The Democratic Party in 2017

Bernie
 

What part of this arithmetic do the Democrats not comprehend?

Seats in the Senate
48 / 100

 
Seats in the House
186 / 435

 
Governorships
18 / 50

 
State Upper House Seats
836 / 1,972

 
State Lower House Seats
2,344 / 5,411

 
Territorial Governorships
2 / 6

 
Territorial Upper Chamber Seats
31 / 97

 
Territorial Lower Chamber Seats
0 / 91

 

 The Republicans have 51 seats in the US Senate.  After a run-off on December 11 they will, IMO, have 52 seats. The advantages in state governments grows steadily.  The disadvantage carried by the Democrats as coastal city dwellers operating within the federal republic created by the agreement among the states that is the US Constitution cannot be overestimated.

That is why they lost the latest elections and are likely to continue to lose elections across the board until they reconcile themselves to the idea that the multi-culty beliefs of their Obama style gurus will not bring them power on a regular basis.

Perhaps they need a different country.   pl  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)

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127 Responses to The Democratic Party in 2017

  1. walrus says:

    Safe spaces and group hugs are the likely responses. I particularly liked the allegation that a challenge to Nancy Pelosi is “sexist”. Says it all, really……
    http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/264852/sexist-democrats-turn-pelosi-daniel-greenfield

  2. kao_hsien_chih says:

    I think a fundamental problem that Democrats have is that they misread Obama’s winning coalitions in 2008 and 2012. In both coalitions, white working class in the Midwest provided a significant minority of his voters. (and this is a big reason why polls were wrong–especially in retrospect–in 2012. Obama beat the polls by as much as Trump did in 2016, possibly because of the very same voters.) They wanted Obama to be a “pure” multicultural, “progressive” hero, so they ignored how he maintained at least some appeal to the old Democratic Party voters. Without that appeal, Democrats keep losing, losing, and losing, except in the multicultural niches. The trouble with the Democrats is that they are not diverse enough–at least, they lack the right kind of diversity.

  3. GulfCoastPirate says:

    So the coastal city dwellers who pay the majority of the bills are supposed to plead with the folks in the middle areas to please come into the 21st century? Or should we just allow ourselves to be swept downwards into their poverty and we can all live in their version of 18th century poverty forevermore? What, exactly, is it you think the Democrats should do?
    They need a different country? What would the rest of the country look like without their subsidies? Bolivia? Poland? Thailand? Is that what you want?

  4. turcopolier says:

    GCP
    I have seen your argument before and understand it. Your problem is that you are powerless to change the structure of the Republic and therefore are at the mercy of the Deplorable ruffians. Your only hope is to change the mind of the aforementioned Deplorables and therefore you will have to suck up to them, something you do not wish to do. pl

  5. Cortes says:

    The tactic for success in the Rainbow World ((C) moi) will be to migrate right-thinkers into the heartlands to sway the vote.
    Said as someone who observes the same process in the U.K.: gales of “inblown” voters from more populous areas to make a difference.

  6. shaun says:

    All will be well since Trump will return to torture. Its us Lefties that are confused.

  7. kao_hsien_chih says:

    That line of argument sounds like the old stereotype of the upscale Republican: money overshadows all things and entitles those who have it to dictate to all. I thought we left it behind in 1930s. People as diverse as Bismarck and FDR saw that, for sake of social stability, a bit of redistribution paired with compromise, even if they might seem shady and unprincipled, are necessary. I’m finding it strange that I am saying this to someone who is supposed to be a liberal Democrat.

  8. turcopolier says:

    shaun
    (irony) Not to worry, there will be room enough in the camps for you all. pl

  9. turcopolier says:

    shaun, GCP Are you listening to this comment of Cortes? Good advice! This could be something like sending free soilers into Kansas in the 1850s. That worked out well.
    shaun. I heard the ex-American Israeli ambassador Dermer praise Trump and Bannon today. How could he do that? Bernie and Pelosi say they will work with Trump on issues of common concern. How can they do that? pl

  10. Tyler says:

    The attempt of the Dems to import a new people is quickly looking like its going to be blown apart.
    In the spirit of Napoleon’s “Never interupt an enemy when they are making a mistake” I recommend the Dems double down on blaming everyone but themselves and continue to insist everyone who doesn’t agree with them is a Deploreable.
    You’ll shame those voters into pulling the lever for you any time now.

  11. Tyler says:

    GCP,
    You should probably look up who is using what at higher per capita rates, my friend.

  12. Sam Peralta says:

    GCP
    But…the MMT folks will be here soon to tell you that the coastals are suckers. They don’t need to pay any taxes or foot any bills. Didn’t you know that government creates standard of living magic by printing infinite amounts of currency?

  13. eakens says:

    Why do the coastal city dwellers pay a majority of the bills? Is it their intelligence, or their ignorance?

  14. Lemur says:

    My understanding was that a lot of these subsidies went to support vital sectors of self sufficiency – like agriculture.

  15. Fred says:

    GCP,
    “What, exactly, is it you think the Democrats should do?”
    I would recommend not doubling down on condemnation and contempt.

  16. Cold War Zoomie says:

    Below is my election analysis I posted here back in September before changing my mind based on “the data” and joining the DC groupthink club…
    “Trump will win because:
    1. The Democrats under Bill Clinton abandoned the blue collar middle class workers, signing NAFTA and falling in love with Wall Street and “triangulating” for short-term political gain. Meanwhile…
    2. Young voters and left leaning Liberals who were part of the Obama coalition got a middle-of-the-road northingburger president who’s biggest accomplishment is a Rube Goldberg contraption called the ACA that will likely implode, and nothing much more. Meanwhile…
    3. The Democratic Machine pushed across the primary finish line the absolute worst candidate imaginable. Meanwhile…
    4. Trump’s supporters will crawl over hot coals to vote for him. No amount of “gaffs” and inside-the-DC-bubble analysis by TV talking heads is going to change that. Meanwhile…
    5. Hillary will be over-rehearsed and a cut-out caricature of the consummate DC insider during the debates. And it will be all over at that point.
    To paraphrase a line from 1994: It’s the enthusiasm gap, stupid!
    The House will stay Republican, as well as the Senate. But the Senate will be a squeaker with 51R to 49D. Pundits won’t understand how Trump became president or why the GOP did not implode as predicted because they’re too far gone inside Beltway groupthink.”
    I should have stopped while I was ahead. Number 5 was a bit off – she did better than I expected. But all the other problems still remain for Democrats. Howard Dean recommended a 50-state strategy over a decade ago to combat the consistent erosion at the state level like we see today. He was ignored in DC. The “economic anxiety” that supposedly was a driving force for Trump supporters is directly related to Clinton’s policies. Hillary never bothered to address that. She hardly visited the Rust Belt.
    Democrats need to stop focusing on the presidential elections and more on rebuilding a party that represents all working classes. They abandoned their core constituency in the 1990s to be “Republican Light.” And this is where that got them.

  17. Clueless Joe says:

    Ironically, it’s the Liberal flight from red country to the progressive coasts that is worsening the situation.
    If Dem voters had stayed in their fly-over states for the last 15 years, odds are that Clinton would be president-elect, considering it’s merely a few tens of thousands of voters in a handful of States that shifted the (quite sizable, unlike 2000 debacle) majority to Trump.
    As the Colonel said, with the majority of Congress and, more importantly, States, specially less populous ones, in the hands of the GOP, things won’t improve much for the Democrats, specially any hope of “fixing” the Electoral College, which would require majority of the Sates to approve.
    At this point, Dems either should stay in swing States until they’re sure they can be a majority, or they should hope that Texas (and optionally Florida) will eventually turn blue due to immigration and liberals moving in its cities – though this might depress even more the Democrats’ position in swing states.

  18. Fred says:

    Cortes,
    You mean empty the pubic housing projects by using section 8 housing vouchers in the bedroom communities and ex-urbs? That does help empty said housing projects which can then be sold off to the lowest bidder for redevelopment – along with massive tax exemptions for connected Oligarchs – to create such things as hockey rinks and basketball arenas? See Baltimore and Detroit as examples. It also shifts the crime problem out of the inner city too and allows the Feds to use the DOJ to take ever more control of local police forces when the inevitable abuse of those whose lives matter are unjustly injured in the commission of a crime peaceful activities they were engaged in. Of course the results of the latest election kind of put a damper on all that. I can’t wait to see Trump direct an audit of section 8 voucher program recipients.

  19. Sam Peralta says:

    Recommend President-elect Trump’s message to Americans.
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-21/trump-says-he-will-issue-executive-order-first-day-office-withdrawing-us-tpp
    Let’s hope he resonates with his discussion with Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard this morning and nominates her to his foreign affairs team.
    http://gabbard.house.gov/index.php/press-releases/655-gabbard-statement-on-meeting-with-president-elect-donald-trump

  20. Mark Logan says:

    I suspect they need a clue myself, but nothing can deliver a hint better than a good butt-kicking can.
    They are already starting to wonder if maybe they missed something. Here’s a snip from the NYT openly pondering what was very recently imponderable:
    http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/the-end-of-identity-liberalism.html?_r=0
    “In recent years American liberalism has slipped into a kind of moral panic about racial, gender and sexual identity that has distorted liberalism’s message and prevented it from becoming a unifying force capable of governing.”
    May both parties discover that “man does not live by identity politics alone” and the sooner the better.

