(1) SPIDERY MARKS. Kameron Hurley’s contribution to sanity today is this excerpt from the epilogue to The Geek Feminist Revolution.
…I have no children, and no legacy but my work— and you.
I have the power to reach back to you long after I am dead, through these spidery marks on paper or pixels, and remind you that you have a voice, you have agency, and your voice is stronger and more powerful than you could ever imagine, and long after I am gone, you can pick up this beer beside me and carry on the work we are doing now, the work we have always been doing, the work we will always do, until the world looks the way we imagine it can be.
I am a grim optimist, and this is my hope for you: that you will be louder than me, and stronger than me, and more powerful than me, and that you will look back at me as a relic, a dinosaur, as the minor villain in your own story, the rock you pushed against in your own flight to fame, to notoriety, to revolution.
That is my wish for you.
(2) SCIENCE FICTION IS A POSITIVE FORCE. Patrick Nielsen Hayden talks about “The Prospect Before Us”.
This morning, at 9:30, saw a long-planned major meeting at Tor, not quite all hands but definitely the majority of our staff plus various Macmillan-level sales and marketing managers.
It could have been better timed, obviously.
I took the opportunity to make some remarks. Here’s what I said:
Last night, I found myself very grateful that I work in science fiction.
Science fiction came into being in response to a new thing in human history: the understanding that not only was the world changing, but also that the rate of change was speeding up. That in a normal lifetime, you could expect to experience multiple episodes of rapid, disorienting change. Science fiction at its best has always been about examining and inhabiting those experiences when the world passes through a one-way door.
Modern science fiction grew up in the Great Depression and flourished in World War II. It thrived in the strangeness of the 1950s and the different strangeness of the 1960s. It has continued to be an essential set of tools for engaging with our careening world.
I don’t want to argue that reading science fiction makes us smarter or morally better. (I personally believe that, but I don’t want to argue it.) But I do believe that good storytelling is a positive force in the world. And I really do believe that science fiction and fantasy storytelling makes us, in some fundamental way, a bit more practiced in the ways of a world caught up in wrenching change—and more open to imagining better worlds that might be possible.
Bottom line: I’ve never been more convinced of the need for more good science fiction and fantasy, and I’ve never been more fired up to find it and publish it, hopefully with the help of everyone in this room. Thank you.
(3) EXPERIENCED VOICE. Here’s what George Takei has to say:
The unthinkable happened before, to my family in WWII. We got thru it. We held each other close. We kept our dignity and held to our ideals.
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) November 9, 2016
(4) 124C41+. John Scalzi didn’t predict the election, but he now predicts this outcome: “Early Morning Thoughts on the Day After”.
- It will be no surprise to anyone I’m unhappy with the result of this election. Donald Trump was manifestly the worst presidential candidate in living memory, an ignorant, sex-assaulting vindictive bigot, enamored of strongmen and contemptuous of the law, consorting with white nationalists and hucksters — and now he’s president-elect, which is appalling and very sad for the nation. I don’t see much good coming out of this, either in the immediate or long-term, not in the least because if he does any of the things he promises to do, his impact will be ruinous to the nation. Add to the fact that he’s the GOP candidate, and the GOP now will have the White House, Congress and will appoint the next Supreme Court justice, and, well. There aren’t any grownups in the GOP anymore, and we’re going to find out what that means for all of us.
Here are some of the things it could mean: A conservative Supreme Court for decades, backtracking on climate change, the repeal of Roe v. Wade, curtailment of free speech, loss of medical insurance to millions, tax policy that advantages the wealthy and adds trillions to the national debt, punitive racial policies, the return of torture as a part of the military toolbox, and a president who uses the apparatus of the US to go after his personal enemies. And these are only the things Trump has said he’s ready to do — we don’t know what else he will do when he’s literally the most powerful man on the planet, with a compliant legislature and judiciary.
(5) WHICH CANCER WOULD YOU LIKE? Larry Correia says he predicted cancer would win and that his prediction was correct.
