Yes, exactly. When Vance went to Yale and Trump went to Wharton, the “elitist” garbage falls very flat. If elitist means we bother to gather information to educate ourselves? That’s alarming. They are willfully ignorant. Is everyone else finding that they are truly bullies? The whiny kind that whines and cries when you call them on their crap? It’s nauseating, right? What I’m worried about is that they WON’T ever find out what they’ve done because they only get their information from Fox.. or FB, the world’s biggest echo chamber. And they’ll be told that things are going great and this is the best administration in the world since the dawn of time. My Democratic town committee went all out, writing postcards, several joined phone banks, a group of us went to Allentown PA (where she won in PA), and Manchester NH (which she won), and she also won our little red town in Mass. I am enraged that people didn’t listen to even his own cabinet members — 40 out of 44, including 3 generals AND his VP — who warned the country not to vote for him. I am enraged that they voted against their own best interests. I am astounded that Haitians and Puerto Ricans voted for him — and they surely did. She ran an excellent and superbly organized campaign, and it was never going to be enough. I am enraged at these so completely willfully ignorant people who would vote for this group of losers. The Media ARE complicit.
I am concerned with the fact that our high paid consultants may be overly enamored with LEARNING and not enough focus on DESIGNING AND DELIVERING WINS. Over-relying on educating themselves by studying data and memorizing facts and figures which becomes centered as the task and goal as opposed to WINNING. One of the outcomes of this posture then results in too much noise (nuance) in comparison to too little clear signal to the voter's at campaign time, which is badly needed with such a complicit MSM.
Our efforts must be towards get ready to win a brawling football game as opposed to holding a well-mannered and logic based classroom lecture. That means learning and data are important but not at the expense of a highly efficient, broad scale ground operation.
A related problem to this finds higher ups discounting the information from operatives on the ground as inferior, preferring to take a "we know better" attitude.
For example, based on my experience, having been in both rural NY, rural Illinois, and now rural Ohio, none of the leadership listens to the operatives on the ground, preferring to look down on us as stupid (even those of us with doctorates!). In Illinois, sure, Chicago, ensures Illinois stays blue, similar case in NY, but in Ohio, we do not have this luxury.
In Ohio, for example, only 60 something counties out of 88 have Democratic party committees and of those 60 something committees, several are deeply dysfunctional (varying from not functioning at all on one end of the spectrum to actually helping Republicans win on the other end). This did not happen overnight. When asking the Chair to address these numerous issues, if I get a reply back, I'm told "the county parties are independent and self-acting" and the state party is "separate from the county parties." That the "state committee role is not to support, finance, or oversee the county parties in anyway." This cannot be true! If it is true, we have a major organizational and operational problem in Ohio.
Additionally, campaigns have also shared with me that the ODP completely shuns them.
To make matters worse, the national Dem leadership wrongly abandons Ohio all together (which now sinks further and further into the red making it harder to fathom a way out) and sending a message to the operatives on the ground, we can win with out you, when clearly they cannot.
Look for an organization called Blue Ohio, or the parent umbrella group All States Blue. Blue Missouri didn't turn the state, but there were Democratic candidates in over 80% of previously uncontested races.
My sister in Idaho said they did the same thing, running Democrats in uncontested races. They knew they weren't going to win, but it is an important start.
In my swing state, the state party is improving significantly and not what you’re describing in Ohio. I feel for you. Tim Ryan should have been supported. He’s the kind of democrat that could win a national election in my opinion. In my swing state over the years, I’ve seen the national Democratic Party send in consultants to help top and down ballot races during presidential elections. I have not been at all impressed by many of these folks connected to the national Democratic Party, which I believe needs a major updating and removal of dead wood in terms of its top leadership in DC.
What swing state are you in? I live in blue Oregon, and want to support local organizations in states where there is a chance of turning things around. I absolutely agree that the national party needs an overhaul.
Joe, the lack of Democratic committees in many counties should be the concern of all Democrats at every level of the organization. Especially if Democratic candidates are going to meet with voters on their, the voters' turf. I think that personal engagement on the local level is the only way to bridge information gaps. I live in Pittsburgh, PA, and was very pleased to see the Harris/Walz campaign go to places like Beaver County and others that are in rural areas. Those areas have been ignored by the state and national Democrats for too long and the result is overwhelming Republican control. In the case of the Beaver County Democratic Committee, I think it had essentially become moribund until after the 2016 election. After that election it began a rebuilding process which, while slow, I think is working. One of the ways concerned Democrats can support these efforts in rural areas is by becoming a monthly donor of the rural Democratic Committee. Urban Democrats could "adopt" a rural Democratic Committee near them and provide this monthly support. As we all know, operating cash flow is hard for any small organization to come by.
I wanted to jump up and down when I read your comment. I won't give any money to anything connected to the national Democratic party. Living in blue Oregon, I want to find a way to direct my energy to rural areas where a little help can make a difference. Beaver County Democratic Committee looks like one of those. I'm a big fan of NE Arizona Native Democrats. They even had a fundraiser to repair their staff vehicles because they have to drive so much on rough roads.
I bake Christmas cookies every year, and rather than give them away, I think I'll turn it into a fundraiser for maybe the Beaver County Democrats. I don't expect it will raise a lot of money, but it will give people an idea of how we can help. After this devastating loss, we all want to know what we can do. Well, I'm going to bake cookies.
That's terrific, Kate. I don't give to the national Democratic Party either, but I did give to the Harris/Walz campaign and to the PA House Democratic Campaign Committee which supported legislators to keep the Democratic majority in the PA House - which they were successful in doing! I'm sure the Beaver County Democratic Committee would appreciate any donation you gave them. Here's a link for them. https://beavercountydemocrats.com/
Wow. I have never been involved with party politics but from your description doesn’t it sound like what went on in Hillary’s campaign? I mean separately from the MSM’s public gaming and shaming with the email server story and so on. If I remember rightly the press lambasted Democrats for ignoring the middle of the country (didn’t they call it Rust Belt then) and the working class, that is, for being elitist. It seems some people never learn.
Sounds familiar, Marian! I resist the "Elites" reference. And also, the party is unable to reach every corner of the country. They concentrated on those states they thought they could win in. 93 million people did NOT vote. Some couldn't due to
their personal circumstances. But many other people just sat out this election. We will ALL pay the consequences for their lack of motivation/laziness, or inability to sift through the disinformation. ALL of us will suffer!
Misinformation from the GOP and probably Russia was a major problem. This 11 minute recording from Heather Cox Richardson goes into that (if your'e in a hurry, start at 3 minutes).
Robert I want to thank you and Jill for keeping us informed, keeping us motivated, and giving us some hope. This is a very difficult time - for many of us, thank you for helping me keep my head on straight for the past 8 years, and now. 🙏🏻
Mr. Jones, I appreciate your point of view very much. You worte: "For example, based on my experience, having been in both rural NY, rural Illinois, and now rural Ohio, none of the leadership listens to the operatives on the ground, preferring to look down on us as stupid (even those of us with doctorates!)" I am an old retired academic and haven't been much involved in party politics in 45 years, but in my very limited experience i saw this attitude. When writing postcard, we were enjoined not to vary the wording one word, not to use any of your own thoughts or words or the success rate would drop from
1.60% to .89% (not real numbers but the same order of magnitude from my memory). And it wasn't just, "Dear student we strongly advise that you do it this way," but the attitude was, "If you don't do it this way you are a running dog of the imperialist war mongers and you will cause Kamala to lose the election." I complied and included their message and added a few more words of community and solidarity on my own. And my wife broke away a little more. I hope our slight deviation on 800 or so postcards to citizens in various states and programs didn't cause our loss. This is not a problem of Democratic "elites," but it may be a problem of perspective of some within the party and the affiliated groups. Jess Piper and others have pointed this out and as a rural Midwestern guy, I have to say there are way to many parts of the country that are uncontested and their citizens feel forgotten and demeaned. Thank you for your important thoughts. -- Please colleagues, don't take my words as any criticism of those party organizations and affiliated groups that do pay attention and work hard for rural voters -- Clayton Anderson and the NC Democratic Party's energy and leadership is what hauled me off the sideline in the spring and there are many others doing the good work right. Let's make sure we hear them.
Mea culpa, in my haste I reversed Anderson Clayton's name, my fault. She is almost half a century younger than I am but she is one of my heroes. I apologize for that slip.
Two things your comment brings to mind; a screenshot of an online post wherein the poster said he voted for Trump because he promised to get rid of Obamacare. He wanted just the ACA without Obamacare. He was immediately informed they were one and the same, which he researched and then was all upset that the 'Dems' gave it two names! So still not is fault for being ignorant ... Pitiful!
The other was a guest or associate in a discussion about races where Reps were running unopposed. She had pulled a DEM ballot so was unable to even oppose the only candidate and stated that we should recruit someone who was willing to be the underdog to give voters a choice! Makes sense to me.
Don't expect a non-Rep to make much headway in such a case, but it shows there are 'other than' voters in those districts and eventually it should become competitve.
I’m in Ohio too. Moved here 3 years ago from Washington state and I’m still In shock. I have gotten involved with the county Democratic Party, which is enthusiastic but caught in the weeds. Thanks for the tip on Blue Ohio. I will check them out. I see they supported our candidate for state rep but she ended up with something like 30% of the vote.
Stephen --- I agree with all you say. Actually, now that I think about it, 'those Generals and high lever former criminal's cabinet etc' --- I have nothing but scorn for them. Where have they been? Whey were they not out like Liz Cheyny shouting all this from the roof tops. No - many were too busy writing their books - Kelly?? Barr? and the rest.
Several years ago, a military friend of mine, a Major at the time, said that General Officers, even when retired, are still officially military members. According to him, they can be court-martialed for excessive involvement in politics.
I think their speaking out forcefully and publicly was courageous.
After grief and despair there is hope. If we stay mired in despair they win. But turning hope into action requires the courage to face the truth. It has been said that a crazy person is only dangerous in a crazy society. Boredom and nursing old wounds against manly honor have resurrected fear and hatred in many men. The MAGAS combined with millions who stood aside for unknown reasons produces a clear majority of Americans who share neither our values nor our strength of conviction. The media has become irrelevant to the quest for truth. It will take a generation for America to recover if it ever does. We are looking at Jonestown writ large. These are disturbing realities. However this monstrous assault on our values sets the stage to let our dreams and imagination soar. It will unfetter us from old dogmas and conformity that have prevented us from understanding our past and truly connecting with our inner selves and the force of creation. Through such a process we will behold the beauty of changing ourselves. That is where can start to rebuild.
I think Mary Trump had a good point this weekend. In the last few decades, while we Democrats were buying TV ads, the right wing was buying stations. Among many other things to ponder, maybe using some money in that direction would be a good counterpoint.
BTW, I think 'elitist' refers to our support of minorities, the environment, and other causes. It means we like everyone else better than them. They are right if they are greedy, racist, and misogynistic people.
I agree. Particularly that the mainstream media are complicit in this disaster. After the 2016 election I became very selective about where I got my news and analysis. My news consumption began to center more on middle of the road MSM outlets, such as CNN and MSNBC (yes) and the Guardian and BBC. For analysis I favor the Atlantic. But their collective performance in this election cycle has been so egregious--from the unconscionable pile on of Joe Biden to their relentless normalizing of exPINO--that the MSM has lost me. There are still a few commentators I listen to, but I have my doubts about how truly independent their voices can be in the corporate media environment.
Thank you for this analysis. It was bad enough watching him win but watching the "lamestream press" explain the loss is more painful. "If only she had gone on Joe Rogan", give me a break. I only hope I have the opportunity to vote for her and Walz again.
I too appreciate Robert's analysis. I'm avoiding the news. I also hope we have the opportunity to vote for Harris/Walz again. I have a feeling that many trump voters will rue the day they voted for him.
I agree that VP Harris ran a nearly flawless campaign, designed and built while airborne. But in our zeal, I wonder if we may have overdone a few things. The incessant pushy requests for "donations" (I probably got a couple dozen a day), perhaps too many postcards, letters, phone calls, texts, and door knocks to swing voters (there were many organizations duplicating efforts and lists) overwhelmed them. While the campaign was nearly flawless, maybe uncoordinated support was too much.
If you also read Heather Cox Richardson, as many of us on the Substack also do, then you will read that this is already happening. She starts out Nov 8 with,”Social media has been flooded today with stories of Trump voters who are shocked to learn that tariffs will raise consumer prices as reporters are covering that information” it goes on from there.
They are not rethinking their vote. Trump voters are flouting their red hats in public, calling each other to congratulate themselves right now. Even trying to boast that last week's stock market gains are because of Trump. It is going to take time for some to realize, but many will not ever realize it, they will find some alternate explanation when things go bad.
Considering the stakes, I hope the Democratic Party and organizations like The Lincoln Project will continue putting ads on TV for all voters, as well as in MAGA-frequented social media sites for the Trump voters, to publicize any especially dangerous moves made by the criminal sociopath.