  21. Hood Canal Gardner says:

    I caught Obama from Peru last night. Rather subdued. I’m wondering about his pretty consistent ‘let Trump have some space/time to get up and running’ advice to all. And, that if he’s a trouble maker “I’ll speak out.” IMO here’s a fair chance if he does get after Trump’s actions say 90-120 days out/early summer, someone from the Alt Right/KKK will pop him and the “game’s on.” Just what the Deep Pockets here and abroad have in mind is beyond me. It’s beginning to sound/read like they want a Beirut or two or three here.
    When Trump shouts “drain the swamp” and his supporters repeat/shout “drain the swamp” what they don’t understand (IMO) is that they are “they are the swamp.” Trump is talking about them: the cockroach poor, the congenitally unemployed, the homeless, sick, social security leaches..he’s 110% for “braceros” that show up on his call/go home on command. Hello: Trump is not talking about the 1%/his and their WDC minions.
    Come on/get real.. “That’s All Folks.”

  22. mike allen says:

    “Perhaps they need a different country.”
    Sorry Colonel, you won’t get rid of me that easy. But perhaps I’ll take Cortez’ advice. SWMBO’s doctor wants her to move to a dryer climate so perhaps I’ll move to Tyler’s fair state and help turn AZ blue.

  23. Swamp Yankee says:

    Colonel,
    Still feeling the Bern here in SE Mass. I believe Bernie’s answer — focus on uniting the have-nots in this society, across every color and creed, as Roosevelt and Truman did — is the correct one. He will now face holy hell from the corporate capitalist/identity politics wing of the party.
    Let me say that I don’t consider myself a liberal as the term is presently understood; I’m an Old Democrat of the Party of Roosevelt, Truman, Jackson, Jefferson. I live in a permanently red section of one of the bluest states. So I often find myself talking across big cultural and political differences. I am in networks with a number of modern liberals, and they have not yet begun to absorb their defeat. I know people from literally the wealthiest ZIP Codes in the country who, when presented with the real material grievances of their fellow citizens, wave it away as imagined, like some Dickensian caricature of an upper class twit, kicking the poor. Indeed, their constant game is to “kick the hick”; they are then surprised when the country people kick right back. You can’t build a culture of total contempt and sneering at your fellow citizens and not see electoral results of that attitude. Their conduct is infuriating, and they show no signs of learning that, in the final analysis, if you build an economy that leaves most of the country behind, people will punish you at the ballot box. It’s as simple as that. People know when their kids are dying of heroin, or they find themselves living in the woods, and no amount of propaganda from the worthies at MSNBC can convince them, with Doctor Pangloss, that it really is “the best of all possible worlds.”
    But most of these liberals are very well-off and have no idea what it is to be hungry. I think they are about to come to an increasingly difficult reckoning with material reality. They may have more defeats in them yet.
    Meanwhile, I keep talking with my friends and neighbors, many of whom were for Trump, many for Clinton, and many of whom didn’t vote, and agree or disagree, but go on about life as people do. The clam diggers are still out there at low tide, and their backs still get sore. The metropolitan elites really do live in a different universe.

  24. Babak Makkinejad says:

    Do the Lefty people, as you call them, in the United States advocate further devolution of power to the states within the Federal structures of the United States?
    In other words, do they stand for the expansion of the power of the states – in contradistinction to the power of the Federal one?
    Do you know?

  25. Lemur says:

    But you see they HAVE to reject catering to white working class voters because they’re so deeply mired in left wing identity politics. Now they’ve imported the legions of the global south, they’ve gotta stick with the patron-client electoral model that plagues countries like Brazil. Problem is, the colours of the Rainbow Coalition start to clash with one another after the vibrancy crosses a certain threshold.
    By contrast, all the GOP has to do now Trump has showed them the way is unify the white vote across all classes, and depress black and Hispanic turnout through propaganda campaigns designed to discredit dems. We’re seeing increasing homogeneity on the right wing, while Team Diversity Is Are Greatest Strength breaches the event horizon of irreconcilable tribal interests among their constituents. Looks like under Bannon’s reform capitalism we’re also going to integrate the non-retarded anti-globalist leftist elements like Tulsi Garbbard fans and reasonable Berners into the nationalist coalition. We’ve stolen a march on the left they’ll never recover from.
    Furthermore, if you examine post-election behavour of the losing party in the US, you generally see a doubling down on the losing policies and attitudes. The discredited leaders are dethroned by the grassroots blaming insufficient ideological purity for the defeat. Just look at that vibrant they’re now promoting for senate leader or something. Steeped in third-worldist anti-white thinking.
    Hence why Trump will win in 2020. Not to mention he’s the Hegelian man of the zeitgeist.

  26. Valissa says:

    Some interesting articles on the tough shape the national Dem power structure is in right now…
    Chris Cillizza from WP… The next generation of Democratic leaders is, um, nonexistent https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/16/the-next-generation-of-democratic-leaders-is-um-nonexistent/
    On the nitty gritty issues of power in the House… The Daily 202: Generational divide fuels nascent Democratic revolt in House https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/11/16/daily-202-generational-divide-fuels-nascent-democratic-revolt-in-house/582bb5f3e9b69b6085905df4/
    More on the lack of up and coming Democrats here (not a deep bench, barely a stool)…
    Hillary Clinton wasn’t the only big election loser http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-hillary-clinton-obama-lost-election-20161115-story.html
    Democrats basically have no minor leagues to develop experienced, savvy top-tier candidates at state levels. Starting with the anti-Obama tide of 2010, Republicans have built a stranglehold on state legislatures and governors’ offices. They now control 33 governorships to Democrats’ 15. The GOP will control 69 of the country’s 99 state legislative chambers, including every one across the South. They will control both legislative chambers and the governorships — the so-called trifecta — in 25 states. Democrats will have trifectas in only six states. That not only drives the Republican Party’s conservative agenda but grants priceless experience and name recognition to future rising stars. In the Nov. 8 election, the GOP captured blue-collar workers, once a key Democratic component.
    ————-

  27. TonyL says:

    Col,
    Great advice. If I were running the Democratic Party, that would be my goal, and sucking up to our brothers/sisters is a right way to persuade them. I am independent so it is a dontcare to me if they keep sucking up to the Borgs.

  28. kao_hsien_chih says:

    They are part of the “stability” I’m talking about. A lot of things that are kept artificially inexpensive (like food) may not add much “monetary value” (b/c they are kept inexpensive, duh!) but are indispensable for a peaceable society. The citizens of Paris and Cairo (in different centuries) rose up in revolt when grain was no longer subsidized (enough).

  29. kao_hsien_chih says:

    Yeah. Many of us who think we pay attention to “data” and “analysis” fell for that. We couldn’t say that all the number crunchers are “wrong” categorically, just that “we think you’re off here and there.” and hedge the bet by saying 1/3 chance that Trump will win or some other ass pull (guilty myself). Sometimes, going all in on the gut feeling, especially when backed up by data-inspired suspicions, may not be a bad thing.

  30. Lemur says:

    But immigration will be tightly restricted by Trump. A lot of these votes cast for Clinton aren’t ‘real’ because they’re from Hart Celler “Americans”. California would be reliably red if the US hadn’t started accepting non European immigration.
    Your point liberals are emptying out of swing states for extant liberal population concentrations is an astute observation. As the values of the country continue to diverge (gotta thank Soros for his help in polarization), we should see more of this self-segregation. We’ll bail up those who want to demographically replace the Historic American Nation in their multiculti coastal utopias that offer no path to translating increased population into electoral seats.
    When did everything start going so right for the right? These are halcyon days.

  31. Valissa says:

    GCP, your comment is a perfect example of liberal arrogance and disdain… and a great example of why the Democratic party lost the presidential election to the “boorish” (because he directly and purposefully challenged your notions of political correctness) Trump.
    How the Left Created Trump – Nov. 8 represented an explosion of anger on the right at years of smugness and disdain by liberals. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/how-the-left-created-donald-trump-214472
    Well before Donald Trump declared he was running—to the amusement of the liberal media and Washington establishment, who didn’t stop laughing until Nov. 8—and long before Hillary Clinton dismissed half of Trump’s supporters as “deplorables,” the right had gotten used to being looked down upon by liberals. The general attitude of the left was: Disagree with us? You’re probably racist, xenophobic, sexist, bigoted or all of the above. Indeed, for many liberal Americans, these prejudices have come to be seen as inseparable from identity of the Republican Party itself. And when the GOP went all-out Trump, it only confirmed to many liberals that their ideological opponents were no longer worthy of respect. …
    Trump’s rise to power evolved out of this frustration, as Clinton’s campaign increasingly became an extension of liberal America’s smug-style of debate—an attitude that no longer disputed on grounds of policy or intellectual differences, but on the issue of the integrity of the right altogether. …
    Herein lies the problem with the left’s “by any means necessary” style of social activism: When any challenge to the prevailing liberal doctrine, cast under the wrong light, can forever cast one as a “racist,” those with dissenting opinions are left with only two options: concede, or retaliate. Trump appealed to the latter by forming the populist right-wing counterpart to the left’s stubborn ethos.
    ———–
    From NYTimes columnist Nicholas Kristof earlier this year…
    A Confession of Liberal Intolerance http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confession-of-liberal-intolerance.html

  32. Thomas101st says:

    @ Gulf Coast Pirate:
    Give me a break. The economy of the east coast of the US is based on the Federal Government and Wall Street, both parasitic institutions which get their money skimming off the productive people of the country. The money the east coasters pay in taxes comes from money they obtain from flyover country. The west coast isn’t much better with its’ economy based on toys produced in Silicon Valley.
    The heartland would do quite well without what is produced by the coastal areas (e.g. ETFs and video games). I don’t think the effete urbanites of the coastal areas would fare well without that produced in the heartland (e.g. food and energy).