As somebody who didn’t really have a horse in this race, who had to come to terms with not getting what I wanted months ago, I’ve got some comments for the rest of you. (for the record my primary vote was for Ham Sandwich, only All-You-Can-Eat-Shrimp/Colon Cancer supporters declared that was actually Canadian Bacon because they didn’t understand how the Naturalization Acts work, and his dad killed JFK)
I’m not happy Trump won, but I’m ecstatic that Hillary lost.
From what I heard this morning (haven’t looked to confirm yet, and woke up late) Trump got fewer votes than Romney, but Hillary got WAY less votes than Obama. So people decided they wanted colon cancer instead of brain cancer, but I don’t think very many of us were super enthusiastic about either. They just wanted the other crappy one to lose.
This election turned into “My authoritarian New Yorker is better than yours!” And shockingly enough, a authoritarian New Yorker won. Yay! Go cancer! I did not see a Trump victory coming (apparently, neither did any of the professional pollsters). It is a testament to the sheer, banal, corrupt, unlikable nature of Hillary that she couldn’t beat the guy they picked as the most beatable.
(6) PREDICTION FAILURES. Vox Day has written a series of triumphalist posts about Trump’s win. This one is a roundup about inaccurate polling, which people on both sides are pondering — “The hoax media”.
This is why you simply cannot believe anything they say. The final polls and estimates prior to the election.
The New York Times: 80 percent chance of Clinton victory
Huffington Post: 98.1 percent chance of Clinton victory
Nate Silver/538: 72 percent chance of Clinton victory (323 electoral votes)
Bing.com: 89.7 percent chance of Clinton victory
NBC/SM: Clinton +6
IPSOS: Clinton +4
Fox News: Clinton +4
NBC/WSJ: Clinton +4
ABC/WashPost: Clinton +4
Herald: Clinton +4
Bloomberg: Clinton +3
But this is what demonstrates how SHAMELESSLY dishonest they are: Donald Trump has been elected president of the United States. In an extremely narrow sense, I’m not that surprised by the outcome, since polling — to a greater extent than the conventional wisdom acknowledged — had shown a fairly competitive race with critical weaknesses for Clinton in the Electoral College. It’s possible, perhaps even likely, that Clinton will eventually win the popular vote as more votes come in from California. – Nate Silver Oh, shut up, Nate. You were wrong. You were wrong from the start. You were wrong about the primaries. You were wrong about the election. No one should put any faith in your erroneous models ever again. Keep in mind that Silver not only called a 72 percent chance of a Clinton victory, but actually INCREASED it from 65 percent on the day of the election. This isn’t “statistical science”; it’s not even “statistical analysis”. It is nothing more than postmortem media CYA.
(7) DON’T BOTHER, THEY’RE HERE. George R. R. Martin is not in a mood to unify the country today: “President Pussygrabber”.
Over the next four years, our problems are going to get much, much worse.
Winter is coming. I told you so.
(8) SEEING WHAT THEY EXPECT. Nancy Kress broke her usual silence on things political:
Many people will see this election through whatever lens they interpret the world. Those most concerned with misogyny will say that Clinton lost because she’s a woman. Those focusing on race will say Trump won because he’s a racist. Those for whom guns are a major concern will view Trump as their champion, Clinton as their enemy. Etc. These things may or may not be true, but I think it’s important to see Trump’s win as the complex thing it is. Even if he is misogynist, racist, vulgar, insensitive, and pro-gun (and please don’t give me your impassioned arguments on either side–I’ve heard them already), not all of those who voted for him are those things. Over half the country chose this man for president, and many are fundamentally decent people who don’t want to deport undocumented immigrants, ban Muslims, or even repeal Roe v. Wade. We on the left lost this election because something important is going on out there in the heartland, something involving feelings of exclusion and lost jobs and profound distrust of Washington, and we on the left did not realize how deep that feeling went. We were not paying sufficient attention, which is why the commentators all looked so stunned last night when the results came in. I am not moving to Canada, or Ireland, or anywhere else. This is my country. But it is Trump-supporters’ country, too, and we all need to find some way to work together. No, this is not a “can’t-we-just-get-along’ sentimental plea. It’s a statement that we had better all figure out how to not only get along, but get done the things that need doing, and without scapegoating–not Trump voters, not Muslims, not undocumented immigrants. If we don’t, then the next four years will be hell.
