General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI don't know, but a President Hillary Clinton would look pretty good
about now. I'd think that would be true for almost everyone, really, who isn't a right-wing creep. Just thinking about all the things that wouldn't be happening makes me long to go back to last Fall. Just imagine how different the news would be.
I know we can't go back, but we sure can think about what things would be like had she won a few tens of thousand of votes in just three states. I imagine that often as I watch the slow destruction of our rights and nation. And then I become discouraged again.
It's a pity, I think. A real pity. What a thing to happen, and we came so close, too.
samnsara
(17,650 posts)...who didn't vote for her.
MineralMan
(146,336 posts)Results do matter, though. We have results. They are not good.
Baconator
(1,459 posts)... but it may lead to a stronger candidate in 2020.
nycbos
(6,039 posts)msanthrope
(37,549 posts)MineralMan
(146,336 posts)I keep remembering what she said she'd do if elected. All of that sounds so much better than what Trump's bringing, somehow...
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)of that level of whingeing.
"I have an attic" is a phrase I used in conversation this week. Christ.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)And am sick that they are not.
MineralMan
(146,336 posts)I'm going to try to keep remembering what might have been, and thinking about 2018 and 2020, when we'll have another chance. Boy, I hope we don't blow things again. I hope we really, truly learned something from this. I hope we understand why elections matter a great deal. I hope we act accordingly in the future.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)csziggy
(34,139 posts)The children of immigrants snatched away from their parents for indeterminate amounts of time. The increase in hate crimes and bullying that is just going to get worse when we have a president who encourages it. The destruction of habitat and acceleration of global climate change. The erosion of educational quality as public money is shoveled into private school pockets.
We can rebuild - but we should NOT have to. We should have had a qualified president who cared about people, about this country and about the world. What we ended up with is vile, disgusting and hate-filled.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)lessen damage and tragedies? BEFORE deaths in holding camps and disappearances of separated family members begin?
"Shouldn't have to" has left the station.
https://www.aclu.org/ "Join People Power"
csziggy
(34,139 posts)Tomorrow my husband goes in to get his appendix out. The same appendix that burst Thanksgiving morning and put him in the hospital for three days with a raging abdominal infection. Hopefully all will go well and he will feel better fast. Just as he was over that his mother went in the hospital and died less than two weeks later. We've been a little distracted by all of this stuff. In two weeks we go downstate to spend my Mom's 96th birthday with her.
This Thursday night the local Indivisible group has a meeting and I hope I can attend. I recognize a few of the names from the 2008, 2012, and 2016 campaigns - we all worked together on those.
I tried to sign up for the ACLU group but you have to let them text you. Since I seldom use my cell phone that is useless as a way to contact me. I couldn't complete the sign up without providing my cell number so I bailed on them.
Cracklin Charlie
(12,904 posts)This whole thing is like a bad dream!
I am ready to wake up NOW!
Mr. Ected
(9,670 posts)Where the winning candidate was assisted by a nation hostile to US interests. Or that they didn't foresee a two-party system that would obviate checks and balances under extreme circumstances (like the ones we're facing today).
If only the Constitution had addressed these issues, we might be celebrating our Madam President being outstandingly presidential.
MineralMan
(146,336 posts)prefer a disastrous President to one they just didn't love wholeheartedly. I'm not sure what they could have done about that, but their system let someone who won decidedly in the popular vote lose because less than 100,000 people in three states voted for the candidate who lost the popular vote.
But, here's the thing. We knew the rules of how our elections work. We just didn't realize that it was possible for a lunatic narcissist could become President. So, we failed to take that into consideration. I hope we never make that mistake again.
tblue37
(65,490 posts)women voting, much less running for president.) If they saw this mess, they'd point out that they tried to prevent most people from voting because this is the sort of caca they expected from most people.
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)But as for the many that didn't - bear in mind that you can take your dollars to Vegas or you can put them in some solid investment. Not having but a few bucks to their name, folks figured, fuck it, I'll vote pie-in-the-sky and cross my fingers.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)And the child sex ring in the pizza restaurant basement.
