Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

The takesabout this election, hot and otherwise, are already coming fast and furious and I expect they will continue with tedious regularity for some time to come. I’m guilty of it myself jabbering away on podcasts and radio shows yesterday on no sleep and too much adrenaline. I’ll share some of those thoughts here as I get my head straight over the next little while.

But I have been reading a lot of instant reaction pieces and I must say that more than anything I persuaded by the anti-incumbency analysis which I posted about yesterday. Here’s another argument laying that out from Derek Thompson in the Atlantic:

A better, more comprehensive way to explain the outcome is to conceptualize 2024 as the second pandemic election. Trump’s victory is a reverberation of trends set in motion in 2020. In politics, as in nature, the largest tsunami generated by an earthquake is often not the first wave but the next one.

The pandemic was a health emergency, followed by an economic emergency. Both trends were global. But only the former was widely seen as international and directly caused by the pandemic. Although Americans understood that millions of people were dying in Europe and Asia and South America, they did not have an equally clear sense that supply-chain disruptions, combined with an increase in spending, sent prices surging around the world. As I reported earlier this year, inflation at its peak exceeded 6 percent in France, 7 percent in Canada, 8 percent in Germany, 9 percent in the United Kingdom, 10 percent in Italy, and 20 percent in Argentina, Turkey, and Ethiopia.

Inflation proved as contagious as a coronavirus. Many voters didn’t directly blame their leaders for a biological nemesis that seemed like an act of god, but they did blame their leaders for an economic nemesis that seemed all too human in its origin. And the global rise in prices has created a nightmare for incumbent parties around the world. The ruling parties of several major countries, including the U.K., Germany, and South Africa, suffered historic defeats this year. Even strongmen, such as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, lost ground in an election that many experts assumed would be a rousing coronation.

This has been a year of global anti-incumbency within a century of American anti-incumbency. Since 2000, every midterm and presidential election has seen a change in control of the House, Senate, or White House except for 2004 (when George W. Bush eked out a win) and 2012 (when Barack Obama won reelection while Republicans held the House). The U.S. appears to be in an age of unusually close elections that swing back and forth, in which every sitting president spends the majority of his term with an underwater approval rating.

There will be a rush to blame Kamala Harris—the candidate, her campaign, and her messaging. But there is no escaping the circumstances that Harris herself could never outrun. She is the vice president of a profoundly unpopular president, whose approval was laid low by the same factors—such as inflation and anti-incumbency bias—that have waylaid ruling parties everywhere. An analysis by the political scientist John Sides predicted that a sitting president with Biden’s approval rating should be expected to win no more than 48 percent of the two-party vote. As of Wednesday afternoon, Kamala Harris is currently projected to win about 47.5 percent of the popular vote. Her result does not scream underperformance. In context, it seems more like a normal performance.

[…]

If there is cold comfort for Democrats, it is this: We are in an age of politics when every victory is Pyrrhic, because to gain office is to become the very thing—the establishment, the incumbent—that a part of your citizenry will inevitably want to replace. Democrats have been temporarily banished to the wilderness by a counterrevolution, but if the trends of the 21st century hold, then the very anti-incumbent mechanisms that brought them defeat this year will eventually bring them back to power.

This election is so inexplicable to me that the idea of a national trauma driving people to vote irrationally makes some sense to me. There’s something bigger behind this than normal politics and the fact that it’s a global phenomenon lends credence to this idea.

That’s not to say we don’t have agency. But it does mean that might be able to more clearly analyze the situation and plan accordingly. The sad part is that the out party in our case is led by a pathological narcissistic imbecile so the risk of letting the other side take over is enormous. But that’s where we are and it would probably be good to study this phenomenon to see how we might mitigate that risk and plan for the future.

Update —

A thread by politics professor Rob Ford with some back-up data:

Decided to go through this systematically. Incumbent government performance in wealthy democracies since March 2022, when Ukraine invasion really spiked things upwards:

South Korea President (March 22) – incumbent term limited, incumbent party lost
Malta (March 22) – incumbent Labour party re-elected, gains seats
Hungary (April 22) – incumbent Orban govt re-elected with larger majority
Serbia (April 22) – incumbent Pres re-elected but loses Parliamentary majority 

France (April/June 22) – incumbent Pres re-elected with reduced share, loses majority in Nat Assembly
Slovenia (Apr 22) – incumbent govt defeated
Australia (May 22) – incumbent right wing govt defeated
Sweden (Sept 22) – incumbent left wing govt defeated 

Italy (Sept 22) – far right coalition led by Meloni sweeps aside previous governing parties LN and M5S
Bulgaria (Oct 22) – largest party in governing coalition falls sharply, change of govt
Denmark (Nov 22) – centre-left govt re-elected, PM party gains seats 

