This is the first Savage Love that made me cry out of fear and despair for our country and our rights.

Hey fellow faggot,

Maybe being bitankual for Hillary during the primaries isn’t looking so cute now, is it? Maybe you’re regretting attacking Bernie and his supporters. I also expect RBG to go, and this shit was never funny or cute.

As more and more die hard lefties and outright socialists win Democratic Party nominations maybe we can start rallying for the party leadership to change to be a party for the people and win some elections on the basis of good policy instead of “I may support the mass killing of Muslims but at least I have a vagina while doing it.”

Why has McConnell never choked on a pretzel? Or fallen off a treadmill? Or been shot by James Hodgkinson? Karma, we need you to get your finger out and and start karma-ing. You had one job, Karma. Tchah.

Just sayin', dude probably wrote this letter more than 7 hours ago when the news broke, who knows what he's thinking.

But IMO, what was up with your wife that you had to leave the room? Sometimes sex ain't poppin, that's too bad but not the end of the world. Like, she couldn't have let you suck a nip or kiss her earlobes while she does her thing, or watch, or just have your arm around her or something? Being exiled sounds like a crappy way to treat your partner.

I think she should be thankful that you didn't hold a bigger grudge over the entire thing. And yes, IMO she should grant you the same leeway she grants herself.

Holding a partner's past mistake over their head indefinitely as an excuse to get away with what you want? That fails the basic respect test, or, if you prefer, the "don't be a dick" test. Your wife did this one time, years ago, and you want to lord it over her until the end of time. Nope. That's cruel and also absurd, for an incident this minor.

If you want to watch porn, have a conversation about it being something you're unwilling to give up. If you don't want to have sex sometimes when your wife does, tell her that. But don't keep getting up on your high horse about this one incident and perpetually shaming her over it. I mean, really. Presumably you love this woman, so why would you want to treat her so badly? If your ego is that fragile, make an appointment with a therapist ASAP.

@2: Eat all the shit.

With just four words, @7 demonstrates the level of entitlement, substantial discourse, lack of self-reflection and direct insults that caused Democrats to so handily win all of the elections.

Don’t fuck us over again in 2018 or 2020.

OK, PORN, you want an answer about whether you & your wife's one incident of porn/vibration entitles you to unfettered porn/wanking for the foreseeable future? And Dan is (quite rightly!) a little too traumatized right now to give you much of an answer? So, OK, here goes from a 30-plus years married, straight, porn-positive, sex-positive, long-post-menopausal female.

No! It entitles you to watch porn/wank when your wife is present ONCE. Only once. Then you'll be even, and you can have a laugh about it and go on with your lives.

As for "watching porn/having a wank or vibrate" when your partner is present, that's something to use your words and negotiate (both of you!) Watching porn & having a wank/vibrate is, in my opinion, a "private" activity, and I'd as soon not do it when WildBoar is around because a) he might want to join in & I'm not always up for actual fucking; & b) it's just plain not polite!

I know that he looks at porn & presumably enjoys some wanks when I'm not present -- mostly because it sometimes pops up on our shared house computer. He's never mastered (heh!) the art of Incognito Browsing, while I have.

By the way, I'm every bit as shocked, horrified, repulsed, outraged, and terrified by recent events as anyone. And I VOTE and have done so in EVERY election since I was 18 (Jimmy Carter!) I've pulled the "R" lever exactly 3 times (one city council & 2 gubernatorial), because they were liberal Repubs running against conservative Dems -- all 3 lost, too.

Ruthie B. is hanging in there, why the fuck can't Kennedy? How fucking dare he retire?

I feel like I've just tuned in to Newsmax circa 2009 or so.

Politics isn't everything. It's not even the most important thing. What is super important are our individual relationships, like this guy's with his wife. The way we relate to each other, one-on-one, in real time and space, is far more important than what all the gibbering buffoons of internet and cable TV have to say. Especially including the Presidents. All of them. Yes, Obama too.

What the heck ever happened to being gay requiring guts? Fifty years ago: those guys and gals had guts. They dealt with real problems of discrimination. Thirty years ago: those guys and gals, facing real death and destruction with next to no help from the outside community, those queers had guts.

And we did it through the strength of the real bonds we made between couples, between friends, between real (not virtual) communities.

This hissy fit? Pales in comparison compared with what we've been through.

Grab your ovaries, Dan.

Go watch that Tom of Finland movie that's on Hulu right now. Remind yourself what we lived through. Then take a deep breath, calm down, and do your job, which is in helping people live together. Priorities.

As for PORN, what @6 said.

Did you forgive your wife for doing this to you? Good. It's forgiven. Which means it's over. Period. Full stop.

If you want to watch porn, talk it over with her. See what she's comfortable with. You know, respect her feelings, because you don't want her to feel like you were made to back then, because, you know, you love her. And love has consequences, or it should: empathy, self-sacrifice, willingness, patience, generosity.

She should be the person who makes you want to be virtuous for her sake, not the one who'll just let you get away with what you want to do. Any old trick can do the latter. Only a lover will do the former.

Hey, Dan, I'm with you. I'm researching what countries might take me. But... It's been a depressing day and I clicked this link for some sexy entertainment.