(9) HARI HARI. I guess you could think of it that way…
https://twitter.com/erikledrew/status/796424645461217280
(10) DOOM. Charles Stross has this and a lot more to say in his own post carrying that popular title “The Day After”.
Trump will have to be painfully educated that the office of POTUS is not a CEO’s desk where he can rule by decree, but the head of a 400-person executive team who interact with other agencies and negotiate to get results. The hairpiece that walks like a man won’t like that. In fact, he’ll sulk, and probably retire to his golf course and leave running the USA to Vice President Pence, a man who seems to think that The Handmaid’s Tale was a road map rather than a dystopia, and the likes of Rudy Giuliani (about whom the less said, the better). It’ll be four years of the ugly old white male phobes running the federal government, and only the huge inertia built into the system of checks and balances will prevent it from being a total fright-fest as opposed to a major throwback fright-fest. In the mid-terms of 2018 the Democrats will pick up votes and hopefully re-take the Senate, which will put a brake on Trump … and in 2020, who knows?
But this may not happen, because the airliner of reality which we all ride in has flown straight into a flock of migrating black swans, both engines have flamed out, and that’s not the Hudson River down below. (Also? We now have Donald Trump at the controls.)
I’m calling it for the next global financial crisis to hit before the 2018 mid-terms. Neither Trump nor Pence are far-sighted enough to realize that the USA is not a corporation and can’t be run like one, and that on the macro scale economics is difficult and different from anything they have any experience of. They will, to put it bluntly, screw the pooch—aided by the gibbering chorus of Brexiteers across the pond, who are desperately trying to ensure that the British economy and banking sector commit seppuku in the name of limiting immigration. We’ve already seen Sterling crash, and continue to crash; what happens when the Dollar joins it? Quantitative easing can only stretch so far before we break out in hyperinflation due to basic commodities getting scarce (as witness the 5-20% food price inflation working its way through the UK’s supply chain in defiance of the structural deflationary regime enforced by the supermarkets for the past two decades).
(11) A VOTE AGAINST. David Gerrold has posted a double-handful of responses to the election at Facebook; here’s one.
I feel betrayed.
I used to believe in the good sense and collective wisdom of the American people.
I can’t do that anymore.
A majority of American voters have just declared that they do not care about the rights of Muslims, immigrants, Latinos, LGBT people, women, seniors, the disabled, and so many others. A majority of Americans voted against common human kindness.
I feel betrayed — but if there is a betrayal, it has to be my own, for believing that we were a nation of compassionate and thoughtful people. Apparently, we are not.
… If we truly believe in this thing called “The United States of America” — if we truly believe in the essential strength of our Constitutional processes, then we have no choice but to get to work.
I don’t know what we have to do or how we will have to do it. I do know that we will be facing dire political circumstances. Ahead of us is a decade of frustrating hard work. …
(12) STAY AND FIGHT. Gardner Dozois isn’t leaving the country—but then, who is, really?
Let me make one thing clear, though. I see a lot of my Friends on Facebook talking seriously, more seriously than the half-joking way this is usually mentioned, of moving to Canada. I’m not moving to Canada. This is my country, and I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to stay here and fight, and do anything that I possibly can, even if it’s only to encourage others, to stay right here and work as hard as possible to make things as much better as we can.
For those of you who supported Hillary, or at least DIDN’T support Trump–which, after all, included very nearly half of the people in the country–don’t give into despair. Don’t give up. The fight is far from over, and there are many things on all levels that can still be done. One possibility is that, in one of the great historical ironies, the Democrats and the Republicans may end up switching roles, with the Democrats becoming the “obstructionists” in Congress and trying to keep the Republicans from undoing as much as possible of the gains set in place for the last eight years;…
(13) COMEDY TONIGHT. Meanwhile, back at the bookstore… Gary K. Wolfe reviews Connie Willis’s new novel Crosstalk for Locus Online.
So while the characters and their relationships follow a familiar rom-com pattern, there’s also a fair amount of acerbic commentary on a society already overwired and overconnected, but which seems to want to get even more overwired and overconnected. The two SF elements crucial to this commentary, and in fact the only real SF elements in the book, are a new minor brain procedure called EED, which purportedly allows a couple already emotionally bonded to become super-empathetic with each other – and telepathy.