  33. kao_hsien_chih says:

    I thought about a different group of settlers–in the West Bank. It is one thing to try hard to assimilate to the local culture (and that is not easy to pull off). Forcibly trying to assimilate the locals to the “superior” culture or putting up barriers and live in a world cut off from the locals both strike me as recipes for disaster.

  34. BillWade says:

    GCP, Thailand is approaching 1st world status now, like us – they import workers, mainly from Burma and Cambodia to do the jobs that Thais never really liked doing.
    What can the Dems do:
    Try to find some jobs for inner-city young African Americans, a lot smarter than giving them a cell phone.
    Stop promoting “Gay Culture” so heavily, people that don’t like it notice and then like it even less so.
    Peace, not war works better for us deplorables who pretty much staff the military.
    Don’t make people like me lose just shy of 10% of their fixed income over a period of 8 years (the last 8, that is).
    Don’t call us racists for voting for Trump, a lot of us voted twice for Obama.
    Tell your buddies in the MSM to stop marginalizing good people like Ron Paul. Dems need to understand, the more you marginalize people, the more we start to like them. Witness President elect Trump.
    Don’t let people like Hillary Clinton tell young heavy debtors that she’ll get their student loans off the books, laughing here as she must have been when she told that big lie.
    We may live in the sticks but we’re also often near borders, we WANT them secure.
    A lot of “deplorable” have served in the military in real 3rd world countries, we DO NOT want to be 3rd worlders.
    I could go on…

  35. steve says:

    The GOP has controlled public office, except for POTUS, for several years now. They will need to actually produce the jobs, and jobs with good wages they have been promising, and do it soon. If they can’t, the Dems will return to power. Since I don’t really see the Dems offering much right now, that is the only path back to power I see. Fortunately for them, I don’t see much chance of the GOP formulating cogent plans.
    Steve

  36. Valissa says:

    A friend who is too busy with her career and family obligations to do her own political research and typically asks me to answer her key questions recently asked me what the real scoop is on Steve Bannon. Though a loyal Democrat she is beginning to suspect that the MSM throwing the racist label around so much, and having such an over-the-top hissy fit about him, might be more propaganda than truth.
    So I sent her the following articles on Bannon…
    Ringside With Steve Bannon at Trump Tower as the President-Elect’s Strategist Plots “An Entirely New Political Movement” http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/steve-bannon-trump-tower-interview-trumps-strategist-plots-new-political-movement-948747
    What he seems to have carried from a boyhood in a blue-collar, union and Democratic family in Norfolk, Va., and through his tour of the American establishment, is an unreconstructed sense of class awareness, or bitterness — or betrayal. The Democratic Party betrayed its working-man roots, just as Hillary Clinton betrayed the longtime Clinton connection — Bill Clinton’s connection — to the working man. “The Clinton strength,” he says, “was to play to people without a college education. High school people. That’s how you win elections.” And, likewise, the Republican party would come to betray its working-man constituency forged under Reagan. In sum, the working man was betrayed by the establishment, or what he dismisses as the “donor class.”
    To say that he sees this donor class — which in his telling is also “ascendant America,” e.g. the elites, as well as “the metrosexual bubble” that encompasses cosmopolitan sensibilities to be found as far and wide as Shanghai, London’s Chelsea, Hollywood and the Upper West Side — as a world apart, is an understatement. In his view, there’s hardly a connection between this world and its opposite — fly-over America, left-behind America, downwardly mobile America — hardly a common language. This is partly why he regards the liberal characterization of himself as socially vile, as the politically incorrect devil incarnate, as laughable — and why he is stoutly unapologetic. They — liberals and media — don’t understand what he is saying, or why, or to whom. …
    And this, in the Bannon view, is all part of the profound misunderstanding that led liberals to believe that Donald Trump’s mouth would doom him, instead of elect him. …
    Bannon, arguably, is one of the people most at the battle line of the great American divide — and one of the people to have most clearly seen it.
    He absolutely — mockingly — rejects the idea that this is a racial line. “I’m not a white nationalist, I’m a nationalist. I’m an economic nationalist,” he tells me. “The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f—ed over. If we deliver” — by “we” he means the Trump White House — “we’ll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we’ll govern for 50 years. That’s what the Democrats missed.
    —————-
    For Trump adviser Stephen Bannon, fiery populism followed life in elite circles https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-trump-adviser-stephen-bannon-fiery-populism-followed-life-in-elite-circles/2016/11/19/de91ef40-ac57-11e6-977a-1030f822fc35_story.html

  37. GulfCoastPirate says:

    kao_hsien_chih wrote:
    ‘People as diverse as Bismarck and FDR saw that, for sake of social stability, a bit of redistribution paired with compromise, even if they might seem shady and unprincipled, are necessary.’
    With all due respect you didn’t answer my question. Exactly what compromises do you think should be made? There is already a good deal of redistribution which is keeping many of those people afloat. How much more do you want and do you think Trump and the Republicans are going to give it to them? Ryan is already talking about privatizing their Medicare. Do you think that is what they voted for with Trump?
    You can’t simply criticize me for asking questions. You have to have some answers.

  38. GulfCoastPirate says:

    Tyler wrote:
    ‘You should probably look up who is using what at higher per capita rates, my friend.’
    Be specific if you don’t mind.

  39. GulfCoastPirate says:

    turcopolier wrote:
    ‘Your problem is that you are powerless to change the structure of the Republic and therefore are at the mercy of the Deplorable ruffians.’
    I can’t say I disagree with this.
    ‘Your only hope is to change the mind of the aforementioned Deplorables and therefore you will have to suck up to them, something you do not wish to do.’
    Is that what history teaches us? Or does it teach us that the country will eventually decline to the level of the ‘deplorables’ (your word, not mine)?

  40. turcopolier says:

    mike allen
    I don’t want you to go anywhere. As a Lefty Marine you are an important boutique constituency. Hell, my Dear old Dad was a Wobbly as a sergeant in the cavalry. You know, with horses? pl

  41. Origin says:

    My thought is it will only take an election cycle or so for Trump to convince the Deplorables they have been had. The already steep Gini coefficient will grow greatly in the next few years. Here is a start at it. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/opinion/build-he-wont.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region
    Trump says he is going to cut the number of government employees who have cushy jobs and he will succeed. What this really means is that he is going to shift governmental tasks away from the public sector to employ more contractors. It adds the overhead and profit of the contracting companies to jobs now done with no profit. The work has to be done and a larger share of the benefit of that work will go to the few. Trump will get his wish based upon his observation that American wages are too high. Wages will fall, not grow. Jobs will migrate to the robots run by the coastals in cities far from the heartland or from foreign shores.
    Give it some time. The Deplorables will eventually wake up, but it may be too late for them. In the interim, the Deplorables will be entertained with fake issues to distract them from seeing how they are being had as they succumb to works of the shills and the false ideas of identity politics and triumphantism at “beating” the coastals.
    In the meantime, China will suck up the Pacific rim prosperity as the US loses its control over the basics of world trade. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2048008/stalled-us-led-trans-pacific-pact-puts-china-free-trade
    Were I the Chinese Premier, I would be courting Mexico and offering unlimited financing so that Mexico could suck the heart out of General Motors and move it all to Mexico. Japan, Australia, New Zeland, South Korea and the other southeast Asian are already negotiating a trade deal that puts China at its lead.
    As long as the Deplorables reject globalization, the US will more quickly lose its standing in the world. The price of socks at Wal-Mart will increase. Those in the rust belt will have to move or eat more beans and rice.
    Europe will grow again and gain its real independence as it is finally forced to stand up on its own without US. It will integrate more closely with Russia, leaving the US with less and less influence on the continent. With visions of the US being badly run by the Trumpists, the EU may not Brexit and if they do, they will remain in the sphere of the EU. As soon as Russia reconciles with the EU, NATO and all of our glorious arms sales contracts with Europe will vanish from our shores. We may even be looking at an European Asian Union soon with free trade, but limited migration.
    By refusing the trade packs, the US is ending its dominance and the oligarchs will take our money and move to wherever is most fun. Perhaps, the government will issue the Deplorables UHaul-2-the-Coast internal visas so they can get the boring manufacturing jobs on the coasts the robots have not yet learned to do.
    One thing is sure, the Deplorables lost not only the election, but probably the nation’s premier place in the world. The Republicans, unhindered by visionaries like Obama, are about to tear apart the interests of the Deplorables in a real feeding frenzy for the rich. Our country will never be as good again.
    Thanks Tyler.