Maybe that was naive of me.

The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy.

Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors

The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin (the guy on the hundred-dollar bill), “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a Republic or a Monarchy?”

Franklin responded, “A republic. IF you can keep it.”

We’ve sold our country, soon to be lock stock and barrel to the Capitalists.

Now we’re gonna get a little taste of Corporate Rule.

Good luck, not-Whites. Ladies. Non-believers.
Heathens. Preverts. Pot heads. Addicts. Although, that’s gonna be a tough one. Oh well. Nuthin’ like a little Tough Love to separate the Wheat from the chaff….

Time to buy some shiny Jackboots, fellow Patriots.

I’m so right there with you Dan. Despondent. Went on a walk. Called my mother. Called my brother. Talked to my kids about nothing. Opened stranger to read Savage Love which I hardly do anymore in order to be distracted from my hopelessness about the world not so much going up in flames as rotting into a pile of mush like peaches on my kitchen counter on a hot summer day. Well that didn’t work. You voiced exactly how I’m feeling.

Maybe the LW should have DTMFA after that first idiotic and extremely rude incident.

Yeah must be nice to be a married straight guy unless you and your wife have any interest in continuing to control your own sex life, family size and bodies.

@2 Hillary won the primary fair and square - by 3.7M votes - and won the popular vote by 2.8M votes even with massive Russian meddling. Get the fuck over your Bernie was robbed complex. Jesus Fucking Christ.

@17 Corporations do not care about your race. They don't care about your gender, or your sex. They don't care about your religion or lack thereof. Or your sexuality. Or your use of drugs, legal or illegal.

Corporations want your labor and they want your money. That's it. You can be a straight, white, male, MAGA, redneck working on an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana. You can be an immigrant, single mother cleaning hotel rooms in LA. You can be a high-powered corporate attorney living in Manhattan. It doesn't matter. It. Does. Not. Matter.

They will take your labor and give you as little as they possibly can in return. They will take as much of your wealth as they possibly can. And they will happily leave you living destitute on the streets when they are done taking everything your have.

In some ways, MAGA is actually an improvement over the corporatists like Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney, all the mainstream and "moderate" Republicans and a good proportion of the Democrats. At least they are recognizably human, in their hates and fears and passions and ugliness. There's a soul there, even if it's ugly and misshapen.

Corporations have no souls. They are our society's gods, and they demand human sacrifices with just as much heartlessness as any pagan gods of old. And, as they are propitiated, they will intone the benediction, "Have a nice day!"

@22: "Corporations want your labor and they want your money. That's it."

Yeah, but MegaCorpsLLC require the votes of the Moralists/Fundamentalists for a cobbled-together 'majority,' so they get a bone or two tossed their way. Revenge and Control are what the moralizers and fundies crave, so expect much Collateral Damage.

“Corporations have no souls. They are our society's gods, and they demand human sacrifices with just as much heartlessness as any pagan gods of old.”

Yep. Speaking of sacrifice, all the work unions did, making work Safe (and bearable) for human beings, is soon to be flushed into Puget Sound, along with a currently-habitable Biosphere. Collateral damage – a small price to pay for Corporate Dominion.

Don’t these people have kids, for Cripe’s sake?

What @23 said. Nailed it.

Wow, I did pick a good week to leave the United States to live in Europe.

@2: In straight up primaries Bernie Sanders was decidedly beaten, and while his supporters want to speak for Democrats, Sanders' greatest success came in undemocratic caucuses whose rules heavily favor people who can devote an entire day to casting their vote. Even during the nominating process, there was something odd about Sanders' vocal online support, which we learned after the election was heavily boosted by Russian trolls. Yet even now, Sanders' supporters pretend that their apparent support was genuine wholly genuine, when we know that Russia was actively buoying his candidacy. Why did Russia do that? To undermine a popular more centrist leader and support hard left-wing candidate who would work to tear the country apart from the left, as Donald Trump and his supporters would do from the right. It was a grotesque plan and it is still working.

LW: You don't say how old you too were at the time of the initial incident, nor do you provide any details about why your penis wasn't "cooperating," the reasons for your romantic and sexual "slump," or what constituted your "pathetic attempt at fucking." Perhaps your girlfriend / wife was in the wrong, or perhaps you neglected to provide those details because they would provide justification for your girlfriend / wife's actions. Or perhaps your girlfriend / wife was too embarrassed at the time to masturbate in front of you. Whatever. This incident does not grant you the right to anything in perpetuity, and your belief otherwise makes you seem immature and inconsiderate.

As for your porn watching, so long as you are not rubbing your wife's face in your porn, she should turn a blind eye to your porn and masturbation sessions (i.e., no hunting around for you because she suspect you're in the bathroom or bedroom indulging). If she's actively not giving you space then she is being immature and inconsiderate. In that case, you both need to grow up.

Wow, I did pick a good week to leave the United States to live in Europe.