(14) WIL BADEN OBIT. Condolences to Chaz Boston Baden on the loss of his father, Wil Baden (1928-2016) who died today. Chaz wrote a long post about his life:
This is the man who, as a boy, lived in Hollywood and was an extra in a crowd scene in an “Our Gang” episode about a birthday party.
This is the man whose father took him to the World Science Fiction Convention, in 1939.
He took the bus to visit John W. Campbell Jr. at Astounding Science Fiction magazine’s offices. While at Princeton University, he had tea with Albert Einstein. (Which wasn’t unusual at the time, all the incoming freshmen did.)
He was always good with languages. One day, a man from the government asked the head of the languages department if he could be introduced to the students who were especially good with the following languages? Which is how he ended up spending a summer translating Russian mathematics papers.
(15) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
- Born November 9, 1951 — Lou Ferrigno (TV’s Incredible Hulk).
(16) PRO TIPS. SFWA’s Nebula Suggested Reading List is growing as the year winds down.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W.]
Discover more from File 770
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(16) PRO TIPS. Oh, like I don’t have enough on my TBR. (Thanks for the link 😉 )
Almost half the Senate will be Democrats. Isn’t that enough to block stuff? What if they, I dunno, refuse to consider Trump’s candidates for judicial office? Other than the GOP screaming that this is an unprecedented breach of their sacred oath to the American Public, yatta yatta, I’m not seeing a huge downside.
Kip W: A simple majority in the Senate is all that is required to approve the appointment of a Supreme Court justice.
If Democrats filibuster to prevent the proceedings from going forward, though, the Republicans do not have enough Senators to stop them if everyone votes along strict party lines (they need 60).
My personal opinion, which carries no clout in the Senate, is that a President should be entitled to an up-and-down vote for his appointee. Obama’s should have been voted on, and when the time comes, so should Trump’s.
11) Almost half the eligible voters didn’t turn out.
(Or were kept from voting.)
Clinton won the popular vote.
It doesn’t help much, I know, but it isn’t a majority of the country – it’s 40 odd percent of 40 odd percent.
And, anecdotally, many Trump voters simply don’t believe their candidate means what he says.
They just voted to express their feelings.
Again, sigh, I don’t know how much it helps to say “Sure, some of them hate you, but some of them just don’t care enough about your lives to stop and think.”
In other news, the kid and her wife are now investigating buying a house in Canberra.
I guess I can visit them.
2) I hope I can start reading soon.
The brain is not working well.
I appreciate these thoughts.
Consolation spending: I just bought Charlie Jane Anders’ “All the birds in the sky”.
(9) HARI HARI – As I saw elsewhere, if Nate Silver was the Hari Seldon who “predicted the collapse of civilization & tried to save it?”, then doesn’t that make Trump the Mule?
For those of us who don’t have any issues regarding alcohol, I strongly suggest a second fifth.
I’m not sure I want to, but I ticky anyway.
(9) David Brin said the same thing last night, halfway through the vote counting.
Mike, the first thing each new senate does is establish the rules for that senate. I think they are extremely likely to curtail if not entirely eliminate the filibuster.
I think they are extremely likely to curtail if not entirely eliminate the filibuster.
The best we can hope for is gridlock. Again.
JDC: Mike, the first thing each new senate does is establish the rules for that senate. I think they are extremely likely to curtail if not entirely eliminate the filibuster.
I don’t take that for granted after reading Mitch McConnell reminding colleagues the Republicans won’t always be in power.
At my blog I quoted from Ursula Le Guin’s speech accepting the National Book Foundation Medal, and will quote it here too: “Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope…We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings.”
Just read her book of essays, Words Are My Matter — recommended!
The good news is that Ken Liu is still writing science fiction stories, so there is still some justice in the universe.
People are giving several reasons for the vote. While some of them certainly contributed, the main one ( IMHO) is shown in the graph linked below.
https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2016/06/wonk-globalincome0625-1.jpg&w=1484
My personal opinion is tit for tat, that republicans deserve to have everything they’ve done for the past eight years done back to them.
Today the mail carrier brought me the lovely hand-painted blue wading bird glyph pendant I bought from Our Wombat’s Etsy shop. I am wearing it as a talisman of hope and strength.