I believe when some of those policies roll out in the next four years, there will also be many peaceful protests the Trump voters won't be able to ignore, as there just were in several big cities.
I also hope the media will decide to stand tall with the majority of Americans. I suggest to them that they have more to gain by foregoing "appeasement" and waging a tough campaign of truth alongside the citizens of this country. Media organizations know what's coming for them. Tip toeing around the fascist, Christain Nationalist tank aimed at the media with both barrels blazing, is a losing strategy.
They're going to be targeted no matter what they do. Better to put up the defenses now than later. If they thought their viewership was down now, they should realize it will be worse if they turn into apologists for "the new Nazi movement" in America.
Many of the Trump voters will wake up eventually to the damage to their lives being done by the person they voted for several days ago. Meanwhile, we need to keep all the great anti-Trump/pro-democracy groups continuing--with or without Trump voters--even after this election to fight for our country and our quality of life.
The MAGA-heads are about to learn the hard truth about Trump-he doesn't care about his base of support or their problems. When his tariff program starts a renewed wave of inflation, they will be remorseful.
Cindy, it's poignantly tragic. We're dealing with people who, when asked if they supported an authoritarian government in a survey, responded: "What's authoritarian?" We're dealing with voters who passionately voted for both keeping abortion rights in their state, AND Trump. We're dealing with millions of immigrants who voted for Trump. We're dealing with the uneducated unthinkers. They will wake up to what they voted for, and they will be upset. And it will be too late.
Harris got about 10,000,000 LESS VOTES than Biden did in 2020
Where did all these people go….was the disinformation campaign so successful that it prevented 10 million people from voting Democratic? I’m perplexed…
And with such an almost round number, I’d love to hear someone tell me definitively that there isn’t the slightest chance that there was an incidence of Russian or Chinese backdoor “fixing”. I’m not generally a conspiracy theorist, but with the Trump team being such cheaters, and linked closely with the likes of Putin, and the number being almost exactly what he was beat by in 2020 . . .
Laural, you're not wrong. There were government agencies warning of Russian interference in this upcoming election. The media did not report it. No one in government or law enforcement did anything about it. We just sat and watched it unroll before us and change our lives. Here's just one article from October from The Hill. If you google the issue, you will find more.
I think this played a key role in this election. For a minority to win, they have to resort to damping the majority in multiple ways, not just by having better ideas but also by gamesmanship.
"Power backed by money..." is the glitzy front of the hand. It'd be interesting to see what's in the dark back room behind this candy store front verbiage.
I see a LOT of force being enacted in the world but very little power and almost no mastery.
As for The Age of Enlightnent (sp?), pure bs. There's a concept of such an Age and in practice, enlightenment, as lived, lasts for maybe a second. Two if you really luck. It absolutely doesn't last for an age for any one individual or groups of individuals.
If you feel down by the circumstances, I get it. Me too on and off. Just lets not bring the curtain down on possibility and close up the space and go home, just yet.
All those door knockers who reported positive responses from voters- were the voters lying when they said they’d vote for Harris Walz? Sure seems like it. Did all those post cards go right in the waste basket when the postman delivered them? I just can’t wrap my head around what America just did to itself.
As I prepared and mailed >1,000 postcards for voters, I wondered if they would even be delivered by Georgia's inadequate postal service. Since Trump appointed Louis DeJoy the US Postmaster General, mail here has not been the same. A new distribution center was built a couple of years ago south of Atlanta and several regional ones were closed. Since then, our packages often vanish into thin air, especially from Amazon "sponsored" suppliers, and much of our mail is never delivered to our addresses. Delivery to our addresses is haphazard at best because of a lack of delivery personnel. Numerous photos from investigators, including Senator Jon Ossoff, and whistleblowers inside the facility indicate mountains of undelivered and damaged mail and packages. I have no way of knowing, but I do wonder whether those postcards were even delivered.
Yes. It's very fishy. And now we're all turning inward and blaming ourselves. Wrong. The election is gone, but there's still a few shreds of hope if we work hard and constructively and create what we want.
Maybe I’m a pessimist, but I think even an unconscionable number of Dems couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a mixed-race woman. We need to be better humans, but it’s going to be a long struggle.
Yes, sad but true that many, TOO Many, voters (much less the population) are totally prejudiced against women in ANY position where they may have "power" over them.
Still living with puritan notions and the Christo-fascist re-write of biblical principles.
What I read was that appromately 1/3 of eligible voters Did Not Vote. A bit over 1/3 voted for Trump and a bit under 1/3 voted for Harris. I haven't researched it, but most of the numbers I've seen, reflects that.
YES! Where did those 10,000,000 voters go?!?!? Or not go, which seems to be the issue. I feel like those folks completely negated my vote. Methinks we might could use a dose of Australia - if ya don't vote ya get fined.
We used to have civics as a course in high school. It may sound quaint to people younger than myself, but I remember standing up, putting my hand on my heart, and pledging the allegiance every day at the start of the school day. While it was not civics per se, it was a common, unified action that occurred regularly that we all did.
that’s another good point. I can’t believe people who believe, gender reassignment is done on fly, with chemicals. They believe kids can go to school & return home a different gender.
How do people not research the lies spread on social media, or delivered to them by DT’s campaign?
Billionaires sold our country out for greed & power. Billionaires own the media, and they normalized DT from the beginning to now.
It’s crazy.
I will just accelerate my involvement with grassroots organizations.
These numbers are disturbing. This suggests we had a lot of registered voters who stayed home. That wasn't the case in 2020, when almost all registered voters turned out (I don't know the number offhand but I think it was about 10 million). When we hear that only 2/3 of "eligible" voters voted, they're talking about people who are eligible to BE voters, not those who are registered. All that said, there are still many votes left to be counted, so we should reserve judgment. The biggest opportunity for the future is registering more voters, but we can expect trump to make that more difficult.
No. Stop blaming others for people's choices. All people are subject to misinformation, to Musk's bots and to many other things. People choose to believe what they want to believe. How come half the population was not affected by propaganda, misinformation, Elon bots, etc? Are you going to tell me it is genetic? 74 million people chose a rapist and a convicted felon as president, it is their choice, and their own fault if they were "misled." It is not Harris' fault, or Democrats' fault. Yes, outside factors contributed to their poor choice, but the responsibility remains on each of them individually.
Maybe, your response is to someone else. I believe Musk and Russia’s coordinated efforts that started 14 months ago, had the largest effect on the results.
Since, I was someone who they harassed, hacked my phone( requiring me to a new one) hacked my Instagram, bullied me on all of my social media sites, changed log on information on my health care, bank account and other accounts. On a daily basis, there would so many fake profiles to block and delete. This is intimidation and harassment.
I believe corruption was also at the helm. I am livid! EM is a bully to the ninth degree. He also feeds off this. It’s sadistic.
Now, I feel entirely helpless to take legal action.
With all the new registrations everywhere, I am having a hard time believing that they just stayed home after that. I will not criticize the Democrats for the stellar campaign that Harris/Walz ran, but by gosh I wish they wouldn’t play dead now. They are afraid that even mentioning voter suppression makes them look like conspiracy theorists. We’ve always needed a fighting party but now more than ever.
It's possible they're investigating but keeping quiet until they have tangible evidence. That's what I would expect them to do. They didn't hire an army of lawyers for nothing.
People are inherently lazy and they hadn't heard the Harris name before the end of July. They didn't bother to do the research because that would have required taking time away from football, some other sport, or supporting their way of life. I was surprised at the number of new vehicles that came to the polling place where I was a greeter. The owners were probably voting against the inflation they were causing and the economy that was good enough for the purchase of a new vehicle. Incidentally, Biden might have done better than Harris had the Democratic leadership stood with him because his name was well-known. We'll never know that and it is now completely irrelevant. Today, we have bigger troubles.
Essentially we learned that Americans respond positively to racist and misogynist prompts. Democrats who believe in social justice and equality are few and far between.
We learned that over 1/3 of possible voters sat it out. And that should tell us that a large part of the populace has no idea what government is and how it makes everyday life better. Many do respond to racist and sexist but we learned that when Trump was President last time. We also learned (or should have learned) that you can't solely rely on a laugh when you should be pissed and indignant. While I thought Kamala's joy was a beautiful thing, I wonder how the media would have responded if she had beat the verbal shit out of Trump for his "eating the cats and dogs" comment in the debate. And we should have learned that the MSM are a sniveling bunch of cowards. Anyone who still has an "X" account, an Amazon account, a NYT subscription, LAT subscription, CNN subscription and WP subscription are feeding those cowards. The sooner you cancel the better.
`A wall goes up when you try to make Mr. And Mrs. Average American Citizen work or think." "The average American doesn't want to be educated, he doesn't want to improve his mind; he doesn't want to work, consciously, at being a good citizen. But there are 2 ways you can interest him in a campaign, and only 2 that we have ever found successful." You can put on a fight ("He likes a good battle with no punches pulled"), or you can put on a show ("He likes the movies, he likes mysteries; he likes fireworks and parades). "So, if you can't fight, PUT ON A SHOW! If you put on a good show, Mr. And Mrs. America will turn out to see it.' [And, apparently, vote for it.]
In the history book These Truths, by Jill Lepore, are these paragraphs about the first, highly successful political campaign managers, Campaigns, Inc., aka The Lie Factory, founded in 1933. They never lost a campaign. Republicans have mastered their campaign strategy rules:
'Every campaign needs a theme. Keep it simple. Rhyming is good. Never explain anything. "The more you have to explain, the more difficult it is to win support." Say the same thing over and over again. "We assume we have to get a voter's attention 7 times to make a sale". Subtlety is your enemy. "Words that lean on your mind are no good. They must dent it." Simplify, simplify, simplify. " ..."Make it personal. Candidates are easier to sell than issues. If your position doesn't have an opponent, invent one. Pretend that you are the voice of the people. You can't wage a defensive campaign and win. Never shy from controversy; instead win the controversy. Sad to see that Americans resemble this description even more now after "the information age" than they did when this was spoken in the 1950s. Misinformation had not just one,, but two, very human legs to "stand on"; and those legs were willing and lazy.
I disagree that Biden might have don't better. Had hr remained in thr race he would have been a dead man walking, and possibly dragged down other DDemocratic candidates.
So many "We'll never know's in my life. When FL: and HW's Supreme Court cheated Gore out of the 2000 Presidency, we'll never know how Gore would have responded to 9/11. I doubt seriously that he'd have gone to war with Iraq. So many lives lost to settle a political score. And Hillary in 2016 stopped by Trump's Russian shenanigan's and Comey's mess. Now I can safely say I'll never live long enough to see a woman in the WH. This voter will likely never know how good a woman President will be. It is so backwards, the US can sometimes be downright embarrassing.
George, why are you perplexed? Harris is a black/south asian woman. Biden is a white male. As Robert Hubbell succinctly points out: misogyny, racism, white supremacy. Simple.
Exactly the point I’ve been trying to make for most of this week. The most important part is that there was NO RED WAVE. There were many that didn’t vote at all, especially the 10-11 million that voted in 2020 who didn’t show up this time.
While I feel betrayed by them, I’m also willing to extend some grace and understand that many were simply battle fatigued. Some (many?) just couldn’t take the hate, the fear and the sh*t anymore and just shut down. Not excusing it, but I understand it happens.
Now those who made a deliberate choice not to choose or “it doesn’t matter” or make a “protest vote” aren’t getting any grace from me. In their hearts, they had a preference for Harris or Trump, but did have the moral fortitude to own that preference. Some wanted Trump but also wanted to be able to say “it wasn’t me, my hands are clean”. Some wanted Harris, but also wanted their hands “clean” of choosing a woman or liberal or POC. Both wanted others to do the hard work, the heavy lifting, so they wouldn’t have to.
Our hands show we did the work and, frankly, so do those of the Trump voters. Look out for those with clean hands.
No. These non-voters get no grace from me. I now know that I live in a nation driven by hate, ignorance and stupidity. I've snoozed some sweet but vapid 'friends ' on Facebook, because I no longer have any interest in engaging with them.
When people deliberately vote for a con man who spews lies and hate with his every breath, they have chosen to put our country on a very dangerous path.
That’s certainly up to you. To me, if someone has been fighting the fight and reaches the point where they just hit the wall and can’t go further, I’m willing to extend a hand to help them back up.
Exactly, I have no use for anyone that overlooked a despicable, morally bankrupt individual by voting for him or chose to not vote and helped him to be elected, go away! Friends or family if I can’t count on you to do the right thing, then I’m done!
re the 10 million missing Democrats.....There are voters who voted for Biden last time, would never vote for Trump, but also cannot bring themselves to vote for a woman, especially a Black woman. Or those who were pissed because she did not go thru the Primary Election process, and feel she was foisted upon Democratic voters, and not really our choice. And finally, and probably most true, there are those who refused to vote for Harris nee Biden because of his stance on the Israel conflict re Palestinians and the Gaza mess. These are all reasons I heard from Democrats when talking politics with them these last few months.