@2: In straight up primaries Bernie Sanders was decidedly beaten, and while his supporters want to speak for Democrats, Sanders' greatest success came in undemocratic caucuses whose rules heavily favor people who can devote an entire day to casting their vote. Even during the nominating process, there was something odd about Sanders' vocal online support, which we learned after the election was heavily boosted by Russian trolls. Yet even now, Sanders' supporters pretend that their apparent support was genuine wholly genuine, when we know that Russia was actively buoying his candidacy. Why did Russia do that? To undermine a popular more centrist leader and support hard left-wing candidate who would work to tear the country apart from the left, as Donald Trump and his supporters would do from the right. It was a grotesque plan and it is still working.

LW: You don't say how old you too were at the time of the initial incident, nor do you provide any details about why your penis wasn't "cooperating," the reasons for your romantic and sexual "slump," or what constituted your "pathetic attempt at fucking." Perhaps your girlfriend / wife was in the wrong, or perhaps you neglected to provide those details because they would provide justification for your girlfriend / wife's actions. Or perhaps your girlfriend / wife was too embarrassed at the time to masturbate in front of you. Whatever. This incident does not grant you the right to anything in perpetuity, and your belief otherwise makes you seem immature and inconsiderate.

As for your porn watching, so long as you are not rubbing your wife's face in your porn, she should turn a blind eye to your porn and masturbation sessions (i.e., no hunting around for you because she suspect you're in the bathroom or bedroom indulging). If she's actively not giving you space then she is being immature and inconsiderate. In that case, you both need to grow up.

Great article, Dan. Just one quibble. Jill Stein was a non-entity in the '16 election. The guy you want to blame is Gary Johnson. In the critical states of MI, WI, & PA over half of the Green Party voters would have had to have switched to make a difference. Only one fifth of Johnson voters needed to switch to change the outcome. It wasn't Nader-in-2000 redux, no matter how many times you claim it.

Raindrop @11: Bizarrely, I agree with you. Dan, if you're not in the mood to answer sex letters (aka do your job) because politics, understandably, has you reeling, take the day off!

As for PORN, wow. Where do I start:
- The fact that he's so dick-fixated it didn't occur to him to get his girlfriend off with his mouth or fingers, she had to do it herself?
- The fact that he's calling her taking care of her own needs "offensive", yet disagrees with his wife that it's "offensive" when he does it?
- The fact that her one-off response to his one-off impotence suggests to him that he has the right to blow off his wife's sexual needs in favour of his own whenever he wants?
- The fact that he's tying his desire to masturbate and look at porn to a one-off incident that happened years ago instead of just saying it's a sexual need of his?
- The fact that he's STILL holding a grudge yet considers himself to have been "a pretty good sport about it"?? Wow, dude.

Bean counting has no place in a mature relationship. But if it's tit-for-tat that he wants, I'd say that her one-time dismissing him to masturbate earns him a one-off dismissing her to masturbate. Which, it seems clear, is an allowance he's already exceeded. No, PORN, you're withholding sex from your wife and using a long-ago, one-time incident to justify it. Was your wife a bit rude on that occasion? Sure, she didn't have to dismiss you from the room (unless she was too self-conscious to come with you there). But she's more than made it up to you, so stop punishing her. When you both want sex and your energy is low, have a quickie, or perhaps masturbate together. If "being dismissed" to masturbate is "a lot of guys' worst nightmare," how can you regularly subject your wife to this nightmare? Get a grip -- by which I don't mean on your cock.

Hey Dan, don't mean to cram rainbows up your ass, but in case this helps to keep keeping on: It Will Get Better. Young people are much more accepting of homosexuality and bisexuality than their parents are, even Republican young people. The old assholes are going to die, and the new assholes are going to be assholes who 60% are cool with gay marriage. Of course, old people like you and me won't live to see it, but hey.

(Young Republicans are /not/ more accepting than old ones of trans people, so it's not all rainbows up in there.)

No guarantees of course, and nobody should stop fighting, but they would love us to think we're fighting against a tide that has turned against homos, and it's not true. The tide's on our side.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/03/10/61-of-young-republicans-favor-same-sex-marriage/

BDF @29 "- The fact that he's so dick-fixated it didn't occur to him to get his girlfriend off with his mouth or fingers, she had to do it herself?"

We didn't know how it went down, maybe it was the girlfriend who was dick-fixated and did not want mouth or fingers? Regardless, kicking him out of the room was ridiculous.

We stand together, the forces of evil will not triumph.

Really LW, what a wank of a question. Each month your wife catches blood coming out her pussy, or doesn't as it leaks all over her nice clothes. You can sit for five or so on a bathroom floor while she gets herself off, and not expect some life long pass for anything.
How come so many adult men sound like brat kids?

I disagree with you raindrip and Fan, if Dan can't cry these real fears with us here that doesn't say much for the strength of this community. This is a first order disaster, and sometimes given what's going on, some of these questions people write are so self absorbed and hello, get real here. Politics is not some seperate space over there, and since trump it's in everybody's face. Even way down here the ripple effect of this low life becoming President has enobled the fascism in people. Italy and Austria are under far right wing govts. Etc. Etc.

   Sending you a hug Dan, and love.

