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http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/steve-bannon-attacks-media-opposition-party-234235

The neofascist train keeps on chuggin' along.

Steve Bannon says that the media, having been humiliated by the election, doesn't understand why Trump is the President and that the press needs to "shut up and listen" for a while.

Thankfully, we have the first amendment.

And "the press doesn't understand" is a load of horseshit. We have exit polls. We've been analyzing this ever since it happened. It was a legitimate electoral upset, and that just made people curious why it happened.

And the answer is simple: a perfect storm of young voters shifting third party, lower turnout from the Obama coalition, increased voter suppression, increased working class white turnout, and opposition to Clinton (seriously, a giant chunk of Trump's voters chose him literally because they didn't like anyone else), all made even worse by the legalese that allows a person to win the Presidency without a popular mandate.

Really, this guy is classifying the election as a Republican win, when the fact the GOP lost seats in both Houses indicates the election clearly leaned Democrat, it's just the House, Presidency, and Senate statistically benefit the GOP.

If we eliminated voter ID laws (or, provided people with an ID by default as part of these laws), got rid of single-member districts, and made the Senate and Presidency based on national totals, the GOP would be screwed. It clings to the "we're not a democracy, we're a republic" tagline for the simple fact the GOP inherently is at odds with democracy, as the masses do not agree with them or their ideas.

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647 until the midterms, thankfully. That's when we find out the real future of America: whether Trump and the GOP get to control the direction of American politics for another decade, or if the Democrats do.

Even better, 283 days until New Jersey and Virginia hold elections for Governor (and legislators, in New Jersey's case). Those races serve as the first referendum on the Trump Presidency, essentially. A bunch of cities are also holding mayoral elections on that day, too.

If the GOP does badly in the next two Novembers, Trump is going to be left limping into 2020. That's not even counting the possibility of Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana going for Democrat Governors in 2019 (Kentucky and Louisiana are definite possibilities; the latter has an incumbent Democrat and Kentucky's previous Governor was a Democrat).

 

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http://www.areyousorryyet.com/

There is hope for America.

This blog basically does before/after of Trump voters. It's making snarky commentary, but notice the trend: a lot of people who were willing to give him a chance are wising up.

Now yes, the urge to go "I told you so" is strong but... I don't advise it. It just makes people angry and less moldable into allies. While I have no doubt many supporters will end up falling in line behind him again due to the way two party politics works, there is a clear opportunity here to see him unseated. I doubt many Clinton voters will cross over, which means that a hundred thousand or so Trump voters swinging the other way will mean he'll end up like Carter. There are enough moderates that this is feasible.

The common grievances are the Dakota Pipeline, ACA, and the FHA mortgage raise. A savvy Democrat in 2020 should run home environmentalism, universal healthcare, and cheap housing, at least based on this trend. If Obama largely steered the course with a few changes but got tons of flak for it, I can't imagine what Trump will go through given he's basically taken the country for a nosedive.

Now, all the seriousness aside, I recommend a read. It is good for a laugh, if only for the schadenfreude. But if one does encounter a Trump supporter in person who feels this way, I highly encourage sympathy over mocking them. They are a potential comrade in throwing him out in 2020. If we find out what made the Trump voter back him and why they're disappointed, we can use that as an avenue to sell a Democrat in his place.

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I don't get these grown-ass adults saying "I didn't vote for you to do x, y, and z!"

Do they think their votes just magically come equipped with specifications about how their votes are to be used? Like, "Oh, John W. from Minnesota doesn't want me to gut the Endangered Species Act. Alright John W.; wish granted!"

A vote is an all-or-nothing deal. You're not voting for one or two line items- you're voting for the entire parcel, and in Trump's case he laid out that he was going to do while in office, including going on with ramming the pipelines down our throats because he ran on a pro-pipeline, anti-environment, anti-regulation platform.

It's like buying a shitty house and then complaining about how shitty it is and that you were "just buying it for the really nice lawn!"

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Seems like they thought it was like a humble bundle deal: Buy to get what you want and you can ignore anything else you don't care for that just happened to be there with the thing you want.

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To be honest I'm just glad people are waking up. If this is what it takes then so be it. It's sad how many people are gonna get fucked in the process though. 

 

I live in Chicago. I wonder how many people I know are gonna get harassed by clueless feds with big guns before this is over.

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2 hours ago, Dark Qiviut said:

 As a Jew, the fact that he enacted it on Holocaust Remembrance Day makes me sick.

Well I'm not sure if you heard, and it's probably not going to make this any easier, but the White House statement for Holocaust Remembrance Day failed to even mention Jews.

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41 minutes ago, CleverSonicUsername said:

Well I'm not sure if you heard, and it's probably not going to make this any easier, but the White House statement for Holocaust Remembrance Day failed to even mention Jews.

I heard.

Trump, fuck you!

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Actually, his military review (barring the Muslim ban part) is one thing I can support him over, as vague as it is. Everything else, not so much.

Ya know, Trump could kill a lot of birds with one stone if he were to do something about gun control and not single out Muslims by looking at domestic terrorism.

But that would be against a lot of what he stands for, so one can only dream.