Israel (Nov 22) – messy result, but sees incumbent PM replaced and Netanyahu return
Estonia (Mar 23) – messy result, party which topped poll previous time falls, party of PM Kallas (who took over mid term) gains
Bulgaria (Apr 23) – messy, far right and populists make most gains 

Finland (Apr 23) – centre-left govt coalition defeated, right and radical right opposition parties make strong gains
Greece (May/June 23) – centre-right govt re-elected
Spain (July 23) – centre-left govt clings on despite big gains for centre-right oppo, rad rt falls sharply 

Slovakia (Sep 23) – incumbent govt defeated by populist opposition
New Zealand (Oct 23) – centre-left incumbent defeated by centre-right opposition
Poland (Oct 23) – rad rt incumbent defeated by centre-right opposition 

Switzerland (Oct 23) – rad rt gain seats, greens and liberals lose seats
Netherlands (Nov 23) – governing coalition parties fall sharply, rad rt tops the poll
Portugal (Mar 24) – centre left govt defeated by centre right oppo 

Croatia (Apr 24) – incumbent coalition re-elected, greens gain most seats
European Parliament (Jun 24) – Greens, Liberals and centre left lost ground, radicals of left and right gain ground
Belgium (June 24) – PM’s party loses most of its seats. Belgian govts are messy 

France (June/July 24) – incumbent President’s party gets a pasting, far right and far left make gains
UK (July 24) – incumbent centre-right govt wiped out in a landslide, but with big vote gains for Greens, rad rt and rad left independents 

Austria (Sep 24) – big losses for gov coalition of centre-right and greens, big gains for rad rt
Lithuania (Oct 24) – big losses for largest party in govt coalition
Japan (Oct 24) – LDP, near permanent party of govt, defeated
US (Nov 24) – centre-left incumbent Dems defeated 

We’ve also had a bunch of bad to historically bad results in poorer democracies too, including ANC losing majority in S Africa, BJP losing majority in India, governing party defeated for the first time ever in Botswana, incumbent Pres defeated in Brasil, etc. Tough time to be an incumbent! 

Three big lessons here IMHO – (1) voters have been punishing incumbents everywhere, regardless of political orientation, length in office etc (2) Voters have been switching to all kinds of opposition, regardless of political orientation but…(3) radical anti-system parties (of right and left) have done well in many places, again regardless of who’s in govt 

Trump benefitted from all three trends – he’s running against the incumbent, as leader of the only opposition, and he’s seen as radical/anti-system 

https://twitter.com/RonBrownstein/status/1854496031846600818

Institutional ramparts and simple joys

It remains to be seen whether or not reports of this country’s demise are greatly exaggerated. On the demise side, a majority of Americans on Tuesday chose to end this nation’s 250-year experiment in self-government. Not that they know it yet. This week, argues Brian Beutler, they handed “unchecked power to a narcissistic criminal demagogue because the price of bacon increased.” They may also, in fact, have surrendered their sovereignty without firing a shot.

(What will the more militant do with the guns and ammo they’ve stocked for the coming civil war about which they’ve fantasized?)

On the greatly exaggerated side are people like Beutler in England, who, being shielded from Trumpism by the Atlantic Ocean, have perspective lacked by those of us staring down its barrel. He taxonomizes this week’s voters into three classes: True Never Trumpers, the Hold Your Nose Brigade, and people for whom “The Cruelty is the Point.” Afterwards, he considers what life in an authoritarian United States means for those of us not in the cult or cult-adjacent:

What’s most dangerous, then, is turning a democratic state into an authoritarian one. And the way you do that is by warping institutions and removing constraints on the powerful, ensuring that bad policy cannot be reversed, obliterating responsiveness and avoiding accountability.

So, for example, a corrupt president who faces no oversight because the courts have been captured and the bureaucracy has been purged is a far more lasting and dangerous erosion of democracy than a bad law. When it’s the system itself that’s damaged, institutions can crack under the weight of authoritarian pressure.

The problem, of course, is that citizens care most about politics when daily activities and expressions of personal identity are at stake—the price of eggs and milk or the endless culture wars that tap into our sense of who we are.

Few voters are galvanized by institutional change and the apparent minutiae of government oversight. Put differently, the process of democracy is what defines the system in contrast to authoritarianism, but the lived experience of daily life and cultural identity is what most voters care about.

We’ll see how much Trump women care when he signs a national abortion ban and lies about saying he wouldn’t.

Despots and their wannabe apprentices exploit this mismatch, galvanizing people with visceral expressions of victimhood and focusing attention on perceived internal enemies while simultaneously unshackling themselves from institutional constraints.

Underneath the more visible Trumpian chaos, the true fight for democracy will now take place in the labyrinthine realm of bureaucratic oversight, in the courts that choose accountability over submission, the journalists who bravely refuse to self-censor, the general who refuses to break the law, the Congressional committee that simply won’t back down.

