It's not just the vulgar, racist orange felon. It's not just the schools that produced the tens of millions who willingly put lies over truth, who ignored the public good for buffoon sensationalism and "bing-bing-boing-bong" reality show nonsense.
It's not just the vulgar, racist orange felon. It's not just the schools that produced the tens of millions who willingly put lies over truth, who ignored the public good for buffoon sensationalism and "bing-bing-boing-bong" reality show nonsense.
More, it's the many, many dehumanized M.B.A.s, bankers, humanly empty lawyers, lobbyists, and corporate officials who offshored the tens of millions of American working-class jobs and left those Americans and their communities abandoned, bereft, feeling ignored and forgotten.
Yes, the schools that produced the predators also produced other elites also without humanities --elites who in public could never refer to the many fine novels, memoirs, films, and songs which did keep in touch with the tens of millions of the left behind.
They voted for the convicted criminal, the vulgar entertainer because they knew, yes, Hiro, there was a war, and they lost. So millions voted not particularly for the orange fraud, but in deeper feelings of betrayal against all the "educated" elites who seemed not to know them or care enough about them to have plumbed into any of those humanities about them.
The schools, too, Hiro. They suffocate the kids of the working classes with the standardized testing geared only to the conceits of the college-bound elites, as David Brooks has been noting.
It was a war. The whole country lost. The former enslaving classes have finally won.
Depends on the kind of American you are. Some of us are tougher. Some of us will continue to work every quarter to hold on. We had wins in the States. President Biden is appointing and has been appointing many Federal Judges. Millions and millions (around 74 million voted for Harris). Do you think we are just going to walk away from our Democracy?
It is appalling when Americans such as you are saying we lost. We have a fight on our hands like nothing we have ever seen. Either people are with us or not. If you are not, then the least you can do is resist calling game over.
It's offensive. It is subversive to the fight we are going to engage in shortly and it is wildly disrespectful to the people who gave their lives for this Country.
You are right too. I will continue to work with the League of Women Voters as I have been since 2017. I am active. It is the equivalent of a part time job for me (sometimes full time). But without Reproductive Rights for women it is hard to call us a democracy. The overturning of Roe pushed by religious extremists was a turning point. I do not see how we can call this a democracy at this time. I have ancestors (back to revolutionary times) and current relatives who have fought for this country. I love this country. But it has been captured by religious extremists and oligarchs at the same time and they are currently cooperating. Meanwhile our legislators at the federal level and many state legislators have spent years lining their own pockets and not protecting their constituents (including their right to vote).I do not think we yet understand what the overturning of Roe meant or portends. When half the population loses its bodily autonomy and people in power care more for the Bible than the Constitution things look bad to me and maybe irreversible. Still I will work for voting rights. I will not back down from that.
Mary Ellen—thank you for working with the League of Women Voters! I, too do this and I know that the LWV makes a difference!🗽
It’s a dark time for citizens who understand our country’s current situation but we must continue to be vigilant and be the light in the (seemingly) darkness. I could go on but it’s Thanksgiving day and hopefully, people will share the blessings we all share as citizens of the U.S. and take time to think (or heal) and roll up our sleeves and keep moving forward. We will keep working and we will make a difference ❤️🤍💙!
I am, Barbara, the kind of American who regrets so many dehumanized.
If Dems had used our humanities in the recent elections, they could have empathized with, shown concern for our working-class fellow Americans who, by the tens of millions, got their jobs offshored by other elites. Got their communities torn apart, abandoned. Got their kids stuck in schools with no humanities, only standardized testing treating all like numbers, like units in the conceits of dehumanized elites.
No Dems, or almost none, showed any bit of being in touch with any working classes.
Being tough, Barbara, can't make up for elites so evidently dehumanized.
On November 6, 2024 I stopped asking why. I now ask what. What can we do to defeat these people?
Phil, with respect. Either you are going to knuckle down and work to defeat these people or not. It would be unimaginable in the 1800's the 1940's for someone to talk like you are. For people to talk like you are makes it harder for those of us who know we have some hard work ahead of us.