...h̷a̷d̷ ̷a̷ ̷w̶̷̶a̶̷̶n̶̷̶k̶̷̶ ̷v̷i̷b̷r̷a̷t̷e̷.̷

Jilled off.

ftfy; nnttm

@33.cont. *separate

RE @31: She brought a vibrator with her to the hotel room. That says to me that she's aware there are other ways to get off.

Nyckname @34: "Wank" is a unisex term.

Lava @33: Good point, I wasn't trying to argue that Dan shouldn't speak his mind. And I stand corrected because Dan did in fact answer PORN's question, mid rant.
My heart goes out to all of you Americans who are seeing your rights torn away. If I could marry all of you and bring you over here, I would. (Though you'd probably want to find someone with citizenship in a different European country than mine.)

It's not safe anywhere, maybe New Zealand, then they have quakes.

If Dan thinks that responding to people's problems is fiddling (or something similar) while Rome burns, he should do less of the advice and more of the political commentary. He should write op-eds or somesuch, or look for a full-dress political column. Or run for office. He does a lot of this anyhow.

There is a connection between the micro- and the macro-, between decency and reason--and lack of false shame--in personal relations and the exact same values in public life; and I'm sure he can see this most of the time.

What contingency plans do Planned Parenthood and other organisations have?--to carry on offering abortions, if necessary, through a campaign of civil disobedience? I hope their plans are solid, and that they assume the worst in terms of an overturn of Roe v. Wade.

I feel a little bad for the straight guy asking about his wank pass. True, the problem isn't something that a little civilized discussion should be unable to solve. Why did his exasperated gf send him to the bathroom (or out the room) that one time? @6. Victorian Platypus has it right: he should just say that sometimes he would prefer a wank to a fuck and that it's fit he'd hope they can fit into their usually happy and well-coordinated sex life. His spirit of thinking there's a tit-for-that or that he's entitled on the back of one questionable decision of hers maybe looks at the negotiated aspect of sex in the wrong spirit.

@9. the wild sow. An excellent answer in lieu. When Dan got round to his answer--also fine!

Ms Fan - I'm sure a club member of Wimbledon (or, going a bit north, St Andrews) would encounter very little difficulty in finding a taker.

Ms Lava - I very much want to see Australia win the challenger series in the next America's Cup; make sure it stays in your hemisphere.

Let me get this straight, PORN. Your "then girlfriend...was...over-the-top offensive" towards you one time that you found, and you both find funny.

And because of that one event, you think you get the magical right to prioritize your preference over hers "pretty much whenever" forever.

Fuck you, you malignant asshole. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck Yoooooooooooooooou!

@21, @26/27. I never said Bernie was cheated. I said you people who chose Hillary were foolish and short sighted, choosing the one sure loser in the Democratic primary. I’ll bet MOM had a better chance against Drumpf than Hillary had. But, you foolish idiots blindly charged forth with your candidate, believing she would triumph even after polls showed she would lose against the orange menace. Anybody who voted for Hillary in the primary is directly responsible for Trump’s victory in the general.

RE @31: Trying to be terse, I left out that I agree that kicking him out was ridiculous. It sounds like neither of them responded very well to the situation where she was frustrated and he couldn't get an erection. If anything she should have been the one to repair to the bathroom with the vibrator -- ideally after he'd fallen asleep -- if he didn't want to give her a hand.

Victorian Platypus @6 would be the thread winner if we had such things.

@42 TheMisanthrope
"Anybody who voted for Hillary in the primary is directly responsible for Trump’s victory in the general."

+1

We've got the strongest military in the world, by far, the rest of the government is a train wreck, and the cities can barely function. So when is the military going to stage a coup, and will it be an improvement?

You forgot "the Supreme Court will likely uphold the POTUS's firing of the Special Counsel investigating Russian interference in American politics, thus opening the door to control of Americans' freedoms by Vladimir Putin, mass murderer."

But perhaps that is relatively trivial...

If the world is so on fire that you can't respond to this dude without being a bitchy little man, maybe you should take your high seriousness to the next level and just stop writing this column altogether.

Not so much the world but The Left loves to set it's hair on fire and run around screaming.
Thanks for the entertainment.

@42 -- Oh come on. There is no reason to assume that a socialist secular Jew from Brooklyn was going to win after the Republicans started attacking him. It was clear through the election that the Republicans wanted Sanders. They rarely attacked him, and did all they could to get him nominated. Maybe this was a bad strategy, and would have blown in up in their face. Or maybe they just assumed that it was inevitable that Hillary was going to win. But just because polls during the primary showed Bernie doing well doesn't mean that he had a better chance once the Republican attack machine geared up. Just ask President Dukakis.

@48
Turn your selfie camera back outwards: you've got the image reversed.

@42: I didn't take your comment to mean that Bernie Sanders was cheated. I took it exactly as you restated it: that Hillary Clinton was a sure loser. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a wide margin in the Democratic primary contests and in the general election, and Sanders supporters who argue that the vast majority of Democrats should have sublimated their beliefs are nuts. All the more so now that we know that Russian trolls were key component of Sanders backers during primary contest. Do you really think that Russia was going to permit a fair contest between Sanders and Trump? Sanders would have been savaged by the fake news operation employed by Russia and he would have done no better with the moderates Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania that were crucial to the outcome of the election.

