THIS IS NOT NORMAL. NEVER LET IT BECOME NORMAL. EVER.
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Greetings, fellow Dot Calm Readers, Freedom Fighters, and Truth Crusaders!
DONALD TRUMP IS NOT NORMAL.
THIS IS NOT NORMAL.
NEVER LET IT BECOME NORMAL.
EVER.
Welcome to Dot Calm's blawg's new schedule--which has changed from our usual Monday-Wednesday-Friday format so that we can start our other writing project to empower children and Make America Smart Again.
I'm still reeling in shock and horror from how my fellow Americans are treating my fellow American after the election, so I'm following up today. If you haven't seen the collection of hate incident tweets I posted here last time, please check it out--even if only for your own safety. They're graphic. Unfortunately, they're not unusual in trump's America: there have been over 300 incidents of Trumpkins terrorizing non-white non-men, as reported to SPLC. If you follow this blawg, you've heard me call trump's election worse for America than 9/11. Apparently, I'm not alone in that sentiment--but I'm shocked at the rapidity with which my words came to pass. Here's an excerpt of the ThinkProgress article in the link:
There have been more than 300 reported hate incidents since Election Day
Experts say it’s worse than after 9/11.
It hasn’t even been a week since Donald Trump won the presidential election, but reports of hate incidents are already “off the charts.”
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a non-profit organization that tracks hate groups and hate crimes, more than 300 incidents of “hateful harassment and intimidation” have been reported since Election Day. That is reportedly roughly the amount they usually see in a five to six-month period.
“Since Donald Trump won the election we’ve seen an alarming number of hate-based incidents occur throughout the nation, some of which are no doubt stemming from Trump’s hate-filled campaign,” read a statement from the SPLC sent to ThinkProgress. “We’ve collected more than 315 such incidents since the election — truly a frightening number.”
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The stories behind the numbers tell an even darker story. Since Tuesday, several Muslim women have reported having their hijabs manhandled or even forcibly removed by people who made comments about Donald Trump. In Redding, California, a student recorded himself handing out fake deportation letters to students of color, and a sign promoting a Spanish-language mass at a Episcopal church was vandalized with the slogan “Trump Nation Whites Only.” An LGBT-affirming church in Blossom, Indiana was defaced with swastikas and slogans such as “Heil Trump” and “Fag church.”
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Of course, moron soon-to-be pussygrabbing-freeloader-in-thief trump blathered something insincere in his acceptance speech and whinged at his frothing frenzied followers to stop--not that he means it and not that he gives a shit. I'm sure that his adherents wouldn't give a shit even if trump were sincere--they're like sharks who, after eight years of famine, finally smell blood in the water. Trump's moronic response was entertaining--he claimed surprise at hearing that his pweshush adherents have been terrorizing and assaulting--in some cases, beating to the point where victims required hospitalization--all the populations he relentlessly demonized during his campaign.
No shit, Sherlock. What the phuque did he think was going to happen, duh?
As a commenter on FB God's page remarked (embellishments mine), trump is like the hypocritical dad who yells "FUCK!" around his toddler all the time at home and then is shocked and mortified when said toddler yells "FUCK!" out loud, in public, in a crowded grocery store.
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And now...a brief post-mortem on the election:
Referendum on Clintonism?
-- Not actual Hillary Clintonism, because Hillary is to the left of Bill and O'Bama, even if she's to the right of Bernie. The referendum is on what FUX Noise and the right wing have declared Clintonism to be. And they've been declaring her to be the devil just as they've declared it ungodly and evil for us to care about each other and take care of the less fortunate among us. They've been slaving away like little robots for the past 30+ years to justify greed and heartlessness to the selfish; the selfish among us welcome the message and believe it wholeheartedly because it lets them pretend they're not the spoiled little shits they are. So there is that.