Martin Easterbrook: People are giving several reasons for the vote. While some of them certainly contributed, the main one (IMHO) is shown in the graph linked below.
The problem with that is that, just as with the Trump voters, winning the Brexit vote is still not going to fix their problems — in fact, it will likely just make their problems worse. 🙁
That just shows you how fucking old I am, that I can remember when a Supreme Court justice could be through the process in a little more than a month. And having seen it, I don’t have any patience with those whose only agenda is to make sure government doesn’t work.
@Mike Glyer And if one side starts doing that and the other doesn’t respond in kind what happens then?
When they do respond by doing the same thing (1) that makes it the new normal, and (2) they look like hypocrites for having complained when the other party did it in the first place. Is it right or wrong? Shouldn’t there be a premium on doing what’s right?
Everything depends on who is appointed. If it is a new racist, a new person that want to fight against people with a different sexual orientation, then the right thing is to fight, resist and obstruct. Because hatred can never be allowed to be the new normal.
How does doing what’s right not create a one party system? One party can govern, and if they’re not in power they can obstruct. The other party can do neither.
We got into this discussion because I said a President’s Supreme Court appointee should be allowed an up-and-down vote. The President’s opponents first need to have a majority in the Senate to keep that from happening. But the majority party doesn’t have to automatically approve the appointee. It’s obstruction when they defeat the constitutional machinery by using their majority to avoid a vote. It’s still the right of senators to vote against the appointee. That’s why, over the decades when Nixon or Reagan tried to fill vacancies, they sometimes got stymied (Bork) or had to pick somebody who didn’t turn out to be as conservative as they preferred.
@Cally – Any magic I possess, I hope it carries over. Wear it in good health.
I feel like I should indiscriminately apologize to everyone non-American for what happened…and hell, every American too. I voted, I gave quite a bit to the Democratic campaign, I stared hard at the screen on election night trying to visually force the polls my way – but somehow it wasn’t enough.
I’ve been trying to think what else to do. I set up a monthly donation to the ACLU and plan to do another for Planned Parenthood, I subscribed to the New York Times – the First Amendment being as important as the second. And I’m taking further suggestions for anything that might alleviate this feeling of shameful helplessness.
(Reposting from yesterday, since I added it late enough that most people may have missed it.)
Does anyone have any idea what’s going on with Analog and Asimov’s? Their December issues (for Kindle) were due on October 27, but neither has arrived, and now they’re two weeks late. They haven’t responded to my requests for information, and their web sites are still showing their November covers, as is Amazon.com. They’re both printed by Penny Publications, but there’s no information on their site either.
I can’t ever recall them being this late before, and it worries me.
@Mike Glyer And yet it has already happened, the republicans used their majority to avoid even confirmation hearings. That’s where we sit.
The options are allow republicans and only republicans to bring nominees up for a vote, or allow no one to do it. Thanks to senate republicans there is no option that allows a democratic president’s justices to be confirmed.
I don’t want my rights eliminated by two or three Trump-appointed Justices that Dems were too nice and polite to oppose.
(2) Bravo, Patrick.
(5) Fuck Larry Correia. Bragging about his disregard for the country he claims to love, now, and only interested not proving to himself that he’s smarter than the rest of us.
(8) The more they keep counting the votes, the clearer it becomes that Clinton won the popular vote. The GOP spent eight years treating President Barack Obama as illegitimate and unworthy, and now that they’ve squeaked the Birther-in-chief in as his successor, we’re supposed to make nice and let him pursue unfettered policies that will destroy the country. Fuck that.
I am not in a good place right now. Not in a good place at all.
2) Science fiction makes you more comfortable with changes in the world because you’ve already imagined so many possibilities. Reduces future shock, everyone should try it.
3) No one is setting up concentration camps. But if they were, I wouldn’t be holding my family and keeping my dignity. I’d be holding my gun and shooting back.
5) I know two people who survived brain cancer and one who died of colon cancer. Nothing to do with politics, but i thought of it when Correia made that analogy.
6) Turnout was the problem. Everyone expected higher than normal turnout based on early voting numbers, but in the end, it was lower. Esp among potential Hillary voters.