And, above all, that fight will be with the voters who band together with neighbors from all walks of life—the people who might come together for the simple joys of a parade—to engage in mass protest when a president pardons himself, or purges civil servants, or takes a wrecking ball to democratic institutions. That’s how serious adults adorn themselves in real patriotism.

The problem is Trump’s go-to tactic is delay. He wears down opponents by outlasting them in the tug-of-war. And many of us are already exhausted. He maintains his following by fueling cultists’ grievances and sense of victimhood. Ironic, since as Beutler sees abroad, Americans are envied around the world for the opulence of our lifestyles. And decadence.

When the elevated price of bacon is your great political calling and the inconveniences of Starbucks are your personal cross to bear, the grotesque decadence of prosperity can warp itself into a bizarre victimhood. Many of the most devoted disciples of soon-to-be President Trump are some of the most fortunate people on the planet, like the woman who joined the January 6th mob after flying in on a private jet.

But we cannot succumb to a similar narrative of victimhood when an election goes the wrong way—even when the stakes are so high. We are lucky, even now. Wallowing in the depths of worry and despair, it’s important to feel fresh resolve with a sense of perspective—not to diminish the challenges and perils we face—but to understand that the worst doom, even in these dark moments, need not be America’s final answer.

For me, fresh resolve may have to wait a day or two.

I’m putting my faith into young people like my friend Anderson Clayton, NC Democrats’ state chair. She’s got enough resolve for a slew of us old farts.

On “It’s not who we are”

Americans believe their own bullshit. A large faction, for example, believes the United States was founded under divine guidance as a nation of, by, and for Christians. Never mind that Christians built the country by ethnically cleansing indigenous populations and built its economy on the backs of enslaved Africans. We carry around pocket copies of the U.S. Constitution, wave our flags, brand ourselves Team Freedom, think reality TV is unscripted, and pretend professional wrestling is real. We’re simplistic and jingoistic like “great again.” It’s not just a right-wing behavior.

“We are the United States of America,” President Biden ends many speeches, so many that you know the rest. After particularly ugly episodes, politicians reflexively declare, this is “not who we are.” Biden’s closing always struck me as quaint, a little hoary, but sincere and well-meaning. “It’s not who we are” grates, another lie we tell ourselves while whistling past the graveyard the way Biden ceremoniously crosses himself with a grin.

On Tuesday, America proved the lie. We elected a pathological liar, an autocrat, a felon and worse, amoral, dishonest, and “fascist to the core.” His next most public lie will be when he places his hand on a Bible and swears before the world (again) to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States neither he nor his most ardent supporters believe in. The flag-humper will then set about wrecking both the Constitution and the country in a frenzy of vengeance. He will twist the law he doesn’t believe in to avoid prosecution, punish his enemies, and reward sycophants. I’d say reward friends except Donald Trump has none.

“With 51%, Trump is on track to win a majority of the popular vote,” writes David Kurtz, executive editor of Talking Points Memo. Without help from the quirky Electoral College system this time:

This is who we are. Not all of us, but a majority of us. It presents a stark picture of America in 2024, without sugarcoating or excuse. It makes it harder to fool yourself about the task at hand, which is an enormous cultural one more than a political one.

Donald Trump’s win isn’t the product of a constitutional quirk. It’s not the result of a poorly conceived or executed campaign by Kamala Harris. It’s not a messaging failure or a tactical error or a strategic blunder. Other broader dynamics at play – like a post-pandemic revulsion toward incumbents or an anti-inflation backlash – are too limited in their scope and specific in their focus to account for the choice that was made: Donald Trump. It would be a category error to ascribe our current predicament to a political failure.

If politics is merely a reflection of culture, then we get to see that reflection clearly and sharply as the sun comes up this morning. If you don’t like what you see, don’t blame the mirror.

Who are we kidding? Ourselves, over and over. Black women? Not so much, write Erica L. Green and Maya King in The New York Times on Trump’s reelection:

It affirmed the worst of what many Black women believed about their country: that it would rather choose a man who was convicted of 34 felonies, has spewed lies and falsehoods, disparaged women and people of color, and pledged to use the powers of the federal government to punish his political opponents than send a woman of color to the White House.

Michelle Goldberg concurs as she braces for a period of mourning before facing what’s ahead:

Trump’s first election felt like a fluke, a sick accident enabled by Democratic complacency. But this year, the forces of liberal pluralism and basic civic decency poured everything they could into the fight, and they lost not just the Electoral College but also quite likely the popular vote. The American electorate, knowing exactly who Trump is, chose him. This is, it turns out, who we are.

It’s too early, Kurtz writes, to attempt to rally people to action. And to what action, exactly? Pundits gonna pundit and blame-game. It’s what they’re paid for. The people who dish out bad advice will dish even more. They will blame Harris, Biden, “the Democrats,” college-educated elites, post-pandemic inflation. Gaza, etc. But what Black women know is that the deep divide in this country is more cultural than political or economic. In the end, there was nothing — no ad, no policy, no outreach — that could bridge it.