I did not talk to those voters but if you sat on your butt and did not vote in this election, you elected the most despicable person imaginable. It is your fault!
I keep hearing that thousands of Republicans who could not stomach voting for Trump though they may have voted for him in 2016 and 2020 could not vote for a woman who is black (read: racism and misogyny) or for a Democrat as president, either. During previous elections, I had not heard many people talking about not voting. Can we surmise that this played a big role in what happened?
From 2020 to 2024, Trump lost only around 200K voters, so this theory does not hold up.
In the same period, Democrat candidates lost close to 12 million votes. That is where the problem lies. Looks like there are millions of non-Trump voters who could not get around to voting for Harris.
I have wondered the question so I hope we will see some answers here. And the same question applies to the flip states or was that just people voting the ticket?
Fascist regimes and dictatorships across the globe succeed when the legacy media first stop question facist leaders, then the same media outlets normalize criminal and prejudicial attitudes and behaviors from fascist leaders, then the same media outlets provide excuses for those attitudes and behaviors. The legacy media have been working for Trump and toward a fascist and racist state for many years now. We need to boycott one media outlet at a time by the millions. CNN, NYT, and others are indeed in the business of maintaining and will continue to maintain the racist, sexist status quo until nobody pays attention to them. I thank Robert Hubble for the daily well thoughtout summary of news so that I don't have to retch when exposed to legacy media.
I agree. Doesn't feel or think right. Elon Musk, Vladmir Putin, Trump...did you happen to see Adam Mockler/Led by Donkeys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRyo3ZqrnKs ? Well organized chronological actions by Elon Musk. Since Supreme Court (Roberts) overturned Citizens United and opened the flood gates to "billionaires in politics" - what can we do? Elon Musk, in charge of "Government Efficiency", a government wide audit to "remove" 2 trillion dollars of debt...Social Security, Medicare, assistance programs, FEMA - DELETE - Add tariffs. Musk said "it's going to be "hard"" for a while. Musk wants to take his chosen 1 million to Mars. He does need a couple of trillion to do it; not to mention unlimited Earth resources. And then there is JD Vance and Mike Johnson...sigh.
Watching CNN tonight, a guest (sorry, I didn't catch his name) kept saying that the Harris/Walz campaign simply couldn't overcome the widespread "discontent" with the economy, especially that of the first two years of Biden's term.
Every time, I yelled back "Disinformation!!" Trump lied continually, about the economy and everything... and gullible voters believed, rather than do their own research.
I don't quite get how we had and have the strongest economy in the world now but it was portrayed by T and apparently felt by the majority that it was the weakest.
Bottom line - we're in for some rough times ahead, but if we can't break through the corporate media sanewashing, Trumpist lying brainwashing, and convince the sitter-outers to vote, we're screwed.
Maybe the MAGATS will be happy when Trump really does turn us into a "garbage-can country".
Exactly right. For years, I have been saying the propaganda firehose of lies IS the problem! I don't know how to get truth, facts, to these people, let alone get them to change their locked in opinions. Apparently it will take the real pain that's coming to, maybe, do it.
Propaganda, alone, is not the problem. The problem are lazy people who choose to believe lies rather than to do their homework and find trustworthy information. Here is one example: Those who say they voted for Trump because they were "deeply worried" about immigration. How come they did not know that there was a bipartisan immigration bill ready to be passed, and that Trump ordered McConnell to stop it because, if approved, it would make Biden "look good"? If after knowing this they still believe Trump will fix immigration, they are nothing but fools (to put it mildly).
Many of them truly DON'T know. Certainly, they weren't told by FoxNews, Newsmax, or AONN. I have in-laws who never watch anything else, and because they watch more than one channel, they believe they are getting well-rounded info.
Earlier this year, when my s-i-l was upset about one of her grandson's living with his girlfriend, I brought up his sexual assault conviction and the Access Hollywood tape.
She hadn't even heard about the tapes and didn't believe when I told her. I emailed her links to the tape and to his 'just locker room talk'. She wouldn't discuss it and voted for him anyway, because she was only concerned about banning abortions.
This is my point, exactly. It does not matter if they "know" or don't know. If someone tells them, with facts, with reports, with copies of the lawsuits, they will refuse to believe; they will believe what they want and vote for him. They might use whatever excuse they want (abortion, violence, immigration, economy), but I am convinced they vote for him because they like him, and they like him because they see themselves in him. It is as simple (and as painful) as that. Half of the country is a reflection of Trump, and Trump is the reflection of half of the country.
"But the media is (again) sane-washing Trump's depravity." Yes. And they are doing this – apart from generating clicks – to downplay their own role in this disaster, lending some false air of normalcy to the MAGA continuation of the insurrection by their persistent both-sidesism.
It is also an intent to sane-wash the American electorate. Fairly late yesterday I wrote a comment which seemed to go largely unnoticed, or perhaps it was noticed and readers just missed a dislike button to react. Here I go again:
Robert, you are absolutely right that this is not the time for slicing and dicing or Monday morning (Wednesday morning?) quarterbacking.
Once the dust has settled any serious explanation or effort to make sense of what happened should depart from a simple fact, though: in no functioning democracy anywhere in the civilized western world a movement or candidate comparable to the insurrectionist and his posse would attract more than 20% of the vote. Period. No matter the other candidates or issues at hand.
This time around one even can't blame the undemocratic Electoral College, he won a majority of the popular vote. And it doesn't help to point to the large percentage of nonvoters. Everybody not living under a rock had to know that on Nov 5 there was a clear choice between democracy and autocracy, turning the country over to a mobster. And everybody voting for the insurrectionist (or Jill Stein, which would be the same) or not voting at all said either 'Fine with me' or 'So what?'.
So every attempt to explain what happened must start with a long hard look at the American society and system. Even Democrats, who usually are at the receiving end of many shortcomings, are still talking about 'the shining city on the hill' and the 'greatest democracy on the planet'. It doesn't help.
Stefan, while it certainly feels that way from our access to information I believe that people have huge information deserts in the US, at least good information. A colleague of my husband's told me that in his town in rural Texas people often did not know who the mayor was. People watched television when he was growing up and listened to the local radio station. Didn't you say you were scared by what you heard driving in Texas on the radio? One of the reasons that Biden wanted people in rural areas to have internet is so they can have access to information. If your local tv news, and radio stations are basically giving you the same talking points as Trump and Fox News his mouthpiece, you do not know anything about what is going on in the US or the world, or what Trump planned to do. Your pastor if you are a Christian Nationalist isn't telling you anything useful either. You also don't know that you should be looking further because no one around you is, and it is just chance that some people discover something different.
We have been hearing that some of those who voted for Trump and are not MAGAs had buyers remorse after they somehow found out that what they thought they voted for was not what they are probably going to get. In fact, I can tell that most journalists have not read Project 2025, because I have and they don't know what is in store either. I have stopped several subscriptions because I did not feel they were covering the election with the right gravitas. However, that still means, that a lot of people, lacking the time, know-how and/or resources do not know what is going on.
I taught in an independent school that was part of an academic community, and most of my colleagues avoided the news because it was too depressing. It often amuses me how they will point out articles to me as if this is something I would not know about, when I read a lot of news and they don't. I am not saying these people did not vote in this election. The women did. Several of the men do not vote. They say their vote doesn't count.
I believe that if the plans in Project 2025 for education are implemented, there will be first hand experience for those who don't home school, of what is in store. That will wake parents up and make them want more information and help them to get actively informed. Higher education is already quaking, and I see why. I can imagine more Americans will be sending their children abroad for university like we did with our daughter. Since she is a dual citizen it is not abroad in the same sense as other Americans who have come to university here in Germany, but it certainly is the same shift.
I am sorry for these people but also feel that they need to realize what will happen through experience. I don't know what will make them do that more than what is in store, but with no one recording it for them, how will they know what is going on? Will they just believe what Trump and Elon Musk and 4Chan and their CN Pastors tell them. Basically suck it up until End-of-Days when God comes to save you. That is what slaves were told too.
Thanks so much for these balanced observations. I too have lived both in the U.S., Germany and other allied countries. I have just commented above on the massive hijacking of profoundly ignorant voters in the U.S. into toxic information silos. It is tragic, but what can be difficult for some of our allies to understand is that this massive intellectual and demographic crisis is not one easily surmounted as critically-minded individuals, or even collectives. That toxic dynamic is not at all representative of the country as a whole, though it can be perceived so.
It truly breaks my heart to sometimes encounter finger wagging and ruptures from those in countries I care deeply about, and have lived in. There's many here in the U.S. who know exactly what's going on. If we could single-handedly change the state of education, of media literacy, of political literacy or toxic indoctrination, we would. We are profoundly disappointed. Some of us are ashamed, even though we needn't be. This cratering does not represent our views, our actions, nor our ideals. I humbly request commenters approach this topic gently and with compassion. And to not paint the U.S. electorate, as it struggles to function within a calcified electoral structure, with a broad brush. I am mortified that we will lose our standing in the international community again, after we carefully rebuilt and re-engaged under Joe.
Exactly. Others are owned by venture capitalists. Our media, a institution that can guard democracy has not been safeguarded and we are paying the prices. Capitalistic market driven media is not the answer for a democracy, and we should consider what is by looking at countries where there is a better funding and protection than just letting a bunch of oligarchs have at it to make money. Our social media also requires the regulation that is supposed to be coming to prevent disinformation but has not. What should licensing requirements be? What about programs claiming to be news? Should there be standards for truth and if not followed you get shut down?
I am reading articles in the Journal of Democracy right now, and what I am understanding is that to make your democracy more robust, you have to protect the institutions of democracy. We have not done that and we need to be figuring out how to do this now. As we face, what Kevin Roberts called a counter-revolution, just as Reagan had his counter New Deal, we need to be preparing to have our own revolution and I suggest it is a knowledge revolution.
"there was a clear choice between democracy and autocracy."
In my opinion, it all boils down to this: Enough people believed his numerous lies and his promise of simple (and unrealistic) solutions to complex problems. Problems: Inflation, crime, housing costs. Solutions: Across-the-board tariffs and mass deportations.
To that I'll add: I truly believe that many voters did not / do not see the threat Trump poses to democracy. Instead they believe him when he says the country would be ruined if Dems won.
Trump voters apparently never listen to anything other than Faux Noise and Trump himself--and they put every ounce of their trust in Trump and Murdoch. Now that Trump's little minions are out there gleefully announcing to the world that yeah, Project 2025 is a thing; it was real the whole time and both Trump and Vance have their hateful misogynistic, racist finger-prints all over it....and suddenly people--those same folk who voted for Trump--or didn't vote at all--are appalled at what is planned? Give me a break.
A wall goes up when you try to make Mr. And Mrs. Average American Citizen work or think." "The average American doesn't want to be educated, he doesn't want to improve his mind; he doesn't want to work, consciously, at being a good citizen. But there are 2 ways you can interest him in a campaign, and only 2 that we have ever found successful." You can put on a fight ("He likes a good battle with no punches pulled"), or you can put on a show ("He likes the movies, he likes mysteries; he likes fireworks and parades). "So, if you can't fight, PUT ON A SHOW! If you put on a good show, Mr. And Mrs. America will turn out to see it.' [And, apparently, vote for it.]
In the history book These Truths, by Jill Lepore, are these paragraphs about the first, highly successful political campaign managers, Campaigns, Inc., aka The Lie Factory, founded in 1933. They never lost a campaign. Republicans have mastered their campaign strategy rules:
'Every campaign needs a theme. Keep it simple. Rhyming is good. Never explain anything. "The more you have to explain, the more difficult it is to win support." Say the same thing over and over again. "We assume we have to get a voter's attention 7 times to make a sale". Subtlety is your enemy. "Words that lean on your mind are no good. They must dent it." Simplify, simplify, simplify. " ..."Make it personal. Candidates are easier to sell than issues. If your position doesn't have an opponent, invent one. Pretend that you are the voice of the people. You can't wage a defensive campaign and win. Never shy from controversy; instead win the controversy. Sad to see that Americans resemble this description even more now after "the information age" than they did when this was spoken in the 1950s. Misinformation had not just one,, but two, very human legs to "stand on"; and those legs were willing and lazy.
Stefan, Regardless of how much I appreciate your astute observations, I do take issue with you dismissing the salience of the Electoral College for one reason: both presidential candidates largely competed solely in 7 battleground states to become president. In my view, this one factor alone helps, in large measure, to explain how Donald Trump, contrary as you say to any functioning democracy in the civilized western world, could win the presidency.
Barbara, I am sorry if I conveyed a wrong impression (English is just my second language). I just referred to the fact that he didn't just inch past the 270 electoral votes and even won the popular vote. The Electoral College in my view makes a mockery of democracy and it is no surprise the Republicans are fighting tooth and nail against abolishing it.
Stefan, I would note I wrote because every analysis of every presidential election fails to recognize the impact on the outcome when candidates repeatedly appear only in a handful of states to the exclusion of all the others.