And the Bowling Green Massacre.
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,445 posts)Complaining about her being a "corporatist" and giving speeches to Goldman Sachs seems rather trite right now, eh? Clinton Foundation "play to pay"? Seriously?
redstatebluegirl
(12,265 posts)for Trump to "make a point", if they "blew up the system with Trump", they could get Bernie in 2020......
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,727 posts)And it just makes me feel sick.
All the policies that we took for granted, that were beneficial to everyone.
I keep wondering how it will all end.
MineralMan
(146,336 posts)I do hope we will do something about it in the next two elections, though. I hope we'll opt for a reasonable government, even if we can't get an ideal one, whatever that might be.
But, I'm not so sure. I'm hearing people talking about primarying some Democrats if they don't do what some want them to. Democrats from red areas who are barely hanging onto their seats. Democrats who vote with the Democratic caucus almost all the time. That worries me, because it makes me think again of 2016, when a good, solid Democrat lost the presidency and we lost some Senate seats and House seats, too that were held by other Democrats.
I don't know how it will all end. I do know that the current situation is far worse than it should be. I know that we're in for an ugly period in this country. That makes me sad and somewhat depressed.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(108,274 posts)According to Susan Saranwrap.
MineralMan
(146,336 posts)I'll be long dead. So that's not all that comforting, somehow. I was hoping for a rebuilding presidential term this year. My hopes were dashed, though.
LisaM
(27,843 posts)She annoys me. She still doesn't get it, and she still doesn't get that Gore would have been a great President, too.
TexasProgresive
(12,159 posts)If Sec Clinton became the 45th president of the U.S. these assholes would've been attacking her at every move no matter how innocent. Where the silver comes from is when it comes out that they have all been covering up and enabling this so called idiot in chief perhaps will open some of the minds that are closed against her and us democrats in general.
I just hope the sliver of silver doesn't get atomized along with the rest of us.
MineralMan
(146,336 posts)Even with President Obama, the attacks were constant and troubling, despite the fact that he did more to advance things than any recent President managed to do. I hoped that would continue and we'd make even more progress, with a Senate majority and a President who would sign bills that promoted progress.
I just hope that attacks on the remaining Democrats who are holding office don't increase from our own side of the political spectrum. That would be disastrous if we lost even a few more seats in the Senate in 2018. But, I'm hearing rumblings about Democrats in red states who aren't progressive enough. That's how to elect Republicans to those seats, frankly.
It all makes me worried and apprehensive for the future. I sometimes feel like we missed our last chance to move this country forward. I hope that's not true. I hope we will realize just how badly we screwed up and make the necessary corrections. I'm not sure, though, that we can do that, frankly. I'm already seeing signs that are negative about that.
humbled_opinion
(4,423 posts)How else can we possibly explain the loss of over a thousand Democratic political seats in this country, state houses, governor's, House, Senate, and now White House, in the last 8 years, I mean Obama was not a perfect Progressive but he did move the bar forward, why did everything get so rejected it has to be more than gerrymandering and idiot teabaggers.
ismnotwasm
(42,018 posts)Just listened to Washington States AG press conference on the "new" Muslim ban. I'm just sick
MineralMan
(146,336 posts)I'll have to go look at that, I guess. Ugh!
mcar
(42,390 posts)Yes, she'd have faced endless bogus investigations into her "scandals." But we'd have the majority on SCOTUS and sane people in cabinet positions. Let's not even get into foreign policy.
Any Democrat or "progressive" who stayed home or voted 3rd party should be ashamed.
MineralMan
(146,336 posts)from this. I hope they finally realize that terrible things can come from idealism that can't bend. Donald J. Trump is the proof of that. I can only hope that he will be forced from office sooner than later. But, then, we end up with Pence, who still wants the US to be a dominionist nation.
Scary stuff. We'd better do something in 2018 to change this course we're on. If we don't, we may be decades away from fixing what has started. We have only a short time to correct this path, I think.
mcar
(42,390 posts)I want to see competitive races in all state leg, governor's races, and so on.