That said, so now what? Kurtz advises:

There is immediate and hard work to do in politics. The marginalized and the disenfranchised are always hurt first and most with the kind of upheaval that we expect to come, but it is worse this time because hurting them has been advertised as the point. People who have been doing their jobs under the rule of law and in support of democratic and civil society institutions – investigators, prosecutors, judges, the press, government workers, librarians, teachers, opposition party leaders – have been promised retribution. Protecting those under threat will be amongst the most noble work of the coming years.

The powers of federal officeholders, we have been told repeatedly and plainly, will be abused to exact revenge against perceived foes, which means anyone who presents a challenge to Trump and MAGA Republicans holding unbridled and absolute power. I take these promises at face value. Countering those efforts, upholding what’s left of the rule of law, fortifying what remains of the democratic system will be similarly noble work.

All of this work will be made infinitely more difficult if Trump is sworn in with Republicans controlling both chambers on Capitol Hill. While he has the Senate, the House may remain too close to call for several more days.

The challenge before us is enormous. It is not a challenge any of us signed up for. It’s been foisted upon us. The past decade has felt like a detour from the lives and aspirations we had hoped to have. I feel a special empathy for those who came of age in the 1960s at the peak of Great Society reforms and have spent their adults lives witnessing their erosion. Those of us with an act or two left, and especially those with their whole lives still to dedicate to making America better than she is presenting right now, owe it to those whose time is ending to summon our essential optimism, roll up our sleeves, and get to down to the hard work that our current predicament demands. That may sound like a rallying cry, but I’m also trying to convince myself.

This says it all #undecided pic.twitter.com/lJtO69Zwo0

— Maureen Maher (@MoeMaher1967) October 30, 2024

The term “lizard brain” has fallen out of use since the aughts. It was a derogatory term for describing the appeal of demagogues like Trump and the visceral impulses they harness to build mass movements. They don’t appeal to people’s frontal lobes, to their policy preferences, but to their feelings and fight-or-flight instincts. Those instincts, born of millions of years of evolution, do not always offer evolutionary advantage. Hunters and terrorists use knowledge of their quarry’s instinctive behaviors to kill more of them.

The irony of the MAGA movement and the related Q-Anon cult is how believers see themselves as the real truth-seekers. It’s the rest of us who are sheep mindlessly going where and doing what we are told. But those Americans whose instincts told them to fear dark-skinned immigrants, women, and cultural change may be about to find out how led astray they’ve been by their guts, whether they like it or not. Not that any will admit it.

Just for giggles I went through my January 2017 post archives today, and found one that (sadly) bears repeating. So as a public service, I am re-posting it. Feel free to bookmark it.

(Originally posted on Den of Cinema on January 18, 2017)

In anticipation of what may be in store for us,  here are links to the resources likely to be more crucial than ever.  Bookmark this post!

ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom

American Civil Liberties Union

Amnesty International

Center for Democracy and Technology

Committee to Protect Journalists

Electronic Privacy Information Center

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Human Rights Watch

Indivisible

League of Women Voters

Planned Parenthood

Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Southern Poverty Law Center

You’re welcome.

— Dennis Hartley

Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock’s SNL bit when Donald Trump won in 2016 holds up still.

I’m shocked this many people are shocked. pic.twitter.com/1PEcPQzdJi

— Joe Randazzo 📚📕📖 (@LibrarianJoe_) November 6, 2024

In case you were wondering who he plans to go after first, here is a partial list.

President Joe Biden

Trump has frequently called Biden corrupt and, in June, reposted a Truth Social message that said he should be “arrested for treason.” In a speech last year, Trump vowed: “I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family.”

Vice President Kamala Harris

Trump has described Harris’ failure to control migration as so severe that people have been “murdered because of her action at the border.” He told a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in September that Harris “should be impeached and prosecuted” for her role in permitting what he termed an “invasion” of the U.S. by undocumented immigrants.

Former President Barack Obama

In 2020, Trump accused Obama of “treason” for what Trump describes as the FBI’s surveillance of his 2016 presidential campaign over its ties to Russia. In fact, the email snooping was aimed at a former foreign policy adviser to that campaign.

In August of this year, Trump reposted a message on Truth Social calling for “public military tribunals” for Obama.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

“Lock her up!” was a memorable refrain of Trump’s 2016 campaign rallies, alluding vaguely to Clinton’s use of a private email account while secretary of state and the ensuing FBI investigation, which did not lead to any charges.

In an interview in June of this year, Trump suggested Clinton should face the same sort of criminal prosecutions brought against him. “Wouldn’t it be terrible to throw the president’s wife and the former secretary of state … into jail?” Trump told Newsmax. “It’s a terrible, terrible, path that they’re leading us to and it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them.”