You capture my reaction! I immigrated here in 1967 having left the one party police state of South Africa. I was struck by the pride all my friends had about the US. I was amazed that one could criticize the president on TV - I understand much more about the unseen injustice against minorities - but seeing mixed race couples holding hands in the street (remember Trevor Noah reminded us that it was ILLEGAL to do that in South Africa) was incredible. Today - I feel like I don't recognize our country of which I have been a citizen since 1987. That is my sadness, I feel proud of the democrats and in awe of Harris and Walz.
Well done and well said Robert. Thanks to you and Jill for your tireless reporting and support of democratic principles by working diligently in North Carolina in the effort to flip the state blue. And thanks for subordinating your own grief and disappointment to tend to your followers’ emotional devastation over such a monumental national tragedy.
I allowed myself two days to withdraw and grieve over my anger at the fourteen million Biden voters who stayed home, while P01135809’s MAGA crowd gave him roughly the same tally as in 2020. He DIDN’T win WE lost. Simultaneously my deep empathy goes out to all those who will be devoured in the whirlwind of misogyny, racism, xenophobia and economic dislocation foisted upon them by the purveyors of “2025”. Many of us on the “left” who know what is coming will be able to survive the next two years when we can mid correct, many on the right will reap the “rewards” of their ignorance and misplaced trust. My empathy extends to ALL who will suffer under authoritarianism. Some already regretting their vote as they’re finding out they were lied to. Fancy that. Shiny baubles of mis and disinformation. Who knew??
My two days of mourning are over, I’m back to engage, resist and pick up the challenge to thwart Trump’s fascistic agenda any way possible.
Take your time, heal yourself, then re-engage as you will allow yourself, we need you in the effort moving forward.
“Hard work is good work, and when we work, WE WIN”
I have not been reading articles that blame Democrats, and I would not be interested in doing so. Democrats voted for the right person. Everyone else either voted for Trump, or didn't vote at all. I have read many Trump voters woke up with buyers remorse. According to Robert 93 mil eligible voters did not vote. I know some of them, and they are just like the boyfriend in the tv series Felicity, who feel like it does not matter who wins and say their votes don't count. I will call them them disengaged, but really I feel that they are also selfish. They do not bother to inform themselves on how candidates are different. They do not bother to get over romantic ideas of the "perfect candidate" who thinks just like them on everything. They do not bother to try to protect their families and friends from the potential negative results of the election. The ones I know who do not vote are all male. The well off ones are millennials. They care about their children, and making money, and are nice to their wives and girlfriends and me, but in the truly important thing they could do to help, they just say, my vote does not count. I have met some non-voters who are not at all well off, and to me their disinvestment in the system that has not helped them is more acceptable, than when those who benefit from it just don't care.
I lay blame at the media and for those in government who did not control the media better. That would be generations of politicians. Where is the legislation curbing social media? We are still waiting. Where is the legislation defining news and what can be called news, and shutting down media that does not follow it, like a restaurant is shut down if the conditions are unsafe?
I am currently turning my reading to democracy. The Guardian is going to have a new section on Democracy, and I have started reading articles in the Journal of Democracy. My Democrats Abroad Project 2025 Book Club is leaning towards reading about and discussing articles and books on Democracy after the election. We have read and discussed 20 random chapters of the 30 chapter Mandate for Leadership , as well as the Forward. I still have a few more chapters I might want to read, but suffice it to say, I have a good idea of what is in this document and how it can turn the US into a third world nation.
I believe that of the people who are not die hard MAGAs, and or Christian Nationalists, but just felt that change--any change would be better, and then already started hearing from the media some of what is in store for them from the incoming administration and had buyers remorse, will feel it first with education. A friend sent me links someone at her university has prepares on relevant articles and many were on ways higher education will be affected. It is gruesome. I think a lot of people will be looking into sending their children abroad to university once this stuff gets implemented, just as I did. In fact, I have decided to start writing in my Substack account later this week, and will be addressing this option.
The corporate and social media normalized Trump and JD Vance and continues to do so. A lot of the left leaning independent media picked apart Biden and Harris and ignored Trump. I have given up subscriptions to those who I have felt did this, and may not continue to donate to the independent media who continually attacked the Democrats. I am sorry when leading Democrats come out and attack other democrats. I see this is the party of those who are caring and well intentioned, and no one is perfect. So, we should be gathering together and supporting each other. I am clear that who is at direct fault is the people who voted for Trump, and those who did not vote.
Democrats worked hard and did the right thing.
According to this article, Misunderstanding Democratic Backsliding by Thomas Carothers and Brendan Hartnett, illiberal leaders come to power largely because of perceptions of the population based on their access to information. https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/who-decides-what-is-democratic/
It seems to be about the illiberal leaders ability to manipulate public opinion (Media and messaging. What topics did our corporate media focus on? What topics are focused on in social media? It certainly isn't the content of what will happen when this government implements its widely available plans.). It is also about strengthening the guardrails in the society of the democratic institutions. Currently, our 3 branches of government are co-opted by the MAGA party. They were supposed to be independent, but are not. If our electorate just wants change, and this change makes them unhappy, they may be ready for another change in 2 years, and 4 years. Or, we may have a difficult time voting as Putin will have had that much more time to teach Trump and his cronies the tradecraft of the KGB and the Stasi. Then, it will take longer to make change.
Linda – If, as you say, “Currently, our 3 branches of government are co-opted by the MAGA party.” Trump and MAGA would not so explicitly be targeting them for takeover.
Unless we do not implement the election results it already is. When the new administration takes office we will have a MAGA SCOTUS, MAGA Congress, and MAGA Executive office. Do we know about all the seats in the House yet?
Dear Robert and Jill, I just watched your recorded livestream and I want to say THANK YOU! You are such kind and giving people. No other writers of newsletters , or anywhere else for that matter, offer themselves as friends and community, or show up on livestreams to help us cope with this devastation. It feels like a group hug, which, I, could use in a big way. . And thank you for being so profoundly gracious to read all the emails, bear the slings and arrows of anger and despair. We humans sure do like to find someone or something to blame. Yes, there are things to learn, but in my mind no one has given us so much in four short years as has Joe Biden, and Kamala ran a flawless campaign and gave me hope and joy when we needed it most. I think all that you said is true about why what happened, happened… and that there has been a sophisticated and Orwellian disinformation campaign that has gone on for decades, and which Elon and Putin have technologically contributed to. I am very, very fearful of what is to come. But Robert and Jill, your sharing of what you saw and experienced in NC moves me greatly. If a woman can come off work and bring her autistic child to go out and canvass, we can’t indulge in blaming one another and we need to be there for those like her, who may suffer even more than some of us in the next four years. Lots of folks feel disenfranchised, with good reason. How can we reach or help any of these people who feel like voting doesn’t matter? I’m thinking that it starts with what they see at the state level where their lives might be most impacted. Anyway, I have digressed from what was simply meant to be a big virtual hug to Robert and Jill. These “personal” connections with you are more help to me, and I suspect others, than you may know. Please keep them up until we get “bored.” You are true patriots and just dear, beautiful people. Thank you.
I completely agree. I'm going to upgrade to paid right now to express my appreciation. This is a community I intend to stick with. We will all need each other!
Fantastic piece!!! I especially enjoyed the allegory about reporting on the viscosity of oil in Engine Number Two rather than the iceberg. Forgive me for quoting you in my forthcoming Substack article.
Thank you again, Robert, for your analysis of the latest press accounts. I'm so glad I have even been avoiding the headlines and all cable. You have done it for us.
A thoughtful letter writer in our local paper said that we are now the laughingstock of the world. Just think about that for a while.
Former AG Eric Holder spoke at the recent luncheon of Planned Parenthood South Texas and gave us some solace that leaders like him will be helping us get back our democracy. There were at least 1400 in attendance at a San Antonio hotel. Our mayor Ron Nirenberg said as long as he has breath in his body, he would fight for our rights.
The most heart-wrenching thing I’ve read was a comment by a woman who had several friends with daughters in middle school.They told her the boys in class were saying…”Your body,my choice.”
Those four words will fuel my fight…once I regain my footing.Thank you for Heart Nebula and the sentiment.♥️
That needs to be dealt with. Those boys need a serious series of lessons on respect, kindness, and the dangers of misogyny. (And racism, and groupthink, and all the things that damage a society.)
It doesn't need to be harsh; in fact it should not be harsh, but it should be a series of well-tailored lessons. I'm sure there are many among this community who could write that curriculum.
Sorry to seem illiberal, but there needs to be serious reproving, if not outright punishment. There must be *enforced* rules of good interpersonal behavior within schools.
Lessons will not be ‘well-tailored’ unless they firmly get the attention of the malefactors.
Firmness is not necessarily inconsistent with kindness.
That is sad but I fear is the byproduct of trump, Fox etc spewing garbage since 2016 and young minds mostly boys absorbing this new culture. A 14 year old in 2016 is a voter today
Many thanks for this perspective. I have been so furious at the commentators arguing that the dems should shape policy proposals and, the implication is, adjust their very values to meet the whims of the electorate. This strikes me as an algorithmic approach to politics, play to the meme mean. I firmly believe that this is a “hearts and minds” struggle for the soul of America. It is about fighting the propaganda that appealed to so many voters and bringing the story back around to a fact-based, value driven common purpose.
KSC, it appears the “fact based” values are no longer salient. Its too cumbersome, if an issue can’t be explained in a 5 second meme, Americans skip past it. Americans are not driven by facts, they’re driven by fear
Thank you Robert and Jill. I am blacking out MSM- looking into cord cutting now and use of a TV antenna . I do not want to see or hear the Felon's voice over the next 4 years. I welcome any helpful suggestions folks might have in antenna use.
Because of your leadership Robert, this community is very grounding for me. I have a feeling your readership is going to go up a great deal.
Thank you again for your continued ability to lead in what Simon Rosenberg prefers to call "the opposition".
Yes, exactly. When Vance went to Yale and Trump went to Wharton, the “elitist” garbage falls very flat. If elitist means we bother to gather information to educate ourselves? That’s alarming. They are willfully ignorant. Is everyone else finding that they are truly bullies? The whiny kind that whines and cries when you call them on their crap? It’s nauseating, right? What I’m worried about is that they WON’T ever find out what they’ve done because they only get their information from Fox.. or FB, the world’s biggest echo chamber. And they’ll be told that things are going great and this is the best administration in the world since the dawn of time. My Democratic town committee went all out, writing postcards, several joined phone banks, a group of us went to Allentown PA (where she won in PA), and Manchester NH (which she won), and she also won our little red town in Mass. I am enraged that people didn’t listen to even his own cabinet members — 40 out of 44, including 3 generals AND his VP — who warned the country not to vote for him. I am enraged that they voted against their own best interests. I am astounded that Haitians and Puerto Ricans voted for him — and they surely did. She ran an excellent and superbly organized campaign, and it was never going to be enough. I am enraged at these so completely willfully ignorant people who would vote for this group of losers. The Media ARE complicit.
I am concerned with the fact that our high paid consultants may be overly enamored with LEARNING and not enough focus on DESIGNING AND DELIVERING WINS. Over-relying on educating themselves by studying data and memorizing facts and figures which becomes centered as the task and goal as opposed to WINNING. One of the outcomes of this posture then results in too much noise (nuance) in comparison to too little clear signal to the voter's at campaign time, which is badly needed with such a complicit MSM.
Our efforts must be towards get ready to win a brawling football game as opposed to holding a well-mannered and logic based classroom lecture. That means learning and data are important but not at the expense of a highly efficient, broad scale ground operation.
A related problem to this finds higher ups discounting the information from operatives on the ground as inferior, preferring to take a "we know better" attitude.
For example, based on my experience, having been in both rural NY, rural Illinois, and now rural Ohio, none of the leadership listens to the operatives on the ground, preferring to look down on us as stupid (even those of us with doctorates!). In Illinois, sure, Chicago, ensures Illinois stays blue, similar case in NY, but in Ohio, we do not have this luxury.
In Ohio, for example, only 60 something counties out of 88 have Democratic party committees and of those 60 something committees, several are deeply dysfunctional (varying from not functioning at all on one end of the spectrum to actually helping Republicans win on the other end). This did not happen overnight. When asking the Chair to address these numerous issues, if I get a reply back, I'm told "the county parties are independent and self-acting" and the state party is "separate from the county parties." That the "state committee role is not to support, finance, or oversee the county parties in anyway." This cannot be true! If it is true, we have a major organizational and operational problem in Ohio.
Additionally, campaigns have also shared with me that the ODP completely shuns them.
To make matters worse, the national Dem leadership wrongly abandons Ohio all together (which now sinks further and further into the red making it harder to fathom a way out) and sending a message to the operatives on the ground, we can win with out you, when clearly they cannot.
Look for an organization called Blue Ohio, or the parent umbrella group All States Blue. Blue Missouri didn't turn the state, but there were Democratic candidates in over 80% of previously uncontested races.
