 AM on November 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

@uraniumwilly: Actually, I know of at least one lesbian blogger who is totally advocating that we learn how to use firearms in order to protect ourselves, or failing that, switchblades.
posted by inconstant at 11:53 AM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

("We" meaning queer women etc.)
posted by inconstant at 11:54 AM on November 9, 2016

Did the NY Mag go to press with their Loser cover? I guess they must have, no time to revise it. Awkward.
posted by Rhomboid at 11:54 AM on November 9, 2016

(Oh, now I see the date was Oct 31. I guess it came out earlier than I thought. I thought they released it just within the last day or two. Nevermind.)
posted by Rhomboid at 11:55 AM on November 9, 2016

You all know something like 1/3rd of democratic voters own guns, right? (About half as many as republican voters, but that's still a lot.)
posted by michaelh at 11:56 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

The left probably wouldn't have the political clout to expand the court without a series of definitive victories.
posted by drezdn at 11:57 AM on November 9, 2016

@uraniumwilly: Actually, I know of at least one lesbian blogger who is totally advocating that we learn how to use firearms in order to protect ourselves, or failing that, switchblades.

IIRC, Staples sells boxcutters in boxes of one dozen.
posted by mikelieman at 11:57 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

You all know something like 1/3rd of democratic voters own guns, right? (About half as many as republican voters, but that's still a lot.)

What point are you arguing against here? You correctly note that gun ownership is less among Democrats than Republicans, making it a business opportunity for the manufacturers. Which was the point of the comment that started this tangent.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:59 AM on November 9, 2016

I'm a lesbain, I am married to a women witg disabilities and I am currently employed by the ACA.

I'm not ready to deal yet. See you all later. Much love and support, but I need time to speak clearly.

Take gentle care all.
posted by AlexiaSky at 11:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [51 favorites]

I don't see any silver lining today, but wondering, when was the last time we had a first lady who was not born in the US, if this has ever happened?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:59 AM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

ocschwar: I made suggestions in line with the observations of the article last-last thread and everyone told me I was some kind of fascist technocrat. Suburban, low-density semi-rural lapsed manufacturing town mess areas are impossible to properly maintain. They are a drain on their inhabitants and the economy of their state and thus the economy at large.
posted by constantinescharity at 12:00 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I have more than a creeping suspicion that events like Brexit and this election are fuelled more than we think by Facebook's algorithms that present people with echo chamber views of what others are supposedly thinking & saying.

By presenting mainly only posts that validate the Facebook users' preexisting values & allegiances, it creates spaces where facts are irrelevant compared with opinions and even deliberate lies.

For what it's worth, I'm seeing a bunch of people high up at Facebook and related companies and prominent VCs expressing this thought today. Everybody knows, and people are scared that what they've built could have in any way contributed to this. Some of them, because they're technocrats, of course think that it can be fixed with technology, and it's easy to roll my eyes at that, because that's what got us down this road to begin with, but assuming social media isn't just going away tomorrow, we have to come to grips with it.

The economic incentives for a social network to work this way are enormous: people change the channel when their beliefs are challenged, and they damn well change the channel when they're threatened, harassed, and feel unsafe (see also: Twitter). Echo chambers are more profitable. And opening up the echo chamber works both ways: for every concern about social media just validating and radicalizing people's preexisting views, there's a Mefite in an election thread talking about how they can't bear to go on Facebook because they'll encounter a relative that posts stuff that portrays them as subhuman because of who they are. For every person saying that intolerant people need to be challenged and see more diverse views, there's someone else getting death threats for existing on the internet who's calling out for a safer space. And they're all right.
posted by zachlipton at 12:00 PM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

Shamira Ibrahim: Once Again, Black Women Did The Work White Women Refused To:

One thing is clear, however: this is not on us. And when I say “us” I mean that on multiple levels: Communities of Color, Black People, and ultimately, my fellow Black Women.

The exit polls are in. Despite all of the fair and empirical reservations Black Women had on putting our future in a Clinton presidency for a second time, 91 percent of Black Women with a college degree voted for HRC. Without a college degree? 95% No matter how concerned we were about how vested the Democratic leadership was in tending to our interests and our issues, we fell in line and carried the load that was demanded of us — as we’ve done time and again.

Conversely, the exit numbers on White women? Madame Clinton barely got a majority of college educated women, and was damn near pushed out 2-to-1 to White women without a college degree. When you continue to slice the data around the White Woman’s vote (party fealty, religious evangelism, age, etc), you have no option but to come to the conclusion that Clinton absolutely lost the White Woman block that was assumed to be in the bag.

This bring us to the message we’ve known for quite some time. When forced to choose between race and gender lines, White Women will overwhelmingly pick race, every time. We knew it when Susan B Anthony said “I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman.” We knew it when a disgruntled White female college student took her case against Affirmative Action all the way to the Supreme freaking Court, even though White Women are empirically the largest beneficiaries from said Affirmative Action.

posted by palindromic at 12:00 PM on November 9, 2016 [77 favorites]

It is really important we draw the right conclusion from this race:
Obama 08 69,498,516
Obama 12 65,915,795
Hillary 16 59,458,773

Bush 04 62,040,610
McCain 59,948,323
Trump 59,265,360

Yea, the 2016 numbers will inch up a bit, but the important point is, the media is being really misleading. Trump wasn't carried to victory by a white wave, Hillary Clinton lost. What happened to the ten million missing Obama 08 voters and why didn't they want to vote for Clinton?

Per Nate Cohn, when all the ballots are finally counted it's going to be Clinton 63.4m, Trump 61.2m. So closer to 2012.

Yep, over a 2 million vote popular vote win but not president.
posted by chris24 at 12:01 PM on November 9, 2016 [24 favorites]

What point are you arguing against here? You correctly note that gun ownership is less among Democrats than Republicans, making it a business opportunity for the manufacturers. Which was the point of the comment that started this tangent.

I was responding to the "I know at least one blogger" and the "liberal gun ownership = insurrection" comments, which sounded like they thought gun ownership was scarce. Could be wrong.
posted by michaelh at 12:01 PM on November 9, 2016

I also hope that the press will leave Barron Trump alone. The kid is 10 and is going to spend his early adolescence in the White House, like the Obama girls did.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:02 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

@uraniumwilly: Actually, I know of at least one lesbian blogger who is totally advocating that we learn how to use firearms in order to protect ourselves, or failing that, switchblades.

Well, as a straight, white male, I should keep my big mouth shut. I just worry that when weapons are hanging around the house, and if there are children about, well, you know the rest...
posted by uraniumwilly at 12:03 PM on November 9, 2016

Be careful who you seek condolences from
I got a hug from a student and I let down my guard. She is church folk. She said she woke up at 4 am and asked god why He allowed this to happen. God told her that the US must be brought low because gay people love each other.
posted by angrycat at 12:03 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

An American Tragedy
posted by R.F.Simpson at 12:03 PM on November 9, 2016

I also hope that the press will leave Barron Trump alone. The kid is 10 and is going to spend his early adolescence in the White House, like the Obama girls did.

I hope for this but I'm not hopeful that it will actually happen. I think Trump will have no issue with using him as a political prop and purposely putting him in front of the press.
posted by Jalliah at 12:04 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Room 317...Born in London, Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams was the wife of the sixth President, John Quincy Adams (1825-1829). She was, until now, the only First Lady to have been born outside of the United States.
posted by HuronBob at 12:04 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

I've been thinking about what I'm going to do now, and I think it looks like this.

My house is a mess. I'm going to tidy up.
I'm cooking something healthy for dinner tonight.
I'm going to read with the kids.
I'm going to get some exercise.
I've been meaning to get a real household budget together. I'm going to do that.
I'm going to invite someone over for dinner. Get to know some neighbors better. Create a safe space for conversation.

None of this is going to change the world, but I can tidy up my little corner of it. I'm feeling a need to set things in order. I have no idea what we are in for starting on January 20th, so I'll do what I can with my little space. Build a little sense of security, however small.

I'm also buying some wine. I'm not much of a drinker, but a glass or two couldn't hurt tonight.

I hugged and kissed my kids more than usual at bedtime last night. Things were already looking bad then. They are young--10, 7, 5, so I hope that the Trump era of American history will be remembered as a few bad years in their childhood/early adolescence and nothing more. I hope we can get through this without catastrophe. But, like so many of us, I have learned that America is more hateful that I knew, and that our institutions are less stable than I realized. So I will be more loving, more stable, to compensate in some small way.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 12:04 PM on November 9, 2016 [39 favorites]

I'm having a really hard time doing anything. Everything reminds me of the election. I've been following it so long and deeply that it's everywhere I look. I have had a very difficult time trying to manage the physical feelings of panic. Going to try some dancing exercise next.

I feel foolish for feeling optimism that maybe as a country, we had made a sliver of progress in reckoning with our racist, queer/transphobic past and present. As a trans woman, though, I feel terrified for our community, most especially our trans/GNC siblings of colour.
posted by Excommunicated Cardinal at 12:04 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

I think Trump will have no issue with using him as a political prop and purposely putting him in front of the press.

He's going to be in charge of cyber.
posted by drezdn at 12:05 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

A thing to remember: There are no pure red or blue states.

As I (a Pennsylvanian) abruptly discovered early this morning, their tint can change without warning, but even more so remember that there are pockets of blue even in the most infrared states. There are liberals in Oklahoma, though they may soon beckon to be airlifted out; there are progressives in the most rural towns; there are minorities of all types trying to eke out a living in enemy territory; there are people with bullseyes on their backs just from the color of their skin or their physical appearance or their guessable nation of origin.

If we need to anything these next two years, it is to keep those people in mind and to protect them and to apply the light of day to discrimination and injustice wherever it pops up. Not every Trump voter is a deplorable, but if Hillary's quest has one positive side effect it is flushing out legions of detestable supremacists. Do not let them go unchallenged.
posted by delfin at 12:05 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

How Trump Won
posted by R.F.Simpson at 12:06 PM on November 9, 2016

My intention in bringing that up wasn't to say something about who owns guns, it was in response to someone having brought up the prospect of people drumming up interest in gun ownership in "Democrat" demographics. I was saying, "well, at least one person is already drumming up interest specifically in response to this election outcome (and not even a gun manufacturer)".

I personally have no children but considering that I am able to accidentally injure myself using items such as doorknobs, safety rails, sewing needles, cardboard boxes, and my own teeth, I am probably not going to go for any plan that involves increasing the number of explicitly dangerous objects in my immediate vicinity.
posted by inconstant at 12:07 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I have to stop watching tv coverage. For if you gaze for long into this abyss, Kellyanne Conway gazes also into you.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:08 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Conversely, the exit numbers on White women? Madame Clinton barely got a majority of college educated women, and was damn near pushed out 2-to-1 to White women without a college degree.

I told my friend in 2008 that white women won't vote for a woman and that Obama needed to win the primary so we could actually win the election. He couldn't believe a feminist like myself would argue against a woman in the White House, but I stood firm. The country wasn't ready in 2008, isn't ready now, and won't be ready in 2020 for a female candidate. I think even female Veeps hurt tickets. So the question in my mind is this: do we want to be progressive, principled, and inclusive, or do we want to win?
posted by xyzzy at 12:08 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

I think Trump will have no issue with using him as a political prop and purposely putting him in front of the press.

The only blessing here is, per stuff that Ivana and I think Marla have said previously to the press? Trump is not a fan of spending any time at all with his kids. I'm not sure it will occur to him except to think that his kids need to be at X event, because I'm not sure he has any idea what his kid even does all day. There's not much opportunity to use his son if he literally thinks of his son as a doll in a suit who stands there while his dad does stuff. This is why all the "cyber" stuff--he has none of the usual parent's idea of what his kid does all day except that he knows Barron is capable of using computers and he (Donald) is not.

I don't think he's going to be fine either way by any normal definition of fine, but I don't think he's going to be any worse off in this life than in the life he was having before, I guess.
posted by Sequence at 12:08 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

"Let us not grow weary, let us not lose heart. For there are more seasons to come and there is more work to do." - Hillary Clinton

I thought I was done with the tears today, but apparently not.

I keep fluctuating between the second and fourth stages of grief, and the only thing that's remotely been a help is reaching out to people I know who are also shocked and scared and angry. That includes the people in this thread.

I've been holed up working from home today, occasionally crying on and off, and when I had to go out just now and run an errand it felt surreal. Like everything has changed, and everyone is just walking around doing their thing like nothing's happened. And I guess maybe nothing has really changed, except for the shame I'm feeling at not realizing how broken this country really is.

I've always been a sap for the best ideals of patriotism as something to inspire to. Give me, "...that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Give me, "...the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." Give me, "When they go low, we go high." Right now, these are my inspiration. Maybe it's blind faith in a sense of democracy which has proven to have profoundly failed us, but I can't bring myself to believe that.

Maybe I've always been an optimist and idealist at heart. And maybe she wasn't an inspiring figure for others, but Hillary was an inspiration for me, and I'm going to choose to take her words and example to heart. I want to go out and make a difference, even if it's for one person.

Hopefully the tears won't last the day.
posted by Salieri at 12:09 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

I take some solace in that Mefi will be there for all of us no matter what.

Interestingly enough....

So, I've mentioned in the past that I work for The International Rescue Committee. I may not have always mentioned the name, but I've talked about what we do - or at least what the organization itself does. (My own personal role is "HR office monkey" basically).

People are grim here today, y'all. We've been talking all morning in little snippets about what we're feeling; some of us are still in the Slough of Despond, and some of us are at the "Forth Eorlingas!" stage. But I feel confident in saying that pretty much everyone here is united in thinking that this incoming administration is gonna suck dingo kidneys for us.

Our CEO was formerly in politics himself, and had a bit of a rally-the-team talk earlier today. He said a few things about how we all must be feeling - what I appreciated is that he was quite sensitive towards those of us who were feeling completely wrecked, and sort of giving us the space to feel wrecked. But after making a couple of policy statements and taking a couple policy questions, he opened the floor to questions and comments.

Now - about an hour before this, I'd gotten the SECOND of two MeMails I've received today, from other Mefites reaching out to me with encouragement becuase of where I work, and asking how they can help. So I actually found myself raising my hand and taking the mike and saying, "Um, okay, y'all, so there's this online group I belong to called Metafilter, and..." and basically I just let everyone know that there are people out in the world who do still want to help.

To those of you who reached out, I can't thank you enough, you've cheered up a bunch of very depressed people in Midtown Manhattan today.

And to anyone who is looking for somewhere to direct their attention or support for the refugee community, here and worldwide, the link's up above. Thanks.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:09 PM on November 9, 2016 [53 favorites]

Trump's America, Hiding in Plain Sight
posted by R.F.Simpson at 12:09 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Makes sense, inconstant. I have no interest in gun ownership myself for similar reasons.

It will be interesting to see if people like Killer Mike start saying anything different about it during this presidency.
posted by michaelh at 12:10 PM on November 9, 2016

I do not know what we are going to do now -- we in my close personal circle, we collectively -- and I am going to step away from here for a little while, because right now I feel like a ghost, but thank you to everybody in this and all the past election threads. It matters.
posted by holgate at 12:10 PM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

The country wasn't ready in 2008, isn't ready now, and won't be ready in 2020 for a female candidate. I think even female Veeps hurt tickets.

It seems we're heading toward Hillary winning the most votes, from what I've read.
posted by uraniumwilly at 12:10 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

tomorrow is guitar lesson night. oh god, i don't know what i'm going to tell Luke.
the poor kid was so freaked by what kids at school were saying back in July and I ASSURED HIM trump would never win. I ASSURED HIM. He's small and frail and black and so ill with sickle cell he literally gets a monthly blood change. I ASSURED HIM. fuck fuck fuck.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 12:11 PM on November 9, 2016 [38 favorites]

I'll happily quote the wikipedia entry on neoliberalism for you, zachlipton.

Neoliberalism (neo-liberalism) refers primarily to the 20th century resurgence of 19th century ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism. These include extensive economic liberalization policies such as privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade, and reductions in government spending in order to enhance the role of the private sector in the economy. The implementation of neoliberal policies and the acceptance of neoliberal economic theories in the 1970s are seen by some academics as the root of financialization, with the financial crisis of 2007–08 as one of the ultimate results.

It's basically libertarianism for the rich when they want it, or kleptocracy when they want prefer that, coupled with corporatism for everyone else.

Yes, Clinton turned against TPP, but what do you mean "hold her to that"? How does one hold a president to something, especially if one is not super-rich? We donno what Clinton would do, but one could easily expect her to dump TPP and TIPP, and launch new negotiations with mostly the same goals. I expect the same from Trump of course.

Also, voters who know about TPP did not put Trump in office. Voters with far less knowledge did. At most, they know that Hillary Clinton supported Bill Clinton's trade policies, which cost jobs in much of the country. Trump convinced them he'd roll those back, which sounds ridiculous, but hey.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:11 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

My question/hope, looking forward to January: Are there any GOP Senators who could be talked into keeping the filibuster? We'd just need two defectors to keep it in place. It's a damned long shot, but it doesn't seem totally impossible. We wouldn't even necessarily need to convince them to grow a conscience, just to make the rational judgment that a little obstruction now is worth being able to do some obstruction of their own the next time the D's are on top.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:12 PM on November 9, 2016

This loss is definitely a time for reflection.

Trump and his cohort are going to be drunk with power and lopping off figurative heads; if the opposition doesn't take stock and try to figure out what happened, it's going to be brutal.

The same thinking that lead so many to believe this would be an easy election for Clinton cannot be used to plan the opposition, or it will be entirely futile.
posted by cell divide at 12:12 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I told my friend in 2008 that white women won't vote for a woman and that Obama needed to win the primary so we could actually win the election. He couldn't believe a feminist like myself would argue against a woman in the White House, but I stood firm. The country wasn't ready in 2008, isn't ready now, and won't be ready in 2020 for a female candidate. I think even female Veeps hurt tickets.

You know, I was catching up on dribs and drabs of Taiwan news today in hopes that other-homeland was okay at least, and came across some anglo-named commentator who mentioned that Tsai Ing-Wen was the first female leader of an Asian country who didn't come from a political family, and then described this as being due to the "patriarchal" nature of Asian societies.

I wonder if that commentator was American.
posted by inconstant at 12:14 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

I'm posting this to clarify my own thoughts. I have to cling to the idea that logic and reason can win, in the end at least, because hope completely failed.

I've read a few threads (hackernews, reddit) with Trump supporters complaining about being shouted down or ostracized or afraid to express their views, as if the original sin was people who don't want to hear the opinions of Trump. But Trump is the one insulting and threatening vulnerable people. His opponents are trying to shut down racism/sexism/bigotry (aka Trump "speaking his mind" or "at least being honest") because this type of speech threatens people for no reason other than their unchosen identity and because they are an easy target.

It's true that accusations of racism/sexism/bigotry tend to end the debate. This is their intent: they are a reaction to language that has already shown a willful interest in misrepresenting facts and demonizing other people--actions made in bad faith that show they have no interest in debate.

Obviously it's possible to support a candidate for some reasons and not others. You can support Trump's policy decisions (such as they exist) or just his attitude toward the establishment. But you have to own his flaws as well. You have to be able to say that his inflammatory racist language is not as important to you as giving the finger to "the establishment." And even when you say that, people are still allowed to judge you for it.

Of course, any Trump supporter is just going to direct this back at Hillary with any number of accusations about her character or history of public service justifies their victimhood and rationalizes their endorsement of Trump's racism. At which point I would probably try to argue with facts and that would go nowhere.
posted by ropeladder at 12:14 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Here are some interesting leftist links floating around this morning

2016: A Liberal Odyssey

Donald Trump is moving to the White House, and Liberals put him there

Politics Is the Solution

And, of course, a peek into what we are all dreading: President Trump's First Term
posted by R.F.Simpson at 12:15 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

(twitter) "NYC will not change," de Blasio spox @EricFPhillips says when asked whether city will preserve sanctuary status for undocumented immigrants
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:16 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Trump and his cohort are going to be drunk with power and lopping off figurative heads; if the opposition doesn't take stock and try to figure out what happened, it's going to be brutal.

Legit non-rhetorical question: How do you think they're going to do this to the (non-Republican) opposition? They can't un-elect Democratic members of Congress. The Executive Branch will be swept clean, but it always is.
posted by Etrigan at 12:16 PM on November 9, 2016

It seems we're heading toward Hillary winning the most votes, from what I've read.

We don't have national elections.
posted by xyzzy at 12:17 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

It seems we're heading toward Hillary winning the most votes, from what I've read.

Yup, the country is ready, the electoral college isn't.
posted by drezdn at 12:17 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

It's a damned long shot, but it doesn't seem totally impossible.

I was unpleasantly surprised when so many Democrats voted to retain the filibuster back in 2011 when Harkin, Merkley and Udall were pushing for it to be weakened / eliminated. By 2013 the GOP's obstruction had gotten so absurd that it forced them to water it down a bit for some judges and nominees, but retain it for normal legislation.

I gather that this is because of what you say about them wanting to retain their own individual power, and yeah, I guess it provides some hope that a deal could be reached to not totally destroy it. But I'm certain it's gone for SCOTUS nominees.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:17 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

So did the Green Party even get enough votes to get the Federal matching funds they were begging for?
posted by drezdn at 12:18 PM on November 9, 2016

And I see the robins
Perched in barren treetops
Watching last-ditch racists marching across the floor
posted by crazylegs at 12:19 PM on November 9, 2016

Ok, enough with the doom and gloom.

First off, this isn't the worst it's ever been. There was a time when we had an actual civil war. And for a century after that it was all but legal for white men to torture black men to death for fun.

That doesn't mean that the current situation is good, but let's not fall into the trap of believing that were are in the worst time ever and that it's all a downhill spiral from here.

We got better after the Civil War. We got better after Jim Crow.

This is a step backwards, but we can get better after this. It'll hurt. We will suffer. Our friends will suffer. Our allies will suffer. But we can win. We can make that suffering temporary rather than the new normal.

More specifically:

Donald Trump will not overturn democracy in the USA. He may want to, but he can't. Not even with the House, the Senate, and a 5-4 majority on the Court. He'll try, things will get harder, vote suppression will be more prevalent, but we can still win this shit.

My partner's parents lived through the worst Jim Crow in Texas, and they managed to vote in every single election from the time they were 18. If they can do that, in a much more blatantly and visibly racist and rigged time, we can overcome any voter suppression shit they throw at us.

Don't let depression sap your will to fight.

While practicing good informational hygiene is generally a good idea, the NSA and the FBI aren't going to be worse than they were back in the COINTELPRO days, and probably not even that bad.

Don't let paranoia sap your will to fight.

We have much better tools to coordinate and communicate these days and with that we can overcome. Our forebearers overcame worse odds with worse tools. If MLK and Malcolm X and the other Civil Rights activists could go up against the entrenched, violent, power structures of the old South and win with the pitiful tools they had then, we have no business despairing today when we face a weaker foe and have better tools.

Don't let despair sap your will to fight.

We have a long, hard, four years ahead of us. Things will not be easy. We'll need to organize and work in multiple areas, sometimes competing for the same resources and labor. Don't form a circular firing squad. Some of us will be focused on areas that others of us think are secondary, let them fight their fight, you fight yours. Some of us will be working to shuttle women to places they can get abortions safely, others will be working to subvert and overcome voter suppression laws, we're all on the same side even if we aren't doing the same thing or focusing on the same battles.

Don't let factionalism divert our resources from the fight.

Most important, now is the time to fight, and while the enemy is strong they've given us weapons or surrendered some of their most potent weapons. Provided we call them on it, the Evangelicals can no longer pretend to moral superiority, indeed they've given us the tools to factonalize them, shatter their unity and break their spirit by turning their most potent weapons against them. Provided we call them on it, the Money Republicans can no longer pretend to be laissez faire capitalists. Like the Evangelicals, they sold their best and most potent arguments for a short term gain at best.

The time to organize, to rally, to fight, was last year.

We fucked up. We got complainant. We allowed ourselves to split, to blame each other. Maybe we couldn't have won no matter how hard we fought, no matter how united we were, but no one can seriously claim that we went into this election fully prepared and unified.

We made judgments based on hope and aspiration rather than pragmatism. Clinton's negatives, no matter how fictional they were, were too great. It is horrible to say that we should have let the Republican lies prevent her from running, but the truth is that 35 years of constant, vicious, outrageous and preposterous Republican lies did truly make her unelectable. That's a bitter pill to swallow, I didn't believe it myself until today. I thought for sure that truth would win out and the Republican lies wouldn't be able to sink such a capable and strong woman. They did.

From now on we can't let optimism blind us and lead us to failure. It will hurt to cut off those the Republicans have successfully smeared, but it must be done or we will face this problem again.

Would we rather be right, or would we rather win? I chose to win.

Meanwhile, we must learn from their success. We must identify up and coming Republicans and destroy them, as they destroyed Clinton, so that they cannot be successful candidates. We need a team we can disavow, a group of hate radio equivalents, to burn the best and brightest of the upcoming Republicans as they burned Clinton. We need people willing to sacrifice their social respect to be the left's version of Alex Jones and Ann Coulter, to be the people who say horrible, awful, untrue, things about Republicans just to get those things into circulation. That way we can say "of course it isn't true, but the rumors from [insert sacrificial liberal here] are that Ted Cruz fucks pigs!"

If they fight dirty and we try to appeal to the refs we lose. There are no refs. Either we fight back just as nasty, just as hard, and by doing so frighten them into backing off, or they keep fighting dirty and we keep losing. Hell, infiltrate and subvert the Green Party, or some other group to be surrogates to carry out hte attacks so that the Democrats can bewail (loudly and publicly while amplifying and repeating) the awful lies from those horrible, horrible, far left wing types. Isn't it **AWFUL** how the horrible far left claims Trump fucks pigs? Certainly we'd never say so, but if true that's a very serious allegation.

But most important, we've got to work. We've got to get out there, tomorrow or the next day when we're finished crying, and join the local Democratic party, volunteer every moment of spare time we have, and get the job done.

We can't win the House in 2018, it's too well gerrymandered. But we can win the downballot if we work hard enough. We can win at the county level, the city level, the water board level, the school district level. And we must. Those offices are the foundation of power. We've foolishly allowed the Republicans to own them, and we must take them back.

We have to fight. We have to work. We have to win.

We can't take back the Federal government in 2018. We should put up the best damn fight we possibly can, but we should go in knowing that we'll probably lose and count even the tiniest of gains as victories. Because they will be. But we should be ready to sweep the lower elections in 2018.

We probably can't take the really gerrymandered state legislature districts, but city government, county government, school boards, all the places the Republicans traditionally own we can take.

We have the numbers, we just need the organization and will.

I woke up this morning in despair. I've wallowed in it for a while, and maybe you need longer. But don't take too long.

Find your local Democratic Party, join up. Get to the meetings. Volunteer for everything. Help out. We can't win without strong county parties, without strong precinct chairs, and workers.

If we work hard enough, if we fight hard enough, we can make Trump a one term president. He's damn sure going to give us plenty of weapons to use against him, we just have to be willing to use them.

For the future of America, for my child's future, for my black partner's future, I am willing to use every scrap of white privilege I have to serve the greater good.

I'm done with despair. I'm fired up. I'm going to get out there and I'm going to fight and even if I lose I'll make them spend resources they never thought they'd have to to beat me. Every one of us who volunteers for the Democrats is another volunteer they have to scrape up, or a few million they have to throw at the elections.

Enough with the doom and gloom. It was worse, far far worse, in the past. I will not shame those who went before me, my mother in law who sent her daughter to be the first black girl in her first grade, my father in law who organized local voters in the face of very real threats of violence, Dr. King and all the others who were martyrs for the cause. How can I despair when they faced so much worse and persevered?

I will fight.
posted by sotonohito at 12:19 PM on November 9, 2016 [152 favorites]

My question/hope, looking forward to January: Are there any GOP Senators who could be talked into keeping the filibuster? We'd just need two defectors to keep it in place

Yes, and I have contact information for both of them, as well as people who speak with them frequently. I'm glad you posted that, I will be working on this. I think we can keep the filibuster.
posted by corb at 12:19 PM on November 9, 2016 [68 favorites]

(twitter) "NYC will not change," de Blasio spox @EricFPhillips says when asked whether city will preserve sanctuary status for undocumented immigrants

Somerville's Joe Curtatone made a similar pledge. Smaller city, but every bit matters right now. This kind of thing is what I meant about the local level. We have to protect as many as we can, as long as we can, however we can.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:20 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Yes, and I have contact information for both of them, as well as people who speak with them frequently. I'm glad you posted that, I will be working on this. I think we can keep the filibuster.

Thanks, corb. You continue to do great work. And if there's anything any MeFites can do to help the cause, you know we're willing to do it.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:21 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

I politely reminded several people on Twitter about Nader and was laughed at, told of the importance of "sending a message." The problem is the message sent isn't the message received.

via Rachel Madow:

In Florida, Hillary Clinton lost by about 1.4% of the vote – but if Jill Stein’s supporters and half of Gary Johnson’s backers had voted Democratic, Trump would have lost the state.

Similarly, in Pennsylvania, Clinton lost by about 1.1% of the vote – but if Jill Stein’s supporters and half of Gary Johnson’s backers had voted Democratic, Trump would have lost the state.

In Wisconsin, Clinton lost by about 1% of the vote – but if Stein’s supporters had voted Democratic, Trump would have lost the state.

In Michigan, Clinton appears to be on track to lose by about 0.3% of the vote – but if half of Stein’s supporters had voted Democratic, Trump would have lost the state.

Third-party voters played a key role in election results
posted by bluecore at 12:23 PM on November 9, 2016 [47 favorites]

We won the popular vote by a projected 2.4 million people (and we even only won by that much due to the loss of the VRA allowing hundreds of polling places in heavily Democratic areas to be closed), and in response we're going to get a Supreme Court that is hopelessly fucked for the rest of our lives, the complete destruction of all the social progress we've made for half a century, and almost certainly the deaths of millions all over the globe as a direct effect of Republican decision making.

Fuck this system. It is fundamentally broken. The entire world needs us to put it aside and do what's right.
posted by IAmUnaware at 12:24 PM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

I hate to say it but look around at just about any workplace and some of the most vicious protectors of the dominant social order are white women. They might not like their place in the social order but they damned sure won't let another woman upset that social order.

Make no mistake a huge percentage of the deplorables are white men but there are tons of white uneducated women that are more than willing to do their job to sabotage other women in order to maintain the system that gives them little power but still some degree of power over others.

I see this all the time in the workplace where up and coming female executives have to worry about their fellow female employees nearly as much as the arrogant windbag boss.
posted by vuron at 12:24 PM on November 9, 2016 [29 favorites]

Is there a handy leftist list of organizations to support/get active with?
posted by R.F.Simpson at 12:24 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I am actually guardedly optimistic about the filibuster as well, and for a simple reason -- while there are those who threatened to nuke it on Day 1 of a Democratic Senate, Turtle Man is neither a bomb-thrower nor a friend to the Ted Cruzes of the world. He also knows that when a Republican judicial nominee without visible cloven hooves is put out there, chances are pretty good that (a) he/she will be allowed to be sent up for a confirmation vote and (b) he can peel off enough Democrats to pass him/her through. (This is known as the Alito Rule, aka Democrats Tend To Care More About Comity And Precedent Than They Should.)

So Turtle doesn't _need_ to kill the filibuster on Day 1. Might he, out of spite? It could happen. But it's not an absolute given.
posted by delfin at 12:25 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Statement from the CA legislative leadership:

California is – and must always be – a refuge of justice and opportunity for people of all walks, talks, ages and aspirations – regardless of how you look, where you live, what language you speak, or who you love.

California has long set an example for other states to follow. And California will defend its people and our progress. We are not going to allow one election to reverse generations of progress at the height of our historic diversity, scientific advancement, economic output, and sense of global responsibility.

We will be reaching out to federal, state and local officials to evaluate how a Trump Presidency will potentially impact federal funding of ongoing state programs, job-creating investments reliant on foreign trade, and federal enforcement of laws affecting the rights of people living in our state. We will maximize the time during the presidential transition to defend our accomplishments using every tool at our disposal.

While Donald Trump may have won the presidency, he hasn’t changed our values. America is greater than any one man or party. We will not be dragged back into the past. We will lead the resistance to any effort that would shred our social fabric or our Constitution.

California was not a part of this nation when its history began, but we are clearly now the keeper of its future.

posted by acidic at 12:25 PM on November 9, 2016 [95 favorites]

I will fight.

You have my sword.
posted by leotrotsky at 12:26 PM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

Trump won a two-to-one victory in counties where the unemployment rate has improved the most since 2010.

wow. much anxiety. such economics.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:28 PM on November 9, 2016 [57 favorites]

Regardless, the point is that his racism did not keep PoC from voting for him.
posted by R.F.Simpson at 12:28 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

In Michigan, Clinton appears to be on track to lose by about 0.3% of the vote – but if half of Stein’s supporters had voted Democratic, Trump would have lost the state.

*screams internally*
posted by dis_integration at 12:30 PM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

The Dow Jones average just hit 18,646, the highest it's been all year, and 300+ points higher than yesterday's close. I officially don't understand anything.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 12:30 PM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

The latest from Cracked: Don't Panic.
posted by Melismata at 12:30 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

California has long set an example for other states to follow.

That's why it voted yes on prop 8, no on prop 34, and no on prop 64.

The sentiment is comforting though.
posted by Talez at 12:31 PM on November 9, 2016

For every economically anxious white person in a suburb in Ohio or Michigan or Wisconsin or Florida who decided that the government didn't pander to his needs enough, the very means by which we elect Presidents, the Electoral College, fundamentally exists to ensure that your vote counts infinitely more than a Latina in California. It could not be designed to pander more to your whims.
posted by zachlipton at 12:31 PM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

Statement from the CA legislative leadership:

that was a great statement and I'm sorry I don't have any favorites left to award to the comment that linked it.
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:32 PM on November 9, 2016

wow. much anxiety. such economics.

Improved unemployment rates do little to stop the deluge of late capitalism
posted by R.F.Simpson at 12:32 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

The Dow Jones average just hit 18,646, the highest it's been all year, and 300+ points higher than yesterday's close. I officially don't understand anything.

The financial sector just giddily realized America is "open for business". Watch for the Krugman et al predicted economic implosion to be another artifact of mahogany paneled pearl-clutching as the real brutes get down to making money with even fewer restrictions.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:33 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm glad to see I have Cracked to reassure me that racist and misogynistic abuse-enablers aren't actually Nazis.
posted by inconstant at 12:34 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

You know I'm completely spent with the circular firing squad. I really don't care if Bernie would've been a better candidate or whether third party voters cost us the election. The simple fact of the matter is that looking back doesn't do us any good.

We absolutely need to move forward and we need to share our stories. We need to let America know the potential cost of undoing ACA in human lives. We need to let Republicans know that the majority of America disagrees with them and demographics are not on their side and that every desperate attempt to maintain white privilege is doomed to failure. Some of the Trump voters today will pass away before the next election but some will be around to watch their works fall into ruin because time and history will not be on their side.

I'm bruised and hurt but not beaten. I will not back down and I know in my heart that the march to justice and equality might be a long one with twists and turns ahead but it is a destination that we will reach.
posted by vuron at 12:34 PM on November 9, 2016 [22 favorites]

The Dow Jones average just hit 18,646, the highest it's been all year, and 300+ points higher than yesterday's close. I officially don't understand anything.

It's simple, I think - investors expect tax cuts
posted by thelonius at 12:35 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

California has long set an example for other states to follow.

This has been making the rounds on Twitter today:

San Franciscans voted to confiscate tents from homeless people (Q) and failed to pass the funding that would've provided them housing (K).

--@kimmaicutler

(The reality is slightly more complicated than that, in part because it was a sales tax people didn't want to support, but the gist is very much true.) And California is currently on track to not only keep the death penalty, but pass a crazypants initiative designed to make killing people easier and faster. We're not always as great an example as we think we are.
posted by zachlipton at 12:37 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

wow. much anxiety. such economics.

Counties with declining unemployment rates also tend to be where unemployment was the highest after the crisis. I.e. you are probably just showing the rust belt, which has recovered some but not enough. Also there is no indication of job quality, if people are moving from good manufacturing jobs to call centers.

zachlipton: The main reason Clinton is accused of neoliberalism is because she does not take an antagonistic view of business, and particularly finance.
posted by ropeladder at 12:37 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Thank you so much for quoting and linking that, acidic. We're not perfect (ugh, that death penalty vote), but I'm proud of my state and what sense of comfort and safety remains to me is because I live here and know most of this state's legislators will do their best for us.
posted by yasaman at 12:38 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's simple, I think - investors expect tax cuts

And further reductions in investment and banking regulation, no doubt.
posted by aught at 12:38 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Random thoughts:
Such a spring in the step of mechanics @ at a car repair shop today. WHITE MEN R BACK ON TOP,BABY. No more uppity Negroes or women telling em what to do.

Another cheerful thought. I'm of an age that I might never see a woman President. Tell me I'm wrong. I'm 60 ("and I can kick"), and in OK health. Speaking of-

I reactivated FB and posted about my fear once I lose "Obamacare." My college roommate replied (serious): "Perhaps our President-elect has a plan." I laughed and laughed and then defriended her and a bunch of others. I envy those of you for whom your beliefs and true self does not alienate you from so many you have liked and loved.

On a more positive note, I'm waiting to get permission to repost parts of an email that made me almost break down in public today, from a local organizer. There are beautiful people in the Democratic party.
posted by NorthernLite at 12:39 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

We're not always as great an example as we think we are.

CA gave Reagan his stepping stone to national political office, so... no.
posted by aught at 12:39 PM on November 9, 2016

I was around for the LA riots, and I remember watching downtown Long Beach burn and being terrified I was gonna get dragged out of my car and have my brains bashed in like Reginald Denny. I saw people torching their own neighborhoods and destroying small businesses and hurting innocent people, and in the end it didn't achieve a damn thing. I really, really don't like riots. I am a peace and love hippie type.

But this country elected a truly evil man and gave him all the power, and now I find myself wanting to see some riots. I want revolution. I want secession. I want a civil war, and I find myself all too ready to hurl a brick.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 12:40 PM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

Had to unplug most of the day for my own sanity so I'm pretty far behind. Have also had to spend most of the day listening to my pig-headed co-workers (mostly ex-military white men) congratulate themselves and belittle everyone else. It's disgusting and has made coping with this very, very difficult :( Thanks MeFi for giving me at least one place I can talk to people who understand.

I'm already done with people who voted for a hate mongerer giving lectures on FB about being civil and respectful of the process.

Same here. I told off a cousin on Facebook this morning for saying it "won't be so bad" and "ya'll should've voted third party". After her gross response I made it very clear that I don't want to be a part of her life anymore and defriended her. It'll probably come back to haunt me later but I don't care right now.
posted by photo guy at 12:42 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I will fight.

You know, I've been fighting my whole damn life and it hasn't got me anything and I would like the assurance that one of these days I am not going to have to be fighting and I will be able to stop, thanks.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:42 PM on November 9, 2016 [49 favorites]

Here's hoping Trump forgoes the list of Supreme Court nominees he said he would put up, and nominates someone out of nowhere, and they turn out to be the next Souter.
posted by drezdn at 12:43 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

From the Cracked "Don't Panic" article:

So yeah, be upset for as long as you want. Get drunk. Do whatever you have to do. After that, I want you to sober up, splash water on your face, and consider some facts.

*Gay marriage has overwhelming support nationwide -- 55 percent to 37 percent against.
*Legal abortion is favored by 56 percent, with 41 percent opposed.
*The vast majority of the population supports background checks for gun buyers -- up to 90 percent in some polls.
*A majority of Americans support some kind of universal health care, 58 percent to 37 percent.
*64 percent of Americans are worried about global warming. Only 36 percent are not.
*And -- get this -- Americans overwhelmingly agree that immigration helps the country more than it hurts, by a 59 percent to 33 percent margin.

Those statistics literally do not matter when you have a Supreme Court that's stacked to vote the other way.
posted by mudpuppie at 12:43 PM on November 9, 2016 [75 favorites]

Haha nope it's going to be whatever shit-brained fascist monster Pence wants, sorry.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:44 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

But this country elected a truly evil man and gave him all the power, and now I find myself wanting to see some riots. I want revolution. I want secession. I want a civil war, and I find myself all too ready to hurl a brick.

Riots means he wins; gives him justification for all manner of crackdowns and brutality.
posted by leotrotsky at 12:44 PM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

Investors are bargain hunting after a big sell-off.

The reality is that market fundamentals are still pretty good. If you have a long time horizon and the privilege to withstand a couple of years worth of overreach you might even come out of this ahead.

I know fundamentally that my privilege insulates me from all but the worst impacts. Yes climate change is going to get even more derailed but we're screwed on climate change regardless. Nobody is willing to touch the root cause of climate change until a viable replacement for fossil fuels shows. I'm still completely shaken to my core that we came this close to electing our first female president and we collectively blew our opportunity. But I realize that time is marching forward and reactionaries like Trump cannot stop progress.
posted by vuron at 12:44 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Ostracism is clearly not working. You can't ostracize tens of millions of the electorate.

I'm not sure about that.

Ostracism hasn't been tried. People are still being sociable with Trumpist coworkers, still visiting bigoted relatives during the holidays, still making business deals with companies that won't allow their insurance to pay for women's health care. Still holding concerts in states that allow people to be fired for being gay. Still shopping at WalMart despite the way they treat their female employees. And more, still politely accepting that other people do these things even if we personally wouldn't.

That needs to stop. If you safely can, let your disgust show on your face, let it be present in your voice. If you are at risk in the situation, politely dissemble but DO NOT make "that's okay with me" statements. I love Jalliah's approach, but I know it won't work for everyone. Don't give them the comfort of "she's probably mostly okay with what I said/did. Kind of."

Make them wonder, "does she hate me? For that?" Make them face that, over and over, every day.

The reason these people are still around, are still actively fighting for their bigotry, is that we've shown for years that thinly-veiled bigotry is welcome. It was a nice idea - hey, maybe if we're friendly enough, they'll come around, they'll realize that women aren't innately immoral sluts, they'll realize that black males aren't born with guns, they'll realize that gay people are not pedophilic rapists.

It hasn't worked, and we need to try something else. For myself, that means reasserting my religious identity and giving up on subtlety in public; it means adjusting my shopping habits (again - I haven't bought anything from Nestle or Walmart for a couple of decades); it means finding out if any of my social community are Trumpists and refusing to spend time with them. (I doubt this is the case, and my heart goes out to those who have to cope with family who supported the man who wants to terrorize his way to glory.)

Keep saying: No, this is not okay, it is not going to be okay, and I am not okay with the fact that you made this happen. I do not like or trust you. You decided a pack of grandiose lies was more important than my safety. I support your right to make that decision, but don't think for one minute that you're not a despicable person for having made it.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 12:45 PM on November 9, 2016 [35 favorites]

Those statistics literally do not matter when you have a Supreme Court that's stacked to vote the other way.

Those are also population level statistics, whereas elections are electoral vote statistics. It doesn't matter if the majority believes X, Y, or Z; we don't elect by majority.
posted by foxfirefey at 12:45 PM on November 9, 2016

@LauraBenanti

People saying the Melania sketch wasn't funny last night...I know. I'm so sorry. If I had anticipated this outcome I wouldn't have done it.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:47 PM on November 9, 2016

I know the day-after effect leaves everyone prone to exaggeration, but let's find the ground. This was no more a repudiation of women than it was a repudiation of people whose names start with the letter H or of those who enjoy hot sauce.

The candidate Hillary Clinton, alone, was rejected.

Leaving aside (!) whether it was deserved or not, she was by many measures the least popular Democrat the party nominated in... possibly forever. That made it a big risk and this is not a small point. So it's not a stretch to say that other, less-unpopular women could have won this very year, and there's no indication at all that she's harmed the chances of future women with her failed runs in 2008 or 2016.

The sheer numbers make a woman as President very very likely, very soon. Not today, no... but soon.

Backbone, please.
posted by rokusan at 12:47 PM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

There's a chance that Trump will be a president who walks into his cabinet meeting, says "We need to make America more dynamic. Make it happen." Then leaves to play 18 holes as his cabinet members try to figure out what he means.

No matter what they do, they'll be berated for it in a month at their next meeting.
posted by drezdn at 12:47 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

72 percent of likely voters supporting Donald Trump say America has changed for the worst since the 1950s. By contrast, 70 percent of likely voters supporting Hillary Clinton say that America has changed for the better since that decade.

Reagan won the same way, but with more soft-shoe: "Spring time in America". Trump's message was nastier and cruder, but he's tapped the same vein of faux-nostalgia.
posted by bonehead at 12:47 PM on November 9, 2016 [26 favorites]

Fuck. Missed the editing window, and now I have to worry about Trump's goons tagging me as a threat. Don't worry, men in black. I don't have it in me to hurt anybody, and after your boss axes Obamacare I'll probably be dead soon anyhow.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 12:48 PM on November 9, 2016

EmpressCallipygos There's no end. That is our constant downfall, we imagine that if we just do this one thing we can relax. If we just elect Obama we can relax. If we just give Obama 60 votes in the Senate we can relax.

We can't.

Ever.

There is no end to this fight.

Take a break, recharge your batteries, sure. No one can be on all the time, no one can fight year after year without needing some R&R. But we can't allow ourselves to ever imagine that the fight is over.

There's always another fight.
posted by sotonohito at 12:49 PM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

Those statistics literally do not matter when you have a Supreme Court that's stacked to vote the other way.

A majority of voters also voted for Clinton yesterday. I don't take a ton of comfort in "a majority of people support doing the right thing, so don't panic" when there are structural factors in place such that it doesn't matter.
posted by zachlipton at 12:49 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Even if the Democratic candidate had been a man, I would still call a Trump victory a repudiation of women. A repudiation of women, and POC, and queer and trans citizens.
posted by inconstant at 12:49 PM on November 9, 2016 [37 favorites]

I was so stressed out I puked twice yesterday; once when Florida went R, and a second time when it was all over. I also didn't sleep a wink, but I drag myself into work anyway because that's what you do and then I had to listen to my super-conservative (but anti-Trump) loudmouth co-worker brag about their victory loudly down the hallway.