  42. Larry Kart says:

    Pardon me if this has been posted before, but this is from the the late philosopher Richard Rorty’s 1998 book “Achieving Our Country”:
    “[M]embers 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. …
    “One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past 40 years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. … All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet….
    “The cultural Left has a vision of an America in which the white patriarchs have stopped voting and have left all the voting to be done by members of previously victimized groups. This Left wants to preserve otherness rather than ignore it….
    “This world economy will soon be owned by a cosmopolitan upper class which has no more sense of community with any workers anywhere than the great American capitalists of the year 1900.”
    “[Though we intellectuals] ourselves [are] quite well insulated, at least in the short run, from the effects of globalization, outside the academy, Americans still want to feel patriotic. They still want to feel part of a nation which can take control of its destiny and make itself a better place.”

  43. Valissa says:

    “he’s the Hegelian man of the zeitgeist”
    Brilliant! That really says it all… puts to words my intuitive sense of his historical importance (what some might call destiny or fate or wyrd). I had the thought a few months ago that Trump reminded me of the character of The Mule in The Foundation Trilogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_series I always knew he would win because it was his time… all the signs and portents were there 😉
    Eric Idle is the Hegelian Bruce here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_WRFJwGsbY

  44. kao_hsien_chih says:

    First, I don’t do advocacy as a principle, so here’s what I think is unfolding.
    There are two possible, mutually exclusive paths forward for the Democrats. This was already the difference between Sanders and Clinton, and is captured by the following quote (paraphrased) from Chuck Schumer: “for every vote from the working class going to Trump, we (the Democrats) will get two votes from suburban Republicans.”
    This did not work enough for HRC in this election, but the trends are telling: HRC gained significantly among the wealthiest bloc of voters (among 100k+)–in fact, I believe this was the only block where she gained voters relative to Obama in 2012 on natinoal scale. Many of these gains were in the currently or recently Republican states–Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, to the degree that the first two are actually fairly competitive. She also gained among the highest income blocs in the very Democratic states–California, Massachusetts, New York, and I believe Connecticut. In contrast, Trump gained not only in the Midwest, but also throughout the East–enough that Democratic voteshares in Connecticut and New Jersey were halved. Some states moved in both directions–Staten Island vs. Manhattan, for example. The blue vs. red state is yesterday’s politics. It’s increasingly the divisions within the same states, or even cities–Manhattan vs. Staten Island. Bakersfield vs. San Francisco. West Texas vs. Dallas/Houston/Austin (Dallas, if the trend continues, will be a Democratic city within a decade).
    The big picture is really this: the Democrats, through Hillary Clinton, is trying very hard to become the party of the rich, of the Manhattanites, and succeeding; the Republicans, being dragged kicking and screaming by Trump, is becoming the party of the middle class and below, of the State Islanders, and again is succeeding, at least for now. And this is taking place within EVERY FREAKING state. So we are not talking about NY subsidizing KS. You are really saying that Manhattan should not put up with Queens. I can’t really answer your question, in part because I don’t know if there is an answer to your question. Does Manhattan need Staten Island? Will it affect San Francisco if everything to the east of Berkley disappeared? I actually don’t think it’ll affect them much. Maybe some Uber drivers will be gone, but they were due to be replaced by driverless cars anyways. To the 1%, 99% of humanity, quite frankly, is irrelevant, whether they die or live.
    Maybe the 99% will rise up and try to overthrow the 1% maybe whatever means they have. Maybe they’ll succeed, but I’ll imagine that they’ll be more likely shot down by the machines controlled through SkyNet or something. And the truth is, who knows? maybe in a few decades, the 1% can simply declare the rest of humanity obsolete and decide to eradicate us all as vermin. Is this overblown? I actually hear some Silicon Valley types joke about scenarios like this. That gives me chills.

  45. kao_hsien_chih says:

    I think somewhat less rambly way of addressing your question is the following:
    Essentially, you are asking whether George Bailey is worth more dead or alive.
    “Facts and figures” say that Bailey is worth more dead than alive. I don’t think I can dispute that unless I twist the facts and figures.
    I also think these “facts and figures” are the right metric for addressing the larger unstated question(s) behind the values question.
    You might ask–I bring this up because I thought about this myself–whether the same rationale might justify us taking in refugees and illegal migrants and other ills of the world. If the Manhattanites don’t think they should “subsidize” Staten Islanders, why should they? I think that is fundamentally a good question. If the Manhattanites don’t think Staten Islanders are the same people as they are, maybe they shouldn’t be in the same city, or the same country, and maybe they are better without each other.

  46. Jack says:

    All
    The last time the GOP cavalry rode in with a POTUS, Field Marshall Rove told us that history is bunk as they create history. And while we analyze, they will be creating new history. We saw how that turned out. That created the opening for Mr. Hope & Change. Only many were left with only change. Now, we have someone that is only nominally partisan. Let’s see how that turns out and the results of the 2018 elections.
    In a duopoly political power is cyclical. Not too long ago the Democrats owned the south, just as the Republicans had strength in California. Now things are changed. IMO, political parties are not conducive to maintaining a republic. And especially when it is a duopoly. Party always comes before nation.
    I favor the repeal of the 17th amendment and return to the principle that we are a union of states. I also favor the drastic reduction in the size and scope of the federal government. I will be quite happy if the federal role was limited to defense, interstate matters including infrastructure, national law enforcement and treasury. And of course the setting of common standards and managing relationships with other nations. I also dont see any reason why entitlement programs can’t be devolved to the states. In concert with this devolution of power to the states, I would favor the devolution of political power from state capitals to counties. IMO, counties should be chartered with the primary provision of government services to citizens. I favor decentralization as the central principle of our political organization.

  47. JohnsonR says:

    Your problem is that you are powerless to change the structure of the Republic and therefore are at the mercy of the Deplorable ruffians.
    But if they can’t change the structure of the Republic, they do have the power to irrevocably change the people of the United States, by mass immigration of third worlders with overriding race and cultural concerns to which they can pander.
    This is the Democrat “dissolve the people and elect a new one” strategy the GOP elites have been trying to collaborate in for years, until they were blown away by Trump. Remains to be seen whether the Trump victory is just a blip in the inevitable demographic triumph long predicted by Democrat strategists and GOP establishment collaborators like the Bush dynasty, or a permanent halt.

  48. Pitch Pole says:

    We most likely wouldn’t be having these arguments if the democrats had run anyone else. It was a demonstration of their complete blind arrogance, hubris and self dealing when they nominated HRC. Could there be a more perfect example the disconnect of the borg from the great unwashed? She couldn’t visit the rust belt states – her schedule was full with $100k a plate dinners in every moneyed enclave across the country. If someone else had run – Biden, maybe Bernie – we’d still be talking about the end of the Republican party.
    Those crowing about the election should remember the truism “beware of what you want, for you shall surely get it.” So far I don’t see anything but retreads of the same system and policies that got us where we are today. Trump is busy walking back so much of what he said or promised during the campaign – fine, he didn’t mean it, but will everyone who voted for him be ok with that? And those who disagreed with him and his campaign, his rhetoric, and what he leveraged to win – they’re free to exercise their right to free speech and peaceful assembly. If they turn violent, I’m sure the police will indeed kick their asses and deservedly so – but until then, they’re within their rights.
    It’s going to be a long four years, no matter which side of this you are on.

  49. John Minnerath says:

    There seems to be the idea floating around among some here that the densely populated coastal cities carry the burden of supporting the rest of the country.
    The hinterland, the vast flyover country populated by a deplorable section of society are a drag on their greatness.
    Nothing could be further from the truth. Read the comment by “Thomas101st” above.
    In there is the fact of the matter.
    Most of the food stuffs, energy, and raw materials come from that deplorable region.
    Billions in subsidies generated there go to support the disfunctional cities.
    There is wailing of burdensome subsidies poured into the flyover country to keep it afloat.
    Some of the “farm subsidies” are screwed up, mismanaged, and mishandled. Much of that was created by the democrats originally anyway, but much more in subsidies gets poured into the urban areas to keep their infrastructure operating.
    Many of the great manufacturing facilities near the coastal cities sit idle and abandoned, also due in part to actions by the left.
    It’s time for the people existing in those crowded cities to wake up and realize just what does keep them going.

  50. Eliot says:

    GulfCoastPirate,
    I would abandoned the culture wars at the national level and focus on economic issues instead. As it stands, the party is antagonizing voters who might otherwise support them.
    – Eliot

  51. turcopolier says:

    GCP
    The fact that you talk about descending to the level of the Noble Deplorables is symptomatic of the Democratic Party’s problem with the NDs. Your assumption of superiority as a Right Thinker is a bad sign of what will probably continue. Heather McGhee on MJ today insisted that the multi culti is the majority and that nothing should change in the Democratic Party. Do you agree with that? OTOH Trump is looking and sounding more and more like a man who was as much of an unreliable liar as HC. Will the NDs remain loyal to Trump if he fails them? Would that signal the end of the Republic as you multi culti folks and the NDs continue to draw apart? pl

  52. Tyler says:

    Pitch Pole,
    Lol, he’s not “walking back” anything. I see this meme being pushed hard by CTR shills and swallowed by people who believe a dishonest media claiming NIKKI HALEY as an SOS candidate has an inside track to what’s going on.
    Any port in a storm for some of you I guess. Someone will be disappointed, but not who you think.

