US Politics January 2018: "You All Just Got A Lot Richer"

The US is fucking huge, and while we've hit the streets a few times (individually, in groups, and as a family), it's such a shit storm that hitting the streets every time something bad goes down - which is literally every day - is not possible. We donate, we have signs, we campaign, we canvass, we call, we organize. I have a couple of friends who have all but dedicated their lives to protest (at some mental cost, imo). But in the end it seems almost pointless, at least in a city/state with two Dem senators and (locally at least) a bunch of Dem reps. I've heard that described as one of the downsides of the liberal/rural divide: the cities are dense with people and Democrats, but because of that these huge voting blocks have no minds to change. Swing districts, GOP districts ... there is effective movement to be made. But here, not so much.

Anyway, in the end many of the administration's most ambitiously terrible ideas have been stopped or slowed, in part due to protest but also the way the legal system works. They won't all be wins, but it's been one year, and next year could determine literally everything, from policy to potential impeachment.

In the meantime, Trump's televised meeting competence offensive lasted, as predicted, less than 24 hours.

Also the US is too big. I am all for dividing this up (pipe dream).

― Yerac, Friday, January 12, 2018 7:53 AM (twenty-six minutes ago

oh good! We get our bimonthly let's-divide-blue-and-red-state argument!

i think all red states should be paired up with a "buddy" blue state, then strengthen those regions' abilities to raise their own taxes, and of course create a new "appellation" system where they could all compete on who makes the best barbecue

Appellation d'Appalachian

When considering the successes of mass civil resistance movements around the world in bringing down governments in the last 50 years, it's important to remember that, say, Serbia (where mass protest brought down Milosevic) is approximately the size of the state of Maine.

trump now profusely, sweatily denying the shithole comment btw

He's denying the word, not what he communicated by that word, and everybody understands that.

lol cuck

I never thought literally non-stop lying and denying could be such an effective deflection tool. Like, I understand lying deployed as an occasional strategy, but non stop ... that's a tough battle, especially when so many live in bizarro world.

I mean, I understand lying's historical effectiveness, but that is often in places where calling out the lies can be a punishable offense. Here, everyone seems to know he's lying, and he blatantly lies about such dumb stuff, again and again.

I still contend that Trump only 'succeeds' with these ploys because most people don't have direct experience dealing with a psychology like Trump's and are thusly learning on the fly. Some people will always be knocked for a loop and uncertain how to respond but I think a lot of people will slowly develop appropriate coping/deflection mechanisms through repeated exposure.

https://static.simpsonswiki.com/images/thumb/7/7d/I_Didn%27t_Do_It%21_Volume_III.png/250px-I_Didn%27t_Do_It%21_Volume_III.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li9UWIdqEjg

I, my family, my friends, and my colleagues have been "in the streets" plenty. I was in antiwar protests in 1990-91 and 2003-04. Various GATT/WTO/NAFTA/World Bank stuff in 1995-97. I was involved in driving an enormous inflatable beaver around the Beltway for reasons that I don't even remember. I experienced both the Million Man and Million Mom Marches. The ultimately trivial Stewart/Colbert thingy. Counterprotesting antiabortion demos, counterprotesting Contract with America and Tea Party demos. I stayed home from the Women's March to enable others to go, but nearly everyone I know was there. I missed Occupy but know plenty of people who were there.

I've lived in the DC area for 35 years, and someone is almost always "in the streets." And it almost always does fuck-all. The problem is not that people aren't in the streets enough - the problem is that it rarely accomplishes significant, sustained change. Of course it's good for morale, for solidarity, for drawing battle lines, for making sure that certain positions are seen and known to be viable.

And like others upthread, there is a bit of nagl in the "why aren't you guys aren't out in the streets every weekend" stuff. First, yeah, jobs/kids/lives. Second, the idea that if only we'd protested MORE, then things would be better is unproven.

trump now profusely, sweatily denying the shithole comment btw

only denying that he said it about Haiti, apparently because he did specifically say it about African countries

truly, the day he became microscopically accountable

I think rushomancy has the right idea: it's important (even crucial) to acknowledge that there are many routes to positive change beyond direct protest action, and it's equally important to conserve your own personal energies for the long fight (see JiC's mention of activists who burn hard until they themselves out, which is not uncommon ime).

I don't think President Goldfish Brain is in a position to confirm or deny anything he said or did more than fifteen minutes ago. And even then I'd double check with a raft of fact-checkers and whichever recording devices might have captured a given exchange (fake video cameras!).

Lunch/rush/Josh: Agreed. I saw a lot of activist burnout during my time as a professional environmental advocate, and also a lot of vicarious traumatization (if you can't even go out to a movie because The Salamanders Are Dying, then you're not doing yourself or the salamanders any good service).

Obviously most of us are likely to keep going out there. Hey hey ho ho and all that. Giant puppets, yadda yadda.

But the real place everybody needs to get out to is the voting booth.

I mean I honestly think it can be as simple as, for example, figuring out how to leverage whatever it is you currently do for a living into something that better promotes positive change, or volunteering for something that utilizes your strengths, or even just making the concerted effort to be kinder and more open to other people. Trump et al are trying to effect a paradigmatic change on multiple fronts and we have to do likewise.

