Something we can expect from President Trump: the unexpected

"Oh shit; we won.  Now what?"  The dog chasing the car has caught it.

During an interview with the Wall Street Journal, President-elect Donald Trump offered an interesting answer about one of the most significant promises he made during his presidential campaign.

After stating that he might end up amending the Affordable Care Act instead of repealing and replacing it, Trump was asked about numerous issues and developments tied to his campaign platform. One thing that came up was that the question of whether Trump would follow through with his second debate promise and appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton over her private email server.

This shifting with the winds is likely to continue.  You might recall I suggested his having Her prosecuted was something he would have to follow through on.  He could still change his mind back, but I'm out of the forecasting business w/r/t our new leader.

After Trump won on Election Night, his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway seemed noticeably ambiguous on whether Trump would do what he promised throughout the last months of his campaign. When asked about the matter himself, Trump only said this:

“It’s not something I’ve given a lot of thought, because I want to solve health care, jobs, border control, tax reform.”

Trump was also asked about his incendiary campaign rhetoric, which has now prompted protests of his victory across the country over the last few days. “I want a country that loves each other,” Trump said, but, when asked if he thinks he might have taken his campaign rhetoric too far, Trump answered with "No. I won."

Nobody's certain what he's going to say or do next.  But he sure tells it like it is.

Trump has already contradicted himself while addressing the protests. Trump first dismissed the demonstrators as professionals “incited by the media,” only to later praise them for their “passion.”

What he's thinking on any topic is based on the last person he talked to.  It appears that 25.5% of Americans has chosen a spoiled brat without much in the way of actual conviction to lead us.

(I'm not arguing against the Electoral College; I believe it should be revised to count states' votes as proportional to the winner in each Congressional district rather than winner-take-all.  And for the record, I do not support those who are petitioning and protesting for Electors to deny their oath on December 19th, when the College convenes in each state to elect the president.)

Yes, Trump is almost certainly going to be guided by the lousier angels of our country's nature in the GOP to their ends.  But if he keeps dropping campaign promises this quickly, he's bound to upset those who have installed him in the White House.  I suppose we'll have to wait for them to figure out that the joke's on them.  Unfortunately, we might be waiting a very long time for that to occur.

In the middle of composing this post, I found Echidne had said it all better, so go read her.  Also, Trump has chosen RNC head Rinse Penis as White House chief of staff and Breitbart scumbag Steve Bannon as counselor and chief strategist, calling them "equal partners".  I see Preibus as being of heavier import, which means steadying Congressional relations with the likes of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell will be more important than extremist ideology and throwing red meat to the goons.

Sunday Funnies

Racists, misogynists, and homophobes voted for Trump.

The sooner people realize that it's not blue vs. red but rich vs. poor, 

elitist vs. common man, the better off we'll be.

But not all Trump supporters are, as such.

If the headline were true, then everyone who voted for Obama (which I did in 2008, but not in 2012) would own his bombing seven countries, as well as the deaths of innocent women and children standing in drone bomb radius proximity to the suspected or "pre"-terrorists, his lack of will to get behind a public healthcare option when he had a Congressional majority in 2009-10, his "most transparent administration ever", and so on.  I reject that, and ultimately over the course of the years since have been forced to reject the Democratic Party for failing to represent me and my interests adequately.  That rejection by itself invalidates the premise of calling everyone who supported Trump a racist, et.al. which, as careful people already know, is false.

Calling them all racists is almost as bad as cheering on the protests of a legitimate election outcome when, if Clinton had won and the Trumpkins were in the streets ... you would be denouncing such as fascist and undemocratic.  But nobody in this space has accused the Hillbots of using logic effectively over the past 18 months.

An associated problem is how we are lately defining 'racist'.  Here, this explains that.

As we confront our nation’s election of a man who dwells blithely in stereotype and caricature, many of us are wondering what we are to do as responsible citizens faced with what many of us regard as a political and moral catastrophe. One thing someone opposed to Donald Trump’s unenlightened, “mean boy” perspective on women, nonwhites, the disabled, Muslims, and others might consider doing is to avoid imitating him.

It may seem perhaps the least likely thing an anti-Trumpian would do, but there’s a word we might consider tempering our usage of in the coming years, given that the way we use it opens us to certain charges involving kettles and the color black. I refer to the word “racist.”

The Martian anthropologist would recognize no difference between the way those accused of being witches were treated in 17th-century Salem, Mass., and the way many innocent people are being accused of “racism” today. Those appalled by the way people were tarred with the Communist label in the 1940s and 1950s must recognize that America has blundered into the same censorious mob mentality in assailing as “racists” just recently, people such as Ellen DeGeneres — for Photoshopping herself riding on Jamaican gold medal sprinter Usain Bolt’s back in celebration of his win — and Hillary Clinton — for referring to the black men terrorizing poor black neighborhoods as “superpredators” in describing plans for protecting people in those neighborhoods from such crime.

Or, many of us have for days been furiously dismissing Trump’s victory as the action of “racists.” However, many of the people who voted for Trump did so for populist reasons, amid which to them, Trump’s take on black people and women was unseemly, but still less of a priority than to most who voted for Hillary Clinton. Regret this though one may, do all of these people deserve to be casually tarred with the same “racist” label that we appropriately apply to David Duke and Donald Sterling?

The way we use the word “racism” has become so imprecise, abusive, and even antithetical to genuine activism that change is worth addressing. More to the point, it widens the cultural divide between the elites and the people too often breezily termed the ones “out there.”

Read on here, please, for the definition and the detours from the definition's application.

However, to understand that racism is real is not to pretend that humans will ever be perfect. If there is a way to eliminate implicit bias entirely, there are no studies showing that the way to do it is to tar and feather anyone displaying the slightest sign of any kind of insensitivity on the Internet for weeks. This new practice is more about self-congratulation than change, turning what began as an unprecedentedly mature understanding of the nature of racism into a grown-up version of tattletale-ing and cops and robbers. What happened to simply noting civilly that someone has made a mistake?