I don’t think we need to denigrate Phil for feelings that many of us have. I empathize with the anger and despair. We can learn from that and do better next time. And we can hope there is a next time. Perhaps this was not the ultimate battlefield. But it’s indeed possible to feel like it was, that once they have taken the White House, Congress and SCOTUS they can rewrite our history going forward. I’m glad so many of the folks on this page are bloody but unbowed. It’s good for me to read about your resilience and determination. But don’t shut up or shut out our sisters and brothers who can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I realize people come here to vent. I have that right as well.
Here is my deep concern Marge. If people are saying these things and carrying this attitude here are they carrying this stuff out in the world? Are these the core attitudes of Americans right now? Have we given up already? I am not shutting anyone out. I am going to be that voice that keeps challenging people. I am going to be that voice that challenges people to stop being scared, stop being overwhelmed and to start getting angry. It is way past time to stop worrying about feelings. Don't you think our people who sat in foxholes and flew fighter planes had feelings? And what did they do?
As we reenter the Trump era, the forces we find ourselves up against — oligarchy, corruption, fascism — are powerful, and real. Given the scale of the threat, it’s easy to give up, to blame the voters, to resign ourselves to four more years doomscrolling and raging at everything Donald Trump and the people around him do.
While there’s no doubt that the years ahead demand vigilance, what if our work, at least right now, is not as bleak or insurmountable as it seems?
What if our work right now is not to rescue democracy or stop fascism or deal a knockout blow to MAGA, but instead to fight for the most vulnerable, to choose compassion and hopefulness, and to fortify ourselves for the endeavors ahead?
What if our work right now is not to block all of the Trump agenda — an impossible task, but one we implicitly expect of ourselves each time we let a new cabinet nomination or the realization of another Project 2025 pledge send us into a spiral of assuming that things will remain like this forever — but instead to endure, to organize and resist where we can, and to look out for each other along the way?
What if our work right now is not to save America, but instead to hold on just enough to give ourselves a chance to march forward again in two years, in four years, over a decade?
When you throw words like “elite” around, You demonstrate a certain contempt. Someone recently said the word “woke“ to me and I pretended I didn’t understand what it meant and asked her. She was stymied. I remember a time when being elite at anything was an aspiration, not an insult.
Barbara, please let Phil vent. We all need to express and hear both sides. Let us have our grief and anger without shaming us, because many of us are still processing and we need this outlet.
Phil Balla, yes we lost a battle. But the war or struggle for justice and equality is never lost. There are no permanent victories or defeats in this permanent struggle. If Harris won, do you think the struggle would be over? Of course not. There is another battle or midterm election in 2 years, there are court cases to be waged before then. https://jimbuie.substack.com/p/why-did-democratic-senate-candidates
Elections are won and lost, every round. Phil's battle about the humanities likely misses most of the point. You can't run modern civilization without highly developed institutions - economic, medical, technical in so many ways, science itself is beholden to elite developed and maintained knowledge. You need an education system which meets all those needs. No disagreement from me that the humanities are important.
Frank. Trying to win any battle other than saving Democracy in the United States is window dressing. It is akin to George Washington stopping to paint the bow of his boat as he was crossing the Delaware.
If you listen to David Packman or BrianTyler Cohen talk about the disastrous impending tariffs and trade wars with Mexico and Canada, which violate Trump's own new NAFTA agreement you can see there is definitely an economic WAR that is coming and it ain't gonna be pretty.
Of course, Trump will say that the resulting inflation is due to the Democrats policies which of course is just another massive lie.
Trump's entire philosophy is "if it helps make me wealthier, it is good for the country." He now has cover for anything he does from SCOTUS.
The result is that we will return to being a kakistocracy and a kleptocracy where the billionaire class will ultimately be the sole winners but Trump will spin in to have Americans believe that it is the Democrats fault.