I'm pretty sure I was out of evens by then, but then my Dad (a lifelong Dem, campaigned for Obama), complained over the phone about how the party leaders pushed Hillary as the nominee at all costs, even when nobody liked her. I tried to explain that I was really upset about the state of things, and then he said that proved I had moral character. (I remember 2000, even though I wasn't old enough to vote), and then he continued to steamroll me until I could finally hang up. I'm trying to be grateful that my father didn't vote R, but it's hard when he reminds me of just how much of a sexist prick he can be.
posted by PearlRose at 12:50 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

This conversation reminds me of one of my favorite lines in Moby Dick:

So, cutting the lashing of the waterproof match keg, after many failures Starbuck contrived to ignite the lamp in the lantern; then stretching it on a waif pole, handed it to Queequeg as the standard-bearer of this forlorn hope. There, then, he sat, holding up that imbecile candle in the heart of that almighty forlornness. There, then, he sat, the sign and symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly holding up hope in the midst of despair.
posted by angrybear at 12:50 PM on November 9, 2016 [22 favorites]

Nobody is willing to touch the root cause of climate change until a viable replacement for fossil fuels shows.

We're working on it, hard as hell. I've been a Musk critic in the past, but HOT DAMN do I hope this SolarCity/Tesla merger happens. SolarCity is selling a combo solar assembly/Powerwall/smart inverter/solar water heater product now, and Tesla is selling solar shingles. I would love to get my hands on these things. Trump can't stop the cleantech movement, even if he does roll back environmental protections. The states are pushing forward with incentives, and there's money to be made.

But in the interim Florida and a lot of other places are gonna be fucked. Pulling out of the Paris agreement is really really dangerous.
posted by Existential Dread at 12:50 PM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

Does anyone know what a good address (snail mail) for Hillary Clinton might be? I've sent messages via twitter and via her website but I want to write her a personal note, thanking her and expressing my support for her. I've looked but haven't been able to track one down.
posted by bluesky43 at 12:50 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Those statistics literally do not matter when you have a Supreme Court that's stacked to vote the other way.

Maybe it's time for states and municipalities and so forth can pull an Andy Jackson on them.
posted by Apocryphon at 12:50 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

It doesn't matter if the majority believes X, Y, or Z; we don't elect by majority.

True. The electoral college is the last vestige of the Three-Fifths Compromise, but the only legitimate chance to get rid of it passed 150 years ago.
posted by stopgap at 12:51 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I know the day-after effect leaves everyone prone to exaggeration, but let's find the ground. This was no more a repudiation of women than it was a repudiation of people whose names start with the letter H or of those who enjoy hot sauce.

The candidate Hillary Clinton, alone, was rejected.

No. It was a statement that said the way Donald Trump treats and speaks about women is okay with nearly half of the electorate. It was a statement that says bragging about sexually assaulting women doesn't disqualify you from the presidency. It is very much about the worth our society places on women, and about reinforcing the fact that we are worth less than men.
posted by mudpuppie at 12:51 PM on November 9, 2016 [118 favorites]

One thing that's being reinforced in my world right now is no amount of oppression of women, PoCs or LGBTQs is nearly as painful to them as it is painful for a white due to be told he said something racist.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:51 PM on November 9, 2016 [84 favorites]

Counties with declining unemployment rates also tend to be where unemployment was the highest after the crisis. I.e. you are probably just showing the rust belt,

I'm unconvinced by this argument. Take a look at this map to see unemployment rates over time. Yes, you see plenty of darkness around Detroit and Cleveland in the time frame in question, but plenty of it elsewhere as well.

This isn't to say there isn't merit to the argument that those that have had their unemployment rates fall are more likely to have it rise simply by virtue of regression to some natural level, but I don't think this is a rust belt phenomenon.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:52 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

drezdn: "There's a chance that Trump will be a president who walks into his cabinet meeting, says "We need to make America more dynamic. Make it happen." Then leaves to play 18 holes as his cabinet members try to figure out what he means."

This is actually my greatest fear from him. He's surrounded himself with the worst of the worst and he's such a know-nothing that he'll probably just go with whatever he's told that he doesn't care about.
posted by charred husk at 12:53 PM on November 9, 2016 [29 favorites]

You know, I've been fighting my whole damn life and it hasn't got me anything and I would like the assurance that one of these days I am not going to have to be fighting and I will be able to stop, thanks.

Barber quoting Jurgen Moltman (again not my religion):

Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it. Peace with God means conflict with the world, for the goad of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present.

My own personal religion has a parallel statement.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 12:53 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

I will fight.
You have my sword.
And you have my, uh, purse that carries 18 pounds of loose change and a few whiskey stones. With a little luck and good aim, I could totally knock somebody into next week.

Seriously, Hillary Clinton has shown the extent of her integrity and courage in the midst of this miserable narrative. I, for one, am ready to stand with her (and with all of you!) against the powers that came to be last night.
posted by Lycaon_pictus at 12:54 PM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

This was no more a repudiation of women than it was a repudiation of people whose names start with the letter H or of those who enjoy hot sauce.

The candidate Hillary Clinton, alone, was rejected.

It's remarkable how easy it is to say that this particular woman (or person of color, or LGBTQ person, or or or...) was the problem, not society's treatment of all women (or or or...).

Note that I say "remarkable" there, because I am remarking on it. It is not surprising, nor amazing, nor even unusual.
posted by Etrigan at 12:54 PM on November 9, 2016 [43 favorites]

Is there a handy leftist list of organizations to support/get active with?

Jezebel: A List of Pro-Women, Pro-Immigrant, Pro-Earth, Anti-Bigotry Organizations That Need Your Support
posted by palindromic at 12:55 PM on November 9, 2016 [37 favorites]

The American People Did Not Choose Donald Trump:

Constitution worship in the United States is not just for the right, and between reverence for the document and simple path dependence there’s a tendency to ignore or rationalize even its most obviously indefensible aspects. It is surely in part for this reason that a simple but rather important fact is not getting nearly enough attention: By the standards that apply to virtually every legitimate democratic election in the world, Hillary Clinton won. Donald Trump was *not* selected by the American people. The candidate the American electorate chose will not be president because an anachronistic electoral system created to curb democracy and over-represent southern white men chose Donald Trump.

posted by palindromic at 12:59 PM on November 9, 2016 [37 favorites]

*Gay marriage has overwhelming support nationwide -- 55 percent to 37 percent against.
*Legal abortion is favored by 56 percent, with 41 percent opposed.
*The vast majority of the population supports background checks for gun buyers -- up to 90 percent in some polls.
*A majority of Americans support some kind of universal health care, 58 percent to 37 percent.
*64 percent of Americans are worried about global warming. Only 36 percent are not.
*And -- get this -- Americans overwhelmingly agree that immigration helps the country more than it hurts, by a 59 percent to 33 percent margin.

Through a process of gerrymandering and bait-and-switch politics, Republicans have been able to sell attacks on marriage equality (religious liberty), abortion (sensible regulation), health care (consumer freedom, cutting bureaucracy), and immigration (public safety). The Republican focus on marriage equality was originally a bait-and-switch. There was no reason to ban something that did not yet exist, instead what they wanted was a legal pretext to challenge LGBTQ civil rights.

Gun control and climate change are easy problems for Republicans. All they have to do is continue using procedure to keep those bills off the floor.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 1:01 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Sotonohito raised a great point: I think it's important to stay down with the down-ballot, to quote Constance Wu. While I live in the Bay Area where the down-ballot is pretty much indigo blue throughout, I think this is an area where the conservatives have outflanked us. We need to start turning the little, low-profile offices - school board, transit board, state assembly - blue. So much happens at the local level, for one thing; and these small offices are the seeds from which senators and presidents grow. We Democrats, and "mainstream" Republicans for that matter, need to get our collective butts in gear about the down-ballot races.

Bonehead's link raises a point that was made by the (IMO) national treasure Stephanie Coontz in her book The Way We Really Are. The chapter "What We Really Miss About the 1950's" explains that, for white families only, they enjoyed high wages, subsidized housing (via the GI Bill), and generous public services. While I'm sure many Trump voters miss the racism and sexism, I don't doubt they miss the time when a (white) man with a high-school education could get a good job, enjoy affordable housing, lovely parks, nice roads, all paid for by high taxes on the wealthy and corporations.

We know damn-tootin' well that Trump is not going to tax the rich or corporations. He's promised his followers a 1950's lifestyle without the 1950's taxes that financed it. People who want to grow rather than shrink the middle class are better off with the Democrats - who need to get that message across. Trump promised his followers good manufacturing jobs - well, those jobs are going, boys, and they ain't coming back, to quote Bruce Springsteen. There's nothing magical about manufacturing jobs that decent pay, working conditions, and unions wouldn't provide for service sector jobs. I can't wait for Trump's followers to realize that behind the curtain is only a tiny-fingered scam artist.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 1:01 PM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

MST3K Trump reference supercut eases the pain.*

*-does not actually ease the pain
posted by palindromic at 1:02 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I imagine it will be a while before real introspection happens. To write this outcome off as simply one form of bigotry (pick your favourite) is reductionist. Clinton was outright rejected, and by women. The specifics of that require reflection and change -- losing to the most categorically unqualified nominee in modern history requires more than just a surplus of angry rural voters. As demonstrated, she didn't earn enough votes -- the numbers show that.
posted by Dark Messiah at 1:02 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I know public lands shouldn't be anyone's top priority today. There's bigger tragedies afoot. But, if you have enough money to give to multiple organizations, please consider the Southern Utah Wilderness Association.

They were very effective during the terrible Bush years and managed to win quite a few battles. They're going to be on the front lines again.
posted by honestcoyote at 1:03 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Some good thoughts from Nieman Lab's Joshua Benton, The forces that drove this election’s media failure are likely to get worse

There’s plenty of blame to go around, but the list of actors has to start with Facebook. And for all its wonders — reaching nearly 2 billion people each month, driving more traffic and attention to news than anything else on earth — it’s also become a single point of failure for civic information. Our democracy has a lot of problems, but there are few things that could impact it for the better more than Facebook starting to care — really care — about the truthfulness of the news that its users share and take in.

As BuzzFeed’s Craig Silverman has documented repeatedly — and as anyone who has spent much time on their relatives’ profile pages can probably attest — Facebook has become a sewer of misinformation. Some of it is driven by ideology, but a lot is driven purely by the economic incentive structure Facebook has created: The fake stuff, when it connects with a Facebook user’s preconceived notions or sense of identity, spreads like wildfire. (And it’s a lot cheaper to make than real news.)

There are other thoughts on the demise of local community institutions and local newspapers, a split media, and an overwhelming desire to turn toward snark rather than understanding what Trump was doing.
posted by zachlipton at 1:04 PM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

Clinton was outright rejected, and by women. The specifics of that require reflection and change -- losing to the most categorically unqualified nominee in modern history requires more than just a surplus of angry rural voters. As demonstrated, she didn't earn enough votes -- the numbers show that.

Fucking PENNSYLVANIA!
posted by uraniumwilly at 1:04 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Unemployment and Underemployment are completely different things. Trump voters are in relatively decent positions but they understand perhaps only instinctively that times are going to get worse before too long. That economic uncertainty is what drives a lot of their angst.

They realize that their way of life simply can't be maintained anymore and are facing up to the idea that their children are facing a possible future in which they do worse than their parents. It makes them terrified and terrified people are easy prey.

Show African Americans marching to end police brutality and they see a possible breakdown of society. Watch women come closer and closer to achieving some sort of lasting equality and they see their values under assault. Watch LGBTQ kids achieve a certain level of cultural acceptance and they are terrified.

They are terrified because they've been indoctrinated to be terrified because a fearful population is a compliant population they look to any stern daddy figure that promises to protect them a smite their enemies.

Let me be 100% clear they are sadly mistaken because truthfully Trump doesn't give a shit about them. Trump is a bully who was no doubt bullied by his own father. His entire history is 100% about trying to live up to some idea of success that his father pushed on him. As my wife likes to say "hurt people hurt people". Trump is a hurt person surrounded by a flock of hurt people and until we figure out a way of dealing with that pain this festering pit of white nationalism will continue to claim fertile ground.
posted by vuron at 1:04 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I know it's disappointing, but this blame-everyone-except-the-candidate approach, which stops everyone from looking at how we got an easily-defeated candidate, is not going to help next time.

To copy-paste chris24's simple table from above...

Turnout
2012 Obama: 65.9m
2016 Clinton: 59.1m = -6.8m
2012 Romney: 60.9m
2016 Trump: 59m = -1.9m

Trump/Pence lost two million of Romney's voters, and I'm sure everyone here can outline the reasons they lost them without even pausing to breathe. It was on the nightly news. Nightly. All year long.

But Clinton/Kaine lost SEVEN MILLION of Obama's voters, and not only wasn't that ever really analyzed during the race (other than by laughing at Bernie supporters, maybe), we seem to be still incapable of discussing it, even now. Simply calling them all racist or misogynist or stupid makes no logical sense. How were they better people just a few years ago?

Regardless of the top-of-ticket gender, the table up there shows the Democrats own voters rejected the ticket. Clinton/Kaine was not what Obama's coalition wanted. Not enough of them, anyway.

It sucks, sure, and this is a bad day for most people we know... but if we're going to stay in the Clinton-was-perfect bubble here even now, after reality landed with a big, dull thud... then we're hopeless.

Which is to say, we can't blame everyone else and allow the same machine to produce the next ticket, or we're in this mess forever.
posted by rokusan at 1:05 PM on November 9, 2016 [43 favorites]

As demonstrated, she didn't earn enough votes -- the numbers show that.

Technically, she did, in the same way that Gore did. She didn't earn enough electoral votes, meaning votes strategically distributed across various states, and I'm not sure how that gets fixed, but to say this was a rejection of Clinton outright is not correct.
posted by Existential Dread at 1:05 PM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

"Today we are all this specific Riker"
posted by drezdn at 1:06 PM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

True. The electoral college is the last vestige of the Three-Fifths Compromise, but the only legitimate chance to get rid of it passed 150 years ago.

So this is false. Even if arguendo we agreed that it was about slavery, that would mean that it's not the only vestige, since we also have a senate based on the same idea of population independent apportionment.

But we have arguments from the founders for the electoral college that aren't based on slavery. See Federalist No. 68.
posted by Jahaza at 1:06 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

The main question is the reason.

Is it that the Republican propaganda machine is sufficient to convince anyone that an honest person is corrupt?

Or is Clinton derangement syndrome a unique case that should have been expected?

Or is it that people are tired of a system that seems to work for the bankers, and .. uhh... I'm not sure I can reasonably argue this, considering Trump's a born rich New York real estate speculator.

Or is it just... sexism?
posted by Zalzidrax at 1:07 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Clinton was outright rejected, and by women.

My wife has argued all along that the country would not elect a woman and I assured her she was wrong.
posted by bongo_x at 1:07 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Clinton was outright rejected, and by women.

White women. White women.
posted by palindromic at 1:07 PM on November 9, 2016 [64 favorites]

That super-efficient, slickly-funded Democratic organization and ground game with 100x the staff and budget and all those electoral smarts and experience... it was all aimed at winning elections pre-Internet, I guess. Like the US Army having thousands of tanks it will never, ever need.

At least I'm sure that'll seem obvious eventually. I certainly didn't see it six months ago.
posted by rokusan at 1:08 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Maybe it was all of these reasons it's not an either-or thing jeez
posted by Apocryphon at 1:08 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

American women voted overwhelmingly for Clinton, except the white ones:

So, what exactly happened? Women did vote overwhelmingly to elect Clinton, but it was white women who helped hand Trump the presidency, according to Edison national election poll. Overall, 54% of women voted for Clinton, much higher than the 42% of women who voted for Trump. But when the women’s vote is divided by race, it becomes clear that black women actually largely drove the so-called gender gap against Trump.

posted by palindromic at 1:09 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Clinton was outright rejected, and by women.

White women. White women.

White uneducated women. and by lots and lots of men.
posted by bluesky43 at 1:10 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

The kids over at Venice High are chanting NOT OUR PRESIDENT loud enough that I can hear them from blocks away. Bless you, kids.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 1:10 PM on November 9, 2016 [58 favorites]

.
posted by yoga at 1:10 PM on November 9, 2016

Here's a cheerful quote from Lear:
"The worst is not So long as we can say “This is the worst.”"
And you know, everything turned out hunky-dory there.
posted by angrycat at 1:11 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I really feel like America cheated this woman out of her rightful role.

That attitude is part of the reason I was blindsided, though.
posted by Coventry at 1:12 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

But we have arguments from the founders for the electoral college that aren't based on slavery. See Federalist No. 68.

I didn't mean that the electoral college was only about slavery. The framers had the same arguments for indirect election of the president as for indirect election of senators. But a big "feature" of the apportionment of electoral votes in the EC was that it also reinforced the three-fifths-compromise representation given to slave states. (Disproportionate representation in the Senate is a separate issue and probably never going away.)
posted by stopgap at 1:13 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Simply calling them all racist or misogynist or stupid makes no logical sense.

If you voted Trump, you are one of the above, or so insulated by wealth that you believe his presidency won't affect you.

Its not complicated, really.
posted by threetwentytwo at 1:16 PM on November 9, 2016 [19 favorites]

I am truly sorry Americans. I genuinely thought Clinton had this one. I would've believed even without the polls.
posted by um at 1:17 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

The rest of the world has had something like 140* female heads of state or government already. And man, it does suck that we haven't had one yet.

Sexism is a very real and powerful thing (duh) and yeah, it impacted a lot of voters. A lot of voters are sexist. But I really can't believe the US is somehow fundamentally more sexist than most of the rest of the developed world, to the degree it can't be overcome with the right candidate(s).

This is part of why I can't just write this off to "sexism was the complete reason."

(Then again, I was quite confident Clinton would win, and handily, so if you want to let me know I'm very wrong and/or too optimistic and/or naive, don't worry: I'm there with you already.)

* 143, as of Theresa May, if I counted right. I was rushing.
posted by rokusan at 1:18 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

This is a pretty clear stopped-clock situation -- he was saying the same things in 2012, and just switched "Romney" to "Trump" for this cycle.

okay well then let's just go back to status quo band-aids for unions then
posted by Apocryphon at 1:19 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'd expect there were some voters who were excited by Obama's campaigns and came out to vote for him, but didn't bother to vote in 2016, but I don't know how to estimate their numbers.
posted by thelonius at 1:20 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

If you voted Trump, you are one of the above, or so insulated by wealth that you believe his presidency won't affect you.

Its not complicated, really.

this is not the right approach to win back those Obama voters who defected to Trump this year, the white women who voted for him, nor the men of color who also did
posted by Apocryphon at 1:20 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

I hate to whine about about this but if you mean "does not possess a college degree" could you say that instead of "uneducated"?

I don't know. Little of column A, little of column B?

I have Trump-voting friends who believe in their heart of hearts that they just saved America from a woman who, among other things, laughs about freeing rapists and literally hires hitmen to kill people.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 1:21 PM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

So I've seen a lot of talk about the 2000 election, but not as much about 2004, when we reelected a very unpopular president because people from all over the country were motivated to go out and vote in favor of putting in constitution bans of same sex marriage, just to make it that much hard for GLB folks to get a right that they didn't even have at the time. They just hated gays that much.

So we've made some progress, I guess.
posted by dinty_moore at 1:21 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Stolen from a friend in DC: " I was in an Uber with a fellow Uber pool rider whose child woke her up this morning with a packed bag and said to her mom, "let's go, get your clothes, we have to go back to Africa or we'll be slavery again." Shes 4.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:21 PM on November 9, 2016 [24 favorites]

If you voted Trump, you are one of [racist or misogynist or stupid], or so insulated by wealth that you believe his presidency won't affect you. Its not complicated, really.

threetwentytwo, I love you and would have your Internet babies, and my god do I feel that frustration... but can you see that that approach is the same as what we were all doing for the last six months, during which we somehow drove away seven million Obama voters, probably not coincidentally? Worse, a whole lot of us did it only in a friendly safe support bubble instead of outside, working to convert others.

(Heck, we even ridiculed those who didn't support or vote for Hillary hard enough.)

"You're stupid or racist or misogynist if you don't vote Hillary" was not a good sales pitch, and if we rally around that even after this wakeup call, then the Democrats and their supporters will do that again, and then they'll lose again.
posted by rokusan at 1:22 PM on November 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

LGBTQ issues I'm worried about:

* We're at a stage medically where HIV detection is cheap, PreP appears to be effective as an alternative to or alongside condom use, and we have treatment options available and in development. A conservative government that frames any of that (including health education campaigns) as funding immorality is going to hurt. This is already the case with the HPV vaccine.

* The Department of Education tacitly expanded Title IX to include anti-LGBTQ discrimination and harassment. I've long been of the opinion that we can't trust the benevolence of executive policy to protect LGBTQ students. Attempted suicide, assault, and sexual assault for LGBTQ youth are huge threats.

* The Supreme Court generally doesn't quickly go back on precedent, except when it does as was the case when it outlawed the death penalty and reinstated it in under a decade. Obergefell is likely under threat, either directly or indirectly via religious liberty laws that would make same-sex marriage difficult to obtain or merely symbolic. The religious liberty argument could lead to the problem that started the challenge in California, marriage is marriage except when it offends religious sensibilities, then it's not marriage and we're down to litigating every possible benefit.

* Bathroom bills are another bait-and-switch. Advocates don't really want police in front of every restroom. They want for schools, businesses, and accommodations to deny services and employment to trans people, because the presence of trans people on the property creates a legal liability.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 1:22 PM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

Here's more useful information about personal information security from the EFF.

I strongly urge people to learn about this, as soon as possible, It is not a question of installing this or that app, or using this or that service. It's a matter of understanding the principles of security and surveillance, what threats are, how they may affect you, and what you can do about it.

This was important before: it is vital now, if you wish to retain the option of fighting for your freedom and values in the face of a powerful state which will find such attitudes threatening.
posted by Devonian at 1:23 PM on November 9, 2016 [19 favorites]

Speaking of personal information security, does MetaFilter keep a permanent record indexing everyone's real name and billing address to their user name, by any chance?

Just wondering.
posted by rokusan at 1:24 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

So I've seen a lot of talk about the 2000 election, but not as much about 2004,

Didn't the Republicans also sweep Congress in '04? Because that's how it feels more like to me right now. The Iraq War was well on its way then. Dems and liberals and the left were demoralized. And yet, despite the cost, the country survived.
posted by Apocryphon at 1:24 PM on November 9, 2016

It's not just voter suppression, but that absolutely played a significant role.

And considering the results, I expect to see a lot of states doubling down on voter ID laws, curtailing early voting, reducing the number of polling places, and generally making it more difficult for people to vote.
posted by toxic at 1:24 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

those monsters showed their quality in spades.

Go for it, but first have the votes to offset theirs with.
posted by Apocryphon at 1:25 PM on November 9, 2016

To copy-paste chris24's simple table from above...

Turnout
2012 Obama: 65.9m
2016 Clinton: 59.1m = -6.8m
2012 Romney: 60.9m
2016 Trump: 59m = -1.9m

Trump/Pence lost two million of Romney's voters, and I'm sure everyone here can outline the reasons they lost them without even pausing to breathe. It was on the nightly news. Nightly. All year long.

But Clinton/Kaine lost SEVEN MILLION of Obama's voters

Yeah, that was from a tweet showing the total counted. But as I later posted, we now know there's actually a lot of vote left that Nate Cohn at NYT estimates to finalize at Clinton 63.4m, Trump 61.2m. So the more accurate final chart would be:

Turnout
2012 Obama: 65.9m
2016 Clinton: 63.4m = -2.5m
2012 Romney: 60.9m
2016 Trump: 61.2m = +.3m

So Trump slightly outperformed Romney, while Clinton underperformed Obama, but by a much smaller margin than 7 million. A margin easier to explain by suppression, racism, sexism. And a total that's 2.2 million more than Trump.
posted by chris24 at 1:25 PM on November 9, 2016 [31 favorites]

For some reason, this didn't all quite feel real until this group of protesting students came by chanting "love trumps hate." The sound of people taking to the streets in protest, not in the best traditions of our democratic institutions by opposing an unjust law or governmental action, but in support of freedom and dignity itself, that's all too real right now.
posted by zachlipton at 1:26 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Some of you in this thread are more concerned about potentially hurting the feelings people who supported a man who ran an openly racist, misogynist, and xenophobic campaign than the concerns of black people like me and brown people who are going to be on the receiving end of his bullshit. Fuck Donald Trump and fuck ALL the people who voted for him. If these are people I'm supposed to be cool with then I'll pass.
posted by RedShrek at 1:26 PM on November 9, 2016 [89 favorites]

"You're stupid or racist or misogynist if you don't vote Hillary" was not a good sales pitch

...that no one was making.

Sure, a few people said it, but that's like saying that stickers of Calvin peeing on a Ford logo aren't a good sales pitch for Chevrolet -- you don't see those on ads or at dealerships*, and no one is really swayed by it. People might claim "Oh, I would drive a Chevy, but those damn Chevy drivers with their stupid Calvin stickers make me SO MAD!", but it's an excuse, not a reason.

* -- I haven't, at least. I'm sure there's some dealership somewhere where Stu has one up in his cubicle, ha ha, but you know what I mean.
posted by Etrigan at 1:26 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Thanks, chris24. It's good to know the shortfall wasn't quite as heinous as it first appeared. As with many of us, it's been hard to focus and keep up and care enough to keep up.

And sorry for my tone, qcubed. Wounds are too fresh, probably. It just pains me because I think we're doomed to repeat the same mistake by alienating more and more possible voters. I'll tone out for a bit.
posted by rokusan at 1:27 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

ITT: Racism without racists
posted by RedShrek at 1:27 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's not about hurting feelings or not. It's about winning votes and converting the enemy. If we really are going to commit to Weimar or Republican Spain, fine, but until then this is a democracy and we are forced to share the electorate with those people. So we either have to find a way to win some of them over, or engage those who didn't vote against him to do so. Returning Othering with Othering just doesn't work in a democratic system.
posted by Apocryphon at 1:28 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Is there any data for the argument that voters were driven away AS OPPOSED TO not showing up because she's got this, it's 99% sure, voting is hard, TrumpLOL, and/or dude I totally spaced?
posted by petebest at 1:28 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Let's try and find some sort of way to talk about the possible factors involved in cycle-to-cycle voting differentials without tearing at or dismissing each other too much. I know this is hard, but we're all in this together and that's gonna take some effort when everybody's especially on edge.

Speaking of personal information security, does MetaFilter keep a permanent record indexing everyone's real name and billing address to their user name, by any chance?

We've never collected billing address info; anyone who has a specific concern about e.g. name or email information being stored server-side is totally welcome to drop a note to the contact form about it and I'm happy to make an accommodation wherever possible.
posted by cortex at 1:29 PM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

Sexism is a very real and powerful thing (duh) and yeah, it impacted a lot of voters. A lot of voters are sexist. But I really can't believe the US is somehow fundamentally more sexist than most of the rest of the developed world, to the degree it can't be overcome with the right candidate(s).

No, but we have a system of government which basically filters for privilege. You don't get to be President probably unless you were a governor of a fairly large state, or a Senator, so you have to get through multiple layers of local/state politics before you even have a realistic chance to be considered a contender. (Trump, of course, leveraged a different kind of privilege and power to get himself into contention). And to do all those things takes time, and that doesn't give you much room for error since you only have X number of years on this planet.

Whereas ~~most~~, fuck it, all sane democracies have a parliamentary system where you can be elected from a fairly small constituency into Parliament, and if you're a smart young legislator you can move up the ranks of your party into ministerial positions or eventually party leader. And, you don't need to be filthy rich or spend half your time schmoozing with filthy rich people to get ahead, either. Not that parliamentary systems can't be sexist and racist, too, but I think a relative comparison of the minority and women representation in the national parliaments of most democracies will show that it's much, much harder to get into high public office in the US if you're not a straight white cis man.
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:29 PM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

Speaking of personal information security, does MetaFilter keep a permanent record indexing everyone's real name and billing address to their user name, by any chance?

Peter Thiel's Paypal does.
posted by toxic at 1:29 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

30+ years of relentless hate directed at Hillary was hard for her to overcome. I'm amazed that she had the fortitude to deal with it when by all rights should could've retired 4 years ago and still be considered one of the most accomplished women of our lifetimes. But she kept on because I think she felt like she could still give more and I feel like plenty of women saw in her their struggles and their hopes and their aspirations for themselves and their families.

I feel incredibly guilty that I have to look at my daughter and her friends many of whom are PoC or young girls and feel like I personally let her and them down. That is soul crushing because I so desperately want her to experience a world that will be willing to judge her on her talent and her skill and her accomplishments and not the color of her skin or her beauty or how much she can make the males in her life feel loved. I wanted her to experience an eternal spring of innocence and joy that a woman could truly achieve anything.

Yes I know that ultimately I'm engaged in non-rational behavior and that if Hillary had won last night there would be plenty of parents that love their children just as much as I love mine be worried about the result. We are ultimately creatures of emotion despite our attempts of masking that with rationality and logic. We vote and associate with others that share our values and sometimes we decide that our incompatibilities with our formative family means that we have to go create a new family. We work to make the world better based upon on biased, subjective viewpoint and we get into conflict with others over our fears and our hopes and our dreams and our families. Yes there are some truly awful people out there who will take advantage of our divisiveness but we cannot allow them to win.

No doubt each and everyone of us knows someone whose lives will be made lesser for the decision last night. Hopefully each and everyone of us can reach out and help those people feel loved and wanted.
posted by vuron at 1:30 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Turnout
2012 Obama: 65.9m
2016 Clinton: 63.4m = -2.5m
2012 Romney: 60.9m
2016 Trump: 61.2m = +.3m

So Trump slightly outperformed Romney...

By 0.5 percent, compared to the 3 percent growth of the U.S. population since then.
posted by Etrigan at 1:31 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Sharing from a friend's post on FB. Please hold her in your memory.

The 17 year old trans daughter of a friend of mine killed herself this morning. She found a note in her locker saying "Trump and Pence are going to make you (her) be a boy again as GOD intended." And "if we ever see you (her) dressed as a girl again we will show you what a girl is good for."
posted by anastasiav at 1:31 PM on November 9, 2016 [104 favorites]

Oh really? And When has there ever been a point in history black people have been able to convince white people to view and respect our humanity? I'm supposed to try to convert the people who call me a nigger and view me and my family members as suspicious because of our skin color and funny sounding names? Nah, you go do that if you want. I understand the racial history of this country enough to know that's a bunch of nonsense.
posted by RedShrek at 1:31 PM on November 9, 2016 [42 favorites]

Peter Thiel's Paypal does.

Geez, one good thing about being here so darn long is I predate $5.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:32 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Very frustrated today, but trying to encourage people to do one of three things:
1. Volunteer in your community - get out at least once per month
2. Donate to important causes - they're going to need it
3. Get involved in local politics. Go to a city council meeting. Get to know your local representatives. Push for the right change in your neighborhoods
posted by glaucon at 1:32 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

anastasiav, that's horrific.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:33 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

I pray that President Trump will rise above his base instincts and somehow manage to avoid being played like a cheap kazoo by the true statesmen and the despots of the world. I also pray for people with terminal illnesses to recover, and for there to be survivors when airplanes fall out of the sky.

On the homefront, what's clear to me is that this is a man who does not stand on principle nor on any moral ground, and can be blown with the wind. I will choose to put my best effort toward contributing to a wind that blows in a favorable direction.
posted by mammoth at 1:33 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Then focus the fight against voter suppression, push for measures to make voting easier for low-income workers who otherwise can't go on Election Day, and mobilize for more votes from minority populations. I did propose a second option aside from trying to win them over.
posted by Apocryphon at 1:33 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

The 17 year old trans daughter of a friend of mine killed herself this morning. She found a note in her locker saying "Trump and Pence are going to make you (her) be a boy again as GOD intended." And "if we ever see you (her) dressed as a girl again we will show you what a girl is good for."

.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:33 PM on November 9, 2016 [26 favorites]

I saw so many pictures of little girls with I Voted stickers. Pictures of little girls in voting booths. Pictures of little girls with ballots filled out for Hillary. My daughter will turn 1 year old in 6 days. I have pictures of her smiling with an I Voted sticker. Pictures of her with the Hillary logo on a chalkboard in the background.

It's not that a woman lost. It's not that Hillary deserved to win simply by being a woman. It's that all those parents and daughters could have had lasting memories and lessons learned and inspiration, and instead we elected a man who says as long as your famous you can just grab women by the pussy. What memory and lesson is that?
posted by jermsplan at 1:34 PM on November 9, 2016 [37 favorites]

This is very simple:
Historically unliked candidate + very poor campaign = a Clinton loss.

She never set foot in Wisconsin. Her campaign didn't go to Michigan until last week. Somehow all of their internal polling didn't recognize the need to reach out to white working class voters, which have been a key part of Democratic success in the past; instead, she actively drove them away. Honestly, it's amazing that a campaign can be run that poorly.

Add in the fact that many Democratic voters feel like she shouldn't have been the candidate in the first place and you have a sure recipe for defeat.

I'll accept that misogyny had a role in her defeat, but she was already loathed by so many people on the right (and on the left; I certainly didn't vote for her) that I feel it made people very pre-disposed vote against her (or, again, not vote for her) for a variety of reasons, including misogyny.
posted by Fister Roboto at 1:34 PM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

This thread isn't about extending an olive branch to voters who decided to create an existential threat to humanity for *reasons*. This is a thread where we are mourning a lot. I'll worry about holding my nose and trying to placate the Nazis, say, next election.

We have to live some really horrible shit first. One reason why I sort of wished I hadn't taught today is that (I guess) most of us see that horrible shit coming, and, speaking for myself, I am terrified. And horrified.

Come back for your nice tone, if you want it.
posted by angrycat at 1:34 PM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

.

I've seen several reports of trans kids committing or attempting suicide today. Please take care of yourselves everyone.
posted by zachlipton at 1:35 PM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

But I really can't believe the US is somehow fundamentally more sexist than most of the rest of the developed world, to the degree it can't be overcome with the right candidate(s).

I'm not sure that there's really a good parallel in other countries for America's history with evangelicalism and antifeminism, the same way there's not a good parallel in other countries for America's history with slavery and anti-black racism.
posted by Sequence at 1:35 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Things I am celebrating about the election today (most are AZ-specific):

1. We gained two US Senate seats (Hassan and Duckworth).
2. Arizona kicked Sheriff Joe Arpaio to the curb.
3. Tom O'Halleran won AZ's 1st District race for the US House
4. Linda Thor won her race for Maricopa County Community College Board

...and perhaps a practical silver lining to the terrible cloud hanging over the country today:

The Republicans own this, now. With all three branches of government in their hands, it's time for them to govern. And when they FAIL to do so effectively, which we know they will, it's all on them.
posted by darkstar at 1:35 PM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

She never set foot in Wisconsin. Her campaign didn't go to Michigan until last week. Somehow all of their internal polling didn't recognize the need to reach out to white working class voters, which have been a key part of Democratic success in the past; instead, she actively drove them away. Honestly, it's amazing that a campaign can be run that poorly.

Did they seriously not focus on the Rust Belt? Michael Moore's bloviating aside, it was clear that Trump's appeal was to disaffected blue collar Reagan Democrat types. The Clinton campaign never made it a priority to go to those states, even though Pennsylvania was already talked about as a battleground state? How were they this out-of-touch?
posted by Apocryphon at 1:36 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

A hispanic colleague's six year old son came home from school today terrified because one of his classmates told him he was going to be deported. Both he and his son were born in the US.
posted by bluesky43 at 1:36 PM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

So we either have to find a way to win some of them over, or engage those who didn't vote against him to do so.

That's on you, white people. Seriously. Don't fucking expect us POC to keep trying to convince all of you of our humanity and worthiness and why we deserve equality. There are clearly millions upon millions who just will. not. listen. to us. I'm sick of trying to workshop why that is. Figure it out amongst yourselves, we are busy trying to survive in this sick system you created for us.
posted by yasaman at 1:36 PM on November 9, 2016 [87 favorites]

What makes you think many of us weren't working on this? I was supporting the work being done by the NAACP to challenge voter ID laws and you know how that worked out? Not very well. A Robert's court gutted the VRA and many republican controlled state governments across the south successfully suppressed the back vote. These officials were not voted into office by black people.
posted by RedShrek at 1:37 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

That's on you, white people. Seriously. Don't fucking expect us POC to keep trying to convince all of you of our humanity and worthiness and why we deserve equality. There are clearly millions upon millions who just will. not. listen. to us. I'm sick of trying to workshop why that is. Figure it out amongst yourselves, we are busy trying to survive in this sick system you created for us.

I'm also a person of color, so sure sounds like a good deal to me.
posted by Apocryphon at 1:37 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

The Republicans own this, now. With all three branches of government in their hands, it's time for them to govern. And when they FAIL to do so effectively, which we know they will, it's all on them.

I want to live in your mystical fantasy world where legislative actions have electoral consequences.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 1:39 PM on November 9, 2016 [37 favorites]

The good news is that they are incompetent and corrupt, and anything they try to do will be half-assed bullshit at best that will inevitably fail spectacularly.

The bad news is the same.
posted by petebest at 1:39 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

... I don't even -know- how things played out locally (Washington), because I was so miserable about Trump.

I imagine Inslee won, but I suppose I should read up some. It's a sure bet that my local municipality all went to Republicans (there wasn't actually any other option, in my House race. It was a Republican with Tea Party ties... or a slightly crazier Republican with Tea Party ties)
posted by Archelaus at 1:40 PM on November 9, 2016

The country wasn't ready in 2008, isn't ready now, and won't be ready in 2020 for a female candidate.

Hey, it used to be thought that the USA would never elect a divorced President, and that Reagan only got a pass because "he left that first marriage so early in life, and moved on to such a stable and functional second marriage, that the voters didn't care". But the nation moved on from that and has now elected a twice-divorcee and serial adulterer, which shows that ...

I'm sorry, I can't even do this as satire. You may be right or you may not; this election showed that nobody knows anything. I feel that the country won't be ready in 2020 for anyone other than a fascist demagogue, and that any Democratic candidate will be mocked for being insufficiently manly and patriotic and Christian.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:40 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

How much competency do you have to have to nuke something? Isn't there a red phone or something? Trump loves his phones.
posted by angrycat at 1:42 PM on November 9, 2016

Think Newt's gonna load up his office with sexy interns?
posted by petebest at 1:43 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

And honestly, the reason why I would actually prefer Obama had swooped into Trump Tower last night, hallowed traditions be damned, is that I think that motherfucker is going to nuke something.
posted by angrycat at 1:44 PM on November 9, 2016

... I don't even -know- how things played out locally (Washington), because I was so miserable about Trump.

ST-3 passed, which is gonna expand light rail significantly. I am pretty excited about this. I hope I get to stay in this state.
posted by jonbro at 1:44 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Inslee won
posted by RedShrek at 1:44 PM on November 9, 2016

Yeah, I think if this election has proven anything beyond a doubt, it is that there is literally no behavior too egregious to keep a white man out of the White House.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 1:45 PM on November 9, 2016 [36 favorites]

Apologies in advance if this has already been discussed...

RE: Jobs and Unemployment

People who have stopped looking for work are no longer a part of the unemployment calculation, correct? If so, is there a source for the true numbers?
posted by futz at 1:45 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Unemployment? The U-6 is what you're looking for, I think.
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:46 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Did they seriously not focus on the Rust Belt? Michael Moore's bloviating aside, it was clear that Trump's appeal was to disaffected blue collar Reagan Democrat types. The Clinton campaign never made it a priority to go to those states, even though Pennsylvania was already talked about as a battleground state? How were they this out-of-touch?

Oh, they spent a ton of time in Pennsylvania, but only Philly and Pittsburgh. Some of her surrogates came to Wisconsin at the last minute, but she did not visit personally. She was not in Michigan until very recently. Hell, even Minnesota was a close call and she never went there.

Trump's campaign, which was staffed by a bunch of supposed blunderers, seem to have had a better idea about what was going on then Clinton's did. For someone with the connections that she has, and the political experience of those connections, this is inexcusable, and this country and the world is going to suffer terribly because of their errors. Whether they were due to over-confidence or ignorance, time will tell, but the results are what they are.
posted by Fister Roboto at 1:47 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

People who have stopped looking for work are no longer a part of the unemployment calculation, correct? If so, is there a source for the true numbers?

The number you're unhappy with is the U3. The number you want is the U6.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:47 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

jeffburdges, I actually read it, and a few other "basics of neoliberalism" articles before I posted my comment. In what ways did Clinton campaign on "privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade, and reductions in government spending in order to enhance the role of the private sector in the economy?" She ran on increasing the size of government, a public option that would compete with private insurers, a rejection of austerity, and more regulation. Where's the neoliberalism?

At what point does the term neoliberalism just mean "Not Bernie Sanders?"

Neoliberalism is a complicated concept. I read a bit of the literature when I have the time to do so, and I struggle a lot with the material.

So where's the neoliberalism? Try this, in Hillary Clinton words at her Goldman Sachs talks:

"You know, I would like to see more successful business people run for office. I really would like to see that because I do think, you know, you don’t have to have 30 billion, but you have a certain level of freedom. And there’s that memorable phrase from a former member of the Senate: You can be maybe rented, but never bought. And I think it’s important to have people with those experiences."

That's neoliberal ideology, quite explicitly. That she said this to a private audience, then compare/juxtapose that to her public campaign of a bigger state and social services. It's this two-faced discourse, and on second order, the incentives and conditions that lead to this.

The stance of theorists such as Slavoj Zizek posit that EU-style social democracy is itself at best a concession to neoliberalism.

So to the statement that "She ran on increasing the size of government, …", it's the very contrast between making these promises versus the lack of operationalizing them. That can make her platform part of the neoliberal consensus. Further note that this is not obvious or recognizable, because one function of ideology is that stuff tends to get "decentered" - an example of a very very technical theory term, but roughly is about the intuition that things are not what they seem, that one's very mental categories are subject to ideological bias, etc.

Leftist theory or critical theory is fucking complicated, and as I experience it, often weirdly mind-blowing shit in how it draws unexpected connections. It gets a lot of hate in from mainstream economics and related disciplines, but as someone with a STEM background, it requires an analytical rigor that outsiders judge as merely mental acrobatics. I've made it my project to learn about it as much as I can in order to reconcile conflicting worldviews.

As an example of conflicting arguments—and, really which also should shed some clarity on people's differing evaluations of Clinton in relation to neoliberalism—Zizek has recently claimed that the status-quo, neoliberal consensus is what Hillary represents. You might immediately laugh and ask, how is that possible if Hillary and Democrats tend to be in favor of incrementalism, etc? That would be absurd, right?

The problem with that is that further back, Marx already wrote an entire chapter in Capital Vol I on how capitalism is actually quite agile on its different axes of exploitation, that it's a misconception and miscritique to think that capitalism bad because it is rigid. So the idea is that capitalism as it currently exists manufactures some superficial semblance of social progress (c.f. Plato's cave, Chomsky's manufactured consent, etc.): that is itself a part of neoliberal order. And Zizek's claim is made with this context in mind. He'd critique Clinton for proposing solutions that address symptoms, without getting to the root of say, the economic precarity that Marx predicted. It is in this more dynamic context that he's theorizing how Clinton represents the status quo, without him incurring a contradiction.
posted by polymodus at 1:48 PM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

Stayed with you all last night until about 4.30 am GMT, then went to bed in despair. Today, unexpectedly sobbed at the American food section (sweets and cereal mostly I think) in Tesco. I'm grateful to you all for allowing outsiders to share in your pre- and post-election analyses and in your accounts of your political histories, campaign experiences and voting. And in your hope and grief and plans. In the post-Brexit, lack of effective opposition to the Tories and UKIPpers stuff we have going on over here, it's made me think about what I can and should do to be a better citizen and better person.
posted by paduasoy at 1:49 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

National Center for Transgender Equality, Statement from Mara Keisling on the Election of Donald Trump
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:50 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

People have stopped looking for work are no longer a part of the unemployment calculation, correct? If so, is there a source for the true numbers?

The "U-5" unemployment rate includes those who have stopped looking for work ("discouraged workers plus those marginally attached to the labor force"); "U-6" is the above plus "those in part-time employment for economic reasons" ("part-time is all I can find"). The U-6 rate as of October is 9.5% per BLS.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 1:50 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Things have been very grim today at the college where I work, and I've been struggling with grief and rage and a crushing hangover -- but just now, a student came to my door with her guide dog, saying "Today, she's everyone's emotional support dog, if you want to pet her!" So I got to spend several minutes snorgling with a happy black lab, and believe me, grab any chances you may have to do likewise, it really did help, at least for a while.
posted by Kat Allison at 1:50 PM on November 9, 2016 [35 favorites]

Michael Moore's bloviating aside,

Don't get me wrong, I was guilty of this too, but maybe we all shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss him as a crank considering he was, you know, correct. He knew post-industrial Michigan more intimately than pretty much anyone of his prominence, and it seems to have given him some insight. He called Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio back in July when everyone was calling him nuts.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 1:52 PM on November 9, 2016 [42 favorites]

OMG Kat Allison, that's awesome. I wish I had a furry snorgle-buddy right now.
posted by darkstar at 1:53 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I brought my own emotional support dog in today. She's doing a good job.
posted by azpenguin at 1:54 PM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

Speaking of Michael Moore, here's his "Morning After To-Do List for Democrats".
I LIKE IT.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 1:54 PM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

John Nichols: It Really Is That Bad, So now we must get very good at saying “no” to Trumpism.

A Divided Nation: As Trump Wins Electoral College, Clinton Wins Popular Vote
posted by homunculus at 1:54 PM on November 9, 2016

Rorschach's journal, November 9th 2016. Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This world's afraid of me. I've seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood.

I'm more depressed today than I've been in a long time. My car is a hand me down from the parents, and mom put a sticker about equality on the back of it, and that sticker has since faded to a white square next to the ancient Bernie Sanders for president sticker. That sticker was oddly prophetic.

It's pushing 4pm here, and I still can't eat.
posted by Sphinx at 1:54 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

My boss just came by and thanked me for canvassing and I almost burst into tears.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:55 PM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

Michael Moore's bloviating aside,

Don't get me wrong, I was guilty of this too, but maybe we all shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss him as a crank considering he was, you know, correct.

I have a completely different recollection of the facts. He bragged about saving Hillary from losing after he did the know-it-all speech about Trump winning. That's my recollection.