@28 -- "Jill Stein was a non-entity in the '16 election. In the critical states of MI, WI, & PA over half of the Green Party voters would have had to have switched to make a difference."

It is reasonable to assume that well over half of the Green Party voters supported Clinton over Trump. If they had made a meaningful vote, then they would have tipped the election. It was clear that their vote was symbolic, not meaningful, and Trump got elected (just as George W. Bush got elected in 2000).

The guy you want to blame is Gary Johnson. Only one fifth of Johnson voters needed to switch to change the outcome.

It isn't clear at all who Libertarians supported of the two main candidates. I'm sure some preferred the low tax Republican, while others opposed the anti-trade, law and order Trump. It is also quite possible that many didn't have a preference at all, the same way a Democrat would have a hard time picking between Mike Pence or Donald Trump.

If the far left had voted with an eye towards results instead of symbolism, then Hillary Clinton would have been President, assuming the Libertarians voted symbolically, or split their vote 50/50 for the main candidates.

It's true, there's no reason to be sure that Bernie would have won, but that's not the point.

The point is that the pre-primary polls showed that Bernie was a significantly stronger candidate against Orange Hitler than Hillary. Just because the Republicans were running the most hated person in the country didn't mean the Democrats should feel comfortable running the second most hated person in the country.

It didn't need to be an election between the two most hated people in the country. That was foolish.

@49 Why would anybody believe the polls, the anecdotes, the rally attendance comparisons, the number of small donors, the enthusiasm gap, or any other grassroots signifiers? Everybody knows that you could never defeat a politician with direct ties to Bill Clinton’s presidency. Just ask Al Gore.

Let me repeat it for y’all: Anybody who voted for Hillary in the primary is directly responsible for Trump’s victory in the general.

@47 -- Read the whole column. He did respond to the dude. He gave the letter writer as much care and consideration as was reasonable (more, really). I'm sorry if Dan's writing doesn't please you, but he often incorporates way more important shit than some dude wanting a "free porn pass" for the rest of his married life. That is his style. He is more than just an advice columnist. He is a civil rights leader. Deal with it.

@51 Yes, Russian trolls filled the stadiums for Bernie’s rallies. eye roll

Hillary’s supporters told Bernie’s supporters to sublimate their beliefs in order to ensure victory. Bernie’s supporters did, in larger numbers than Hillary’s supporters sublimated their beliefs in 2008. And she still lost.

So, yes, I would expect Democratic voters to sublimate their beliefs to ensure a Democratic victory when Hillary’s supporters were pushing “she is the only one who could win” as the primary reason to support her in the primaries.

@55 -- so, the dude was only bothered enough from being dismissed from sex to joke about it with his wife, and he lacks consideration? How many guys would have been humiliated and angry? And, ohmygod, what if I guy did that to a woman?

@55 -- correction: what if a guy did that to a woman? My point is, he seems to have a pretty good sense of humor about i.

@57 -- wow. chill out. jesus. Do you apply that line of reasoning to everything that isn't a screaming angry political protest?

Wait, since you apparently know the race of the letter writer, are you the letter writer? Just trying to troll or stir up something? Was it all just a made up joke???

Where are there two 57s?

Dan Savage is a racist for suggesting that people's lame and repetitive sex questions should only not matter when something bad happens in America.

Where was this outrage when some religious fanatic blew themselves up in the Middle East an hour ago? So racist. Just ask Mudede.

57 "People being sexually selfish and inconsiderate is only a problem for lame straight white dudes."

What? This is more or less the same letter that Dan answers everyday.

Person A does something sexually that enrages/makes jealous Person B, Person B looks for permission to do something they want to do.

Dan has been an autopilot for years now.

@63 -- what 64 said. You should chill out. I assure you the vast majority of Dan's listeners/readers are white. But otherwise I have no idea how a sexual problem/issue is specifically "white." If you don't want to read silly obnoxious brooklyn portland seattle liberal sex problems, then don't read Dan's column.

My wife and I love you, Dan, and will stand with/for/beside you when necessary. We will be vocal and visible. The valley of darkness lies before us, but it will be crossed. America is fucked, but it’s citizens are better than the sewer that it has become.

@56: Mitt Romey filled stadiums too, and that didn't mean a damn thing, and in 2008, Obama didn't have to contend with a sophisticated nation-state sponsored attack on our election process. A fact that you simply don't want to address. Bernie Sanders received the support of Russia throughout the primaries. That's not my personal belief, that's the assessment of our intelligence agencies, and that power would have been unleashed against him in the general election.

Clinton supporters had good reason to demand that Sanders supports get behind the Democratic nominee. Clinton won the nominating contest in a democratic process. It's rather outrageous that even now the expectation that the party would rally around its nominee would be controversial or merit some sort of praise. Sanders lost, and lost decisively.

Dear Dan, just to let you know: I read your column as much for the deep/thoughtful/engaged commentary as for the titillating/edifying/distracting reading. Thank you for both.

Why don't LW and wifey make a home movie. Starring themselves. Fucking. Each other.

Oh, and I didn't go to Hillary's Move Right campaign stopover here, but I did go to Bernie's. The Energy level was ... fucking phenomenal.