Are people really so angry that they'd rather deliberately vote against their own self-interests because they've decided to believe the lies about Hillary Clinton? Are we really so irrational that we'd rather commit suicide than work with a very workable candidate whom we could have held accountable--at least long enough to find a better, more progressive replacement in 2020?
Have we really forgotten baby bush's failed policies that brought us the Great Recession--have we really forgotten that the trump budget, which is nearly a clone of Ryan's--is cut from the same disastrous cloth as the budget that threw us into that recession? Why deliberately vote the country into the next Great Depression? Is losing the job or the home or the car you may just have gotten--because that's what happens under Republican policies--really going to make you feel better?
If wreaking the next Great Depression on the middle and lower classes feels yummy to you, then tell me: who are you really angry with and why? It-snot your fellow middle- and lower-class countrymen and women stealing your money for themselves and outsourcing your job. It's the wealthy and the corporations--people like Donald LOSER trump giving your manufacturing jobs to China (if you don't believe me, just look at the tags on his brand shirts and ties, and check out who makes all the cheap fake gold shit in his tacky hotels...cough China cough). And what you just did was hand trump and his rich bastard cronies the biggest fattest reward for skrooing you that you possibly could have. You have just given them all of our current and future earnings as a reward for all their bad behavior.
Does that really make you feel better? I hope so, because it makes me want to puke.
Referendum on O'Bama?
-- I haven't dug into this enough for it to make sense yet, but over 10% of O'Bama voters are claimed to have voted for Trump--which means that they want to repeal Obamacare, O'Bama's significant clean energy progress, LGBTQ+ equality, women's equality, and freedom of religion just to name a few. Again, Hillary moved the Democratic platform farther left than it's ever been, so it seems to me that right-wing propaganda must be behind the "lack of inspiration" that half of Democratic voters who turned out in 2008 and 2012 felt toward Hillary. Sure, Hillary represented the establishment, but what the FUCK is wrong with an establishment that is helping the middle and lower classes, as the O'Bama administration did? In my 52-year lifetime, Democrats have always represented the working classes--Republicans have always represented the rich. That message has not changed since O'Bama took office--am I missing something, or are these people just not catching enough news? Or perhaps they're catching propaganda and swill in the guise of news?
Sure, O'Bama hasn't been perfect--he should have stepped in immediately over things like Flint's water, Standing Rock, and BLM just to name a few domestic causes, and he should never have killed so many civilians in drone strikes abroad, for example--but which politicians have we ever known been perfect? Did the people who voted for trump not realize that O'Bama is center-right--did they think he was Bernie? Did they not listen to him campaign or watch what he said and did in office?
I can understand being pissed because O'Bama didn't fix the economy quickly enough, which, as I understand it, happened because he applied somewhat outdated liberal policies--the new liberal policies would have fixed things more quickly, but who knows if it would have been sustainable--but why hand over the reins to the person and the party you KNOW wants to kill you and eat you like so much rabbit stew? (Boy oh boy, oh boy! Rabbit stew at last!) Why replace something that is clearly if slowly working with evidently criminal, corrupt, incompetent, vindictive, bigoted, bullying, lies underlying policies that clearly favor only the rich? The Dem voters who supported Donald LOSER trump--whether they voted for him, third party, or not at all--will get their wish of repealing O'Bama's entire legacy. Do they really think their lives will be ever so much better if they give all of their and our money to the rich? - because that is what they just voted for. I hope they'll be happy with the result--and I hope they will also be happy with the raging bigotry they voted for. My Black friends are walking scared these days, looking over their shoulders more than they have since the 1950s and 1960s. I hope the Dem voters who voted for trump are happy with that because I'm not.
Referendum on diversity?
-- Seems to be the case from angry white voters, male and female. This kind of scapegoating reminds me of everything I read as a kid about Nazi Germany--back then, it was fashionable to scapegoat one population, like the Jews, for all the nation's ills and take out your frustrations on them. But trump's vision was ever so much biglier and trumplier and grandioser: why just blame and hate on the Jews when you can also blame and hate on Blacks, Latinos, Muslims, Asians, LGBTQ+, non-Christians, and women? Ever notice that these populations really aren't the ones making your life miserable? Could it be because they're actually the powerless ones compared to white privilege and male privilege and moneyed privilege?
