So what the fuck just happened? And why?
There are many reasons why more than half the country voted like they did, but below are the most persuasive ones to explain this tragedy that everyone is about to experience, especiallythose who voted for him.
The first two articles are resonant, because none of us reading this blog are living in the reality that half the country thinks is reality.
Think about it - over the last year on the rare occasions when you talked to a relative/friend/colleague about anything political, probably their response
"I didn't hear about that" because in their reality "that" didn't happen. Whatever they watched/listened to/read didn't tell them about "that", so when you mentioned "that" they just ignored it because it conflicted with their information bubble.
Anyway......I have quoted from the salient points of each story, but read the first one in it's entirety, and Heather Cox Richardson
from about the halfway point.
1/ Why she lost - from Rebecca Solint in the Guardian...
Our mistake was to think we lived in a better country than we do. Our mistake was to see the joy, the extraordinary balance between idealism and pragmatism, the energy, the generosity, the coalition-building of the Kamala Harris campaign and think that it must triumph over the politics of lies and resentment. Our mistake was to think that racism and misogyny were not as bad as they are, whether it applied to who was willing to vote for a supremely qualified Black woman or who was willing to vote for an adjudicated rapist and convicted criminal who admires Hitler. Our mistake was to think we could row this boat across the acid lake before the acid dissolved it.
2/. Why she lost - from Heather Cox Richardson...
Pundits today have spent time dissecting the election results, many trying to find the one tweak that would have changed the outcome, and suggesting sweeping solutions to the Democrats’ obvious inability to attract voters. There is no doubt that a key factor in voters’ swing to Trump is that they associated the inflation of the post-pandemic months with Biden and turned the incumbents out, a phenomenon seen all over the world.
There is also no doubt that both racism and sexism played an important role in Harris’s defeat.
But my own conclusion is that both of those things were amplified by the flood of disinformation that has plagued the U.S. for years now. Russian political theorists called the construction of a virtual political reality through modern media “political technology.” They developed several techniques in this approach to politics, but the key was creating a false narrative in order to control public debate. These techniques perverted democracy, turning it from the concept of voters choosing their leaders into the concept of voters rubber-stamping the leaders they had been manipulated into backing.
3/. Why she lost - from Rolling Stone...
The most likely explanation, however, for why Harris lost is the most basic one: Americans are deeply dissatisfied with a brutal economy. After Washington put an end to Covid-era pandemic aid programs, Americans suffered two years of sky-high inflation, affecting the price of nearly everything, alongside higher interest rates — which drove up credit card rates, mortgage rates, the costs of car loans, and more. Amid a punishing cost-of-living crisis, voters have now punished Democrats.
Exit polls and other survey results coming out of the 2024 election are incredibly clear that this contest was, as is often the case, about the economy, stupid.
Edison Research exit polls show that two-thirds of voters believe the state of America’s economy is poor or not so good; 69 percent of them voted for Trump. Asked what the most important issue in their vote was, 31 percent of voters said the economy, and 79 percent of those voters supported Trump.
4/. Why she lost - from Bob Lefsetz, written on election night.....
It should not be this close.
Not that it’s over. We must remember 2018, when we went to bed and thought the Democrats had done poorly, but in the ensuing days found out the opposite.
But if Harris loses…
We have to blame Joe Biden, and the DNC.
When Joe Biden announced that he was stepping down, I instantly took to my computer and wrote that Kamala Harris should not be the candidate. My inbox went BERSERK! I have never seen so much vitriol in response to any piece I have ever written.
Now when I wrote it, I didn’t know that the selection of Kamala Harris was a fait accompli, I held out hope for a runoff process, a shortened campaign, amongst all those who wanted to throw their hat in the ring. As did James Carville and Ezra Klein. I was not out on the precipice alone.
But instantly there was a tsunami of support for Harris. And, once again, I couldn’t say a negative thing about her, whether it be in print or conversation. I was taking all the air out of the bubble, I was Debbie Downer, can’t we just enjoy it, she’s so fabulous, she’s going to win.
5/. Why she lost - from Owen Jones in the Guardian....
Of all the factors that catapulted Trump back into the White House, one looms large over others. Just a quarter of Americans are happy with the way things are going in their country. Kamala Harris was seen by many as simply continuity Joe Biden, a president who has long had a negative approval rating. When asked last month what she would have done differently from Biden, Harris answered: “There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of – and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.”