8) Its not that we don’t know about the problems of small town blue collar whites. It’s that we don’t have any solutions. On the socio-cultural front, the Democratic Party platform doesn’t support their relatively conservative way of lif, and can’t without losing urban votes. On the economic front, no politician can stop globalization or loss of jobs to automation. They can throw money at them, but they want jobs not welfare. There could be some sort of preferential hiring scheme if they moved to an urban area that had jobs, but they don’t want to leave their community. So here we are.
10) Stross has been pretty gloomy for a while. But it’s true, we are due for a recession (based on normal business cycle)
11) Would a few thousand people voting differently really have changed your view of the country? It’s okay, only 45% of voters are terrible, no problem.
Supreme Court-Dems can’t possibly filibuster for two years, so no point trying it. Just vote against the nominee and move on.
Look on the bright side, Trump is much better for comedians than Obama. The jokes will be so much better.
So,, one of our students got assaulted early this morning. The police are cagey with details, but evidently it involved a guy grabbing her and ripping off her veil.
The multiethnic collection of students here, American and International, is scared. And this is just the start; the next attack may involve a person of color being attacked for being too uppity, or a woman being grabbed because hey, women are supposed to like that. They may assume they will avoid punishment for their actions. They may be right.
This is the nation we live in now. And I don’t have an answer for international students when they start asking if it’s safe t attend.
Democrats don’t have a Senate majority. To carry out your wishes they will have to be willing to filibuster for two years til the midterm elections and hope to pick up a majority so they can really act like the current crop of Republicans.
And we’ll be paying our taxes for this, why?
Because sometimes social liberties are more important than low taxes? There is always the possibility for the republicans to put up a compromise candidate if they don’t want two years of filibuster.
Lets hope they do.
To carry out my wishes we’d have to find out where the Shoggoth took the time machine and then go back and get Merrick Garland confirmed.
Otherwise we’re back to the choices. Only allow republicans to name judges or allow no one to do it.
Alternatively, like Hampus said, filibuster to only allow through compromise candidates who have *some* level of bipartisan support.
The US legislature is currently undergoing an iterated prisoner’s dilemma, and yes the basic incentive is for both sides to stab each other in the back. It makes for a good equilibrium, but really shitty governance.
I’d also note from my perspective (furriner, so obvs…) that of the 2 major American parties, the Democrats have a much wider level of ideological diversity (centre-left to conservative members) and consequently, really terrible party-line discipline.
You will almost certainly have some conservative Democrats there who will be easy to convince and easier to entice. I’m not sure if the Republican fear of getting primaried would be effective at keeping them in line. Given that, it may be a more realistic argument to push for compromise candidates rather than throwing total gridlock.
Yes and, as you know snowcrash, once one party betrays, as the republicans have, the other party’s only option is to do the same. They knew this when they made the choice and they banked on democrats being unwilling to follow through.
And the latest bit of bad news, from Scientific American:
Trump Picks Top Climate Skeptic to Lead EPA Transition
The silver lining here is that if we do start to feel compelled to move to Canada, it’s likely it’ll be a tropical paradise soon enough. :/
@Rose Embolism
We saw the same here in the UK after Brexit. Expect to see far more tension spilling over into open assaults and hate – not just for visible muslims but also along racial lines, and also LGBT people (and probably their allies too).
I lost the last tatters of friendship and relationship with John C Wright because I disagreed with him about this election, and the dangers, as he saw them, of a Clinton Presidency.
I have ancedotal data that the “great sorting” is only accelerating.
As far as the filibuster, I expect that Majority Leader McConnell will abolish the filibuster at the start of the next Senate session. The filibuster is only a Senate rule, its not a law. It can be abolished with a simple majority vote. So he’ll do that. (Recall that the Democrats abolished some filibusters for some things already in recent years, because of Republican intransigence.)
Bringing it back to SFnal stuff: Someone on twitter said that this election is proof that time travel is impossible. So, yeah…
Someone on twitter said that this election is proof that time travel is impossible.
Butterflies…
Cheer up Americans! Italy survived years of Berlusconi, an octogenarian womanizer mysoginistic racist homophobic fascist pimp and John. In fact a lot of Italians sites are sarcastically and gleefully proclaiming “We were first! We were first”!