I guarantee: no Black ever shipped your job to China--but trump did.
I'm sorry that so many women feel like they deserve to be second-class citizens--they've voted away their rights to bodily autonomy; they've voted away any possibility of equal pay for equal work; and they've voted to demote themselves to be nothing more than objects of gratification for any man who so chooses. I hope this is what they really want for themselves. I'm only sorry that they felt entitled to demote their fellow countrywomen along with them.
Failed media?
To me, this is the largest factor.
As I've said, D. LOSER trump is the culmination of 30+ years of FUX and right-wing media squawking about how good and godly greed is, how satanic and evil it is to take care of people, and how it isn't corporate greed, oh no, that's made everyone but the rich poorer but how it's all really the fault of Blacks, Jews, women, LGBTQ+, Muslims, Latinos, Asians, and atheists (i.e., all non-white non-rich non-straight non-males...with the tacit assumption that all of the straight white males are either already rich or just a lottery ticket away from being so). In the same 30+ years that Reagan started tearing down our media, we saw corporate media swing away from investigative journalism and toward the far cheaper tactic of covering "the debate" (he said, she said), creating fact-free false equivalencies and effectively denying the American voter the information necessary to vote wisely and well. FOX News built Donald LOSER trump just as they've driven a wedge into this country, snapping it into two shards that may never knit back together ever again.
But that's only the general story.
The specific story for this election includes the round-the-clock free uncritical coverage D. LOSER trump received until the eleventh hour of his campaign--when Newsweek, The New York Times, and The Washington Post finally started paying attention to trump's many personal and business failings--and the breathless coverage of Hillary's e-mails to the nearly complete exclusion of any real issues. I read a headline (Vox, I think, but I can't find it) reporting that, in over 200 newspapers, there was more coverage of Hillary's e-mails than all of trump's scandals and flaws combined; what I did find is this MediaMatters study: "Top Newspapers Give Clinton Email Story More Coverage Than All Other Trump Stories." I've heard it said that the media fixated on Hillary's flaws as a candidate while ignoring trump's obvious flaws as a person. Worse--the media normalized the hatred, bullying, vindictiveness, misogyny, racism, religious bigotry, and abuse of powerless people and populations that trump legitimized. And they waited far too long to fact check the spew emanating from trump's wrinkled orange gob.
How horrible is that?
Failed political parties?
Both parties failed us in this election.
The Democrats should have insisted that the media cover Bernie instead of focusing their cameras on trump's empty podiums and lavishing them with breathless commentary. The media could have played entire Bernie speeches while waiting for trump to arrive. That would have been a small compromise for them to make, considering how habitually they played trump's every speech uncut (like I said, without even fact checking until the eleventh hour). Democrats should have insisted that their candidates get equal time to trump and the republicans during the primaries.
The Democrats should also have enforced free, fair, and open primaries--and they MUST apologize to Bernie and us for what the DNC did to freeze him out of the primary. What Debbie Wasserman Schultz did was unconscionable, and Hillary's campaign should never have tolerated it. I said at the time that, if we lost, it would be Debbie Wasserman Schultz's fault for rigging the election. I stand by that statement because what she did gave the entire party a black eye--her actions, and Hillary's to the degree that she's responsible--gave impetus to the O'Bama voters who shredded their own best interests and voted to commit suicide-by-trump. I've grown to think that Hillary is a good and decent person who would have been a good and decent president--solid, respectable, and hard-working toward the public interest. But there always would have been that shadow of a doubt--if she really had been all that, there would have been no need of primary rigging. Similarly, as an experienced debater, Hillary should have had no need to get debate questions in advance from Donna Brazile. She should have just told all of them to fuck off: "I have this."