Fuck him
posted by uraniumwilly at 1:55 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Thanks for being here, everybody.

I'm going to go take a break and listen to Mavis Staples for a while. Mavis's voice is hope and truth.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:55 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Isn't there a red phone or something? Trump loves his phones.

i doubt *that* phone gets twitter.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 1:56 PM on November 9, 2016

I wish I had a furry snorgle-buddy right now.

I will be walking an aggressively friendly French bulldog and a zen German wirehair pointer in the Financial District of Manhattan shortly for all who need snorgles and are in the area.
posted by chris24 at 1:59 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

...unexpectedly sobbed at the American food section (sweets and cereal mostly I think) in Tesco

Something is profound there, but I'm too tattered to find it.
posted by rokusan at 2:01 PM on November 9, 2016

My drug dealer who is Islamic and black a convicted felon and is therefore disenfranchised:

Managed to shock the shit out of me by declaring how excited he was for a Trump presidency because finally someone was going to challenge the rigged system. I'm still like ???? !!!!! ?????

Because I feel like doling out weaponized kindness today (hugging the student, congratulating my cat fifty zillion times today for pooping, thanking a bus driver for being so cheerful) I didn't tell my friend that ohhhh boy just you know, be careful, keep your head down, and you've actually pulled a real mind-fuck on me, I said *thank you, black, Islamic, drug-dealing oh and I forgot disabled friend for assuring me that Trump is going to be the best ever*

Luckily I'm too depressed to be sarcastic. I was just flat-out lying to him about assuring me so I could get off the phone.

My brother and I have had a stupid on-going joke for years of answering the phone with Stewart's imitation of Cheney as the Joker or whatever, and when he called today, both of us were too sad to make the noise.

I mean, we pull shit like tricking our mother into watching The Blair Witch Project, so for our sources of black humor to be extinguished or at least dampened is like--whoah, usually we're the go-to people for making an awful joke out of an awful situation.
posted by angrycat at 2:02 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

The narrative that this was a rebellion by the economically marginalized is an ennobling lie and should be stamped out immediately.
posted by My Dad at 2:02 PM on November 9, 2016 [40 favorites]

As I said upthread, a fair bit of the urban midwest was built on a soft-spoken NIMBY racism. In retrospect, it's not a surprise that Trump found a fertile ground there. Benjamin Smith was a home-grown white supremacist raised in Willamette and Kenosha. Or for a milder and dated view, see a classic John Hughes movie or his imitators where going outside of the burbs is like a field trip to another country.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 2:02 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump's campaign, which was staffed by a bunch of supposed blunderers, seem to have had a better idea about what was going on then Clinton's did. For someone with the connections that she has, and the political experience of those connections, this is inexcusable, and this country and the world is going to suffer terribly because of their errors. Whether they were due to over-confidence or ignorance, time will tell, but the results are what they are.

Yeah we were told so many times that the campaign had the latest and greatest technology, real next-gen post-OFA razor-sharp voter identification drill-down doodads with appified creamy goodness and internal polling that you could lick up one side and down the other.

Whatever, I'm not apologizing for any of those metaphors.

It was a complete fuckup and they were (are) obviously as stunned as we were (though now we know, I guess, why they suddenly went to MI and PA in the final days).

Part of me wonders if they got trapped in their own bubble of data. I mean, they had all this voter tracking info and they were running such tight and focused contacts that -- I think they missed a lot of marginal voters. I wonder how many folks who maybe are lower-income, move around a fair amount and maybe aren't always up to date on their cell phone bill (or who don't answer calls because bill collectors) just totally fell through the cracks in the campaign; and who are people that a lower-tech, traditional GOTV through local communities and connections would've been able to catch.

This is all speculation on my part, mind you; and it'd be interesting to hear perspectives of people who've worked on this or previous campaigns. But it would go some way to explaining the gap between the Obama campaigns and '16 Dem turnout, and also probably to explaining why Trump's margins among blacks and latinx people were a touch higher than '12 (if some marginal Dems in those groups never got touched by the campaign).

My sense of people who've worked on OFA and such, particularly the millenials, is that they're whip-smart, funny and passionate but also more than a bit technocratic and tending to the view that a better/more complicated computer/software/model whatever will fix everything. I wonder if that kind of ethos contributed to this massive (world-historical, maybe) failure.
posted by tivalasvegas at 2:02 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

The narrative that this was a rebellion by the economically marginalized is an ennobling lie and should be stamped out immediately.

The petit bourgeois can be economically hurting without being shut out completely.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:04 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Don’t Despair Just Yet, These 5 Powerful Women Made History Last Night

It's something.
posted by rokusan at 2:06 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

The petit bourgeois can be economically hurting without being shut out completely.

This makes no sense and does not address the role racism and misogyny played in the campaign. It actually excuses the racism and misogyny.
posted by My Dad at 2:08 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Speaking of Michael Moore, here's his "Morning After To-Do List for Democrats".
I LIKE IT.

this is good, I need to engage myself in real concrete actions I can accomplish

2. Fire all pundits, predictors, pollsters and anyone else in the media

sigh
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:09 PM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

If this debacle has taught me anything on a trivial personal level, it's that I have done at least two things right in my misspent life:
1. Stopped ever really talking to my few remaining relatives at all years and years ago.
2. Stayed firmly #NeverFacebook.
posted by FelliniBlank at 2:09 PM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

ah, I just realized that advocating a military coup, in light of recent events, may not have been a wise use of my internet time

kids, don't make this mistake at home

*angrycat heads into retirement to be reborn as new, improved nick*
posted by angrycat at 2:10 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Regarding the U-6 unemployment rate, here's a graph of the U-6, U-5, and U-3 since 1994.
posted by enjoymoreradio at 2:10 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Someday I will be able to go back and read these threads from Election Night and the aftermath, but I'm not there now.

This is devastating. Just popping in to say my thoughts are with everybody here.
posted by sallybrown at 2:12 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Since I'm going back (semi-)permanently into noFB world, this was one of my final posts there:

As a person with a lifelong struggle with mental illness
As a person with immediate family with chronic disabilities who rely on government assistance
As a person with a Kinsey score my parents would probably disapprove of (sorry!)
As a person who tries as hard as I can to be an ally to women, LGBTQ communities and PoC and is learning something new every day
As a person who believes that education is the cornerstone of excising the malignancy at the core of this nation
I say to those of you who held your nose and voted for Trump because of the Supreme Court and your socially repressive agenda, and I say this from the very bottom of my heart:
You are horrible, and I want NOTHING to do with you in the future. Feel free to hit the unfriend button.
PS While you're gone, please work on your critical thinking skills. You may find a way back to rationality some day.

posted by Gaz Errant at 2:13 PM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

This is all speculation on my part, mind you; and it'd be interesting to hear perspectives of people who've worked on this or previous campaigns. But it would go some way to explaining the gap between the Obama campaigns and '16 Dem turnout, and also probably to explaining why Trump's margins among blacks and latinx people were a touch higher than '12 (if some marginal Dems in those groups never got touched by the campaign).

It's clear now that the idea of the super-competent Clinton campaign was a myth. Trump had a better feel for what was going on on the ground than Robby Mook and Trump had no actual campaign.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:13 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

a fair bit of ~~the urban midwest~~ suburban America was built on ~~a soft-spoken NIMBY~~ racism.

It's not just the urban Midwest. The white flight and so on of the postwar era was aided and abetted by New Deal agencies like the Federal Housing Administration through the process of mortgage redlining. And it wasn't particularly soft-spoken; the 1920's Klan revival was strongest in Indiana, and the Midwest had plenty of "sundown towns" (places where being black within the city limits after sunset would see you arrested or worse...not just Indiana, but most of Illinois, and not just the Midwest, but stretching coast to coast). Racism and its legacies are an American problem, not a regional one.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 2:14 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Clinton did campaign in Michigan and Wisconsin, and well before November! What's with this misinformation?
posted by feste at 2:15 PM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

This makes no sense and does not address the role racism and misogyny played in the campaign. It actually excuses the racism and misogyny.

This whole dichotomy is false. There is both racism and misogyny, and economic disenfranchisement. In fact the latter may incite the former. If we ignore one or the other we're re-litigating the primaries all over again and we all know how well that turned out. And as I've pointed out before, it's no longer sufficient to call a bigot a bigot. We have entire populations, societies, of people in the same American country who no longer share the same sensibilities. They do not care if you call them racist or sexist. They do not believe it themselves, or they wear it as a bloody badge of honor as part of the anti-pc backlash. So sure, call them out for it. It's cathartic. But pointing it out alone does not combat it. People are calling Trump voters Nazis. Fine, if you want to do that, fine. But then what? This isn't Call of Duty, some video game where Nazis are zombies or robots or some other inhuman enemy to kill at will. If you lose sight of that, then you lose the next election.

In many ways, this is entirely frustrating because none of this is all that new. We saw this in 2004. Kerry should've trounced Bush. But he didn't, and lack of understanding was part of it.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:15 PM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

The problem with that is that further back, Marx already wrote an entire chapter in Capital Vol I on how capitalism is actually quite agile on its different axes of exploitation, that it's a misconception and miscritique to think that capitalism bad because it is rigid. So the idea is that capitalism as it currently exists manufactures some superficial semblance of social progress (c.f. Plato's cave, Chomsky's manufactured consent, etc.): that is itself a part of neoliberal order. And Zizek's claim is made with this context in mind. He'd critique Clinton for proposing solutions that address symptoms, without getting to the root of say, the economic precarity that Marx predicted. It is in this more dynamic context that he's theorizing how Clinton represents the status quo, without him incurring a contradiction.

Ok... But the people who voted for Trump over Clinton, they voted for the (alleged) billionaire real estate developer who is facing a trial for bilking people out of their savings. I don't think they were voting to reject capitalism. They sure as heck weren't voting for socialism, as they voted against the candidate who wanted to strengthen and expand on our inadequate social programs and for the one who wants to dismantle them. I do think there's an argument to be made that people were voting to "blow things up" over incrementalism, though even the exit polls, for whatever they're worth, only show 40% of voters wanted their next President to bring change.

I also don't think it's inherently awful to say that people who have been successful in business should run for public office, nor do I think that single comment turns her entire campaign into a neoliberal agenda. It's a democratic system, and if people who have certain skills want to make the case that they're the best candidate for the job, that's not a bad thing. There, of course, needs to be campaign finance reforms so that people are running on a more level playing field and aren't buying their way in, and building experience is important, not more Trumps and Meg Whitmans and Carly Fiorinas looking to jump right from the boardroom to the Presidency or Senate. Continuing to run politicians who have been politicians their entire lives does not seem like a winning strategy, and if you look at Clinton's remarks in context, she's also saying having a few candidates who don't feel beholden to lobbyists and donors wouldn't be such a bad thing.
posted by zachlipton at 2:16 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Two things:

1) This election is a mandate. A mandate to publicly and loudly denounce the misogynist bullshit that enabled this at every opportunity. The assholes won this battle, but they're not winning this war.

2) Now that Clinton is "Old News", there's an opportunity to just mercilessly pound the Trump Administration about all the promises he made on the campaign trail and demanding completion dates for EVERYTHING.

When will the wall be complete President Trump?

When will all the undocumented workers be deported President Trump?

When will Hillary Clinton be in prison, President Trump?

When will there be jobs at the steel mills in Pittsburgh, President Trump?

There's so much "old business", good luck advancing "new business"
posted by mikelieman at 2:16 PM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

In many ways, this is entirely frustrating because none of this all that new. We saw this in 2004. Kerry should've trounced Bush. But he didn't, and lack of understanding was part of it.

Mark Shields regularly commented on the lack of connection H had with the electorate. He began voicing his concerns during the primary - comparing the vibrancy of Sanders vs Clinton and clearly noting the problem Clinton had from the very beginning. I'd say Kerry had the same problem.

Edit: maybe "vibrancy" is the wrong word. More like, emotional intensity.
posted by uraniumwilly at 2:19 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think they missed a lot of marginal voters. I wonder how many folks who maybe are lower-income, move around a fair amount and maybe aren't always up to date on their cell phone bill (or who don't answer calls because bill collectors) just totally fell through the cracks in the campaign; and who are people that a lower-tech, traditional GOTV through local communities and connections would've been able to catch

https://twitter.com/richardosman/status/796354294534565889
posted by vbfg at 2:20 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

note that the Hamilton soundtrack still appeals, too me, at least. There's a lot of anger in it, although I can see why for some (many?) it would be elegiac.

*I hope that you burn"
posted by angrycat at 2:21 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Email from President Ana Mari Cauce of the University of Washington:

Dear Students, Faculty and Staff,

In the aftermath of this very close and highly contentious election, I want to take this moment to reaffirm our University’s commitment to our mission of education, discovery, healing and public service. I also want to reaffirm our ongoing and unwavering support toward creating and nurturing an inclusive, diverse and welcoming community. It is central to our commitment to equity, access and excellence, and it is essential to building a better future for us all. Here at the University of Washington, we hold sacred our responsibility to serve the public good, and that will never waver.

As an immigrant Latina lesbian, I can understand why some in our community may be feeling marginalized, threatened or afraid. It has been a very difficult election season for us all. Now is the time to look for and find the best in each other, reach out across our differences and come together as a community. It will take hard work, intellectual honesty, kindness, respect, generosity and compassion to heal this divided country and world. I know that some of you are already gathering in small groups to do that. Today, perhaps more than any other in recent history, these values must be held up as the ideals we share. We can, and must, create a more perfect union.

For those who wish to spend time with community tonight, the Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center will hold a gathering at 6 p.m. in the ECC Unity Room.

Sincerely,

Ana Mari Cauce
President
Professor of Psychology

posted by Existential Dread at 2:21 PM on November 9, 2016 [27 favorites]

There is both racism, and misogyny, and economic disenfranchisement.

"Economic disenfranchisement" didn't win this. Trump won a plurality among voters with an income over $50K. Clinton won those under 50K. Among those comfortably middle-class voters who went for Trump? Appeals to racism and misogyny were probably much more of a deciding factor. It's kind of grotesque to see anyone trying to make excuses for that.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 2:24 PM on November 9, 2016 [39 favorites]

i really like today's 538 podcast - a bunch of smart people looking back on what happened, teasing out ways to move to forwards. maybe it's aimed a little at clueless white people but then maybe that's what i am. recommended.
posted by andrewcooke at 2:25 PM on November 9, 2016

Qwertee is trying to take advantage of me in my vulnerable moment, but I'm not complaining. I figured some other people might be interested in two of today's three shirts, and it's not too big as an impulse purchase goes, on a day that otherwise super sucks.
posted by Sequence at 2:25 PM on November 9, 2016

I've been down about this mess all day so I went home for lunch and took a nap. On the drive back to work it was almost as if I had forgotten about all if it, until I passed a woman wearing what appeared to be a niqab. (Hijab's are not uncommon here.) I instantly thought, "What's going to happen to people like her now?" Maybe not 100% awake, I had to wonder why I would even think that. Then it all came rushing back to me and now I'm down again. God dammit.
posted by DakotaPaul at 2:26 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Among those comfortably middle-class voters who went for Trump? Appeals to racism and misogyny were probably much more of a deciding factor. It's kind of grotesque to see anyone trying to make excuses for that.

So you're saying all of those Rust Belt union members were comfortable? Maybe they were hurting far less than Clinton voters. But if Occupy taught us anything, it's that except for a slim minority, everyone is hurting to some extent, or at least frustrated. Income inequality, the concentration of wealth, all of that still matters. People don't feel as empowered as they used to be. A dollar doesn't go as far as they used to. Surely that will contribute to negative emotion, which can then be channeled to tribalist bigotry. It's all connected.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:29 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

"Economic disenfranchisement" didn't win this. Trump won a plurality among voters with an income over $50K. Clinton won those under 50K

Economic disenfranchisement may be the wrong word. Economic insecurity may be better. The middle class in this country do not feel secure. They are not feeling comfortable. They don't have money in their bank accounts, their costs are going up with incomes going down. Yes from the perspective of people at the bottom, the middle class in America doesn't seem disenfranchised, but the Brexit vote and this one point towards how the economic gains sine 2008 have been funneled to the top .1% and how the system doesn't work for the middle class.
posted by cell divide at 2:30 PM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

So the bus drops off the three girls who live next door to me, and they're playing and shouting and having fun. What's my protip here? I can't just walk up to them and start hugging them without getting arrested, but the entirety of my being wants to say that it's going to be okay. They don't know, they're never going to know.

If they are playing around and having fun, I'd leave them be. You're not trying to comfort them, you're trying to comfort yourself using them, and that's a little weird and more likely to upset them than anything.
posted by dinty_moore at 2:32 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Email from President Ana Mari Cauce of the University of Washington:

We got a very similar one from Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California system: "The University of California is proud of being a diverse and welcoming place for students, faculty, and staff with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences and perspectives. Diversity is central to our mission. We remain absolutely committed to supporting all members of our community and adhering to UC’s Principles Against Intolerance."
posted by mudpuppie at 2:32 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Living in the Dc area is kinda surreal right now. Let. Me. Tell. You.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 2:32 PM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

Turns out that trump had the stronger background experience for winning this year's election, if not for the presidency itself. He knows all about winning reality tv shows
posted by knoyers at 2:32 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

When will all the undocumented workers be deported President Trump?

Of all the insane promises to hold Trump to as a means of discrediting him, ethnic cleansing is very far down my list.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 2:33 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Feste, to speak about Wisconsin (since I live there), Clinton did not set foot in the state during her presidential campaign.

From the Wisconsin State Journal:

UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden said Clinton's decision not to visit or invest heavily in the state proved to be a mistake.

While Clinton did campaign in Michigan recently, she largely ignored that state during her campaign.
posted by Fister Roboto at 2:33 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

People have stopped looking for work are no longer a part of the unemployment calculation, correct? If so, is there a source for the true numbers?

The phrase "true numbers" implies that the official unemployment rate is false and the "real" numbers are concealed from the public, as claimed by Trump.

The unemployment rate is computed every month in a variety of ways, depending on which people you want to include in the unemployed. All of these variations are "true" and have differing purposes. All are available to the public on the BLS website. Nothing is being hidden, as Trump claims.

These various definitions of unemployed include only those out of work more than 15 weeks, people who have just finished a temporary job, those who are out of work less than 15 weeks, those who have stopped looking because they can't find a job in their field, those who stopped looking because they can't find a job in any field, those working part-time but they can't find a full-time job. In any case, people who have not attempted to look for a job within the previous 12 months are considered not in the labor force.

All of these are true unemployment rates. It depends on what you are interested in measuring.
posted by JackFlash at 2:33 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I can't keep up with the thread. A very good friend has started a secret FB group for organizing. The group is focused on concrete actions to take and events, etc. If you would like to join the group, friend me from the link in my profile (recently added.)

I also would love to hear tips or links to information about getting involved with politics on a local level or similar. What should people be doing right now?
posted by threeturtles at 2:33 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Economic disenfranchisement may be the wrong word. Economic insecurity may be better. The middle class in this country do not feel secure. They are not feeling comfortable. They don't have money in their bank accounts, their costs are going up with incomes going down.

Again, only one group in the US turned to racism and fascism as the solution. And that group was middle class white people better off than a lot of people of color in much worse financial straights and with much more reason, financial and otherwise, for anxiety.
posted by chris24 at 2:34 PM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

It would appear that multiple groups turned to racism and misogyny as the solution, albeit at different percentages.

I'm not trying to make excuses for white people, just again warning this sort of tribalist appeal is appearing to cross into multiple demographics.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:35 PM on November 9, 2016

I cried today. I definitely feel very scared, but more than that, I just feel disappointed and sad.

There is something so disturbing to me about having to confront that sexism, racism, xenophobia, bullying, trolling and ignorance won, but human decency lost. I'm afraid about what it's going to do for the way people relate to one another in this country, and you already see it. A friend of mine said kids were shouting "Trump!" to the Latino kids at his school today. I, a woman who is active on Twitter, had Trump supporters tell me to go back to my "safe space" and get over myself when I expressed disappointment, which I haven't had before. Hatefulness, bullying, anti-empathy and anti-intellectualism have been emboldened by this result.

And that's to say nothing of the policy changes, like yanking healthcare away from millions and tearing apart immigrant families across the country, and so on. I'm worried about how the Supreme Court will shape the next decades, whether it's Roe V. Wade, voter suppression or whatever else. I worry about Americans being hated more than ever and terrorist recruitment going up. I worry about trade with other nations collapsing and us falling into a deep recession. I am hopeful some of this can be stopped, but I have little faith that Republican majorities in the Senate and House will stand up for what's right. I'm just scared.

I don't know how I am supposed to feel better, but I know I have to find a way somehow and continue to live my life.
posted by AppleTurnover at 2:36 PM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

Again, how are we trusting any poll data right now? It feels like it's probably right to me, but so did Clinton absolutely crushing the election, so...
posted by ODiV at 2:36 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

If these are people I'm supposed to be cool with then I'll pass.

YES

FOR FUCK'S SAKE

STOP TELLING OPPRESSED PEOPLE THAT THEIR LACK OF EMPATHY FOR THEIR OPPRESSORS IS WHAT CAUSED THIS
posted by poffin boffin at 2:36 PM on November 9, 2016 [122 favorites]

It would appear that multiple groups turned to racism and misogyny as the solution, albeit at different percentages.

1 in 4 Hispanics and Asians, 1 in 10 blacks. Compared to 6 of 10 whites. That's a pretty significant difference in percentages.
posted by chris24 at 2:37 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

It would appear that multiple groups turned to racism and misogyny as the solution, albeit at different percentages.

The difference is not insignificant. It's a chasm of difference. And none of Trump's policies would really alleviate their economic security or disenfranchisement.
posted by FJT at 2:37 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Economic insecurity may be better. The middle class in this country do not feel secure. They are not feeling comfortable.

Or they're feeling threatened by immigrants and Muslims and women's rights and LGBT rights and the upending of the old social order over the course of the past few generations and they're lashing out in fear at a future they don't like and don't understand. Trump's message was much more about bigotry than economics. There was a lot more "I'm going to deport them!" "build a wall!" "no Muslims!" than there was "I'm going to bring back factories and jobs for steelworkers and coal miners".
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 2:37 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Trump and American Populism [Oct. 6]
Foreign Affairs provides some historical context to populism in the U.S. and asks if it's a necessary evil.

At its best, populism provides a language that can strengthen democracy, not imperil it. The People’s Party helped usher in many of the progressive reforms, such as the income tax and corporate regulation, that made the United States a more humane society in the twentieth century. Democrats comfortable with using populist appeals, from Bryan to FDR, did much to create the liberal capitalist order that, despite its flaws, few contemporary Americans want to dismantle. Even some populist orators who railed against immigrants generated support for laws, such as the eight-hour workday, that, in the end, helped all wage earners in the country, regardless of their place of birth.

Populism has had an unruly past. Racists and would-be authoritarians have exploited its appeal, as have more tolerant foes of plutocracy. But Americans have found no more powerful way to demand that their political elites live up to the ideals of equal opportunity and democratic rule to which they pay lip service during campaign seasons. Populism can be dangerous, but it may also be necessary. As the historian C. Vann Woodward wrote in 1959 in response to intellectuals who disparaged populism, “One must expect and even hope that there will be future upheavals to shock the seats of power and privilege and furnish the periodic therapy that seems necessary to the health of our democracy.”

I don't know that I agree with the conclusions, but it's at least a good reminder that America has survived some waves of ugly populism in the past.
posted by Kabanos at 2:39 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

The phrase "true numbers" implies that the official unemployment rate is false and the "real" numbers are concealed from the public, as claimed by Trump.

I debated on putting quotes around "true numbers" and figured that I would get grief either way. I should have explained myself better.

the "real" numbers are concealed from the public, as claimed by Trump.

I never fell for that line and it has nothing to do with what I asked but thanks for the info.
posted by futz at 2:40 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

STOP TELLING OPPRESSED PEOPLE THAT THEIR LACK OF EMPATHY FOR THEIR OPPRESSORS IS WHAT CAUSED THIS

Yes. This is why the "but won't someone think of the poor, economically disenfranchised petite-bourgeois Trump voters" argument is so goddamn toxic.
posted by My Dad at 2:40 PM on November 9, 2016 [32 favorites]

America has survived some waves of ugly populism in the past.

None of those has resulted in an ugly populist being elevated to the presidency since Andrew Jackson. (Ask a Native American how that one turned out.)
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 2:41 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Give Them Hope - Harvey Milk
posted by triggerfinger at 2:42 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

A lot of the economically disenfranchised, of all races, just stayed home. Many of them could probably have been reached. No need to try to woo hateful Trump voters.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 2:43 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

The problem is the results are actually so... boring? I mean the results are basically Republicans hate the Clintons a lot. They still are going to funnel money to the rich while letting self righteous religious nuts oppress in the name of religion. Nothing will change except the further eroding of the competence of government, and the increasing dominance of private finance. Like all this sound and fury and weirdness of people rejecting the establishment and the elites... and I don't see how it's anything but the elites locking things up.
posted by Zalzidrax at 2:44 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

The discussion of how to respond whether, it's calling out or responding with some tactic of engagement in order to change minds isn't and shouldn't be a binary one or the other.

Both work. Both don't work. Context matters and the people involved matter. For a large part of my life I have been for lack of description been largely an engager. I know the deal. It's hard. It takes a long time. It's takes heaps more emotional labor are the part of the engager and can be a successful tactic.
I've also seen basic the call out, social shaming, just your 'no' work as well. Why? Because many people just won't or can't be engaged with even if you want to and it's important for people to know that in this particular situation you're having none of it.

Combine these two types of tactics together and you get a good cop, bad cop type thing going. There is a reason that good cop, bad cop scenarios are used all the time. They work.

So I guess my main point is the argument that the best route is x and therefore everyone should do x is false. They both can work and can even work well together.

And just for the record I'm fairly firmly on the call out side now. Yeah I'll engage if the situation warrants but for now it's more bad cop. I won't argue with people who want to engage. Do it. It is important. But in the end we are on the same side.
posted by Jalliah at 2:44 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Part of me wonders if they got trapped in their own bubble of data. I mean, they had all this voter tracking info and they were running such tight and focused contacts that -- I think they missed a lot of marginal voters. I wonder how many folks who maybe are lower-income, move around a fair amount and maybe aren't always up to date on their cell phone bill (or who don't answer calls because bill collectors) just totally fell through the cracks in the campaign; and who are people that a lower-tech, traditional GOTV through local communities and connections would've been able to catch.

I don't think going more old-fashioned was the answer. I think what Trump knew, if he knew anything, was that all that matters is what is on TV and the internet. He won the mass media, and for the most part HFA ceded the media territory because it was so poisoned against her. How did all those white low-information voters get motivated? It wasn't because of his campaign. It was because of the talking heads, the radio shows, the chat rooms. That machine has been building and setting up for decades and for all that the left has Hollywood on its side, it's been fairly inept at building really gripping news media that builds a following. The good news is that the narrative will be back in our favor now. We'll be the plucky, sarcastic underdogs now. We'll create a bunch of darkly funny political comedy sources. And maybe that will be enough to swing the masses back our direction.

But seriously, this is about the media. And I don't mean thinkpieces. I mean noise, constant barrage of emotional information.
posted by threeturtles at 2:45 PM on November 9, 2016 [19 favorites]

By the time I experienced it, the harassment gangs and Klan were shunned as criminal violence that southerners and hicks did. And yes, it was a somewhat absurd point of pride that my majority white city was more educated, less racist, and integrated earlier than the majority white city 30 miles down the highway. Southern racism was something of a scapegoat or hedge. "We integrated long before Brown vs. Board of Education!" We even had local legends and local heroes (white, of course) about how that that happened. Meanwhile, the curious fact that both our industrial workers and professional class were disproportionately white just wasn't talked about. Having a separate balcony for non-whites people was a moot point when there were rarely enough showing up to fill the balcony.

While racial slurs were never spoken in my hearing, there was a lot of code about good schools vs. bad schools, nice grocery stores vs. downtown grocery stores, family-owned housing vs. rentals, bus systems, and neighborhood character and how to preserve that. That's what I meant by "soft spoken." It wasn't until I was well into adulthood that someone let me in on what that code really meant, that the white people around me used the language of middle-class economic boundaries to talk about race.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 2:47 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Again, only one group in the US turned to racism and fascism as the solution

Only one group was offered that solution.

Trump's message was much more about bigotry than economics

I don't doubt that racism and xenophobia and sexism played a deciding factor in this election, but I don't understand the desire to sweep the deep structural economic problems that are affecting 99% of the country under the rug.

The point is not to have empathy for racist middle-class Americans, the point is to figure out how to win the next election.
posted by cell divide at 2:47 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

for all that the left has Hollywood on its side, it's been fairly inept at building really gripping news media that builds a following.

Liberal/leftist policy ideas generally aren't reducible to five-second sound bites, and liberal/left positions generally don't come from a place of anger and resentment. So this is probably an insoluble problem, w/r/t media (although it's worth noting that the influence of cable news networks and talk radio is waning and their major demographics now are all over 60).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 2:49 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

The point is not to have empathy for racist middle-class Americans, the point is to figure out how to win the next election.

our side cannot win their votes away from the orangeshirts unless we throw minorities under the bus.
posted by poffin boffin at 2:49 PM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

Emotionally, the hardest part for me is how flummoxed everyone is. There's no trustworthy source of reassurance or explanation. No direction. Just speculation and shellshock.

If you're a ethical and charismatic person who's been wanting to get into politics, I think now's the time. I'm afraid of someone coming along and exploiting our hopelessness for their own gain. I feel very vulnerable to demagoguery right now.
posted by Maurecia-Flavored Ice Cream at 2:50 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

I think what Trump knew, if he knew anything, was that all that matters is what is on TV and the internet. He won the mass media, and for the most part HFA ceded the media territory because it was so poisoned against her.

If I had to guess, I'd say Trump was likely as surprised by the result as we are. He demonstrably had no ground game and no real internal campaign or pollsters, and he switched campaign leads every few weeks. This is probably less about him being a savvy operator and more about the deep wells of resentment, anger, and white privilege he managed to tap so effectively.
posted by Existential Dread at 2:50 PM on November 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

The point is not to have empathy for racist middle-class Americans, the point is to figure out how to win the next election.

There are plenty of paths to winning elections that don't involve moving closer to the Trumpist positions on the issues deplorables care about. FL, NC, and PA are some high-EV states that could be shored up to offset weakness in MI, WI, OH without compromising nearly as much.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:50 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

And throwing minorities under the bus is something that has happened before and some are already hinting as much in their "have empathy for the poor misunderstood racist" tripe.
posted by RedShrek at 2:51 PM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

This is huge and sorry that I am not refreshing the 998 new comments.

I cannot find the direct quotes but some key ideas from this thread and in general, in the air today:

1) Politics is broken. We have seen Trump do everything "wrong", and yet here he is. I think these are systemic issues and this is a watershed - politics is never going to be "fixed" in America, this is how things will be working going forward and we have to figure out how to adapt to that.

2) Rejection of the centrist / liberal "elites". I think this goes hand in hand with the point above. There needs to be a shift in the left, moving further right as the Democrats have been doing since Reagan is not going to work anymore. We saw the preview with Occupy, Bernie, and now with this massive rejection and "fuck you" to the ruling elite. The next challenger to Trump needs to be as radical as he is and give voice to the disenfranchised. Hillary was inclusive, but I think a lot of people wanted to see a strong break with the status quo, neoliberalist economics, the power of the financial industry, etc.

So coming to my point, what can we throw up in 2020 that it as audacious, radical, and non-establishment as Trump has been? I have some vague ideas but know there are muchg better informed leftie Americans who could make a better suggestion:

Candidate: Alec Baldwin? Sean Penn? John Cusack?
Platform: Guaranteed minimum income? Universal health care? Return to the draft and a citizen's army? Demilitarization?

I was 100% behind Hillary and this is not in any way my desiored outcome, but time to make lemonade... the accelerationist scenario is an attractive option at this point for pushing the left agenda forward now.
posted by Meatbomb at 2:51 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Rembert: How Trump Made Hate Intersectional

He rearmed the white working class with a confidence that both an ignorance about and intimidation of others was a sign of patriotism. And he weaponized that ignorance: His base of voters, egged on by foul statements in rooms across the country, did not have a single target. For over a year, their hatred was a revolving door. The did not discriminate: They hated black people, they hated women, they hated immigrants, they hated Muslims, they hated Jews, they hated gay people, they hated Hispanic people — and if you could be white and any of those things, they hated you, too.

In the numerous civil-rights movements of the 21st century, a degree of savvy about how to deal with racists, or homophobes, or Islamophobes, or sexists in isolation developed. But this expertise, from years (or in some cases, generations) of experience, was typically learned one form of oppression at a time. Progressives talk a lot about intersectionality — meaning, thinking about race and sex and class simultaneously — but Trump won the presidency by making hate intersectional. He encouraged sexists to also be racists and homophobes, while saying disgusting things about immigrants in public and Jews online. Hate, like love, is infectious, and it is contagious. And for so many, the adrenaline felt by blaming one group for one’s personal ills bled into blaming all the others.

The story of America for many is a seemingly never-ending process of playing catch-up. The perspective of those at the back of the line has been a tunnel-vision reality of knowing who is holding you down. Black people focus on white racists, gay people are consumed with protecting themselves from homophobes, women struggle to exist freely in a man’s world, Muslims and Mexican immigrants feel the weight of the world against them from “true” Americans. This created a complicated ecosystem for the historically abused — a shared understanding of what it means to be discriminated against, but also a quiet resentment over who has it worse. Because if you’re the worst off, you’re at the bottom, but you have a reason to scream the loudest, avoiding perhaps the most frustrating status: invisibility.

Now we’re faced with a clear reality: one group that hates us all.

posted by acidic at 2:52 PM on November 9, 2016 [24 favorites]

Again, the numbers are there. A majority of white voters voted for the 1 candidate who ran a racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic campaign. Why is it so hard for us to acknowledge the centrality of racism? This is something that is pervasive throughout White American politics and I just wonder why people can't be honest with this.

It's not just American politics. It's more general. I've had this conversation twice today and I'm up in Canada. I was talking to people who are horrified and they talked about the white poor narrative that they've been hearing. Well now they know that this is BS because I told them and I told them why.

I also suggested that when they were trying to explain away people they know who support Trump here that yes I know it's really not nice and it hurts but it's because these people are either racist or okay with racism. We just have to accept this so we can deal with it.

That's one thing I can do, combat the this poor economically disaffected narrative that's going on.
posted by Jalliah at 2:53 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

threeturtles: But seriously, this is about the media. And I don't mean thinkpieces. I mean noise, constant barrage of emotional information.

There was a fellow on the radio the other day talking about Greek and Roman elections. He said that most of the campaigning then involved emotional attacks on the other candidate's character; not so different from today, despite a couple of thousand years of advances in media technology.
posted by clawsoon at 2:53 PM on November 9, 2016

Here’s Why We Grieve Today
posted by triggerfinger at 2:53 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

"have empathy for the poor misunderstood racist" tripe.

Don't forget about the "who really needs transgender bathrooms anyway" and "our small businesses can't afford maternity leave for the wimmins" varieties of tripe as well!
posted by tonycpsu at 2:54 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

They do not care if you call them racist or sexist. They do not believe it themselves, or they wear it as a bloody badge of honor as part of the anti-pc backlash.

I don't think that's the case for most of them. We put a lot of media coverage on the ones who proudly declared themselves "deplorable;" but I'm certain that there were a lot more who convinced themselves that Trump was trying to reach out to Black communities and therefore he can't be racist, and therefore they can't be racist for supporting him. We saw a lot of shitposting online about "what women deserve," sometimes in disgusting graphic detail; we didn't get interviews with married housewives with three kids who believe a "feminist" is someone who hates men and thinks housewives are wasting their lives. We didn't see much of middle-aged men who think that women who backtalk are disrespectful and need to "be shown their place" because kids need to grow up with a MOM and a DAD who have very specific roles to fill.

I'm not trying to be sympathetic - I'm pointing out that most of these people absolutely believe they are not racist, not sexist, not bigoted against people with disabilities, not filled with religious bigotry. And calling them those words will hurt them.

And they will first insist that the caller is wrong, and then try to laugh it off, and then get angry... but they will still be bothered. And our only chance of both convincing the few that could be changed, and of convincing non-bigots who want to "be empathetic to everyone" that there are times to stop that, is to keep calling them out on it.

Hold on to the rage and fear and sorrow that we have today, and KEEP SHOVING IT IN THEIR FACES. Don't let them say "oh, old news;" Clinton's emails were old news months ago. As long as people can be fired for their identities, as long as some employees can legally be paid less for doing the exact same work as others, as long as police can shoot unarmed citizens with no reprisal... this is not over. Don't become complacent, and most important, don't let them believe it has become "okay" because they failed to strip every shred of civil rights we've fought for over the last hundred years.

We need to stop being friendly with bigots. Social acceptance is a powerful motivator; nobody wants to be That Guy Everyone Tolerates But Nobody Wants To Spend Time With. Make sure they know that's what they are.

We outnumber them, dammit. This is our nation; we don't have control of the laws, but we can damn well take control of the social discourse. As much as is safe for us, we need to call them bigots, and stick to it.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 2:56 PM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

The point is not to have empathy for racist middle-class Americans, the point is to figure out how to win the next election.

Fewer white people. Changing demographics is really the only thing that's kept me positive today.
posted by dinty_moore at 2:56 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is such a painful and scary day. Please be as gentle with yourself and others as you can. Do what you need to do to make it through--whether that's stress eating or beating the shit out of some pillows, staying in bed sobbing all day, cuddling with a friend or lover, writing angry, blaming comments on here, praying or making art. And also please cut yourself some slack if what works for you is not the "healthiest."

And as much as you can, try to be kind to each other. Remember we're going to need each other more than ever now. We're going to need a massive, diverse coalition to resist fascism, a coalition that has room for both unrepentant Bernie or Busters and distraught Clinton fans, for both radical punk kids who didn't vote and Democratic insiders, for both dyed in the wool communist organizers and horrified moderate Republicans. We don't have to agree about everything to have useful and productive alliances. There are so many people from so many walks of life who are feeling devastated, terrified, and in shock today. So many people regretting not doing more earlier and eager to take action now. We can be so strong and vibrant and beautiful together.

I love you.
posted by overglow at 2:56 PM on November 9, 2016 [39 favorites]

Why is it so hard for us to acknowledge the centrality of racism? This is something that is pervasive throughout White American politics and I just wonder why people can't be honest with this.

Speaking as an Asian American, and an immigrant, the dark secret to white liberal America is that minorities can be plenty fucking racist as well. It's just our racism doesn't have the same scope in the country as the majority's. But I feel like in these circles, there's a tendency to focus on the presence of racism and then immediately give up on the racist. Ah, a bigot, they are dismissible and ignorable. But that doesn't seem to be working at the polls. There's a liberal tendency to view this election as a crusade against bigotry of all forms, a clash of good and evil. And sure, that is true for a lot of people- but not everyone knows that. Or believes in it. My parents just thought Trump says stupid or far out things, but they don't seem to treat him as an existential threat. There's almost a disconnect between the sentiments here on MeFi and their- and the attitudes of others in the older generation- towards Trump. Not everyone is as afraid of him. And as it would appear, some are willing to vote for him. To view bigotry as a simple good vs. evil conflict is to oversimplify and to ignore the myriads of ways human beings are able to divide against one another.

I guess the takeaway is that racism and sexism are bad, but people acknowledge it in different ways, and in this election not everyone recognized it for what it is, and I don't know the solution for that but maybe it's something to think about. Not all minorities were as galvanized into action against Trump. And the thing is, bigotry is a complex and nuanced problem. There are a lot of little tribalist rivalries that regressive have taken advantage of.

There are plenty of paths to winning elections that don't involve moving closer to the Trumpist positions on the issues deplorables care about.

I don't advocate moving policies towards his as all. It's more like, tweaking the messaging and messengers to better adapt to the demographics that Trump appeals to? Putting economic policies that would alleviate them front and center? Being honest about the failures of neoliberalism?

And throwing minorities under the bus is something that has happened before and some are already hinting as much in their "have empathy for the poor misunderstood racist" tripe.

I think we should have enough empathy as to understand them and to find ways to get them to vote for better candidates. But again, other than trying to make up for their votes by mobilizing more minorities to vote (as I mentioned earlier), what's the alternative?
posted by Apocryphon at 2:57 PM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

A little old lady came to the desk with a stack of books. She said she needed to get her mind off things until the cloth for the black armbands she's going to make shows up. I tried to make things positive and said we only had to make it four years.
"Honey," she said, "I don't have four years left in me."

someone is never getting charged another fine again
posted by robocop is bleeding at 2:59 PM on November 9, 2016 [103 favorites]

"... and when you're a star, they let you do it."
posted by smidgen at 2:59 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

That one eagle tried to warn us about Trump y'all.
posted by drezdn at 2:59 PM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

Student walkouts in Des Moines, Berkeley, Seattle, Boulder, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Oakland, Austin, Richmond

Great kids. Psst, have you considered college in Ohio, Michigan or Pennsylvania?
posted by acidic at 3:00 PM on November 9, 2016 [29 favorites]

Meatbomb: So coming to my point, what can we throw up in ~~2020~~ 2018

Fixed that for you. :-)
posted by clawsoon at 3:00 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

What about you have empathy for me?
posted by RedShrek at 3:00 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Changing demographics is really the only thing that's kept me positive today.

i said this in the last thread but tbh im gonna just repeat it until i die: all projections for the changing demographics of the USA depend on continued immigration to this country for the increase in the number of minority citizens. i have not yet been able to find a large scale evidence-based future population projection with the caveat "nonwhite immigration is no longer allowed to the united states". everything pew and the census bureau have done depends on immigration continuing at its current levels.
posted by poffin boffin at 3:01 PM on November 9, 2016 [19 favorites]

She did well with black women too
posted by RedShrek at 3:02 PM on November 9, 2016

For anybody looking at great_radio's numbers and scratching their head, remember that they're Clinton compared to Obama, not compared to Trump.
posted by clawsoon at 3:05 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Trump's campaign, which was staffed by a bunch of supposed blunderers, seem to have had a better idea about what was going on then Clinton's did.

Bullshit. They had no idea what was going on. Trump got lucky - lucky that a large percent of 60 million Americans are apparently just jim dandy with open bigotry and misogyny, lucky that some percent of that 60 million have absorbed decades of lies and propaganda about the economy and our society and the Clintons to excuse bigotry and misogyny in a candidate if he bleats the right talking points at them, lucky there are so many low-information voters, lucky that he was given a free bully pulpit nightly. This wasn't a master plan.
posted by soundguy99 at 3:05 PM on November 9, 2016 [48 favorites]

What about you have empathy for me?

I know you're hurting. I know you're frustrated, feeling defeated. You want a catharsis. So rage and vent and cry all you want, it is your God-given right. It's been a terrible cycle, and we should all try to recover now that it's over for a time.

But know this: empathy isn't simply about amity, identifying with your fellow human being. In a democracy, empathy is a weapon. It's what we need to understand your opponent. And, maybe, convert some of them to be your ally. So when I say empathize with Trump voters, I don't mean it in a kumbaya way at all. I mean to use it in the next fight.
posted by Apocryphon at 3:07 PM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

One of the good things I had hoped might emerge from Trump's disastrous candidacy was that it might ignite awareness and action about sexual assault and the treatment of women in the way that the Clarence Thomas hearings seemed to have been a catalyst for action and awareness about sexual harassment.

I just realized that the insufficient but real progress we've made since then happened even though Thomas was confirmed to the court, so maybe my hope isn't completely dashed by Trump's election.
posted by straight at 3:08 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Fewer white people. Changing demographics is really the only thing that's kept me positive today.

Trump did better with African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos than Romney did. So demographics doesn't seem to help as much as one might desire.
posted by xyzzy at 3:08 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

With no effective checks and balances, Donald Trump's new mandate is clear:

"Grab them by the Presidency."
posted by moonbird at 3:10 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

A reminder of how close this election was: What would have happened if just 1 out of every 100 voters shifted from Trump to Clinton? (Answer: 307 to 231 for Clinton.)

She was a good, competitive candidate.
posted by clawsoon at 3:11 PM on November 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

I have a co-worker from Shanghai who keeps an eye on the Chinese press. He was telling me that the government there has been using the US election as a cautionary example in their messaging.

My response is: garbage. We don't have democracies because it makes us look like a smart people who have their shit well and truly together. We have a democracies because it is a moral imperative that people get a say in how they are governed, and that is the only way lasting social progress is made.

I will take a democratically-elected clown, or a fascist, or a fascist clown, over whatever philosopher-king emerges from the central committee chambers in an authoritarian state.

Because philosopher-kings never did shit. Philosopher-kings could always find a reason to preserve the status quo, always find a reason to preserve slavery, always find a reason to oppress an underclass, always find a reason to postpone justice.
posted by um at 3:11 PM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

everything we thought we knew about campaigning was apparently in error. Conventions? Don't matter. Debates? Don't matter. Endorsements? Don't matter. High-profile defections? Don't matter. Missteps? Don't matter? Commercials? Don't matter. Ground game? Doesn't matter. An All-Star team of campaign surrogates, including one former president, one sitting president, and a wildly popular first lady? Doesn't matter. The "blue wall"? Not a thing

This is nonsense. There's no evidence these things don't matter. It seems much more likely that without these things, Trump would have won by a much larger margin.
posted by straight at 3:11 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Trump did better with African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos than Romney did. So demographics doesn't seem to help as much as one might desire.

This is the biggest shock of the election and will most likely be the intense study for GOP organizing going forward.
posted by uraniumwilly at 3:11 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

The one bright spot today has been my little boy. I'd remarked to him previously that it made me happy to see him happy, and during one of the moment when I was having a crying jag, he came up to me and put on a big smile and said, "Look, Daddy! I'm happy! Now you can be happy too? Does that help?"

Then just now I was trying to explain to him that if he sees anyone being mean to any minority kids, he should speak up and tell them it's not okay to say awful things just because Donald Trump says awful things. He thought for a second and said, "Donald Trump is like one of the bad guy knight bosses in Shovel Knight." Then he lit up and said, "Daddy! I know how we can beat Donald Trump! I can dress up with my Shovel Knight costume and hit him on the head and beat him!"

