Democracy Now !
Democracy Now 2016 Election Coverage
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UPDATE/edit 11/08 @ 10:20PM :
The latest:
The New York Times
Live Presidential Forecast
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 |
| For the Hillary and Donald Trump Voters |
In San Diego today at several stores and then out to eat we must have talked to at least thirty people, mostly workers and mostly minorities who condemned Donald Trump's racism and also Hillary Clinton's corrupt and militaristic agenda and the fact that she simply could not be trusted,one woman called her "evil". These were not the conversations you encounter on internet websites where everyone assumes they are an intellectual. These were conversations with working class folks young and older who are the backbone of the United States, who feel betrayed and lost in the vanishing American dream. They literally loathed both candidates.
Still the ride home was not pleasant, at that point we both thought Hillary Clinton would win the election. ...and then Mike said, you will not be able to fight her. We've been watching the Democracy Now ! coverage for a few hours, with the best round table discussions of the experts who were not talking down to you, and I wondered if the folks we spoke with hours before were watching too.
A few thoughts on what we are up against now:
1. The Drug War: Hillary most likely would have extended the Merida Initiative without limits, but so will Donald Trump who has denounced the drugs which are "flowing across the border" as though this were all of Mexico's fault without ever (and this includes Hillary too) discussing the need for treatment centers, education, the rebuilding of America's inner cities and the legalization of drugs. This drug war is not going to end under Donald Trump, it is going to become more vicious.
2. Immigration: Most of us realized that Hillary Clinton has never had the best intentions towards immigrants. From Truthdig's report, "Robert Scheer and Lizbeth Mateo Explore the Contradictions of U.S, Immigration Policy" :
"Scheer: So this is a situation that a lot of people fall into. That something has gone array in their papers either because they were really great citizens, like you, activists to try to make the country better or they had some technical difficulty.
Speaking as a lawyer, what can be done now, not just in your case, where do we stand on the immigration issue? I know the Democrats are saying they are great on it and they are getting a lot of votes based on that. They weren’t always great and the Republicans are being led by an out and out neo-fascist, Donald Trump, who wants to just blame, when he is not blaming Muslims, he wants to blame immigrants, undocumented immigrants, for all of our problems. Of course, they have nothing to do with it. We are in a weird place where the good people haven’t always been so good.
Mateo: Yes, and that is a problem. Especially during this election that has been very negative, where immigrants have been described with some of the most horrible words but I think, at least for me, not so much from the stand point of a law graduate or a future lawyer, but more from the stand point of an immigrant and an organizer, I think that we need to be ready regardless of who becomes President. Even if it is Hilary Clinton. She is saying some great things about immigrants now but she hasn’t always been on our side. She was the first one to call for the deportation of minors, refugee children from Central America. She has agreed with the policies of President Obama to deport almost three million people at this point, 2.5 million people, including many of those refugee children, many of who are still in jails across the country at this point.
To me, that is just unacceptable that in this country we put kids in jails, in prisons. I think whoever becomes President, we have to be ready to keep organizing like we have so far and that is part of the reason why I am speaking out on my case and why the government wants to deny me a benefit that, one, I qualify for and two, that I think I have worked very hard for and have, in many ways, earned through my activism, through my work in my personal life and that is the kind of message that I am trying to send to the community at this point."
A note that Lizbeth forgot to add that Hillary was a supporter and voted for the extended "wall".
~~~~~~~~
If we accept the notion that Trump is a neo-fascist , I am hard pressed to believe that race relations between Latinos/Mexicans and white Americans will improve. For that matter, I am having a difficult time believing that race relationships between black Americans and white Americans will improve, if anything, I think they will deteriorate. We've already seen the discrimination methods used against black voters throughout the Untied States during this last election, as if returning to the old South pre-civil rights era. It is difficult to imagine what will happen on the border, will the U.S. vigilantes be let loose like a pack of wild dogs ?