You mean all those Americans who heard exactly those warnings about the inflationary effect of large tariffs from Dems and every business broadcast out there are going to think Dems caused that?
I agree with this. I think we have seen the end of our democracy. I want to remind us all that a large group of religious zealots are also going to dominate our country in an organized way with Project 2025. It is they who will help fire the civil servants and roll back rights and protections for the oligarchs. During the Civil War we did not have that one-two-punch. We were fighting enslavers but not evangelical and Catholic extremists as we are now. When Roe was overturned it brought slavery back to the U.S. This time it is our childbearing women who are now enslaved on “moral” grounds—god deemed it, right? We cannot lose sight of this change which I believe will become permanent and nationwide once DJT is in the WH. This state’s rights b.s. was just a temporary thing. When Roe was overturned it was over. And women all over this country gave up their freedoms for good (or many decades at least) when they voted for DJT. Foolish. It is over I agree.
Trump is accountable to people who care most about money and return on investment. Mass deportations and tariffs will not be good for their pocketbooks. They will love tax cuts in the short term but the inflation caused by disregarding the exploding deficit will not make people happy. They want lower taxes and expanded benefits.
Never, Phil. I will never admit defeat. We lost a battle, not the war, which has been between idealists who wanted a more optimal form of human self governance vs. those who only look out for themselves and maybe their tribe, who see outsiders as less than human.
Human nature has not changed, and majority of people are basically good. One or two more election cycles, and the pendulum will swing back. For all the coming losses of progress and rights, they won't go as far back as the 1920s, so we'll be at least that much better starting at the next swing.
Me personally, I'm waiting for the extremes on both sides to fall back out of favor, because they pull the pendulum too far, and kick the current set of losers when they're down. They are the ugly underbelly of each party.
You keep writing about the humanities, as if they're part of the solution. I suspect they are important, but really more of a symptom of society's condition than a core feature. Their reduction over the years has been a symptom, not a cause, of society's drift. Their future growth will be a future symptom of society getting back on track.
Yes, Phil. And I'm sure more. I don't have an answer yet, but listening to others, reading, and assessing what I got wrong is a good place to start. What I'm not listening to is the collection of continuing tirades about Trump, which miss the collection of issues that caused enough people to vote against their own interests.
Well, maybe that's a good place to start. Who am I to tell others what's in their best interests?
Being on the losing side, I'll listen and keep my wits and "weapons" sharp, and hope I stay healthy enough to eventually be on the prevailing side.
I feel your sorrow, Phil. Things do look bleak at the moment. What is most disappointing is all those millions, who after seeing the Orange Sphincter make a mockery of American democracy for nine years, said, “I’m with him.”
I sense that there’s something out there, something not yet seen, that will be a seismic event. Covid was a harbinger, imagine the current assembled assortment of clowns facing a future existential crisis that appears.
Their complete lack of empathy and compassion, coupled with their incompetence will turn the electorate against them. After all, the price of eggs became a MAGA rally cry against Biden. It won’t take much “suffering” to make them turn on the felon.
Speaking of that hypothetical event, I just looked at my stocks, and they rose after the 2008 banking crisis and then zoomed up after the pandemic. Is that the plan? I don't have enough to be life-altering, but I wonder. To put the best face on it, Trump's cronies will get a heads up before market altering moves. Once they get theirs (their weslth to dlyrocket as in The Big Short), they might not care if the pendulum swings back left. All we have to do is wait and pick up the crumbs after 4 years.
We're not fighting it, Hiro. It's over. We lost.
It's not just the vulgar, racist orange felon. It's not just the schools that produced the tens of millions who willingly put lies over truth, who ignored the public good for buffoon sensationalism and "bing-bing-boing-bong" reality show nonsense.
More, it's the many, many dehumanized M.B.A.s, bankers, humanly empty lawyers, lobbyists, and corporate officials who offshored the tens of millions of American working-class jobs and left those Americans and their communities abandoned, bereft, feeling ignored and forgotten.