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While I understand the outrage over not mentioning Jews, there's a silver lining here. Hitler killed 11 million people, only 6 million of whom were Jews. Trump's actually achieving something positive in breaking the frequent misconception that the Holocaust killed only 6 million people (tell a non-Jew person whose group was targeted by the Nazis that the Holocaust killed 6 million people and see what happens). Of course, it's obvious the Jews received the brunt of the horror, given the extensive persecution that served as a prelude, but I can see where other groups come from in not feeling acknowledged.

On the other hand, he could have said "6 million Jews and 5 million others" as a compromise statement.

Given the man making the statement and the people behind him, though, I think it's likely there was no good intent in making the comment demographic-neutral; they just frankly don't want to give any mention to Jews. Let's note the lack of a number as well; a form of Holocaust denial is decreasing the number of victims.

There's always the possibility there was no ill will in omitting demographics or numbers, but given the administration making the remark, it obviously doesn't look too good. A different President could probably make the same statement with less unfortunate implications, but Trump isn't a different President.

2 hours ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

Ya know, Trump could kill a lot of birds with one stone if he were to do something about gun control and not single out Muslims by looking at domestic terrorism.

But that would be against a lot of what he stands for, so one can only dream.

Sadly, the public perception is that it's only terrorism if minorities do it.

I miss the days when hearing "terrorism" brought guys like Timothy McVeigh to mind, not radical Muslims.

8 hours ago, SenEDtor Missile said:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-signs-two-executive-orders-expands-power-military-extreme-vetting-n713336

Welp, The American Dictatorship is coming ever closer. Trump's increasing our military and trying to block out immigrants.

That's serious hyperbole regarding the military.

http://i.cfr.org/content/publications/July2014/011_national_defense_1988.png

We've spent a shitload more on the military in the past. A review of military capabilities and an upgrade if necessary is probably standard procedure.

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http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/27/news/economy/funding-sanctuary-cities/

Just like the wall, the cut to sanctuary cities is unlikely to go ahead any time soon. Trump's authority is severely limited on the matter, as most federal funding changes have to be cleared with Congress. The exceptions are in law enforcement... which, go figure, was what many of those cities were saying they'd cut if funding was.

Basically: Trump's not as powerful as he thinks he is.

Sanctuary cities defend their position by saying that undocumented people provide valuable intelligence on criminal activity, and without the sanctuary status, few undocumented people would come forward. There's a real, practical reason for sanctuary status, not just "open borders" or being a "bleeding heart liberal." If we want to prosecute undocumented people for the sake of it, we should also get rid of plea bargains. They both involve going soft on illegal activity in order to make the system as a whole work better.

Go figure, this is very similar to the situation with the Muslim community: a significant amount of foiled Islamist terror plots are the result of moderate Muslims coming forward with intelligence.

Trump will make this country less safe by singling out Muslims and the undocumented. They both provide considerable information on people who are, well, actually bad. It's also possible the economy will be damaged, given how much money goes through some of these sanctuary cities.

Also. Here's a gem. Trump talking back in the Bush years how the economy does better under Democrats.

 

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So the Muslim ban is getting out of control. Social media reports coming in of people with green cards and even dual citizenship being immediately handcuffed and detained, being asked their views on Trump and being subjected to religious tests. Companies like Google are immediately recalling their effected employees who were sent abroad, and a mosque was reported to have been targeted for arson in the hours afterwards. I've got friends from SCAD who basically can't go home if they want to come back here, but honestly I wouldn't want them to stay here anyway. This is straight up Nazi shit.

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2 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

So the Muslim ban is getting out of control. Social media reports coming in of people with green cards and even dual citizenship being immediately handcuffed and detained, being asked their views on Trump and being subjected to religious tests. Companies like Google are immediately recalling their effected employees who were sent abroad, and a mosque was reported to have been targeted for arson in the hours afterwards. I've got friends from SCAD who basically can't go home if they want to come back here, but honestly I wouldn't want them to stay here anyway. This is straight up Nazi shit.

I wonder if any of the people behind this crap realize how much they're becoming like the Nazis. Or do you think they believe that their Nazi shit is fine because they're "righteous Americans"?

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They don't care about the comparison, or are fine with it. They just want brown people to suffer, because it's better to blame an easy ethnic scapegoat rather than the wealthy or even your own mediocrity for the shitty way your life turned out.

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7 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

They don't care about the comparison, or are fine with it. They just want brown people to suffer, because it's better to blame an easy ethnic scapegoat rather than the wealthy or even your own mediocrity for the shitty way your life turned out.

So what would it take for them to give a shit? When our Douchebag in Chief starts wrecking their lives as well?

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Some good news: even the libertarian (i.e. right wing) think tank the Cato Institute is finding this Executive Order is on very shaky legal ground. Trump, being the wannabe intellectual he is, is pointing to a 1952 law on immigration that gave the President the right to suspend the entry of any class of aliens, but Congress limited that law with a 1965 amendment that prohibits restrictions based on things like national origin. Broad bans like this are the domain of Congress, not the President, which means that they can rein him in.