Not only that, but the DNC didn't fight soon enough or hard enough to stop the unfair disenfranchisement of Black and other Democratic voters in swing states.
These things all give the Democratic Party a bad name. We can't claim the moral high ground from the Republicans when we pull shit like this--even if we are better than they are, we've shown that we're not good. And, apparently, half of the party's voters couldn't stomach these scandals and the e-mail scandal enough to hold their noses and vote in their own best interests and in the best interests of the country. Destroying their own and each other's current and future prospects for peace and prosperity genuinely seemed like a better option, and that scares me.
I expected better of the Democratic Party.
Republicans failed us, too. They were too lazy to vet trump and too slimy to care when he turned out to be repulsive, reprehensible, and rotten to the core. Even the ones who denounced trump a little here and there still endorsed or at least voted for him. Some, like CAPITULATed Cruz even phone banked for him. Even though trump stinks like rancid ass, they all held their noses and fell in behind him. And now they all are sucking trump's rump looking for cabinet positions.
I did not expect better of the Republican Party.
Nor did I expect better of Donald LOSER trump himself, whose idea of "drain the swamp" is to install every stinky slimy swampy swamp monster, snake, leech, gator, and mosquito from the Reagan era onward. It would be funny if it weren't so tragic that the Republican voter base thinks that draining the swamp of all the Washington hack insiders doesn't extend to any of the Washington hack insiders. It seems that the only Washington insider they cared to remove was O'Bama, who's hardly a swamp unto himself--or even a hack. But there it is.
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And here's an ugly little problem of the Republicans' creation:
O'Bama has had to arrogate power to the executive branch just to accomplish a few things on our behalf in the presence of complete Republican obstructionism. And that power gets passed along to D. LOSER trump.
Let that sink in for a minute. I'll wait.
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And here's the plan to fight Donald LOSER trump:
0. Protect your money. If you have money in the stock market, get it out now and put it in a fund that is guaranteed not to lose your principal. Otherwise, kiss your retirement money goodbye. Remember when baby bush tanked the stock market? Yeah, trump is going to do even worse. Why? Because that's when the rich people make a killing. Also, if you need a loan, get it NOW. Interest rates have already gone up twice since the election. I have to refinance my mortgage to pay the tax bill I incurred because I cashed out retirement money to put on a suite for my dad to move in with me--cashing out that retirement money put me in the next tax bracket, so I ended up with an exorbitant tax bill. BB&T wanted over 4.125% for the new loan, but NWFCU only wanted 3.75%--which is a lot higher than it was before the election. And NWFCU said that they're being slammed with loan applications and that their rate is going to go up again. So, get in now and lock in your rate.
1. Obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. Now is NOT the time to be nice--Republicans have not been nice to us or to President Obama. There must be consequences for their actions. Call your elected officials every day and remind them that, if they want to be re-elected, they must NEVER side with the Republicans EVER. Oh sure, O'Bama and Hillary and Bernie have all pledged to work with Republicans whenever they want to do anything helpful for the American people. I dunno about you, but I find that absolutely jarring, and I don't want any part of it. I say don't even waste your time with that conciliatory mentality: when's the last time Republicans ever wanted to do ANYTHING to HELP anyone other than the filthy stinking rich? Bueller? BUELLER? Go ahead--try to remember the last time. I'll wait.