I also question another usage — take a deep breath — the hallowed term “societal racism.”

Read on for the associated "problematic habits of mind".

This can only play a part in the vague but pervasive notion nowadays that part of activism on behalf of people who need concrete assistance is primly patrolling people’s personal racist sentiments. We, as it were, think we must teach “society” not to be “a racist.” Thus it is thought more interesting to teach whites to acknowledge their “privilege” than to espouse reading programs that have been proven effective in teaching (black) kids how to read. Thus the last celebrity caught on tape saying something tacky about black people, because they have a face to hate on, is more interesting than answering poor women’s calls for easy access to long-acting reversible contraception in order to be able to plan when to have children. The war on drugs has been ruining black lives for decades — but only attracts serious attention from black activists when Michelle Alexander phrases it as “The New Jim Crow,” putting a Bull Connor face on it.

Read on for 'why nobody wants to talk about racism'.  Bold emphasis is mine.

The idea that America “doesn’t talk about” racism is absurd, and is actually a euphemism from people who feel that too few Americans talk about racism in what they would consider the right way. That is, they worry that not enough Americans consider racism to be a definitive obstacle to black advancement, and that too many are weary of people’s broaching the issue and dismiss it as unnecessarily “stirring that stuff up.”

To parse this, however, as “Nobody wants to talk about race” channels a kind of smugness. It implies that the people “out there” are actually closing their ears to any discussion at all of race and racism as if it were roughly 1947. This is unfair to a great many people who don’t deserve to be labeled Cro-Magnons for not agreeing with The Nation’s take on race, and also lends a portrait of America that sacrifices empiricism for self-congratulation. We can do better.

In our moment, my comments will elicit from many the question as to whether I consider Donald Trump a racist. The answer is yes — his feigning lack of familiarity with the opinions of David Duke and his explicit statements about black people’s purported laziness decide the case rather conclusively for me, and I am revolted that he will be our president for this and countless other reasons. However, the problem is treating Ellen DeGeneres, Hillary Clinton, or even Trump voters as if they deserve being discussed in the same vein as he does.

They don’t, and only the mission creep the word racism has undergone lends any impression otherwise. Meanwhile, the melodramatic quality in designating well-meaning people who slipped up a bit as “racists” is clear to most observers, and it dulls their receptiveness to genuine, serious accusations of bigotry. Rather, “racist” starts to come off as a mere angry bludgeon used by a certain set of people committed to moral condemnation and comfortable with shutting down exchange. A common idea among Blue Americans is that the people “out there” shirk the racist label out of what could only be naïve denial. That happens — but what if a lot of them get weary of being commanded to pretend that Ellen DeGeneres is a bigot?

Social justice is about being honest and outwardly focused. Our language must encourage us in that. The way we currently use the term racism does not.

TL;DR?  Here: Trump is a racist, a misogynist, and a homophobe.  Virtually all racists, misogynists and homophobes voted for him.  And some have been and are now using his upset victory to recruit.  But not all Trump voters are racists, misogynists, and homophobes.

It would be nice to see some stand up publicly and say that; to demonstrate their sincerity with honesty, conviction, and verifiable conduct, but in the meantime Clinton supporters should cease the blanket and false condemnation.  They lost an election they should have won on the basis of failures like that.  Why repeat past mistakes?  Until they can own their loss, we're going to keep hearing and seeing things like this.

Scattershooting other people's post-election BS

-- Let's get this out of the way first: anybody not named Michael Moore who tells you they saw this coming is telling you a story (unless, of course, they can produce a public opinion that appeared before July 21st of this year).  As you read -- or listen to the same talking heads on teevee who never saw it coming try to explain it -- keep in mind that the those with the most access to the best insider information lost 4 million pounds euros (thanks to DBC in the comments) betting on a Hillary win.  You should have no shame and you have lots of company if you are able to admit to being wrong.

-- And it would go a long way toward accepting the outcome (five stages of grief and all) if you could demonstrate some sign of being awake.  Here's another poor analogy.  Why would anyone choose to rebuild in a flood zone (aka the Democratic Party) when the hundred-year floods come every year now?  You're not a tree; move.  Take off the blinders and start thinking outside the two-party box.  All you have to lose is the next election, after all.

-- The Democratic Party should purge itself of charlatans like Donna Brazile, but we all know they won't.  If you're one of those people who simply cannot bear the thought of voting for someone besides a Democrat or a Republican; if you'd rather keep trying to reform one of them from within, here's a reform you can steal from the Greens.  It just passed in Maine.  Unfortunately you'll have to change the Texas Election Code (Title I, Chapter 2, Subchapter B; IANAL) first.  Several not-so-liberal sources advocated for ranked choice/instant runoff voting in the wake of Trump's winning the GOP nomination, so perhaps the Republicans in Austin can get on board.  As our attention turns to the forthcoming legislative session, let's ask our new state representatives -- and the old ones, too -- and see what they think.

Why did Hillary lose to Trump? Vol. III Final

Yesterday I blogged the post-election to-do list offered by David Swanson, but left off the "If Trump won" part.  Because, like everybody else, I simply didn't see it coming.  Oh, I made it plain a couple of times that if she did lose, it would be her own fault, just as it was Al Gore's in 2000, but I honestly didn't think it would happen.  Even though my 303 EC vote call was more conservative than many others -- I was still seeing people predicting 352 on Monday, after all -- the possibility of Her snatching defeat from the jaws of victory was simply too remote for me to give credence to.

But as the reality unfolded last night, I found myself less and less surprised, and with a lack of empathy to its political ramifications (not the social ones, mind you).

Some can say that's my white privilege.  I will say that it feels like my conscious uncoupling from the Democrats as the year passed has left me with a profound indifference to their plight.