  53. Tyler says:

    This thread is great cause the people who buried their heads in the sand regarding Trump’s victory are now getting themselves into that sand up to the waist with broad pronouncements regarding the next four years of a man who hasn’t even been sworn in yet. Some of you are doing your damndest to have learned absolutely nothing from this election from a young buck such as myself.
    Its going to be a long four years for some of you, indeed.

  54. Origin says:

    Babak,
    I think we are inventing a new term for the “Left”: Coasters.
    We still do not have a term for the others, those left behind by technology and globalism now feeling powerless and who refuse to accept the changes going on around the globe and who are not willing to stretch into a new milieu. Perhaps, the “FlownOvers”, the “Right Behind”, or something else?
    As for whether the “Lefties” population majority want a devolution to the States, I doubt it. They are a majority greatly disadvantaged by the electoral college and would probably wish to end it.

  55. Babak Makkinejad says:

    Really really ironic; Rorty is admitting that there is an Objective Reality and that one can make meaningful statements about it as well as use such statements to formulate thoughts on how to change that Objective Reality.
    Was he practicing his “ironism” when he wrote those lines?

  56. Origin says:

    One of the economic problems with the Flyover territory is that its economy is based upon resources. Resource economies have a way of disfavoring the masses and concentrating the wealth in the few. The food stuffs, energy, and raw materials in the Flyover territories are mostly owned and controlled from the coasts, if not directly, then through the financing of production. The profits do not go to the farmers, but to the bankers, brokers and commodities traders. Big Ag is so concentrated it stifles the producers and pays them just enough to keep their capital employed. It is run from the coasts. Yes, that movement of resource wealth does subsidize the coast. Its the profits, not the government transfers that do it.
    As for “the great manufacturing facilities” sitting idle near the coast, those are idle because they are obsolete and can never be useful again. It is cheaper to just let them sit and decay than to dismantle them. The productivity of the Coasters is in the minds of those occupying the studios and office towers and running the distant robots. That is the “manufacturing” of today and it also who creates huge demands for services in the midst of the creators and manipulators.
    Those people in the crowded cities do not need to wake up to realize what keeps them going, they know. It is their wily creativity, conniving, and spunk. While some in the cities are also left behind poor, most are having a great time making money and enjoying their friends. Even the urban “ghettos” are vibrant under the surface.
    Take a trip to a city and see it yourself. I have been to the flyover territory in the North and you are right, it seems grim and sad. If you don’t like the dreariness, move to the sunny urban South. There are good jobs here if you have skills.

  57. Norbert M. Salamon says:

    The Cities’ argument is vacuous, as exhibited by a study of the ecological footprint of London [UK] which indicated that the 90% total output of the rest of the country is required to keep London functioning, thereby leaving insufficient goods, energy for the country-side of survive.
    So we can look on the so called subsidy of the likes of Manhattan etc. to the flyover country as partial payment for the supply of food, energy, water , building supplies, garbage disposal service, etc.
    IN OTHER WORDFS Democratic areas of the recent election survive ONLY due to the goods and services provided by the republican areas.

  58. Origin says:

    I propose UHaul 2 Anywhere internal visa vouchers to give those in the Flyover territories a free ride to opportunity in a more prosperous part of the country. That might reduce the need for H1B visas. After a while, some of the migrants who have gained new creativity and exposure to the wonders of diversity will return to their old home and reinvigorate the communities they left. Sort of a reverse Homestead Act.

  59. PirateLaddie says:

    Ms. Nancy deserves to be retired — she can move in with Hillary, Madeleine Notsobright and the other girls who deserve better. Unfortunately, FrontPage is in the same category as the Onion, only its ring master, David Horowitz, doesn’t realize it.

  60. Marcus says:

    The Dems should learn from the Repubs years in the wilderness. You need better propagandists and rabble rousers. Where are the “talking points” groups, Rush Limbaughs, and Steve Bannons of the left? They have to start acting like a minority party.
    This will be a race against time for Trump. Will a trillion dollars in infrastructure be enough to placate los deplorables? Maybe for 4 years. But the damage is done, the next infusion of subsidies should be education and entrepreneurial incentives but this is a much longer term play that is probably beyond most politicians interest. Other than that maybe luggage and Uhaul’s to move closer to service jobs in urban areas. Let’s not confuse the deplorables with farmers either. Farming is a skilled occupation that requires capital and usually produces wealth– not desperation. And let’s face it voting for Trump in belief that this billionaire isn’t blowing smoke up their asses and “feels their pain” is desperation.

  61. Pitch Pole says:

    Ok, so let’s see. So far he’s said he’s not repealing the affordable care act, he’s not actually going to recommend prosecution of HRC and company, he’s not going to build a wall or make Mexico pay for it (though he did say there might be some fencing), he’s not going to round up all illegal immigrants and deport them, and the Muslim ban is now extreme vetting (“do you support the overthrow of the us government? No? Ok, welcome to the US” brilliant!!!). As for draining the swamp, i’ve never seen a bigger pack of insiders and financial industry veterans lining up for their free government jobs. Nice!!!
    Since his campaign wasn’t fact based, we shouldn’t be surprised when his most ardent admirers fail to recognize reality. It’s like the Bushites creating new reality moment by moment, but without all the effort. But in two to four years if it’s any consolation, operators will be waiting for your call: there’s opportunities to get in on the ground floor of a future Trump Condo project being built in the sahara or perhaps some business courses at Trump U. Have fun!

  62. Pitch Pole says:

    If the critics are right – and yes, it is something of an unknown – then you’ll pay the price. Sadly, the rest of the country who didn’t swallow the farce will get to pay along with you. But elections can just as easily fix what they screwed up in the past.

  63. Babak Makkinejad says:

    I regret to hear that; a truly deplorable & negligent attitude towards a central issue of Just & Legitimate Authority and its relationship to Political Power.
    It was in 1998, or 1999, under Khatami, during which the first steps were taken to devolve political power to the counties, cities, and hamlets – after 5000 years.
    So, these Lefties are not advocates of power distribution or decentralization; only that their kind exercises centralized power.
    Is that a fair statement?

  64. morongobill says:

    What’s so bad about that? The “deplorables” just want to get up every day and go to work- hopefully at a job where 10 illegals aren’t already there depressing the wage base- save up for their future- forget about that with parasitical Wall Street’s financialization of everything almost. They would like to not see how the rest of the world hates us due to our relentless drone bombing the Hell out of everybody else. The list goes on and on.
    We deplorables just want to be left alone and to not have Granny Government telling us exactly who to like, what to eat, etc etc. We deplorables would really like to see all those damn snooping cameras you see now everywhere removed.
    Frankly, we deplorables are pretty sick and damned tired of all these politically correct liberal types lording over us. Time to sweep them out with the trash.
    Spoken by a liberal leaning deplorable that finally had enough and voted for the Donald.

  65. mike allen says:

    Colonel –
    My grandmother’s baby brother Douglas was also a Wobbly. But he served this country in WW1. He had a conflicted heart about it after the war, due to the abuse and insults he got from those who did not serve.
    PS – how does a good State-of-Mainer end up in the horse cavalry? Or was your Dad an emigrant to God’s Country from a more horse loving state?

  66. phodges says:

    BINGO, Thomas
    I also second the notion argued by many in the thread that Trump put forward salient policy, i.e. Wars and Jobs, while the “Dem” elite argued personality and identity politics – subsequently most “Dems” have no idea what Trumps policy proposals even were….or Clintons for that matter.

  67. Babak Makkinejad says:

    I heard a different explanation:
    In 1975, the US Great Lakes states – New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana – together with Ontario – had they been an independent country, would have had the highest per capita income in the world. Even Switzerland would have been a distant second at the time. These states and province were making things that people wanted to buy all over the world.
    Two things happened: US Federal Government kept on taxing these rich areas and spending the money in the coastal area; in defense etc. So these regions became capital-starved both in human and in financial terms.
    And as capital left, brains left with it; in Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana you hear people wanting their children to stay close to them and to live and work in the same state. Alas, it is not to be; they have to go to Brooklyn, share a room with another person, where the communal toilet is in at the end of the hall and the communal shower one floor up and eke out an existence not too dissimilar to one in 1940.
    In my opinion, the global industrialization did hurt these states but smarter and more intelligent policies, by those states and by US Federal Government could have gone a long way to mitigate those negative effects.

  68. Old Microbiologist says:

    One must alse realize that during her tenure as a Congressman her net worth went from zero to a billion dollars. Granted her husband has earned the lion’s share but her free “gift” of 1,000 share of VISA before it’s IPO is a sign of how it was done. We badly need term limits!!