My sister in Idaho said they did the same thing, running Democrats in uncontested races. They knew they weren't going to win, but it is an important start.
In my swing state, the state party is improving significantly and not what you’re describing in Ohio. I feel for you. Tim Ryan should have been supported. He’s the kind of democrat that could win a national election in my opinion. In my swing state over the years, I’ve seen the national Democratic Party send in consultants to help top and down ballot races during presidential elections. I have not been at all impressed by many of these folks connected to the national Democratic Party, which I believe needs a major updating and removal of dead wood in terms of its top leadership in DC.
What swing state are you in? I live in blue Oregon, and want to support local organizations in states where there is a chance of turning things around. I absolutely agree that the national party needs an overhaul.
Joe, the lack of Democratic committees in many counties should be the concern of all Democrats at every level of the organization. Especially if Democratic candidates are going to meet with voters on their, the voters' turf. I think that personal engagement on the local level is the only way to bridge information gaps. I live in Pittsburgh, PA, and was very pleased to see the Harris/Walz campaign go to places like Beaver County and others that are in rural areas. Those areas have been ignored by the state and national Democrats for too long and the result is overwhelming Republican control. In the case of the Beaver County Democratic Committee, I think it had essentially become moribund until after the 2016 election. After that election it began a rebuilding process which, while slow, I think is working. One of the ways concerned Democrats can support these efforts in rural areas is by becoming a monthly donor of the rural Democratic Committee. Urban Democrats could "adopt" a rural Democratic Committee near them and provide this monthly support. As we all know, operating cash flow is hard for any small organization to come by.
I wanted to jump up and down when I read your comment. I won't give any money to anything connected to the national Democratic party. Living in blue Oregon, I want to find a way to direct my energy to rural areas where a little help can make a difference. Beaver County Democratic Committee looks like one of those. I'm a big fan of NE Arizona Native Democrats. They even had a fundraiser to repair their staff vehicles because they have to drive so much on rough roads.
I bake Christmas cookies every year, and rather than give them away, I think I'll turn it into a fundraiser for maybe the Beaver County Democrats. I don't expect it will raise a lot of money, but it will give people an idea of how we can help. After this devastating loss, we all want to know what we can do. Well, I'm going to bake cookies.
Movement Voter Project does a superb job of funneling money to local grassroots groups.
That's terrific, Kate. I don't give to the national Democratic Party either, but I did give to the Harris/Walz campaign and to the PA House Democratic Campaign Committee which supported legislators to keep the Democratic majority in the PA House - which they were successful in doing! I'm sure the Beaver County Democratic Committee would appreciate any donation you gave them. Here's a link for them. https://beavercountydemocrats.com/
It is now a plan. Rather than look for another group, I'm going to do it for the Beaver County Democrats because you inspired the idea.
Wow. I have never been involved with party politics but from your description doesn’t it sound like what went on in Hillary’s campaign? I mean separately from the MSM’s public gaming and shaming with the email server story and so on. If I remember rightly the press lambasted Democrats for ignoring the middle of the country (didn’t they call it Rust Belt then) and the working class, that is, for being elitist. It seems some people never learn.
Or maybe the media just uses the same tired terms every cycle.
That too.
Sounds familiar, Marian! I resist the "Elites" reference. And also, the party is unable to reach every corner of the country. They concentrated on those states they thought they could win in. 93 million people did NOT vote. Some couldn't due to
their personal circumstances. But many other people just sat out this election. We will ALL pay the consequences for their lack of motivation/laziness, or inability to sift through the disinformation. ALL of us will suffer!
Misinformation from the GOP and probably Russia was a major problem. This 11 minute recording from Heather Cox Richardson goes into that (if your'e in a hurry, start at 3 minutes).
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-8-2024-bb7?utm_source=podcast-email%2Csubstack&publication_id=20533&post_id=151445797&utm_campaign=email-play-on-substack&utm_medium=email&r=3ihqfl&triedRedirect=true
Robert I want to thank you and Jill for keeping us informed, keeping us motivated, and giving us some hope. This is a very difficult time - for many of us, thank you for helping me keep my head on straight for the past 8 years, and now. 🙏🏻
I am seeing it as a major problem of democracy.
Mr. Jones, I appreciate your point of view very much. You worte: "For example, based on my experience, having been in both rural NY, rural Illinois, and now rural Ohio, none of the leadership listens to the operatives on the ground, preferring to look down on us as stupid (even those of us with doctorates!)" I am an old retired academic and haven't been much involved in party politics in 45 years, but in my very limited experience i saw this attitude. When writing postcard, we were enjoined not to vary the wording one word, not to use any of your own thoughts or words or the success rate would drop from
1.60% to .89% (not real numbers but the same order of magnitude from my memory). And it wasn't just, "Dear student we strongly advise that you do it this way," but the attitude was, "If you don't do it this way you are a running dog of the imperialist war mongers and you will cause Kamala to lose the election." I complied and included their message and added a few more words of community and solidarity on my own. And my wife broke away a little more. I hope our slight deviation on 800 or so postcards to citizens in various states and programs didn't cause our loss. This is not a problem of Democratic "elites," but it may be a problem of perspective of some within the party and the affiliated groups. Jess Piper and others have pointed this out and as a rural Midwestern guy, I have to say there are way to many parts of the country that are uncontested and their citizens feel forgotten and demeaned. Thank you for your important thoughts. -- Please colleagues, don't take my words as any criticism of those party organizations and affiliated groups that do pay attention and work hard for rural voters -- Clayton Anderson and the NC Democratic Party's energy and leadership is what hauled me off the sideline in the spring and there are many others doing the good work right. Let's make sure we hear them.
Mea culpa, in my haste I reversed Anderson Clayton's name, my fault. She is almost half a century younger than I am but she is one of my heroes. I apologize for that slip.
Two things your comment brings to mind; a screenshot of an online post wherein the poster said he voted for Trump because he promised to get rid of Obamacare. He wanted just the ACA without Obamacare. He was immediately informed they were one and the same, which he researched and then was all upset that the 'Dems' gave it two names! So still not is fault for being ignorant ... Pitiful!
The other was a guest or associate in a discussion about races where Reps were running unopposed. She had pulled a DEM ballot so was unable to even oppose the only candidate and stated that we should recruit someone who was willing to be the underdog to give voters a choice! Makes sense to me.
Don't expect a non-Rep to make much headway in such a case, but it shows there are 'other than' voters in those districts and eventually it should become competitve.
I’m in Ohio too. Moved here 3 years ago from Washington state and I’m still In shock. I have gotten involved with the county Democratic Party, which is enthusiastic but caught in the weeds. Thanks for the tip on Blue Ohio. I will check them out. I see they supported our candidate for state rep but she ended up with something like 30% of the vote.
Stephen --- I agree with all you say. Actually, now that I think about it, 'those Generals and high lever former criminal's cabinet etc' --- I have nothing but scorn for them. Where have they been? Whey were they not out like Liz Cheyny shouting all this from the roof tops. No - many were too busy writing their books - Kelly?? Barr? and the rest.
Several years ago, a military friend of mine, a Major at the time, said that General Officers, even when retired, are still officially military members. According to him, they can be court-martialed for excessive involvement in politics.
I think their speaking out forcefully and publicly was courageous.
After grief and despair there is hope. If we stay mired in despair they win. But turning hope into action requires the courage to face the truth. It has been said that a crazy person is only dangerous in a crazy society. Boredom and nursing old wounds against manly honor have resurrected fear and hatred in many men. The MAGAS combined with millions who stood aside for unknown reasons produces a clear majority of Americans who share neither our values nor our strength of conviction. The media has become irrelevant to the quest for truth. It will take a generation for America to recover if it ever does. We are looking at Jonestown writ large. These are disturbing realities. However this monstrous assault on our values sets the stage to let our dreams and imagination soar. It will unfetter us from old dogmas and conformity that have prevented us from understanding our past and truly connecting with our inner selves and the force of creation. Through such a process we will behold the beauty of changing ourselves. That is where can start to rebuild.
"A crazy person is only dangerous in a crazy society."Thanks, John.
It's a nightmare to find so many complicit Trumpers. It's worse to see the dark heart of America: greed, racism, misogyny.
I think Mary Trump had a good point this weekend. In the last few decades, while we Democrats were buying TV ads, the right wing was buying stations. Among many other things to ponder, maybe using some money in that direction would be a good counterpoint.
BTW, I think 'elitist' refers to our support of minorities, the environment, and other causes. It means we like everyone else better than them. They are right if they are greedy, racist, and misogynistic people.
That’s exactly right, Stephanie.
I agree. Particularly that the mainstream media are complicit in this disaster. After the 2016 election I became very selective about where I got my news and analysis. My news consumption began to center more on middle of the road MSM outlets, such as CNN and MSNBC (yes) and the Guardian and BBC. For analysis I favor the Atlantic. But their collective performance in this election cycle has been so egregious--from the unconscionable pile on of Joe Biden to their relentless normalizing of exPINO--that the MSM has lost me. There are still a few commentators I listen to, but I have my doubts about how truly independent their voices can be in the corporate media environment.
The Atlantic is full of right-wing claptrap. I stopped subscribing long ago.
I am selective about who and what I read in the Atlantic, just as I am selective about who I listen to in the MSM.
100%.
I share your thoughts completely. I too am enraged at people who are so ignorant to the extent that they don't even WANT to gather information.
Thank you for this analysis. It was bad enough watching him win but watching the "lamestream press" explain the loss is more painful. "If only she had gone on Joe Rogan", give me a break. I only hope I have the opportunity to vote for her and Walz again.
I too appreciate Robert's analysis. I'm avoiding the news. I also hope we have the opportunity to vote for Harris/Walz again. I have a feeling that many trump voters will rue the day they voted for him.
I agree that VP Harris ran a nearly flawless campaign, designed and built while airborne. But in our zeal, I wonder if we may have overdone a few things. The incessant pushy requests for "donations" (I probably got a couple dozen a day), perhaps too many postcards, letters, phone calls, texts, and door knocks to swing voters (there were many organizations duplicating efforts and lists) overwhelmed them. While the campaign was nearly flawless, maybe uncoordinated support was too much.
If you also read Heather Cox Richardson, as many of us on the Substack also do, then you will read that this is already happening. She starts out Nov 8 with,”Social media has been flooded today with stories of Trump voters who are shocked to learn that tariffs will raise consumer prices as reporters are covering that information” it goes on from there.
Cindy, despite what Heather wrote about these supposed "social media posts", I assure you, trump voters are not suddenly rethinking their vote.
They are not rethinking their vote. Trump voters are flouting their red hats in public, calling each other to congratulate themselves right now. Even trying to boast that last week's stock market gains are because of Trump. It is going to take time for some to realize, but many will not ever realize it, they will find some alternate explanation when things go bad.
Considering the stakes, I hope the Democratic Party and organizations like The Lincoln Project will continue putting ads on TV for all voters, as well as in MAGA-frequented social media sites for the Trump voters, to publicize any especially dangerous moves made by the criminal sociopath.
I believe when some of those policies roll out in the next four years, there will also be many peaceful protests the Trump voters won't be able to ignore, as there just were in several big cities.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2024/nov/09/were-not-leaving-protests-against-trump-in-new-york-and-washington-dc-video
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/reformed-anti-trump-resistance-movement-seeks-move-forward-second-admi-rcna179115
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gskVEDorVGw
I also hope the media will decide to stand tall with the majority of Americans. I suggest to them that they have more to gain by foregoing "appeasement" and waging a tough campaign of truth alongside the citizens of this country. Media organizations know what's coming for them. Tip toeing around the fascist, Christain Nationalist tank aimed at the media with both barrels blazing, is a losing strategy.
They're going to be targeted no matter what they do. Better to put up the defenses now than later. If they thought their viewership was down now, they should realize it will be worse if they turn into apologists for "the new Nazi movement" in America.
https://www.cjr.org/political_press/donald-trump-wins-press-loses-devastating-media-assault.php
Many of the Trump voters will wake up eventually to the damage to their lives being done by the person they voted for several days ago. Meanwhile, we need to keep all the great anti-Trump/pro-democracy groups continuing--with or without Trump voters--even after this election to fight for our country and our quality of life.
We Will Never Go Back.
Probably not but some of them will in time.
The MAGA-heads are about to learn the hard truth about Trump-he doesn't care about his base of support or their problems. When his tariff program starts a renewed wave of inflation, they will be remorseful.
…*only if* their news outlets connect inflation to tariffs.
Cindy, it's poignantly tragic. We're dealing with people who, when asked if they supported an authoritarian government in a survey, responded: "What's authoritarian?" We're dealing with voters who passionately voted for both keeping abortion rights in their state, AND Trump. We're dealing with millions of immigrants who voted for Trump. We're dealing with the uneducated unthinkers. They will wake up to what they voted for, and they will be upset. And it will be too late.
Love the expression 'lamestream press' - I'll be using it! Thanks!