Yes: Obamacare will be repealed, voting rights will be curtailed, a woman's right to choose will be eliminated as the Supreme Court veers hard right for another twenty years, Social Security will be privatized, cops will go on randomly killing people of color, the planet's ice will keep melting and its deserts will grow and its storms become more powerful.  The rich will get richer; the poor poorer.  And if I were advising Hillary this morning, I would recommend -- like Steve M -- she take a nice long vacation in a country without an extradition treaty with the United States, because I think Trump made a campaign promise that he has to at least try to keep about locking her up.

I care about the people who will be damaged by Trump's policies.  But I do not care about the Democrats who pretended to care about them, and went about the lousy business of coronating Hillary by any means necessary.  They earned their failure, and their reward is just.

Anyway, back to life.  Back to reality.

IF TRUMP WON

1. Build a movement that includes all the Democrats eager to get active.

2. Build a movement that includes a focus on rights of refugees / immigrants

3. Build a movement that resists racist violence at home.

4. Demand a swift end to NAFTA and NATO.

5. Oppose all the horrible nominations for high offices.

6. Break up the media cartel.

7. If win came through voter suppression, seek prosecution immediately.

8. If win came through fraudulent counting, launch massive campaign to compel Democrats to admit it and protest it.

Notice how little it differs from Clinton's list.

Harris County, Texas is shining, with its Democrats having won most of their races and looking nice and bluish-purple.  City council races will gear up very shortly; the HGLBT Caucus will soon start questioning candidates and making endorsements before spring arrives.  It'll be another banner year for the neoliberals.  Speaking of them, you should read this from Thomas Frank at The Guardian about who's at fault for last night's debacle.  Here's a taste, and don't forget to substitute the word 'neoliberal' for 'liberal'.

(Trump) has run one of the lousiest presidential campaigns ever. In saying so I am not referring to his much-criticized business practices or his vulgar remarks about women. I mean this in a purely technical sense: this man fractured his own party. His convention was a fiasco. He had no ground game to speak of. The list of celebrities and pundits and surrogates taking his side on the campaign trail was extremely short. He needlessly offended countless groups of people: women, Hispanics, Muslims, disabled people, mothers of crying babies, the Bush family, and George Will-style conservatives, among others. He even lost Glenn Beck, for pete’s sake.

And now he is going to be president of the United States. The woman we were constantly assured was the best-qualified candidate of all time has lost to the least qualified candidate of all time. Everyone who was anyone rallied around her, and it didn’t make any difference. The man too incompetent to insult is now going to sit in the Oval Office, whence he will hand down his beauty-contest verdicts on the grandees and sages of the old order.

Maybe there is a bright side to a Trump victory. After all, there was a reason that tens of millions of good people voted for him yesterday, and maybe he will live up to their high regard for him. He has pledged to “drain the swamp” of DC corruption, and maybe he will sincerely tackle that task. He has promised to renegotiate NAFTA, and maybe that, too, will finally come to pass. Maybe he’ll win so much for us (as he once predicted in a campaign speech) that we’ll get sick of winning.

But let’s not deceive ourselves. We aren’t going to win anything. What happened on Tuesday is a disaster, both for liberalism and for the world. As President Trump goes about settling scores with his former rivals, picking fights with other countries, and unleashing his special deportation police on this group and that, we will all soon have cause to regret his ascension to the presidential throne.

What we need to focus on now is the obvious question: what the hell went wrong? What species of cluelessness guided our Democratic leaders as they went about losing what they told us was the most important election of our lifetimes?

Start at the top. Why, oh why, did it have to be Hillary Clinton? Yes, she has an impressive resume; yes, she worked hard on the campaign trail. But she was exactly the wrong candidate for this angry, populist moment. An insider when the country was screaming for an outsider. A technocrat who offered fine-tuning when the country wanted to take a sledgehammer to the machine.

She was the Democratic candidate because it was her turn and because a Clinton victory would have moved every Democrat in Washington up a notch. Whether or not she would win was always a secondary matter, something that was taken for granted. Had winning been the party’s number one concern, several more suitable candidates were ready to go. There was Joe Biden, with his powerful plainspoken style, and there was Bernie Sanders, an inspiring and largely scandal-free figure. Each of them would probably have beaten Trump, but neither of them would really have served the interests of the party insiders.

And so Democratic leaders made Hillary their candidate even though they knew about her closeness to the banks, her fondness for war, and her unique vulnerability on the trade issue – each of which Trump exploited to the fullest. They chose Hillary even though they knew about her private email server. They chose her even though some of those who studied the Clinton Foundation suspected it was a sketchy proposition.

To try to put over such a nominee while screaming that the Republican is a rightwing monster is to court disbelief. If Trump is a fascist, as liberals often said, Democrats should have put in their strongest player to stop him, not a party hack they’d chosen because it was her turn. Choosing her indicated either that Democrats didn’t mean what they said about Trump’s riskiness, that their opportunism took precedence over the country’s well-being, or maybe both.

Maybe all those #BernieorBust people meant it.  Maybe that #DemExit thing in the wake of the convention was, you know, a thing.

Blame the media, blame the polling, blame James Comey (who is surely not going to be fired now), blame the Greens and the Libertarians for taking a combined four percent of the total everywhere I looked.  Just don't blame yourselves.  Or Hillary.  Because that might compel some self-reflection.

Clinton’s supporters among the media didn’t help much, either. It always struck me as strange that such an unpopular candidate enjoyed such robust and unanimous endorsements from the editorial and opinion pages of the nation’s papers, but it was the quality of the media’s enthusiasm that really harmed her. With the same arguments repeated over and over, two or three times a day, with nuance and contrary views all deleted, the act of opening the newspaper started to feel like tuning in to a Cold War propaganda station. Here’s what it consisted of:

• Hillary was virtually without flaws. She was a peerless leader clad in saintly white, a super-lawyer, a caring benefactor of women and children, a warrior for social justice.

• Her scandals weren’t real.

• The economy was doing well / America was already great.

• Working-class people weren’t supporting Trump.

• And if they were, it was only because they were botched humans. Racism was the only conceivable reason for lining up with the Republican candidate.