I had to tell him it was too late, but it made me laugh.
posted by Scattercat at 3:11 PM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

Speaking as an Asian American, and an immigrant, the dark secret to white liberal America is that minorities can be plenty fucking racist as well.

I don't think that's a dark secret. There's lots of discussions among Asian Americans about how Asian ethnicities are viewed among Asians (e.g., The whole "fancy" vs. "jungle" Asians that Ali Wong has pointed out). And I don't think anyone says that minorities or Democrats are perfect. But I think, in general, white privilege and white dominance in the US makes racism from white people pack much more of a wallop that when minorities are racist (as we all are seeing being demonstrated now).
posted by FJT at 3:12 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think you're misunderstanding me. You seem to be talking about this in theoretical terms which is not for me. I am black, from an immigrant family, from a country that is majority Muslims. I have immigrants in my family and all of us have been specifically threatened by things Trump promised to do in his campaign. This is real for me and my loved ones. I have endured racist behavior from white people in my adult life and none of them felt any empathy for me. You can do all the empathy you want but I will not.
posted by RedShrek at 3:12 PM on November 9, 2016 [44 favorites]

It's what we need to understand your opponent.

we already understand very very well that they think we're subhuman, thanks. they shouted it loud enough to get a lot more people to be proud of agreeing.
posted by poffin boffin at 3:12 PM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

what's the alternative?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Or rather, a lot of us are tired of "left" ish parties adopting right wing policies to try and appease white male voters. So yeah, what is the alternative?

I dunno. I've never told this to anyone before but the night my son was born I sat in my hospital bed too tired and scared to sleep and I read the thread on gay marriage in the USA and I genuinely believed that things were getting better for the world and that hope has, over the last sixteen months, been eroded.

Its not a surprise people are feeling somewhat nihilistic.
posted by threetwentytwo at 3:14 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

we already understand very very well that they think we're subhuman, thanks. they shouted it loud enough to get a lot more people to be proud of agreeing.

And yet, a substantial number of them voted for Obama.
posted by Apocryphon at 3:14 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

So could someone explain to me what happened with Berlusconi, I tried his wikipedia article but it seemed mostly positive?

Here's an insightful 2013 interview of Polo Flores d'Arcais, that goes into some detail of his reign & legacy.

For twenty years elections have been won by those who presented themselves as anti-politicians.
It was that way with Berlusconi in 1994. Christian Democracy, continuously ruling the country before, collapsed under the weight of corruption. And Berlusconi had all the things a modern political party must have—huge money and the media. And he presented himself as an anti-politician: a representative of civil society fighting against the rotten party system. He told the Italians that on one side there are people like us, people of action. And on the other side there are people of empty words—that is, politicians. This was, of course, a great manipulation. Berlusconi made his fortune thanks to his friendship with Bettino Craxi and other politicians.
[...]
Ninety percent of Italians get their information from television, only 10% read newspapers. The species called an “informed citizen” is on the brink of extinction. Berlusconi’s policy might be considered an attempt at copying Putin. It could be called “Occidental Putinism.” And no wonder that the “Tsar of Russia” was the only foreign politician who supported Berlusconi to the end.
[...]
And the economic downfall of Italy began with Berlusconi, not the euro.
When he came to power, Italian GDP was equal to that of Great Britain and now it is a dozen percent lower. So the main reason for his failure was economic rather than political. And I can’t bring myself to believe that the break-up of the eurozone could lead to our country’s recovery. For it is our politics that is sick.
[...]
The era of Post-Berlusconism has not really begun yet. Berlusconi is present in our political life like a cancer capable of spreading. The downfall of Italy, which was caused by his political actions and visible in every area—moral, economic, social, institutional and cultural—is evident even for the social groups that used to support him. Everyone sees how much poorer our country has become. But we should remember that Berlusconi was already finished twice: in 1996 and 2006. And he has risen from the dead twice, owing to the stupidity of the Left
posted by progosk at 3:14 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

And yet, a substantial number of them voted for Obama.

"they're more misogynist than they are racist" is not the get woke argument you think it is.
posted by poffin boffin at 3:17 PM on November 9, 2016 [25 favorites]

So up thread I wrote about responding like Trump to people.

Told my parents about it. They're both on FB way more then I am and don't have a totally curated bubble like I do. I took a look at my feed where some of their stuff shows up and there's my 72 year old Mom just writing 'wrong' and 'nope' to comments and 74 year old Dad responding to some video that explains the good side of Trump with 'such a nasty man'.

Love you Mom and Dad
posted by Jalliah at 3:17 PM on November 9, 2016 [67 favorites]

Politics is broken. We have seen Trump do everything "wrong", and yet here he is. I think these are systemic issues and this is a watershed - politics is never going to be "fixed" in America, this is how things will be working going forward and we have to figure out how to adapt to that.

A friend had a stroke recently and speaking to one of his caregivers, I learned the phrase "the new normal." If something is still true a year after a stroke, its not going to change. Its the new normal. Perhaps this is the new normal. Until a newer normal comes around.

Yes, I am implying this election was like the country having a stroke.
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:17 PM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

what atrios said
posted by j_curiouser at 3:18 PM on November 9, 2016

And, maybe, convert some of them to be your ally. So when I say empathize with Trump voters, I don't mean it in a kumbaya way at all. I mean to use it in the next fight.

What does that empathy look like? Again, people keep asking us to understand this like its obvious.
posted by threetwentytwo at 3:21 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Jalliah, you and your parents are awesome.
posted by protondonor at 3:22 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Trump did better with African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos than Romney did. So demographics doesn't seem to help as much as one might desire.

Trump did better with blacks and latinx by 2 points each, within the margin of error, in notoriously inaccurate exit polls. Yes, you'd think he would've done demonstrably worse given his campaign, but it's a stretch to say he really did better.
posted by chris24 at 3:23 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

So. Up here in Canada, I've got a coworker who's originally from one of the reddest of the red states, and is still eligible to vote there (and she voted Clinton). When she had to break the news to her daughter this morning, her daughter (who's seven or so, I think?) said: "Mom? Why does the president have to be a racist?"

When she told me the story we both sort of paused for a second, tearing up while staring at each other.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:23 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

"they're more misogynist than they are racist" is not the get woke argument you think it is.

I don't deny it takes at least a baseline level of casual misogyny to support Trump, to excuse his behavior. Same as casual racism/xenophobia. But I think there needs to be more study into this election before claiming that Clinton lost a lot of the Rust Belt Obama voters because of prejudice.

What does that empathy look like? Again, people keep asking us to understand this like its obvious.

Trying to figure out what makes a type of people tick, why they think that way, rather than imagining them to be a monolith that marches in lockstep.
posted by Apocryphon at 3:26 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

oh i just realized

trump finally got that mythical "hateful people dancing and cheering in the streets at the destruction of america" bullshit that he's always fucking harping on about
posted by poffin boffin at 3:28 PM on November 9, 2016 [48 favorites]

Also up here in Canada, and with respect to a side of the fallout I haven't heard much about: next door to me is a Ukrainian charity. They are not having a good day.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 3:29 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

what atrios said

Quoth Atrios:

I actually never really faulted the campaign itself very much, at least during the general election. Broader Clintonland - which includes the entire self-appointed DC Dem establishment - was basically horrible throughout, largely because they never stopped fighting a primary that they had basically won in March.

He can't possibly believe that the primary was "basically won" back in March. In the real world, the Clinton team was savaged for using delegate counts that included superdelegates. Either they're legitimate, in which case Clinton could have made the case that the primary was over because she had them in her corner and Team Sanders could STFU about them, or they're not, in which case she had a duty to wait until she had the pledged delegate majority, and Team Sanders can go on all they like about how awful they are.

And, even if we say for the sake of argument that Clinton kept attacking Sanders after she had things locked up, it's not like she had the option of hiding in a bunker somewhere and letting Sanders attack her. She had a duty to run a campaign, respond to attacks, and compete for primary votes. It was Sanders taking the fight to her, not the other way around as he suggests.

I'm normally with Atrios, but he's very much divorced from reality in that post. (The piece he links to is more compelling.)
posted by tonycpsu at 3:29 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I am interested in what the dissent will look and sound like.

We know that in this modern age facts, science, data, truth have very little weight in building consensus or fighting the garbage that is the opposite of truth, facts, science, etc.

We know that the power of the press and of the media is much less than the power of mobspeak and the echo-chambers of the internet social media sights.

Who then will speak effectively in opposition? Politicians do not have our trust, academia has been refuted, anti-intellectualism is the accepted norm.

Celebrities did not help Clinton, the late night comedians did not defeat Trump despite the most blistering criticisms out there.

Can anyone point to the rational and effective voice of an opposition to this administration?
posted by OHenryPacey at 3:31 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

All the times white people have called me a nigger, I really should have responded with a hot cup of tea and tried to figure out what drives them using my best couch counseling voice. Get real.
posted by RedShrek at 3:31 PM on November 9, 2016 [87 favorites]

She had a duty to run a campaign, respond to attacks, and compete for primary votes.

Yeah, if there's one thing the Podesta emails show, it's that they basically went pretty lightly on Sanders.
posted by chris24 at 3:32 PM on November 9, 2016

But seriously, this is about the media. And I don't mean thinkpieces. I mean noise, constant barrage of emotional information

I completely agree. I think this has been staring at us for the last 16 months and we really never found an effective counter for it. Trump is a terrible campaigner and debater, but a magnetic entertainer and attention seeker, able to illicit feelings of anger, disgust, and even joy out of people across the country week after week. His stance on issues wobbled, his personal life is a wreck, and nobody trusts him. The case that voters chose him because of economic anxiety is kind of there, but it's mushy because there's no agreed upon policy by such voters except to rattle the cage.

So, I think policy matters some, but not much in comparison to a candidates ability to be a messenger or magnifier of their followers' emotional states and feelings.
posted by FJT at 3:32 PM on November 9, 2016

This has probably been said before, but 2016 can now definitively go eat a bag of dicks.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 3:32 PM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

It's heartbreaking to think of Obama and all his staffers who'll see so much of their hard work rolled back over the next four years. They weren't perfect - nobody is - but that stings bad. For every two steps forward, one step back, indeed. I hope we can give Obama a break next year before expecting him to fight once again.
posted by adrianhon at 3:33 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

You Did This, America: Sarah Palin Being Considered for Cabinet.
posted by waitingtoderail at 3:34 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Auuuuuugh as a result of my FB posting above I just had to sit through a 20 minute conversation with my parents about how I was offending my relatives.
posted by Gaz Errant at 3:39 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

A friend I respect is now posting a bunch of garbage about #calexit and excitedly discussing how they should join up with the Jefferson folks. Not realizing the Jefferson movement/techno-utopian Bay Area secessionist fantasy are about as compatible as Trumpism with social democracy. There aren't enough facepalms in the world.
posted by Existential Dread at 3:40 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Okay, this is the last time I write anything remotely negative about Hillary Clinton, because I have come to admire her very much IN SPITE of it all, and had no qualms in voting for her...

(1) I have long felt that having the first woman elected Chief Executive being a "former First Lady" is not really a good example for women.

(2) The reason she has been the GOP's "Public Enemy #1" is because she represented the more Liberal side of Bill Clinton's 'triangulation', something no other woman could ever have to deal with.

(3) As one who went bankrupt from medical bills after the failure of "Hillarycare" in '93-'94, I blamed her some, for not having the necessary Washington experience and not reaching out enough to those who did. So, one old grudge.

(4) I long hoped she'd DTMFA (D for Divorce) but it seemed like she seemed afraid to lose the political connections the marriage provided. (No proof, just feelings) So she could never separate herself from Post-Presidential Bill and it ultimately weakened both her and the Clinton Foundation as she pursued her own career. Trump's offensive history with women was never a secret yet she could never raise that because of Bill (and her closest advisor married to Anthony Weiner?!? Yuck.) Still, in retrospect, I wonder if Trump's misogyny becoming an issue might have actually helped him more with Patriarchy-enabled men than hurt him with women.

(5) She seemed like she went into the 2008 campaign with an attitude of entitlement, (the fact that she - and everyone else - was defeated by Obama, the candidate with the least political experience, should have been a big bright warning light to everyone), and after graciously conceding and being given the plum job as Secretary of State, she was clearly sending signals "ME NEXT." And leaving that job in 2013 to spend Obama's entire second term essentially campaigning - raising money and successfully clearing the way of major challengers long before she declared - it may not have been the whole story, but that's how it looked. Then, after that, to have one serious challenger, Sanders, a total party outsider, and win the nomination with a margin of only 56% to 43% made her look very vulnerable. In fact, Trump was the only possible opponent with greater negatives - any other Republican nominee would have been long favored against her.

As revolutionary as her election would have been and as good as she was on so many issues (better than Obama, but I'll save my list of grievances toward him for another time), she still became "The Establishment Candidate" and that weakened her among many of the people who should have supported her more.

In other stuff, catching up...

Turns out that trump had the stronger background experience for winning this year's election, if not for the presidency itself. He knows all about winning reality tv shows
WRONG! He never won a realit tv show, he 'hosted' and 'judged' one, with the full force of reality tv's top svengali producer supporting him. I suspect the thing Burnett most feared from getting outtakes from The Apprentice revealed is that it would show that Trump had a lot less power in 'firing' contestants than he made it appear.

"... and when you're a star, they let you do it."
When I was in the periphery of Hollywood (L.A. local radio), I witnessed and was told reliable tales of MANY supposedly 'enlightened' 'liberal' 'progressive' celebrities misbehaving (to put it lightly) just as badly. (Including a couple of those noted above as a potential 'Liberal Anti-Trumps).

Berlusconi presented himself as an anti-politician: a representative of civil society ...
And Trump can't even claim to be THAT.

It's heartbreaking to think of Obama and all his staffers who'll see so much of their hard work rolled back over the next four years.
Trump has made that one of his "First Day" goals. Good thing he's lazy.

Fewer white people. Changing demographics is really the only thing that's kept me positive today
I am White, male, cisgender, of the 'Baby Boomer' generation and raised Christian. My 61 years of personal experience and observation has led me to believe that MY 'tribe' is the single WORST demographic in America for behavior toward others. Yes, there are many like me (some here at the 'Filter) who are genuinely 'better than that', but our collective social contribution seems to me a clear and obvious negative, and I have near zero empathy toward "people just like me". Just living my life under this "lowest difficulty setting" has left me with a lot of guilt and regrets.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:40 PM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

I don't even know anymore.

In the Spring of 2019, Californians will go to the polls in a historic vote to decide by referendum if California should exit the Union, a #Calexit vote.

You will have this historic opportunity because the Yes California Independence Campaign will qualify a citizen’s initiative for the 2018 ballot that if passed would call for a special election for Californians to vote for or against the independence of California from the United States.

Being from Texas, I've always rolled my eyes at secessionist talk, but independence from the US Supreme Court and a Trump presidency sounds really damn good right now.
posted by mudpuppie at 3:41 PM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

I think there needs to be more study into this election before claiming that Clinton lost a lot of the Rust Belt Obama voters because of prejudice.

His campaign self-evidently worked, and it was all about prejudice. It's wishful thinking to imagine otherwise. But even in the most generous analysis, Trump's blatant misogyny and sexism didn't sway their votes against him. So what does that say about them?
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:42 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Calexit is scary because of what it would do to the US political landscape, but... we could all move there?
posted by Turd Ferguson at 3:42 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I mean, they had all this voter tracking info and they were running such tight and focused contacts that -- I think they missed a lot of marginal voters. I wonder how many folks who maybe are lower-income, move around a fair amount and maybe aren't always up to date on their cell phone bill (or who don't answer calls because bill collectors) just totally fell through the cracks in the campaign; and who are people that a lower-tech, traditional GOTV through local communities and connections would've been able to catch.

This is all speculation on my part, mind you; and it'd be interesting to hear perspectives of people who've worked on this or previous campaigns. But it would go some way to explaining the gap between the Obama campaigns and '16 Dem turnout, and also probably to explaining why Trump's margins among blacks and latinx people were a touch higher than '12 (if some marginal Dems in those groups never got touched by the campaign).

OK, then. I volunteered for Hillary. I did GOTV canvassing in Cleveland neighborhoods that are low-to-lower-middle income, primarily black and Latinx, some thoroughly mixed with white folks. I had a clipboard and a list of names and addresses. On paper. These names and addresses were of supposedly Dem voters - exactly where these names and addresses came from I'm not 100% sure, because Ohio is kind of indifferent to "party registration." You "register" for a party simply by choosing to vote in that party's primaries, and you can bounce to the other party at the next primary. So I have to suppose the list came from people who have voted in Dem primaries and/or donated.

And so I walked from door to door. And knocked, and if someone answered I checked to see if the name matched the address, and often it didn't. And even if it didn't I asked if they were registered, and if they were voting for Hillary, and if they were I went over their early voting options. And if no-one was home I left campaign literature. And then I took my pen and made notes on the list (mostly a series of boxes to check) about what the result was.

By the time I did my last shift on Tuesday afternoon it was the third time these addresses had been hit in three days - my list had the names of people who had already voted crossed off with Sharpie, and additional notes from previous canvassers scribbled around the addresses.

Lots of people weren't home when I stopped by. Some people nobody ever spoke to in person, judging from my last shift's list. Lots of times the names of the people I talked to didn't match the names on my list.

So yes, people undoubtedly got missed. But not because of an over-reliance on technology. I don't see how what I participated in could have been more "traditional" or lower-tech.
posted by soundguy99 at 3:43 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Yeah, but surely they realize that the California legislature is really nothing to write home about, right? Gridlock and idiocy abound. Plus with all that damned complaining about the initiative system. And, uh, hey, how about living right next door to the country with the worlds biggest military. You don't think the feds and the Armed Forces are gonna let you keep all those Marines, do you, Cali?
posted by Existential Dread at 3:43 PM on November 9, 2016

I'm not trying to be sympathetic - I'm pointing out that most of these people absolutely believe they are not racist, not sexist, not bigoted against people with disabilities, not filled with religious bigotry. And calling them those words will hurt them.

Clearly, one of the reasons democrats lost was that the left was just too civil, and didn't shout loudly enough that everyone else is racist.
posted by jpe at 3:44 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Secession is stupid and irresponsible when Texas talks about it and it's stupid and irresponsible when California talks about it too.

I mean, unless you're willing to take Oregon and Washington along with you, in which case...
posted by 0xFCAF at 3:44 PM on November 9, 2016 [24 favorites]

Boston Public Schools, with a large number of immigrant students, had counselors available to talk to kids today. And the school superintendent, himself an immigrant, tweeted this.
posted by adamg at 3:45 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

MSNBC has now officially called Ayotte out of the Senate.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:46 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

anyway i hope next time we elect a politically inexperienced reality tv star we have the good sense to pick kim kardashian
posted by poffin boffin at 3:47 PM on November 9, 2016 [28 favorites]

My alma mater sent an e-mail around with various counseling/suicide-related offices to call.

"*I hope that you burn"
Hah, speaking of Hamilton earlier, I said I wasn't in the mood to hear it but it's stuck in my head, but I was listening to the Pod4Ham podcast about that song. Kind of on repeat because I had a hard time processing all day.

I also liked StoryWonk's "The Oxygen Mask" episode on writing while whammied, which is a good one considering my now-terrible NaNo topic.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:47 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm devastated, spent the day just sitting, walking from room to room. Finally ate something. The fallout from this...the potential dismantling of social programs, the EPA, the courts, the DOJ, healthcare law. I would not want to be a young person about to finish basic training right now.

I'm feeling a little better now that my SO is home- she worked today I have no idea how, I requested today off months ago. We are going to eat food and get a little drunk and fool around, try to own the happiness that can not be stolen from us. But all this fallout. Her nephew came home in tears today, bullied for suggesting Donnie was not a nice man. This will embolden the worst of us, the homophobes and racists and haters of women.

And there is this. By many metrics, the worst prez we have ever had was Nixon, and journalists brought him down. Trump has promised to change the libel laws, weaken protections for journalists, because they are such "scumbags." Our weapons to fight back against him are on his hit list.

I'll find the hope, the strength to fight in a few days, I hope. I fear for us, for the nation, for immigrants legal or otherwise. I do not want to live in a country that thinks Donnie is a leader. He is not. He is a rich asshole who never worked a day in his life. Never mowed his own lawn. Never changed a diaper. Never sat with a sick or lonely friend. Never treated a woman as a person, not a body.

I'll find a way to be happy again. I'll find a way to fight. I'm not alone. But the USA became a much shittier country last night, and that tears at me, unworlds me. Bewilders me. Thank you all for helping us all through this. Stay sane stay safe stay groovy. Fight. Defend the weak, embrace the other. Fight. Love is the weapon we have now.
posted by vrakatar at 3:47 PM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

I don't have anything nice to say about Ayotte and I'm glad she lost her seat but it sure is funny that the one senator who didn't benefit from any Trump coattails effect was a woman
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:48 PM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

"...this election was like the country having a stroke."
This election was like a hurricane. All the build-up speculation: "which way is it gonna go, who's it gonna hit, what's gonna happen, how much damage is it gonna do" all the thrilling frenzy of preparation, trying to be sure we're shored up and safe, then Tuesday night and Wednesday morning the storm hits and plows over the landscape. Wednesday everyone wakes up to a deathly quiet and looks around. Oh. Of course. As usual, it hasn't touched the towering luxury hotels or the rich people's four-story houses they built right on the beach. Instead, just as it always seems to, it's wiped out the poor neighborhoods. And now we find ourselves a-slog in the endless aftermath. The AC doesn't work, nothing works, the lights don't come on, there's no running water, and half of us are marooned on rooftops surrounded by filthy stagnant murk, where we will stay for the foreseeable, day after ponderous day.
posted by Don Pepino at 3:49 PM on November 9, 2016 [33 favorites]

NY Times: "Giuliani, Christie and Gingrich Could Get Top Positions." Add Palin to that and what "vertiginous retching horror" is about to be our government?
posted by uraniumwilly at 3:51 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

(1) I have long felt that having the first woman elected Chief Executive being a "former First Lady" is not really a good example for women.

This is absurd. You don't get to randomize your Ideal Candidate Character Sheet an infinite number of times until you get the perfect mix of qualities and experience you want. Even if "served as First Lady" is somehow a drawback that tarnishes the reputation of the First Woman President, she has many more advantages over any other women sitting around on the Democratic bench. If we sit around trying to wait for the perfect candidate to break the glass ceiling, I'm pretty sure it'll still be there when we're all dead.

(2) The reason she has been the GOP's "Public Enemy #1" is because she represented the more Liberal side of Bill Clinton's 'triangulation', something no other woman could ever have to deal with.

The reason she's the GOP's Public Enemy #1 is because she's a Democrat running for office. They did it with Obama, they did it with Kerry, they did it with Gore, they did it with Carter.

(3) As one who went bankrupt from medical bills after the failure of "Hillarycare" in '93-'94, I blamed her some, for not having the necessary Washington experience and not reaching out enough to those who did. So, one old grudge.

So on one hand, she suffers for her record as First Lady, presumably because it's not a role she secured herself. On the other hand, when she tried to accomplish something in that role, she didn't succeed, and it hurt you, so you're sore about it. Okay then.

(4) I long hoped she'd DTMFA (D for Divorce) but it seemed like she seemed afraid to lose the political connections the marriage provided. (No proof, just feelings)

Feelings that could in no way be a result of the patriarchy itself, by denying her agency, and assuming she can't possibly still love him after his infidelity. This is the most shameful by far of your points.

(5) She seemed like she went into the 2008 campaign with an attitude of entitlement [...]

Next time, just save yourself (and us) the trouble and say she's uppity.
posted by tonycpsu at 3:52 PM on November 9, 2016 [67 favorites]

It's the B-Team of Republican has-beens.
posted by drezdn at 3:52 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Interesting pair of posts at imgur, asserting that Donald Trump was using tactics from the Art of War: 1) You Haven't Been Paying Attention, Donald Trump Has Already Won (3/11) and 2) a follow up post from today.

It makes a certain kind of sense, though I wonder what a gamer or tactician would say.
posted by ZeusHumms at 3:52 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

6:45 est and I'm still angry and I still can't wrap my head around what happened. I feel like I'm going to burst into tears yet I'm just so shocked it's like my emotions are burned out. Or it could be the xanax I've been taking all day long. I spent my day canceling any service that isn't absolutely necessary. That means no cable tv, downgraded my families iPhone plan, canceled lots of little $5-$10 bills. Also returned $1300 worth of furniture as well as the new iPhone 7+ that is still in the shipping container. All debt will be paid in full by the end of the month. I already canceled 2 credit cards today. Hate to say it but I've gone full-liberal prepper. My family suffered after 9/11 with layoffs and a forced move across country at our expense. 2008-2010 was awful for us financially and we only recently dug out 2 years ago. I'm not going through that again.

House goes on the market in Dec or Jan. Hopefully the shit storm doesn't start before then because we'll have an easy time selling. We'll then find a blue state to hunker down in and hopefully insulate ourselves from the coming shit storm.

And one more thing: FUCK THE SOUTH
posted by photoslob at 3:53 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Back to this link awhile back...
"America is a racist nation. Appealing to white nationalism works. We have not even begun to deal with our legacy of racism. Third, misogyny also won the day.
What is however sadly clear is that in fact Democrats cannot win without white working class voters in Rust Belt states. Whatever that means in creating policy and appeal, it is true.
Democrats have to win in the Great Lakes or in the South. These are pretty white states. That does mean appealing to white voters.
People care about leadership and inspiration. That’s true whether it was Bill Clinton in 1992 or George W. Bush in his 2 elections, or Barack Obama or Donald Trump. These four people have very little in common except that people saw them as an individual which they could either relate to personally or someone they see as a leader to improve their lives. And that they are men. Women have a much harder row to hoe on these sorts of things and that’s a terrible thing to realize. But in order to actually win a presidential election, the single most important skill is charisma. We need to consider this going forward."

"He couldn't believe a feminist like myself would argue against a woman in the White House, but I stood firm. The country wasn't ready in 2008, isn't ready now, and won't be ready in 2020 for a female candidate. I think even female Veeps hurt tickets. So the question in my mind is this: do we want to be progressive, principled, and inclusive, or do we want to win?"

So...basically we need a super charismatic, most white bread dude we can find who is cool and froody with people of other races and genders actually existing and yet can appeal to the rural votes. Our Cyrano, if you will.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:54 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Time for some of Obama's eleven dimension chess.
posted by drezdn at 3:54 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

NY Times: "Giuliani, Christie and Gingrich Could Get Top Positions." Add Palin to that and what "vertiginous retching horror" is about to be our government?
welcome your new lysenko-ist overlords
posted by j_curiouser at 3:55 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

"Mom? Why does the president have to be a racist?"

That breaks my heart.

I think the Trumpian argument would be something like... Well, a story.

So there's this sweet guy - one of the sweetest guys I know - he's a short, kind hearted very Christian Japanese dude who is really active in our local arts scene. For weeks he's been railing against all the divisive rhetoric related to the election on Facebook calling out everyone for being so negative to Clinton supporters and Trump supporters. He went apoplectic yesterday when our entire mutual Facebook arts community went into rage/mourning mode as the results became clear, "YELLING" about how people need to be civil, etc. He finally posted a length screed about how he had major issues with Clinton's email use and that's why he voted Trump and Trump isn't racist because those are just words and only God knows what is in Trump's heart. Not "God only know" but "only God knows."

This is what I mean about how just being called racist is (in the heads of certain Trump supporters) worse than actually doing racist things. Because if you're doing racist things and being nice about it, presumably, that's better than calling somebody a hurtful name like racist. Some nonsense like that. Bless their hearts.

I thought "Oh, ok, so that's why he's been so defensive" and, with regrets because I've seldom worked with anyone who has been as hard working, kind and friendly, I unfriended him. I think I could have swallowed this a little easier if he had been towing some sort of infuriating angel baby Evangelical line, but "Clinton was bad with emails and we can't know what's in Trump's heart" made my head implode. That's the sort of reason somebody gives when they really had no reason.

So yeah, we don't know what's in Trump's heart. Only his word and actions are racist, never him.

Anyhow, the good news is I'm culling down my social media to a nice, supportive echo chamber. I go out of my way to get news from multiple sources and not from Facebook so I hope I'm still getting a balanced view of things but Facebook is not a place for news for me - right now its a place where I need some serious emotional support.
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:58 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Went out to get some lunch earlier and everything here is so calm. It does not mesh at all with my internal state.

With regard to empathy for the other side and figuring out what makes them tick...erm, been feeling like they've been telling us loudly why for months.

I feel hated and despised. I feel like nearly 50% of the population does not want me to participate in public life. I feel like the fact that I am a human being too does not matter to huge swaths of this nation. Just in this thread, a 17 year-old trans woman was said to have killed herself this morning after being the target of hateful, misogynistic rape threat.

I'm sure there are lots of reasons people did what they did. Maybe not all...intended sent this message to women, PoC, LGBTQ+ people, Muslim people, Latinx people, Jewish people, but at the end of the day, the message was received loud and clear.

After all this fury, I'm not at all sure where to begin with empathy. I'm trying for serious, but it's a tiny spark, next to a white-hot furnace of terror for myself and my communities. Much easier to empathize with the targets of this hate, rather than the perpetrators.
posted by Excommunicated Cardinal at 3:59 PM on November 9, 2016 [19 favorites]

It's the B-Team of Republican has-beens.

Yeah, except now they're "are-nows".
posted by Sangermaine at 4:02 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Serious question: what to do with Republican / Trump acquaintences?

Cancel plans if they're going to be there? Relentlessly antagonize them? Is there even a middle ground?

"Hey, I heard you destroyed America. Yeah. S'gotta be crazy."
?
posted by petebest at 4:03 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Has anybody else felt revulsion at the sight of the flag? It feels like seeing an ex who done broke my heart
posted by angrycat at 4:03 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

I've discovered through this campaign that I don't have the emotional bandwidth to deal with this. Last night I was close to throwing up from 7 pm until 7 am because of the stress of something I have ZERO control over (I'm in Canada). So I'm cutting myself off from Metafilter for the foreseeable future, I'm sorry all but I can't read about this anymore. I've cut the cord on all social media, deleted the apps on my phone, and now I'm working my way through a bottle of whisky. I hope that America survives Trump.
posted by monkeymike at 4:03 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

> ... and Gingrich Could Get Top Positions.

Oh fuck us all.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 4:04 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Congress is broken. Honestly, to fix it, I would bring back earmarks. Once we got rid of those, plus gerrymandered the hell out of districts, there is no reason for congress to work beyond party lines. There was bad with earmarks, too, but at least it made people work together.
posted by frecklefaerie at 4:05 PM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

A family member told me, she got up this morning and went on her commute. Where it is normally loud, radios, people yelling greetings etc, the whole city was silent, she said, "Silent." On the subway it was silent, and everyone was wearing black today. She described NYC as grieving. So yeah. That is how my day went, only alone. I do have my black on.
posted by Oyéah at 4:06 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

"... and when you're a star, they let you do it."
When I was in the periphery of Hollywood (L.A. local radio), I witnessed and was told reliable tales of MANY supposedly 'enlightened' 'liberal' 'progressive' celebrities misbehaving (to put it lightly) just as badly. (Including a couple of those noted above as a potential 'Liberal Anti-Trumps).

The point was the "they". Basically, a bunch of morons voted their favorite TV personality into office. I think the whole handwringing about the midwest, racism. sexism is misguided. It may manifest in different ways, but Trump voters are just f'ing morons. If it were practical, I'd like to disenfranchise as many of those people as possible -- but it's not, so we have to deal with catering to idiots.
posted by smidgen at 4:06 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

The odd thing is: if you had been asked, ten years ago, to predict the results, in America, of two races. The first was a black community organiser against a legit decorated white military veteran (both male), the second was a white female lawyer and political veteran versus a reality TV star and sometime businessman.

I would have predicted exactly the opposite of what happened in reality. Land of contrasts etc, but there's more to this than "Americans aren't ready for a female president".
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 4:07 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

The indispensable homunculus already posted this upthread, but I feel it's worth reposting here because it is very important and is not being talked about nearly enough:

The GOP’s Attack on Voting Rights Was the Most Under-Covered Story of 2016
 This was the first presidential election in 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act.
By Ari Berman

In a way, I fear Trump's nonsense about the election being rigged against him will prevent this from becoming the outrage it deserves to be. Trump's victory was due to many factors that could be fairly described as a sine que non, but this one is perhaps the clearest affront to the idea that this was a democratic contest fairly won.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 4:08 PM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

So...basically we need a super charismatic, most white bread dude we can find who is cool and froody with people of other races and genders actually existing and yet can appeal to the rural votes. Our Cyrano, if you will.

I think this kind of talk is (understandably) coming out of anger. The choice isn't either hold your principles and lose or go sexist/racist and win. That's a false dichotomy.

It's going to be hard but liberals are going to have to come up with strategies that can appeal to people in the Rust Belt and the South that they aren't appealing to now. Honestly, it seems like Democrats haven't really even tried with these people much, writing them off as "flyover country" or ignorant rednecks. I've seen this, unfortunately, on MeFi itself.

Maybe there's a way to present a more progressive message that can get these people to listen, but you'll never figure it out if you dismiss them as inherently evil monsters.
posted by Sangermaine at 4:08 PM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

In trying to understand how someone could vote for Obama in 2008 and 2012 and Trump in 2016, I think you have to understand that people are basically selfish creatures. I think that's true of most of us. The difference between the right and the left may be that the left just has more diverse families and friends and therefore acting in minorities' interests is protecting our own.

I'm not excusing anyone here at all. But if we want more people to vote for "us" we have to convince them it's in their best interest. Things weren't going well for people in 2008, so the change candidate won. Things aren't going well for people in 2016 and the change candidate won. I'm not saying there's not a huge vein of racism and misogyny here, but ultimately I think racists can get over their racism long enough to vote if they feel their vote will benefit them personally.

The problem is convincing them that the left is going to help them. That's what we didn't do this time. Even though, yes, Clinton had a platform that I think would have helped those people. But they didn't hear that message. Maybe that's the Clinton campaign's fault, maybe that's the media's fault or maybe just no one could hear anything over Trump's braying.

We don't need to stop talking about racism and sexism and homophobia. But we need to get a lot louder about economic inequality.
posted by threeturtles at 4:08 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Obama *was* the outside in 2008.
posted by frecklefaerie at 4:10 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

If anyone wants 98 minutes of mind bleach, I recommend "Matilda".

It's the perfect negative image of Nov 9, 2016.

Joy, fairness, and clean language-- a universe where the bullies get their comeuppance.

Danny DaVito's trumpiness makes the whole movie very satisfying.
posted by seinwave at 4:12 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Looks like he's already backing off promises
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 4:13 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Pivot?
posted by vrakatar at 4:15 PM on November 9, 2016

HRC received many million fewer votes than Barack Obama.

Do not underestimate the VRA's role here. A lot of polling places, surprise surprise almost entirely in poorer minority communities, that were open in 2008 and 2012 did not exist in 2016. A lot.
posted by IAmUnaware at 4:15 PM on November 9, 2016 [27 favorites]

It's going to be hard but liberals are going to have to come up with strategies that can appeal to people in the Rust Belt and the South that they aren't appealing to now. Honestly, it seems like Democrats haven't really even tried with these people much, writing them off as "flyover country" or ignorant rednecks. I've seen this, unfortunately, on MeFi itself.

I mean, if people here wanted to writing off those voters, figure out some sort of "reverse Southern Strategy" way of mobilizing urban voters in unprecedented numbers to balance out not having to rely on those rural areas and states, that's an alternative to empathy. (Also note: I never said sympathy. There's quite a difference.) But if mathematically that's not feasible, then figuring out how to work with those voters is what we have to do. There's all sorts of other creative ideas (abolishing the electoral college, proportional representation, D.C. and PR statehood- heck throw in American Samoa and other territories) that are unfortunately out of the realm of current political feasibility. Though I do want more effort invested in those approaches.
posted by Apocryphon at 4:17 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Has anybody else felt revulsion at the sight of the flag?

for many years now, yes. it's especially horrifying to hear chants of U-S-A! U-S-A! at international sporting events. so horst wesselish.
posted by poffin boffin at 4:17 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

How were they this out-of-touch?

The thing is, it's pretty apparent that something changed in the last 10 days of the campaign. Compare how things looked two weeks ago and how the two camps were acting with how things looked four days ago and how they were acting. The Clinton camp obviously felt a major shift happen. Two weeks ago they were starting to pivot to a positive "let's work together for America" message and thinking offense. And then, almost overnight, they hit the panic button. The campaign strategy changed, their rally plans changed, and they blitzed the rust belt.

It seems clear to me that their numbers looked pretty good two weeks ago. They felt good in VA and CO, the northeast, and the west coast. And they felt at least comfortable with the Rust Belt. They were still up advertising there so they weren't completely complacent, but they felt okay. Resources were going to be shifted to offense in NC, OH, and FL. Then, boom, they went back up in Colorado. They started blitzing MI and PA. The move to a positive campaign evaporated and Obama et al started camping out in the rust belt.

It's almost as if something happened about two weeks ago which caused a shift among some subset of voters away from Clinton and to Trump. My strong suspicion is that Clinton actually did have more soft support among suburban white women and some Regan Democrats who dislike Trump than showed up on election day. But something shook those voters and pushed them along their natural inclination to hate and distrust Clinton. These voters are overrepresented in the Rust Belt, and this modest shift made what looked like a comfortable win turn into a panic-induced scramble.

What could have happened two weeks ago to cause this? Almost a deus ex machina to completely change the narrative on a dime? That happened almost two weeks ago and lasted until 2 days before the election while 40 million votes were cast?

It's a mystery.
posted by Justinian at 4:17 PM on November 9, 2016 [146 favorites]

While Clinton did campaign in Michigan recently, she largely ignored that state during her campaign.

As a person who lives, works, volunteers, and canvasses in Michigan, no she didn't.
posted by Etrigan at 4:19 PM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

What could have happened two weeks ago to cause this? Almost a deus ex machina to completely change the narrative on a dime? That happened almost two weeks ago and lasted until 2 days before the election while 40 million votes were cast?

It's a mystery.

Bingo!
posted by Jalliah at 4:20 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

p.s. COMEY I'M TALKING ABOUT COMEY
posted by Justinian at 4:21 PM on November 9, 2016 [46 favorites]

Dudley, where I live, had one of the highest percentages of voters to leave the European Union. I already know people who have lost their jobs as a result. Things are getting ridiculous here. In America, I wonder how effectively Donald Trump will deliver job for the working class without relying on the service economy they hate, the industry he knows best.
I won't predict anything but the time to go for a government job is now. That's the only way to make effective change possible. Or, build politics into your actual lives. Enough participation eventually gets results.
I would like to hope that Trump follows his own advice and uses public servers for Slack or whatever SaaS they end up using as an alternative to email that is "twitter-like" and suits the president's attention span. I am not even believing I am writing these words. Emigrating has not been easy. Going native is the only successful strategy but most people won't achieve it. You must be willing to make hard trades.
posted by parmanparman at 4:21 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think this kind of talk is (understandably) coming out of anger. The choice isn't either hold your principles and lose or go sexist/racist and win. That's a false dichotomy.
It's going to be hard but liberals are going to have to come up with strategies that can appeal to people in the Rust Belt and the South that they aren't appealing to now.

Eh, I didn't mean it that way. I know plenty of perfectly nice liberal white bread dudes (stewing along with the rest of us at work, even). I'm just saying that at this point, perfectly nice liberal white bread dudes probably trigger the insta-rage bigot factor less than women and PoC with that particular population that we need to win over. Sad but seems at least somewhat likely to be true.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:21 PM on November 9, 2016

There's a lot of groping around for ephemeral answers going on here and in many other places, but honestly it comes down basically to one thing: voter suppression of a kind that we haven't seen since many years before many of us were born. The SCOTUS did away with our right to free and fair elections, and then we got an election that was neither free nor fair, and the margin of Trump's "victory" is only a small fraction of the number of voters that were disenfranchised.

The Republicans used immoral tactics that were also illegal until very recently to prevent a fair election because they knew that a fair election was unwinnable. This election was a hoax and the result is illegitimate.
posted by IAmUnaware at 4:22 PM on November 9, 2016 [28 favorites]

History question: what lessons did the Democrats learn from 2004 that allowed them to succeed in 2008? Or was it because of Obama's charisma and image of newness and incorruptibility, Bush's shadow hanging over the Republicans, McCain's missteps, and fear of Palin that led them to win? Did they internalize the lessons from Thomas Frank at all because based on his writings this cycle it seems not and this election really really feels like '04 writ large.
posted by Apocryphon at 4:26 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

To be clear, there is no single reason Clinton lost. There are always many reasons, none of which would have by themselves tipped things. And the biggest single reason is clearly white anxiety. Some of it is economic anxiety channeled into xenophobia as scapegoating. A lot of it is pure racism without much of a fig leaf.

But Clinton, as I repeated probably more than I should have last night after most people had already gone to bed (and I was still hitting REFRESH over and over on the vote counts) is going to win the popular vote by nearly 2 million. Even racism and misogyny should not, would not have prevented her from becoming president had the scales not been tipped against her.
posted by Justinian at 4:27 PM on November 9, 2016 [43 favorites]

In a democracy, empathy is a weapon. It's what we need to understand your opponent. And, maybe, convert some of them to be your ally.

This. I need to make sure this doesn't happen again harder than I have needed anything in my life. I need to understand how to peel voters off their bloc, because fuck this election ever repeating.
posted by corb at 4:29 PM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

I'm just saying that at this point, perfectly nice liberal white bread dudes probably trigger the insta-rage bigot factor less than women and PoC with that particular population that we need to win over. Sad but seems at least somewhat likely to be true.

I wonder what would have happened with Biden again as the veep. The Constitution doesn't say anything against that, does it?
posted by Apocryphon at 4:30 PM on November 9, 2016

WARREN/BOOKER 2020.
posted by vrakatar at 4:31 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Warren is going to be 71 in 2020.

My guess is it will be Booker, Kamela Harris, or Chris Murphy.
posted by waitingtoderail at 4:33 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

“Watching middle-class conservatives vote for politicians who've proudly pledged to screw them and their children over fills me with the same exasperated contempt I feel for rabbits who zigzag wildly back and forth in front of my tires instead of just getting off the goddamn road.”

― Tim Kreider, We Learn Nothing
Read more quotes from Tim Kreider
posted by cynicalidealist at 4:34 PM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

It seems to me that the ideal candidate narratively would be a more-liberal Biden. I don't know who fills that role. Policy wise I'm all-in for Warren but I don't know that voters scared by Clinton are going to get on board the Warren Train.
posted by Justinian at 4:34 PM on November 9, 2016

I wonder what would have happened with Biden again as the veep. The Constitution doesn't say anything against that, does it?

I mean, it's not a real job anyway, so why have a term limit?
posted by kaibutsu at 4:35 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Serious question: what to do with Republican / Trump acquaintences?
Cancel plans if they're going to be there? Relentlessly antagonize them? Is there even a middle ground?

Cancel plans - and explain why. "I'm not going to have any fun at a gathering with people who want me/my friends tortured or killed." (Or the toned-down phrasing, "want me/my friends to be miserable, unsafe, and unhealthy.")

Avoid them in person, and if required somehow to spend time around them, make it clear that you're not doing so out of choice. Treat them like a loud, boorish guy who's behind you in line; you can't make him go away, and it wouldn't be polite to insult him, and you don't want to get into a screaming match in public - but you don't have to smile and pretend you enjoy his presence.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 4:35 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

this is what my 12 year old son sent me this morning.
posted by Annika Cicada at 4:36 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Who wants a perpetual VP.
History question: what lessons did the Democrats learn from 2004 that allowed them to succeed in 2008? Or was it because of Obama's charisma and i

Well, Barack won Ryan's senate seat, resistance was futile.
posted by clavdivs at 4:40 PM on November 9, 2016

what to do with Republican / Trump acquaintences?

I'm going to try to be nice. I don't want them to enjoy my suffering. I sure hope some of them will be gracious. I'm more worried about a couple of female co-workers, they were both nervous Tuesday afternoon, and I've been a vocal cheerleader/analyst at work (referencing MeFi a lot, natch) so I want to not be upset so they don't get upset. One line cook will come at me, I'll just remind him I'm a timelord.
posted by vrakatar at 4:42 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Serious question: what to do with Republican / Trump acquaintences?

Shun them which for me means I'll be spending a lot of time alone since I live in fucking Florida. I've already made it known I will not be attending holiday gatherings. I will be hanging out with my wife, daughter and parents this holiday. Everyone else can eat shit.
posted by photoslob at 4:43 PM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

I am still at Trump election night headquarters on the 44th floor. Looks like 6th avenue is filled with screaming protesters who are blocking the street. Hopefully it stays peaceful.
posted by Alison at 4:44 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

for those of you considering whether and how to enhance your personal digital privacy, this is a good place to start.
https://www.privacytools.io/

i've got some work and best practices and decisions to make myself in this realm, but thinking about it has been one good way to take action today rather than sit in numbness.
posted by localhuman at 4:46 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

I just don't understand this obsession liberals have with Biden. He's like a folksy Chuck Schumer. I'm not convinced he would have lost worse than Clinton. He would benefit from not being a target of endless misogyny, but he also wouldn't have motivated any of the democratic base to come vote for a historic first. And then what to we have? Just a Senator for Life of a state that has more corporate residents than actual people. I'm sure the base would have just come out in droves to vote for the Senator from the great state of Taxhaven.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 4:46 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

A couple of pics of my area's response to the US election. Canadians are weird. I love them.

Tattoo shop help wanted ad posted this morning.

Restaurant

posted by Jalliah at 4:46 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I kinda feel like us white people owe it to POC to engage our racist as fuck families and start actually trying to face how big of a problem this is and doing something about it. Alienating them isn't going to do shit about the US racism/white supremacy problem.
posted by Annika Cicada at 4:48 PM on November 9, 2016 [23 favorites]

I don't think he should've run for president, but I think Biden would have been more inspiring as a veep surrogate than Kaine. But yes, there definitely would be issues with "why are you using the same guy from the last administration" and the whole unprecedented nature of it all.
posted by Apocryphon at 4:48 PM on November 9, 2016

Serious question: what to do with Republican / Trump acquaintences?