Not mine, the Fox people love the term
The vote totals for 2020 and 2024 were as follows
74,264,010 TRUMP 2024
74,648,928 Trump 2020
70,356,521 HARRIS 2024
81,283,501 Biden 2020
Trump got about 200,000 LESS VOTES in 2024
Harris got about 10,000,000 LESS VOTES than Biden did in 2020
Where did all these people go….was the disinformation campaign so successful that it prevented 10 million people from voting Democratic? I’m perplexed…
10,000,000 voters that suddenly disappeared
How many that voted for Biden switched to Trump? Any? Probably a few, but not 10,000,000
To understand better, a breakdown by state, by gender, by race, by education level and by “where do you get your news” would be interesting
That won’t change the fact that America, as a nation, cannot be trusted by any Democracy in what’s left of the Free World
Power backed by money is pulling the curtain on The Age of Enlightnent
It’s more than perplexing. How much voter suppression, removal of voters from the rolls, and other nefarious acts affected these “missing “ voters?
And with such an almost round number, I’d love to hear someone tell me definitively that there isn’t the slightest chance that there was an incidence of Russian or Chinese backdoor “fixing”. I’m not generally a conspiracy theorist, but with the Trump team being such cheaters, and linked closely with the likes of Putin, and the number being almost exactly what he was beat by in 2020 . . .
Laural, you're not wrong. There were government agencies warning of Russian interference in this upcoming election. The media did not report it. No one in government or law enforcement did anything about it. We just sat and watched it unroll before us and change our lives. Here's just one article from October from The Hill. If you google the issue, you will find more.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4947216-foreign-election-interference-nic/
https://newrepublic.com/post/188197/trump-media-information-landscape-fox
Tomasky hits hard
“America, where the courts allow Billionaires to own the means of Information”
I think this played a key role in this election. For a minority to win, they have to resort to damping the majority in multiple ways, not just by having better ideas but also by gamesmanship.
Russian bots, GOP voter suppression and nobody knew enough about Harris to trust her were dispositive factors.
« No one knew about Harris » – a lame, albeit widespread excuse:
People knew enough about Trump to know they should vote against him – that is, to vote for Harris.
Bots and supperssion and ignorance, Oh My!
Bots and supperssion and ignorance, Oh My!
Bots and supperssion and ignorance, Oh My!
Bots and supperssion and ignorance...
Can silicone valley technology make votes disappear?
"Power backed by money..." is the glitzy front of the hand. It'd be interesting to see what's in the dark back room behind this candy store front verbiage.
I see a LOT of force being enacted in the world but very little power and almost no mastery.
As for The Age of Enlightnent (sp?), pure bs. There's a concept of such an Age and in practice, enlightenment, as lived, lasts for maybe a second. Two if you really luck. It absolutely doesn't last for an age for any one individual or groups of individuals.
If you feel down by the circumstances, I get it. Me too on and off. Just lets not bring the curtain down on possibility and close up the space and go home, just yet.
How astute. Who owns the means of communication? Hmmm?
Who bought the Supreme Court? Hmmm?
The Candy Man, right?
All those door knockers who reported positive responses from voters- were the voters lying when they said they’d vote for Harris Walz? Sure seems like it. Did all those post cards go right in the waste basket when the postman delivered them? I just can’t wrap my head around what America just did to itself.
As I prepared and mailed >1,000 postcards for voters, I wondered if they would even be delivered by Georgia's inadequate postal service. Since Trump appointed Louis DeJoy the US Postmaster General, mail here has not been the same. A new distribution center was built a couple of years ago south of Atlanta and several regional ones were closed. Since then, our packages often vanish into thin air, especially from Amazon "sponsored" suppliers, and much of our mail is never delivered to our addresses. Delivery to our addresses is haphazard at best because of a lack of delivery personnel. Numerous photos from investigators, including Senator Jon Ossoff, and whistleblowers inside the facility indicate mountains of undelivered and damaged mail and packages. I have no way of knowing, but I do wonder whether those postcards were even delivered.
I was calling voters almost every day, sometimes for up to 5 hours. I spoke to many Republicans and Independents who were voting for Harris.
The energy was there for her. I don’t see how the young men who voted for Trump, could be the difference in the votes.
I believe something nefarious occurred. They are too corrupt!
Yes. It's very fishy. And now we're all turning inward and blaming ourselves. Wrong. The election is gone, but there's still a few shreds of hope if we work hard and constructively and create what we want.
and, millions of calls to voters in Swing States & CA House races
It does not make sense.
Maybe I’m a pessimist, but I think even an unconscionable number of Dems couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a mixed-race woman. We need to be better humans, but it’s going to be a long struggle.
Yes, sad but true that many, TOO Many, voters (much less the population) are totally prejudiced against women in ANY position where they may have "power" over them.
Still living with puritan notions and the Christo-fascist re-write of biblical principles.
What I read was that appromately 1/3 of eligible voters Did Not Vote. A bit over 1/3 voted for Trump and a bit under 1/3 voted for Harris. I haven't researched it, but most of the numbers I've seen, reflects that.
I tend to agree with you...
I support some random samples of hand vs machine tabulation. We need to verify that the computers were not skewed.
YES! Where did those 10,000,000 voters go?!?!? Or not go, which seems to be the issue. I feel like those folks completely negated my vote. Methinks we might could use a dose of Australia - if ya don't vote ya get fined.
Yes but unless we have better education about civics I am not sure we want voters who know nothing and only get news from til tok like my neighbor!
We used to have civics as a course in high school. It may sound quaint to people younger than myself, but I remember standing up, putting my hand on my heart, and pledging the allegiance every day at the start of the school day. While it was not civics per se, it was a common, unified action that occurred regularly that we all did.
Teah. And did you have to pledge "One nation, under God"? Always good to pay attention to what it is we're unifying.
that’s another good point. I can’t believe people who believe, gender reassignment is done on fly, with chemicals. They believe kids can go to school & return home a different gender.
How do people not research the lies spread on social media, or delivered to them by DT’s campaign?
Billionaires sold our country out for greed & power. Billionaires own the media, and they normalized DT from the beginning to now.
It’s crazy.
I will just accelerate my involvement with grassroots organizations.
Yes, that is an excellent idea.
These numbers are disturbing. This suggests we had a lot of registered voters who stayed home. That wasn't the case in 2020, when almost all registered voters turned out (I don't know the number offhand but I think it was about 10 million). When we hear that only 2/3 of "eligible" voters voted, they're talking about people who are eligible to BE voters, not those who are registered. All that said, there are still many votes left to be counted, so we should reserve judgment. The biggest opportunity for the future is registering more voters, but we can expect trump to make that more difficult.
Voter suppression seemed to have worked. The opposition used every means possible to create and deliver voter suppression.
I have a very hard time believing it is all due to voter suppression efforts.
misinformation
Elon Musks bots
& more
No. Stop blaming others for people's choices. All people are subject to misinformation, to Musk's bots and to many other things. People choose to believe what they want to believe. How come half the population was not affected by propaganda, misinformation, Elon bots, etc? Are you going to tell me it is genetic? 74 million people chose a rapist and a convicted felon as president, it is their choice, and their own fault if they were "misled." It is not Harris' fault, or Democrats' fault. Yes, outside factors contributed to their poor choice, but the responsibility remains on each of them individually.
I was never blaming Harris or Democrats!
Maybe, your response is to someone else. I believe Musk and Russia’s coordinated efforts that started 14 months ago, had the largest effect on the results.
Since, I was someone who they harassed, hacked my phone( requiring me to a new one) hacked my Instagram, bullied me on all of my social media sites, changed log on information on my health care, bank account and other accounts. On a daily basis, there would so many fake profiles to block and delete. This is intimidation and harassment.
I believe corruption was also at the helm. I am livid! EM is a bully to the ninth degree. He also feeds off this. It’s sadistic.
Now, I feel entirely helpless to take legal action.
How many others were affected by this harassment?
With all the new registrations everywhere, I am having a hard time believing that they just stayed home after that. I will not criticize the Democrats for the stellar campaign that Harris/Walz ran, but by gosh I wish they wouldn’t play dead now. They are afraid that even mentioning voter suppression makes them look like conspiracy theorists. We’ve always needed a fighting party but now more than ever.
It's possible they're investigating but keeping quiet until they have tangible evidence. That's what I would expect them to do. They didn't hire an army of lawyers for nothing.
I hope you're right. But, for me, it feels like wishful thinking and grasping at straws.
Yes, my feeling is, something doesn't add up. But it seems so cut and dried.
People are inherently lazy and they hadn't heard the Harris name before the end of July. They didn't bother to do the research because that would have required taking time away from football, some other sport, or supporting their way of life. I was surprised at the number of new vehicles that came to the polling place where I was a greeter. The owners were probably voting against the inflation they were causing and the economy that was good enough for the purchase of a new vehicle. Incidentally, Biden might have done better than Harris had the Democratic leadership stood with him because his name was well-known. We'll never know that and it is now completely irrelevant. Today, we have bigger troubles.
Essentially we learned that Americans respond positively to racist and misogynist prompts. Democrats who believe in social justice and equality are few and far between.
We learned that over 1/3 of possible voters sat it out. And that should tell us that a large part of the populace has no idea what government is and how it makes everyday life better. Many do respond to racist and sexist but we learned that when Trump was President last time. We also learned (or should have learned) that you can't solely rely on a laugh when you should be pissed and indignant. While I thought Kamala's joy was a beautiful thing, I wonder how the media would have responded if she had beat the verbal shit out of Trump for his "eating the cats and dogs" comment in the debate. And we should have learned that the MSM are a sniveling bunch of cowards. Anyone who still has an "X" account, an Amazon account, a NYT subscription, LAT subscription, CNN subscription and WP subscription are feeding those cowards. The sooner you cancel the better.
`A wall goes up when you try to make Mr. And Mrs. Average American Citizen work or think." "The average American doesn't want to be educated, he doesn't want to improve his mind; he doesn't want to work, consciously, at being a good citizen. But there are 2 ways you can interest him in a campaign, and only 2 that we have ever found successful." You can put on a fight ("He likes a good battle with no punches pulled"), or you can put on a show ("He likes the movies, he likes mysteries; he likes fireworks and parades). "So, if you can't fight, PUT ON A SHOW! If you put on a good show, Mr. And Mrs. America will turn out to see it.' [And, apparently, vote for it.]
In the history book These Truths, by Jill Lepore, are these paragraphs about the first, highly successful political campaign managers, Campaigns, Inc., aka The Lie Factory, founded in 1933. They never lost a campaign. Republicans have mastered their campaign strategy rules:
'Every campaign needs a theme. Keep it simple. Rhyming is good. Never explain anything. "The more you have to explain, the more difficult it is to win support." Say the same thing over and over again. "We assume we have to get a voter's attention 7 times to make a sale". Subtlety is your enemy. "Words that lean on your mind are no good. They must dent it." Simplify, simplify, simplify. " ..."Make it personal. Candidates are easier to sell than issues. If your position doesn't have an opponent, invent one. Pretend that you are the voice of the people. You can't wage a defensive campaign and win. Never shy from controversy; instead win the controversy. Sad to see that Americans resemble this description even more now after "the information age" than they did when this was spoken in the 1950s. Misinformation had not just one,, but two, very human legs to "stand on"; and those legs were willing and lazy.
I disagree that Biden might have don't better. Had hr remained in thr race he would have been a dead man walking, and possibly dragged down other DDemocratic candidates.
Well, he might have done better because he's a white male. But you're right. We'll never know.
So many "We'll never know's in my life. When FL: and HW's Supreme Court cheated Gore out of the 2000 Presidency, we'll never know how Gore would have responded to 9/11. I doubt seriously that he'd have gone to war with Iraq. So many lives lost to settle a political score. And Hillary in 2016 stopped by Trump's Russian shenanigan's and Comey's mess. Now I can safely say I'll never live long enough to see a woman in the WH. This voter will likely never know how good a woman President will be. It is so backwards, the US can sometimes be downright embarrassing.
George, why are you perplexed? Harris is a black/south asian woman. Biden is a white male. As Robert Hubbell succinctly points out: misogyny, racism, white supremacy. Simple.
I think we need to audit the machine votes. I agree, something fishy took place.
Exactly the point I’ve been trying to make for most of this week. The most important part is that there was NO RED WAVE. There were many that didn’t vote at all, especially the 10-11 million that voted in 2020 who didn’t show up this time.
While I feel betrayed by them, I’m also willing to extend some grace and understand that many were simply battle fatigued. Some (many?) just couldn’t take the hate, the fear and the sh*t anymore and just shut down. Not excusing it, but I understand it happens.
Now those who made a deliberate choice not to choose or “it doesn’t matter” or make a “protest vote” aren’t getting any grace from me. In their hearts, they had a preference for Harris or Trump, but did have the moral fortitude to own that preference. Some wanted Trump but also wanted to be able to say “it wasn’t me, my hands are clean”. Some wanted Harris, but also wanted their hands “clean” of choosing a woman or liberal or POC. Both wanted others to do the hard work, the heavy lifting, so they wouldn’t have to.