Yes, the schools that produced the predators also produced other elites also without humanities --elites who in public could never refer to the many fine novels, memoirs, films, and songs which did keep in touch with the tens of millions of the left behind.
They voted for the convicted criminal, the vulgar entertainer because they knew, yes, Hiro, there was a war, and they lost. So millions voted not particularly for the orange fraud, but in deeper feelings of betrayal against all the "educated" elites who seemed not to know them or care enough about them to have plumbed into any of those humanities about them.
The schools, too, Hiro. They suffocate the kids of the working classes with the standardized testing geared only to the conceits of the college-bound elites, as David Brooks has been noting.
It was a war. The whole country lost. The former enslaving classes have finally won.
Depends on the kind of American you are. Some of us are tougher. Some of us will continue to work every quarter to hold on. We had wins in the States. President Biden is appointing and has been appointing many Federal Judges. Millions and millions (around 74 million voted for Harris). Do you think we are just going to walk away from our Democracy?
It is appalling when Americans such as you are saying we lost. We have a fight on our hands like nothing we have ever seen. Either people are with us or not. If you are not, then the least you can do is resist calling game over.
It's offensive. It is subversive to the fight we are going to engage in shortly and it is wildly disrespectful to the people who gave their lives for this Country.
Thanks Barbara, and AMEN.
You are right too. I will continue to work with the League of Women Voters as I have been since 2017. I am active. It is the equivalent of a part time job for me (sometimes full time). But without Reproductive Rights for women it is hard to call us a democracy. The overturning of Roe pushed by religious extremists was a turning point. I do not see how we can call this a democracy at this time. I have ancestors (back to revolutionary times) and current relatives who have fought for this country. I love this country. But it has been captured by religious extremists and oligarchs at the same time and they are currently cooperating. Meanwhile our legislators at the federal level and many state legislators have spent years lining their own pockets and not protecting their constituents (including their right to vote).I do not think we yet understand what the overturning of Roe meant or portends. When half the population loses its bodily autonomy and people in power care more for the Bible than the Constitution things look bad to me and maybe irreversible. Still I will work for voting rights. I will not back down from that.
Mary Ellen—thank you for working with the League of Women Voters! I, too do this and I know that the LWV makes a difference!🗽
It’s a dark time for citizens who understand our country’s current situation but we must continue to be vigilant and be the light in the (seemingly) darkness. I could go on but it’s Thanksgiving day and hopefully, people will share the blessings we all share as citizens of the U.S. and take time to think (or heal) and roll up our sleeves and keep moving forward. We will keep working and we will make a difference ❤️🤍💙!
I am, Barbara, the kind of American who regrets so many dehumanized.
If Dems had used our humanities in the recent elections, they could have empathized with, shown concern for our working-class fellow Americans who, by the tens of millions, got their jobs offshored by other elites. Got their communities torn apart, abandoned. Got their kids stuck in schools with no humanities, only standardized testing treating all like numbers, like units in the conceits of dehumanized elites.
No Dems, or almost none, showed any bit of being in touch with any working classes.
Being tough, Barbara, can't make up for elites so evidently dehumanized.
On November 6, 2024 I stopped asking why. I now ask what. What can we do to defeat these people?
Phil, with respect. Either you are going to knuckle down and work to defeat these people or not. It would be unimaginable in the 1800's the 1940's for someone to talk like you are. For people to talk like you are makes it harder for those of us who know we have some hard work ahead of us.
I don’t think we need to denigrate Phil for feelings that many of us have. I empathize with the anger and despair. We can learn from that and do better next time. And we can hope there is a next time. Perhaps this was not the ultimate battlefield. But it’s indeed possible to feel like it was, that once they have taken the White House, Congress and SCOTUS they can rewrite our history going forward. I’m glad so many of the folks on this page are bloody but unbowed. It’s good for me to read about your resilience and determination. But don’t shut up or shut out our sisters and brothers who can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I realize people come here to vent. I have that right as well.