How was Hillary's?

I think he should have to watch naked Trump porn.

And white chicks who supported Bernie and Jill are going to get from a Trump Administration exactly what they deserve. I have no sympathy for them.

@73 That same indictment also said that Russians backed Black Lives Matter movements and had a popular LGBTQ Facebook page, but I don’t see you yammering about there being no support for Black Lives Matter or the LGBTQ community.

Of course Clinton’s supporters wanted Sanders’ supporters to line up in the general. AND MOST DID. But, Clinton’s supporters were pants-on-head stupid for voting for such a decisive loser in the first place.

Again: Anybody who voted for Clinton in the primary OWNS Trump’s victory.

Accept your fucking responsibility for picking a loser because you were warned there was a lack of enthusiasm well before the primaries even started. Many ballots in the states that she lost didn’t even choose a president and left it blank. That’s on Democrats for pushing her through the primaries.

You never give up do you @78, trying to cover your tail and guilt. Standing up for Susan and Jill all those months before the election. Still not in your fighting clothes then, ready for Susan's revolution?

The last word on politicizing the SLOTTD column:

I generally dislike it when politics is used as an excuse for giving a lazy, incomplete, or half-hearted answer to an LW. By the time you've selected a letter to be in your column, that letter and their question deserve your full attention. While the column itself can be as political as all get out, I'd rather you do so by not answer a question or posting an Letter (as you already do, albeit on a non-schedule basis) if you are in a state that you can't give it a clear-headed response (same goes for your drunk/high/drunk and high and about to have oral sex on an airplane letter responses), just wait por favor

@79 Speaking of foreign agents meddling in the elections. Trying to shirk your personal responsibility from Australia? I remember you going after Bernie’s supporters long before the first primary vote had been cast, setting the tone for the election. And you don’t even live here.

Trump’s election is on you.

Funny guy. I never went after Bernie, I think his ideas are great and we've had many of them in place in Australia for yrs. Once he lost to Clinton,
yes, I agreed with Dan that all needed to vote for her.
No people like you who wouldn't see what a grave danger trump was when the choice was down to two, you lot helped trump win.

We are all the poor schlemiel curled up and crying in the bathroom while Trump gets himself off on fantasies starring himself as the supreme leader fucking pretty much everyone who isn't white, right, male and straight.

@78: First, BLM and LGBTQ issues are extraneous to our discussion, so of course I'm not referencing them. What is bizarre is that rather than acknowledge that Bernie Sanders had significant support from Russia propelling him forward in the primaries you need to deflect by bringing up extraneous social movements. But the fact is Sanders campaign was significantly buoyed by Russian trolls who convinced his supporters that their numbers were substantially higher than in fact they were. It appears that you still believe Sanders had a chance to win, rather than accepting the reality that his campaign was being supported by Russia, which would have withdrawn its support and attacked him during the general election.

Second, your argument starts with the position that Clinton was a loser to start, but having won the primaries, she demonstrated that she was not. She was therefore not "pushed through by Democrats," the overwhelming majority of Democrats wanted her to be president and not Bernie Sanders. Given a choice between these candidates and their ideas, the majority chose her. What part of that is offensive to you is unclear, and your apparent insistence that something else should have happened is also bizarre, as is your repeated defense that "most" Sanders supporters voted for Clinton. If they are Democrats, they all should have voted for Clinton without question. That is how party politics and democracy intersect.

Apparently it is also worth noting for you again that Clinton won the popular vote again demonstrated that more Americans wanted her to be president than her opponent, all while facing a coordinated attack between Russia and Trump campaign.

What's funny is that your more pissed that your candidate lost democratic vote than the fact that Russia and the Trump campaign where working together to defeat democracy in the United States.

Quintus @47: If you think Dan is a "bitchy little man", perhaps you shouldn't read his columns.

Bernie or Busters who refused to vote Clinton is one of many reasons that the Dems lost. It was one contributing factor and not even one of the main ones. But to play devil's advocate, let's pretend that it was significant to her loss. It's still the only one of all the factors that caused her to lose that is entirely in the past. So it's weird that people keep focusing on it rather than on all criticisms that could be leveled at the Dems that we could collectively actually do something about. Why aren't we all united in demanding that Dems stop taking corporate money? Surely this is something we can all get behind? Why aren't we all united in demanding that Dems stop voting in favor of the surveillance state and the military industrial complex? The majority of Democrats just voted in support of yet another Republican budget to give another 700 billion dollars to the military. That's your money, taxpayers. That's your Democratic party voting alongside Republicans AGAIN to fund a war machine rather than healthcare or education or clean water or civil infrastructure. The Bernie or Busters didn't make them do that. Neither did the Russians. Why not focus also on the gerrymandering, the voter disenfranchisement and the disaffected voters- who make up the MAJORITY of voters in the US. If you really think that a very small handful of Bernie or Busters are significant enough to shoulder the blame for everything that the richest people in the world are able to do, then imagine what you could do if you had a platform that appealed the the MILLIONS of Americans who are so disgusted with politics that they don't vote at all.