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi

In September, Trump said Pelosi should face criminal charges in connection with her husband’s sale of Visa stock a few months before the Justice Department sued the company for alleged antitrust violations. “Nancy Pelosi should be prosecuted for that,” Trump said.

He also said Pelosi should be prosecuted for failing to ensure adequate security at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the building as Congress was preparing to certify Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential race.

In a speech Monday, Trump said Pelosi “could’ve gone to jail for” theatrically ripping up a copy of Trump’s State of the Union address while sitting behind him on the House rostrum in 2020.

New York Attorney General Letitia James

James earned Trump’s ire as a result of the lawsuit she brought alleging widespread fraud in Trump’s business empire. The case resulted in a judgment of more than $450 million against Trump, who has appealed.

Last November, Trump said on Truth Social that James “should be prosecuted” for her role in the suit. In January, he said at a campaign rally in Iowa that James “should be arrested and punished accordingly.”

Trump has also reportedly expressed enthusiasm about plans some of his legal supporters have discussed to prosecute James for election interference.

Manhattan Justice Arthur Engoron

Engoron, a New York trial judge, faced a torrent of attacks from Trump while presiding over James’ civil fraud case. At a campaign event early this year, Trump said Engoron “should be arrested and punished accordingly.”

Former Rep. Liz Cheney

Cheney (R-Wyo.) angered Trump while serving as vice chair of the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. She is also one of the most prominent Republican figures to publicly endorse Harris over Trump. In March, Trump declared on Truth Social that Cheney “should go to jail.” In June, he reposted a message calling Cheney “guilty of treason.” And in the final days of the 2024 campaign, Trump mused: “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her.” He said he was accusing her of hypocrisy for supporting the war in Iraq.

Special counsel Jack Smith

Smith, who brought both of the federal criminal cases against Trump, is a frequent punching bag for the former president. Last year, Trump reposted a social media message from conservative talk show host Mark Levin saying Smith “must go to prison.” In August, Trump reposted a message calling “Jackal Smith … a career criminal” and saying he “should be prosecuted for election interference and prosecutorial misconduct.” Last month, appearing on a radio show, Trump called Smith “mentally deranged” and said he “should be thrown out of the country.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg

Another one of Trump’s courtroom adversaries is Bragg, who brought the case that led to the former president’s conviction on 34 felony charges stemming from a scheme to secretly pay $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet during the 2016 election about her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump.

“There is a case to be made … that the prosecutor should be prosecuted — the district attorney should be prosecuted,” Trump told reporters during the trial in May.

Former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley

For more than three years, Trump has railed against Milley, claiming that the general’s contact with a Chinese official during the tense transition period four years ago amounted to treason. “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” Trump declared in a social media post last year. The feud was reignited in recent days after Milley called Trump “fascist to his core.”

There are more:

Former FBI Director James Comey
Hunter Biden and the rest of the Biden family
Former FBI special agent Peter Strzok
Former FBI attorney Lisa Page
Rep. Adam Schiff
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg
Former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Mark Pomerantz
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen
U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd

Trump has joined with his supporters — some of whom took part in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot — to call for prosecution of Byrd, the U.S. Capitol Police officer who shot and killed rioter Ashli Babbitt as she attempted to breach the entrance to the Speaker’s Lobby while House members were being evacuated. The Justice Department announced in April 2021 that it closed the investigation into Babbitt’s death and no charges would be filed against Byrd. Last year, Trump called Byrd a “thug” and “coward,” adding: “Ashli Babbitt was murdered!”

Rep. Jamaal Bowman
51 intelligence professionals who signed letter about Hunter Biden laptop
Members of the Jan. 6 select committee
Unspecified people engaged in election fraud

Despite few examples of verified election fraud, Trump has threatened severe criminal consequences for anyone who engages in such behavior, and he’s muddied the waters by suggesting such tampering went on during the 2020 race — and was bound to occur in 2024, too.

“WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,” Trump said on Truth Social in September. “Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”

POLITICO reporters, editors and publisher

He will definitely do this to at least a few of the enemies on his list. I would not be surprised at all to seehim go after Cohen. He believes that you have to make an example of people who have wronged you or you won’t be respected.

I suspect that if someone comes crawling to him and shows proper obeisance, he’ll extend them a reprieve. Much of this exercise is to demand that these people refrain from any more criticism and either retire from public life or become his minions. You’ll note that this happened with most of his former GOP critics. A case in point:

Marco Rubio on CNN on if the Senate would confirm RFK Jr: "Well, I think the Senate is gonna give great deference to a president that just won a stunning what I think is an electoral college landslide when all is said and done, and a mandate." pic.twitter.com/9n83jS1C3G

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 6, 2024

If you follow the Marco and Lindsey examples you’ll probably be ok. If you continue to criticize him and oppose him anything can happen.

