US politics

[tiggymalvern]

It was worse than I thought. I thought Trump would win because of the electoral college, but I was convinced he would lose the popular vote like he did in 2016.

Then we could say, 'Americans didn't want Donald Trump, he won because of an electoral quirk that rigs things in favour of conservatives.' This time we're stuck with no excuses - Americans really did choose a narcissistic, racist misogynistic criminal conman over a competent, qualified woman of colour.

And I am so fucking pissed off with Democratic self-sabotage. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a fantastic woman who spent a lifetime fighting and winning on behalf of women and minorities - and then she destroyed half of her life's work by refusing to retire, by insisting that she would be a Supreme Court Justice for life. That stubbornness on her part led directly to the overturning of Roe and the suffering and deaths of the women she'd spent her career protecting.

Biden should have understood he'd be a one term President. He should have announced that two years into his term. The Dems could have chosen their candidate in the usual way, via primaries. That candidate would not have been Kamala Harris. She was not a popular VP. We can argue all day over why she wasn't popular - whether it was racism, misogyny, her record as a prosecutor. It doesn't matter. Everyone knew she wasn't popular. The Dems would have run a candidate against Trump who stood a better chance of winning. And maybe that candidate would still have lost - maybe the conservative backlash against trans rights and diversity programs would still have given Trump the Presidency. But we can't ever know, because Biden was too stubborn to accept that he was too damn old. He withdrew when it was too late to run anyone except Kamala. And I have nothing against the woman - I like her. But the numbers had made it clear that most people didn't and that made her a bad candidate.

Nobody should be aspiring to be President at 85. Nobody should be serving as a Supreme Court Justice while they're dying of cancer. Learn to fucking retire and do it strategically, and give up your own personal power for the good of your goals and your country. Because right now Dems with all the best intentions seem to be handing the country to Republican extremists on a plate.

Comments

[bymyverytoes]

So I finally got the courage to peek at your post. I wish I hadn't. I'd already peeked at a couple of blog posts and news reports, and they're just the same - angry, confused, lashing out, looking for something and someone to blame. Hardly surprising, but since this will go on for years now, not something I want to keep reading because I'm even more helpless than you are :(

And I am so fucking pissed off with Democratic self-sabotage. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a fantastic woman who spent a lifetime fighting and winning on behalf of women and minorities - and then she destroyed half of her life's work by refusing to retire

You know, the real damage was done by Mitch McConnell refusing to allow Obama to do on his last term, what Trump did just before he lost the 2020 election - fill SC vacancies. Coney Barrett didn't give the fascists a majority. McConnell did that.

Biden should have understood he'd be a one term President. He should have announced that two years into his term.

And given the GOP two more years to demonise his successor. The only thing wrong with Kamala Harris was that she was a black, female Democrat. But it wouldn't have mattered who they chose. Being a Democrat was all that mattered. The racism and misogyny made it easier.

Also Biden's brain is working just fine. He could have and would have served a second term perfectly well, and much better than the blob of hate who's going to succeed him.

Because right now Dems with all the best intentions seem to be handing the country to Republican extremists on a plate.

You are discounting a tsunami of election interference from within and outside the USA, voter suppression, oligarch dark money, media collusion, and rampant, widespread misinformation. The nominee was good. The message was great. The campaign was superb. But it was never just Trump fighting Harris.

The experiment has failed. The people can't keep their republic. The USA will become Hungary, if not Russia, before the midterms. And the same machine which wrought this disaster will prevent the majority of the population who want none of it from being able to protest effectively and making a single meaningful change.

The least worst thing that will happen is the current federation will split into two or more separate countries. The worst worst thing that will happen is that the entire USA will become a Russian client state. And every person who isn't a Christian straight white American man will be ground into the dust before a single fascist is made to pay for their actions.

Get out while you can, hon. This isn't going to be fixed in my lifetime, let alone yours. 💔

[tiggymalvern]

Yes, and also no.

Of course you're right that the Supreme Court hijack began with Mitch McConnell during Obama's term. But the Dems let him do it.

The Constitution of the United States says that the Senate will consider the President's pick for the Supreme Court and then vote on them. It doesn't say 'unless the Senate Majority leader decides he doesn't want to'. It doesn't says 'unless there's an election within the calendar year'. There are no provisos. It is the job of the Senate to hold hearings on the President's choice.

When McConnell refused to do the job that the Constitution required him to do, the Dems should have raised holy hell. They should have brought legal challenges. They should have said, 'If the leader of the Senate refuses to do the job that the Constitution requires him to do, then he should be replaced by someone who will do the job.' They should have fought for Merrick Garland, they should have dome everything to make sure he got a hearing.

Instead the Dems did absolutely nothing. They let McConnell blatantly violate the Constitution and all precedent and they shrugged and said, 'Que sera sera.' When I talk about Democratic self-sabotage, I absolutely include 2016 in the list of their list of stupid decisions. And maybe it wouldn't have changed anything. Maybe their challenges against McConnell and attempts to force him to hold hearings would have gone nowhere. But it would have gone on record that they wouldn't just roll over and ignore violations of every norm, that this shit would not be allowed to stand unimpeded. Instead, the message was sent that the GOP could do whatever they want and nobody would care.