My problem is that I have no idea who they are and am afraid to even ask.
posted by mudpuppie at 4:49 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

I looked up the #Calexit info; their book has an "explanation" of the legality:

The Constitution says that each state in the Union shall retain every power which is not by the Constitution given to the federal government. The Constitution does not give the power of secession to the federal government, nor does it expressly prohibit the states from exercising this power. Therefore, the power of secession is reserved to the states, or to the people, per the Tenth Amendment.

Further, the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution says that treaties ratified by Congress are the supreme law of the land. In 1945, the United States ratified the UN Charter, a treaty that guarantees peoples the right to self-determination in Article I. Thus, by ratifying this treaty, the United States adopted the right of self-determination as the supreme law of our land.

[I]n 1948, the United Nations adopted its Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 20 of that Declaration provides that “No one may be compelled to belong to an association.” This campaign takes the position, as Aristotle argued, that the state is an association and therefore we Californians may not be compelled to belong to the State, or the country, that is the United States of America.

Aww, that's charming. I'm sure that first point was never mentioned by the South in the Civil War, and that those other two points will be understood to obviously allow any state to just vote itself out of the Union.

... I'll probably keep up with the movement. It looks adorably useless.

I occasionally think I'd like CA to become a separate country, but I know what happened last time indiv states decided to do that. And while much of CA might like independence, they wouldn't be fighting for something they feel is essential to their culture, nor for economic survival.

I'd like to see if they can come up with a plan for independence that isn't just "we'll tell the feds to fuck off" - I can't think of any legal route other than a constitutional amendment (possibly, one allowing any state to seceded under XYZ conditions).
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 4:50 PM on November 9, 2016

I am already planning to "be in California" this Thanksgiving.
posted by Oyéah at 4:50 PM on November 9, 2016

A word from Leon Trotsky :

"The Fascists find their human material mainly in the petty bourgeoisie.
The latter has been entirely ruined by big capital. There is no way out for it in the present social order, but it knows of no other.
Its dissatisfaction, indignation and despair are diverted by the Fascists away from big capital and against the workers. It may be said that Fascism is the act of placing the petty bourgeoisie at the disposal of its most bitter enemies.
In this way big capital ruins the middle classes and then with the help of hired Fascist demagogues incites the despairing petty bourgeois against the worker. The bourgeois régime can be preserved only by such murderous means as these. For how long?
Until it is overthrown by proletarian revolution."
posted by SageLeVoid at 4:51 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I got your "Party of Lincoln" right here:

I am not a Know-Nothing – that is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of Negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except Negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equals, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to that I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty--to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

posted by kirkaracha at 4:52 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray also pledged that Seattle will remain a sanctuary city for immigrants even if it loses millions in federal funding.
posted by mbrubeck at 4:52 PM on November 9, 2016 [45 favorites]

I was worried about looking at the results broken down across the country by counties (don't need to know exactly how sparse love and tolerance are as concepts), but a few have been unavoidable.

I swear every single one of them looks like some sort of disease outbreak chart.

And why not.
posted by erratic meatsack at 4:53 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

California's left-liberal areas are already a safe zone in many ways, a bubble. To try to leave the Union to hide in that bubble and abandon one's fellow states is cowardly and despicable.

Plus, what's the point of seceding if you're not going to bring back the old Bear Flag Republic name
posted by Apocryphon at 4:53 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Replacing the first black president of the United States with this racist fuck is the worst insult to progress since Reagan replaced Thurgood Marshall with Clarence Thomas.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:55 PM on November 9, 2016 [35 favorites]

Everyone who has faith in the bubble of CA who is talking about a "Calexit" had be preparing right the fuck now to pull a Denmark and start hiding people fleeing the rest of the country in their homes indefinitely. I am dead fucking serious.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 4:56 PM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

My guess is it will be Booker, Kamela Harris, or Chris Murphy.

In 2020 I would love to double down behind Tammy Baldwin, a progressive woman and the first openly gay Senator (from Wisconsin!)...
posted by en forme de poire at 4:57 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Replacing the first black president of the United States with this racist fuck is the worst insult to progress since Reagan replaced Thurgood Marshall with Clarence Thomas.

That's George Bush senior's legacy
posted by uraniumwilly at 4:58 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

BBC Climate change: Nations will push ahead with plans despite Trump

President-elect Trump has said that he will "cancel" the Paris Climate Agreement within 100 days of taking office.
Negotiators in Marrakech say that such a move would seriously damage the credibility of the US.

........

I missed this.

Aware of Mr Trump's intentions, countries speedily ratified the Paris deal and it became a binding part of international law on 4 November.

If the new president wants to take the US out of the agreement, the process will require four years before he is free of it.
But while that might frustrate Mr Trump, he has also promised within his first 100 days, to rescind the executive actions that President Obama has taken to limit US emissions of carbon.

--------------

For delegates in Marrakech, Mr Trump's promises to pull out of Paris and his general climate scepticism are an unwelcome distraction but not as yet a derailment.
Many believe that over time, the realities of a changing climate would bring even the wealthy businessman into line.
"It's clear Donald Trump is about to be one of the most powerful people in the world," said Alden Meyer, from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"But even he does not have the power to amend and change the laws of physics, to stop the impacts of climate change, to stop the rising sea levels."
posted by Jalliah at 4:59 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

The insight about "constant barrage of emotional information" is important. Politics have been getting more and more unreal, mired in truthiness. Obscurantism and false news is rampant. As with Brexit, I don't think every single Trump voter endorses wholeheartedly with his actions or ideals, let alone with those of his most reactionary and radicalized supporters. Democracy is full of self-compartmentalization; how many Clinton supporters endorse her views on foreign intervention, or what she said at Goldman Sachs? How many even know about those things in detail, even. The point is you can't assume that every single Trump supporter agrees with the worst of his views.

Trump has been elected; that is inevitable. But what he does in his administration is still up to question. So if you have pro-Trump people who aren't absolute deranged violent bigots, who are civil and decent, there's still room to get them to oppose the worst of his policies in the coming years. No one supports a candidate 100%. Not even the candidate themselves does that.

I already live in the bubble. Nanny nanny boo-boo!

So do I, and everyone around me expected Clinton to win handily, which is why I'm so insistent that we really need to figure out what's going on outside of this bubble lest we repeat '04 again.
posted by Apocryphon at 5:02 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

The right will do, or try to do, to any Democratic woman presidential candidate, any one at all (and definitely Warren, whom I love more than life itself), exactly what they did to Hillary over the past few decades. She didn't get singled out for scorched-earth destruction because of some special unique unappealing Hillaryness. No, she just had the temerity not to stay in her place. Seriously, how many people in the election threads have said their mothers told them they'd never ever ever ever ever in a billion years forgive Hillary for a random off-the-cuff remark she made about FUCKING COOKIES two decades ago? It's ludicrous.
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:04 PM on November 9, 2016 [36 favorites]

And not just the right. Most of the center, some of the left, and a goodly part of the electorate.
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:05 PM on November 9, 2016

This scares me. Republican Jewish Coalition Warns ADL In 'Compromising Position' On Trump

The Republican Jewish Coalition suggested Wednesday that the Anti-Defamation League went too far in its criticism of Donald Trump's campaign and supporters during the 2016 presidential election.

RJC executive director Matt Brooks told the Forward that the nonprofit group could be in a "compromising position" as a result of its focus on the anti-Semitic imagery and rhetoric employed by Trump's campaign and supporters.

“I think it bears watching," Brooks said, "and I think that the ADL has put itself potentially in a compromising position going forward, in terms of its ability to interact with the incoming administration."

He called for an "examination" of the ADL's activity.

posted by zachlipton at 5:06 PM on November 9, 2016 [19 favorites]

If the new president wants to take the US out of the agreement, the process will require four years before he is free of it.

Not sure where that text comes from, but I'm hearing and reading assumptions here and there that Trump might be bound by treaties, agreements, the Rule of Law or the Constitution. I would argue that Trump is bound only by what a Republican Congress allows him to do. Trump doesn't seem to care about policy, so why wouldn't he just give Congress everything they want in trade for them giving him everything he wants? Can folks actually make an argument that an unbound Republican congress is going to hold their their President to account, risking the angry wrath of both Trump and his electorate?

And yeah, I've been catastrophizing this for a full day now.
posted by cnc at 5:06 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'd love it if the Democrats blame Comey and the FBI enough to hobble the FBI. I'd assume the FBI has fed the Republicans strategic information on all past Democratic candidates (previously).

Anyone remember complaining about how Trump got all this media attention during the Republican primary? Afaik, it's mostly just our media selling stupidity, but..

Appears Clinton's campaign told their media friends to give Trump more media attention during the Republican primary, called their Pied Piper strategy. We'll need leaks from Clinton's media friends to gauge how widespread this practice became, but it seemingly makes Clinton's campaign partially responsible for his nomination.

Also Trump only got 300k more votes than Romeny, who Republicans disliked too, while Clinton got a couple million less than Obama. There is no way her campaign fully understood the situation, but we know in hindsight that to win she needed both to shoot down any good left wing candidates, ala Sanders, and to face a much worse Republican candidate than Mr Banker during a Recession. Her campaign seemingly scored both those strategic goals, but still lost.

I'll therefore propose the hashtag #ThanksHillary for anytime President Trump does something particularly asinine.

Also : Climate change may be escalating so fast it could be 'game over', scientists warn
posted by jeffburdges at 5:07 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

California's left-liberal areas are already a safe zone in many ways, a bubble. To try to leave the Union to hide in that bubble and abandon one's fellow states is cowardly and despicable.

I agree that leaving would be cowardly (and possibly despicable, although I can make a case that there's a limit we should have to fund our own oppressors), but I insist that striving for state independence - not just for CA, but for any state or group of states that decides that the US is no longer serving the needs of their residents, is not evil.

It may be time for the US to schism into multiple separate countries. The United States may be, not a failed experiment, but a completed one, one that has reached the end of its useful life.

I don't believe that - but I believe it's a question worth exploring. How do you decide when a nation is "done," and is there any way for that entity to end aside from war and conquest?
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 5:08 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Hey guys, if you just want to process and not talk political strategy as much, I've added a Grief and Coping thread to MetaTalk.
posted by emjaybee at 5:10 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

I'll therefore propose the hashtag #ThanksHillary for anytime President Trump does something particularly asinine.

This isn't helpful.
posted by dis_integration at 5:10 PM on November 9, 2016 [45 favorites]

RJC executive director Matt Brooks told the Forward that the [ADL] could be in a "compromising position" as a result of its focus on the anti-Semitic imagery and rhetoric employed by Trump's campaign and supporters.

I really do not have words for the complicated emotions I feel right now, which is a shame, because neither do I have Matt Brooks' grinning yawp before me so that I might punch it.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:10 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

I'll therefore propose the hashtag #ThanksHillary for anytime President Trump does something particularly asinine.

And I'll flat out reject it. Everyone I know thought Trump could do nothing but shoot himself in the foot when he spoke. Getting more media attention sounds like smart strategy, not worthy of any blame whatsoever.
posted by uraniumwilly at 5:11 PM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

It's conceivable that Trump will fight a Republican congress, cnc, but really nobody can give a meaningful prediction right now.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:11 PM on November 9, 2016

It may be time for the US to schism into multiple separate countries. The United States may be, not a failed experiment, but a completed one, one that has reached the end of its useful life.

No way. We all own this mess, we all clean it up. That's how this glorious mess of a
shithole backwater called The United States of America works.
posted by Annika Cicada at 5:11 PM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

Phonecall: "I'm just not sure I can say 'President Trump'

Me: "I plan on going with 'Ratfuck-in-Chief'"
posted by Archelaus at 5:11 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Or was it because of Obama's charisma and image of newness and incorruptibility, Bush's shadow hanging over the Republicans, McCain's missteps, and fear of Palin that led them to win?

There was the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers in September of 2008.
posted by drezdn at 5:12 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I insist that striving for state independence - not just for CA, but for any state or group of states that decides that the US is no longer serving the needs of their residents, is not evil.

I'm totally up for using states' rights (and hell, nullification- can we bring that back again for opposite reasons?) against those who had been crowing about them the most. It's high time to use their tactics against them.
posted by Apocryphon at 5:13 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

You know one thing that has really scared the shit out of me in the last couple of days? The fact that the Pepes and ggers and c/hanners and As/sange, with the patterns of white nationalist radicalization, harrassment and doxxing, are now poised to be Trump's new ministry of information, if they in fact aren't that already. I think we really, really need a digital safety thread in some kind of safe space, because this just escalated from "they will doxx you and harrass you on twitter" to "they are going to report you to the FBI/president for treason"
posted by moonlight on vermont at 5:14 PM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

If someone is hateful towards you, then absolutely they should be avoided. But for family and friends who haven't been outright hostile, what do we hope to accomplish by shunning them?

Reinforcing our bubbles wouldn't have prevented Trump from being elected. Clinton's defeat doesn't mean her message isn't worth fighting for--after fighting for strength together, we now hear people demanding exclusion. This has been a dark 24 hours. I hope we don't turn to spite and damage our social ties beyond repair.

My greatest regret about the result is what it means for climate change. So much hung in the balance this election, but emissions are one thing that can't be undone in some future presidential term.
posted by wallgrub at 5:14 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

It may be time for the US to schism into multiple separate countries

Two problems off the bat: first, splitting up a country often gets violent. Second, the red rural conservative parts of the country can't maintain a tax base without the more populated coasts and urban areas. They pay pennies on the dollar compared to blue states for what they get as far as federal taxes and services.
posted by vrakatar at 5:16 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I wonder how whether the campaign's frantic scandal tempo will calm down or if it's the new normal. Will there be some sort of Trump nonsense every few weeks for the next 0-8 years? I wonder if he'll have access to @POTUS or maybe he'll stay posting under his account? Nothing to lose now, right? If he's going to be doing stuff like appointing Sarah Palin to the cabinet, it's going to be a total zoo.
posted by feloniousmonk at 5:16 PM on November 9, 2016

Second, the red rural conservative parts of the country can't maintain a tax base without the more populated coasts and urban areas.

Oh, that's a shame.

Sorry, I'm better than that.
posted by AndrewInDC at 5:18 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Attention emmigrants:

The Robots household will accept the following as boarders in order of priority:

1.Beyoncé
2. Brian Cranston
3. Sean Penn (garage only)

posted by No Robots at 5:19 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

If anything, splitting up this country will require more border walls to be built and that only enriches him
posted by Apocryphon at 5:20 PM on November 9, 2016

No Robots I'm sorry but the mental image of serial abuser and terrible refugee Sean Penn trashing your garage is one of the few slices of bleak humor I've found today
posted by moonlight on vermont at 5:21 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

He called for an "examination" of the ADL's activity.

OH MY GOD EXAMINE MY FOOT IN YOUR ASS YOU COLLABORATING FUCK
posted by poffin boffin at 5:21 PM on November 9, 2016 [32 favorites]

Not sure where that text comes from, but I'm hearing and reading assumptions here and there that Trump might be bound by treaties, agreements, the Rule of Law or the Constitution. I would argue that Trump is bound only by what a Republican Congress allows him to do. Trump doesn't seem to care about policy, so why wouldn't he just give Congress everything they want in trade for them giving him everything he wants? Can folks actually make an argument that an unbound Republican congress is going to hold their their President to account, risking the angry wrath of both Trump and his electorate?

I don't hold any illusions that Trump and his minions will care one whit about being bound by a treaty. It won't stop them. The silver lining with the thing getting rattified is that one way or another they will have to deal with it. It's one more thing. Also the international outfall.

Climate Change is not going to stop just because Trump, the GOP and their supporters don't believe in it. And as the consequences of not doing something start happening more then they already are both in the US and globally it's not something that the international community is just going to roll over on and say oh, US isn't in, guess we'll just go home.

The US is setting itself up to be an international pariah when it comes to dealing with climate change and they aren't going to just be able to bully their way out of facing consequences for their non-action and pout in the corner when other global states start fighting back.

Couple this with both Russia and China, who are going to take every advantage they can both in terms having Trump running things as well as using the coming climate upset to assert their power and we're talking major geo-political alignment. Because to be frank there is now a team of absolute intellectual morons and lightweights in office who will have little clue to what is going on, why or what to do about it. And if history is any indication Trump won't listen to anyone who actually has a clue.

Climate Wars, cold and hopefully not too hot. It's not going to be pretty.
posted by Jalliah at 5:22 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

A call to action for filmmakers. All Movies are Political Movies:

We tell stories. We educate. It’s our job to define our country’s values. To define our culture.

We collectively decide which stories get told, who gets to tell them, and who gets to see them.

That’s a humongous, vital, deeply political responsibility. It’s a political power that far outrstrips the power of our individual votes, especially considering many of us live in New York or California.

posted by acidic at 5:22 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I wonder if he'll have access to @POTUS or maybe he'll stay posting under his account?

Barack Obama’s Twitter account is soon to be in the hands of @realDonaldTrump
posted by kirkaracha at 5:23 PM on November 9, 2016

So do I, and everyone around me expected Clinton to win handily, which is why I'm so insistent that we really need to figure out what's going on outside of this bubble lest we repeat '04 again.

It's been less than 24 hours and people are still processing & grieving because this real life and not some fucking thought experiment.

I don't know you so I don't know if you are speaking from a place of privilege or whatever but you are being really pushy and offending lots of people here and you don't seem to care. This is just my opinion but this is a "too soon" and please "read the room" situation.
posted by futz at 5:23 PM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

Second, the red rural conservative parts of the country can't maintain a tax base without the more populated coasts and urban areas. They pay pennies on the dollar compared to blue states for what they get as far as federal taxes and services.

Independence isn't going to happen. That said, a lot of us on the urban coast are getting pretty goddamn tired of many people in the red rural conservative parts of the country voting in policies which screw us over all while glommed onto the teat of our subsidies.
posted by Justinian at 5:24 PM on November 9, 2016 [29 favorites]

But for family and friends who haven't been outright hostile, what do we hope to accomplish by shunning them?

They have been hostile - just not directly to you. Shunning them says "I can't tolerate your presence; I know you think you're a decent person, but my definition of 'decent' is different from yours."

Part of the "bubble" effect has been to pretend that bigotry isn't really important, that we can live in moderate harmony with bigots as long as we don't talk politics, that it's a minor feature in the complex tapestry that makes up a person.

We need to start treating it like three-day-old rotten fish... "ugh, I guess some people don't mind being around it, but I'm not going to choose to stay in a room with it."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 5:25 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

My problem is that I have no idea who they are and am afraid to even ask.

that's really the problem isn't it? does it make you feel better or worse that you don't know and are "afraid to ask" what the entire other half of the country around you thinks or feels? because now we're all going to know front and center for a long time.
posted by Avenger50 at 5:25 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

They are also voting in policies that screw themselves over, of course, but hey knock yourself out as long as you're not taking us down with you. But you are.
posted by Justinian at 5:25 PM on November 9, 2016

I don't know you so I don't know if you are speaking from a place of privilege or whatever but you are being really pushy and offending lots of people here and you don't seem to care. This is just my opinion but this is a "too soon" and please "read the room" situation.

Very well, I apologize for that. Thank you for explaining to me what I'm doing wrong. I am sorry for being insensitive and will try to do better from now on.

The US is setting itself up to be an international pariah when it comes to dealing with climate change

America (and Australia) were absent from the Kyoto Protocol for a long time. Not that it made things any easier, but it didn't kill off that initiative, not by a long shot.
posted by Apocryphon at 5:27 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Two problems off the bat: first, splitting up a country often gets violent. Second, the red rural conservative parts of the country can't maintain a tax base without the more populated coasts and urban areas. They pay pennies on the dollar compared to blue states for what they get as far as federal taxes and services.

Yep, I didn't say it'd be easy or simple. However, I've thought it was time to explore this idea for many years; this isn't a reaction to this particular election - but I do have some vague thoughts that if the notion of secession were brought up, Trump might say, "fuck 'em if they want to leave! Let 'em go; we don't need them!" (Which wouldn't mean a state's actually able to leave, of course, but it's an interesting twist on the potential political landscape.)
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 5:28 PM on November 9, 2016

This from my 21 year old (white) son who cried with me on the phone last night.

It more focuses me on what's important in life. I'm gonna start looking for a job where I can feel like I'm making a difference. Or use my remaining free time towards other things I care about.
Historical forces are at work, the world is changing. if I were to go on like nothing happened than I am complicit in his actions.
In all the books I read, and in all the history I consume, those who answer their era's call to action are the people I choose to identity with. It's time to get off the sidelines.

This is the future people - there are many more like my awesome son out there in America who will see this as a call to action.
posted by bluesky43 at 5:28 PM on November 9, 2016 [28 favorites]

Side note: My notion of treating bigotry like an obnoxious smell in the room is pretty much for privileged White people, and for people dealing with those they know personally. People of color, women wearing hijabs, and other direct targets of Trumpism may not have the privilege of safely showing that kind of reaction in public.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 5:31 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Posted this on my FB. I haven't been following the thread much today so apologies if this has all been said already:

"Here is some data on the electoral college losses, because: hey, I'm still me. We will be grappling with what these specific losses mean for a while, and it's good to know exactly what they are.

So, in what was considered Clinton's worst-case path to victory, her map included the states she won, plus three: Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. (And minus Nevada.)

The reason these states were taken for granted as part of Clinton's map, aside from the polling, is because they have all gone Democratic in the past six presidential elections (seven for Wisconsin).

Pennsylvania: 4,546,583 votes were cast. Clinton lost by 11,837.
Michigan: 2,791,677 votes were cast. Clinton lost by 27,257.
Wisconsin: 5,757,646 votes were cast. Clinton lost by 68,236.

The fact that I have this information does not mean I have a clear idea of what to do with it. And of course, many of the states which Clinton won were by much tighter margins than predicted. But I can say this: we already know we won the popular vote. And these three key states in particular were lost by a total of only 107,330 votes.

I feel as shitty as everyone else right now. But even though we lost, it's important to remember that we're not alone. Not by a long shot. We lost by a narrow margin, we have millions and millions of other people on our side, and we're not going to take any abuses against us lying down. (I guess this last part isn't data but it's where I'm at right now.)"
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:34 PM on November 9, 2016 [22 favorites]

I just got out of a community discussion/dialogue at the multicultural center at my university here in Columbus OH. There were many more students than expected - mostly students of color, latinx and LGBT students. Fewer white faces than I hoped, but it was just... really comforting to be in a room full of people who had clearly thought deeply about this election, and were scared, and were quietly hopeful, and proud, and angry, and we made plans for substantive and actionable steps we would like to see the university take. Recruit a diverse student body and faculty. Provide mandatory training in diversity and implicit bias. Include a US Politics course in the mandatory core curriculum. Make coalitionary conversations that involve students and faculty a bigger part of the university. Give students opportunities to express their hopes and fears to a larger venue than just the Multicultural Center. It was grounding. I listened more than I talked. I learned things. I shared things. It was, really, really wonderful.

And then I was waiting for the bus outside the student union, and a group of white women walked past me. "Oh my god, I'm LITERALLY scared for my life!" one said, and they all laughed. "Get a fucking grip, guys!" And then group of about 40 students - mostly male - ran out of the union with flags and Trump signs chanting "Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!" "Build That Wall! Build That Wall!" And all that peace and comfort we'd built in that shared space was shattered.

I don't know what to do about this. I really, really don't.
posted by ChuraChura at 5:34 PM on November 9, 2016 [52 favorites]

America (and Australia) were absent from the Kyoto Protocol for a long time. Not that it made things any easier, but it didn't kill off that initiative, not by a long shot.

I wasn't talking about it killing off the initiative. It's about the consequences of not acting NOW and in the future. Kyoto is almost 20 years old. We are now in the full on beginning of having to deal with the physical consequences of not doing enough back then. It's started and it's going to get worse every year. It's here, right now. It is already too late to stop it.

We're in the era of deciding whether we want bad or really, really fucked up bad.

If you think that the global community is not going to get pissed fight back at countries not joining the fight to mitigate it from then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. And if you don't think that other major powers are going to take advantage of the disorder it's going to cause I have two for sale.
posted by Jalliah at 5:35 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Me: "I plan on going with 'Ratfuck-in-Chief'"

I loved that Michelle never used his name in any of her speeches during the campaign. I'm going to see if I can do the same thing for the next four years. It will be the President (gag) or the Administration at work and the Adversary / the Evil One at home.
posted by longdaysjourney at 5:35 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I live in Medford (the city north of Boston where police officers dressed as Hillary in prison scrubs and as Trump) and work in a biotech lab. On Election Day, two minor, upsetting things happened:

- A member of my extended family texted me and reminded me not to "k--e out" on an outstanding debt, and;
- I saw the front desk receptionist reading Drudge on her computer and later heard her calling Hillary "that bitch".

When Donnie started taking electoral seats, I lost it. I felt like these people are winning, and I worry their words might be an overture to worse actions.
posted by pxe2000 at 5:38 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I had hoped that this was the racist's Gettysburg, their high-water mark defeat. Turns out it's the battle of the bulge.
posted by VTX at 5:39 PM on November 9, 2016

I loved that Michelle never used his name in any of her speeches during the campaign. I'm going to see if I can do the same thing for the next four years

🚽 is still available, at least in text.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:41 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Remembered that GWB "Miss me yet?" billboard. Yes, I sure do.
posted by porn in the woods at 5:45 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I had hoped that this was the racist's Gettysburg, their high-water mark defeat.

unfortunately they think it's their (revolutionary) yorktown.
posted by poffin boffin at 5:47 PM on November 9, 2016

The thing is, the demographic changes are not going away. The long term trend is exactly what we've known it will be for years now. It's just we grossly underestimated the damage that could be done in the meantime.
posted by Justinian at 5:50 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Remembered that GWB "Miss me yet?" billboard. Yes, I sure do.

Throughout my life, most Republican presidents have made the previous one seem saner. At this rate 2032 will see a literal AI-generated South Park vocaloid elected on a platform based entirely of memes created a couple days before polls open.
posted by traveler_ at 5:51 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

It's just we grossly underestimated the damage that could be done in the meantime.

They've probably bought themselves another 30 fucking years with the Supreme Court changes.
posted by Gaz Errant at 5:51 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Remembered that GWB "Miss me yet?" billboard. Yes, I sure do.
posted by porn in the woods

The only laugh I've had all day. Hats off.
posted by uraniumwilly at 5:53 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

I unplugged today. How are people like Chris Hayes and Maddow taking this? I guess I can still check on Maddow.
posted by Justinian at 5:55 PM on November 9, 2016

They've probably bought themselves another 30 fucking years with the Supreme Court changes.

I'm turning 52 in a couple of weeks. I probably won't see a progressive court in my lifetime.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:55 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Just took a couple pics of the march in SF tonight. It's joining up with another group that's already in the Castro.
posted by zachlipton at 5:57 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Jeez, there are so many good things Obama could spend his remaining time in office doing, like issuing more pardons, but instead he plans to squander lots of it pushing an evil trade treaty :

According to Canadian press the US ambassador to Canada has stated that Obama will push for #TPP to passed before Trump takes power.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:57 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

1928 was the last time Republicans controlled the White House, House, and Senate. It went okay.

The next year was a bit rough, though.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:57 PM on November 9, 2016 [41 favorites]

he plans to squander lots of it pushing an evil trade treaty :

We don't know if it's an evil treaty or not. NAFTA has been a net benefit for the US, Canada and Mexico, for example. However the lack of transparency about TPP is likely on contributing factor to President Trump.
posted by My Dad at 5:59 PM on November 9, 2016

I'm turning 52 in a couple of weeks. I probably won't see a progressive court in my lifetime.

I'm a decade behind you but I'm feeling pretty much the same way.
posted by Gaz Errant at 6:00 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

The science is just looking worse and worse.

The anthropogenic forcing results in a global mean SAT anomaly of 5.86 K by year 2100 with respect to PI values. The uncertainties in S and the ocean’s heat uptake efficiency as discussed above result in a likely range of 4.78 to 7.36 K for the global mean SAT anomaly.

5.86 K by 2100.

Without some kind of miracle of technology, that is a path that would likely mean humanity's ability to feed itself would be hopelessly compromised. Best case scenario under these assumptions is many severe regional famines and global refugee crisis. Worst case scenario that we can no longer rule out is literally Venus.

Of course, we are already hearing the answer from Trump: Nope. Wrong.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 6:00 PM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

The thing is, the demographic changes are not going away. The long term trend is exactly what we've known it will be for years now. It's just we grossly underestimated the damage that could be done in the meantime.

Justinian, you're assuming that the changed demography will be less susceptible to fascism. That's a very big assumption: Trump got a surprisingly large share of the Latino vote and the Jewish vote - it wasn't a majority, but it should have been down around the level of his Black vote. A more carefully-crafted message would probably let Trump's successor win on the new demography, while still being essentially the existing Republican platform.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:00 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Mourning balloons at Sam Adams's grave in Boston.
posted by adamg at 6:01 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

DirtyOldTown -- Republicans controlled the White House, House and Senate from January 1953 to January 1955, January 2001 to July 2001, and January 2003 to January 2007.
posted by MattD at 6:01 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Paste a smile on, try to be polite, pretend to be listening, and gently hold their hands while telling them you see where they're coming from. You might, MIGHT have a chance of leading people where you want them to go if you do that.

I disagree. We've tried that - we tried to be patient, attentive, inclusive, calm, and supportive. We tried to build plans and policies that addressed their needs - both those we thought they had, and those they talked about. (Clinton's plan included extending the earned income tax credit to people living well below the poverty line - basically, a few thousand dollars extra a year, for people for whom that's more than 20% of a year's income.)

All that got us was Trump, and a whole bunch of people who are absolutely vicious at anyone below them on the privilege ladder.

Fuck that. There's no reason for us to be publicly crude or obnoxious, but we can damn well start saying, "no, I don't want to work with him; he's a creep who stares at women's tits" and "no, I won't be coming over because you invited her, and she thinks my child's best friend should be deported" and "no, I'm not going to shop at that new store; they sell tacky racial epithet t-shirts."

We need to start saying "No." Stop playing the missing stair game. Stop pretending the elephant in the room isn't the cause of a hell of a lot of elephant shit.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 6:02 PM on November 9, 2016 [62 favorites]

Oh. Maddow is opening with Kennedy's speech about how we might have a nuclear war in October of 1962. So I guess that answers my question about how they're doing.
posted by Justinian at 6:02 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

You could also argue January 1981 to January 1983 given a Republican White House and Senate and a working conservative majority in the House between the (minority) Republican and old-school southern and western Democrats.
posted by MattD at 6:03 PM on November 9, 2016

1928 was the last time Republicans controlled the White House, House, and Senate. It went okay.

That'd be 2001-2007, actually. (Republicans won a majority in the Senate in 2000 and held on to it until the 2006 elections.) And well. I don't recall the Bush years as "going okay", especially. (Possibly in comparison to what's coming, sure, but that's a low bar.)
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 6:03 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

That's a very big assumption: Trump got a surprisingly large share of the Latino vote

I think the exit polls have been shown to be unreliable. The result maps don't indicate he got all that much of the Latino vote outside of the Cuban enclave in Florida (which, sadly, swung Florida). I agree he should be down in mid single digits but that's.. probably unreasonable a hope. Even if we take the polls as reliable, 71% of the Jewish vote isn't that low. It's fairly in line with what Democrats get. Slightly lower than Obama '08, slightly higher than Obama '12.
posted by Justinian at 6:04 PM on November 9, 2016

Chris Hayes introduced me to a new word on the tweeters.

kakistocracy: government by the worst persons; a form of government in which the worst persons are in power.

posted by xyzzy at 6:06 PM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

Paste a smile on, try to be polite, pretend to be listening

I just found myself re-watching Joe Goes To A Donald Trump Rally [warning: video of Trump rally] trying to understand. Recommended if you love sarcasm and masochism.
posted by sfenders at 6:08 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

kakistocracy: government by the worst persons; a form of government in which the worst persons are in power.

Wait, I was told it would be the best people.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:08 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Spray-painted on a wall in Durham : Black Lives Don't Matter and Neither Does Your Votes.
posted by Justinian at 6:09 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Maybe its the pain meds talking but I'm think that at least 2017 is going to be a fantastic year for comedy shows !

_{Hopefully they'll have extended cable in the work camps}
posted by AGameOfMoans at 6:10 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Protests going on right now in NY and Chicago. Looks like a few thousand at each.
posted by Jalliah at 6:12 PM on November 9, 2016

Protests going on right now in NY and Chicago. Looks like a few thousand at each.

Boston and Philly too. CNN was covering 7 protests.
posted by futz at 6:14 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Here's hoping the Trump win is a monkey's paw situation for the GOP.
posted by drezdn at 6:15 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Empathy is not sympathy.
Empathy is not sympathy.
Empathy is not sympathy.

(Remember Sotomayor being mocked by the Right during her nomination process for mentioning the value of empathy? Let's not follow them down that path.)

Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes and understand why they think the way they do. I have no sympathy for the vicious assholes who elected Trump, but we need to understand what's going on in their heads if we're going to beat them in 2018 and 2020.
posted by McCoy Pauley at 6:16 PM on November 9, 2016 [23 favorites]

I stayed up till 6am and then read some more this afternoon though I think I've missed at least 1k comments. I sobbed for at least an hour. It doesn't feel real. The acceptance speech literally made me nauseous and gave me heart palpitations. And I'm still fighting back tears.

But then I said fuck it. And I shut off everything and turned on dance music and cleaned the shit out of my house. Even though I'm sick with a chronic illness I couldn't sit still and wallow when I'm so prone to depression.

I will not let hate win this time. No. It won't take me.

I am terrified. I am hopeless. I am sad. But then I have friends who are just as devastated as me offering to stand together. To keep fighting. To win with love. So that's what I'm going to do. I can't stay quiet anymore but I won't spew hate either. I will calmly disagree with people who spew hate and lies but I won't sink to that level. I will work to lift everyone up.

Because I CAN'T let it get me down. I am already beaten and bruised from my chronic illness. I can't pile this on top. I won't survive it. The world has changed. And I may lose friends. But I will argue with love and sensitivity for the rights of humans as best I can from my couch while dealing with a chronic illness. I will speak up when I need to.

So, I'm taking off again. I'm pumping happy music and thinking about all the people out there who feel the same as I do. The people that love. That will support others. That will call out bullshit. Those people make me happy. I feel pity for those who survive on hatred and fear. But we have to promote unity somehow. He is NOT my president.

I'll be dancing like an idiot and cleaning my house. Join me if you'd like. I'm also here to support anyone who needs to talk to someone.
posted by Crystalinne at 6:16 PM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

Empathy is not sympathy.

Absolutely correct, but many times people calling for empathy appear to me to actually be calling for sympathy.
posted by Justinian at 6:18 PM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

Or at the very least the calls for empathy seem selective, based not on the subject's actual need for empathy, but the sympathies of the person calling for more empathy.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:19 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Watching the protests is pretty amazing. I recommend checking out the news channels if you have them. Don't think they're stopping soon
posted by Jalliah at 6:20 PM on November 9, 2016

The protests make me happy but nervous.
posted by vrakatar at 6:22 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I know, I know, you think things can't get worse. Here's a cheery thought - Donald Trump won't be President five months from now.

He will be impeached for any one of his illicit scandals by Ryan's House, and convicted by his "fellow" Republicans in Yurtle the Turtle's Senate.

Welcome Mike Pence, 46th President of these United States of America.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:23 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

The protests make me happy but nervous.

Why nervous?
posted by drezdn at 6:24 PM on November 9, 2016

Here's hoping the Trump win is a monkey's paw situation for the GOP.

That's the only silver lining I'm feeling at the moment. If he lost, a bifurcation of the Republican party was possible, maybe making it difficult to tie Trumpism to future races. A lot of Republicans would at least have a plausible case for not backing the Trump movement. Now however, Trump IS the Republican party, and he will hopefully act as a stone tied to the rest of the party, pulling them underwater for the next two elections. If that happens, and by some miracle Dems are able to regain a couple statehouses by 2020, some of the ratfucking of the 2010 census gerrymandering can be undone, or some governorships can picked up and expand the Dem candidate lineup for future Presidential races.
posted by LionIndex at 6:25 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Welcome Mike Pence, 46th President of these United Stares of America.

This is not helping my state of mind right now.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 6:25 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

He will be impeached for any one of his illicit scandals by Ryan's House, and convicted by his "fellow" Republicans in Yurtle the Turtle's Senate.

And risk the rage of the people who just elected him? It's not happening. It's entirely possible Pence becomes a Cheney if Trump gets bored, but Trump isn't getting impeached anytime soon.
posted by drezdn at 6:26 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I look forward to the earnest calls by Trump supporters to listen to the concerns of the majority of voters who rejected his plans for America.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:26 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

He will be impeached for any one of his illicit scandals by Ryan's House, and convicted by his "fellow" Republicans in Yurtle the Turtle's Senate.

Care to make it interesting? I'll give you 20:1 odds.

Welcome Mike Pence, 46th President of these United Stares of America.

Yeah, about that:

When Kasich’s adviser asked how this would be the case, Donald Jr. explained that his father’s vice president would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy.

Then what, the adviser asked, would Trump be in charge of?

“Making America great again” was the casual reply.

Pence is already going to be President as soon as Trump loses interest. I'll open with a bid of St. Patrick's Day, 2017 as the date on which he starts phoning it in.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:26 PM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

I dunno Mike Pence is a really bad dude but he's not a psychopath

That assumes facts that are not in evidence.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 6:27 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Comment deleted. This is not the time to generically berate people for Doing It Rong. Thanks.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 6:28 PM on November 9, 2016

I dropped by the New Hampshire combined campaign office this afternoon to help them clean up, and they were all so sad.

But they did such a good job! Trump only won the state by a handful of votes but we won every other federal election contest, and hence are sending our first all-female all-Democratic delegation to the 115th Congress! Including the class 3 Senate seat which our Republican soon-to-be-former Senator Kelly Ayotte (former state Attorney General, of Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood) conceded late today.

They all worked their hearts out, and organized so well and channeled all of the efforts of us volunteers, and made everyone feel welcome, and I wish I could have come up with something to say to lift their spirits.
posted by XMLicious at 6:29 PM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

Have you been to the internet?

Here's a pretty good map of "the internet". We actually show up on it, but we're a pretty tiny island. Where I've been that this election has been so different from how it's been for you is in a different slice of the giant reality that we all live in but that is more balkanized than likely ever before. No big surprise your experience of how patient the left has been with the right is different than someone else's. But do try to realize they can be different.
posted by traveler_ at 6:30 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think what people mean is that Mike Pence doesn't appear erratic. I'm not sure how much better a stable evil guy is than an erratic evil guy though. I guess the theory is that the stable evil guy doesn't blow up the planet by accident?
posted by Justinian at 6:31 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Just got home from my Girl Scout meeting. Have a few stories for you all.

A full day of being at predominantly Latinx schools has had them surrounded by adults who Get It all day, so they had a full day of talking and sharing their fears and hopes. They were in reasonably good spirits at our meeting, considering. Still lots of hugs to go around lots of (them) saying "we need to be nice to each other" and such. I was asked by two of them (quietly, separately) if I voted for Hillary. I guess even though we've talked about the election it's never really come up. One girl said "you don't have to tell me if you don't want, but I like hearing people say it." Yes, of course, I told them. More hugging. Since they seemed to need a break from talking, I let the girls tie-dye their t-shirts in relative peace and went and sat with the parents to be sad out of earshot.

One girl walked into the meeting with the WORLD'S SADDEST look on her face holding a tiny American flag. Her mom told me "she got it yesterday when I took her in to vote with me and she won't put it down."

Another mom is, I found out tonight, a police officer. There's a big protest going on down at Trump Tower tonight and another of the moms said to her that she thought for sure she'd be up there working. She said she wanted to, so she could be a part of it, but that she's come off of 11 days straight of 16 hour shifts, including working Cubs duty, so is on a few days of leave. Understandably.

But that's not all. One of my scouts' moms became a Citizen yesterday. YESTERDAY. Yesterday was her citizenship day and her first time voting in a US election. "This wasn't supposed to happen," she said. "I want my green card back."

The last 24 hours have been one punch in the gut after another, just unceasing gut punches, to the point where I can't tell where one ends and the next begins, and I don't know when it will ever stop feeling like that. And I'm surrounded by so very very many good people and am in a place of so much relative privilege. My heart breaks for so many right now.
posted by phunniemee at 6:31 PM on November 9, 2016 [63 favorites]

(I apologize if that was too personal but the idea that there's one singular "the internet" that has one culture and one set of norms and one type of bias is a pet peeve of mine. And very insular.)
posted by traveler_ at 6:32 PM on November 9, 2016

.I really don't know why you think this happened this year. Have you been to the internet? People there are pretty vehement about Trump supporters sucking and being the dumbest and worst people alive. And they have been for quite a while. Really, this is like you are living in an alternative universe where every liberal has just been like "hmm, this Trump fellow, he's a bit...I don't know, I don't want to say" and as a result he won. Where on earth are you that this is how this election went?

I've been on the internet a lot and Trump supporters had absolutely no problem saying the exact same things and worse about Hillary supporters. Worse being openly, sexist, racist, anti-semtic, slurring women all over the place and general deplorable speech. The most vocal on the net have no problem whatsoever acting this way. And what? It's non Trump supporters fault that they got their feelings hurt by being called out and labeled for their actions?

Have you watched what went on at Trump rallies?

I don't have all the answers but calling trump supporters names did not lose this election. These people didn't became Trump supporters because they were called names. The name came after they were out there shitting on everyone with their Trumpist crap.
posted by Jalliah at 6:33 PM on November 9, 2016 [23 favorites]

I want to apologize to all about the "moving to another country" comments. I'm realizing just how privileged that is, and I'm much more interested in figuring how to fix it than running away.
posted by Gaz Errant at 6:33 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Like Donald Trump is either Chaotic Evil or Chaotic Neutral while Mike Pence is Lawful Evil.
posted by Justinian at 6:33 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Nervous because people might get hurt, but I'd love to see the protests grow into a movement.
posted by vrakatar at 6:34 PM on November 9, 2016

So in D&D terms, Pence is Lawful Evil while Trump is Chaotic Evil.
posted by drezdn at 6:34 PM on November 9, 2016

jinxes
posted by futz at 6:35 PM on November 9, 2016

Ideas, here:

DONALD TRUMP WILL BE PRESIDENT. THIS IS WHAT WE DO NEXT.

8. Barack Obama gets one day off.

As Bernie Sanders put it this spring, Obama’s “biggest mistake” was organizing a huge grassroots army and then telling all those loyal followers, “Thank you very much for electing me, I’ll take it from here.”

Obama had one of the powerful political organizations ever assembled in U.S. history, and he just disbanded it. According to one of Obama’s top organizers, he saw it “as a tiger you can’t control.” This unquestionably contributed to the current Republican dominance of Congress, and now most of his presidency may be washed away like a sandcastle.

If he ran for president for some reason other than just to live in the White House for a while, he can’t now start jetting around the world and giving speeches for $1 million. He’s going to have to stay right here and try to muster his troops again. They would be a force to be reckoned with, especially if he and Sanders could collaborate effectively.

Like you, I have absolutely no idea if he’d do this. Maybe we should ask.

9. Be good to yourself and everyone else.

Liberals, leftists and sundry have real and profound differences. But for the foreseeable future we must hang together or we will surely hang separately, metaphorically or otherwise.

Since we’re stuck with each other, let’s be kind. In a country engineered to treat everyone horrendously every day, demonstrating that we extend real
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:36 PM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

I was also thinking that maybe Trump is Chaotic Neutral!
posted by drezdn at 6:36 PM on November 9, 2016

I think what people mean is that Mike Pence doesn't appear erratic. I'm not sure how much better a stable evil guy is than an erratic evil guy though. I guess the theory is that the stable evil guy doesn't blow up the planet by accident?

This is not comforting when stable evil guy has strong religious belief in the imminence and desirability of the apocalypse.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 6:36 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I think what people mean is that Mike Pence doesn't appear erratic. I'm not sure how much better a stable evil guy is than an erratic evil guy though. I guess the theory is that the stable evil guy doesn't blow up the planet by accident?

Yeah that's pretty much my feeling. And from talking to people up here in my Canadian bubble it's the same. There's definitely a preference to cutting down on the possibility of the planet blowing up.
It's a sucky choice but at least there's a chance at surviving evil.
posted by Jalliah at 6:38 PM on November 9, 2016

WHOA, sorry, no, the prospect of Mike Pence anywhere near the reins of national power is just as terrifying as Trump. He is one of the most virulent crusaders against women's and LGBTQ rights. Mike Pence believes in conversion therapy for gay people and in 2000 he proposed diverting HIV/AIDS funding to this abhorrent practice. He wants to send Roe v. Wade to, I quote, "the ash heap of history where it belongs." He doesn't believe in evolution. The USA under a Pence presidency would be some straight up Republic of Gilead shit.
posted by en forme de poire at 6:40 PM on November 9, 2016 [47 favorites]

I'm sorry to be blunt but anyone hoping for a Trump impeachment followed by a Pence presidency is not listening to women or queer people.
posted by en forme de poire at 6:41 PM on November 9, 2016 [26 favorites]

>We know that the power of the press and of the media is much less than the power of mobspeak and the echo-chambers of the internet social media sights.

Who then will speak effectively in opposition? Politicians do not have our trust, academia has been refuted, anti-intellectualism is the accepted norm.

I've been thinking (only half jokingly) that some wealthy lefty with an interest in politics ought to fund a sort of anti-Russian social media propaganda campaign.

In other words, hire people to post on message boards, newspaper comment pages, reddit alt-right subreddits, etc etc etc. just as the Russian-supported propaganda trolls do.

But instead of posting the type of disinformation bullshit that the Russian-funded trolls do, the purpose is the exact opposite. For example, any time someone posts that climate change is BS, our "trolls for good" post a response that subtly suggests that the climate change debunkers are actually in the pocket of nefarious multinational big business, that Big Government is trying to cover up the Truth about climate change (ie, that it really exists), that climate truthers are part of a well funded secret international conspiracy, etc etc etc.

And do this not just for climate change, but for all the various topics the Russian (and other similar) propaganda trolls operate in.

Basically a gigantic, well funded, "troll the trolls" operation designed to create doubt in climate denialism and other similar alt-right conspiracy nonsense. Fight fire with fire. Meet the Russian propaganda program on its own home ground.