As a naturalized American who unfortunately lives in the heartland, I have had to endure some meanness and spitefulness in the years since 9/11. My plan for for the next four or eight years is to, quietly because I do not want to endanger myself or my very liberal family, offer financial and practical assistance to the underground corridor that is already been established by some churches in my area. I promised myself that I will befriend any neighbor who is different and I will try to develop a bit more of a spine instead of hiding in my house to become a recluse.
@Paul Weimar
I think a positive filibuster change would be to insist that that any filibuster was on the subject of the debate rather than on just anything at all.
Mike has missed the most important reaction of all – The Doctor.
@JJ
I agree 100%. One off the problems with votes for Trump or Brexit is that they are both likely to make the underlying problems worse and the next candidate who claims to have a solution may be even more extreme.
However I think the basic driver for this vote is an underlying economic injustice that has gone unchallenged for too long. This is the wound where all the infections like fascism, sexism, and homophobia come to fester. The infections need to be fought but they cannot be removed until the wound itself is healed.
Moving to Canada: it’s too cold.
There is always the possibility for the republicans to put up a compromise candidate if they don’t want two years of filibuster.
I suspect that after the first Dems stonewall one or two actual Klan members, the compromise they’ll wearily accept will be someone like Rudy Giuliani.
Oh yes. Voting Trump is just ordinary human psychology to punish people who aren’t fair, regardless of if oneself is hurt by it.
From The Economist:
Some or all of the dire things being predicted about the Trump presidency may come true. But I’m reminded of what the opposite side was saying about Obama 8 years ago.
@Darren– Those weren’t things Obama campaigned on doing, nor advocated. They were the nightmare imaginings of people trying to terrify us out of voting for someone who would continue to work for civil rights.
Trump came down that escalator calling Mexican immigrants rapists. He said he would ban Muslims from entering the country & make American Muslims register. His plan to “fix” Healthcare is to repeal Obamacare & let “everyone,” i.e., those of you fortunate enough to have the money, have Health Savings Accounts.
But unless you really among the very, very rich, the first major illness will give you a nasty shock.
But with no health care at all, I probably won’t be here to see it. This man really is an existential threat.
When Obama was elected Republicans did not protest, smash windows, etc….. Dem political offices were not firebombed or spray-painted in the last election – Republicans were. We are already seeing demonstrations against the vote which only the left does.
A lot of you seem to live in a liberal bubble and have little grasp of people who do not think as you do. Klansmen will not be nominated for judgeships. People will not go after those unlike them. If they do, concealed carry is very common in the US and people who attack others will get what they deserve.
If you are not in the USA legally, then you may well get deported. This is following the law.
Liberals tell themselves a lot of things in their echo chamber that are not reality.
I enjoyed movies, SF, books, pinball, and target shooting all throughout the Obama Presidency. Government will get smaller, a lot of the massive buildup of government regulation under Obama will get repealed. The judiciary will get more conservative judges. Life will go on. If the voters don’t like this, then the Republicans will lose the House in two years.
Objectively, Obama never compromised in the Illinois legislature with his opponents. He did not compromise with Republicans as President. When the Dems suffered massive losses in the House, Senate, State Office Holders, etc…. Obama refused to compromise and instead relied on executive power. As a result, the Dems now hold fewer elective offices than they have in my lifetime. Also as a result most of what Obama did can be easily reversed.
Condemning and vilifying those who disagree with you does not make your point of view appealing.
Hopefully everyone will follow the rule of law. If the country decides that the current office holders made bad decisions, they will replace them. If the Republicans cannot pass actual legislation and instead rely on executive decisions, then those decisions can be reversed as easily as Obamas executive decisions will be reversed.
Mike – hopefully everything can mostly go back to focusing on SF stuff soon.
On other fronts, some better (or at least interesting) news:
The ESA will build their next-generation rocket
The chupacabra is a mangy dog crossed with a movie meme.
“AI” needs more review. (IMR the story doesn’t make clear whether the algorithms criticized are actually \learning/, which questions whether they should be called AI.)
WiFi to get around spinal-cord injuries. My immediate reaction was to wonder how easily it could be hacked.