Turns out it was the economy, stupid.  Again.  Specifically it was all those Rust Belt hardhats who bought into Trump's line of blaming job losses on free trade.  The polling somehow missed it.  Maybe those guys don't have landlines any more after being unemployed for so long.

Put this question in slightly more general terms and you are confronting the single great mystery of 2016. The American white-collar class just spent the year rallying around a super-competent professional (who really wasn’t all that competent) and either insulting or silencing everyone who didn’t accept their assessment. And then they lost. Maybe it’s time to consider whether there’s something about shrill self-righteousness, shouted from a position of high social status, that turns people away.

The even larger problem is that there is a kind of chronic complacency that has been rotting American liberalism for years, a hubris that tells Democrats they need do nothing different, they need deliver nothing really to anyone – except their friends on the Google jet and those nice people at Goldman. The rest of us are treated as though we have nowhere else to go and no role to play except to vote enthusiastically on the grounds that these Democrats are the “last thing standing” between us and the end of the world. It is a liberalism of the rich, it has failed the middle class, and now it has failed on its own terms of electability.

Clinton Democrats failed to fucking get it, every day of the year and much of last year, and when I finally bailed on them it was for good.  They're still curled up in a fetal position, hung over emotionally if not from the drowning of their sorrows.  There will be much reckoning, some recriminations, probably no atonement.  A few are, shockingly, presumptuous enough to say they knew it would happen all along.

Among my blogging brethren, Neil and Egberto were so motivated by their fear and hatred, respectively, of Trump to abandon the progressive cause after Bernie Sanders quit on it, too, and pushed all in on Hillary.  Fear is a loser's motivation; it almost always leaves you holding your little sack of nightmares even after you've dodged its worst blow.  I can't feel sorry for people who are controlled by the monsters under their bed.  Hate is even worse because it makes you no better than those who supported Trump for their abhorrence of Clinton.  Kuff is stunned speechless, Campos stunned but unfortunately not speechless, and Dos -- despite having posted more about Tejano music than politics over the last six months -- asserts, on the morning after, that he saw most of it coming.  And then congratulates former clients on their victories.  And their defeats.  (Folks, that's called hackery, and I'm forced to avoid it in the future.)

Most of the Texas so-called Progressive Alliance gassed on this election from the get-go, but fellow member and non-Democrat Gadfly nailed it.  Click that link and take note of the embedded Tweet, which shows that more Democrats voted for Trump than Republicans did for Hillary.  There goes your blame game out the window, neoliberals.  If you're not looking for your pain/anxiety meds yet, try on Ted Rall.

It'd be called tough love if I still loved you, Democrats.  But you fucked that up too.

Shock and awe

This egg on my face won't seem to come off.  But this isn't about me.

Yeah, the polls were wayyyy wrong and the election really was rigged by the outrage of white people living in the exurbs and rural parts of the country -- but especially in the Rust Belt, Great Lakes states -- that went unmeasured.  Then again, if you're at an Adele concert celebrating your 69th birthday in Miami on October 26 instead of campaigning in Flint, or Green Bay, or Allentown -- you might have some recriminations to take ownership of.

While the outcomes in Minnesota, Michigan, New Hampshire and Arizona are still being determined, Trump secured at least 279 electoral votes — smashing through Hillary Clinton’s blue wall in the midwest by taking Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, as well as winning Florida, North Carolina and Ohio — to win his long-shot bid for the presidency.

Not a single poll ever showed Trump winning in Wisconsin. Ever. https://t.co/hI49J0OEuB

— Natalie Jackson (@nataliemjb) November 9, 2016

This election saw the two lead candidates fail to resonate with many young voters. Based on the CNN exit poll, 9 percent of voters ages 18-29 went for third parties.

Update (with some revisions): The kids own the future we leave them, and they're inheriting a terrible mess.  And they don't seem to think  that Democrats or Republicans are the best way to get it cleaned up.  Stop and think for a moment what the results might look like -- and what we might be talking about today -- had every age demographic cast 9 percent of its vote for a third party.

In contrast, Texas Democrats had a raft of good news, especially in Harris County, where their voters swept out the Republican trash (and, some of those judges, I assume, were good people).  But the Reds continue to have home court advantage statewide.

Trump carried Texas by a 52-43 margin, stunning when you consider all that hee-haw about Her winning it a few weeks ago (what was it that happened less than two weeks ago, again?) and Republicans held onto all the bench seats on the Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals, and also the SBOE.  Straight-ticket voting remains a strong, stupid, lazy way to go in this state.

The regional Appeals Court Democrats came up just short, by less than a 5-point margin generally in each race.  The outlying suburban and rural counties overcame the urban blue strength, Harris' in the case of the First and the Fourteenth.  Leticia Hinojosa in the 13th and Irene Rios in the 4th were the exceptions to this rule.  And in the only real contest in Texas for a congressional seat, Pete Gallego couldn't beat Will Hurd.

The Democrats locally benefited from the one-button selection, with Clinton sweeping Harris and Trump by twelve points, 54-42, and the downballot slate of county executives and judicials prevailing.  Kim Ogg is the new DA, Ed Gonzalez the new sheriff, and Ann Harris Bennett -- the only countywide Democrat trailing after the early vote was counted -- pulled ahead late in the evening.  Dan Patrick's son lost his race, the 177th District Court.

And the HISD recapture initiative -- explained best here for novices -- was knocked down hard.

Voter participation on Election Day in Harris County did not meet high expectations, but followed the long pattern of being bluer than the EV.  Texas will still be last or next-to-last in turnout compared with the other 49 states.

So ... what of a President Trump?  That's next.

Post-election to-do list

Mad props to David Swanson at Washington's Blog for this.