There was no clear vision, no shared rage with the American people at the state of the country: if there was anything deeply wrong with the US, her campaign seemed to suggest, it was the existence of the Trumpist movement, and voting for Harris could finally turn the page on that.
Sure, hostility to migrants cannot simply be reduced to economic grievance. A chunk of the Trumpist movement fear what they see as an existential threat to white America, and believe that unless the Democrats are ejected, the US will reach a tipping point which will permanently subsume them demographically. For others, it isn’t simply blind racism, but misdirected anger caused by social discontent.
6/. Why she lost - from Thom Hartmann...
We just watched the final fulfillment of a 50 year plan. Louis Powell laid it out in 1971, and every step along the way Republicans have followed it.
It was a plan to turn America over to the richest men and the largest corporations. It was a plan to replace democracy with oligarchy. A large handful of America’s richest people invested billions in this plan, and its tax breaks and fossil fuel subsidies have made them trillions. More will soon come to them.
As any advertising executive can tell you, with enough money and enough advertising — particularly if you are willing to lie — you can sell anybody pretty much anything.
Even a convicted felon, rapist, and friend and agent of America’s enemies.
America was overwhelmed this fall by billions of dollars in often dishonest advertising, made possible by five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court, and it worked. Democrats were massively outspent, not to mention the power of the billionaire Murdoch family’s Fox “News” and 1500 hate talk radio stations.
Open the lens a bit larger, and we find that it goes way beyond just this election; virtually every crisis America is facing right now is either caused or exacerbated by the corruption of big money authorized by five corrupt Republicans on our Supreme Court.
https://hartmannreport.com/p/the-billionaires-won-the-50-year-841?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=302288&post_id=151253908&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=2cwgv&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
7/. A very good [pre-election] skit from SNL....
8/. There will be a post Trump era, and Tucker Carlson seems to be preparing to be a smarter, more focused Trump populist......scary
Sometimes, when Tucker Carlson is in the shower, he takes a quiet moment to reflect on whether his haters may be right about him. I know this not firsthand but because he recently mentioned it to a few thousand fans in Rosenberg, Texas. He said, “I have been through this process for so many years, where they call you something”—in his case, a very incomplete list would include “venomous demagogue,” “crypto-Nazi blowhard,” “anti-science ignoramus,” and “a dick”—“and I actually do try to take stock. Like, am I that person?”
These reveries always lead him to the same conclusion: he’s clean. It is the haters who are wrong. That night, in Rosenberg, the epithet he lingered on was “extremist.” He drew out the syllables in a derisive growl, followed by his foppish hyena bark of a laugh—a familiar sequence to anyone who has watched Tucker Carlson heap scorn on his enemies, which is to say, anyone who has watched Tucker Carlson.
9/. I wish this was funny....
10/. Yup......even cartoonists are worried!
11/. Spain's flooding is a sign our climate crisis is kicking into gear.....
Move on. Nothing to see here. Just another ordinary, everyday apocalypse.
If past experience is any guide, the world’s reaction to the floods in Spain last week will be similar to that of motorway drivers at a crash scene: slow down, take in the horror, outwardly express sympathy, inwardly give thanks that fate picked someone else – and foot on the accelerator.
That is the pattern in our climate-disrupted era when extreme-weather catastrophes have become so commonplace that they risk being normalised. Instead of outrage and determination to reduce the dangers, there is an insidious sense of complacency: these things happen. Someone else is responsible. Somebody else will fix it.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The unnatural disaster in Spain – Europe’s deadliest flash floods in at least half a century – is evidence of two undeniable truths: the human-caused climate crisis is just starting to pick up ferocity, and we need to quickly kill the fossil fuel industry before it kills us.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/02/spain-apocalyptic-floods-climate-crisis-worse-big-oil-cop29?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
12/. Yes it's over, but this is a good one especially the first panel.....
You are probably going to need some entertainment in the next 4 years to take your mind off the awfulness
of the news to come, so here are a few things to watch......
13/. Probably Clint Eastwood's last movie as a director....."Juror #2".....