Look at what this worm is already doing:

NEW — Bill Barr says DOJ and state prosecutors should dismiss the criminal cases against Trump, who has already promised to fire Special Counsel Jack Smith pic.twitter.com/ugouvjnRNx

— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) November 6, 2024

Trump will never be held accountable for anything. He never has been. His followers see that as a superpower. But he will find it intensely satisfying to punish his enemies fro trying to do it. I fully expect to see some of these people facing legal peril.

What the hell happened to make that big of a shift among this particular demographic and not the others? I’m honestly stymied and I have to wonder if it might be an error in the exit poll.

I can certainly see why Latino men would be attracted to Trump. Many of them are working class which means they share many of the same attitudes as other blue collar types. And there’s plenty of misogyny in Hispanic culture, just as there is among their Black and white brethren. But are they laboring under the illusion that the”mass deportation” signs they held up at the RNC were simply about “illegal immigration”? If so, I’m afraid they’re very much mistaken. Sure that’s the excuse these people use. But the reality is that they just don’t like Latinos and they think they are polluting the culture. It’s xenophobia, not immigration.

And that means you too, guys. Unless they’re willing to surrender their ethnic identity completely, maybe even change their names, Trump’s ICE will not ask who they voted for before they racially profile them and possible even gather them up in the mass deportation scheme. They’re playing for the wrong team.

It was late but it arrived with a vengeance

This wasn’t about anything the Democrats did or didn’t do. This was comprehensive and across the board. The country decided it wanted Donald Trump, period. The majority approves of him and his plans and they want more of it, even in the big blue states like California and New York.

Some people say it’s a realignment. I don’t think we can know that until Donald Trump leaves the stage. His form of demagoguery is apparantly very seductive to tens of millions of people and they believe his lies or at least find them tolerable. But I don’t know if it goes beyond him. We will see in four years … assuming he doesn’t blow up the world before then.

The only succor we have is that this is happening all over the globe. It isn’t just us. The turn to fascism, particulaly in the wake of the pandemic, is a phenomenon we see in all the western democracies to one degree or another. Some countries have been able to beat it back, but barely. We were among them, until yesterday.

Update:

This from political scientist John Sides at Good Authority, which does excellent electoral analysis, breaks the election down to its essence:

…Donald Trump did better in all kinds of places – red states and blue states, rural places, cities, and so on. So the initial explanations we should seek have to be broader than just one place or one group.

The simplest story is one that Michael Tesler and I wrote about back in March. A spike in inflation dragged down Joe Biden’s approval rating, which never improved very much even as inflation receded. Public views of the economy remained less positive than other indicators – economic growth, employment – would predict. 

Replacing Biden with Kamala Harris opened up the possibility that she could outperform his approval rating. Some research suggests that the incumbent president’s record matters less when the incumbent is not running. Of course, Harris was also part of the incumbent administration herself.

As of March, Biden’s approval rating was consistent with a 3-point Democratic loss in the national popular vote. At the latest tally, early on Nov. 6, Trump has a 3.5-point lead. That may change as the remaining voters are counted, but it’s likely to be consistent with what Biden’s approval rating alone predicted.

As we get more and better data – a process that will take months, to be sure – we can add important details. But the central plot lines of the story are already clear, and not that dissimilar from four years ago. 

In 2020, an unpopular incumbent lost reelection. 

In 2024, an unpopular incumbent’s party lost reelection.

The circumstances and the reasons for their unpopularity differed. Nevertheless, their struggles provided the tailwind for the challenger. That has put Donald Trump back in the White House.

I would find that explanation more satisfactory if the challenger wasn’t the same guy the country had ousted four years before — who also now happened to be a convicted felon, con man, adjudicated rapist and certified freakshow. But maybe when people don’t like the incumbent it doesn’t matter who the other side vomits up. They’re going to vote for him anyway.

If this is true, for me the bigger question is why so many people are so sour and hold Biden and Harris responsible for it. None of the external factors, not even inflation or immigration can account for it. Maybe, just maybe it has something to do with the media environment and Trump’s uncanny ability to bullshit people into believing what he wants them to believe? I dunno.

To me it just seems as if too many people in this country are in love with hate. You see it at sporting events and public gatherings and yes, at Trump rallies. Violence and tribalism energizes them. Misogyny and racism are openly celebrated sothey feel free to act out, believing that their negativity and hostility are shared by most people. Now we know that they’re right.

Kara Swisher is one of the most astute observers and chroniclers of the tech revolution and politics. Her experience makes her particularly valuable at this moment because she knows all the tech bros who are now going to be in the inner circle of the highest office in the land.