2. STAY ANGRY. How do you think the deplorables won the election? Because they've stayed ANGRY for the last eight years--so angry that they're now terrorizing, beating, assaulting, and harassing the rest of us. Now is NOT the time to play nice with the ab-stinking-normal not-even-primordial orange ooze that is Donald LOSER trump. Sexual predation is NOT normal. Stealing pay from your workers and contractors is NOT normal. Defrauding your investors and creditors is NOT normal. Managing your debt by defaulting on it is NOT normal. Committing fraud against ordinary Americans looking to better themselves is NOT normal. Treating conspiracy theories like fact and fact like conspiracy theories is NOT normal. Lying over 70% of the time is NOT normal. Projecting (accusing your opponent of your own crimes, failing, and offenses) is NOT normal. Being a criminal freeloader who dodges everything from drafts to taxes is NOT normal. Delegitimizing a legitimate sitting president on the basis of race is NOT normal. Threatening to jail your opponent is NOT normal. Inciting your followers to assassinate your opponent is NOT normal. Encouraging a foreign enemy government to hack your opponent is NOT normal. Inciting your followers to commit violence against powerless minorities or those with whom they disagree is NOT normal. Legitimizing racism, sexual assault, bullying, abuse, misogyny, anarchy, hate, vindictiveness, and open bigotry against other religions and LGBTQ+ is NOT normal. Do NOT legitimize this monster OR anyone he wants in his administration. Don't you do it; don't let your elected officials do it; don't let the media do it. Set up a howl to wake the dead if they even try. Get all their numbers in your little speed-dial and let 'em have it on a daily basis!
3. Follow John Oliver's plan of volunteering and financially supporting all the organizations that D. LOSER trump is targeting. Get on their mailing lists and donate as much time and money as you can to Planned Parenthood, NRDC, and causes that matter to you. Change your cell phone carrier from whatever it is to CREDO, which is a Sprint re-seller that supports blue causes. Planned Parenthood is especially important to support right now--women will die if we don't.
4. Follow Michael Moore's plan as printed in AlterNet and posted last time in this blawg and copied below so's you won't hafta click:
Day 1:
1. Take over the Democratic Party and return it to the people. They have failed us miserably.
2. Fire all pundits, predictors, pollsters and anyone else in the media who had a narrative they wouldn't let go of and refused to listen to or acknowledge what was really going on. Those same bloviators will now tell us we must "heal the divide" and "come together." They will pull more hooey like that out of their ass in the days to come. Turn them off.
3. Any Democratic member of Congress who didn't wake up this morning ready to fight, resist and obstruct in the way Republicans did against President Obama every day for eight full years must step out of the way and let those of us who know the score lead the way in stopping the meanness and the madness that's about to begin.
4. Everyone must stop saying they are "stunned" and "shocked." What you mean to say is that you were in a bubble and weren't paying attention to your fellow Americans and their despair. YEARS of being neglected by both parties, the anger and the need for revenge against the system only grew. Along came a TV star they liked whose plan was to destroy both parties and tell them all "You're fired!"
Trump's victory is no surprise. He was never a joke. Treating him as one only strengthened him. He is both a creature and a creation of the media and the media will never own that.
5. You must say this sentence to everyone you meet today: "HILLARY CLINTON WON THE POPULAR VOTE!" The MAJORITY of our fellow Americans preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. Period. Fact. If you woke up this morning thinking you live in an effed-up country, you don't. The majority of your fellow Americans wanted Hillary, not Trump. The only reason he's president is because of an arcane, insane, 18th-century idea called the Electoral College. Until we change that, we'll continue to have presidents we didn't elect and didn't want.
You live in a country where a majority of citizens have said they believe there's climate change, they believe women should be paid the same as men, they want a debt-free college education, they don't want us invading countries, they want a raise in the minimum wage and they want a single-payer true universal health care system. None of that has changed. We live in a country where the majority agree with the "liberal" position. We just lack the liberal leadership to make that happen (see: #1 above).
Let's try to get this all done by noon today.
Next steps:
1. Must quickly and decisively form an opposition movement, the likes of which hasn't been seen since the 1960s. I will do my part to help lead this as I'm sure many others (Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, MoveOn, the hip-hop community, DFA, etc.) will, too. The core of this opposition force will be fueled by young people who, as with Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter, don't tolerate BS and are relentless in their resistance to authority. They have no interest in compromising with racists and misogynists.