  69. turcopolier says:

    mike allen
    My mother was from Maine. My father was from North Dakota. He ran away from home in 1916 and by chance enlisted in a cavalry regiment. He was unsentimental about horses, saying that they were big, strong, stupid animals with large teeth and hard feet. He stayed in the cavalry about 15 years serving in the 7th Regiment, 26th Regiment and the Philippine Constabulary. By that time he had an accounting degree obtained in off duty study and transferred to the Finance Department. He met my mother at dinner at a friend’s quarters at Ft. Devens, Massachusetts. She wa a house guest of the friend’s wife. I was born 10 months after they married. Anything else? pl

  70. steve says:

    Nope. Those corporations paid huge salaries to management who could not or would not adapt to a changing world. Small cars? No one will buy them? New methods of making steel? Not needed since we know the old ways work best. Those corporations did not adapt and they did not compete well with the rest of the world which finally recovered from WWII, and/or freed up their economies and embraced market based reforms. New industries formed on the coasts, centered around the academic centers that could support them. Finally, we shaped our policies to support the interests of the elites (wealthy) who shipped jobs elsewhere.
    Then, the kids started leaving. They went to where they could make money.

  71. Tyler says:

    PP,
    You are doing the typical liberal argument by assertion.
    1) Cleared out Chritie’s lobbyists, fired Christie.
    2) He said specifically prosecution was not off the table (see @maggienyt)
    3) a big beautiful wall http://m.imgur.com/k5bcyWZ
    4) Has said nothing about the ACA to even make one think it’s staying around
    Quadruple down on what you did the last election. Its working so well for you.

  72. Babak Makkinejad says:

    I am not questioning the incompetence of GM management or the destructive militancy of UAW.
    Nor do I excuse the venality of state governments over a period 50 years.
    But I ask you – Was money pumped out the American Midwest to the benefit of places like Massachusetts and California or not?

  73. jerseycityjoan says:

    I am a Democrat myself.
    I feel very alienated from the party — because the Democratic Party moved away from me.
    The Democratic Party is becoming a collection of globalist Masters who feel untied to the rest of us by love and loyalty — and those who have tied their fate to theirs. The Republican Party’s declared positions make them a party of those who perceive themselves as financial secure — that is why they can be against government benefits and hope for a tiny federal government.
    That leaves the majority of Americans without a party, whether they realize it or not. That includes me too: I am a nominal Democrat at the moment. I long for another party that is not conservative but will put America first.
    As for relying on the Masters, well, they rely on us too. Those who want to can leave.
    I want an elite that is reconnected to me and to our fellow Americans — but that will require a huge attitude change on their part. They will have to start seeing the US as something precious and its people — the people already here — as worthy and deserving of their respect and attention. That’s a mighty tall order.

  74. GulfCoastPirate says:

    kao_hsien_chih wrote:
    ‘If the Manhattanites don’t think they should “subsidize” Staten Islanders, why should they? I think that is fundamentally a good question. If the Manhattanites don’t think Staten Islanders are the same people as they are, maybe they shouldn’t be in the same city, or the same country, and maybe they are better without each other.
    I think most Manhattanites think they should subsidize the Staten Islanders but at this point what is it getting them – Donald Trump? At some point we aren’t the same people any longer whether we want to admit it or not.

  75. GulfCoastPirate says:

    Eliot wrote:
    ‘I would abandoned the culture wars at the national level and focus on economic issues instead. As it stands, the party is antagonizing voters who might otherwise support them.’
    You mean abandon those parts of the constitution the deplorables don’t like so they can impose their version of white Christianity on all of us? Wouldn’t that make us all Republicans?
    How about the deplorables develop a little tolerance for others who may be different from them so we don’t have to keep going through this social justice nonsense over and over and over?

  76. GulfCoastPirate says:

    Sam Peralta wrote:
    ‘But…the MMT folks will be here soon to tell you that the coastals are suckers. ‘
    If you have a coherent argument to make against the MMT people then make it; otherwise, what you write is complete nonsense since that is not what MMT is all about.

  77. GulfCoastPirate says:

    Valissa wrote:
    ‘When any challenge to the prevailing liberal doctrine, cast under the wrong light, can forever cast one as a “racist,” those with dissenting opinions are left with only two options: concede, or retaliate. Trump appealed to the latter by forming the populist right-wing counterpart to the left’s stubborn ethos.’
    And now the people who voted for him are going to see their lives get worse. Much, much worse. It’s like they cut off their foot to stop a scratch that was bleeding on their arm. Do you consider that an appropriate response to anything?

  78. Jack says:

    “If the critics are right”
    Pitch Pole, you buying the same bridge that the critics sold before the election?

  79. GulfCoastPirate says:

    Bill Wade wrote:
    ‘Try to find some jobs for inner-city young African Americans, a lot smarter than giving them a cell phone.’
    What jobs would you give them?
    ‘Stop promoting “Gay Culture” so heavily, people that don’t like it notice and then like it even less so.’
    Who is promoting anything of the sort? They have constitutional rights given to them by the courts. Do you propose we take those away because you don’t like them having rights?
    ‘Don’t make people like me lose just shy of 10% of their fixed income over a period of 8 years (the last 8, that is).’
    You were lucky you only lost 10%. If Romney had been elected you would have lost a lot more. Where did you learn your economics?
    ‘Tell your buddies in the MSM to stop marginalizing good people like Ron Paul. Dems need to understand, the more you marginalize people, the more we start to like them. Witness President elect Trump.’
    I live in what used to be his district. The man is an embarrassment so don’t lecture me about his stupidity
    ‘A lot of “deplorable” have served in the military in real 3rd world countries, we DO NOT want to be 3rd worlders.’
    I was in the military myself. If you don’t want to be or live like a third worlder then act like it. Trump said during the campaign your wages would have to go down so you can compete with the third world. DO you not understand what that means or did you not listen?

  80. GulfCoastPirate says:

    jerseycityjoan wrote:
    ‘I feel very alienated from the party — because the Democratic Party moved away from me.’
    I agree

  81. Tyler says:

    Pitch Pole,
    The same critics who:
    – said he wouldn’t make it past Iowa
    – said he wouldn’t make it past SC
    – said he wouldn’t make it past the primaries
    – said he wouldn’t win the nomination
    – said he’d flame out in the general
    – said he’d get crushed in the debates
    – said he wasn’t serious about winning
    – said he couldn’t beat Hillary
    – said he wouldn’t win the electoral college
    – said he couldn’t win Pennsylvania
    – said he wouldn’t win the Presidency
    Yeah, tell me more about the predictions of these critics who haven’t been right since he announced his candidacy. Usually, in most societies, people who have been as wrong as often as your ‘critics’ would retire from the public in shame.
    At this point, I want them to say “He won’t put colonies on the moon” so I can claim 500 moonbux from GCP when I post from the Luna-1 colony. That’s literally how wrong they have been.

  82. Tyler says:

    Marcus,
    I heard this line before the election. I’m hearing it after the election.
    Good luck as you and the rest of the Left continue to lose your elections. I’m sure the emerging majority of bisexual transgender illegal alien muslim transsexuals will be the coalition that brings you back from the wilds.

  83. Tyler says:

    Kao,
    It really isn’t.

  84. Tyler says:

    Origin,
    I am glad to see I feature heavily in your fanfiction.

  85. Pitch Pole says:

    Ty – I’m using the time tested technique of listening to the words that come out of his mouth and evaluating them as they may relate to actions he may actually take. Of course, since what he says changes moment to moment, who the hell knows? If listening to his words and judging him, if that is argument by assertion, sure you go with that. For you point #1, why he cleared out Christie and his lobbyists is open to interpretation – undoubtedly it has a hell of a lot more to do with Christie’s disloyalty after pussygate and his son in law’s dear old dad’s jail time than some anti lobbyist instinct. Trump as principled crusader against corruption is hilarious on so many levels. The rest of our points make that first whopper look almost logical by contrast.
    If the people such as myself are arguing by assertion, then you’re arguing by delusion, the delusion that you have any idea at all what he stands for or what he might do. You don’t unless you can hold every side of every position and square the circle of his campaign rhetoric with what he says now. It is going to be entertaining watching the various factions of the republican party and the new administration eat each other alive, not to mention his supporters tear their hair out as all the promises go by the way.
    And to be clear, I didn’t do anything in the last election except cast my vote for what I viewed as the lesser of two evils. I’m firmly a groucho marxist and wouldn’t join either party. I’d love for a party somewhere that would make my vote more than the choice between two evils – the only thing that makes the democrats stink less are the republicans, the only things that make either major party vaguely acceptable are the general insanity of the minor parties.

  86. GulfCoastPirate says:

    Indeed. Nice job.

  87. GulfCoastPirate says:

    turcopolier wrote:
    ‘Heather McGhee on MJ today insisted that the multi culti is the majority and that nothing should change in the Democratic Party. Do you agree with that? ‘
    I don’t know who that person is but no I do not agree.
    ‘OTOH Trump is looking and sounding more and more like a man who was as much of an unreliable liar as HC. Will the NDs remain loyal to Trump if he fails them? Would that signal the end of the Republic as you multi culti folks and the NDs continue to draw apart?’
    That is what i am wondering when I ask my questions.