3. Fracking: Do not fool yourselves, Donald Trump is a huge supporter of fracking just as Hillary Clinton and Obama were. In fact, Trump has business ties to powerful entities involved in the current Dakota Access Pipeline. Not only that, we all know that he thinks "Global Warming" does not exist, it is a myth according to him made up by the Chinese. Do not expect any re-negotiation of NAFTA as far as environmental concerns, same as under Obama. And if you thought Hillary was going to re-negotiate those terms, you are naive.
4. The Middle East: Donald Trump, despite knowing full well that it was under Hillary Clinton's tenure Isis/Isil was created, thousands killed and the firestorm which the world has not seen since WWII of displaced people fleeing for their lives to Europe was due to her obscene Libya policy. Additionally we know now for a fact thanks to WikiLeaks, that the Government of Saudi Arabia were suppliers of arms to Isis, thanks to Hillary. Trump says he intends to crush Isis which of course will mean more war and more boots on the ground. It is highly doubtful Trump will ever negotiate a Palestinian State, following the footsteps of every President before him.
5. The Corporations: The corporations aren't going away, it will just be another set of moguls and despite what you may have heard, Hillary intended to support TPP - nothing has or will change in this respect. In other words, "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" or just the other side of the same coin.
The Intercept
Donald Trump Recruits Corporate Lobbyists to Select His future Administration
by, Lee Fang
"As Donald Trump finishes his campaign with a promise to break the control of Washington by political insiders, his transition team is preparing to hand his administration over to a cozy clique of corporate lobbyists and Republican power brokers.
“Our movement is about replacing a failed and corrupt political establishment with a new government controlled by you the American people,” Trump says in his closing campaign advertisement, followed by flashing images of K Street, Wall Street, and Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein.
But the Trump transition team is a who’s who of influence peddlers, including: energy adviser Michael Catanzaro, a lobbyist for Koch Industries and the Walt Disney Company; adviser Eric Ueland, a Senate Republican staffer who previously lobbied for Goldman Sachs; and Transition General Counsel William Palatucci, an attorney in New Jersey whose lobbying firm represents Aetna and Verizon. Rick Holt, Christine Ciccone, Rich Bagger, and Mike Ferguson are among the other corporate lobbyists helping to manage the transition effort.
Presidential transition teams develop policy plans and come up with a list of more than 4,000 people an incoming president appoints, including White House jobs, cabinet secretaries, and lower level positions that oversee the military, agriculture, trade, and beyond.
Trump for America Inc., a nonprofit group chaired by Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., to oversee the Trump transition, has quietly moved ahead, meeting with interest groups and reaching out to lobbyists to plan a future Trump administration.The group has held regular meetings at the Washington, D.C., offices of Baker Hostetler, a law and lobbying firm.
On Thursday, the group hosted a breakfast at Baker Hostetler attended by Microsoft’s Ed Ingle and Steve Hart, two lobbyists who, according to filings, have worked to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Other transition meetings have included briefings with the Financial Services Roundtable and the Investment Company Institute, two lobby groups that represent Wall Street interests, as well as with the BGR Group, a lobby firm that represents Saudi Arabia and the South Korean government.
Trump, of course, isn’t alone is relying on entrenched political insiders to shape his future administration. The Hillary Clinton transition team is led by Ken Salazar and Tom Donilon, two former Obama administration officials who now serve on the lobbying teams of major law firms. Though the Clinton campaign gained headlines for banning registered lobbyists from managing her transition, the distinction between registered and unregistered lobbying is largely a question of semantics.
Trump’s decision to embrace lobbyists while denouncing them on the campaign trail should come as no surprise to any seasoned observer. The reality television mogul seized on distaste for big money politics as a potent campaign issue, denouncing the role of Super PACs during the Republican primaries. “I have disavowed all Super PACs,” Trump said, adding that he would oppose any support from lobbyists and other special interest groups. After shoring up the nomination, the candidate quickly reversed himself, not only raising cash from lobbyists but switching gears to aggressively embrace the the same Super PAC strategies used by more traditional candidates. Several Trump staffers moved from his campaign to Super PACs supporting the Trump-Pence ticket."