1. Stop the efforts to ram through the Trans-Pacific Partnership during the lame duck.
2. Stop the efforts to ram through a supplemental war spending bill for assorted future wars during the lame duck.
3. Stop the efforts to repeal the right to sue Saudi Arabia and other nations for their wars and lesser acts of terrorism during the lame duck.
4. Build a nonpartisan movement to effect real change.
5. Ban bribery, fund elections, make registration automatic, make election day a holiday, end gerrymandering, eliminate the electoral college, create the right to vote, create public hand counting of paper ballots at every polling place, create ranked choice voting.
6. End the wars, end the weapons dealing, close the bases, and shift military spending to human and environmental needs.
7. Tax billionaires.
8. End mass incarceration and the death penalty and the militarization of police.
9. Create single-payer healthcare.
10. Support the rule of law, diplomacy, and aid.
11. Invest in serious effort to avoid climate catastrophe.
12. Apologize to the world for having elected President Clinton or Trump.

That's a heavy lift.  I might settle low, for Hillbots being able to stop Her from starting a war with Iran, or Russia, or North Korea or China.  Maybe they could convince Her to hold it to seven, the number of countries Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama has bombed.  Since people like me apparently don't have the "moral currency" to demand any change from Her.

Once again, your progressive independent voting card for 2016.  It contains mostly Greens at the top of the Harris County ballot for statewide and regional offices and Democrats at the county and state legislative level.  It contains no Republicans or Libertarians.  Many Democrats and independent progressives chose to vote for a Libertarian for the Texas Railroad Commission, but Gadfly shot that guy down in flames.

If Trump wins ... never mind.  He won't.

After Clinton declares victory tonight:

1. Build a movement that includes all the Republicans and Libertarians eager to get active.
2. Build a movement that includes a focus on rights of refugees / immigrants
3. Build a movement that resists racist violence directed at nations abroad.
4. Demand serious action on climate change.
5. Oppose all the horrible nominations for high offices.
6. Break up the media cartel.
7. If win came through fraudulent counting, support Trump’s noisy denunciation, and if it did not, then reject Trump’s noisy denunciation.

If Jill Stein had been able to win:

1. Support the independent media that made this possible.
2. Support all the wonderful nominees for higher office.
3. Help people in other countries turn their disastrous political systems around too.
4. Volunteer for public service.

And remember: rehearsals start tomorrow morning for Houston's municipal elections in 2017, the midterm and Texas elections in 2018, and ...

Electoral College prediction: Clinton 303, Trump 233

As conservative as I can get it to be.

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

Note again that in this forecast, as with last Wednesday's, the Buckeyes belong to Trump.  Also North Carolina and New Hampshire.  Further, I don't think the Beehive State winds up going for Evan McMullin.  Florida and Nevada don't seem all that battleground-ey to me any longer, but if Trump won them and everything else I've given him here, the Electoral College would be tied, 268 apiece, and the House of Representatives could very well elect McMullin president on a Grand Bargain, and the Senate would/could pick Tim Kaine as VP.  This very narrow (and slightly bizarre) path to a still-not-Trump presidency was one of the things motivating Nate Silver and Huffington Post DC bureau chief Ryan Grim having a geek fight on Twitter over the weekend.  More on that from Vox.

So let's see what I get right or wrong tomorrow evening.

Update: My call in NH has the greatest chance of being off, as the very latest of numbers suggest it might be safe for Clinton.  If that's the case, then Gadfly and I are only one electoral vote (in Nebraska or Maine) apart, at 307-229.

Larry Sabato has a 322-216 victory for Clinton and a 50-50 Senate.

My states to watch tomorrow evening are New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Florida.  If they all go blue, you can start celebrating early.  Like Chuck, I'd like to see some gains in the Texas House, a clean sweep at the Harris County courthouse, and Pete Gallego taking his Congressional seat back (with some indication that the Latin@ vote that carries him this year can help hold it in two years.  In other words a fat margin, something like 55-45 or greater).

I'll also look for that 5% nationally and statewide for Jill Stein and the Green Party, but my hopes have been somewhat dimmed, with all of the vigorous and hostile pushback I've seen from Democrats all year but particularly in these last few weeks.  I am certain I will have more to say about that later in the week, but I'll wait for the numbers to come in.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is happy this election is over as it brings you this last blog post roundup before Election Day.

Off the Kuff offers a modicum of sympathy to Republican women for the plague of Sid Miller.

Libby Shaw at Daily Kos shares her personal observations and polling data from a class she is taking to that shows Hillary Clinton carrying Houston and Harris County.

Switching gears away from politics, Socratic Gadfly offers up his 2016-17 NBA preview.  (Sorry, Mavs fans.)

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants everyone to know just how much Texas Republicans have abused workers, worker rights and their safety.

Neil at All People Have Value reminded folks that nasty Sid Miller was a big part of the forced sonogram law in Texas that is state-mandated rape. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

Control of the US Senate in 2017 looks to be a tighter race than the one for the White House, says PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

A Lewisville Texan-Journal reporter was arrested in North Dakota while covering the #NoDAPL protests, making the issue hit close to home.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston says you should wait until some election contests are decided -- win for your your side or no -- before you start drinking heavily on Tuesday night.

And Texas Vox points out that Thursday, November 10 -- not Election Day -- is decision day for the Texas Railroad Commission.

=======================

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

FPH introduces us to Kelcy Warren, the man behind the DAPL and his role in this week's Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission hearing.

CultureMap Houston was at the Texas Book Festival in Austin weekend before last.

Amy McCarthy recaps the highlights of Anthony Bourdain's visit to Houston.

Kyrie O'Connor reminds us that "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" is at heart a feminist anthem.

Eva Ruth Moravec took the eight-hour DPS course on verbal de-escalation.

Susan Nold asserts that voting is not "rigged", it's power.

Jacquielynn Floyd calls Sid Miller's latest tweet abomination a "breaking point".

The Texas Election Law Blog gives credit where it is due on tamping down fear about "election rigging".

Somervell County Salon asks if you believe in open government.

Ashton Woods at Strength in Numbers explains intersectionality and the problematic 'white gaze' as it relates to black feminism.

The Rag Blog marked the night of the dead and the day of the living.

DBC Green Blog reminded Democrats and Republicans that voting a straight ticket is still stupid and lazy.