Yes, there was election interference by Russia, obviously. There was election interference by Russia in 2020 and Trump still lost. There was massive election interference by Russia in the elections in Moldova that were held just last month, and the pro-Russia candidate lost. You can't place all the blame for this defeat on Russia. It didn't help, obviously, but if the Dems had had a popular, credible candidate, they might have won despite it. If the Dems had had two years two years to choose a candidate by the normal means, by primaries held across multiple states, a candidate that people were enthusiastic about, they might have won. As my post says, they also might not, but now we can't know.

This isn't me ranting after the fact and looking to assign blame. My tumblr posts about this shit go back years. They go back to 2016 and Mitch McConnell being the world's biggest arsehole and he shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. They go back to earlier this summer when how Joe Biden should step down became a popular theme and I made multiple posts saying 'Shut the fuck up, it is too late. Biden stepping down at this point would guarantee disaster.' There wasn't time to choose a replacement, and Kamala's numbers had been way underwater since the start of their term. Trying to get anyone elected when people don't like them is a nightmare, let alone when that person is a woman of colour.

The experiment has failed. The people can't keep their republic.

And if that's true, the Dems helped it happen. All that billionaire money poured into elections was allowed because of the Citizens United ruling. A ruling passed by a rigged Supreme Court that the Dems did nothing to stop eight years ago.

Our best hope at this point lies in the fact that Trump is a lazy bum who doesn't want the job of President. He wants the power, the pomp, he wants people grovelling at his feet and jumping to give him everything he asks for and calling him Mister President; he wants to be able to do whatever the hell he feels like and not go to jail. But he doesn't want the job. We know that from his first term, and all the people who talked about how hard it was to get him to sit in an office and sign papers, the stuff that he considers boring. He doesn't want people waking him up at 3am to tell him about things happening in some other country three thousand miles away that he doesn't give a shit about. Maybe he won't do half the things he blustered about during his campaign because he just can't be bothered.

But we're guaranteed now to have a Supreme Court now that will be 7-2 if not 8-1 hardcore crazies for the next 30-40 years. And that shit will hurt badly even if Trump does nothing but fly around the world feeling self-important for the next four years. And that was something Dems like Obama and Ginsburg did nothing to stop. And Biden too, by not understanding until it was way too late that a President in his mid 80s is just inherently a bad idea. Because it is. Supreme Court justices, Presidents, Senators, they should all have an upper age limit, and if the writers of the Constitution didn't bother to impose one, common sense on the part of the supposedly smart people in charge should make them choose it for themselves.

[bymyverytoes]

https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/11/10/two-elections-the-rules-were-that-you-guys-werent-going-to-fact-check/

[tiggymalvern]

Yep. It truly is sad that people who prefer Dem policies still voted en masse for Trump. As the article says, there was less of a swing towards Republicans in other races. Dem senators won in Arizona and other places where Trump won the Presidential vote. The Republican majority in Congress will remain tiny. Harris lost a straight-forward popularity contest - she was a candidate who was unpopular throughout her stint as VP and she stayed that way. Good policies won't save someone if people just don't like them.

Propoganda definitely won. Trump's repeated lies that the last election was stolen, that his criminal convictions were a witch hunt and he never did anything wrong ever were believed. You lie often enough and loud enough and hard enough and enough people will go along with it.

The facts are all out there and easy enough to check with ten imutes online, but you can't make people do it. When half the country get their political information as tweets and thirty second soundbites and never look any deeper, lies work. It's tough to know what to do about that. You can't make people read, and the terminally stupid and ill-informed have the same vote as everyone else.

[bymyverytoes]

Marcy Wheeler is worth reading for a sanity check. However, I don't think there's any solace to be found anywhere right now. Ignoring is about all you can do, while protecting yourself. Our former mutual friend in Seattle married to the most delightful trans woman is desperately worried about their situation, and who can blame her :(

[tiggymalvern]

I know a few trans people, and none of them are happy, even here in WA where they've got more protection.

[silverusagi]

Yeah, it's a shitshow. Who knows if anyone else could have won against Trump. But if Biden's stepping down hadn't been last minute, there would have been open primaries and the candidate would have been different.

I'm sick of elderly people in high level government at this point. No one should be a Senator, President, or Justice when they have severe medical or mental problems. I don't think Joe Biden could have won either, and he does seem to be less with it than he was four years ago. We had the same thing with Dianne Feinstein, who was getting confused during interviews and saying things opposite to what her staff had already released. And look, I don't want to be ageist! The simplest way to solve all these problems (well, maybe not the president one) would be to have term limits for Justices and Senators and House members. That would also solve the problem of representatives just running and staying forever and grabbing up power without actually getting any legislation done. Well, it might not solve it but it would help.

[tiggymalvern]

Term limits wouldn't necessarily stop ancient people from being senators as some of them don't get that position until they're older, like Presidents.

It would help for Congresspeople, who do seem to start younger, but then there's the progression from Congress to Senate to President. Does the term limit reset at each level? So you can have two terms in each house then President? But two terms of Senate is already 12 years. By the time they get to the top of that ladder, they could still be older than you'd like.

Term limits for Supreme Court justices would be simple, at least. But some kind of cap is clearly well overdue.