  88. Origin says:

    I do not think the Democrats or the left are enamored with centralized power. They are involved deeply in all levels of government from the tiniest town to the federal government.
    You should understand that the US is not a unitary government. It is already quite decentralized. The states are each real “states” with their own authority and scope of jurisdiction and govern almost all elements of day to day life. The states raise their own taxes, and are responsible for the roads, police, regulation of commerce, schools, zoning, construction codes, public health, courts, and numerous other functions. The states are further divided into counties and cities and each of those levels have substantial power and responsibilities as subdivisions of the states exercising state powers under local control. To some degree, the overall government is too decentralized and the lack of uniformity across the continent often causes problems.
    The federal government is responsible for defense and interstate commerce and the federal court system that is in place to manage interstate disputes and national laws. The federal government also promotes uniform local and state laws through a complex web of financial subsidies.

  89. Thirdeye says:

    http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/how-democrats-killed-their-populist-soul/504710/
    Interesting background reading on the vengeful purge of the old Labor Democrats by identitarian left-liberals that came to fruition in the 1970s.

  90. TonyL says:

    “Give it some time. The Deplorables will eventually wake up, but it may be too late for them.”
    Exactly what I think. It will not take long.

  91. jonst says:

    they (the leadership, and their core supporters, as opposed to the base) can’t “focus on economic issues” for the simple reason, as a general rule they embrace the NeoLiberal paradigm/s that governs economics in this nation. (world?)
    This is, I would argue, precisely the reason they don’t want to “focus” on economic issues. And with R2Pers driving the wagon on, many, not all, but many geopolitical issues, they are not too keen to focus on those issues either. Since they sound like more involvement in Syria and places near the Russian border. They got the cultural issues…and they run with them. Win or lose. They run with them.

  92. turcopolier says:

    Origin
    I think it is fair to the committee to clear up who you are, roughly. A retired White lawyer who lives in a large metropolitan area of the American South. Right? I am curious as to where you were reared. Country or city? pl

  93. Tyler says:

    PP,
    You are not evaluating anything. You are pushing a narrative contrary to the available facts. Your entire narrative rant here is a total showcase of the three principals of progressives:
    – Progs always lie
    – Progs always project
    – Progs always double down
    As we can see, its you lying about your intentions and what you see, its you projecting (“delusional”) and its you doubling down on the other nonsense before. The facts are obvious, but you remain resistant because your paradigm is so damn limited and you’re tunneling yourself deeper into your bubble.

  94. Tyler says:

    GCP,
    LOL this kind of “me tooism” cost you $500 last time. Keep it up.

  95. Valissa says:

    GCP,
    Based on the evidence, I see nothing that convinces me that the “people who voted for him are going to see their lives get worse. Much, much worse.” The same thing could have happened under a Hillary presidency… or not. There really is no way to know or predict these things. Events and history will unfold and we will see. Some geopolitical types don’t think that presidents matter that much and that greater historical forces are at work that push events. I do not know if that’s true or not, but the argument has some merit.
    By nature I’m not a moralizer and in general I don’t believe in judging other’s responses as appropriate or inappropriate (I’m more likely to say I like or dislike other’s responses). I think everyone has the right to their own opinions based on their own worldview whether I agree with them or not. I prefer discussing and debating based on facts and knowledge, not emotionalism, which means I often avoid political discussions in real life. Based on the facts as I see them, I would say that I think it’s the MSM and liberal highly propagandized and hysterical response to Trump that’s “inappropriate.”
    But I still respect your right to hate Trump and think he’ll be no good for others and repeatedly lecture people who disagree with you in a condescending fashion. In fact you remind me of one of my dear liberal male friends (white, retired engineer) who speaks much like you. I tend to avoid discussing politics with him, or change the topic when he does. Because he is so locked in to his dualistic Liberal worldview it took him a few years to grok that I did not stop being a Democrat to suddenly become a secret Republican. Now he finally gets a little bit why I’m a 3rd party voter and that I have moved “outside” the standard two-party good vs evil worldview.
    I consider this a fact… no one knows what will happen with the Trump presidency. Although there is no way to know exactly what Hillary would have done either, she has been in the public eye politically for a long time and has many known positions and allegiances within the establishment so predicting her behavior as president would be a little easier. Even so I would be hesitant to do so. I prefer to wait and observe first.

  96. Pitch Pole says:

    Clearly I’m not getting through, so for one last time: I’m not talking about critics, I’m not talking about voters, I’m not talking about media. I’m referencing what Donald J Trump said just yesterday. Since we’re talking words, which apparently are worthless when judging Trump, you get some benefit of the doubt.
    There’s a long list of promises there, from bringing back good paying manufacturing jobs, coal jobs, prosecuting the clintons, Muslim ban, great wall of mexico paid for by mexicans, turning out the financial insiders, repealing the ACA, replacing the ACA with something much better and lower cost, … there’s lots more. We’ll see – if his administration doesn’t produce what was promised, can we expect some crow eating?
    If there is a Luna-1 colony, I’ll happily buy you a drink at the Earth View tap room….

  97. Pitch Pole says:

    I’ll be the first to admit I was shocked he won. I don’t think it was the critics, the media or the pollsters – everyone was shocked, including at least some in his campaign. My shock was in spite of the fact that HRC was the perfect avatar of the moneyed, entitled, bubble-living parasitic interests that vast majority the country wants to see pushed down an elevator shaft. The dems couldn’t have chosen a candidate with a chance to lose a layup election better on that basis…
    But as I’ve been saying repeatedly, when the critics or the media or the electromagnetic radiation transmitting his image from an interview broadcast what the man himself is saying, and that is significantly different from what he promised before the election, it’s not a bridge I bought. A lot of people who voted for him didn’t take a lot of what he said seriously; but all of what he said and all of those who voted for him? Like I said, not my bridge…

  98. Pitch Pole says:

    Horses: Dangerous on both ends and tricky in the middle.

  99. turcopolier says:

    Pitch Pole
    Dear old Dad said that each trooper carried a bag of salt with which to salt down the horse meat if they had to shoot one in the field. He clearly relished the thought. pl

  100. Tyler says:

    HCG,
    Nice fanfiction, but as a prediction of what a man who’s been president elect for two weeks now is going to do, its more of a fever dream combined with wishful thinking.

  101. Tyler says:

    Pitch Pole,
    Yeah, your CTR hasbara ain’t getting through. No kidding.
    Because what HE said and what you are INSISTING he said are two different animals.
    Did they cut rates over there or is Paymaster Soros paying more for this stuff?

  102. mike allen says:

    A noble animal. But then we as a species will eat anything in a pinch. I did try a sliver or raw horsemeat in Gotemba City near Camp Fuji. I was not starving, was just responding to a bet after too much suntory whisky. Lots of Korean exiles around Gotemba, so I’m not sure if that was a Japanese dish or Korean.

  103. turcopolier says:

    mike allen
    Did you like dog meat any better? I ate a lot of dog and rat with my Montagnard brethren. I recommend “well done.” pl

  104. Pitch Pole says:

    Again with the CTR hasbara – you’re a consistent if anything. You clearly have nothing to argue beyond infantile name calling. I’ll let you prattle on in the threads, engaging with trolls is waste of valuable mental energy…
    But let’s set a mark – when would be a good time to come back to watch your well done meal of crow? Shall we say in the first 100 days if Trump doesn’t give full throated support to his AG prosecuting HRC? Or when the first Goldman Sachs finance insider gets a cabinet post? The wall doesn’t get started 100 days form inauguration? ACA should be repealed in the first month, yes? Two years from now I’m sure you’ll be able to provide ample evidence of the boom of manufacturing jobs (not infrastructure jobs, mind you – real low skill metal bending jobs in high numbers).
    Don’t worry, you can be thankful for your upcoming meal – if you don’t get served, it will be even worse.

  105. Pitch Pole says:

    They can be dumb as a post and way more trouble than they’re worth. But fun to hack through the woods at speed… Not sure I’d like eat one; would they taste like wild game I wonder?

  106. Babak Makkinejad says:

    I find that hard to believe.
    Seems to me that the local state politicians – from whichever party – have a life-long ambition to assume a Federal Post. Do they care about the state from which they hail?
    I mean, why don’t the states try to implement some of these needed changes and reforms in the United States themselves.
    Let us say universal health care + security in old age + excellence in infrastructure + excellence in education?
    I am not here discussing the costs only the effort to create such environments.
    I mean, many US states are already requiring people to carry extra car insurance.
    They could require everyone to participate in the Universal Health Care System of that state as well.
    Overtime, those who wish to live well and in decent places, will go to states that provide such an environment.
    Those who do not wish to pay the costs of such policies, could stay in their Prairie Purgatories or Urban Jungles; whichever be the case.
    And let us not forget the Association of Dope Smoking States – a.k.a. Freedonia.

  107. turcopolier says:

    Pitch Pole
    “fun to hack through the woods at speed…” Great way for you or the horse to lose an eye. pl

  108. Tyler says:

    PP,
    Because you ARE a Hasbara CTR shill, with the same script, the same nonsensical talking points, the same crying about mean words as you passive aggressively respond.
    No one is insisting this is anything but a long slog, and the fact you tie everything back to “100 days!” shows that you’re either being disingeneous, you’re unable to grok the work ahead, or both.
    You are obviously unable to accept the results of the election, so you have to make seven leaps of logic that one would expect from a psychopath to continue to ignore the huge, heaping portion of crow on your own plate regarding the election that’s not barely two weeks old.
    Eat up, and then we’ll talk.