And Pages of Victory explained (via Viggo Mortensen) why he voted for Jill Stein, and also why he voted for Kim Ogg for Harris County District Attorney.

Sunday Funnies

Tear gas, rubber bullets, sound cannon, and Tasers fired from a drone 

used on Standing Rock water protectors

The Men Feminists Left Behind

Control of US Senate a tighter race than for White House

And the outcome means all the difference for the next two years.  The expert consensus four days from Election Day is a dead solid tie.

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

-- First of all, I don't think Wisconsin's Russ Feingold is in as much trouble as all those screaming subject line fundraising emails we're getting would have us believe.

-- Evan Bayh, the Democrat who held a lead most of the year for the open seat in the Hoosier State, has coughed it up.  Reports like this aren't going to help him.  There are still a lot of undecideds as reflected in the polls, and perhaps the Libertarian, the only other candidate in the race there, can influence the result to some degree.

-- Roy Blount, the Republican incumbent in the Show Me State, will probably hang on.  He has to overcome whatever percentages the Libertarian and Constitution Party nominees may take away from him, the only question mark I see.  That makes MO and IN holds for the GOP, and that gets the Elephants to 50.  Nate Silver has them both turning pink just yesterday.

-- New Hampshire's presidential polling volatility, coupled with incumbent R Kelly Ayotte clinging to a small lead probably means the Granite State isn't so much of a tossup.  That's 51 for the Reds.

-- That leaves Nevada, and I'll predict that the Silver State elects Catherine Cortez Masto, riding on the coattails of Hillary Clinton.  See Robby Mook's confidence about NV in the most recent post.

This is the last of these I'll do unless news breaks something of value, so put me down for a Republican Senate by just one seat.  That pits me against Silver and the NYT's Upshot, who are both predicting a 55% chance of it turning blue as of this morning.  Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball has the whip count at 48-47 Dems, with five tossups.

Update: Via Down with Tyranny, Rep. Alan Grayson (whom I wish was the Democratic nominee for the US Senate for Florida, and not Patrick Murphy)  has more detail, but sees it exactly the same way as I do.  Great minds and all that.

Here's a question I can't find the answer to: if somebody on the right side were to change parties, resign, or pass away in the next year or two, and a Democratic governor made an appointment to fill the vacancy that puts the upper chamber into a tie, does control of the Senate change mid-term or must it wait for the next election, special or regularly-scheduled in 2018?

Jim Jeffords' party switch in 2001 -- from Republican to independent caucusing with the Democrats -- flipped control, but the Senate was 50-50 at the time and Jeffords gave the Dems a pure 51-49 majority.  So by my understanding, pushing the body into 50-50 would only give a Vice President Tim Kaine the ability to break tie votes, and not change which party controls the flow of legislation, appointment of committee chairs, and the like.  Am I right or not?

Hillary builds a wall, too

With early votes in battleground states.

The word of the day is "firewall."[...]

Jon Ralston, the savviest political analyst in Nevada, used the term "firewall" to describe the early vote margin Democrats seem to be running up in that state. As of Friday morning, he figured Democrats had banked a 37,000-vote margin. "So he can win Nevada," Ralston wrote Friday morning. "But Trump would need base numbers and indie numbers that seem unlikely right now." Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, told reporters on a conference call that the campaign figures Trump would have to win Nevada by 10 percentage points on Election Day to overcome her advantage there.

I don't consider Ralston all that savvy after this episode from two years ago, but hard data is one of those things that is difficult for almost anybody to screw up.  And that's really why Clintonoids should breathe easier: there are over 30 million votes already in the can, and we don't have to rely on an admittedly shaky Nate Silver to tell us what to think any longer.

In Florida early voting, Democratic strategist Steve Schale sees further positive signs for Clinton, specifically a marked uptick in Latino voting. "The two places with the highest Puerto Rican populations, Orange and Osceola counties both out-performed their projected share of the statewide vote," he wrote Friday morning. Florida Hispanics are typically thought of as being Cuban, but Puerto Ricans have been migrating to the state in great numbers in recent years. More broadly, Schale wrote, Hispanic voting patterns so far are the "definition of a surge." It should be obvious, but is worth noting anyway: Hispanics aren't turning out in greater numbers to vote for Donald Trump. Schale goes on to add: "Right now, Democrats hold a 117K vote advantage among all low propensity voters, in large part due to this Hispanic surge. 32% of Democratic voters so far are low propensity voters, compared to 26% of the GOP voters. But among [no party affiliation voters or NPAs], the number rises to 48%. That's right, 48% of NPAs who have voted so far are low propensity – and 25% of those are Hispanic. In fact, of the NPA low propensity voters, a full 42% of them are non-white. That right there is the Clinton turnout machine edge." Reminder: Turnout is important, even if Donald Trump doesn't seem to think it is. Mook told reporters that the campaign believes it's leading in Florida by around 170,000 votes overall and said that at this time four years ago, the Obama campaign figured that it was behind by 15,000 votes. (Obama won the state, narrowly.) Schale sums up: "All of this has me leaning a bit that the state is shaping up nicely for HRC, but while I think that, in no way is it in the bag, or close to it."

The Hispanic surge isn't confined to Florida. Per Talking Points Memo's Lauren Fox, the polling firm Latino Decisions reported early Hispanic voting "is up 100 percent in Florida, 60 percent in North Carolina and up 25 percent in Colorado and Nevada." See my previous comment about Hispanics and Donald Trump. Fox adds: "Latino Decisions is estimating – using their own turnout predictor – that Clinton is on track to capture 79 percent of the Latino vote. Trump, on the other hand, is expected to garner only 18 percent (almost 10 points down from Romney's 27 percent performance.)" Remember that Trump's theory of winning through running up the white vote doesn't only motivate white voters. The backlash could well end up benefiting Clinton in a big way.

North Carolina is IMHO the true decider for both president and Senate in 2016.  Black turnout was reported soft in North Carolina (and Florida and Ohio as well) earlier this week, and there have been serious efforts by the Republicans in charge to stifle the vote there.  So I see the Tar Heelers being decided very late on Election Night.