She wrote this today on threads:

I got some kind of 24 hour bug and fell asleep early last night with a headache & slight fever and woke feeling better but to these truly heinous results. Obviously, a shock, given the blatantly misogyny, homophobia/anti trans, racist & anti-immigrant messaging. But unhappiness with the economy & an ennui with the general US direction prevailed. @profgalloway & I were wrong to believe in the kinder nature of Americans. Some short observations:

1. We still don’t have to like it at all.

2. The other side will not be magnanimous in victory at all. Too many of them are the people you think they are, so no need to try to reach across the aisle & hope for the best unless you want to. (I hear their caterwauling, but not me!)

3. This is the red wave we were all dreading, just a few years later. It’s not clear yet what the mandate is — my guess is that it is economic and immigration issues rather than the truly bent ideas — but it is a mandate nonetheless, given how widespread it is.

4. You may be tired & heartbroken, but that does not mean we can rest for long. The world spins forward in the end has always been my mantra, proven time and again, even if it goes backward at times in its long history (this is def backwards).

5. Thank you to all the anti-Trumpers who warned us all whom we have let down and who are now adrift for a very long time. We are all in danger in some way, but they will bear the first ugly blows that are doubtlessly coming. Continue to support them.

6. Do not engage in conspiracy tactics and disinformation as attractive as they are. They won across the country clearly because their messages resonated and were able to tap into an existing dark vein of the American psyche that has always been there. Hope works. So does fear. As I say about tech: Enragement equals engagement.

7. This still remains a divided county & that means something. Most of these splits are close to 50-50. You are not alone even if it feels like it. Don’t cooperate.

8. Tech companies, especially social media, along with gerrymandering & Rupert Murdoch’s angry, cynical news outlets, have combined to bring us here. Tech leaders abrogated their responsibilities to ensure safety on their platforms & regulators did too. This is media unfettered in a way that will be studied decades from now. They were handmaidens to sedition on 1/6 and are now just willing bystanders more interested in profits than anything, as I have long asserted. It was capitalism after all.

10. Musk will merge X with Truth Social & take it public to benefit him and Trump. It is still a shitty business but a powerful propaganda organ. He bought it for this reason & will continue to use it in that way since the $44 billion he spent will yield trillions.

11. Musk is vindictive & loud, but he and Trump will inevitably war. Two malignant narcissists cannot occupy the same space for long. The person I would zero in on is the quieter (but not quiet) Peter Thiel, the true mastermind.

12. Thiel was the one who first saw the awful vehicle that is Trump and now Vance, who is also the one to watch (and Trump now needs to watch his back too as his usefullness will diminish). Thiel has bought himself a government for very little and will use it to further his many troubled theories. All the second bananas around the erratic Musk are via disciplined Thiel. Go read his books to understand as he has spelled it out clearly.

13. They will try to bring everyone to heel via their now massive power. Again, we don’t have to like it or cooperate. They won through tapping into rancor and selfishness. Fine. So be difficult. Say no. Resist. Don’t feel the need to be nice. In fact, be disrespectful. Lose people who tell you to accept this. It’s okay to be angry and fed up and disappointed. In fact, it’s required.

14. We can and will win again in what is a dark moment for progressives. The lives of our children depend on it.

15. Kamala Harris conducted a really impressive campaign, so don’t pillory her. She got us to close to even and we owe her our respect and gratitude.

16. Lastly, the Swishkatz family has your back. We are not going away and we will not be quiet. In fact, we like our odds and now we know the stakes. Today was a major Thanos loss, for sure, but you need to get up again and fight. I know we can do this all day. And we will.

I’m too tired from lack of sleep to feel inspired to go out and do anything right now. But I’ll gather myself up as I’ve done before and carry on as best I can. It’s not in my nature to just back off or back down.

I think her observations about Musk, Thiel and Vance are important. These are people with massive influence both because of their huge fortunes and their new proximity to power. I think she’s probably right about Musk and Trump inevitably locking horns. They’re both unstable narcissists who will not be able to work together for long.

Thiel and his creature JD Vance are more interesting. I have not done a full study of Thiel but I will take it up as soon as I have the energy. These people want to fundamentally re-order society and not in a good way.

For instance:

In another bow to Peter Thiel and the weird Network State tech cult, Donald Trump’s campaign platform has a plan to create new charter cities (so-called “Freedom Cities“) on federal land. It’s a clear indicator of his willingness to sell out the country to his far right Silicon Valley benefactors. In fact, Thiel and Marc Andreessen are funding an entire company – Pronomos Capital – dedicated to building such futuristic tech cities around the world.

“Kamala has nothing like this on her website,” declared Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini on Twitter yesterday. His post included text from Trump’s campaign website that promises to build “Freedom Cities“:

President Trump will work to open up the American Frontier, holding a contest to charter new cities where families and individuals can have a new shot of the American Dream.