6. The Markets ? Uncertainty right now let's keep an eye on these guys , will add link to the side later.
7. NATO - Unknown.
8. Cuba: Unknown.
9. Rebuilding American inner cities and manufacturing: At this point I call bullshit on this. Have to actually see it to believe it.
10.. Health Insurance and RX's : doubtful if Trump will battle the mafias.
11. Gun Control: Are you kidding me?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More to come, just burned out, what a disaster.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The only positive thing I see at this moment is the probability of progressive groups unifying to end the rotten duopoly...well, let's hope.
Some encouragement from Chris Hedges: (with video)
Truthdig
'Hold Fast to the Causes of the Oppressed': Chris Hedges Speaks at Jill Stein Rally in Philadelphia
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UPDATE/EDIT 11/09: Adding this link:
Counterpunch
November 9, 2016
Don’t Mourn Hillary’s Loss
We are all tired. Exhausted from what feels like years of election mania. First the primaries, the hilarious, made-for-TV Republican debates, the Democratic talk shows, the Sanders revolt to the months of boring presidential squabbles between Hillary and The Donald. The FBI. The emails. The groping. It’s finally over. Time to exhale.
Election Day has come and gone and we are now sitting in an ugly new era, stunned that the Trump revolution won, and won big. Hillary Clinton and whatever she actually stood for, lost, and lost bad. Far worse than any polls suggested, even the few that had Trump squeaking out a victory.
There will be plenty of blame flying around in the weeks and months ahead. Yet, no matter what bullshit excuse Democrats come up with for Hillary’s historic embarrassment, they have only themselves to blame. She lost because she deserved to lose. She ran an awful campaign, mired in controversy, and was unable to excite voters to the polls. She believed neoliberalism could carry the day, but she was wrong. The DNC was wrong. The establishment lost because the establishment deserved its fate.
By no means does this imply Trump will overthrow the status quo, it only means the outsider Trump was better able to exploit the boiling rage of middle America. All the workers who were undercut by Bill Clinton’s NAFTA. The hundreds of thousands that never rebounded from the Bush recession. Trump provided an outlet of hope for these lost souls – a fabricated hope no doubt, but hope nonetheless – wrapped in rage. His mastery of social media, of vindictive and racist rhetoric, helped him gut the provincial electorate.
Against all odds, against allegations of sexual misconduct, against common sense, being anti-Trump wasn’t enough to get Hillary elected.I n many ways, Hillary was her own worst enemy – a poor campaigner, a flat platform and only an ounce more personality than her VP pick Tim Kaine (and that’s not saying much).With no ground game, far less money than the Democrats, nearly zero endorsements from Hollywood and the media, Trump still prevailed. Somehow he understood a fair portion of the American psyche better than Hillary ever could.
It seemed she learned little from the branding genius of Barack Obama or the accessibility of her husband Bill. By night’s end it was clear she gleaned nothing from Bernie Sanders’s movement and cared little about his searing critiques of Wall Street and our corrupt political system that’s left so many behind. Being against Trump, in the end, couldn’t get the job done. She needed to go further.
The years ahead will be telling. How will Democrats respond to a Trump presidency? Will they view it as an opportunity to reimagine themselves in a progressive light, or will they continue to believe neoliberalism and identity politics are enough to win elections?
Don’t hold your breath.
In the end, progressives shouldn’t be depressed by this election’s outcome (and I’m not talking about legal weed in California and elsewhere, although that might help numb the pain). They should be invigorated. They should be ready for a fight. Where the left failed to oppose the most sordid policies of the Obama administration, from drone strikes to the dreadful ObamaCare, perhaps progressives will be awakened under Trump’s reign and fill the streets in disgust at every turn.
One can only hope. Hope and rage against the new Trump machine.
end edit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~