Across the country, Mook told reporters Friday, early voting is breaking records. And for whatever it's worth, the Clinton campaign sees itself as having "leverage[d] this early voting period to build a firewall in states with early voting to turn out our supporters early and build up a lead that Donald Trump is incapable of overcoming."

Bloomberg's Mark Niquette and John McCormick took a broader look at early voting. "Donald Trump is showing strength in Iowa and Ohio pre-Election Day voting, while Hillary Clinton's advantage in early balloting looks stronger in North Carolina and Nevada, a Bloomberg Politics analysis shows," they wrote. Hold on there, Robert, my target audience responds, this post is supposed to soothe my nerves but you just quoted someone saying Trump looks strong in Ohio. The key point as we hurtle toward Nov. 8 is that given the state of the electoral map, Trump needs to look strong in all the contested states. If early voting carries Clinton to victory in Nevada (see Ralston above) and North Carolina (which my colleagues Dave Catanese and Seth Cline described on Friday as her ultimate firewall) the game is over.

Whoa theyah, podnah; it ain't over 'til it's over.

It's called being ahead, which Clinton still is. It may be a narrow lead, but it's a lead nevertheless, and with the days dwindling it's better to be front-running than trying to play catch-up.

The Comey Effect may have run its course, and any further late-breaking developments such as this are too late to move the needle.  But if the Senate does not flip, that will be added to the foundation for impeachment proceedings in 2017.

A fresh Senate forecast is coming shortly.

Why is Clinton losing to Trump? Vol. II

(Volume I was posted on September 16.  That was ten days before the first debate and about seven weeks following her triumphant coronation at the Philly convention in late July.  You should go read it for context in light of her slump here at the finish.  Especially if you are still of the mind that a straight Democratic ticket is a good idea.)

Is it the fault of Vladimir Putin and his Russian hackers, who broke into and stole the DNC's e-mail, and then gave the files to Julian Assange, who has leaked them out daily over the past month, revealing Hillary and her subordinates to be ... exactly who we thought she was, and they were?  Except even more craven and stupid than we could have imagined?

Is it those wretched Green Party/Jill Stein voters, those damned dirty hippies, all full of their white privilege as they stand poised to repeat the 2000 "history" (sic) of sending a shitty Republican to the White House because they refuse to vote for a shitty Democrat?

(Without question, the most stubborn urban legend ever.  I had to correct a few more former Facebook friends again just last night.  I'm pretty certain they still don't get it.)

Nope.  None of the above.  It's all Her.  And her supporters, who have driven some Sanders supporters to vote for Trump out of spite for the Hillbots' bad behavior.

(Not me.  Though I fought -- and fought hard, for a decade -- to push the Texas Democratic Party to the left, this was the year they yanked the torch and pitchfork out of my hands and ran me off for good.  I still didn't vote for any Republicans, however, though there were many fewer Democrats who earned my vote in 2016.  That's a pattern I see increasing in the future.)

Here, let's allow Cesar Vargas to explain.

It took me a long time to write this. I had to dig deep into my being to come up with these words. I’m recanting my endorsement of Hillary Clinton for the presidency.

I’m aware of how vindictive Clintonians can be. I’m not speaking about the Clintons themselves, but of those surrounding them. Perhaps the saying is true: dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres.

Your staff, your donors, your surrogates, and those you surround yourself with are a reflection of who you truly are, no? If not, why not curb any unacceptable behavior? Silence, indifference, or inaction is as incriminatory -- at least to me.

There has been no repudiation, let alone denunciation, of what was said in those emails-just denial, finger pointing, and doublespeak. To appoint the very same folks who carried out many malicious behaviors to tip the scales for Hillary is just as unpardonable. Why reward unethical behavior? It’s mind-boggling.

I rebuke with my heart, mind, and soul all the twisted narratives of sexism, misogyny, racism, and classism lay at our feet. Though some of them are legitimate, most were used to derail derail valid grievances from our communities and completely erase us. Our voices were drowned out by empty accusations, by a nefarious usage of identity politics recommended by one of our own, no less. That is a bamboozling of POC and unsuspecting allies. This is why Hillary Clinton doesn’t deserve our vote, among many other reasons.

If Hillary Clinton fumbles this sure thing, it's on Her.  And all of those with Her.

Bernie Sanders was treated horribly by the DNC, the Clinton crew, and the Obama administration, and by proxy, many of us were also stung. Without any apologies. In fact, we received nothing but contempt from the Clinton campaign and her surrogates. Then they expected us to fall in formation. Many of us did. I said I would endorse Hillary if she won the primary fair and square. And I did, but that was before I got a hold of all the highly unethical things that happened to get her to win.

I’m not telling you not to vote for her. I’m aware of what is at stake. The Supreme Court and a petulant man-child that might quicken the apocalypse, I know. I’m telling you that I’m no longer endorsing her. Vote with your conscience. Vote strategically. Or don’t. It’s your prerogative.

If she loses, it's all Her fault and the fault of those who attacked everything they saw in opposition, like a pack of rabid dogs.  In other words, they acted just like Republicans.  They acted worse than Republicans on far too many occasions, but that might only be because I have long given them the benefit of the doubt as being smarter, using critical thinking skills, etc.  They stopped doing that, and consequently lost me -- and what appears to be some significant quantity of other Democrats and Democratic voters -- this year.

And I doubt whether they can earn it back.

Harris County still looking blue, Texas not so much

Once again, Tom Gederberg via SD17 Democrats on Facebook.

Updated Harris County Early Voting and Mail Ballot Results for November 1

So far 626,627 people early voted and 86,456 people have turned in a mail ballot! Today's turnout was 72,580.