As I've said before, Clinton did not even campaign in my state. Not at all. She did not go there, they ran no ads, there were no rallies, no town halls, nothing. Bernie did those things. After Bernie lost the primary, I reached out to my local Dem office to ask them what I could do to get involved in preventing a Trump win. They told me to give money and sent me home. Then I found the group of former Bernie delegates who had organized neighborhood meetings across the county. They immediately gave me a million things I could do- working on a range of issues from LGBT advocacy, reproductive rights advocacy, door knocking for local water issues, voter registration drives, local elections to campaign with, etc. Almost all of them voted for Clinton during the general because she was lesser evil, but not all of them. The Democrats did simply expect everyone to vote for them because they offered "not as evil" and nothing else. It's infuriating then to later have this blamed on us because of their incompetence. As I said, Hilary did NOTHING to win even a single vote in my state. She did not campaign there AT ALL and the Dem party in my state literally sent me away and said all they want from me is my money and my vote and the only thing they'd give me in return is "Not Trump". And I gave it to them because they have me by the nuts. Fuck them. If they can't reorganize their party and shoulder the blame for their loss and re-evaluate what the fuck caused them to lose to a goddamn reality tv star, then there is nothing there worth supporting again. I honestly can't think of another way to make any long term change than to get the fucking money out of politics, and the Dems aren't going to willingly do that because it is their bread and butter. We have to make them do that- and how else can we do that except by not voting for them if they take corporate money? I will not vote for a corporate Dem again ever. And it is their fucking fault if they lose my vote by taking corporate money. Not mine.

And it was incredibly stupid to run Clinton in the first place. Regardless of if she deserves it, she has been one of the most hated political figures in the country for decades.

BTW the budget I'm referring to- the majority of Dems voting with Reps to give the military another 700 billion in taxpayer money- that happened LAST WEEK. You know, when Dems are supposedly worried about the upcoming primary, when most Dems are saying that it's not practical to fund universal health care. This after the Rep tax cut- what money will they use to pay for this military spending? It's your money.

This is the Democratic Party. If you want to be mad at Bernie or Busters, fine. But if you aren't fucking spitting mad at the Dems themselves for being corporate bootlicking Rep-lite, then what the fuck is wrong with you?

I mean seriously. I'd like at least some acknowledgement of what the Bernie supporters have done to mobilize voters. They are the ones that fill the ranks of groups like Justice Democrats, One America, Our Revolution, the DSA, etc. They are the ones forming neighborhood meetings, running local candidates, shutting down ICE facilities, running GOP cabinet members out of restaurants, etc. They are also the ones that campaigned in red states where Clinton didn't even bother going. If some of these people refused to vote for a POTUS b/c they couldn't support someone who is corporate funded and who pushed for regime change in Libya, supported ICE detention of families under Obama, supported a coup in Honduras, lost weapons that ended up in the hands of ISIS, etc- if a small number of these people refused to vote for her for those reasons, you can't blame them for her loss unless you also count up the number of people they mobilized across the country during and after the primary- the voter drives they held, door knocking they did, advocacy work and organizing work they did, etc. Bernie supporters campaigned harder for Clinton in my state than she did for herself. Stop blaming them for her loss.

Also the liberal obsession with Bernie is getting out of hand. On the left, people are largely holding his feet to the fire. He refuses to call for the abolition of ICE for example. He has supported candidates that have a history of antichoice voting. It has always been this way. Remember during the primary when BLM shut down one of his speeches? Antiwar groups have been pushing him to take a harder stance on imperialism from the beginning. So I don't know what it looks like from the side of establishment Dems, but from the left it looks like Bernie is and always had been a flawed candidate who can be dragged left, kicking and screaming. You should do the same to your own candidates. Hold their feet to the fire- remind them that they work for you. They are not entitled to your vote. Look at Clinton's campaign slogan "I'm With Her". It's about what you can do for her. Look at her convention message "America Is Already Great". This is tone-deaf. This is why she lost. The small number of Berniecrats that refused to vote for her is a drop in the bucket. It's so weird to blame them for not voting for someone they didn't want as president. Get out of this way of thinking. This will cause us to continue to lose. You have to give people something to vote for and you have to work to reach them. That means, at a bare minimum, bothering to campaign in their state.

Mizz Liz - A main motivation of the nomination always seemed to me to want to see Republicans choking on their own bile.

EmmaLiz, it was arrogance. American arrogance that allowed people to not use their fucking heads and see what trump would bring.
There's Sarandon, Getting arrested with The Women, and like wtf lady. Piss off. Luckily on any post showing her smiling look at me face, the commenters were onto her hypocrisy.
I've heard enough about America's sins since I got interested in politics in the 70's.
Whatever Clintons sins, she would never ever in a trillion years would have ripped babies from their mothers' breasts. Do you realise how much evil is in that act.
And look at The Women, peaceful protest, with their children.
It's on now, as we all see. And a benefit of this horror is America has to really look at itself, look at the politics and social structures etc etc.
Capitalism has wound itself tight around your politicians, and that needs dismantling, restructuring. Just like ICE. And why should trump pick a Supreme Court judge when he's under criminal investigation. As a US politician said.
It's action time now and noise time. The Women have shown it can be done peacefully, and this Judge can't be picked by trump. That's too much, so fight it. Make noise. Ring Senators etc.
Hillary was taken down because of the shit stains she had, and that she was a woman.
Now. The Women have had enough.