DFW
(54,447 posts)IF she had made it, she would have had so much shit poured upon her, they would have had to hire extra window cleaners at the White House. Jason Chaffetz and Trey Gowdy would be looking into cloning, due to there only being 24 hours in a day. Fox Noise and National Hate Radio would be working overtime, and those who thought that single payer health insurance coverage and full income equality were achievable overnight would be calling her a traitor, and shouting that the Republicans had won the election after all.
Half the country would already be screaming for her head to be cut off with a dull knife, having no earthly clue what horrors they had just narrowly avoided.
And you know what? I'll bet she knows every bit of this, and went for it anyway. THAT'S the kind of president we just missed out on.
MineralMan
(146,336 posts)the White House, instead of the lunatic who's in there now.
Worlds of difference.
DFW
(54,447 posts)It would have been the mother of all cases of "you never know what you've got 'til it's gone."
(now, it's "you never know what you're missing until you lose your only chance to have it"
I know one aspiring "progressive (self-declared)" journalist who has a strong following of a hundred or so people on Facebook. He STILL posts nothing but I-Hate-Hillary stuff--all day, every day. He professes to love Bernie, hate the far right, and posts how glad he is that Trump saved us from the awfulness of a Hillary presidency. I don't want to ever know what it would feel like to be consumed by so much hate for the world around me.
MFM008
(19,823 posts)were saddled with this lunatic.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)tblue37
(65,490 posts)LuckyLib
(6,821 posts)mahina
(17,711 posts)From my sig you'll see I supported Bernie in the primary, but I did all I could for Hillary after she won, including phone banking and helping out at her HQ. I never said a negative word against her and hopefully never will.
Some part of my mind still longs to see her in the office, as you do
These anti-voter laws have got to go, and we've got to fight for state legislatures as hard as we fight for presidential races.
ffr
(22,672 posts)But we all knew we couldn't go back. Now were on this log ride of doom with no idea where it leads or when it ends.
Fucking republicans!
Doreen
(11,686 posts)I keep looking for a DeLorean to make things better.
Eliot Rosewater
(31,125 posts)the actress playing in the new FX show about Bette and Joan said.
Good show, though, so far.
Remarkable Susan hasnt begged forgiveness.
nycbos
(6,039 posts)... fighting for her "revolution" Therefore she can't be wrong.
That is what the mindset is.
Gothmog
(145,635 posts)Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)Paladin
(28,277 posts)It's a hell of a lesson for us; I hope we all learn from it.
VOX
(22,976 posts)Too many Democrats bought the lies that Al was wonkish, "boring," stiff, talked too slowly, was not liberal enough. Sound familiar?
Between these two, who both lost excruciatingly narrow elections (while both won the popular vote), Americans lost out on 16 years of probable peace and prosperity. And genuine action on climate-change. Quite possibly 9/11 would have been avoided, and the Iraq conflict as well.
peggysue2
(10,843 posts)I agree, Mineral Man. We lost a great opportunity in November. As an ardent Hillary supporter, I was heartbroken. At the moment, I'm flat-out appalled.
We certainly should have all learned the lesson from the Bush/Gore debacle. I frequently wondered how much damage the country might have avoided had Gore won the WH. That's x2 or 3 this time out because the Trump/Bannon cabal are such a frigging nightmare. Truth is our memories appear to be extraordinary short.
Gore lost because he wasn't dynamic or left enough, the old purity test at work again. On the other hand, everyone wanted to have a beer with George Bush, even though the man was/is a recovering alcoholic and whose business/governing acumen was questionable at best.
Still, with the help of SCOTUS, we ended up with GW, Cheney & Co. who took us into Iraq and nearly brought the country to its knees economically. Obama spent 8 years trying to clean the place up. Now we have another bunch of house wreckers, worse than the last bunch. Totally nuts if you ask me.
We have the memory span of gnats.
Rex
(65,616 posts)A Russian troll is running our country.