2. Prepare to impeach Trump. Just as the Republicans were already planning to do with President Hillary Clinton from day one, we must organize the apparatus that will bring charges against him when he violates his oath and breaks the law—and then we must remove him from office.
3. Must commit right now to a vigorous fight (including civil disobedience, if necessary) that will block any and all Donald Trump Supreme Court nominees who do not meet our approval. We demand the Democrats in the Senate aggressively filibuster any nominees who support Citizens United or who oppose the rights of women, immigrants and the poor. This is non-negotiable.
4. Demand the DNC apologize to Bernie Sanders for trying to fix the primaries against him, for spinning the press to ignore his historic campaign, for giving Clinton the questions in advance at the Flint debate, for its latent ageism and anti-Semism in trying to turn voters against him because of his age or religious beliefs, and for its anti-democratic system of "superdelegates" who are elected by no one. We all know now that had Bernie been given a fair shot, he probably would have been the nominee and he—as the true outsider and "change" candidate—would have inspired and fired up the base and defeated Donald Trump. If no apology is soon forthcoming from the DNC, that's okay—when we take over the Democratic Party (see yesterday's To-Do List, #1), we will issue the apology in person.
5. Demand that President Obama establish a special prosecutor to investigate who and what was behind FBI director James Comey's illegal interference into the presidential election 11 days before the vote was held.
6. Begin a national push while it's fresh in everyone's mind for a constitutional amendment to fix our broken electoral system: a) eliminate the Electoral College—popular vote only; b) paper ballots only, no electronic voting; c) Election Day must be made a holiday for all or held on a weekend so more people vote; d) all citizens, regardless of any run-ins with the criminal justice system, must have the right to vote (in swing states like Florida and Virginia, 30-40% of all black men are prohibited by law from voting).
7. Convince President Obama to immediately do what he should have done a year ago: send in the Army Corps of Engineers to Flint to dig up and replace all the poisoned pipes. Nothing has changed; the water in Flint is still unusable.
Will try to get these done by sundown.
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Don't forget to read Dot Calm's shadow's favorite independent sources of news and information:
Daily Kos
AlterNet
Peas, friends. Take care of yourselves for me. Trust me--you're worth it!
- Dot Calm's shadow
Consider the preemptive Blogger phuqued-up phormatting disclaimer to be in effect. Grrr.
-- Dot Calm's shadow
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Hey, guyz 'n' galz--it's time to make your own mailbag! Get on the mailing lists of the organizations you support and get busy signing their petitions!
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Movies!
Vox's Ezra Klein on how trump's victory reveals weaknesses in our democracy. Sobering.
Samantha Bee on the morning after the election. Time for dem nasty lezbean wimmins to assemble!
TYT on the giant anti-trump protests nationwide. Join one near you!
TYT Politics: is Clintonism dead and Bernieism on the rise? Please and thank you if so. Not that Clintonism is so terrible, like trumpism and any generic Republicanism, but Bernieism would be oh so much bettah...!
How the grinch stole the election--story by Redacted Tonight. Greg Palast's report will make your brain curl. Over one million Black and Democratic votes stolen in swing states. More than enough to give Hillary the rightful victory, no?
John Cleese remarks about PEWtin's puppet on Conan O'Brien--very funny!
Oh boy. I've heard that the only thing that could save us from trump at this late stage in our national suicide attempt is some kind of humongous scandal that prevents him from being inaugurated (in which case we get pence, who's even more dangerous--eww). Not 24 hours after I heard that, I saw this video: Megyn Kelly says that trump offered gifts for positive coverage. I hope she told him where to stick it--assuming he could find it.
'Til next time, check out these great channels:
Randi Rhodes Air Force
Late Night with Seth Meyers
LastWeekTonight
Secular Talk
The Young Turks
The Thinking Atheist
MisterDeity
NonStampCollector
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posted by Dot Calm @ 8:35 PM