  109. Pitch Pole says:

    True enough – only do it on well tended trails.

  110. Origin says:

    It is fair for the Committee to have some background about my principals.
    I am still a full-time lawyer, not retired. A white, Methodist, from a Scotts family that arrived in the South via Dutch New Netherlands when it was still frontier wilderness. I was reared in the near suburbs of Atlanta near Emory U. I posted more details on the Origin post about free speech.
    I post to get my mind away from petulant clients and pesky lawyer opponents and hopefully, to do some good by wrestling with ideas. There is a lot to learn from this Committee of Correspondence.

  111. Pitch Pole says:

    Ah Ty – I see you’re getting upset. Nope, not a hasbara shill, never met soros, not the same talking points, not a democrat or even very much a fan of the party. Just another citizen looking for more than invective and uninformed bile – a waste of time expecting more from a web troll. I’ll be back to remind you, whether it’s 100 days or 2 years or 4 years, not a problem. Time frame is irrelevant, his results will be the judge. And mind no dodge like “he doesn’t really have that power or congress didn’t cooperate or gravity kept holding objects to the surface of the earth” – that hedge won’t fly.
    As for what I’m doing, I’m listening to what he’s saying right now – that’s the only basis for judging him at this point. You’re one of the few who seem to believe you have some magical window into the future and his actions in it. Never fear, being bitterly disappointed is all part of the education of many young bucks. Until it’s time to serve a meal of crow, I’ll go back to ignoring childish name calling. You could always decide to engage in actual discourse and treating the readers here with some modicum of civility, that would be truly refreshing.

  112. Pitch Pole says:

    Or Crane’s beach in the off season. Awesome.

  113. Tyler says:

    PP,
    “You’re upset, I’m not upset!” – Projection
    “I’m just another citizen” – Lie
    The rest of it – Doubling down (sextupling down at this point in your case?)
    I like the false play for “muh civil discourse” when all you’ve done is put on a passive aggressive swish act. No one is under any obligation to be civil with a propaganda shill.
    This your third “I’m not responding!” post. I await with baited breath your next serving of lies, projection, and doubling down.

  114. Nancy K says:

    Pitch Pole really did state the obvious well. As a psych nurse of many years I quickly learned you cannot argue with a delusional person.

  115. turcopolier says:

    Nancy K
    IMO you have to be careful about arguing that your political opponents are “delusional,”: i.e., psychiatrically ill. That path can lead to disenfranchisement for medical reasons and commitment of opponents to mental hospitals. We have seen this done for many years in the former USSR where opponents were routinely classified as “delusional.” pl

  116. Nancy K says:

    I am not saying those who disagree with my politics are mentally ill. What I am saying is that those who are so entrenched in their perspective that they cannot even listen to rational dialogue, then to attempt a reasonable discussion with them is as futile as trying to argue with a delusional person.

  117. Tyler says:

    Nancy,
    Talk about lack of self awareness.

  118. Tyler says:

    Nancy,
    Delusional: Having been totally wrong the last year + and insisting that your reality is the correct one.
    Again, with the lack of introspection.

  119. Eric Newhill says:

    James, Not really tooting my horn here, but I am a data guy (an actuary) as a career and I am on the record here and elsewhere saying that the election polling was wrong; wrong as wrong can be. I told Kao he was full of it and some others here jumped in and said I was crazy, literally. So Kao’s hedging and hmm-ing and hawing are kind of silly. I normally like what Kao has to say, but I thought he had lost his marbles in defending the polling. It was that obvious to me – not because I’m so smart, but because anyone who works within the data analysis field should know better. I often fail to recognize how otherwise capable and intelligent people are dazzled by fundamentals defying BS.
    Tyler is obviously a very intelligent and perceptive young man. He grasped the fundamentals and did not succumb to the razzle dazzle. Good on Tyler, shame on Kao and others. Not succumbing to razzle dazzle is at least 3/4 of the battle in these matters.

  120. Eric Newhill says:

    Origin,
    As one who lives in fly-over country, who’s neighbors are all farmers and who does a little farming on the side himself, IMO, you are lost in some post-modern fantasy world.
    The big coastal cities produce nothing fundamental to life. Basically, they create “financial instruments”, toys/games/entertainment and brokers deals (traders). The wealth in concentrated in the hands of the few who are successful in inserting themselves into other people’s lives and business. Everyone else in the big cities services these few very wealthy elites.
    None of that is critical to life. Fly over country could exist on its own. Sure, if they divorced themselves from the coastals, they might not have the latest and greatest wiz bang ipad gizmo, but such things provide little, if any, marginal value.
    OTOH, the coastals would, literally, starve to death without what is produced by the fly-overs. Or are you so far removed from reality that you think food comes from the grocery store and the local restaurant and energy from the gas station? You are assuming some kind of incalculably massive self-evident value inherent in what the bi cities produce and, in reality, it just isn’t there.

  121. Eric Newhill says:

    Pitch Pole,
    For an entire year I listened to what Trump was saying at his rallies and in interviews and then I’d listen to the media’s reportage on the same event. Do I even need to say that every time the media twisted, took out of context and outright lied?
    But now the media is getting it right? Man, you gotta be kidding me.

  122. Eric Newhill says:

    Pitch Pole,
    They taste pretty good, actually. Judicious application of horse radish (no pun intended) and Worcestershire sauce, mushrooms and onions. Think of venison w/o the gaminess and sweeter.
    Around here, when an old fox hunter (horse) dies, tradition is that it is chopped up and fed to the hounds. However, there are also locals who eat horses. I’m a Thoroughbred race horse breeder on the side.

  123. Origin says:

    We are all interconnected. No part of the country can live as well as we do without the other parts. I clearly admitted part of your point. Yes, that movement of resource wealth does subsidize the coast. Its the profits, not the government transfers that do it. That transfer goes mostly to a few families. http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
    Without the fly-overs, the Coastal would not starve to death, they would grab what is in the middle, or import it. The Coastals do produce a lot of real value to the flyovers and a surprising amount of food too. The eastern coastal plain is quite fertile.
    The thing is that if we divide ourselves, and get to fighting, the Coastals have more power just like the North had more power than the south in the Civil War. And, like back then, such a struggle would be a terrible tragedy.
    The Trumpsters have people focusing on the red-herrings in a divide and conquer game.
    We here in the US have a problem with concentration of wealth and power. That concentration is the fault of both parties and especially, the Republicans. Why in the world any working class person would think Trump, a multi-billionaire will help him de-concentrate power in the US is simply beyond comprehension. Does anyone think that the Justice Department will ever break up the monopolies? Trump’s tax cuts for corporations will just enable more concentration of wealth outside of the taxable sphere. Trump’s multi-billionaire pick for Education Secretary wants to take control of education out of the local political control and privatize it so that huge corporations can take over the schools like they have with privatized prisons. Ryan’s health care plan wants to take Medicare, a pretty good program, and turn it into a voucher program that requires everyone to sign up with an investment house for their health savings plan. The same with Social Security. The infrastructure building plan is essentially a plan to sell the commonwealth and institute tolls of an equivalent for use or access to the property of the commonwealth we now use for free as our birthright. None of that will help the regular Deplorable or Coaster.
    Don’t fight the Coasters. I doesn’t matter if they are black, brown, gay, or weird in other ways that offend you. The great majority share common interests with you. Fight those who would further concentrate the wealth of the nation in the few and who would seek to take the common wealth of the communities and make it their own!

  124. Nancy K says:

    I agree that I thought Clinton would win, that does not make me delusional, just wrong.

  125. Eric Newhill says:

    Origin,
    We will just have to agree to disagree on most of what you said in response. The coastals producing food are not the city dwellers we are discussing. And yeah, go ahead. Import your food. $20 gallon of milk?
    However, I am taking special note of this, “Don’t fight the Coasters. I doesn’t matter if they are black, brown, gay, or weird in other ways that offend you” – they started the fight. They tell us we are “deplorable”. They tell us we must think exactly like them and accept all they do or suffer. They tell us to live in guilt with our heads hung low because of our “privilege” and the “sins” of our ancestors (slavery, Native American land theft, etc). They tell us that a guy who gets drunk and kills someone in a car crash is hero because he wears a dress and lipstick and wants to cut off his penis. They want to take our jobs and businesses from us if we merely say something they don’t approve of. They want to diminish us in every way possible; even our say in governmental affairs – and so much so that they are willing to import third world people from all over the globe to water down our demographic and take our jobs and keep us poor and powerless.
    Are you so self-righteous that you are incapable of understanding that war was declared on us deplorables by the coastals and that for every action there is an equal and opposite? I think you do know this and are passive aggressively fighting for your side while attempting to disarm and flip people like me. Ain’t working. Sorry.

  126. Tyler says:

    Nancy,
    No, being wrong and then doubling down on being wrong makes you delusional.

  127. Tyler says:

    Eric,
    I wish I remembered the name of the wit who posted here: “Tyler’s highly scientific method of looking at yard signs and rallies and listening to his gut proved more effective than millions of dollars of predictive modeling”. That summed it up nicely.
    You were indeed with me all the way.

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