As I said, suggested only half in jest . . .
posted by flug at 6:41 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Watching the protests is pretty amazing. I recommend checking out the news channels if you have them. Don't think they're stopping soon

I don't see it like that. Liberals marching in big city liberal strongholds is not going to re-connect with the white working class we lost in the midwest. We need a message to replace or rebuild what used to be the union vote, not stomping down bright blue Michigan Ave.

And don't say but the popular vote, fine, that's cold comfort. Her message lost the map, the numbers don't ultimately matter, and touting them won't fix it.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:42 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm sorry to be blunt but anyone hoping for a Trump impeachment followed by a Pence presidency is not listening to women or queer people.

I'm both a woman and queer. I would rater have Pence. He's an evil, rational person.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:43 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

I just keep coming back to the idea that we need to do everything we can to sustain liberal enclaves in red states. Places where everybody from the city council to the chief of police is on board with broad social justice goals. Marginalised people who can't move cross-country to CA or MA need a safe place to exist. If some of them grow and deliver electoral victories some day, all the better.

I don't know what that looks like or how to make it happen. I'm just feeling a really strong need for it.
posted by tobascodagama at 6:44 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

is not going to re-connect with the white working class we lost in the midwest

But why the implication that they must reconnect with them? If they're not buying what the party's selling, the party can takes its wares elsewhere. Hillary's strategy did not work, but that doesn't mean a better version of it with a candidate without the same set of liabilities could not work. White working class votes don't count double.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:45 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Her message lost the map

Could people really hear her message though?
posted by drezdn at 6:45 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

There's a lot going on here, including sexism and misogyny, but she was also a seriously damaged candidate going in.

No, she wasn't. According to Gallup polls, Hillary Clinton was the most admired woman in America in 1993, 1994, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. She has consistently been the most accomplished and admired woman in America for a generation. Nobody else, man or woman, even comes close to this distinguished record.

What happened to Clinton is that when she decided to run for office, she got swift-boated by Washington media over bullshit accusations, just like Al Gore got swift-boated and John Kerry got swift-boated. And this wasn't from Fox News. Fox News people are always voting Republican anyway.

No, the swift-boating always comes from the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN and the like, as it did for Al Gore and as it did for John Kerry. The Crooked Hillary meme couldn't have taken hold with Democrats without the cooperation of the Washington media. The New York Times and the Washington Post and CNN are the ones who obsessed with hundreds of non-stop stories on the bullshit email and the bullshit Clinton Foundation accusations.

If you want to talk about voter suppression, talk about the media swift-boating which was used to dehumanize Clinton and demoralize Democrats. It's the media that let us down, denormalizing Clinton and normalizing Trump.
posted by JackFlash at 6:45 PM on November 9, 2016 [95 favorites]

10 thousand according to police marching in Boston, wcvb reports here.
posted by vrakatar at 6:46 PM on November 9, 2016

Also, these protests are very cathartic, but I kinda wish they'd happened on November 7.
posted by tobascodagama at 6:46 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Here’s What Mike Pence Said on LGBT Issues Over the Years:

He said gay couples signaled ‘societal collapse’

Pence Signed a Law Requiring Burial or Cremation for Aborted Fetuses
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:46 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm sorry to be blunt but anyone hoping for a Trump impeachment followed by a Pence presidency is not listening to women or queer people.

I am both and I do get that. I really do.

Pence would be a nightmare. But a nightmare is survivalble. Nuclear holocaust is not.
posted by Jalliah at 6:46 PM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

Trump did not win because people were too polite or faux-empathetic to the concerns of Trump voters. Who knows exactly why he won

He won because of the shitty, stupid, outdated and broken Electoral College system.

I just keep coming back to the idea that we need to do everything we can to sustain liberal enclaves in red states. Places where everybody from the city council to the chief of police is on board with broad social justice goals.

LOL. Cops are generally fascist scum even in "liberal enclaves" (see: NYPD, LAPD, u.s.w.)
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 6:47 PM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

I finally reached the bottom of this thread. I was completely crushed seeing the results last night, my dad had to talk me off the proverbial cliff. Some scattered thoughts on Trump winning.

Transparency is now thrown out the window for all politicians in the future. The most transparent person lost, and in fact Clinton's transparency was used against in her from the left and the right. The one glimpse of Trump's taxes was horrible (1 billion dollar loss). We don't know who he owes money too, or who he has business with.

People wonder why the Democrats have such a weak group of young up and comers, and I think it should be obvious why. Look at how our country has treated Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. People don't want to expose themselves to that kind of vitriol and scrutiny. Could you take it? Could you still have faith in an America where millions of people think you're illegitimate? Or that you are a criminal who should be locked up?

Hillary Clinton can mention liking hot sauce, and people call her a shill, manipulating the black vote. Barack Obama mentions eating arugula, and people call him an out of touch elitist. Donald Trump can brag about assaulting women, and win.

Hillary Clinton's unfavorables are an intended result of the right-wing propaganda, obviously they would have liked to catch her in a lie so they could legally punish her, but the side effect of painting her as this dishonest witch worked very well. People think she is less honest than Trump. This poll shows how her ratings went down with the Benghazi and private server 'scandal'.

I understand a lot of people think because of this she shouldn't have run, but then we are allowing the GOP to select who can and cannot run, and these tactics need not be unique to Hillary. My brother, who voted for Obama twice, became a Trump supporter, and do you know what he calls Elizabeth Warren? He calls her Pocahontas, because he's bought into all this right-wing bullshit. (I don't plan on speaking to him much, or possibly ever again).

I expect any Democrats that show future presidential ambitions to go through similar experiences as Hillary has. Not only congressional hearings, but online propaganda campaigns. I hope the people who own social media sites do some soul searching and research for how they can help prevent or slow down online propaganda and harassment, as this will effect every future candidate.

I don't really know what to think. Within 24 hours I went from expecting a repudiation of Trumpism and a splintering GOP, to seeing that white supremacy and fascism are alive and well. My brain hurts, and my heart hurts.
posted by airish at 6:48 PM on November 9, 2016 [49 favorites]

Why nervous?

because of all the minorities who will "resist arrest" or "mysteriously take their own lives in custody".
posted by poffin boffin at 6:48 PM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

HIV folks just had a major national conference call to start planning things. I'm not sure what's next, but I'm going to start putting updates in my profile.

I need to take a break from the thread. I'm exhausted and completely wrung out. Thank you all, I love metafilter.
posted by Sophie1 at 6:48 PM on November 9, 2016 [19 favorites]

I don't know what that looks like or how to make it happen. I'm just feeling a really strong need for it.

College towns like Lexington, Kentucky; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Austin, Texas are pretty much this.

Could people really hear her message though?

Point taken, probably not, but that's a failure of the messenger as much as it is the media. There's no good answer here, but she ultimately was unable to overcome her own baggage and intrinsic obstacles to deliver the message effectively. If the messanger is bad, it doesn't necessarily matter what she's saying, and if anything this debale proved it's about charisma and connection much more than actual solutions or even coherent thought.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:49 PM on November 9, 2016

I don't see it like that. Liberals marching in big city liberal strongholds is not going to re-connect with the white working class we lost in the midwest. We need a message to replace or rebuild what used to be the union vote, not stomping down bright blue Michigan Ave.

It's not about crafting a new messaging strategy for the party; it's about standing up and saying that we don't endorse hate and that, for the people who feel utterly stabbed in the back by America right now, we're going to be here for them, that for every kid who got told to leave the country today, a hundred people are saying that's not ok.
posted by zachlipton at 6:49 PM on November 9, 2016 [24 favorites]

Could people really hear her message though?

I'd say they could hear it just fine. That doesn't matter much in the face of rampant voter suppression though.

Turzai was just off by a few years.
posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 6:49 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

My cousin messaged me on Facebook to tell me that, because of my posts about working so hard to get Clinton elected, she'd voted for Hillary despite her antipathy. She really didn't want Trump to be President; her husband voted for him.

My next-door neighbor, who is from Ireland, stopped to chat when she got home from work. She agreed that it was a terrible day, in a terrible year for global political shifts. "I do get the sense there's some corruption there," she said about Clinton, apologetically (my window is full of signs and stickers, and she probably saw me coming and going from volunteer shifts all decked out in buttons). "But that's just about money. People t-- are more important than money, in my book."
"I almost said 'people trump money,'" she added, "but I can't say that word the same way anymore."

I've already seen a woman, sharing her upset over the election, derided as a "butthurt feminizi" by a complete stranger perusing Facebook threads.

My feelings are too complicated to put into precise words, but I'd describe the overall atmosphere in my world as funereal. Something vital in my soul, a vision of this country and the people I share it with, has died. Maybe I have a more mature, realistic outlook now. But until my neighbor I hadn't spoken to anyone in over 24 hours, and while I went for a run this morning as though nothing had changed, I can't imagine going out and interacting normally with the world right now.
posted by Superplin at 6:49 PM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

An interesting way of looking at the map.
posted by drezdn at 6:50 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Pence is a scary motherfucker. He thinks he has God at his side and a christian army behind him. He's a true believer in the scariest sense. He probably thinks he has a mandate from god to oppress the sinners.
posted by futz at 6:50 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Trump did not win because people were too polite or faux-empathetic to the concerns of Trump voters.

Trump won because people have been too polite and faux-empathetic to the concerns of racists, sexists, fascists, and bigots of several other sorts, so that they were content to let their own ignorance, fear, and lack of empathy drive their decision making, fully believing (and they were right) that there were no social consequences for doing so.

And because of their ignorance and bigotry, a lot of people are going to die, and a lot more are going to live in terror and privation.

The time for gentle patient outreach is past. Whatever sympathy-credit they had for their hard-knocks background is used up.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 6:51 PM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

I'm the kind of well off white man that'll probably be okay, barring nuclear war, and if I didn't have an infant, I'd be marching, not to win any white working class votes, but to tell my neighbors who might not be okay that I care for them.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:53 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

If someone is hateful towards you, then absolutely they should be avoided. But for family and friends who haven't been outright hostile, what do we hope to accomplish by shunning them?

This has been responded to at least once, but seriously, to emphasize it: if family and friends are actively supporting policies that are threatening your safety and your well-being, that is them being hostile towards you. They don't get to vote for someone who wants to deport you / disenfranchise you / incite violence against you / "punish" you for having an abortion / etc, and then turn around and be like "oh, that's just silly ol' politics, now let's have a nice dinner and chat".
posted by tocts at 6:53 PM on November 9, 2016 [39 favorites]

This talk of Trump impeachment is ridiculous. The GOP won't impeach him, they will now hold on to him and his white supremacist base for dear life. He's the perfect figurehead to control and hide behind. If Trump died a day into his presidency, the GOP would Weekend-at-Donnie his corpse all the way into 2020.
posted by Behemoth at 6:53 PM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

Let me just warn you guys: do not watch the national Republican Congressional Committee press conference. It is a spineless shitshow and you can hate them fine without it.
posted by corb at 6:56 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

I've been away from these threads, but I'm in the same state of shock and terror and confusion and denial as everyone else.

I want to see massive protests on the streets of every major city this weekend. (NYPD estimates 8,000–10,000 protesters at Trump Tower right now. Dramatic photos.)

People are already planning protests at the inauguration. I plan to be there. If you're near DC, please consider taking off work on January 20 to join us.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 6:56 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

LOL. Cops are generally fascist scum even in "liberal enclaves" (see: NYPD, LAPD, u.s.w.)

Yeah. So how do you fix that? Getting people in place with the authority and a mandate to gut the local PDs seems like a start to me.

And I'm not talking about NY or LA, I'm talking about East Podunk. Even if most East Podunks are irredeemable piles of shit, some of them have got to be in a position where progressive people are already in place and just need somebody to have their backs and give them a chance to do good.

Sneering about how the NYPD sucks doesn't seem to be particularly helpful.
posted by tobascodagama at 6:57 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

My problem is that I have no idea who they are and am afraid to even ask.

This is actually surprisingly easy. Likely Trump fans tend to be:
(a) "country." Does the person come from certain states? Live on a ranch? Listen to country music all day long?
(b) rich and/or powerful, especially if they work in finance
(c) Christian
(d) old white people who really miss the 50's.

I know I'm being stereotypical, but If someone has those traits going on...it's usually the case.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:57 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I am a white male evangelical conservative who voted for HRC and I just want to put my two cents in here for posterity. The reason I voted for HRC was a singular issue: ensuring the safety of this country in the next 10 years from major geopolitical fiascoes up to and including thermonuclear war. But in addition to that, during this election cycle I was surprised to find I developed more and more empathy for HRC even as the attacks piled up and came to admire her persistence and poise. Imagine being that driven, talented, and intelligent and being married to Bill and having gone through everything he's put her through. You can't but admire her grit. As such I cannot unequivocally condemn her character, but I still suspect accusations of callousness and corruption are at least partially on the mark.

As for DJT, I believe he stands for nothing except himself and is no better a friend to Christianity than Caligula. He is a danger to America in a very real sense that made me step out my door this morning with an unwanted sense of anxiety that I never experienced during Obama's tenure.

However, speaking for an unknowable proportion of the electorate who have similar convictions and also voted for HRC, I would go back to the GOP with open arms if they would nominate a sane, competent person with a reasonable character. For one reason: abortion.
posted by fraxil at 6:59 PM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

I went to an anti-Trump protest tonight, put on by the Party for Socialism and Liberation. The newspaper said there were 150-200 of us there.
posted by maurreen at 6:59 PM on November 9, 2016

how do you fix that? Getting people in place with the authority and a mandate to gut the local PDs seems like a start to me.

I don't know that it's something that can be fixed? Police work attracts authoritarians; power amplifies their authoritarianism. It seems to be something inevitable and inherent to the nature of police forces. How many times has the LAPD been "reformed"? How much has it improved?
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 7:00 PM on November 9, 2016

I'm sorry, but protests now are bullshit. I'm as hurt, sad, and angry as anyone, but he won fair and square.
Well, except for Comey.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:02 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Justinian:

Although the demographic changes won't go away, they'll try and make immigration law changes to slow it. Deporting those illegal immigrants whose children would have become US citizens does the same. Who knows what they'll try next? Maybe we'll see poll taxes again. I think they have a violent or at least cruel roadmap for how to keep America white for as long as possible.
posted by constantinescharity at 7:02 PM on November 9, 2016

Likely Trump fans tend to be:
(a) "country." Does the person come from certain states? Live on a ranch? Listen to country music all day long?
(b) rich and/or powerful, especially if they work in finance
(c) Christian

No, no, no, no, NO a thousand times. It is not okay to do this and it's just plain wrong.

You want to hear who some of the people were out in #NeverTrump Republican country? Shitkickers. Country boys. Ranchers. Guys and gals who wore cowboy boots to the RNC. Evangelical Christians. Mormons. All kinds of people were putting their lives, reputations, and bodies on the line to try to stop this. Sure, we failed. But you cannot condemn everyone who's from a rural area as just this automatic Trump voter. You can't. There are people in deep Trump country who have been fighting every way they know how. There are people in the biggest cities who voted for Trump. You cannot tell a Trump voter by sight or location or anything reductionist. People contain multitudes and there are allies everywhere, even in the most unlikely of places.
posted by corb at 7:04 PM on November 9, 2016 [97 favorites]

I didn't realize that US citizens can sue their government for negligence relating to "medical care or treatment, regulatory activities, law enforcement, and maintenance of federal lands" - apparently so?
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:05 PM on November 9, 2016

I'm sorry, but protests now are bullshit. I'm as hurt, sad, and angry as anyone, but he won fair and square.
Well, except for Comey.

Yes they're protesting the election but the more important part is that they are protesting what he says he's going to do. All of the BS that is going to hurt people. This is important.
posted by Jalliah at 7:06 PM on November 9, 2016 [29 favorites]

But you cannot condemn everyone who's from a rural area as just this automatic Trump voter.

This and the gutting of unions is what lost Michigan and Pennsylvania. MICHIGAN. And PENNSYLVANIA. This is not just about racism, and if we fall into the easy answer, it'll gain us nothing, and those states will be lost again.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:08 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

While everyone is posting "Fuck Florida" I'd like to point out that my county (Duval) only went Trump by 6100 votes. We are a historically blood red county with Republicans often times running unopposed for office since we have so few Dems. In some precincts, HRC won by 99%. There was a LOT of hard work done in our county and we never expected to go blue, frankly I'm thrilled the race was that close.

Remember when you start scoffing at "southern states" and "Fuck Florida" that we're not any more of a monolith than you are in your particular state. And considering how many states went red last night, it's cheap and easy to put all the blame on Florida. As long as people sit smugly in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin or Idaho and throw shade on Florida, all you do is increase the divide in the party. Because frankly, I'm tired of the rest of the country leaving the heavy lifting to Florida, Ohio and California.
posted by hollygoheavy at 7:08 PM on November 9, 2016 [26 favorites]

protests now are bullshit...he won fair and square

Yeah, and Hitler was installed as chancellor in 1933 because he was leader of the largest party in the Reichstag. Widespread public protest and civil disobedience might still have made a difference in how that played out, ultimately, but we can't know, can we? And meanwhile "fair and square" means "he won the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote, and a majority of Americans wanted someone else as their president".
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 7:09 PM on November 9, 2016 [35 favorites]

I must have missed the SCOTUS case law that limits the right to peaceful assembly after an election to questions about the legitimacy of the result. Anyone got a cite?
posted by tonycpsu at 7:11 PM on November 9, 2016 [15 favorites]

Trump won Wisconsin by 27,000 votes. For perspective, 300,000 registered voters in WI lacked strict voter ID

--@AriBerman

Personally, this is what I want people to take to the streets over. The linked article shows turnout dropped 13% in Milwaukee. Some of that is low enthusiasm, but some of it has got to be voter suppression.

Also, "Late deciders broke for Trump". That's CBS News poll data showing people who made up their minds at the last minute picking Trump. Thanks Comey.
posted by zachlipton at 7:12 PM on November 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

The heavy lifting is on Florida and Ohio as a side effect of the nature of the current Electoral College. Sorry. I didn't make that system. I hate it passionately. Still kind of on those states. /shrug
posted by Archelaus at 7:12 PM on November 9, 2016

This is an interesting piece from Canadian Anthropologist Max Forte:

Why Donald J. Trump Will Be the Next President of the United States

... by agreeing to provide an explanation of why on several occasions since last September I have been voicing my always more certain belief that Donald Trump will be the next president of the US, is not the same thing as saying he should or should not be the president. The primary motivation in producing this is to argue against the self-satisfied misconceptions of status quo representatives, who “refuse to adapt to reality,” whose “explanations” take the dominant system for granted, and who write as if from the depths of a permanent static equilibrium. It is also written as an expression of surprise—surprise that so many in the US, even if a minority overall, seem to have understood so little about their own country, probably because again they take so much for granted and self-confidence has been fossilized as orthodoxy.

This was written in May, 2016
posted by Rumple at 7:13 PM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

I must have missed the SCOTUS case law that limits the right to peaceful assembly after an election to questions about the legitimacy of the result. Anyone got a cite?

United States vs. Clinton, 2017, majority opinion by justice T. Cruz.
posted by Behemoth at 7:13 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Today was hard. The look of grim determination on everyone's faces on the bus, the awkward commiseration with my coworkers over the result, explaining to my son that no one was going to show up tomorrow and take his mother away. I'm not sure if I can do this for 4 years.

I've been following the election threads through the entire campaign, more and more closely as things progressed. At times, I felt like my refresh rate might have been a little too fast for my mental health and well being. But, I really appreciated being part of the community - the diversity of voices, the thoughtful analysis, the careful moderation, the links. MetaFilter was there with me through the debates and the election night returns, and I'm so grateful for it.

Like a lot of posters upthread, it's probably time for me to unplug and recharge for a while. I'm certainly motivated to get more involved locally, and I hope to start soon after I clear my head.

Thank you all and take care.
posted by Otherwise at 7:14 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

protests now are bullshit...he won fair and square

For an interesting perspective on this argument, we turn now to Donald J. Trump (not pushing any interpretation of this, interpret it however you'd like).
posted by zachlipton at 7:17 PM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

Maybe try to be supportive of the people in those states who live here and work to try to change things, rather than throwing out snarky commentary. That doesn't help, it makes us feel alienated.
posted by hollygoheavy at 7:17 PM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

If you were part of the people perpetuating the misogyny and the crap about emails and claiming the two candidates were equivalent, you don't get to mourn today. You eat your shit sandwich and you enjoy it, because this is exactly what you worked for.

Yeah. I have several former friends who were Stein voters in non-swing states who insist this wasn't their fault -- they just voted their conscience, and they totally would have voted differently if they were in a swing state!

This is bullshit, of course. They didn't just vote for Stein. They got on social media and shamed their friends who were voting for Clinton; they shared posts about how the DNC stole the primaries from Sanders and about how Clinton was corrupt. They openly defended Wikileaks. They created the environment, in other words, that allowed other voters to shun Clinton even in swing states.

And meanwhile, I'm in a red state and I'm regretting not doing more. I could have given up my weekend to canvass in an adjacent swing state. I could have donated more money and made more phone calls. I could have worked with down ballot candidates who better understood the lay of the land.

And yes, that means that the blood is on their hands. Because when I feel guilty because I didn't do more, they definitely deserve to feel guilty for not doing anything.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 7:18 PM on November 9, 2016 [38 favorites]

I understand that the "no it's about bigotry! no it's about the economy!" debate has been around since the primaries. I understand that both respective issue has been the rallying cry of two different factions of the Democrats, and rooted in some deep and bitter divisions that will take much longer to heal, even as both factions are defeated. I understand to those who focus on the former, it feels like erasure of one's deeply personal experiences with prejudice to emphasize the latter. I understand to those who focus on the latter, it feels like the rest of the party does not take your position nor your candidate seriously. But I think we need to examine how both issues are deeply linked and go hand-in-hand. Regardless of how hateful some may be, it's still important to study what has made them hateful. And regardless of how dramatically unjust the current system may be, it's remember that there are toxic subcultures and trends that have sprout up that lead to senseless hate and division, no matter what the material situation is.

Plus, emphasizing only those two issues also overlooks other factors, like the outsider vs. insider division, the culpability of the media, spread of misinformation, etc.
posted by Apocryphon at 7:20 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Serious question: what to do with Republican / Trump acquaintences

Dear Relatives: I've kowtowed to you for decades. I've schlepped to your house every holiday cos my place "just isnt right."

Each get-together I've endured your homophobia, cringed at your racism, flipped out at your Islamophobia, been sickened by your gun fetish.

And now by your vote you've shown you don't give a shit if I even have basic healthcare? Yeah, that'll be a hard pass on the holidays this year.
posted by NorthernLite at 7:21 PM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

(a) "country." Does the person come from certain states? Live on a ranch? Listen to country music all day long?

O.k. So. Square that with Hazel Dickens.

Black Lung.

Fire in the hole.

Maybe, just maybe, Hard Hitting Songs for Hard Hit People is an album for these times.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:21 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Shaun King is re-tweeting some of today's encounters with racist Trump fans.
posted by porn in the woods at 7:21 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Lawrence O'Donnel had a nice rant about please for "respect for the office" that we're likely to hea going forward: "There is nothing to respect in that office other than the man who occupies it."
posted by tonycpsu at 7:22 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

As long as people sit smugly in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin or Idaho and throw shade on Florida, all you do is increase the divide in the party.

Yeah, I'm about tired of Florida being unilaterally shit on. I worked my ass off for HRC, twisted myself into knots, and damn near sweated blood over this election. I voted fucking HARD for Hillary, as did my husband, most of our friends, and my 74-year old mother-in-law (who incidentally threw more shade than I knew she had in her at Trump supporters on Facebook).

Some of us down here did the best we could and are grieving as hard as people north of our state line. Please stop making me feel excluded or less than simply because of my geographical existence. It's completely uncalled for.
posted by _Mona_ at 7:23 PM on November 9, 2016 [48 favorites]

So, I want to find out what’s going on with my white sisters. Most of the people I know IRL are college-educated white women, and I can’t think of a single one who wasn’t vocally against Trump. I grew up in a super-right-wing, low-income, post-industrial rural farm community, so I’m no stranger to the Trump base – they’re the Reagan base I grew up with. But I guess I need to make more of an effort to reach the girls who grew up and stayed a part of that culture.

(Mind you, I live in a hippie granola college town where nearly everyone still managed to work a Sanders campaign slogan into their Clinton campaign slogan.)

Speaking of Reagan, a lot of my reading, viewing, and listening lately has been from circa 1980, those dark, scary Reagan/Thatcher times that were the soil of my formative years. We cried, we laughed, we messed shit up, we had a LOT of nightmares, but we’re here to tell the story so we must have lived through it. We have the power to find our people now. We’ll be OK.

Live it up, live it up, Donnie's got a new gun.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:24 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I know this has been said many times already, but thank you all so much for the links, updates, and heartfelt personal stories. And especially corb, who fought harder than any of the rest of us.

I've never really been a politically active person. I voted straight-ticket Democrat (for all the good it did down here in Texas) and donated some to the Clinton campaign, but deep down I don't think I ever quite believed that she would actually lose. Now I'm kicking myself for that attitude and wishing I had done more.

Obviously it's too little too late, but I just set up monthly contributions to Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Human Rights Campaign. Oh, and MeFi, since somehow I never got around to that until now. I'm all ears if anyone has suggestions for other organizations that are working to stem the tide of the next 4 years. (Literally as well as metaphorically — now that the EPA is being gutted, who's doing the best work to fight climate change?)

President Donald Fucking Trump... I can't even.
posted by teraflop at 7:27 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

I was out canvassing my red-as-fuck county in FL with dozens of other women multiple times. Turns out the educated white women who work with me at an institute of higher learning where our student body is primarily young single mothers, African-Americans and lower-income adults were voting for Trump because they were good Xtians who had to stop abortion or they believed the lies about Clinton's "corruption" or they were a few years from retirement and just didn't give a fuck about anything other than cutting their own taxes. Oh, and our students? A few of them canvassed with us too.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 7:33 PM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

Moroccan Western Sahara Wall

The Moroccan Wall of Western Sahara is an approximately 2,700 km (1,700 mi) long structure, mostly a sand wall (or "berm"), running through Western Sahara and the southeastern portion of Morocco. It separates the Moroccan occupied, and controlled, areas (Southern Provinces) and the Polisario-controlled areas (Free Zone, nominally Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) that lies along its eastern and southern border.

[...] The barrier minebelt that runs along the structure is thought to be the longest continuous minefield in the world.

I feel like the supply and demand curves of Trumpists who really want a wall and a President Trump whose arm is being twisted into making the most affordable gesture to satisfy them (and whose "blind trust" run by the Trumplings will have probably by then wriggled its tentacles into the most lucrative parts of the military-industrial complex) might be massive deployment of some sort of anti-personnel area denial weapon, which would be much more dangerous than an actual wall.
posted by XMLicious at 7:36 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

greatagain.gov is now online

"Building the Wall" is literally on a government website.

Jesus fucking Christ just shoot me. I'm done with this planet.
posted by Talez at 7:36 PM on November 9, 2016 [51 favorites]

Yes they're protesting the election but the more important part is that they are protesting what he says he's going to do. All of the BS that is going to hurt people. This is important.

And all the images of people blocking transit, vandalizing property, and burning flags are really going to persuade people your cause is just.
posted by jpe at 7:37 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Today has been completely devastating. I've alteranted between rage and tears (and rage-tears), torn between feeling anger best expressed in posts like this:
Get Your People--feeling so angry about all of my liberal white friends who've just thrown their hands up about their Trump-voting family members who they haven't managed to educate or persuade.

Or this one, article, Welcome to the New Nadir about the utter betrayal of the nation that many of us feel.

For the first time in my career I cried in front of my students today. But then I tried to remember that my people have been betrayed over and and over and over again by this country, and somehow have kept fighting the good fight and kept keeping on. So I've also been listening to a lot of Sweet Honey in the Rock today to give me strength and hope to persevere.
posted by TwoStride at 7:39 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Her message lost the map, the numbers don't ultimately matter, and touting them won't fix it.

Don't you see? The numbers aren't for winning. It's to set up, solidify, and repeat the narrative that Donald is an illegitimate president. Just like what he did to Obama about the birth stuff, we should do all we can to make his presidency a sham and a fraud. He will probably do that on his own, but we have to be out there and say that he didn't win legitimately, that he didn't release his taxes, that he cheated and rigged his way to the presidency. This is a public opinion war and we need to throw everything at him, everyday.
posted by FJT at 7:40 PM on November 9, 2016 [19 favorites]

Robert Costa, who has been plugged into Trumpland for a while, has some good tweets going on what Republicans in Congress are thinking, basically: "In Trump, the GOP estab sees wildcard as well as a pres-elect with an agenda that's malleable. Will take his populism if they get policies." He also says they'll let Trump work with Schumer on infrastructure if Trump plays ball with Ryan to enact the Ryan agenda. Nobody has any idea how these relationships are going to work.
posted by zachlipton at 7:40 PM on November 9, 2016

"Building the Wall" is literally on a government website.

Welp, what do you know? It is indeed drink o'clock after all.
posted by corb at 7:41 PM on November 9, 2016 [33 favorites]

*bangs fists on table* ME-TE-OR! ME-TE-OR! ME-TE-OR!
posted by poffin boffin at 7:45 PM on November 9, 2016 [27 favorites]

massive deployment of some sort of anti-personnel area denial weapon

damn, I had not considered this
posted by thelonius at 7:45 PM on November 9, 2016

showbiz_liz: "Pennsylvania: 4,546,583 votes were cast. Clinton lost by 11,837.
Michigan: 2,791,677 votes were cast. Clinton lost by 27,257.
Wisconsin: 5,757,646 votes were cast. Clinton lost by 68,236."

You've mixed up your totals and states. The correct numbers (from the NYT) are:

PA: Trump lead of 68,236
MI: Trump lead of 11,837
WI: Trump lead of 27257
posted by crazy with stars at 7:45 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Welp, what do you know? It is indeed drink o'clock after all.

*hic*

Heyyy...Mr., uh Gorbachev, uh,

*squints*

Oh. Help us build this wall.

Nancy? Nancy?

Oh, there you are.

Is that right?
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:47 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well this is so refreshing, Mitch McConnell says they can undo all Obama did, in very short order. Oh I don't want to spend the next eight years looking at and listening to lunatics. They deserve themselves.
posted by Oyéah at 7:47 PM on November 9, 2016

And all the images of people blocking transit, vandalizing property, and burning flags are really going to persuade people your cause is just.

Protesting and popular movements can be a messy business. But by all means lets start having a 'tone' argument about it.

No, people are not going to protest in the exact way that everyone wants or think it should be done. The higher the stakes the messier it can get. The stakes are pretty damn high right now for a hella lot of people.
posted by Jalliah at 7:47 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

I haven't seen this posted before, but the Tohono O’odham Nation will fight against Trump's wall:

Trump’s Border Wall Will Have A 75-Mile-Wide Gap In It

In a telephone interview, over one hour long, the Vice-Chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation, Verlon Jose, spoke at length about his tribe’s history, people, and their unreserved opposition to a border wall being built on their tribal land.

“Over my dead body will anyone build a wall there. I will personally do whatever is necessary to make sure a wall is not built there,” Jose said, speaking on behalf of the tribal government.

posted by airish at 7:49 PM on November 9, 2016 [63 favorites]

MSNBC has now officially called Ayotte out of the Senate.

Yay, all the donations from Hassan here likely helped to achieve that.
posted by Coventry at 7:50 PM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

He's an evil, rational person.

I guess I just disagree that this is necessarily better.

Perhaps this is about balancing low-probability doomsday scenarios with high-probability bad scenarios. Maybe a nuclear apocalypse is more likely under Trump than Pence, but I think (and god I hope I'm right on this) it's still remote. I highly suspect Trump is too materialistic and craven to actually follow through on a nuclear threat (as opposed to irresponsible saber rattling, which I expect plenty of). The people I really fear with respect to that kind of scenario are people who think the world is corrupt and sinful so who cares if it all burns as long as you go out in a blaze of righteousness. Again, I understand why people are worried, and I am too -- but I think what Trump mainly cares about is media adulation and fancy expensive toys, and he won't get to have as much of those if America is literally destroyed as opposed to merely stripped for parts.

Meanwhile, rises in LGBTQ suicides, HIV rates (without access to adequate treatment), back-alley abortions, and the subjugation of women are essentially Pence's campaign promises. They are things he has been running on his entire career. In my mind, it is basically certain that he will cause them if he is put in the driver's seat (his being in the passenger's seat is bad enough). And like I already mentioned, "evil and rational" is not inherently preferable to "evil and irrational": in my experience, rational evil people tend to accomplish more of their evil aims. People also tend to be lulled into a false sense of security by their "rational" "expertise", thinking that just because someone is rational that they can actually be reasoned with. Finally, I also see no indication that Pence is not also a total sociopath: remember his calm, emotionless, blatant lying during the VP debate?

So yeah, plans that end up with Pence in the driver's seat, as opposed to merely adjacent, really do terrify me about as much as the prospect of a Trump presidency. It's bad enough that he's on Trump's team in the first place.
posted by en forme de poire at 7:52 PM on November 9, 2016 [22 favorites]

And all the images of people blocking transit, vandalizing property, and burning flags are really going to persuade people your cause is just.

Worked for the Cubs.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 7:52 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

12 things that already happened within hours of Donald Trump being elected president
It did not take long for things to change

1) A top Israeli government minister declared the idea of Palestinian state “over”.
2) American Muslim women who wear the hijab agonised over whether its still safe to wear one.
3) Demonstrators set fires and overturned cars in major cities across America.
4) Global financial markets went haywire.
5) Sarah Palin said Britain and America are “hooking up” in light of Brexit and Trump.
6) Former KKK leader David Duke declared tonight “one of the most exciting nights of my life”.
7) Shares in renewable energy companies tanked…
8) …while shares in arms companies surged to a record high
9) Russia’s political establishment celebrated.
10) Canada’s immigration website crashed under the demand of American visitors.
11) Jihadi leaders welcomed the new US president.
12) Mexico’s foreign minister made it clear they wouldn’t be paying for that wall.
posted by Jalliah at 7:54 PM on November 9, 2016 [31 favorites]

Thanks, Mitt! No, really. Mass. seen as insulated from a Trump repeal of Obamacare. Even our Republican governor (who didn't vote for Trump and who was formerly the head of one of the state's largest - and non-profit - health insurers) vows to keep state system running.
posted by adamg at 8:00 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Me: "I plan on going with 'Ratfuck-in-Chief'"

I'm borrowing this for the next four years.
posted by Talez at 8:00 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

“Over my dead body will anyone build a wall there. I will personally do whatever is necessary to make sure a wall is not built there,” Jose said, speaking on behalf of the tribal government.

I wouldn't test the police on that one, Jose. Trump has already said he plans to rip up treaties and America kind of has a fair amount of experience at ripping up these ones.
posted by Talez at 8:05 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Pence was terrifying in Indiana and now he's going to have a fucking national platform on which to practice his brand of hate. And that scares me even more than Trump being in the white house.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 8:10 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

This is an image from South Philly this morning. This is what the Presedent-elect Trump win is all about. New Nazism

Disturbing acts in Wellsville, at Canisius College follow Election Day
posted by Talez at 8:10 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

My kids call Trump "The Loudmouthed Schnook" ever since they first heard him on the radio earlier this year.

I'm so proud of them.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:11 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

The best day of David Duke's life.
This is just so fucked.
posted by Golem XIV at 8:15 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

The vigils and peaceful protests across the country tonight give me hope. We are not alone.
posted by stolyarova at 8:17 PM on November 9, 2016

My seven year old daughter was so looking forward to Hillary winning - she had nailed Trump as a "man who interrupts a lot". Today she drew this at school.

On the bright side, she was diagnosed with cancer on November 8th, 2010 so this was only the second worst November 8th of her short life.
posted by Rumple at 8:22 PM on November 9, 2016 [37 favorites]

I just don't understand this obsession liberals have with Biden. He's like a folksy Chuck Schumer. I'm not convinced he would have lost worse than Clinton.

He has charisma and to all appearances has made more ethical choices. His interview with Colbert was a masterpiece.
posted by Coventry at 8:26 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

This thread has become unwieldy in my hands. Can we have another one?
posted by Coventry at 8:28 PM on November 9, 2016

I don't have anything nice to say about Ayotte and I'm glad she lost her seat but it sure is funny that the one senator who didn't benefit from any Trump coattails effect was a woman

Ayotte lost by ~1K votes.

~13K and ~18K votes went respectively to the Libertarian candidate Ben Chabot and another candidate Aaron Day of the "Republican Liberty Caucus" (I'm also seeing him listed in Google results as a member and sometimes-official of the Free State Project.) Day was interviewed by NHPR this afternoon and said he was perfectly comfortable with the possibility that he may have personally cost the Republicans the election, because Ayotte is horrible and not conservative enough.

In searching for a previous MeFi FPP on the Free State Project I found a previous election thread comment from Miko saying that the movement "hasn't made a big dent" here, heh heh—well now they sure have! (I would've said the same thing before now, as despite living here nearly my entire life I'd never heard of them until some time in the last few years when someone mentioned them on MeFi.)
posted by XMLicious at 8:28 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Deadspin's Alex Pareene has some people to blame: Fuck Everything And Blame Everyone
posted by zachlipton at 8:28 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

My opposition to the incoming administration is redoubling my financial support of the NAACP, the Innocence Project, EFF, ACLU, Doctors without Borders, and Planned Parenthood. To redouble my volunteer efforts with poor and homeless people (especially people of color) in Seattle.

Yeah, I need to up some of my donations from annual to monthly (Planned Parenthood and the ACLU were already there). Money's tight but...

I looked up that old Onion article, "Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over." Not only was it disturbingly prescient on the first round, but some simple find-and-replacing of names makes it sound just as accurate now. Ugh.
posted by ubersturm at 8:31 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

I understand why these protests are happening but I wish they weren't happening.
posted by RedShrek at 8:44 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

The SF protest looped back to City Hall and has grown. Some photos, just for you guys.
posted by zachlipton at 8:45 PM on November 9, 2016

You know, I like to think I'm a good person. But then I find myself earnestly promising to shout "BUT EMAILS AMIRITE" for the next four years to multiple people on Facebook I know to have voted third party.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:46 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

my partner shared a family story on Facebook that I really needed today:

my great-grandfather had to leave italy in the 20′s because he hit a fascist with a tuba, so if you think I am going to take this sitting down you are going to have to catch these hands and also this tuba

posted by The demon that lives in the air at 8:47 PM on November 9, 2016 [122 favorites]

Didn't Stein say something about hoping for a Trump presidency because something something bring the revolution or something?

Well, if so, she got her wish; bring on the revolution.
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:48 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Well, if so, she got her wish; bring on the revolution.

"What do you mean we can't do this by changing our profile pictures on Facebook?"
posted by Talez at 8:50 PM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

Just got out of a SURJ meeting (showing up for racial justice) which is focused on engaging white people in anti racist work.

I'm joining the base building group, focusing on deep canvassing, and building the skills to break through white supremacist through one on one discussions. I want to grow this thing, and then go on tour in places like Georgia and Pennsylvania.
posted by kaibutsu at 8:58 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

So I got home tonight and the top of the news was Trump, of course. And I groused about something on it.

And my oldest son - 11, but with some learning disabilities - looks over at me, and says "It'll be ok Dad, Clinton apologized to him today."

I walked out of the room to gather myself, and then spent a few minutes calmly explaining to him the difference between "concede" and "apologize". I tried very hard to impress upon him that Hillary had nothing to apologize for.
posted by nubs at 8:59 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Preliminary cabinet picks. This list is a bit more exhaustive than what I've seen yet.

Attorney general: Chris Christie, Jeff Sessions and Rudy Giuliani.
Secretary of State: Newt Gingrich, John Bolton and Bob Corker
Chief of Staff: Reince Priebus
Director of Office of Management and Budget: Jeff Sessions
Secretary of Commerce: Christie and Mike Huckabee
Education: Ben Carson
Homeland Security: Christie
HHS: Carson, Gingrich, Rick Scott
Interior: Sarah Palin
posted by gatorae at 8:59 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Surgeon General: Doctor Oz
posted by localhuman at 9:02 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Ben Carson for Education? Sarah Palin for the Interior?? wut the fucque
posted by en forme de poire at 9:02 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

So in ~~good~~ we're megafucked news: the self-driving truck is all but in mass production at the moment and I just remembered this map

If the 2020 Dem message does not include basic income, all is lost. Forever.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:05 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Secretary of the Treasury: Gordon Gekko, Patrick Bateman
posted by 0xFCAF at 9:05 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

JFC people voted against a "corrupt system" and Trump is building a cabinet made out of solid nepotism. Christie? Really?

Also, Giuliani or Sessions as AG: Get ready for nationwide stop and frisk or "papers, please."
posted by stolyarova at 9:05 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

The protests are vitally important in reminding Republicans that Trump doesn't have a mandate.

And they make me feel better. I'm not alone. Visibility is valuable.
posted by stolyarova at 9:06 PM on November 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

Education: Ben Carson

Didn't we just have to tell him that the pyramids aren't hollow? It would really be nice for the Secretary of Education to, maybe, know things about the world and/or education.
posted by zachlipton at 9:07 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Joes gonna Skype the revolution!
posted by clavdivs at 9:07 PM on November 9, 2016

If you are feeling hopeless and angry and impotent, I highly recommend you *gasp* get off Mefi and go to FB. Check out Pantsuit Nation and the many, many, many local groups. Drop me a line and I'll add you to a little group for activism a friend and I are running. Seriously, something is happening. There's a 15,000 member Pantsuit Nation Texas group that is very seriously planning out how to get as many people running for office in the state as possible.

It doesn't change the main pile of shit at the center of the shitshow, but it does feel a lot better to be doing SOMETHING.
posted by threeturtles at 9:07 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Housing and Urban Development: Ron Swanson, an empty chair, or a cardboard cutout of Darth Vader
posted by 0xFCAF at 9:08 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Now I know what it feels like to go to sleep knowing you will have nightmares.
posted by lowest east side at 9:08 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Interior: Sarah Palin

The symbolism of the former Governor of Alaska selling off the ANWR to oil interests...

It'd be hilarious if it weren't so fucking stupid.
posted by Talez at 9:08 PM on November 9, 2016

Gunfire in downtown Seattle, 5 wounded. Christ, here it comes.
posted by Klaxon Aoooogah at 9:10 PM on November 9, 2016

The police don't believe that shooting was related to the protest, FWIW.

“It’s not related to the protest at all,” he said. “It appears to be some type of personal argument.”
posted by stolyarova at 9:12 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

ABC News also has a report citing Joe Arpaio as a possibility for Homeland Security, and Carl Icahn (the guy who just shut down the Trump Taj Mahal) or Steve Mnuchin (yes, that's one of the original Steves!) for Treasury.

Trump's closing argument was literally 'international banking conspiracy' and yet here we are.
posted by zachlipton at 9:13 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Jumping back a bit on the empathy thing. For a large chunk of the last 30 years, the Democratic party has attempted to articulate an economic and domestic policy favorable to working-class people while Republicans have largely depended on culture-war messaging. I didn't listen to all of the debates, but in the third one, Clinton made powerful points about jobs programs, using health care reform to extend social security, getting more America working. Trump just promised that he was going to expand productivity by an increasing percent, and sounded like he was selling magical kitchen utensils on daytime TV rather than an economic policy.

Now I suspect that some of the gap is because the Obama administration, faced with problem of saving the economy, didn't return a miraculous recovery meeting everyone's expectations. And there's a lot to disagree with there. But to say that Democrats do not speak to working-class concerns and do not campaign among working-class whites is, frankly, ridiculous. And the notion that the Democratic party is comprised of condescending elites while Republican oil and real estate barons are populists is a slander straight from the front page of one of the propaganda rags I see in the library.

Other than make a stronger case for a safety net, health care reform, living wage, and an economic policy that might actually work, I don't know that Democratic politicians need to change how they approach those demographics. In a lot of these discussions about messaging, we need to filter out the crankery that results from social media (I got called a cuck today, whee) and look at what candidates actually said.

There's also a sense in these discussions of Kant's imperative run amok. We need to figure out this thing of division of political labor. If you want to take on the task of election-year evangelism of economic policy, go for it. My call is to build support networks for LGBTQ issues, and have the back of those LGBTQ people called to protest and civil disobedience. And on that field, I'm not going to hedge around the fact that the Trump/Pence agenda is going to harm many of us and kill some of us. I don't have the background, skills, or time to do queer AND labor AND abortion AND health care reform. But if we spot each other at a rally, I'll gladly come over, shake your hand, and thank you profusely for the hard work you do.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:15 PM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

Joe Arpaio as a possibility for Homeland Security

Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.
posted by Talez at 9:16 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Husband and I have been talking possibilities and if Arpaio is put in charge of Homeland Security we're leaving the country for sure. That man is a sadist.
posted by stolyarova at 9:18 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Well I guess I just figured out why Priebus wouldn't let us nominate another candidate. This "cabinet" is actually terrifying.
posted by corb at 9:19 PM on November 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Re the whole "blame Facebook" discussion, I don't think it's really fair to pin the whole thing on Facebook, but I posted this in a discussion some friends were having about "ideological bubbles" (on Facebook, of course) and thought I'd share it here too:

I've been thinking about Joshua Benton's article today which touches on this a little bit, and I agree that simply blaming Facebook is entirely too simplistic for a much bigger problem. I do think Benton provides a good hook into at least one part of problem though, which is outright fake news (both a left and a right problem), an industry the online advertising apparatus (along with a lack of critical thinking, to be sure) has turned into a profitable enterprise. Even President Obama discussed the issue this week.

The mental model I like for networks like Facebook is a news site, in the old-fashioned sense of news being something new and interesting in your world that you'd share with the people around you. "Hey Joe, what's the news?" you might ask, and you'd get all kinds of news that don't fit into the conventional journalism mold: my sister had a baby, I just went to the Cubs victory celebration, I'm reading this book you would like, here's 150 pictures of my kid doing very little, here's some cause or social issue I care about, etc... Cat pictures are just as much a form of news as a NYT article about the census. And if Facebook is a news site, then the quality of that news, not just its user engagement, has to be an important factor in evaluating it. If Facebook is used to share completely fake stories millions of times, that says something about the quality of Facebook as a news source.