Here is my deep concern Marge. If people are saying these things and carrying this attitude here are they carrying this stuff out in the world? Are these the core attitudes of Americans right now? Have we given up already? I am not shutting anyone out. I am going to be that voice that keeps challenging people. I am going to be that voice that challenges people to stop being scared, stop being overwhelmed and to start getting angry. It is way past time to stop worrying about feelings. Don't you think our people who sat in foxholes and flew fighter planes had feelings? And what did they do?
Americans need to toughen up fast.
Phil vented, you attacked her for that.
As we reenter the Trump era, the forces we find ourselves up against — oligarchy, corruption, fascism — are powerful, and real. Given the scale of the threat, it’s easy to give up, to blame the voters, to resign ourselves to four more years doomscrolling and raging at everything Donald Trump and the people around him do.
While there’s no doubt that the years ahead demand vigilance, what if our work, at least right now, is not as bleak or insurmountable as it seems?
What if our work right now is not to rescue democracy or stop fascism or deal a knockout blow to MAGA, but instead to fight for the most vulnerable, to choose compassion and hopefulness, and to fortify ourselves for the endeavors ahead?
What if our work right now is not to block all of the Trump agenda — an impossible task, but one we implicitly expect of ourselves each time we let a new cabinet nomination or the realization of another Project 2025 pledge send us into a spiral of assuming that things will remain like this forever — but instead to endure, to organize and resist where we can, and to look out for each other along the way?
What if our work right now is not to save America, but instead to hold on just enough to give ourselves a chance to march forward again in two years, in four years, over a decade?
(From The Ink)
Thank you Marge!🗽
The Ink?
Thank you Marge.
When you throw words like “elite” around, You demonstrate a certain contempt. Someone recently said the word “woke“ to me and I pretended I didn’t understand what it meant and asked her. She was stymied. I remember a time when being elite at anything was an aspiration, not an insult.
Elite nowadays, Beyhan, means college educated.
Barbara, please let Phil vent. We all need to express and hear both sides. Let us have our grief and anger without shaming us, because many of us are still processing and we need this outlet.
My dear. I never said Phil could not vent. Please read my comment on this being a place where people could indeed vent.
Phil Balla, yes we lost a battle. But the war or struggle for justice and equality is never lost. There are no permanent victories or defeats in this permanent struggle. If Harris won, do you think the struggle would be over? Of course not. There is another battle or midterm election in 2 years, there are court cases to be waged before then. https://jimbuie.substack.com/p/why-did-democratic-senate-candidates
Elections are won and lost, every round. Phil's battle about the humanities likely misses most of the point. You can't run modern civilization without highly developed institutions - economic, medical, technical in so many ways, science itself is beholden to elite developed and maintained knowledge. You need an education system which meets all those needs. No disagreement from me that the humanities are important.
Frank. Trying to win any battle other than saving Democracy in the United States is window dressing. It is akin to George Washington stopping to paint the bow of his boat as he was crossing the Delaware.
Thank you for staying hopeful, this is what we need more than ever. Having a goal is very important!
Yes, we did lose Phil.
If you listen to David Packman or BrianTyler Cohen talk about the disastrous impending tariffs and trade wars with Mexico and Canada, which violate Trump's own new NAFTA agreement you can see there is definitely an economic WAR that is coming and it ain't gonna be pretty.
Of course, Trump will say that the resulting inflation is due to the Democrats policies which of course is just another massive lie.
Trump's entire philosophy is "if it helps make me wealthier, it is good for the country." He now has cover for anything he does from SCOTUS.
The result is that we will return to being a kakistocracy and a kleptocracy where the billionaire class will ultimately be the sole winners but Trump will spin in to have Americans believe that it is the Democrats fault.
Rupert is the spinner, chump is the spinee
You mean all those Americans who heard exactly those warnings about the inflationary effect of large tariffs from Dems and every business broadcast out there are going to think Dems caused that?