Our hands show we did the work and, frankly, so do those of the Trump voters. Look out for those with clean hands.
No. These non-voters get no grace from me. I now know that I live in a nation driven by hate, ignorance and stupidity. I've snoozed some sweet but vapid 'friends ' on Facebook, because I no longer have any interest in engaging with them.
When people deliberately vote for a con man who spews lies and hate with his every breath, they have chosen to put our country on a very dangerous path.
That’s certainly up to you. To me, if someone has been fighting the fight and reaches the point where they just hit the wall and can’t go further, I’m willing to extend a hand to help them back up.
All those others are on their own.
Exactly, I have no use for anyone that overlooked a despicable, morally bankrupt individual by voting for him or chose to not vote and helped him to be elected, go away! Friends or family if I can’t count on you to do the right thing, then I’m done!
In reality is the Democrats lost votes and Biden was more unpopular than we knew.
re the 10 million missing Democrats.....There are voters who voted for Biden last time, would never vote for Trump, but also cannot bring themselves to vote for a woman, especially a Black woman. Or those who were pissed because she did not go thru the Primary Election process, and feel she was foisted upon Democratic voters, and not really our choice. And finally, and probably most true, there are those who refused to vote for Harris nee Biden because of his stance on the Israel conflict re Palestinians and the Gaza mess. These are all reasons I heard from Democrats when talking politics with them these last few months.
I did not talk to those voters but if you sat on your butt and did not vote in this election, you elected the most despicable person imaginable. It is your fault!
Thank you Robert. I am grateful to have found you.
I keep hearing that thousands of Republicans who could not stomach voting for Trump though they may have voted for him in 2016 and 2020 could not vote for a woman who is black (read: racism and misogyny) or for a Democrat as president, either. During previous elections, I had not heard many people talking about not voting. Can we surmise that this played a big role in what happened?
From 2020 to 2024, Trump lost only around 200K voters, so this theory does not hold up.
In the same period, Democrat candidates lost close to 12 million votes. That is where the problem lies. Looks like there are millions of non-Trump voters who could not get around to voting for Harris.
I have wondered the question so I hope we will see some answers here. And the same question applies to the flip states or was that just people voting the ticket?
Fascist regimes and dictatorships across the globe succeed when the legacy media first stop question facist leaders, then the same media outlets normalize criminal and prejudicial attitudes and behaviors from fascist leaders, then the same media outlets provide excuses for those attitudes and behaviors. The legacy media have been working for Trump and toward a fascist and racist state for many years now. We need to boycott one media outlet at a time by the millions. CNN, NYT, and others are indeed in the business of maintaining and will continue to maintain the racist, sexist status quo until nobody pays attention to them. I thank Robert Hubble for the daily well thoughtout summary of news so that I don't have to retch when exposed to legacy media.
I agree. Doesn't feel or think right. Elon Musk, Vladmir Putin, Trump...did you happen to see Adam Mockler/Led by Donkeys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRyo3ZqrnKs ? Well organized chronological actions by Elon Musk. Since Supreme Court (Roberts) overturned Citizens United and opened the flood gates to "billionaires in politics" - what can we do? Elon Musk, in charge of "Government Efficiency", a government wide audit to "remove" 2 trillion dollars of debt...Social Security, Medicare, assistance programs, FEMA - DELETE - Add tariffs. Musk said "it's going to be "hard"" for a while. Musk wants to take his chosen 1 million to Mars. He does need a couple of trillion to do it; not to mention unlimited Earth resources. And then there is JD Vance and Mike Johnson...sigh.
Someone knows how many votes Jill Stein received?
Watching CNN tonight, a guest (sorry, I didn't catch his name) kept saying that the Harris/Walz campaign simply couldn't overcome the widespread "discontent" with the economy, especially that of the first two years of Biden's term.
Every time, I yelled back "Disinformation!!" Trump lied continually, about the economy and everything... and gullible voters believed, rather than do their own research.
I don't quite get how we had and have the strongest economy in the world now but it was portrayed by T and apparently felt by the majority that it was the weakest.
My god, that’s beautiful! 🧡 Thank you to you, and Jill, for continuing to sustain us through this dark time…
Bottom line - we're in for some rough times ahead, but if we can't break through the corporate media sanewashing, Trumpist lying brainwashing, and convince the sitter-outers to vote, we're screwed.
Maybe the MAGATS will be happy when Trump really does turn us into a "garbage-can country".
Exactly right. For years, I have been saying the propaganda firehose of lies IS the problem! I don't know how to get truth, facts, to these people, let alone get them to change their locked in opinions. Apparently it will take the real pain that's coming to, maybe, do it.
Propaganda, alone, is not the problem. The problem are lazy people who choose to believe lies rather than to do their homework and find trustworthy information. Here is one example: Those who say they voted for Trump because they were "deeply worried" about immigration. How come they did not know that there was a bipartisan immigration bill ready to be passed, and that Trump ordered McConnell to stop it because, if approved, it would make Biden "look good"? If after knowing this they still believe Trump will fix immigration, they are nothing but fools (to put it mildly).
Many of them truly DON'T know. Certainly, they weren't told by FoxNews, Newsmax, or AONN. I have in-laws who never watch anything else, and because they watch more than one channel, they believe they are getting well-rounded info.
Earlier this year, when my s-i-l was upset about one of her grandson's living with his girlfriend, I brought up his sexual assault conviction and the Access Hollywood tape.
She hadn't even heard about the tapes and didn't believe when I told her. I emailed her links to the tape and to his 'just locker room talk'. She wouldn't discuss it and voted for him anyway, because she was only concerned about banning abortions.
This is my point, exactly. It does not matter if they "know" or don't know. If someone tells them, with facts, with reports, with copies of the lawsuits, they will refuse to believe; they will believe what they want and vote for him. They might use whatever excuse they want (abortion, violence, immigration, economy), but I am convinced they vote for him because they like him, and they like him because they see themselves in him. It is as simple (and as painful) as that. Half of the country is a reflection of Trump, and Trump is the reflection of half of the country.
By 'his' of course I meant Trump.
"But the media is (again) sane-washing Trump's depravity." Yes. And they are doing this – apart from generating clicks – to downplay their own role in this disaster, lending some false air of normalcy to the MAGA continuation of the insurrection by their persistent both-sidesism.
It is also an intent to sane-wash the American electorate. Fairly late yesterday I wrote a comment which seemed to go largely unnoticed, or perhaps it was noticed and readers just missed a dislike button to react. Here I go again:
Robert, you are absolutely right that this is not the time for slicing and dicing or Monday morning (Wednesday morning?) quarterbacking.
Once the dust has settled any serious explanation or effort to make sense of what happened should depart from a simple fact, though: in no functioning democracy anywhere in the civilized western world a movement or candidate comparable to the insurrectionist and his posse would attract more than 20% of the vote. Period. No matter the other candidates or issues at hand.
This time around one even can't blame the undemocratic Electoral College, he won a majority of the popular vote. And it doesn't help to point to the large percentage of nonvoters. Everybody not living under a rock had to know that on Nov 5 there was a clear choice between democracy and autocracy, turning the country over to a mobster. And everybody voting for the insurrectionist (or Jill Stein, which would be the same) or not voting at all said either 'Fine with me' or 'So what?'.
So every attempt to explain what happened must start with a long hard look at the American society and system. Even Democrats, who usually are at the receiving end of many shortcomings, are still talking about 'the shining city on the hill' and the 'greatest democracy on the planet'. It doesn't help.
Stefan, while it certainly feels that way from our access to information I believe that people have huge information deserts in the US, at least good information. A colleague of my husband's told me that in his town in rural Texas people often did not know who the mayor was. People watched television when he was growing up and listened to the local radio station. Didn't you say you were scared by what you heard driving in Texas on the radio? One of the reasons that Biden wanted people in rural areas to have internet is so they can have access to information. If your local tv news, and radio stations are basically giving you the same talking points as Trump and Fox News his mouthpiece, you do not know anything about what is going on in the US or the world, or what Trump planned to do. Your pastor if you are a Christian Nationalist isn't telling you anything useful either. You also don't know that you should be looking further because no one around you is, and it is just chance that some people discover something different.
We have been hearing that some of those who voted for Trump and are not MAGAs had buyers remorse after they somehow found out that what they thought they voted for was not what they are probably going to get. In fact, I can tell that most journalists have not read Project 2025, because I have and they don't know what is in store either. I have stopped several subscriptions because I did not feel they were covering the election with the right gravitas. However, that still means, that a lot of people, lacking the time, know-how and/or resources do not know what is going on.
I taught in an independent school that was part of an academic community, and most of my colleagues avoided the news because it was too depressing. It often amuses me how they will point out articles to me as if this is something I would not know about, when I read a lot of news and they don't. I am not saying these people did not vote in this election. The women did. Several of the men do not vote. They say their vote doesn't count.
I believe that if the plans in Project 2025 for education are implemented, there will be first hand experience for those who don't home school, of what is in store. That will wake parents up and make them want more information and help them to get actively informed. Higher education is already quaking, and I see why. I can imagine more Americans will be sending their children abroad for university like we did with our daughter. Since she is a dual citizen it is not abroad in the same sense as other Americans who have come to university here in Germany, but it certainly is the same shift.
I am sorry for these people but also feel that they need to realize what will happen through experience. I don't know what will make them do that more than what is in store, but with no one recording it for them, how will they know what is going on? Will they just believe what Trump and Elon Musk and 4Chan and their CN Pastors tell them. Basically suck it up until End-of-Days when God comes to save you. That is what slaves were told too.
Thanks so much for these balanced observations. I too have lived both in the U.S., Germany and other allied countries. I have just commented above on the massive hijacking of profoundly ignorant voters in the U.S. into toxic information silos. It is tragic, but what can be difficult for some of our allies to understand is that this massive intellectual and demographic crisis is not one easily surmounted as critically-minded individuals, or even collectives. That toxic dynamic is not at all representative of the country as a whole, though it can be perceived so.
It truly breaks my heart to sometimes encounter finger wagging and ruptures from those in countries I care deeply about, and have lived in. There's many here in the U.S. who know exactly what's going on. If we could single-handedly change the state of education, of media literacy, of political literacy or toxic indoctrination, we would. We are profoundly disappointed. Some of us are ashamed, even though we needn't be. This cratering does not represent our views, our actions, nor our ideals. I humbly request commenters approach this topic gently and with compassion. And to not paint the U.S. electorate, as it struggles to function within a calcified electoral structure, with a broad brush. I am mortified that we will lose our standing in the international community again, after we carefully rebuilt and re-engaged under Joe.
Totally agree, although I am not ashamed so much as disgusted.
Yes, that too.
Indeed, countless rural radio and tv stations are owned by Sinclair or some such, so there's no way folks are receiving anything close to accurate information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stations_owned_or_operated_by_Sinclair_Broadcast_Group
Exactly. Others are owned by venture capitalists. Our media, a institution that can guard democracy has not been safeguarded and we are paying the prices. Capitalistic market driven media is not the answer for a democracy, and we should consider what is by looking at countries where there is a better funding and protection than just letting a bunch of oligarchs have at it to make money. Our social media also requires the regulation that is supposed to be coming to prevent disinformation but has not. What should licensing requirements be? What about programs claiming to be news? Should there be standards for truth and if not followed you get shut down?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/02/sinclair-tv-disinformation-conservative-news
I am reading articles in the Journal of Democracy right now, and what I am understanding is that to make your democracy more robust, you have to protect the institutions of democracy. We have not done that and we need to be figuring out how to do this now. As we face, what Kevin Roberts called a counter-revolution, just as Reagan had his counter New Deal, we need to be preparing to have our own revolution and I suggest it is a knowledge revolution.
"there was a clear choice between democracy and autocracy."
In my opinion, it all boils down to this: Enough people believed his numerous lies and his promise of simple (and unrealistic) solutions to complex problems. Problems: Inflation, crime, housing costs. Solutions: Across-the-board tariffs and mass deportations.
To that I'll add: I truly believe that many voters did not / do not see the threat Trump poses to democracy. Instead they believe him when he says the country would be ruined if Dems won.
Trump voters apparently never listen to anything other than Faux Noise and Trump himself--and they put every ounce of their trust in Trump and Murdoch. Now that Trump's little minions are out there gleefully announcing to the world that yeah, Project 2025 is a thing; it was real the whole time and both Trump and Vance have their hateful misogynistic, racist finger-prints all over it....and suddenly people--those same folk who voted for Trump--or didn't vote at all--are appalled at what is planned? Give me a break.
T L, they’re appalled? I’m surprised any of them would admit that. Their “tough guy armor” would certainly keep them from saying that out loud
Insert vulgar invective (here)
A wall goes up when you try to make Mr. And Mrs. Average American Citizen work or think." "The average American doesn't want to be educated, he doesn't want to improve his mind; he doesn't want to work, consciously, at being a good citizen. But there are 2 ways you can interest him in a campaign, and only 2 that we have ever found successful." You can put on a fight ("He likes a good battle with no punches pulled"), or you can put on a show ("He likes the movies, he likes mysteries; he likes fireworks and parades). "So, if you can't fight, PUT ON A SHOW! If you put on a good show, Mr. And Mrs. America will turn out to see it.' [And, apparently, vote for it.]