It's just a question of if they will. Fortunately there's option 2: the Courts. The Courts prevented Obama from signing broad orders in favor of undocumented people, so hopefully they'd be against a broad order like this. It's clear as day that what Trump is doing violates the law.

Either way, it's good to see the hypocrisy of the right on this. Whenever Obama signed an Executive Order, he was a tyrant. When Trump signs one, even a clearly illegal one, he's a hero.

Even better, Trump made a statement he was signing the ban to honor the sacrifices of service members lost, when he literally mocked a POW and a dead Muslim soldier on the campaign trail.

It's disgusting.

Almost as much as this. Hey Pence, why don't you help redeem yourself by sticking up for your convictions rather than sucking up to Trump?

Especially now that Trump is saying he's going to favor Christians in admissions of refugees.

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31 minutes ago, SenEDtor Missile said:

So what would it take for them to give a shit? When our Douchebag in Chief starts wrecking their lives as well?

As far as people are concerned, Trump is "improving" their lives at the cost of making every other race miserable.

 

It's only been one week and this is already getting out of hand; it's the first time I've felt such unease about politics and this country.

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Notice in that Trump Regrets Tumblr Olgilvie posted that a lot of his constituents only really give a shit when he started messing with their financial ability to pay their mortgages or when he went ahead with the pipeline which threatens their environmental surroundings. The only way they're going to care about the ramifications of this presidency is when their asses get tossed out with the rest of us. Watch what happens if he starts a trade war with Mexico, or when they finally strangle and repeal Obamacare; they're gonna be hot.

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1 hour ago, Nepenthe said:

Notice in that Trump Regrets Tumblr Olgilvie posted that a lot of his constituents only really give a shit when he started messing with their financial ability to pay their mortgages or when he went ahead with the pipeline which threatens their environmental surroundings. The only way they're going to care about the ramifications of this presidency is when their asses get tossed out with the rest of us. Watch what happens if he starts a trade war with Mexico, or when they finally strangle and repeal Obamacare; they're gonna be hot.

Folks don't like learn until their hand has been burned to the bone. While I am glad that there seems to be a contingent of folks like " I voted for trump I now regret it , not doing that in 4 years " and some of em voting for their democrat in 2, or rather a year more like it. I can't say i'm not upset they hadn't thought of the consequences of their actions before, they say they did research but if they did they would have known, trump wouldn't be the one to vote for. 

But I suppose the biggest issue of this entire ordeal is how a large section of the voting population found it " meaningless" to vote. Well well well, you wanted to live by your south park " douche and a terd" narrative, " welp you gonna learn today". Your vote counts , whether you get what you want or not. 

 

On 1/27/2017 at 2:54 PM, Nepenthe said:

Do they think their votes just magically come equipped with specifications about how their votes are to be used? Like, "Oh, John W. from Minnesota doesn't want me to gut the Endangered Species Act. Alright John W.; wish granted!"

A vote is an all-or-nothing deal. You're not voting for one or two line items- you're voting for the entire parcel, and in Trump's case he laid out that he was going to do while in office, including going on with ramming the pipelines down our throats because he ran on a pro-pipeline, anti-environment, anti-regulation platform.

It's like buying a shitty house and then complaining about how shitty it is and that you were "just buying it for the really nice lawn!"

:" I didn't think voting for a world leader would actually affect the real world"

You are gonna learn today

2 hours ago, Nepenthe said:

They don't care about the comparison, or are fine with it. They just want brown people to suffer, because it's better to blame an easy ethnic scapegoat rather than the wealthy or even your own mediocrity for the shitty way your life turned out.

 Yeah, one day I would like to make an end of evangelion type animation about specifically this. 

 

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Trump's last source of political capital will be the economy. He is burning so many bridges it isn't even funny. A lot of people supported him in spite of his shitload of flaws because they assumed he, as a guy who always seems to get ahead in business despite being terrible at it, might be able to restore jobs to the Rust Belt. Exit polls show that even a good chunk of Democrats and Clinton voters were dissatisfied with the way the government is. He tapped into this anti-establishment sentiment just enough to tilt key states in his favor; a few percentage points made him, and a few percentage points will break him too.

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And given a good chunk of his base aren't neofascists (that statistic on illegal immigration is "holy shit what"), this is even more critical. His talk of restoring American economic prosperity (which, by the way, happened under liberal policies, not conservative ones) and cleaning up politics redeemed him in many's eyes. His billionaire cabinet is pointing towards no real reform of how politics are done (plus, to be honest, I increasingly think any attempt to limit lobbyists' influence is just so the President has an easier time intimidating members of Congress), so that's knocked a leg off; the economy is all that remains standing.

It seems overly idealistic that people just gave him a chance, but I don't think it's a coincidence it's been about 40 years since we gave Carter a chance as well. My guess is every generation or so will have its group of voters who will give power to someone who really isn't the best person to have it (Ross Perot is another good candidate in the 90s with a similar profile to Trump, the main difference being he didn't come off as a shitlord, while he also ran as a third party, likely costing him the Presidency). Once they realize how wrong they are, they sober up and make a point to not repeat that mistake again.

It'd be great to not make the mistake to begin with, but what can you do?

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