And I fully recognize that this goes down a dangerous path. We've been here before with security: isn't it censoring the web to block websites to stop people from getting taken by phishing schemes? If someone wants to send their savings to a Nigerian prince, why should a spam filter try to stop them? We had the same argument there: why don't we educate users to not do dangerous things online instead of stopping them? And in this case, how do you make the judgement calls to distinguish fake news from merely ideologically slanted news? But I don't think it's wrong to at least think about how information quality should matter when a news site is actively disseminating misinformation by the millions, produced for profit, that winds up being actively harmful. Fake news is a far more specific problem, more akin to spam, than the broader issue of "ideological bubbles."
posted by zachlipton at 9:23 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Nixon's hatchet men suddenly look like Boy Scouts.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:24 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

The Senate may actually be a check on some of these insane cabinet floats. Sasse, Flake, Sessions, these are our allies now. Dems only need a couple of NeverTrump crossovers to block the most unqualified executive nominees, which may, we can hope, result in a somewhat normal (for whatever that word is even worth now) Republican cabinet, without Palin or the crazy Constitutional Sheriff dude.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:24 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

"Truck Driver" is only the most common occupation in one state (North Dakota); the map you have probably seen is an artifact resulting from inconsistent aggregation of professions in the BLS data (i.e.: lumping all "truck driver" sub-categories into one label, but dividing "retail clerk" into many).
posted by Pyry at 9:27 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Regarding the empathy issue:

Most journalists ensconced in their New York or Washington offices refused to accept that someone as louche and crass as Trump could appeal to voters. Trump supporters, in many of their minds, were simply dumb or racist, overshadowing any notion that these voters might also have some valid concerns.

As Trump started winning primaries, the outrage and disbelieve increased. I continued my drives around the US and saw a feedback develop: the loud distaste voiced against Trump by who they saw as “the establishment” only added to his appeal.

The harsh rejection just brought more "deplorables" out to vote. I know if one group was repeatedly calling me a deplorable and another was treating me with respect I would tend to vote for the second group, other things being equal.
posted by Coventry at 9:27 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sasse, Flake, Sessions, these are our allies now.

Sorry, but Charlie Brown is never going to kick that football. We saw the last generation of so-called principled conservatives turn into lockstep partners for Dubya, and there's no reason to believe otherwise with the new versions.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:30 PM on November 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Over my dead body will anyone build a wall there.

I imagine that's the plan, yeah.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:32 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Sorry, but Charlie Brown is never going to kick that football. We saw the last generation of so-called principled conservatives turn into lockstep partners for Dubya, and there's no reason to believe otherwise with the new versions.

We dont need them to pass legislation, the baseline here is to ensure a minimally competent nominee that knows what the fuck the agency they're nominated to run even does. That's all we're talking about. This is our new normal.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:37 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

"When a political party is demolished, the principle responsibility belongs to one entity: the party that got crushed. It’s the job of the party and the candidate, and nobody else, to persuade the citizenry to support them and find ways to do that. Last night, the Democrats failed, resoundingly, to do that, and any autopsy or liberal think piece or pro-Clinton pundit commentary that does not start and finish with their own behavior is one that is inherently worthless."
posted by Coventry at 9:37 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm sure Mitch McConnell will finally be the conservative parliamentarian who manages to control the authoritarian demagogue as a political puppet.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:38 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

"It goes without saying that Trump is a sociopathic con artist obsessed with personal enrichment: the opposite of a genuine warrior for the downtrodden. That’s too obvious to debate. But, just as Obama did so powerfully in 2008, he could credibly run as an enemy of the D.C. and Wall Street system that has steamrolled over so many people, while Hillary Clinton is its loyal guardian, its consummate beneficiary.

"Trump vowed to destroy the system that elites love (for good reason) and the masses hate (for equally good reason), while Clinton vowed to manage it more efficiently. That, as Matt Stoller’s indispensable article in The Atlantic three weeks ago documented, is the conniving choice the Democratic Party made decades ago: to abandon populism and become the party of technocratically proficient, mildly benevolent managers of elite power. Those are the cynical, self-interested seeds they planted, and now the crop has sprouted."
posted by Coventry at 9:41 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

The election came down to like 150,000 votes strategically located across a few states. Is that "when a political party is demolished?"
posted by zachlipton at 9:42 PM on November 9, 2016 [36 favorites]

I know if one group was repeatedly calling me a deplorable and another was treating me with respect I would tend to vote for the second group, other things being equal.

...

It’s the job of the party and the candidate, and nobody else, to persuade the citizenry to support them and find ways to do that

So if it's all the same to you I'm going to let the politicians go ahead and try to figure out how to get me to vote for Democrats, and I'll continue speaking for my values. Especially to the people who see this shirt and say "deplorables? you mean me? I'm offended and will vote for the guy just to spite you!"
posted by traveler_ at 9:42 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Your fellow citizens' lives are at risk. Stop demanding to be pandered to.
posted by 0xFCAF at 9:44 PM on November 9, 2016 [26 favorites]

Also, SHE WON THE POPULAR VOTE. The majority of America did not vote for Trump. 25.5% of registered voters did.
posted by stolyarova at 9:44 PM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

traveler_: Go ahead and say what you want. But any political candidate who calls a major demographic deplorable is an idiot.

Perhaps that's the key misunderstanding in this "empathy" conflict. You're welcome to think and say such people are deplorable. But we aren't running for office.
posted by Coventry at 9:46 PM on November 9, 2016

My evens are still all can'ted out. I hope I can deal.

Has any thought been put into what we're going to tell people who wake up from comas?
posted by rhizome at 9:48 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Is that "when a political party is demolished?"

It was a knockout blow which almost no one saw coming. Not a demolition in the sense of annihilation, but a complete humiliation, for sure.
posted by Coventry at 9:49 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Apologies in advance because this is long, but due to everyone in the house being sad sad sad Dems in our house, I stood in line and waited in the cold and the rain at our local hipster pizza joint, which has gotten reviews in national magazines and sells out of their 40 pies a night just about every night despite being cash only, no delivery, no phone orders. And because it has gotten so much press, people from out of town come into town to see if they can get some.

I was first in line tonight. It turns out that the people directly behind me included a (white) kid who went to the Trump victory party thrown by the state party because he has a part time job working for a guy who owns a horse farm, and the guy was a donor, and introduced him, and the kid handed out some Trump flyers, and voila! Party! And the (also white) third person in line started chatting because it's what you do 15 minutes into a cold 45 minute wait, and from her, it was nothing but such a FUCKING series of racist dog whistles, one after the other -- I hear they're rioting in Oakland, I hear there was property damage at the protests here. She then moved onto shaming her daughter in law, mother of three, for using formula. And from there to antivaxxing.

So it was BAD, but the worst thing of all was that while I initially did pretty well and shut the shit down about riots in Oakland, the anti-vax lady pushed the point about riots in this city, and how there was car damage, I forgot that I was dealing with racist jackasses for a second and said, "Well, that's Tuesday night in the city." And when I say that to my neighbors who live in my neighborhood, who know that petty property damage and assholery is the occasional price you pay for being able to walk to music and arts and punk rock coffee and arguably the best pizza in the nation -- we know what it means.

But it got a big laugh, and now I realize that they thought I, a nice femme presenting East Asian woman who speaks flawless English and was cuddling her baby -- I now realize that they thought I was being one of the good nonwhites and joining in with their anti-black bigotry.

I'm trying to be kind to myself about it. I was tired. I was thinking about my baby, and whether he was cold, and when he might start crying. I pushed back to start with, and I pushed back on the formula, and the vaccination stuff, and I couldn't have gotten away because we were in line and I had a stroller. And South Philly had actual Nazi content spray painted onto a building last night.

But I'm already so damn tired, and it's barely been 24 hours, and this is so much less and worse than my trans friends who are POC were feeling and having to deal with today. And yet, I'm already having to stand in the rain with a baby in my arms, trying to push back against racist dog whistles in the neighborhood where I'm planning to raise my baby. And now I'm lying awake in the dark, typing this thing out on a tiny screen on my phone and trying to work out what I will say next time to push back while also staying safe myself.

Because there will be a next time, and a time after that, and one after that, too, and I have to get good, because one time, there may be more directly at stake than my own conscience.

White people of Metafilter, if the election genuinely grieves you, please push back, too.
posted by joyceanmachine at 9:50 PM on November 9, 2016 [61 favorites]

Has any thought been put into what we're going to tell people who wake up from comas?

I keep having this problem. I've been down with a cold and was watching the election coverage on the couch. Clinton was doing as well as we expected, with prediction markets putting her at 90%. I fell asleep, and was awoken by a frantic call from my wife asking why I wasn't responding to her messages -- she was overseas and was watching the results on an airport TV, and shit had gone totally pear-shaped while I napped. So literally for 24 hours I've been expecting to wake up on the couch in a cold sweat, because this has all been a bad dream.
posted by 0xFCAF at 9:51 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I get the urge to protest right now and damn the consequences, but we are better than violent mobs, right?

We can't do what we said losing Trumpers would do.
posted by rokusan at 9:54 PM on November 9, 2016

"There are reasons why all presidents until 2008 were white and all 45 elected presidents have been men. There can be no doubt that those pathologies played a substantial role in last night’s outcome. But that fact answers very few questions and begs many critical ones.

"To begin with, one must confront the fact that not only was Barack Obama elected twice, but he is poised to leave office as a highly popular president: now viewed more positively than Reagan. America wasn’t any less racist and xenophobic in 2008 and 2012 than it is now. Even stalwart Democrats fond of casually branding their opponents as bigots are acknowledging that a far more complicated analysis is required to understand last night’s results. As the New York Times’s Nate Cohn put it: “Clinton suffered her biggest losses in the places where Obama was strongest among white voters. It’s not a simple racism story.” Matt Yglesias acknowledged that Obama’s high approval rating is inconsistent with depictions of the U.S. as a country “besotted with racism.”"
posted by Coventry at 9:55 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

The protests aren't violent mobs (at the moment). They're peaceful marches.
posted by stolyarova at 9:56 PM on November 9, 2016

The election came down to like 150,000 votes strategically located across a few states. Is that "when a political party is demolished?"
When a party loses EVERY position in which it has ANY influence over ANY part of the government? Yep. This ain't a parliamentary system, it's a two-party system with one party now holding ALL the power. The Republican Party had a choice to either become fully marginalized or do the maximum rat-fucking to fully marginalize its opposition. And they succeeded. Narrowly, but thoroughly.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:57 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Coventry, have you looked at the cross tabs on how many Trump voters actually like Obama?
posted by joyceanmachine at 9:59 PM on November 9, 2016

Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

oh, they know. they know exactly what they're doing. they're practically jizzing their fucking pants with anticipation. finally all those pesky furriners are gonna get what's coming to them.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:01 PM on November 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

joyceanmachine, no I've only seen the county-level comparison. What should I be looking at?

Going to bed, now, will check when I get up.
posted by Coventry at 10:04 PM on November 9, 2016

Does anyone know if there's a PN California section? I'm trying to find out in the main PN page but people are posting so rapidly I can't actually drill down into any of the posts :(

Btw, it was friggin eerie to board the plane to fly yesterday. In the boarding area in Auckland it was almost dead silent, with all the Americans hunched over their phones looking scared and everyone else making the occasional awkward joke quietly. Then on the plane after the first hour in the captain came on and announced that the votes weren't finished being counted but that Hillary had conceded. I honestly thought I would throw up right onto the next passenger. There was the requisite "YEAH WOOOO!" from some white sounding fucking dude behind me but everyone else sat in stunned silence.

Almost the entire flight went by this way, with just no talking or movement it was honestly kind of scary. We spent 12 hours strapped in with no wifi or contact with the outside world. Then finally as we started to descend into San Francisco people started softly chattering and you could hear snatches of "I can't believe it" and "doesn't seem real". The flight attendants were mostly kiwis and I could overhear one of them talking with another passenger disbelievingly: "He's like a child, he said he's going to put up a wall! You can't do things like that!"

Again disembarking it everyone was utterly subdued. It was creepy to go through the passport and immigration stuff. While I was getting my picture taken my heart actually raced a bit for the first time as I thought, "God only knows the next time I'll be doing this and what it will be like next time. Guard dogs? Uzis? Will I even be allowed back in again? Will my husband?" I'm a dual citizen and he isn't you see.

Everyone in SFO today was like a zombie. We're all the walking dead. I'm glad about the protests, if they keep going I'm going to try to join the one down in San Francisco tomorrow. I protested Dubya's inauguration in SF back in 2000 so it will be a funny sort of home-coming.

Meanwhile my sister is trying to talk my mom and I into getting three matching tattoos - NC or non-compliant from the comic Bitch Planet.

Kia kaha everyone, as we say in New Zealand.
posted by supercrayon at 10:07 PM on November 9, 2016 [22 favorites]

White people of Metafilter, if the election genuinely grieves you, please push back, too.

We're really, really trying. It wasn't enough.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:09 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

At the end of the day, I feel like I guess I have to hand it to them, and acknowledge that the Republican Party apparently really knows how to properly play to win.

The problem with that being, of course, that that means the US has one party focused on scoring points with the goal of winning, and one party focused on actually running a society, because government isn't actually a game.
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:16 PM on November 9, 2016 [29 favorites]

Weirdly, the only thing standing in the way of a One Party Lock-Step Republican Nation is the wild card named Donald. And if anything, his list of prospective cabinet appointments is entirely "people who were loyal to ME during this campaign", mostly previously considered has-beens, and if he tries to lock out the GOP's real "power brokers', it's going to split the party in a way that will keep them all from causing too much damage. Maybe. Or maybe just a different kind of damage than was expected...
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:18 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

“Clinton suffered her biggest losses in the places where Obama was strongest among white voters. It’s not a simple racism story.”

Some people supported Trump because they were racist. Some people supported Trump because they were susceptible to a racist message. Some people supported Trump despite his racism.

These three things are not the same, but they all require at least a willingness to accept racism and to deny the concerns of people affected by it.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:19 PM on November 9, 2016 [16 favorites]

I agree it's too simplistic to see it as a simple racism story. But Trump ran on a campaign full of racist appeals and incidents (reddit's got a summary of just some of them), and everybody who did vote for Trump casually walked over that baggage on their way to the voting booth. We know some did so because they were enthusiastic about the racism, and I have no doubt many did so holding their nose, even repulsed by it. But they all voted for him in spite of it.

Nor do I think voters saw many of these things as racist. Even Paul Ryan called the Judge Curiel remarks the "textbook definition of a racist comment," but it didn't seem to stop him. And running on a narrative where you lie about the amount and trend of crime in inner cities and tell voters who to blame for it is super-duper racist, but it's not the kind of thing many voters will see as racist, because they've been taught their whole lives that racism is using bad words and segregated buses, not stuff like this. Even the Muslim ban was never taken seriously as racism.

In other words, I don't think it's as simple as racism pushing people to vote for Trump, as it is about people voting for Trump in spite of the racism (and sexism, and defiance of norms of human and political decency, and everything else). It turns out plenty of people will overlook all that, because to them, not having a President who appeals to racism is, at best, a nice-to-have, and not a non-negotiable condition for the job.
posted by zachlipton at 10:22 PM on November 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

Incidentally, I really liked John Gruber's description in today's episode of The Talk Show of the Democratic Party being "the second most surprised political party by the results."
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:27 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Read the Letter Aaron Sorkin Wrote His Daughter After Donald Trump Was Elected President

So what do we do?

First of all, we remember that we’re not alone. A hundred million people in America and a billion more around the world feel exactly the same way we do.

Second, we get out of bed. The Trumpsters want to see people like us (Jewish, “coastal elites,” educated, socially progressive, Hollywood…) sobbing and wailing and talking about moving to Canada. I won’t give them that and neither will you. Here’s what we’ll do…
...
The battle isn’t over, it’s just begun. Grandpa fought in World War II and when he came home this country handed him an opportunity to make a great life for his family. I will not hand his granddaughter a country shaped by hateful and stupid men. Your tears last night woke me up, and I’ll never go to sleep on you again.

posted by zachlipton at 10:35 PM on November 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

I just see it as a coalition of of racists and those who are cool with being on the same team as racists.

Ahem, you're forgetting the misogynists.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:35 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

> greatagain.gov is now online
> "Building the Wall" is literally on a government website.
>
> Jesus fucking Christ just shoot me. I'm done with this planet.

Built with Drupal, hosted by Amazon (Virginia IP).

WhiteHouse.gov is also running Drupal and is hosted by Akamai.
posted by christopherious at 10:36 PM on November 9, 2016

Built with Drupal, hosted by Amazon (Virginia IP).

So?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 10:37 PM on November 9, 2016

We were sort of expecting it to be hosted by pravda.ru
posted by 0xFCAF at 10:38 PM on November 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

Remember:

(1) More people voted for Clinton than Trump. She won by any sane metric, but we have an insane system.

(2) Clinton outperformed the standard economic+incumbency model by 4 points. Had she outperformed it by 1 more point, she would have won.

(3) Men, particularly without a college education, vastly preferred Trump. There is no explanation of this outcome that doesn't turn primarily on sexism, particularly among the less educated. By contrast, the black/white gap was about the same as for Kerry, and the hispanic gap was about the same as for Obama in '08. The big change for Clinton is the gender gap.

(4) The polls look like they were about as wrong for the Senate races as the Presidency. The polling error was small (3 points or so), systematic, and seems to have been about more generally undercounting Republicans, than anything particular to do with Trump or Clinton.

(5) More speculatively, my guess is that, since animosity against Clinton was so largely correlated with gender, she would have been judged equally corrupt by those men even if the email stuff hadn't existed. My own guess is that it would have been 6 months of Marc Rich, Bill Clinton, and Whitewater, if it hadn't been the emails. The email attention is the effect, not the cause.

(6) A left-wing Democrat might well have won it, but it's also the case that running a man instead of Clinton might well have won it. But does that mean that we should have gone with a man instead of Clinton? No. It was the right thing to do, we gave it our best shot, and we lost because the rules are stacked against Democrats. That sucks, but it doesn't mean that the morally right thing to do is to always choose the candidate qualities (such as being a man) that are most likely to win -- and I say this as someone well to Clinton's left, who is well aware of what's coming now.

Again: she did quite well, much beyond the baseline models, and lost by a hair -- a loss that was especially agonizing because it was unexpected. But dammit, we did the right thing at almost every step of the way. None of that mitigates the fact that, practically speaking, we are fucked for now. But nor does it change that fact that more Americans preferred her vision of America to Trump's.
posted by chortly at 10:39 PM on November 9, 2016 [36 favorites]

I just see it as a coalition of of racists and those who are cool with being on the same team as racists.

This is also the easy answer, and not doing anything to move the coalition forward. It's not just hur hur racism. 30% of these people voted for Obama. There's an entire economic angle here that Hilary never connected with when she had the opening to do so. Most of the touted "recovery" and job expansion under Obama has been shitty waitressing and bartender jobs with no future, no benefits and no dignity. While federal disability in rural states is a real part of the economy masking the real unemployment rate. Hourly wages have declined for 45 straight years, and enough of the electorate decided to gamble on the candidate who made them feel like they mattered over the one who told them they were deplorable and the problem. It doesn't matter that she was right, or the media suppressed her message, that's all they heard and felt, and that's how they voted.

Until the democratic party and progressives recognize what actually happened here, and stop ineffectually marching around Chicago, there's no lessons to be learned, and no path forward.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:40 PM on November 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Some people supported Trump because they were racist. Some people supported Trump because they were susceptible to a racist message. Some people supported Trump despite his racism.

I do think Trump's attacks on NAFTA intersects with all three of these groups, as it isn't only attacking a trade deal, but is attacking Mexicans for 'stealing jobs'. Attacking trade deals, at least in the context of Trump's general message, attacks both the elite (the economists and politicians creating the deals), but also the other (the Mexicans working manufacturing jobs). And of course, somehow Hillary Clinton also gets blamed for all of NAFTA.

If we look at Wisconsin, we see a candidate similar to Bernie Sanders in Russ Feingold. Both are progressive, both are Jewish, both have long records of public service, both are critical of trade deals like NAFTA and TPP. Yet Wisconsin chose to vote back in Ron Johnson, a businessman who wants to fast track TPP, get rid of federal minimum wage, and calls Social Security a Ponzi Scheme. This is why I'm skeptical of the idea that Bernie Sanders would have done better with these groups than Hillary Clinton. The GOP has demonized public servants while turning businessmen into saints, demonized public spending, while cherishing tax cuts, and I think all of those speak to rural white voters.
posted by airish at 10:43 PM on November 9, 2016 [21 favorites]

Well, congrats all you fuckers who crowed about the Cold War being won.
Turns out Russia was playing a longer game. In hindsight, it shouldn't really surprise anyone.
posted by rp at 10:44 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

So?

Er, I suppose I hadn't thought it through that far.
posted by christopherious at 10:50 PM on November 9, 2016

The Globe and Mail: "Ottawa offers to renegotiate NAFTA in effort to warm ties with Trump"

Okay, maybe it is happening
posted by Apocryphon at 10:55 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

greatagain.gov is hosted by Amazon
Didn't Donnie Drumpf warn Jeff Bezos there'd be trouble for him over what was published in his newspaper, the Washington Post? And now he's giving him web hosting business?
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:59 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

FWIW, in my troubled times, I often find myself turning to song lyrics. I know, I know, please bear with me.

At first I was all like:

Santa Monica by Everclear:

"We can live beside the ocean
Leave the fire behind
Swim out past the breakers
Watch the world die."

Then, I gradually got more and more pissed off, and I switched to Dig In by Lenny Kravitz.

There is nowhere to run
There is nowhere to hide
Don't let it beat you
Say " nice to meet you" and ~~"bye"~~ fight.

(Note: No violence intended on my part when I use the word fight.)

which also couples nicely with a later verse:

If you ain't part of the game
then how can you find a solution
Nobody said that it would be fair
When the mountain is high
Just look up to the sky
Ask god to teach you,
then persevere
with a smile.

Then I watched Ike's farewell address in its entirety to remember what reasonable Republicans used to be about, and I felt a tiny bit better after all that.

It's still a shit sandwich we're facing, but it did help to feel just a tiny bit better.

My best wishes to all.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 11:06 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Okay, maybe it is happening

And this is how other countries can deal with him. Make him feel important and work at getting want we want, which is to keep and revisit the deal.

Plus we have to deal with this sort of bullshit and play soothe the manchild. Good lord this is going to suck on so many levels.

A prominent Canadian business figure and long-time friend of Mr. Trump told The Globe and Mail that the Republican leader knows that Mr. Trudeau and his team were “in the tank” for Hillary Clinton and in regular contact with campaign manager John Podesta and other key Democratic operatives.

“Trump is very defensive. He remembers all the people who were against him. He knows that the only person in Canada who has openly supported him is Conrad Black,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He also knows the government of Canada was 100-per-cent opposed to him. So they are not starting with a position of strength.”
posted by Jalliah at 11:07 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Well, congrats all you fuckers who crowed about the Cold War being won.
No, we beat the Soviet Union. But Russia split off most of its empire, and came back 'leaner and meaner'. Russia is not The Soviet Union any more than Mondelez Foods is still Kraft Foods... although in that case, they totally screwed up Toblerone bars.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:09 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Uh..wow..these people are still incompetent. If anyone wants they can get greatagain.com with a minimum offer of 340 dollars.

You would think they would have bought that one already.
posted by Jalliah at 11:12 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

They could have and can any time. It's was bought by some random grabber in 2014 or so and is still up for sale.
posted by christopherious at 11:15 PM on November 9, 2016

How could they have bought it if it's still up for sale?
posted by Jalliah at 11:17 PM on November 9, 2016

Because most domains are bought up by people with no intention to use them, only to resell them again.

It's a scummy business.
posted by rokusan at 11:21 PM on November 9, 2016

~~It's~~It
posted by christopherious at 11:23 PM on November 9, 2016

"He knows that the only person in Canada who has openly supported him is Conrad Black,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Ha! And that's why you don't talk in the third person, Your Lordship.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:24 PM on November 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

I know. What I mean is that Trump has released greatagain.gov and greatagain.com is still available so someone else could buy and do something like say spoof website, or any number of anti-Trump things with it
posted by Jalliah at 11:25 PM on November 9, 2016

I had to tell two of my three autistic teenage sons that Trump won yesterday morning. (the third is too disabled to understand politics) That was hard. What was even harder was having to rush home from work because one them had locked himself in the bathroom and was threatening suicide. He even wrote a suicide note that said he couldn't live in a world where Donald Trump was president. He didn't hurt himself. He didn't even have a clear idea of how one goes about killing oneself.

I blame myself for a lot of this. I told them Trump is a fascist. I railed against him at home; about how stupid and evil he is. I thought Trump would lose badly and serve as a great object lesson to my boys about what we do to fascists who want to rule over America. I was so wrong. I was so blind and so stupid. I left myself with no way to walk back the things I said or to rationalize how this will somehow be OK to my suicidal son who very much sees the world in terms of absolutes. Especially when I can't convince myself that this will somehow be fucking OK.
posted by double block and bleed at 11:25 PM on November 9, 2016 [43 favorites]

> Trump has released greatagain.gov

I don't believe this is correct. He obtained it.
posted by christopherious at 11:28 PM on November 9, 2016

Naomi Kline article in today's Grauniad

The Rise of the Davos Class sealed America's fate

coalition and reaching for solutions where the pain being expressed in this horrific result is actually addressed.
posted by Wilder at 11:28 PM on November 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

I work remotely via Slack. Today was way quieter than usual—I could see an actual dip in the stats. At very least people were exhausted, and I think a lot of people were feeling all the things we've been expressing here.

And now by your vote you've shown you don't give a shit if I even have basic healthcare? Yeah, that'll be a hard pass on the holidays this year.

Yeah, I think I want to start being very clear to people what exactly they've called down upon us. "Ah, so you voted for him! Are you aware that what stands between my immediate family and crushing medical debt is the Affordable Care Act? Are you aware that my mother only has insurance through the exchange? No, she's not satisfied with it, but it's at least something, and she finally went to the doctor for the first time in several years recently. I wish you well. May you never become chronically or severely ill. Did you hear about the radioactive waste that's threatened by an underground landfill fire in our area? May the fire never reach the waste and blanket our region with radioactive particulate matter, right?! Ha ha ha. Did you hear that our friend is six months cancer-free today? Yeah, it's awesome. He may never qualify for health insurance again, though, unfortunately. Oh, that's wonderful that you felt like you were able to vote your conscience. That must feel great for you. Did you hear that subdivisions where we grew up may have radioactive infill, contaminated by runoff from the Manhattan Project? Yeah, a lot of people are getting weird stuff like appendix cancer. I hope that doesn't happen to you. Two out of four people in my immediate family have had cancer so far. But hey, they've both had surgery and they're doing OK. Isn't that swell? Unfortunately, most of my family may also not be able to get health insurance in the future. How's your mother's depression? How's your cousin's infertility? I'm sorry, I know that's a little personal. It's great that they also felt like they were able to vote their conscience, even though they may soon be disqualified entirely for the fertility treatments they'd be able to get through health insurance. Oh, I see. That's too bad that they've already given up on ever having health insurance or children. Unfunded mandates are the worst, right, especially when you can't get a full-time job with benefits anymore. I heard our friend stopped taking thyroid medication and is now fully cured with essential oils. That's great. How is your kids' flagpole prayer circle going? It's so great that they aren't letting anyone take away their rights. Maybe they can pray for your cousin."

Sorry, I have a lot of conversations in my head some days. 🔥 🔥 🔥
posted by limeonaire at 11:28 PM on November 9, 2016 [29 favorites]

Oh god double block and bleed my heart goes out to you. I hope you have the help you need.
posted by Lyme Drop at 11:30 PM on November 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Greatagain.gov is planning to Turn Off the Jobs and Benefits Magnet to fight immigration. I mean ok i guess if you ain't got nothin an immigrant can't take nothin but is that really the best strategy?
posted by BinGregory at 11:40 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

He's seeing his therapist later today. In the meantime, I told him when people knock us down, we get back up and keep fighting. I'm just going to keep saying it until he believes it.

Until I believe it.
posted by double block and bleed at 11:41 PM on November 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

I don't believe this is correct. He obtained it.

He released his website. greatagain.gov

And I'm not sure if I'm not making sense. My point is that this is obviously the specific name he wants and they've haven't secured the other most common domain extensions for their 'brand'. It's just dumb not to do this if they are available. Both .org and .com can be bought right now. There's lots of other uncommon extensions but not securing these most common ones if just funny is all. It's just really normal thing to do when buying a name if it's important to try to keep your brand, your brand.

I don't blame them for not securing all of the other ones, they're more obscure. It's cool, just means that people like me can be a proud owner of a greatagain domain!

Hmm now what to do with it, what to do...
posted by Jalliah at 11:42 PM on November 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Sorry, Jalliah, I think I got hung up on technicalities there. I get what you're saying and you're right, it's odd that they haven't yet grabbed at least the .com tld.
posted by christopherious at 11:45 PM on November 9, 2016

No worries. It's late and it's been a long day and I was wondering if the communication part of my brain just wasn't functioning properly. :)
posted by Jalliah at 11:47 PM on November 9, 2016

Stephen Colbert:
Intro
Monologue

Last night: trying to make sense out of all this (from before it was over, so it's an odd mix of stuff)
posted by zachlipton at 11:52 PM on November 9, 2016

And aclu.org has "See You in Court" next to a photo of Trump. :)
posted by jeffburdges at 11:55 PM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Poor Obama -- too classy to show the puking in his mouth that will probably happen when Trump personally shows up at the White House.

I'm a disabled, gay female... can someone point me to the grieving thread?
posted by _paegan_ at 11:56 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Grieving MeTa thread
posted by CrystalDave at 11:58 PM on November 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

So based on the monologue, we'll have 4 years of Stephen Colbert as a sexy kitty. (Yeah, I can't explain it either; his writers are obviously still drunk)
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:13 AM on November 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

"GOSH, THIS WASN'T RACISM, WE MUST WORK TO CONNECT WITH 'POOR WORKING WHITES' (despite the fact that the majority of Trump voters are well off, but that inconvenient fact sure makes my white backside feel all sad and persecuted so I'm going to ignore it and keep this shit fountain going strong...)."

So fucking tired of it. Please, do yourselves a damn favor, drop the fucking pretension and own the racism. Own it. Because when you say this shit, it sure sounds like racist gaslighting to me, and a trout's belly has more melanin than my hide.
posted by maxwelton at 12:20 AM on November 10, 2016 [23 favorites]

So fucking tired of it.
word. look at the demographic splits. fucking. comfortable. white. people.

racists
posted by j_curiouser at 12:24 AM on November 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've seen a lot of talk about the 2000 election, but not as much about 2004...

I keep talking to people IRL who don't know any America other than Obama's*, and they're trying to measure how awful this is, and 2004 is the example I keep returning to, myself.

This does feel a lot like 2004 to me, because by then we knew Bush/Cheney was a nightmare and we really didn't think the country could be so foolish as to vote him back in. It was a shock and a horror at the same time, just like this year.

* Oh, you sweet summer children.
posted by rokusan at 12:36 AM on November 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

The NYTimes is not credible at this point, but as an example its front page has:

The election of Mr. Trump joins Brexit as part of a middle-class and blue-collar insurrection against global free trade that could ultimately backfire.

So they're saying that the outcome was a combination of two economic classes.

Which raises the question - who has the most trustworthy and correct demographic analysis? That would be useful information in terms of avoiding talking at cross-purposes, etc.
posted by polymodus at 12:36 AM on November 10, 2016

Something that might be worth keeping in mind...if you've still got a mind to keep things in...is that Donald Trump is above all else a liar, fraud, and con artist. It is entirely possible his campaign was pandering not to the hateful so much as to the gullible, as is his modus operandi, simply to get the votes necessary to obtain the power to do something truly worthwhile.

CUE SOCIALIST UTOPIA
posted by Sys Rq at 12:36 AM on November 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

My grandmother lived through the rise and fall of the third reich as a young woman. She had a saying, "You can be two but not three; smart, decent, and a Nazi." I think the same thing applies to the Trump electorate.
posted by Puddle at 12:39 AM on November 10, 2016 [41 favorites]

If we're going to talk about the numbers, then we need to talk about these numbers. The poor working whites who we needed to connect with weren't the ones voting for trump. They were the ones voting in 2008 and 2012 and who stayed home on Tuesday. They were also in part the ones disenfranchised along with POC by the GOP's successful killing of the voting rights act and voter suppression campaigns.

The people who voted for Trump were the same old Republican base that votes for white supremacy and misogyny and fascism like clockwork every two years. Trump just emboldened them to be louder, blunter and cruder in their rhetoric, which is of course dangerous in and of itself.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 12:44 AM on November 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

This does feel a lot like 2004 to me, because by then we knew Bush/Cheney was a nightmare and we really didn't think the country could be so foolish as to vote him back in. It was a shock and a horror at the same time, just like this year.

Fool me once...
posted by polymodus at 12:44 AM on November 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

You know, politicians use social issues and identity politics to try to divide us all the time. It's the go-to play from all sides. But over and over again actual voters say no, they're actually voting on economic issues... so... yeah.

Obama was elected twice, his approval ratings are still very high, much higher than Clinton's, who also just under-performed him in most demographics. I know it's easiest to pick just one group to blame, especially when angry/grieving and looking for a target, but don't see how racism alone explains enough of the gestalt, here, any more than I can get my head around how misogyny could do it all by itself, either.

Racism was a factor, misogyny was a factor, the trustworthiness/likeability of Clinton (manufactured by opponents or not) was a factor, several different economic disconnects were factors, and nine other different things also certainly had an impact, too. I think we need some distance before we start assigning precise percentages, though, and we need to look inward before assigning any 100% weights on the blame-index.

I'm looking forward (if forward is the right word) to the official DNC autopsy report, though I'm one of those who thinks the DNC perspective is one of the problems, so it won't be the whole answer, either.
posted by rokusan at 12:45 AM on November 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

I believe that everyone harbors some degree of racism and sexism. It's in the marbling of the mind, so to speak. We are simply overwhelmingly predisposed towards people who look, smell and sound like like us. To that extent it seems inevitable that this influenced the vote.

But I don't think there is, as yet, broad public support for policy that explicitly and unambiguously favors one race over the other (sexism is quite another matter). That is not to discount the appeal of dog whistles and policy that ends up propagating inequality along racial lines, but the very fact that these cloaking strategies exist suggests that naked expressions of racism are, still, unpalatable.

I think there is a visceral need for belonging, and that leftist idealism (international solidarity, radical equality) is too anodyne, too utopian for a lot of people to identify with, while (neo)liberalism is too technical and too abstract. There seems to be a yearning for a visceral, emotionally charged, unapologetic type of politics, and that meshes well with traditional notions of masculinity: sweaty, smelly, gruff, muscly; bold, and a bit dangerous. For a lot of people, Trump's brand of wilfully offensive nationalism appears to fit the bill. If leftist/progressive politics is to reach these people, it needs to connect with that reality in some way, but without furthering regressive stereotypes and without eroding the fundamental values of democracy and basic human dignity, as Trump has done. We need to get to a place where people are proud not just of themselves, but of their neighbours.
posted by dmh at 12:46 AM on November 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

a visceral, emotionally charged, unapologetic type of politics, and that meshes well with traditional notions of masculinity: sweaty, smelly, gruff, muscly; bold, and a bit dangerous

Fascism. It's called fascism. It has a name, and we shouldn't be afraid to use it.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 12:51 AM on November 10, 2016 [25 favorites]

Maybe I'm looking for signs that this can be managed, but I just skimmed the Bush Re-elected threads [1] [2] from 2004, and yeah... feels similar.
posted by rokusan at 12:51 AM on November 10, 2016

Democrats, Trump, and the Ongoing, Dangerous Refusal to Learn the Lesson of Brexit

Here is what Donald Trump wants to do in his first 100 days
posted by jeffburdges at 12:53 AM on November 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

It is entirely possible his campaign was pandering not to the hateful so much as to the gullible, as is his modus operandi, simply to get the votes necessary to obtain the power to do something truly ~~worthwhile.~~obscenely profitable for himself.

He's 70 years old, made hundreds of deals, cheated hundreds of partners, accumulated over a billion dollars in tax losses and never achieved his life goal of becoming the richest man in the world. Well, he may have become the most famous and even the most powerful, but it still seems likely he'd rather just raid the U.S. Treasury... we'll see. Of course, his racist, sexist, deplorable or just gullible supporters would be extremely disappointed, but few of them will learn from the experience.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:56 AM on November 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Consciousness in humanity needs more work, plain and simple.

Chiming in from north of the border. Up here, tonight our own conservative party is having their leadership debates, undoubtedly with the outcome of this US election close in mind. I don't believe Canada should believe itself immune from ever having a similar cultural zeitgeist happen here. I think we should take this as a sign that we need to proactively address societies' pathologies (sexism, racism, homophobia) in an inclusive and collective manner. That is the only way to hush these nursery ghosts we all carry forward from our histories back into the void.

The US made such great gains these past 8 years under Obama. Canada joined that stride in electing Trudeau. I know Canada wants to continue making strides, and could probably even keep pace while the US eventually catches up. However, even as your neighbors, we have our own challenges with these same pathologies that we haven't figured out how to address to a near-satisfactory degree (IMO). I hope there can be a good undercurrent of dialogue on how to combat these true societal pathologies on both sides of the border as Americans pace themselves through these next few years. I do hope Canadians can participate in a movement towards greater collective progress in showing that calling out 'whitelash' and white supremacy making a stand can be done in a respectful manner trauma-informed enough that we really can get through it.

I have no idea if it was food poisoning with uncanny timing or what, but I also puked when I saw the election's outcome -- specifically when Trump's number passed 270. Waking up the next day, I am definitely feeling the general fear that some people will take this as a signal that being aggressively selfish and self-centered are what leads to success. I know we don't have all the answers yet, but 24h post-election results, that is what my mind has come up with as a way to look forward. Trump is a symptom of our unresolved societal ills; what can we do collectively in terms of how we participate in society's functions to address these common societal ills, and how can we support each other individually through these badlands of the soul so that overall we don't have to be trapped on this planet living in fear.
posted by human ecologist at 12:58 AM on November 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

So here we are.
I've lost family over this. On three sides.
I'm not backing away from this.
If I end up completely alone that's just what it is.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 12:59 AM on November 10, 2016 [17 favorites]

CUE SOCIALIST UTOPIA

Y2K Trump reasserts control of his host body
posted by Apocryphon at 1:05 AM on November 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Midway along the journey of our life
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
for I had wandered off from the straight path.
How hard it is to tell what it was like,
this wood of wilderness, savage and stubborn
(the thought of it brings back all my old fears),
a bitter place! Death could scarce be bitterer.
But if I would show the good that came of it
I must talk about things other than the good.
Canto I, Dante's Inferno

I'm taking a World Literature course and, in some accident of perfect timing, this week's readings were from Dante's Inferno. If you're not familiar with the Divine Comedy, I'll do my best to give some amateur context. After unexpectedly finding himself in a dark wooded valley, Dante is relieved to quickly find an apparent escape up a nearby sunny hill. But he is denied this quick exit by the appearances of a leopard, a lion, and a wolf, thought to represent the three categories of sin (fraud, violence, and incontinence). Dante initially is confident in his ability to bypass these threats until, "suddenly seeing his gain turn into loss", he is turned with fear and forced "back to where the sun is mute".

And thus the frame story of the epic poem finds Dante summoning the courage to trace the long and terrifying path to salvation: through Hell, through Purgatory, and to Paradise.

So, I don't think I need to spell out exactly why I might have found that relevant. Obviously the poem reflects a medieval Christian worldview and isn't applicable to current events in its entirety. But through some combination of timing and the universal themes of great literature, I don't know that I'll be able to revisit the Inferno without revisiting this year. (It's also interesting to note that Dante placed "sowers of discord", "falsifiers", and those "treacherous to benefactors" within the deepest circles of Hell.)

America has had a long and continuing struggle to escape its "sins", and we have a long path ahead to "Paradise", whatever that may ultimately mean. And it will certainly take courage to continue through the horrors. And someone may need to summon the shade of FDR to guide us, because this is sort out of Virgil's league.

Anyway, hi everyone. I just created my first Metafilter account after, believe it or not, over a decade of lurking. It's not the time or place for my personal story, but that's not atypical for me. I've spent much of my life on the outside looking in. 2016 has been a year of profound personal progress, even while watching this year ravage much else. Having grown up in conservative areas with family and friends that very rarely discussed politics and social issues, I give a decade of Metafilter much of the credit for gradually shaping who I am today and my values. It felt like an appropriate time to jump in fully; if we're going to enter into this new era, I don't want to go in alone, and I don't want to just eavesdrop.

Thank you all so much for being this community. It's meaningful and important in ways that are often invisible.
posted by Quiet Mountain at 1:12 AM on November 10, 2016 [37 favorites]

Fascism. It's called fascism. It has a name, and we shouldn't be afraid to use it.

I have no problem with calling Trump's platform fascist. But the visceral appeal I am talking about is not exclusive to fascism. I think it is also present in revolutionary socialism (I'm thinking about Che Guevara or the Spanish Civil War, even Chavez more recently) or less radically, some strands of labor union politics.
posted by dmh at 1:12 AM on November 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

And lest anyone forget (I haven't had time to read the whole thread yet), Trump is almost certainly an FSB/GRU/VSR asset, willingly or unwillingly.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:12 AM on November 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Welcome, Quiet Mountain.
posted by dazed_one at 1:14 AM on November 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

Clinton received almost 5 million votes fewer in 2016 than Obama did in 2012, and over 10 million fewer than Obama got in 2008. During that time, of course, the Democrats lost both the House and the Senate along with a swathe of state governorships. Clinton's failure is part of a wider malaise within the Democratic Party itself. Perhaps looking at why the Democratic voting constituency appears to be eroding sharply over time and what the party and its supporters can do to stop it might be a good place to start.
posted by Sonny Jim at 1:21 AM on November 10, 2016 [15 favorites]

Democratic voting constituency appears to be eroding sharply over time
dnc, dnc, dnc. establishmentarians, neolibs, freedom-bombers, wall-streeters.
posted by j_curiouser at 1:25 AM on November 10, 2016

Because john hadron collider left the ACLU links lying around in his comment, this middle-aged, angry white man finally joined up. That bunch is going to need all the help it can get.

The presidential debacle is kind of overshadowing a wonderful triumph here in Brownbackistan. Twenty-nine staunch supporters of Gov. Sam were ousted in the election (and others lost in the primary). I worked for a friend who campaigned against a 25-year incumbent, one who two elections ago switched from D to R because she knew which way the wind was blowing. My district no longer has to suffer someone who cozies up to the Koch-sponsored, most-hated governor in the nation. There's a lot of work to be done to clean up the mess Sam and his allies caused, but maybe Kansas can pull back from the abyss.
posted by bryon at 1:48 AM on November 10, 2016 [11 favorites]

A couple Facebook friends in Alabama and Kentucky posted photos of KKK flyers being left on doorsteps around their neighborhoods today.

Also had to unfollow someone for the first time. Old friend who almost never posts is suddenly posting Pepe memes and alt-right, white nationalist, pro-Putin, Pro-Assad crazy hate gloating. WTF.

Also, regarding the Trumpers who wanted an outsider. Looks more like out with the old, in with the old: Donald Trump Recruits Corporate Lobbyists to Select His Future Administration
posted by p3t3 at 1:49 AM on November 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

Suddenly I am so sick and so tired. I want to lay down and die. A coworker who has been glowing about voting for Trump is also glowing about a new pregnancy. I want to help her with the nausea she is racked with but am also so angry: for me right now this presidency means no children, no partners, no fiction, music, art; nothing but the fight to come to save the lives of as many people as possible. I am replaying the paths to Auschwitz my mother's family took over and over like a game plan trying to see what will work. How many we can get out. I do not see myself surviving this administration. I know my friend and her child will prosper because of the same basic greed that allowed her to vote for Trump. The weak are meat the strong do eat. They have robbed us of a future.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 1:53 AM on November 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

A new post-election post is live.
posted by Wordshore at 2:34 AM on November 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

And the Democratic Party is absolutely full of very qualified, scandal-free, popular women who will make very good candidates in the future.

Don't worry, appropriate scandals will be manufactured if one of them gets too uppity.
posted by klausness at 2:39 AM on November 10, 2016 [30 favorites]

I guess my feeling about a Trump presidency is that while everyone should absolutely remain vigilant and have plans in place if things get bad, some issues might be able to still be addressed if people can find ways to work with Trump. My figuring is that Trump is a lot like Nixon under whose administration the EPA was created among other things. Trump is volatile, willing to change his stated beliefs at the drop of a hat if it helps him or seems more interesting in the moment or pisses the right people off.

Given that, it isn't entirely implausible that some relatively decent things could still get done under his watch. Trump, for example, didn't express the same level of homophobia that many Republicans like Pence do, so there is possibly some chance to maintain a level of protection there even if that might go against the values of some other Republicans since Trump doesn't seem all that interested in party loyalty and may actively seek to screw with those he deems traitors within the party.

While seeking to see if there is some chance to work on beneficial issues between him and whatever coalition one might find in congress, I'd think rather than looking for ways to impeach Trump, it might be better to pick off all the incompetents office holders he'll appoint. Surely between Guliani, Palin, Carson, Christie, and the rest there will be plenty of opportunities to call their work out as failing and keep the administration in a state of frequent upheaval, which doesn't reflect well on the leadership. A Pence administration might be as bad, but more competent in its duller evil.

While doing those things, seeking out new policies and wedge issues for the Democrats can be done at lower levels while looking for new voices for future leadership. Drop the blame crap. It doesn't help at all and can build division. If economic populism is something that seems like it might work, great, find issues and advance them and see how they play among voters dissatisfied with what they see. The automated vehicle issue might be a great example of this if we can find a good way to address it without alienating too many already onboard with the party and can articulate policy ideas that create some separation from the Republicans. Since they'll be in power when this really starts seeming to be a more immediate concern, they'll have to take the heat for it unless the Dems ignore the problem.

While Trump may be receptive to some things like LGBT rights to some degree, he clearly doesn't seem likely to be as receptive to many other issues like immigration and other racial concerns. For those issues I do think it might be useful to develop a better method of communication between groups by those who are connected to both while not backing down from the messages being delivered by groups most affected by the problems.
posted by gusottertrout at 3:00 AM on November 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

I have no idea if it was food poisoning with uncanny timing or what, but I also puked when I saw the election's outcome -- specifically when Trump's number passed 270.