Clint Eastwood has been such a familiar force in American cinema for so long that it’s easy to think you’ve got him figured out. Yet here he is again, at 94, with a low-key, genuine shocker, “Juror #2,” the 42nd movie that he’s directed and a lean-to-the-bone, tough-minded ethical showdown that says something about the law, personal morality, the state of the country and, I’m guessing, how he feels about the whole shebang. He seems riled up, to judge from the anger that simmers through the movie, which centers on a struggle to find justice within — though perhaps despite — an imperfect system and in the face of towering self-interest.
14/. "Until I Kill You".....5 star movie review from the Guardian...
Ihave said it before, but I will say it again: what a paucity of content there would be in the world, let alone the television schedules, if there were no violence by men against women. What an unrecognisable place it would be; how unimaginable to us all.
Until I Kill You is a drama that more than any of the hundreds, possibly thousands, of representations I have seen over the years gives some sense of the fathomless damage done and the strength required by survivors to overcome their experiences – by which I mean find some peace, some way to live their irreparably changed lives thereafter.
Its four relentlessly confrontational parts are based on the book Living With a Serial Killer, an account by Delia Balmer of surviving repeated physical and sexual assaults – one of which nearly killed her – by her boyfriend John Sweeney. He confesses to the murder of one ex-girlfriend while he has Delia held hostage; when the police eventually arrest him, he is convicted of two and suspected of at least three others.
15/. Vanity fair lists the best 25 movies on Netflix......with trailers too.....
16/. TV review - Season 2 of "The Diplomat" with Keri Russell.....5 stars!
In the bathroom of a plush function room, the US ambassador to the UK, Kate Wyler (Keri Russell), is struggling to take off her dress. She’s desperate to get out of this strappy orange cage so she can put on a jacket and jeans and get back to work. Eventually, unable to find a fastener among all the delicately interlocking loops at the back of her neck, she rips the thing in two, discards a couple of grand’s worth of fine fabric, changes, and stalks purposefully off.
This scene from the first episode of season two of The Diplomat is the sort of thing that used to happen all the time in the drama’s early days. It began with forthright problem-solver Kate, a US diplomat versed in war-zone management, rerouted against her will to become America’s representative in London, a role that usually carries little responsibility and is taken up by complacent types who enjoy saying and wearing the right thing.
Today's Mother-in-law joke
A young man excitedly tells his mother he’s fallen in love and is going to get married.
He says, “Just for fun, mum, I’m going to bring over three women and you try and guess which one I’m going to marry.”
The mother agrees.
The next day, he brings three beautiful women into the house and sits them down on the couch and they chat for a while.
He then says, “OK, guess which one I’m going to marry.”
She immediately replies, “The one in the middle.”
“That’s amazing, mum. You’re right. How did you know?” His mum replies, “I don’t like her.”
Today's Singles joke
A man was looking for a place to sit in a crowded university library.
He asked a girl, "Do you mind if I sit beside you?"
The girl replied, in a loud voice,
"NO, I DON'T WANT TO SPEND THE NIGHT WITH YOU!" All the people in the library started staring at the man, who was deeply embarrassed and moved to another table.
After a couple of minutes, the girl walked quietly to the man's table and said with a laugh, "I study psychology, and I know what a man is thinking.
I bet you felt embarrassed, right?"
The man responded in a loud voice,
"$500 FOR ONE NIGHT? .... I`M NOT PAYING YOU THAT MUCH!"
All the people in the library looked at the girl in shock.
The man whispered to her: "I study law, and I know how to screw people."
Today's Jewish Mama joke
Sarah calls her mom who lives in Sioux Falls Idaho. Mom! You were right!
As soon as I moved to New York I met a wonderful man!
We're in love and want to get married!
So is he conservative or reform?
No, he's a black Muslim.
Well that's OK. We live in an enlightened world and as long as you respect and love each other..
So when is he coming to meet me?
Well, he is a little nervous, because he only has jeans and t-shirts.
That's OK I still have a lot of your dad's old really nice stuff. I'm sure we can find something...
I don't know mom. He is 5'-2". I don't think daddy's stuff will fit.
What does he do for a living?
Oh, he doesn't work. He thinks it is the woman's job to support the family.
We're trying to find a cheap efficiency to live in but we have no furniture.
That's OK, you can live here.