I never thought literally non-stop lying and denying could be such an effective deflection tool.

there's a sort of Prisoner's dilemma thing going on here. by never admitting fault and continuing to lie profusely about anything and everything he's actually sort of got a leg up on news organizations who will admit when they make a mistake. not to mention you get the advantage on 'moderate' Dems who only promise unexciting incremental improvement while you get to boast about building walls (that you won't have to pay for) and throwing out 2 million immigrants within your first hour on the job

plus, look at the difference between supporters - this was all telegraphed early on, when Berniebros yelled and screamed throughout the entire DNC while everyone at the RNC gleefully chanted "LOCK HER UP!" at every speech

xpost (Not to mention the fact that there are plenty of people who are never going to be swayed one way or another by public demonstration.)

(But yes also voting is an absolute necessity, if you do nothing at all beyond that.)

Wow, I'd thought the shithole comments had been made only with his cabinet or something, but it was a bipartisan meeting and he was responding to a Democrat. This guy is mentally unstable.

Sorry if you all knew this :)

meanwhile, the context for the denials is what is by his standards an epic-length tweetstorm on his rejection of the "so-called bipartisan" DACA proposals. i am positively shocked to discover that president dealmaker couldn't make it happen. must have been nefarious mustache-twirling sabotage by the democrats. "Dirty Dick Dastardly must go down! Many people are saying this, Muttley and many others. VOTERS WILL FIX!"

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-appears-deny-shithole-slur-defends-tough-immigration-stance-n837056

super/callous/fragile/shitstain/hexed/by/racist/bullshit

Does he go to the doctor today? At the very least that will shut him up for a couple of hours.

bravo, qualms

I was involved in driving an enormous inflatable beaver around the Beltway for reasons that I don't even remember.

I'm sorry I'm going to need a little more context here.

Also, really sorry you're having such a hard time UMS, and I hope it changes soon, you are one of my favourite ILX presences.

re: the physical exam, i'm just waiting until we get "Have been told by my medical team, who are the best in the world, that there is no need for an exam because of the very terrible real estate deals of Obama. Ridiculous deal, would never have made! Now great health will not be known. BLAME DEMS!"

I still predict he walks out early in a huff.

Or blows it off entirely.

"Dumb (Dem) Senate say they want health care, now this! Many now know their lies. Will reveal big announcement next week, what will it be?"

I just want him to die, does that make me a bad person? I feel it does, somehow. Still, the heart wants what it wants.

His heart surely wants to pop..

Well, look to London: the threat of YUGE protests at 45’s visit (whether a state visit or a working one) seems to have worked a treat in that he’s cancelled, but the entire UK is roughly the size of Minnesota.

Two weeks ago a 26-year old soldier raced repeatedly into a burning Bronx apartment building, saving four people before he died in the flames. His name was Pvt. Emmanuel Mensah and he immigrated from Ghana, a country Donald Trump apparently thinks produces very subpar immigrants.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) January 12, 2018

woke Kristol is a thing

I forget the tweet, but the whole "some exceptional people come from those countries!" take is so fucking bad

NEW: "Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina spoke up and made a direct comment on what the president said. I was very proud of him. It took courage for what he did," Sen. Dick Durbin says, firing back at Pres. Trump's denial of "sh*thole countries" comment pic.twitter.com/YH4pCVdcjP

— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 12, 2018

only cuz the guy was a TROOP xxp

ah here we are

If you have the impulse to post stories about amazing people from Haiti or other "shitholes," stop. Everyone -- even racists -- knows people like that exist. There are amazing people from every group. Equality isn't making room for the exceptional, it's embracing the average.

— N. K. Jemisin (@nkjemisin) January 12, 2018

but the entire UK is roughly the size of Minnesota.

Actually a fair bit bigger than Minnesota but smaller than Michigan.

🐦[NEW: "Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina spoke up and made a direct comment on what the president said. I was very proud of him. It took courage for what he did," Sen. Dick Durbin says, firing back at Pres. Trump’s denial of "sh*thole countries" comment pic.twitter.com/YH4pCVdcjP🕸
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 12, 2018🕸]🐦

"The most disheartening thing to me is, my belief that, that was the first time words that hateful have been spoken in the Oval Office of the White House," Sen. Dick Durbin says

Well now let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here.

I forget the tweet, but the whole "some exceptional people come from those countries!" take is so fucking bad

OTM, and as someone else on Twitter said (paraphrasing), he's not asking for more doctors or engineers or physicists or teachers, he's asking for more Norwegians, which is not a skill.

You need both protest and organization in order to build a movement capable of activating a sufficient portion of the public to make abandonment of the social-institutional & bureaucratic structures of support of the office of the President a politically sound proposition--spontaneous mass mobilizations and stable infrastructure prepared to rapidly absorb the spontaneous energy into sustained & ongoing strategic work. The strategic organizers are divided, lots of comfortable people feel protest is useless ("what did the Women's March accomplish? checkmate!"), and the GOP continues to get something out of Trump being in office, even if it's just cover for their policy wet dreams. Paul Ryan will, hopefully one day soon, be confined to a nice little yard where he can't hurt anyone anymore.

the first time words that hateful have been spoken in the Oval Office of the White House

Was gonna say! There may be a few hundred years of counterexamples.