There is a lag in getting the data loaded into VAN. VAN currently has data on 576,983 early voters and on 80,820 mail voters. Assuming that people who have a 2016 DNC Dem Party Support v2 score of over 50% is a likely Democrat and those with a score below 50% is a likely Republican, here is how the voting looks in Harris County so far:

VAN Early Total: 576,983
Likely Democrat: 318,855 (55.26%)
Likely Republican: 258,128 (44.74%)

VAN Mail Total: 80,829
Likely Democrat: 44,635 (55.23%)
Likely Republican: 36,185 (44.77%)

EVIP this week in Harris County (early voting in person, more formally called EVPA, or Early Voting by Personal Appearance) is lagging last week's eye-popping numbers, but is still surging past 2012 and 2008.  In local media reax, Groogan at Fox swallows Mark Jones' spin and pimps for Team Red, while the Chron's article underscoring stronger Democratic turnout reveals that the EV numbers seem to show more of a partisan groundswell than they do new voters.

By both comparison and contrast, the state's fifteen largest counties show gains, but the red counties look to be voting a little heavier.  The most recent Texas poll reveals Trump ahead by 12, and above the 50% mark for the first time (click for a clearer pic, or go to the link).

So while the Donks still have bright prospects for downballot races locally, I would have to say to Democrats dreaming of turning Texas blue -- and especially to some of those laughably bad statewide judicials: wake up and smell the coffee.

Madam President + GOP Senate = impeachment

The real Comey Effect is not going to influence Hillary Clinton's coronation.  It's going to trim her coattails in the Congress, and that spells more DC dysfunction for 2017 and beyond.  Heather Digby Parton sets it up with the death of Antonin Scalia, the continued stalling of Merrick Garland, and, well ... take it from there.

...(I)f the GOP fails to win the White House and  maintains their Senate majority, there’s a good possibility that the Republicans won’t confirm any new justices appointed by Hillary Clinton, ever. Indeed, if other justices retire or die, one can imagine the court dwindling down in number for years. Keeping the Democrats from nominating Supreme Court justices is now a GOP litmus test.

And let’s face it, this is a foreshadowing of something even more disruptive and dangerous. Ever since Ronald Reagan, Republicans have increasingly seen Democratic presidents as illegitimate. They said Bill Clinton wasn’t “their president” because he won with a plurality, rather than a majority. (Which may well happen this year as well.) The GOP-led Congress spent years trying to drive him from office on trumped up charges. Many in the Republican rank and file believed that Barack Obama was ineligible for the White House because he was a secret Muslim who had lied about being born in America.  Their decades long “voter fraud” myth has created an underlying sense among their voters that our election systems are always tilted against them by Democrats trying to steal elections.

But this election has taken it to an entirely different level. We’ve never seen a presidential candidate state in advance that he believes the vote is rigged and declare he will only accept he outcome if he wins. Even if he ends up conceding in some technical sense, his voters will never truly accept his loss and Trump will be a martyr to their cause. In that sense, Donald Trump has already won regardless of the actual vote count.

(Let's pause for a lengthy sidebar and reassure nervous Donkeys that despite Nate Silver's fairly ominous header, Clinton is still very likely to sail into the White House with 300+ Electoral College votes.  You like your data deeper?  Scroll down to 'reversion to the mean'.  This is the most conservative map I can come up with at the moment:

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

Kindly note that I have awarded Ohio to Trump.  Even if he were to prevail in the gray "tossup" states I've indicated above, he comes up short.  He would still need all three plus, for example, New Hampshire and Nevada in order to win.)  Update: Lagging African American turnout in FL, NC, and OH was factored into the above.  Update II: Oh my, look what Walt Hickey at FiveThirtyEight.com just posted:

Trump does not have as many avenues to victory as Clinton, but a few states are slightly better than average for him.

North Carolina is an interesting one. When North Carolina tips the race to Trump, he has usually carried Ohio, Florida and Nevada, plus New Hampshire, with the Midwest potentially up for grabs.

Back to Digby.  And as with climate change, Obama's birth certificate, and voter "fraud", conservatives don't make rational decisions based on factual evidence.

We’ve also never had a presidential candidate delegitimized before the election even occurs. Trump routinely claims that Hillary Clinton should “not have been allowed” to run because  she is “guilty as hell” of unnamed crimes and has promised to imprison her if he wins the office. His followers are convinced this is true and chant “Lock her up!” and “Hang the bitch!” at his rallies. (The outrageous actions of the FBI director last Friday have only made such people more certain in that belief.)

Tuesday night in Wisconsin, Trump declared that if Clinton wins the election “it would create an unprecedented crisis and the work of government would grind to an unbelievably inglorious halt.” In fact, he and the Republicans are now making that an explicit promise. Some, like Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson (who faces likely defeat in his re-election battle), are actually running on that agenda. He told a local newspaper this week that he believed Clinton will be impeached should she win the office.

I would say yes, high crime or misdemeanor, I believe she is in violation of both laws [related to gathering, transmission or destruction of defense information or official government record]. She purposefully circumvented it. This was willful concealment and destruction.

Unfortunately, Johnson is not the only one already talking about impeachment:

America was a p. fun idea for awhile pic.twitter.com/0V3lyUjKQC

— Adam Weinstein (@AdamWeinstein) November 2, 2016

To hold on to their congressional majorities, Republicans should promise voters they'll impeach Hillary by 2018.

— Steve Deace (@SteveDeaceShow) October 18, 2016

It’s always possible that this is an election season bluff designed to make some people vote for Trump out of fear that the Republicans will completely shut down the government if Clinton is president. It’s the kind of thuggish hostage-taking gambit in which they’ve come to specialize. (“Nice little country you have here. Be a shame if anything happened to it …”) But it’s also possible they will follow through on these threats simply because it’s all they have. As Brian Beutler wrote in the New Republic:

 [W]hat they’re seeking is to hold together their broken party for long enough to make another run at complete control of government in 2020. Republicans are no longer seeking any substantive ends in the interim — just the power to obstruct and the power to manufacture scandal.

The crippling of the Supreme Court is just a first step. If they fail to win the White House, the destruction of Hillary Clinton will be their common purpose, the only goal that can bring them all back together.

And there you have it, folks.  More of the past eight years for the next four years.  Obama's third term, indeed.