But mom, you just have a one bedroom. Where will everyone sleep?
Oh, anywhere you want. After this conversation, I'm going to stick my head in the oven.
Today's cobbler joke
Max Cohen,hadn't returned to the old neighborhood since he went off to fight in Vietnam.
During a business trip to Philadelphia, he visits his old neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia.
Everything has changed over the years.
Where once there was A Delicatessen, there is now a McDonald's; where Fleischman's Furniture store
Used to be, a Korean nail salon and spa now is; where Sam’s favorite Department Store was, there is now a Gap.
Nothing is the same, except for the narrow storefront on Castor Avenue of Goldberg’s Shoe Repair, which, dimly lit as ever, is still in business. As Cohen passes the shop, he recalls (such are the quirks of memory that he does not know how) that, just before he was drafted to go off to Vietnam, he had left a pair of shoes with Mr. Goldberg that he never bothered to pick up.
Could they, he wonders, possibly still be there?
A small bell tinkles as he enters the dark shop.
Mr. Goldberg, who seemed old 50 years ago, shuffles out from the back.
He is hunched over, wearing a leather apron, his face wrinkled like a prune one eye all but closed.
"Excuse me, Mr. Goldberg," Max says, "but I used to live in this neighborhood, and about 50 years ago I left a pair of shoes with you for repair that I never picked up. Is there any chance you might still have them?"
Goldberg stares at him coughs several times and, in his strong Eastern European accent, asks, "Vas dey black vingtips?"
"They were indeed," Max only now recalls.
"And you vanted a halv sole, mit rubber heels?"
"Yes," says Max “That's exactly what I wanted."
"And you vanted taps on the heels only?"
"Yes, yes," says Max. "Amazing! Do you still have them?"
Mr. Goldberg looks up at him, his good eye squinting, and says, "Dey'll be ready Vendsday."
Today's Scouser jokes
For you non-Brits, a Scouser is someone from Liverpool, and the background is they are from a rough, low class part of the UK.....
What do you call a Scouser in a suit?
The defendant.
I failed my biology exam today.
The question was: Name something that is found in cells?
Apparently, Scousers was the wrong answer.
Why was that minute’s silence at Anfield, Liverpool last night incredible?
You could even hear a pocket being picked.
This Scouser gets killed and ends up outside the pearly gates.
He gives the gate a knock and St Peter emerges who says, “For fucks sake not another Scouser, I'm sick of you lot.”
The Scouser says “Go ed lar let me in.”
St Peter asks him if he’s done anything charitable recently. The Scouser says, “Yeh… I gave a fiver to Help the Aged and a fiver to the Dog Pound last week.”
St Peter says, “Ok, I’ll have to have a word with Jesus about this one.”
He comes back 10 minutes later and says, “Here’s your tenner back now fuck off.”
Ken Dodd was doing a gig at the Liverpool Empire. He walked out at the interval and quietly nipped to the bar and sat a couple of tables away from two completely oblivious scouse blokes who were chatting between themselves.
The first bloke says, “What’s the difference between Ken Dodd and a coconut?”
The second bloke replies, “I don’t know. What is the difference between Ken Dodd and a coconut?”
“You can get a drink out of a coconut!”
On hearing this Ken is quite taken aback and shouts over to the lads, “Oi I heard that.”
The first Scouser, sorely embarrassed, can’t apologise enough and says, “Oh mate, I’m so sorry I didn’t mean anything by it. Just havin’ a laugh with me mate here. I honestly didn’t mean anything by it.”
Ken tells the lads, “It’s no problem boys. I understand. I love a good joke, as you can tell, do you want a drink?”
The lads respond, “Of course, mate, that would be great!”
“Well, go and get yourselves a coconut then!”
To digress briefly, here are a few of Ken Dodd’s funniest one-liners.
“My dad knew I was going to be a comedian. When I was a baby, he said, ‘Is this a joke?’”
“I haven’t spoken to my mother-in-law for 18 months. I don’t like to interrupt her.”
“My act is very educational. I heard a man leaving the other night, saying: ‘Well, that taught me a lesson.’”
“I used to think I was marvellous in bed — until I discovered all my girlfriends suffered from asthma.”
“I do all the exercises every morning in front of the television — up, down, up, down, up, down. Then the other eyelid.”