Sometime during that night, I recognized the dreadful feeling that was overtaking me from 2000 and 2004 return-watching: we are not winning this.
posted by thelonius at 3:29 AM on November 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

Trump, for example, didn't express the same level of homophobia that many Republicans like Pence do, so there is possibly some chance to maintain a level of protection there

I want to believe this, too, but I don't think it will play out like that. I don't see Trump taking any kind of principled stand and I don't see that he needs to play political games to screw with people. If he screws with people he does so on a much more direct and personal level. He can do that because he has no reputation to uphold, except perhaps the reputation of "don't fuck with me or I will fuck you up". He's not going to get satisfaction out of political maneuvering.

If he contemplates these issues at all (big if), then it is in opportunistic terms: what gets him the biggest leverage and the least amount of headaches. So I think he'll largely let his minions do as they please, as long as it's not directly counter to his interests. He'll consider popular opinion, but then what I find most depressing about the election result is that it validates the view that popular opinion is broadly indifferent to the goal of non-discrimination.
posted by dmh at 3:53 AM on November 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump may have not expressed homophobia, but he chose a guy who specializes in it for his second-in-command.
posted by drezdn at 5:09 AM on November 10, 2016 [9 favorites]

Yeah, it isn't something I'd wager on, but I don't think Trump really cares about anything Pence thinks if he felt like doing something different, and I hold out a slim hope that he might, at some point either feel it's in his own whimsical interest to do something useful or that others around him like Thiel or Ivanka, who signaled support for the issue might twist his ear, but it should be obvious I don't think either of them are reliable either, more just that an appeal to chaos sometimes might come up in one's favor.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:22 AM on November 10, 2016

Trump is on record supporting a federal anti-LGBTQ "religious liberty" bill (which is the new Republican same-sex marriage legislation), letting local and state anti-LGBTQ legislation stand, and appointing justices to nullify Obergefell. (Aside from the economic justice issues, which are also Queer issues, in spite of how Gays for Trump spins it.) Since the central civil rights issue for LGBTQ people involves rights under the Equal Protection clause, those actions would be a blow against equal rights.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 5:29 AM on November 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

For those who are interested in upping your infosec game, I'm starting to write a bit about that here. I'm not an expert but I've been taught by people who are and I hope I can give a few good pointers.
posted by Too-Ticky at 5:38 AM on November 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

My figuring is that Trump is a lot like Nixon under whose administration the EPA was created among other things.

Trump has already promised to appoint a climate change denier to lead the EPA and to gut funding to earth science research. Your children and grandchildren's futures just went up in smoke.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:42 AM on November 10, 2016

Heh. Yes, I didn't mean Trump would do the same things as Nixon, just that he'll act primarily out of self interest, a desire to punish those who betray him, but maybe with a little more whim since he doesn't know or care as much about the office, it seems, as Nixon. Again, that's the hope, not the promise. He also could of course be far worse than anyone we've had before. no way to tell yet.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:58 AM on November 10, 2016

Folks, this presidency and the national GOP party will be an utter disaster that will echo terrible effects into the next 50 years at least.

I am currently ensuring that everything I personally learned and all the experiences I had through this this past episodic emergence of ever so slightly higher ideals and aspirations is somehow saved for the next one that comes along, so they at least know who it was we were, and can maybe start with a little bit more insight than we did growing up.

That belief that we can be stalwarts and protect the progress we've all made for so many people in the past 8 years? I don't know man, but I'm not feeling it. We are entering a regressive and suppressive age from what I see and feel.

And if you're a trans woman, get cis pretty. Fast.
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:08 AM on November 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

There's really not much of anything to take consolation in here. The timing of this win ensures there will be changes to the composition of the Supreme Court, election regs, etc., that are going to give long term gains that will take minimally decades to reverse through the political process as it stands today. Even if Trump turns out to be a one-term president, our entire system is going to be tilted toward it's more fascistic potentiality for decades. This is game over for the foreseeable future on any serious progress toward a more universal justice in the US. We might as well have an official state platform of racism and misogyny now; this election has made hate mainstream.

Forget progress on any important issues now. These are the kind of clowns running the show now that out of spite will not only oppose green house regulations but actively step up their own companies' polluting behaviors in secret just out of spite at the suggestion they should consider the consequences to society. They hate the whole concept of society, collective responsibility, and the public good.

There's really nothing even remotely positive that can come of politics in the US for likely at least another decade, short of some kind of successful nonviolent popular rejection of the new administration. We just went into a political free fall as a nation and I don't think we've got a parachute here.
posted by saulgoodman at 6:17 AM on November 10, 2016 [9 favorites]

Maybe now that Clinton isn't in play, maybe public pressure could prompt the FBI to take a more serious look at Trump's connections to Putin's Russia before he's allowed to assume the office. Those influences are not minor concerns, like what server was used to send emails--they directly affect the future health and prosperity of the nation.
posted by saulgoodman at 6:32 AM on November 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

That is the weird thing about the FBI stance in general, I mean I get, allegedly, not wanting to interfere with an election, but if there is something serious that could make a candidate dangerous, then it's hard to deny we'd want to know that. The problem, obviously, is in trusting the FBI or anyone else to decide when or if violating the choice not to investigate or inform without bias, which is something we clearly can't do.
posted by gusottertrout at 6:40 AM on November 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

I know that people need to vent, but I find the protests a bit pointless. What's the concrete goal there? It's not like Trump will decide to step down in the face of protests.

Maybe the protests would make more sense to me if they focused on some specific change, like getting rid of the electoral college. It seems to me that for people who don't already hate Trump (assuming that those are the intended audience), "our candidate won, but the system is unfair" would be a more effective message than "our candidate lost, but we don't like the winner." The former is highlighting a genuinely unfair electoral system, but the latter just sounds like the protesters are being sore losers.
posted by klausness at 6:57 AM on November 10, 2016

(Sorry, just noticed the new thread, will re-post there)
posted by klausness at 6:59 AM on November 10, 2016

If folks are trying to analyze the Republican base to get a read on the election they won't make sense of it. It was a low turnout. Try looking at the people who wouldn't vote and ask why. What made them freeze or misunderstand the stakes? Vigo Mortensen was on Colbert right before the election and flaunted his liberal sensibilities but could barely mask his contempt for Clinton, for example. His vote, he said, was plainly about himself and his feelings, and he may have said something about looking in the mirror at some point.
posted by Brian B. at 7:02 AM on November 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

I know that people need to vent, but I find the protests a bit pointless.

Really? I live in a community that is largely Somali refugees, and I protest to visibly let them know that there are a lot of Americans who do not think they are the enemy.

That's just one reason to protest. If you find them pointless, maybe it's because you're not the audience?
posted by maxsparber at 7:28 AM on November 10, 2016 [25 favorites]

guys i had the worst dream.. you know when you wake up from a nightmare all relieved that you're awake but you're not actually awake and the nightmare continues on even worse than before? it was one of those.

[loads nyt]

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
posted by entropicamericana at 7:32 AM on November 10, 2016

Not sure why this makes me feel slightly better... possibly because it suggests that this is just the low point of some fucked-up cycle (rather than say, the end of civilization). Anyway, just in case I'm not the only one. Incidentally, is a newt a kind of lizard?

"No," said Ford, [...] "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happenned to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."
"But that's terrible," said Arthur.
"Listen, bud," said Ford, "if I had one Altairian dollar for every time I heard one bit of the Universe look at another bit of the Universe and say 'That's terrible' I wouldn't be sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin.”

― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 7:43 AM on November 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

Pointless? We have an unprecedented tax cheat, rapist, and bankrupt businessman as President Elect, who promises to sweeping abuses of power against American citizens and legal residents on the first day, and protests against the person and his agenda are pointless?

I'm a broken record on Barber this month, but the value of moral protest and witness isn't measured by how quickly its effective. And if we wait for the Trump administration to start a deportation dragnet, shut down cities, and strip benefits from LGBTQ government employees, that moral protest will come too late. America needs to see that people are exercising our rights to speech and assembly on these issues now.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 7:45 AM on November 10, 2016 [18 favorites]

How exactly did Clintons campaign counter Trumps message that the rust belt is hurting bad and that she had no answers?
posted by asra at 7:49 AM on November 10, 2016

oneswellfoop: In fact, Trump was the only possible opponent with greater negatives - any other Republican nominee would have been long favored against her.

On the other hand, no other Republican nominee would've fired up white Rust Belt voters like Trump did, and it was those voters who won Trump the election. Maybe another Republican candidate would've reduced Clinton's huge margins in New Jersey and California, but Joe the Plumber in Ohio would've stayed home and the "Blue Wall" would've held.
posted by clawsoon at 7:52 AM on November 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

How exactly did Clintons campaign counter Trumps message that the rust belt is hurting bad and that she had no answers?

I heard her say stuff about jobs programs, a reasonable economic policy, tax restructuring favorable to the working class, and health care that would expand the solvency of entitlement programs.

Trump was in a privileged position of being able to throw poop about how Obama policy wasn't awesome enough. And arguably it wasn't, but I didn't hear much in the way of realistic alternative solutions.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:21 AM on November 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

America needs to see that people are exercising our rights to speech and assembly on these issues now.

Exactly. And the Alt-Right and Right can't say how these protests are organized by Clinton or the Democrats ahead of time, because they actually expected to win.

Also, just thought of this: Since Trump won, doesn't this mean the "Alt-Right" should drop the "Alt-" from their names? They're mainstream now.
posted by FJT at 8:37 AM on November 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

I heard her say stuff about jobs programs, a reasonable economic policy, tax restructuring favorable to the working class, and health care that would expand the solvency of entitlement programs.

This pretty much just leaves (unconscious?) bias in choosing Trumps solutions over Clintons. I was hoping there would be an economic reason or somesuch that motivated the (conventionally leftist) unions but that seems like grasping at the straws at this point :(
posted by asra at 8:40 AM on November 10, 2016

I'm worried about my relatives in Taiwan now:

"A withdrawal from Asia as Trump has suggested would accelerate the realigning of some Asian countries with China, with the Philippines and Malaysia having started to warm to Beijing, and potentially marginalize Taiwan. Considering how ASEAN members rely on China for trade, Beijing having more say and sway in the region would undoubtedly undercut President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) “new southbound policy.”

Trump’s opposition to the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership is also likely to hurt Taiwan’s prospects of joining a trade agreement that would help it bypass efforts by Beijing to hinder Taipei’s formation of economic ties with the global community.

Ironically, Trump’s isolationist stance could mean he would be more willing than previous US administrations to sell arms to Taiwan, as a Taiwanese academic said before election day when asked to imagine a Trump presidency."
posted by FJT at 9:05 AM on November 10, 2016

> I was hoping there would be an economic reason

How about "the jobs that left were awesome because of labor unions, which you helped destroy by consistently voting against your own interests, and even if the jobs return, you'll have to compete with exploited Chinese workers and make $4.50 an hour, so I dunno what to tell you... maybe learn how to code or start a consulting business or something?"
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 9:36 AM on November 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Washington Post: "Clinton’s data-driven campaign relied heavily on an algorithm named Ada. What didn’t she see?"

About some things, she was apparently right. Aides say Pennsylvania was pegged as an extremely important state early on, which explains why Clinton was such a frequent visitor and chose to hold her penultimate rally in Philadelphia on Monday night.

But it appears that the importance of other states Clinton would lose — including Michigan and Wisconsin — never became fully apparent or that it was too late once it did.

Clinton made several visits to Michigan during the general election, but it wasn't until the final days that she, Obama and her husband made such a concerted effort.

As for Wisconsin: Clinton didn't make any appearances there at all.

Like much of the political establishment Ada appeared to underestimate the power of rural voters in Rust Belt states.

there's probably some cosmic metaphor here about the defeat of technocratic data-driven solutions by atavistic gut-based emotions
posted by Apocryphon at 9:59 AM on November 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

It's that machines are only as smart as the data and algorithms humans put into them.

And yeah, it is a depressingly fitting coda to the New Democratic Party of the Obama years. Brilliant, forward-looking, technocratic, optimistic -- and ultimately it crashed and burned in the wreckage of the white nationalism it couldn't bring itself to call out.
posted by tivalasvegas at 10:06 AM on November 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

It called the alt-right out all right, it just couldn't effectively sell its alternative.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:08 AM on November 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

Aides say Pennsylvania was pegged as an extremely important state early on, which explains why Clinton was such a frequent visitor and chose to hold her penultimate rally in Philadelphia on Monday night.

Clinton made several visits to Michigan during the general election, but it wasn't until the final days that she, Obama and her husband made such a concerted effort.

As for Wisconsin: Clinton didn't make any appearances there at all.

One of the guys on the Keeping it 1600 podcast commented on this and said it an interesting unintended experiment. They three similar states that have been trending blue: one frequently visited, one never visited, one visited intensely toward the end. And she lost them all by similar thin margins.

It's possible that the campaigning strategies just didn't make that much of a difference.

FWIW, they think one of the big problems is that she just didn't have the personality to inspire people to show up and vote. And while in a perfect world that shouldn't matter, in this world it does. She could come across as natural and authentic like her husband can, and like Obama can. Depressed Dem turnout in places Obama won big were a real factor in those states.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 10:20 AM on November 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

It called the alt-right out all right, it just couldn't effectively sell its alternative.

Maybe. I'm trying not to Wednesday-morning quarterback, here, but Jesus fuck. We all trusted the Democrats to finally have their shit together, and turns out they were about as out of touch with what was really happening as the idiot Berners and protest voters (and let's be clear, those people are still mostly idiots) accused them of being.

I'm not angry at the Dem establishment, exactly. I just feel betrayed. Even Obama and Clinton, two remarkably intelligent, wise and passionate leaders, have failed us at the end.

And now we're already half a day deep into the recriminations and bomb-throwing and circular firing squad-ism that sinks the Left every fucking time.
posted by tivalasvegas at 10:23 AM on November 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

FWIW, they think one of the big problems is that she just didn't have the personality to inspire people to show up and vote. And while in a perfect world that shouldn't matter, in this world it does. She could come across as natural and authentic like her husband can, and like Obama can. Depressed Dem turnout in places Obama won big were a real factor in those states.

I was so afraid of this. It's why I held out for Bernie as long as I did, although I don't know that he would have done any better -- and if so, it would've been in large part due to the misogyny and the associated mudflinging that Hillary's endured for my whole adult life. Did we do the right thing? I don't know. I don't think anyone can say yet, and maybe we'll never know.

The economic and the social modalities of the Left have to come together, now. The only way to defeat fascism will be solidarity.
posted by tivalasvegas at 10:28 AM on November 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

This post election period seems to have surfaced a lot of Trump voters. What I seem to hear again and again is: I voted for Trump because I couldn't vote for Hillary Clinton because of her a) pro abortion stance b) corruption and c) "global network of crime". There's not much that could have been done about a. But b and c I have to place squarely at the feet of the media. They have somehow given the impression that Hillary Clinton is corrupt and criminal. I weep thinking about how differently this election could have turned out if the broadcast media in particular had not been so easily manipulated by the right. It just really hurts to have her lifetime of service dismissed in this way. Like a nightmare that I will never wake up from.
posted by peacheater at 10:32 AM on November 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

Could Clinton have picked better surrogates and messengers for the Rust Belt? I know it's useless to dwell on hypotheticals. But it feels like the campaign did overly rely on the establishment- politicians, media endorsements, celebrities. Bernie aside, whose presence was controversial as some viewed him as a turncoat, were there any particularly leftist Clinton supporters besides Warren? Anyone who exuded a blue-collar vibe? Heck, maybe they should've brought in Michael Moore and gotten him to stump in Michigan, at least he's a local who personally understands their anguish.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:33 AM on November 10, 2016

Also, just thought of this: Since Trump won, doesn't this mean the "Alt-Right" should drop the "Alt-" from their names? They're mainstream now.

They won't. Their fantasy of themselves relies on the identity of persecuted, silenced-all-my-life outsiders, no matter how normalized their shit is and/or becomes. And they see no inconsistency with pairing this with the "silent majority" narrative, either.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 10:36 AM on November 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm not angry at the Dem establishment, exactly. I just feel betrayed. Even Obama and Clinton, two remarkably intelligent, wise and passionate leaders, have failed us at the end.

Hillary won the popular vote. She won it despite a 30-year campaign of lies waged at her. She won the popular vote despite the Russian government, Wikileaks, and the FBI actively seeking to prevent her from being elected. She won it despite massive voter suppression.

She was the right candidate. Her platform won. Unfortunately, we happen to live in a country with a very weird voting process set in place to appease southern slave holders, and, while the voters aligned with Clinton, the process aligned with the interests of white nationalism, surprise surprise.

We can blame Obama or Hillary or the Democratic Party all we like. But this truly was a black swan. There was no way to know that this was the year of white nationalism. It didn't show up in the polls. I mean, we knew there were racists backing Trump. We couldn't know that they would perfectly line up with the Electoral College.

What else can our candidate do but win? That's what she did. The system failed her, and that wasn't her fault.
posted by maxsparber at 10:36 AM on November 10, 2016 [20 favorites]

But this truly was a black swan.

I'm going with "Perfect Stormfront" myself.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:38 AM on November 10, 2016 [9 favorites]

We couldn't know that they would perfectly line up with the Electoral College.

I still find this hard to wrap my head around. Trump was supposed to be the disorganized one who did not do his homework or have any ground game. I saw that repeated time and again when the cunning Cruz supporters would supposedly steal the nomination away from him. He was not even paying his pollsters! From there to the defeating the well oiled Clinton machine is still unbelievable.
posted by asra at 10:52 AM on November 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

White nationalism and bigotry is an important factor and should not be minimized. Yet-

"Preliminary, but HRC's fall among black women rel to 2012 was, in raw vote terms, almost as much as her fall among white men."

This must be verified. If Clinton really failed to rally female and minority support (at least to the level that Obama did), despite Trump representing white nationalism (and hence, an existential threat), what does that say about her candidacy?

The problem I have with the "they're bigots, plain and simple" narrative is that it's defeatist. "Some people are irredeemable, ignorant haters and should get out (of our political process)" is not a valid strategy. If people want to give up on them and work around it, that's fine, but then their votes- and electoral votes- need to be made up for. If the above is accurate, her campaign did not achieve that.

That all said, this is also true: "I'm from the rural midwest. All of this talk about coastal elites needing to understand more of America has it backwards."
"I think we can at least raise our standards and not deify middle america as real america."
posted by Apocryphon at 10:53 AM on November 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

I just received this from Covered California - Please feel free to distribute for Californians.

Covered California remains focused on open enrollment. We want to make sure consumers know their options. Health coverage options are available to consumers with financial assistance to help pay for coverage. We will be communicating these important messages to consumers during open enrollment, which goes through
January 31, 2017.

In the weeks and months ahead, Covered California looks forward to sharing our lessons to inform policy changes nationally.

Please help us reassure our consumers:
• We are open for business and happy to help you enroll or renew.
• Your Covered California coverage is not in jeopardy. We encourage you to renew into your existing plan or shop for a new plan that best fits you and your family. Don’t risk a financial burden in 2017 by not enrolling.
• We understand there may be a lot of chatter in the media about the election, but here are three things you need to know:
1. Your coverage will remain intact for 2017 and the foreseeable future.
2. Your financial assistance (subsidies, APTC/CSR, small business tax credits) are protected under the law.
3. The rates for 2017 will not change.
• We are focused on what’s important right now, enrolling and renewing consumers into their Covered California plan.
• Covered California does not rely on federal funding, it is a self-sustainable state-run exchange.
• We will keep you informed about any changes in the future.
posted by Sophie1 at 10:53 AM on November 10, 2016 [11 favorites]

It's possible that the campaigning strategies just didn't make that much of a difference.

I've always wondered how much of a difference big rallies of core supporters really make (for either side), other than giving the media a hook for that day's stories.
posted by stopgap at 10:56 AM on November 10, 2016

I saw that repeated time and again when the cunning Cruz supporters would supposedly steal the nomination away from him. He was not even paying his pollsters! From there to the defeating the well oiled Clinton machine is still unbelievable.

To some extent, isn't this part of our national ethos? A scrappy underdog with nothing but spirit defeats a powerful, capable, but mechanical and impersonal force? And then we take a step back and realize the Founding Fathers were a bunch of landed gentry, merchants and slaveowners or slave-shippers, aristocratic and plutocratic.

Our fucken origin myth is encoded in this.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:57 AM on November 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

Pointless? We have an unprecedented tax cheat, rapist, and bankrupt businessman as President Elect, who promises to sweeping abuses of power against American citizens and legal residents on the first day, and protests against the person and his agenda are pointless?

And how, concretely, will these protests prevent the sweeping abuses of power? I'm not seeing it. There's nothing wrong with just venting sometimes. And if there are people in threatened communities who feel comforted by the protests because it shows that there are people on their side, then that's something positive, but it still doesn't make those people any safer in Trumpland. I try to be pragmatic, and I'm just not seeing how these protest will change anything concrete with repect to the horrors we can expect from a Trump presidency.
posted by klausness at 11:37 AM on November 10, 2016

Protests build a network of people who are committed to taking action. That does lead to concrete actions. Your question assumes that everyone going to those protests is only there to yell and scream and not there to signal we are the people who are going to be making it difficult for you to carry out the many atrocities you promised to do against us in your campaign.

Yes, some of the people protesting will fail to do anything other than showing up to the protest. But many people are going to do more than that. And it energizes people to know that they are part of a movement of loud, visible agitators.
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 11:41 AM on November 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

The problem I have with the "they're bigots, plain and simple" narrative is that it's defeatist.

It's not defeatist. It just recognizes that different tactics are required besides trying to be the reasonable trying to convince racists to not be racist. You shut that shit down in the courts, in local elections, in citizen review boards, in whatever institutional remedies there are, in whatever mechanism there is for confronting and shutting down hate speech and institutional oppression, and in the streets, when necessary.

We have confronted white nationalism before, and there are tools that work to suppress it. Boycotts. Lawsuits. Convincing newspapers that racism should not be part of their editorial agenda, even in the letters section (or the modern version of it, the Facebook page).

Top down electioneering does not work against racism, and it is what failed here. It's a different fight, and it is one we have been avoiding and can avoid no more.
posted by maxsparber at 11:45 AM on November 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

Maybe these protests will do other than put the Trump whitehouse on notice that people are watching. And when the abuses begin, there will be a mobilization to protest against a more specific cause. For those of us who remember the anti war protests of the Viet Nam era, we know that citizen action can have a huge impact on the ruling party's policies. I can not be cynical about the power of mobilized citizen action yet. And I feel a wave of feeling similar in intensity as those viet nam war protests.
posted by bluesky43 at 11:46 AM on November 10, 2016

For those of us who remember the anti war protests of the Viet Nam era, we know that citizen action can have a huge impact on the ruling party's policies.

And yet the war raged for more than a decade. And when Bush invaded Iraq we saw some of the largest protests in history, but that also raged for over a decade.

Protest is pointless and meaningless, and most especially the kind of protest that's been popular the last couple of decades. It's sound and fury signifying nothing but making the participants feel like they've done something when they've accomplished nothing. Counting expression as the same as action has always been the weakness of the left.

The only thing that matters is acquiring the power to enact what you want to see done.

In this regard we need to learn from the Republicans. They don't hold pointless protests, they get to the polls and get their people elected at every level. That's what needs to be done. The Republicans didn't come to dominate the majority of state legislatures by accident, the Democrats practically handed them over. You want to stop the Republicans, then every single action should be laser-focused on winning elections and getting the right people back in power.

You want to organize? Organize voters to win. You want to express your anger? Express it at the polls. Anything else is worthless.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:23 PM on November 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

I still find this hard to wrap my head around. Trump was supposed to be the disorganized one who did not do his homework or have any ground game. I saw that repeated time and again when the cunning Cruz supporters would supposedly steal the nomination away from him. He was not even paying his pollsters! From there to the defeating the well oiled Clinton machine is still unbelievable.

It's not impossible it was just a dumb luck suck-out in that regard.
posted by phearlez at 12:30 PM on November 10, 2016

Protest is pointless and meaningless,

Hardly. I was part of a protest against a Minnesota church that was housing an extremist anti-abortion speaker many years ago. We knew that there was a split in the church, and half of the people in the church did not want this speaker. The protest led to police macing protesters in the street, there was considerable press, and the church never brought that speaker back again.

Protests can be tactical and effective. I mean, good Lord, protests were the most effective tool of the Civil Rights movement. It is so strange to me that you can so confidentially say that protests are pointless and meaningless when it flies in the face of actual history.

I wish I could be that confident about being wrong.
posted by maxsparber at 12:32 PM on November 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

I was part of a protest against a Minnesota church that was housing an extremist anti-abortion speaker many years ago. We knew that there was a split in the church, and half of the people in the church did not want this speaker. The protest led to police macing protesters in the street, there was considerable press, and the church never brought that speaker back again.

And now we have a Congress and Senate controlled by the Republicans and a President who has promised to appoint Supreme Court Justices who will strike down Roe v. Wade. Plus a wave of strict anti-abortion laws in Republican-controlled states across the country.

But you got that one speaker out.

I mean, good Lord, protests were the most effective tool of the Civil Rights movement.

The triumph of the Civil Rights movement was getting their goals actually enacted into law. Laws that the Supreme Court recently gutted, and that those in power are hell-bent on gutting further. You think the current Republican Congress and Trump are going to be swayed by liberal protests? They'll laugh at you until you unseat them.

I wish I could be that confident about being wrong.

The only wrong thing is believing anything but being the ones in power matters. The result of that is the situation today. People who oppose everything you believe in are in power, and they are going to dismantle everything anyone you support has accomplished.

Either you take the power away from them, or you lose. That's it.

Gah! Why are people on Metafilter protesting a distresses populace's wish and constitutional right to protest?

No one is questioning the right of people to protest, just the efficacy of doing it. Republicans work to get their people elected, Democrats march in the streets. Guess who's policies become law?
posted by Sangermaine at 12:39 PM on November 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Good grief, Look, you don't want to protest, don't protest. But it is a tactic that works, and just because it doesn't solve every problem every single time, and just because it doesn't work on the timeline that you like, doesn't mean that it doesn't do what it is supposed to when it is supposed to.

Yes, decisions get reversed. Yes, sometimes you win and then you lose again. But if you think for one second any of the Civil Rights work you complain has been reversed would have happened at all without vigorous public protest, you're delusional.
posted by maxsparber at 12:44 PM on November 10, 2016 [9 favorites]

There's no need to insult me, I don't believe I insulted you. I just don't believe in the current climate protest achieves anything, and the Bush years proved it. I certainly hope I'm wrong and that protesting Trump and the Republicans will accomplish something for all of our sakes in the coming years, but it's going to prove to be a waste of time.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:49 PM on November 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

Saying "if you believe something wrong, you're delusional" is not an insult. If you are going to come into a thread and make ahistoric pronouncements that minimize the backbreaking labor of literally millions of activists, you're likely to get somebody telling you that you're wrong. It's not an insult to be told you're wrong.
posted by maxsparber at 12:57 PM on November 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

I just received this from Covered California - Please feel free to distribute for Californians.

[...]

To clarify, we (the insurance enrollment community) are saying pretty much the same thing nationwide. As of yet, nothing is changing. People should continue to re-enroll in ACA plans (and go to healthcare.gov or your state insurance marketplace to make sure there's not a better option! Plans change every year!). If the ACA is repealed, nothing will likely happen to the 2017 plan structure or premiums.
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:01 PM on November 10, 2016

It's not an insult to be told you're wrong

Ah, in that case, please know that the feeling is mutual, but that I welcome future demonstrations of my error. When a protest keeps President Trump and the Republicans from doing whatever repugnant thing they were going to do, I will happily concede.
posted by Sangermaine at 1:07 PM on November 10, 2016

Someone's probably posted this already, but a must read imo:

Revenge of the Forgotten Class - Hillary Clinton and the Democrats were playing with fire when they effectively wrote off white workers in the small towns and cities of the Rust Belt.
posted by Golden Eternity at 1:09 PM on November 10, 2016

Protest isn't meaningless; it's just a weapon of the weak. You put bodies in the streets not because you think that's the best strategy but because you have no bodies in the corridors of power. It works infrequently and most often locally rather than nationally because it's a weapon of the weak, not because the people using it are a bunch of dummies.

The deck is really, really stacked, you guys. No one is like "let's fight the cops instead of having a nice vote in a quiet city hall".

Not-rich people and women are the only "minority" groups in this country that aren't numerically minorities, and those identities produce political identities that are even more complicated than many political identities.

Gay people, Black people, trans people, Latinx people, immigrants as a group, Somali people, people on disability (which isn't the same thing as having a disability); people who are chronically unemployed, union members - all those groups are numerical minorities, many of whom have stuff stacked against them that precludes winning political power. What's more, pretty much every marginalized political identity is hated by the majority with fierce enjoyment. Majority people generally actively hate marginalized people; they think it's funny or amusing when we suffer. We are jokes to them in our various ways except when we're the villains who get killed in the last act because we deserve it.

It's not that it is literally impossible to build a legislative coalition out of a collection of marginalized hated groups, but it is very, very difficult - history testifies to this. This isn't a new problem, and better people than most of us have struggled with it for their whole lives.

This is why people protest - because they have no other way to act in time. "Build a legislative coalition and elect your candidates" does fuck all when someone is being deported or the police are killing people.
posted by Frowner at 1:11 PM on November 10, 2016 [29 favorites]

Sangermaine - I disagree that the viet nam era protests were meaningless. I will continue to believe that there is a role for citizen protests and that they can serve to check power. It is one means, along with voting, that a citizen of a democracy has to speak truth to power.
posted by bluesky43 at 1:12 PM on November 10, 2016

Our bodies should have been knocking door-to-door in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Minnesota weeks ago.

Now the Dems need to find a way to rebuild the party. We've lost so much leadership and will be losing more.

We may have to wait for the inevitable cuts to lower class and middle class benefits before the Dems have a real chance to get back in power. Could be ten years at least. And the conservative culture and media machine is so powerful. The Dems have nothing to compete against it in these midwest and rustbelt battle ground areas.
posted by Golden Eternity at 1:13 PM on November 10, 2016

hen a protest keeps President Trump and the Republicans from doing whatever repugnant thing they were going to do

Well, if it helps, here is Time's list of the five most influential protests in history.

If you want a more recent example, the Dakota Pipeline protests have certainly brought attention to the issue that nothing else seemed to do. I don't know if it will be successful or not, but I know that without the attention the protests brought, it absolutely couldn't be successful.
posted by maxsparber at 1:22 PM on November 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

Protests can help start whole movements as well. Look at BLM. Best thing that can come out of these is people becoming motivated to work to regain what has been lost to the GOP machine and come up with strategies to counter them.
posted by Golden Eternity at 1:32 PM on November 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

I, unlike some here, do really believe this stupid wall will be built. Whats a couple billion dollars?

25 billion dollars.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 2:09 PM on November 10, 2016

One deleted. Folks, please don't double-post stuff here, just go post in the current election thread instead.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 2:10 PM on November 10, 2016

Kanye West fully intends to run for president in 2020: “I’m going to try to do it”

Yeah, like we're going to elect some rich narcissist with no experience and a penchant for starting stupid Twitter beefs.

NOT GONNA LIE THIS IS THE MOST DELIGHTFUL VENGE-COMFORT I'VE FOUND FOR THE CURRENT NIGHTMARE
would he be a rich narcissist? yes. would he be our rich narcissist? yes.

true facts about what president kanye would do:
- make entire country fresh as hell
- campaign platform = album drops (THE THREAD TITLES!)
- force white people to acknowledge our sins & apologize
- teach us all how to love ourselves
- try really sincerely so very hard all the time
- cry occasionally
posted by skrozidile at 2:25 PM on November 10, 2016 [14 favorites]

> Greenwald : Democrats, Trump and the Ongoing, Dangerous Refusal to Learn the Lesson of Brexit

Greenwald was on talking about this stuff for most of the hour on Democracy Now today.
posted by homunculus at 3:28 PM on November 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

oneswellfoop: " So there's a solid likelihood that he'll abandon his racist followers as so much human baggage, and the unusually (for him) conciliatory tone of much of his victory speech tonight may be the first sign of that happening."

Unlikely; Trump is an actual racist.

drezdn: "If anti-NAFTA/out-sourcing was the thing, why the fuck did people vote for the guy who outsources!?!?!?!"

Republicans never seem to bat an eye when their leaders personal lives lie in direct opposition to the parties nominal platform. It's infuriating but true that from what I've seen most Democrats are better Republicans in their personal lives than many high profile Republicans. And it goes back all the way to Reagan (America's first divorced President) at least.

datawrangler: "DT will need to stay at the White House, which (really isn't) a Trump property."

Is this actually a requirement. I mean it would be easiest for everyone involved but doesn't seem like there would be anything stopping him from commuting (at government expense no less).

litera scripta manet: "Can Canada just like annex New England? And maybe California and Washington and Oregon?"

Hard to believe but all those places are way to the right of Canada while also out populating us. Canada taking these states into Canada would be the end of Canada.

threetwentytwo: "“I think people in this country,” declared Vote Leave’s Michael Gove, “have had enough of experts.” His fellow Brexiteers were quick to back him up. “There is only one expert that matters,” said Labour MP Gisela Stuart, also of Vote Leave, “and that’s you, the voter.” Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip, suggested that many independent experts were actually in the pay of the Government or the EU. All three reminded voters of occasions when “the so-called experts” had made mistakes."
"

I'm sure people call the local Dentist when they want their toilet fixed so as to avoid "experts".

rocket88: "I think we'll find that the error in the polls is due to a growing reluctance among the electorate to admitting their "politically incorrect" opinions to pollsters, but once they get behind that voting booth they can safely be deplorable. I think the same thing happened with Brexit."

Which I guess is sort of a win; abhorrent opinions that people used to state plainly they are keeping more to themselves.

DirtyOldTown: "I'm confused though: if the GOP will soon control all three branches of federal government (including both legislative houses), a majority of the governorships, and a healthy majority of state governments in general, who are they going to blame everything on when the country goes to hell in a handbag the next four years?"

Abortions, gay marriage, Brown people, Trans people and somehow the Clintons.
posted by Mitheral at 3:28 PM on November 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

"I'm confused though: if the GOP will soon control all three branches of federal government (including both legislative houses), a majority of the governorships, and a healthy majority of state governments in general, who are they going to blame everything on when the country goes to hell in a handbag the next four years?"

Pretty sure that's not how this works once the game is stacked in their favor. First they silence the Press so that only the good news gets out. Then they attack anyone who complains as a troublemaker who can leave if they don't like it. Then when it comes to things they can't hide (rampant joblessness, massive debt, cholera, whatever) they double down on whatever they're doing because clearly they need to make a greater effort. When that fails, you blame the Jews.
posted by Mchelly at 3:39 PM on November 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

The triumph of the Civil Rights movement was getting their goals actually enacted into law.

You you know how that happened in my current city of residence? Three students sat down at a lunch counter (in the building where I now work) and were arrested for eating while black. This led to a boycott of the downtown business district raising awareness of the problems posed by segregation. The NAACP registered voters, and many people who had previously been apathetic to the issue voted for a progressive city council at the next election. That city council ended segregation. King's protests resulting in the federal Civil Rights Acts did the same thing. So did Barber protesting the omnibus voting bill in North Carolina.

Let's talk about LGBTQ rights for a moment. Nothing we've gained over the last 45 years has been possible without protest. Were it not for Stonewall, police actions against gay bars would have been invisible. Were it not for ACT-UP and Queer Nation, HIV+ people would still be left to die in isolation wards and shoestring hospices (some still are). Six, eight years ago, many Democrats wanted for DADT repeal and same-sex marriage to disappear as an embarrassing liability. Activists continued to press those issues on multiple fronts: congregations, the press, congress, and the courts. (All of which requires cash, and you don't get donors without visibility.)

How many people would even know about the Dakota Access Pipeline if it were not for the actions of hundreds of protesters, joined now by activist clergy from across the United States? How many people would know about the omnibus voting bill, now successfully nullified, if it were not for Moral Mondays? The RCMP estimate the number of missing First Nations women in Canada at over 1,000. No one would know if First Nations activists hadn't started raising awareness.

This is what's going to happen without protest. The 2 million deportees will not just be deported, they'll be disappeared once the news cycle is over. The suicides and hate crimes, disappeared. No one cares about dead LGBTQ people or dead black people except when those deaths are protested. Preventable deaths due to lack of health care, especially women, will just be actuarial noise, as will the Flint water crisis.

Will that stop Trump? The fuck if I know. But it's not just about this year, or next year, or the next. Everything about the value of dissent from the Bible through Marx, King, and Barber point to the fact that it's a long, multi-generational process. But I know that if we don't fight on these issues now, that there will be no electoral fight on these issues at all at midterms or in four years. Even now, some of us are a "boutique issue."

Your afternoon of bullshit is based on some weird idea that the people who I met with in Church on Wednesday to organize didn't have a vote counted on Tuesday. I'm pretty certain all of us of age did. Many also donated cash, worked the phones, or canvased this election for the Clinton campaign. Would we have won if we threw more money and time at the problem? I don't think anyone can say at this point.

Meanwhile, politics does not begin or end with the government. In times like these, we need to maintain and strengthen our own community resources, many of which never got government funding. That's also a part of our activism.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 4:09 PM on November 10, 2016 [32 favorites]

In this regard we need to learn from the Republicans. They don't hold pointless protests, they get to the polls and get their people elected at every level.

About 15 years back, I spoke in front of my city council in favor of a housing non-discrimination ordinance. Republican groups bussed in entire churches to protest the meeting. I've learned to spot the reproductive health clinics wherever I go by the anti-abortion groups camped outside. Then there were the tea party protests, the march for marriage, Chik-Fil-A appreciation day, that silly Starbucks boycot of last year. So oh no, Republicans don't protest at all, do they.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 4:26 PM on November 10, 2016 [17 favorites]

Live it up, live it up, Donnie's got a new gun.

Huh.

As many times as I heard that song, until this very moment, I don't think I even stopped to consider there might be a quasi-political "may as well party it up, in a wild world like this, nuclear war is a serious possibility" subtext underneath that song. Even with hints like "waiting for the big boom."
posted by wildblueyonder at 6:52 PM on November 10, 2016

I talked to a Democratic Senate staffer for a bit today (totally randomly, friend of a friend). He was unbelievably chill. In his opinion, the filibuster means that effectively no legislation will get passed for two years, and the Republican side is so fractured they'll have trouble even getting simple majorities. Of course this only applies to legislation, not executive appointments and orders which could be disastrous.
posted by miyabo at 10:00 PM on November 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

But can't they get rid of the filibuster? Isn't that exactly what the Democrats' plan was if they got a senate majority?
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:14 PM on November 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

The likely rule change (if any) would have been targeted at Supreme Court appointments rather than the filibuster generally, just as earlier rule changes narrowly targeted non-SC appointments.

I said earlier that if it suits them, Republicans will get rid of the filibuster entirely, whether or not a Democrat had suggested it. I still suspect this is true, but hope the staffer miyabo spoke to has a higher quality of insight backing his chill.
posted by wildblueyonder at 6:54 AM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trumpthlulu
posted by y2karl at 10:04 AM on November 11, 2016

Justice Judy
posted by rhizome at 10:40 AM on November 11, 2016

Protest is pointless and meaningless,

Lol, tell that to the people whose lives ACT UP saved in the Reagan administration when they successfully shamed the FDA into accelerating access to novel HIV medications and shamed drug companies into slashing prices. How pointless and meaningless of them.
posted by en forme de poire at 12:47 PM on November 11, 2016 [19 favorites]

Sarah Jeong on the value of protest. It's not pointless or meaningless.
posted by invitapriore at 2:56 PM on November 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Kanye West fully intends to run for president in 2020: “I’m going to try to do it”

Fuck yeah, that's the ticket. Alec baldwin is too old and too white, this is the audacity we need now. I am certain thaty Kanye could be brought on board for the post-scarcity Star Trek future platform.
posted by Meatbomb at 10:33 PM on November 11, 2016

Kanye West fully intends to run for president in 2020: “I’m going to try to do it”

Mr West is currently 90/1 at one bookmakers to win the 2020 US presidential election. The same bookmaker offers Julian Castro at 13/1, Mitt Romney at 50/1 and Kevin Spacey at 150/1. Oh, and Jill Stein and Gary Johnson are both 200/1.
posted by Wordshore at 3:53 AM on November 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

I think I'm kinda done listening to predictors.

As a friend recently said, "the only poll the matters is the one that happens on election day."
posted by Miko at 4:30 AM on November 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Why Clinton and the smug liberals lost the culture war

“Transgender restrooms. Transgender bathrooms. All the time. Crazy protests on campus. All the time. Crazy, angry, entitled, spoilt people shouting on your TV about justice and trigger warnings and transgender stuff and hating America and how bad the country is when they’ve no idea what life is really about. While tens of millions of people in those states have real concerns about jobs, pay, about the economy, about their children. And this is the next battle that the radicals want to fight? Abolishing men and women? No. Equality yes. This crap? No. And eventually you think: what the hell is going on in this country? And you vote for the one guy that says enough.”

posted by Golden Eternity at 9:03 AM on November 12, 2016

@marcportermagee: Democrats now control only 13 state legislatures (26%). If they lose 1 more they fall below the % needed to stop constitutional amendments.

Civil Rights Act gone?
posted by Golden Eternity at 9:06 AM on November 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Republican side is so fractured they'll have trouble even getting simple majorities

This part is true-ish, for small values of true, for the next two years. It's a good time to be Collins, Murkowski, and Capito. And Manchin, probably. Super-conservative nevertrumpers like Flake are also going to be interesting to watch.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:22 AM on November 12, 2016

And so it begins, when in doubt, blame the queers for getting an education, jobs, and accommodations. And let's ignore the fact that republicans picked this fight by legislating against local accommodation, or that those bills are not that popular.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:52 AM on November 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Yeah, I have to say that blaming trans people for Trump is in the running for the most disgusting, immoral piece of rhetoric I've heard this election. "If only trans people didn't ask for ordinary civil rights, they would not have provoked America into voting for Trump". That's...morally, it's on a par with what people said about Jews deserving anti-semitism.

I have to admit, every time I'm out in public lately, I'm waiting for someone to tell me it's Trump's America and knock me down or hurt me while everyone else just stands idly by, and this whole "trans people caused Trump" line doesn't make me feel like that's unlikely.
posted by Frowner at 10:03 AM on November 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

It's fascist not least because it's looney tunes - of course trans people didn't cause Trump, there are very few of us and even if we all got everything we asked for, it wouldn't be that much. It's magical thinking, selecting a scapegoat who can't possibly be to blame. That's what reminds me of anti-Semitism, now that I think about it - there's a willful quality to this kind of belief, a kind of boasting of stupidity and unreason.
posted by Frowner at 10:06 AM on November 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Of course a UK website that is specifically and intentionally pro-free-trade & pro-capitalism & "centre-right"/conservative is gonna have an editorial that claims the whole thing is about the liberals getting distracted by "not real" feel-good support of freaks and weirdos and ignoring "real" economic concerns. It's fucking propaganda.

And that quote is from "Nick", an NYC banker - not exactly an authoritative source on what motivates Midwestern blue-collar middle-class voters . . . . . .
posted by soundguy99 at 10:16 AM on November 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Sarah makes some strong points about the media, imo. They are on life support and Trump is a huge payday for them.

I guess the fact that Obama has a 58% approval rating would indicate that Dems weren't actually losing the "culture war" that badly. On the other hand, they have lost so many state legislatures. Maybe they are losing where it counts.

Hillary looked so good after the convention, but then she seemed to kind of disappear. Maybe media deserves some blame. I think Bernie's, "make govt work for the 99%," message could have worked really well in the midwest and rustbelt, but she seemed to focus more on comparing her qualifions against Trump's.
posted by Golden Eternity at 10:31 AM on November 12, 2016

A pro-market publication called "Reaction" blames the Democrats' defeat on an excess of sympathy for trans people? Well, I never!
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 10:32 AM on November 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

That wasn't really the focus of the article. Sorry, that was a bad pull-quote. Corb used to talk about how so much of US politics is a "culture war" on here, and I think there's something to that. I also think the Dems should look hard at what they could have done differently in the midwest and rustbelt even if it means questioning trade deals, or more support for unions, or whatever.

Will be interesting to see what happens with this:

Carrier isn’t changing its plans to move an Indiana factory to Mexico. Donald Trump's supporters expect action.

posted by Golden Eternity at 10:42 AM on November 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

The marriage fight was started when a handful of jurisdictions and employers recognized same sex partnerships that existed as private contracts and power of attorney documents of questionable legal standing compared to, for example, parental rights as next of kin.

Similarly, the bathroom issue heated up again due to limited and local trans non-discrimination action. Primarily in education.

Both marriage and bathroom politics are really about discrimination. Anti LGBTQ groups are explicitly honest about this if you dig into the strategy docs.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 10:45 AM on November 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

so much of US politics is a "culture war" on here, and I think there's something to that.

There is a "culture war." And it's been going on since women and black people and other persons of color and gay people and trans* people have, at various points, started asking for or demanding the same rights and considerations as straight white folks, and conservatives said, "No." IOW that war's been going on longer than I've been alive, and I'm almost 50. How open and vicious that war has been, and who's leading the battle of the moment, have waxed and waned and changed over the years.

To be honest, coming in at the end of this long thread wanting to examine the idea of "culture wars" seems a bit . . . tone deaf. Not to be snarky, but it's bordering on "explain the entire last half of the 20th century, please" - there have literally been millions of words written on the topic from many sides and perspectives, not least here on Metafilter.

I also think the Dems should look hard at what they could have done differently in the midwest and rustbelt even if it means questioning trade deals, or more support for unions, or whatever.

You want the new thread for discussion about that.
posted by soundguy99 at 11:15 AM on November 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Curiously, the fact that the Tea Party and the Religious Right organized dozens of protests over the last 8 years, on the other side of many of the same issues, never seems to be labeled "smug."
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 12:40 PM on November 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

There is a new post-US election thread now live.
posted by Wordshore at 12:05 PM on November 13, 2016

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Election Night II: Load Balancing Boogaloo November 8, 2016 8:47 PM Subscribe

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Election Night II: Load Balancing Boogaloo
November 8, 2016 8:47 PM Subscribe