The Network State cult, a frequent subject of this newsletter, calls for the creation of private cities ruled by non-democratic tech governments. “Freedom Cities” seems like a slight Republican rebranding of the concept. The adoption of the idea suggests that Trump’s team – which announced the plan last year – has been searching for ways to align with Weird Tech for quite some time.

If you’re interested, click that link. It spells it all out. It sounds looney but these guys have more money than god and have now seized political power.

“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” – Joseph Heller, Catch-22

I’m sorry to be sharing so many pertinent quotes today but it’s about all I’ve got the energy for. If the shoe fits…

James Fallows has a good piece today which I don’t think he’ll mind my sharing in full:

This time, it was not a fluke.

When Donald Trump came to power eight years ago, there were countless what-ifs. What if James Comey had held his tongue? What if Clinton campaign emails, hacked by Russian operatives, had not been published on WikiLeaks just minutes after the Access Hollywood video came out? (And distract attention from “Grab ‘em by…”) What if Clinton emails had not been such a media obsession? What if cable outlets had not found Trump rallies such useful audience draws? What if the US had joined every other democracy on Earth in choosing leaders without the bizarre Electoral College? What if everyone including Donald Trump himself had not taken it for granted that Hillary Clinton would win, and given her tougher scrutiny accordingly?

What if, what if.

This time we don’t have that distraction, or that consolation. The electorate of our country has had a good, clear, years-long look at Donald Trump. His braggadocio and his decline. His corruption and his vulgarity. His resentments and his threats. The warnings about what he would do from the most senior people who had ever worked with him, starting with his own vice president.

And, with eyes wide open, with the evidence before them, most of our fellow-citizen voters decided: Bring him back.

Yes, sure, there are what-ifs? this time. What if Mitch McConnell, after condemning Trump for the January 6 assault, had mustered courage to match even that of Mitt Romney and the other GOP Senators who voted to convict Trump on his second, Jan 6-related impeachment? McConnell could have assembled his caucus to do so, which would have permanently barred Trump from seeking office ever again. (Counting Romney, seven Republicans voted to convict; it would have taken 17.) What if in this past month George W. Bush had matched the courage of hundreds of his appointees, one of his daughters, and his vice president (and that vice-president’s daughter)?

What if Joe Biden had stepped aside earlier? What if Kamala Harris had chosen a crucial swing-state governor as her running mate?

Among these, only the impeachment-conviction vote would have stopped Trump for sure. Based on what we’ve seen now, I have doubts whether any of the rest would have. The stakes were clear. And the voters chose.

By the standards of any presidential race in modern times, Kamala Harris ran a very “good” campaign. Minimum of gaffes; maximum of concentration on “strategic” states. The broadest alliance in modern political history—Beyonce to Dick Cheney. The smallest number of backstage, backbiting leaks or second-guessing. This on the heels of what was at least statistically the strongest re-election year economy of any incumbent party in many decades.

By those same standards, Trump ran a very bad campaign. Mounting insults to known voting blocs—starting with the biggest bloc of all, women. Increasing darkness, rambling, and resentment in Trump’s public appearances. Visibly diminishing crowds. Leaks from disgruntled staffers blaming others for a likely defeat.

And none of it mattered.

The Republican presidential candidate had won the popular vote only once in the past 32 years. Eight years ago, Trump lost to Hillary Clinton by three million votes. Four years ago, he lost to Joe Biden by seven million. Yesterday, our fellow Americans appear to have given him an absolute majority—as I type, over 51% of the total vote, and a margin of several million.

“Absolute” is the relevant term here. The results last night appear to be so sweeping and absolute, on so many fronts, with so few caveats or complications, as to give us an unsparing view of our country in our time.

Two weeks ago, I quoted two celebrated and veteran campaign strategists—the Democrat James Carville, and the Republican Stuart Stevens—on why they were confident that Kamala Harris would win. Each of them rested that outlook on the character of the country.

Stevens said, to members of the broad Harris coalition:

There are more of us than there are of them… This is yours. Walk out and take it. You will look back at this moment with quiet pride and satisfaction for the rest of your life, knowing that when America called, you answered.

And Carville:

A vast majority of Americans are rational, reasonable people of good will. I refuse to believe that the same country that has time and again overcome its mistakes to bend its future toward justice will make the same mistake twice…. I know that we know we are better than this.

Two professionals who had based their careers on knowing the country turned out to be badly wrong about its nature, as expressed on November 5, 2024. It turns out that we are not better than this. That is why I thought last night of the famous verse from Little Gidding: We are arriving where we started, and knowing the place—our America, of this moment—for the first time.

This darkness has always been in us. And it’s shown itself in various heinous ways in the past. But Fallows, Stevens and Carville believed, as did I, that at this moment in time, at least, we were better than that. We are not.

There is something wrong at the core of our political culture and our society at large that’s reasserting itself through Donald Trump and his MAGA movement. We can’t pretend any longer that it isn’t real and very possibly enduring.