Probably Frank. They will believe whatever Trump and his media tell them.
the Trumpy side of the electorate that is.... of course, we are in many ways all beholden to our media "choices", aren't we, Helen?
"If you listen to David Packman or Brian Tyler Cohen talk about the disastrous impending tariffs..."
Welp. That is the first issue. We have the option of not listening to fear mongering.
I agree with this. I think we have seen the end of our democracy. I want to remind us all that a large group of religious zealots are also going to dominate our country in an organized way with Project 2025. It is they who will help fire the civil servants and roll back rights and protections for the oligarchs. During the Civil War we did not have that one-two-punch. We were fighting enslavers but not evangelical and Catholic extremists as we are now. When Roe was overturned it brought slavery back to the U.S. This time it is our childbearing women who are now enslaved on “moral” grounds—god deemed it, right? We cannot lose sight of this change which I believe will become permanent and nationwide once DJT is in the WH. This state’s rights b.s. was just a temporary thing. When Roe was overturned it was over. And women all over this country gave up their freedoms for good (or many decades at least) when they voted for DJT. Foolish. It is over I agree.
https://joycevance.substack.com/p/not-broken#:~:text=Upgrade%20to%20paid-,Not%20Broken,-JOYCE%20VANCE
Thank you, Barbara 🗽!
Trump is accountable to people who care most about money and return on investment. Mass deportations and tariffs will not be good for their pocketbooks. They will love tax cuts in the short term but the inflation caused by disregarding the exploding deficit will not make people happy. They want lower taxes and expanded benefits.
Never, Phil. I will never admit defeat. We lost a battle, not the war, which has been between idealists who wanted a more optimal form of human self governance vs. those who only look out for themselves and maybe their tribe, who see outsiders as less than human.
Human nature has not changed, and majority of people are basically good. One or two more election cycles, and the pendulum will swing back. For all the coming losses of progress and rights, they won't go as far back as the 1920s, so we'll be at least that much better starting at the next swing.
Me personally, I'm waiting for the extremes on both sides to fall back out of favor, because they pull the pendulum too far, and kick the current set of losers when they're down. They are the ugly underbelly of each party.
You keep writing about the humanities, as if they're part of the solution. I suspect they are important, but really more of a symptom of society's condition than a core feature. Their reduction over the years has been a symptom, not a cause, of society's drift. Their future growth will be a future symptom of society getting back on track.
Solution, Je?
Just listening to "others." Conversing, openly, generously.
This may well involve citing others, in humanities or by other analogies.
Yes, Phil. And I'm sure more. I don't have an answer yet, but listening to others, reading, and assessing what I got wrong is a good place to start. What I'm not listening to is the collection of continuing tirades about Trump, which miss the collection of issues that caused enough people to vote against their own interests.
Well, maybe that's a good place to start. Who am I to tell others what's in their best interests?
Being on the losing side, I'll listen and keep my wits and "weapons" sharp, and hope I stay healthy enough to eventually be on the prevailing side.
I feel your sorrow, Phil. Things do look bleak at the moment. What is most disappointing is all those millions, who after seeing the Orange Sphincter make a mockery of American democracy for nine years, said, “I’m with him.”
I sense that there’s something out there, something not yet seen, that will be a seismic event. Covid was a harbinger, imagine the current assembled assortment of clowns facing a future existential crisis that appears.
Their complete lack of empathy and compassion, coupled with their incompetence will turn the electorate against them. After all, the price of eggs became a MAGA rally cry against Biden. It won’t take much “suffering” to make them turn on the felon.
Speaking of that hypothetical event, I just looked at my stocks, and they rose after the 2008 banking crisis and then zoomed up after the pandemic. Is that the plan? I don't have enough to be life-altering, but I wonder. To put the best face on it, Trump's cronies will get a heads up before market altering moves. Once they get theirs (their weslth to dlyrocket as in The Big Short), they might not care if the pendulum swings back left. All we have to do is wait and pick up the crumbs after 4 years.