“I have kleptomania. But when it gets bad, I take something for it.”
Ok, now back to the show!
A Scouser walks into his local benefits office to collect his government dole money.
He says to the benefits officer, “You know something? I just hate being on the dole, I’d really rather have a job.”
She says, “Your timing is excellent. We have just got a job opening from a very wealthy old man. He wants a chauffeur and bodyguard for his nymphomaniac daughter. You’ll have to drive around in his Mercedes or his Rolls Royce. He’ll supply all of your clothes, credit cards and money.
Because of the long hours, all your meals will also be provided.
You’ll be expected to escort his beautiful daughter on her overseas holiday trips, you’ll have to satisfy all of her needs including any “physical” urges.
You’ll have a two-bedroom apartment above the garage and the starting salary is £200,000 a year."
The Scouser says, “You’re bullshittin’ me!”
The benefits worker says. “YEAH, BUT YOU STARTED IT!”
A Scouser is in a bar and a prostitute walks up to him and asks if he would like a blowjob.
The Scouser immediately head-butts the woman in the face, then walks away to the bar.
The barman says, “Why did you do that, what did she say?!”
The Scouser replies, “Oh, somethin’ about a job.”
Two Manchester boys are walking down the street when they notice a child being attacked by a dog. One of the boys picks up a stick and hits the dog over the head until the dog dies and lets go of the kid.
A man approaches the boy and says, “I’m a reporter, and I’d like to run a story about you because you’re a hero. How would you like to see a front-page story about a City fan rescuing a child from a devil dog?”
“I’m not a City fan,” the youngster admits.
“All right, a United fan saves a baby from a wicked dog.”
“I’m not a United fan.”
“So, who do you support?”
“Liverpool,” says the boy.
“Right, so it’ll be scouse bastard kills family pet.”
A primary teacher informs her students that she is a Liverpool fan. She invites her students to raise their hands if they, too, support Liverpool.
Except for one little girl, everyone in the class raises their hands.
“Mary, why didn’t you raise your hand?” the teacher asks, surprised.
“Because I’m not a Liverpool fan,” she replies.
“Well, if you are not a Liverpool fan, then who are you a fan of?”
Mary replied, “I am an Everton fan, and I am proud of it.”
The teacher couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Mary, why, pray tell, are you an Everton fan?”
“Because my mum is an Everton fan, and my dad is an Everton fan, so I’m an Everton fan too!”
“Well, that is no reason for you to be an Everton fan,” said the teacher, clearly annoyed.
“You don’t have to be just like your parents all of the time… What if your mother was a prostitute and your father was a drug addict?”
“Then,” Mary smiled, “I’d be a Liverpool fan.
Liverpool have won the Premier League.
The Government is paying people not to work.
Somewhere there’s a Scouser with a genie in a lamp wondering what to do with his last wish.
Sean Connery was interviewed by Michael Parkinson and bragged that, despite being 72 years of age, he could still have sex three times a night.
Cilla Black, who was also a guest, looked intrigued.
After the show, Cilla says, “Sean, if I’m not bein’ too forward, I’d luv to ‘ave sex with yer. Let's go back to my ‘ouse, we could ‘ave a lorra fun.”
So, they went back to her place and got comfortable.
After a couple of drinks, they went off to bed and had an hour of mad passionate sex together.
Afterwards, Sean says, “If you think that was good, let me shleep for half an hour, and we can have better shex. But while I’m shleeping, hold my balls in your left hand and ma willie in your right hand.”
Cilla looks a bit perplexed, but says, “Okay.”
He sleeps for half an hour, awakens, and they have even better sex than before.
Then Sean says, ‘Cilla, that was wonderful. But if you let me shleep for an hour, we can have the besht shex yet. You’ll have to…….”
“I know Sean. Yer want me to ‘old onto yer bat ‘n balls again. No problem hun.”
Cilla complies with the routine. The results this time are absolutely mind blowing.
Once it’s all over, they have a drink, Sean lights a cigarette and Cilla asks. “Sean, tell me, dis ‘oldin yer balls in one hand and yer willie in de other — does it really stimulate yer that much?”
Sean replies, “No, not at all Cilla, but the last time I shlept with a Scouser, the bitch stole ma wallet.