In the history book These Truths, by Jill Lepore, are these paragraphs about the first, highly successful political campaign managers, Campaigns, Inc., aka The Lie Factory, founded in 1933. They never lost a campaign. Republicans have mastered their campaign strategy rules:
'Every campaign needs a theme. Keep it simple. Rhyming is good. Never explain anything. "The more you have to explain, the more difficult it is to win support." Say the same thing over and over again. "We assume we have to get a voter's attention 7 times to make a sale". Subtlety is your enemy. "Words that lean on your mind are no good. They must dent it." Simplify, simplify, simplify. " ..."Make it personal. Candidates are easier to sell than issues. If your position doesn't have an opponent, invent one. Pretend that you are the voice of the people. You can't wage a defensive campaign and win. Never shy from controversy; instead win the controversy. Sad to see that Americans resemble this description even more now after "the information age" than they did when this was spoken in the 1950s. Misinformation had not just one,, but two, very human legs to "stand on"; and those legs were willing and lazy.
Interesting. Barbara, are all of these quotes from the book These Truths? I can't tell if the first paragraph comes from somewhere else.
Exactly right!! I’m afraid they won’t notice when his policies don’t bring them what they are hoping for
That thought occurred to me, too. Sadly, it's entirely possible.
Stefan, Regardless of how much I appreciate your astute observations, I do take issue with you dismissing the salience of the Electoral College for one reason: both presidential candidates largely competed solely in 7 battleground states to become president. In my view, this one factor alone helps, in large measure, to explain how Donald Trump, contrary as you say to any functioning democracy in the civilized western world, could win the presidency.
Barbara, I am sorry if I conveyed a wrong impression (English is just my second language). I just referred to the fact that he didn't just inch past the 270 electoral votes and even won the popular vote. The Electoral College in my view makes a mockery of democracy and it is no surprise the Republicans are fighting tooth and nail against abolishing it.
Stefan, I would note I wrote because every analysis of every presidential election fails to recognize the impact on the outcome when candidates repeatedly appear only in a handful of states to the exclusion of all the others.
You capture my reaction! I immigrated here in 1967 having left the one party police state of South Africa. I was struck by the pride all my friends had about the US. I was amazed that one could criticize the president on TV - I understand much more about the unseen injustice against minorities - but seeing mixed race couples holding hands in the street (remember Trevor Noah reminded us that it was ILLEGAL to do that in South Africa) was incredible. Today - I feel like I don't recognize our country of which I have been a citizen since 1987. That is my sadness, I feel proud of the democrats and in awe of Harris and Walz.
Yes. This right here. It’s a cultural problem.
Well done and well said Robert. Thanks to you and Jill for your tireless reporting and support of democratic principles by working diligently in North Carolina in the effort to flip the state blue. And thanks for subordinating your own grief and disappointment to tend to your followers’ emotional devastation over such a monumental national tragedy.
I allowed myself two days to withdraw and grieve over my anger at the fourteen million Biden voters who stayed home, while P01135809’s MAGA crowd gave him roughly the same tally as in 2020. He DIDN’T win WE lost. Simultaneously my deep empathy goes out to all those who will be devoured in the whirlwind of misogyny, racism, xenophobia and economic dislocation foisted upon them by the purveyors of “2025”. Many of us on the “left” who know what is coming will be able to survive the next two years when we can mid correct, many on the right will reap the “rewards” of their ignorance and misplaced trust. My empathy extends to ALL who will suffer under authoritarianism. Some already regretting their vote as they’re finding out they were lied to. Fancy that. Shiny baubles of mis and disinformation. Who knew??
My two days of mourning are over, I’m back to engage, resist and pick up the challenge to thwart Trump’s fascistic agenda any way possible.
Take your time, heal yourself, then re-engage as you will allow yourself, we need you in the effort moving forward.
“Hard work is good work, and when we work, WE WIN”
I have not been reading articles that blame Democrats, and I would not be interested in doing so. Democrats voted for the right person. Everyone else either voted for Trump, or didn't vote at all. I have read many Trump voters woke up with buyers remorse. According to Robert 93 mil eligible voters did not vote. I know some of them, and they are just like the boyfriend in the tv series Felicity, who feel like it does not matter who wins and say their votes don't count. I will call them them disengaged, but really I feel that they are also selfish. They do not bother to inform themselves on how candidates are different. They do not bother to get over romantic ideas of the "perfect candidate" who thinks just like them on everything. They do not bother to try to protect their families and friends from the potential negative results of the election. The ones I know who do not vote are all male. The well off ones are millennials. They care about their children, and making money, and are nice to their wives and girlfriends and me, but in the truly important thing they could do to help, they just say, my vote does not count. I have met some non-voters who are not at all well off, and to me their disinvestment in the system that has not helped them is more acceptable, than when those who benefit from it just don't care.
I lay blame at the media and for those in government who did not control the media better. That would be generations of politicians. Where is the legislation curbing social media? We are still waiting. Where is the legislation defining news and what can be called news, and shutting down media that does not follow it, like a restaurant is shut down if the conditions are unsafe?
I am currently turning my reading to democracy. The Guardian is going to have a new section on Democracy, and I have started reading articles in the Journal of Democracy. My Democrats Abroad Project 2025 Book Club is leaning towards reading about and discussing articles and books on Democracy after the election. We have read and discussed 20 random chapters of the 30 chapter Mandate for Leadership , as well as the Forward. I still have a few more chapters I might want to read, but suffice it to say, I have a good idea of what is in this document and how it can turn the US into a third world nation.
I believe that of the people who are not die hard MAGAs, and or Christian Nationalists, but just felt that change--any change would be better, and then already started hearing from the media some of what is in store for them from the incoming administration and had buyers remorse, will feel it first with education. A friend sent me links someone at her university has prepares on relevant articles and many were on ways higher education will be affected. It is gruesome. I think a lot of people will be looking into sending their children abroad to university once this stuff gets implemented, just as I did. In fact, I have decided to start writing in my Substack account later this week, and will be addressing this option.
The corporate and social media normalized Trump and JD Vance and continues to do so. A lot of the left leaning independent media picked apart Biden and Harris and ignored Trump. I have given up subscriptions to those who I have felt did this, and may not continue to donate to the independent media who continually attacked the Democrats. I am sorry when leading Democrats come out and attack other democrats. I see this is the party of those who are caring and well intentioned, and no one is perfect. So, we should be gathering together and supporting each other. I am clear that who is at direct fault is the people who voted for Trump, and those who did not vote.
Democrats worked hard and did the right thing.
According to this article, Misunderstanding Democratic Backsliding by Thomas Carothers and Brendan Hartnett, illiberal leaders come to power largely because of perceptions of the population based on their access to information. https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/who-decides-what-is-democratic/
It seems to be about the illiberal leaders ability to manipulate public opinion (Media and messaging. What topics did our corporate media focus on? What topics are focused on in social media? It certainly isn't the content of what will happen when this government implements its widely available plans.). It is also about strengthening the guardrails in the society of the democratic institutions. Currently, our 3 branches of government are co-opted by the MAGA party. They were supposed to be independent, but are not. If our electorate just wants change, and this change makes them unhappy, they may be ready for another change in 2 years, and 4 years. Or, we may have a difficult time voting as Putin will have had that much more time to teach Trump and his cronies the tradecraft of the KGB and the Stasi. Then, it will take longer to make change.
Linda – If, as you say,
Oops:
Linda – If, as you say, “Currently, our 3 branches of government are co-opted by the MAGA party.” Trump and MAGA would not so explicitly be targeting them for takeover.
Unless we do not implement the election results it already is. When the new administration takes office we will have a MAGA SCOTUS, MAGA Congress, and MAGA Executive office. Do we know about all the seats in the House yet?
Dear Robert and Jill, I just watched your recorded livestream and I want to say THANK YOU! You are such kind and giving people. No other writers of newsletters , or anywhere else for that matter, offer themselves as friends and community, or show up on livestreams to help us cope with this devastation. It feels like a group hug, which, I, could use in a big way. . And thank you for being so profoundly gracious to read all the emails, bear the slings and arrows of anger and despair. We humans sure do like to find someone or something to blame. Yes, there are things to learn, but in my mind no one has given us so much in four short years as has Joe Biden, and Kamala ran a flawless campaign and gave me hope and joy when we needed it most. I think all that you said is true about why what happened, happened… and that there has been a sophisticated and Orwellian disinformation campaign that has gone on for decades, and which Elon and Putin have technologically contributed to. I am very, very fearful of what is to come. But Robert and Jill, your sharing of what you saw and experienced in NC moves me greatly. If a woman can come off work and bring her autistic child to go out and canvass, we can’t indulge in blaming one another and we need to be there for those like her, who may suffer even more than some of us in the next four years. Lots of folks feel disenfranchised, with good reason. How can we reach or help any of these people who feel like voting doesn’t matter? I’m thinking that it starts with what they see at the state level where their lives might be most impacted. Anyway, I have digressed from what was simply meant to be a big virtual hug to Robert and Jill. These “personal” connections with you are more help to me, and I suspect others, than you may know. Please keep them up until we get “bored.” You are true patriots and just dear, beautiful people. Thank you.
Well said, Pamsy. Wish I thought to say the same thing.
I completely agree. I'm going to upgrade to paid right now to express my appreciation. This is a community I intend to stick with. We will all need each other!
Fantastic piece!!! I especially enjoyed the allegory about reporting on the viscosity of oil in Engine Number Two rather than the iceberg. Forgive me for quoting you in my forthcoming Substack article.
Quote away! And no attribution needed!
Yes! Your Titanic comparison is brilliant. Thanks, Robert.
Thank you again, Robert, for your analysis of the latest press accounts. I'm so glad I have even been avoiding the headlines and all cable. You have done it for us.
A thoughtful letter writer in our local paper said that we are now the laughingstock of the world. Just think about that for a while.
Former AG Eric Holder spoke at the recent luncheon of Planned Parenthood South Texas and gave us some solace that leaders like him will be helping us get back our democracy. There were at least 1400 in attendance at a San Antonio hotel. Our mayor Ron Nirenberg said as long as he has breath in his body, he would fight for our rights.
So we are not alone!
The most heart-wrenching thing I’ve read was a comment by a woman who had several friends with daughters in middle school.They told her the boys in class were saying…”Your body,my choice.”
Those four words will fuel my fight…once I regain my footing.Thank you for Heart Nebula and the sentiment.♥️
That needs to be dealt with. Those boys need a serious series of lessons on respect, kindness, and the dangers of misogyny. (And racism, and groupthink, and all the things that damage a society.)
It doesn't need to be harsh; in fact it should not be harsh, but it should be a series of well-tailored lessons. I'm sure there are many among this community who could write that curriculum.
About those boys- where are their parents? What are they hearing and listening to in their homes? Fox News, and the repellent Joe Rogan.
Teen girls and young woman need to be on long acting contraception and to pursue education and jobs to be independent.
Those boys can buy sex dolls and pay for housemaids-thahousemaids-that is what they think women are.
Sorry to seem illiberal, but there needs to be serious reproving, if not outright punishment. There must be *enforced* rules of good interpersonal behavior within schools.
Lessons will not be ‘well-tailored’ unless they firmly get the attention of the malefactors.
Firmness is not necessarily inconsistent with kindness.
That is sad but I fear is the byproduct of trump, Fox etc spewing garbage since 2016 and young minds mostly boys absorbing this new culture. A 14 year old in 2016 is a voter today
Many thanks for this perspective. I have been so furious at the commentators arguing that the dems should shape policy proposals and, the implication is, adjust their very values to meet the whims of the electorate. This strikes me as an algorithmic approach to politics, play to the meme mean. I firmly believe that this is a “hearts and minds” struggle for the soul of America. It is about fighting the propaganda that appealed to so many voters and bringing the story back around to a fact-based, value driven common purpose.
KSC, it appears the “fact based” values are no longer salient. Its too cumbersome, if an issue can’t be explained in a 5 second meme, Americans skip past it. Americans are not driven by facts, they’re driven by fear
There’s a lot of driving gonna happen
Thank you Robert and Jill. I am blacking out MSM- looking into cord cutting now and use of a TV antenna . I do not want to see or hear the Felon's voice over the next 4 years. I welcome any helpful suggestions folks might have in antenna use.
Because of your leadership Robert, this community is very grounding for me. I have a feeling your readership is going to go up a great deal.
Thank you again for your continued ability to lead in what Simon Rosenberg prefers to call "the opposition".
Mr. Hubbell,
Thank you very much for your message of calm, logic, and encouragement during this horrific time. You have been a great help to me.
Andrea R.
Massachusetts