Lava, the policy of separating children from their parents as a standard process is new and vile. The outrage around it is welcome, and I'm happy that the abolition of ICE and the defense of immigrants is becoming a mainstream thing. I agree that things are much worse under Trump than they would've been under Clinton, and things like the separation of parents and children as a norm and the denial of asylum etc all of this would not have happened under Clinton.

But you are incorrect if you think it wasn't happening at all. Under Obama, with Clinton as SoS, children were imprisoned in for-profit detention centers. Millions of people were deported. ICE raids kept kids home from school, kept parents home from work. This all was happening under Obama. The difference is that Obama didn't separate parents and children as a policy, the kids were usually housed with their moms if they crossed with them, unaccompanied minors were placed faster, usually families were not detained as long, etc. But if a man crossed with his child, the child was pretty frequently separated from the father and they did get lost in the behemoth that is the immigration bureaucracy. This was happening under Obama. It didn't start to end until after Clinton left the administration. And Clinton defended it in the debates with Bernie when he criticised all this.

Thing is, liberals just didn't care. They mostly didn't know, but they also didn't care. Even on this forum, during the summer before the election, I said one of the main reasons people criticised Hilary and establishment Dems is because of Obama's immigration policies including putting kids in prison and deporting nearly 3 million people. Hillary voters just didn't care then. They care now and that's GREAT, and they are right that she's worse, as I've been saying all along, but instead of blaming people for refusing to vote for someone who was cool with locking kids in for private prisons and deported millions of people, maybe get mad instead at the person who was actually doing this.

It's the same with foreign policy. Liberals are right now paying attention to immigration and realizing how the Democrats have been complicity. I keep waiting for them to have the same ah-ha moment with foreign policy. If you think this shit with ICE is bad, just wait until you hear about what the US does to people in other countries.

And of course I know that YOU know this stuff. But you aren't who I'm talking to. I'm talking to the people who say offensive stuff like "but her emails" or "I hope voting your conscience was worth it" every time the Republicans (usually with the help of Democrats) do some incredibly evil thing. Number One- it's about more than emails and conscience. It's about not wanting to vote for someone who is evil just because someone else is more evil. Number Two- things weren't peachy before Trump and they wouldn't be peachy if he'd lost, you'd just go back to ignoring everything. Number Three- it's a disproportionate attribution of blame and a waste of time to focus on that. Why not focus your blame on the actual policies and stances that the Dems took with Clinton in the first place? The number of Bernie or Busters is tiny in comparison to the number of people who don't vote at all. Why not offer them some reason to engage?

Emma Liz, thank you so much for articulating so well the realities of our predicament. You rock.

84
"more Americans wanted her to be president ..."

Haha....

No.

Hillary was as well known a politician as has ever run for President in this country.
There was no one who did not know her and what she stood for.

52% of the Americans who voted voted against Hillary.
Of 245,000,000 voting age Americans 180,000,000 did not vote for Hillary.
75% of American adults did not want Hillary to be President.

The whiny little bitches on The Left need to
1. Grow up (you don't win them all. Quit being such poor losers. Losers.)
2. Learn how Presidential Elections work in America. It is hard to win when you apparently don't even know the rules.

90

"Evil" for $100, Alex!

A million babies ripped from their mothers' wombs.
Every year.
Do you realise how much evil is in that act?

Compared to taking minor children who have been subjected to unimaginable hardships and horrors by parents using them as pawns to game the system and putting them into protective custody while their criminal parents face justice?

Don't you fucking dare lecture us on Evil...

"Compared to taking minor children who have been subjected to unimaginable hardships and horrors by parents using them as pawns..."

Predictably, you have it exactly backwards. President Secret Agent 'Kadet Bone Spurs' Orange, speaking of Evil, is using those children as pawns/hostages, in exchange for his illegitimate 'Wall' that he's too fucking weak to ever get built -- Hell, he couldn't even get the President of Mexico -- Mexico! -- to lie for him about paying for Trump's stupid Wall. (He shouldda conned his Trump U students into building it for him when he had the chance.) Oops!

Here's another: "A million babies ripped from their mothers' wombs."
"Babies"? Not even. Because calling potential babies ''babies'' doesn't actually make them so.

Remember -- they're only 'a child!' (needing right-wing protections) until. they're. born.
Then, they magically become Freeloaders. Well played, tho.

"Compared to taking minor children who have been subjected to unimaginable hardships and horrors by..." Here, allow me to finish that for you: ... minor children who have been subjected to unimaginable hardships and horrors by complicit, far right-wing United States' policies of overthrowing democratically-elected Central American governments, for pro-corporate takeovers, creating unimaginable hardships and horrors for actual babies, children and other human beings SUCKS.

At least, that's what my Jesus told me.

READ UP ON THE FORMER PRESIDENTS ACT (2012)!! This affects impeachment of 45, to an extent, Barron turns 16 in March 2022, so it might matter more to Trump, and his multitude of enemies, if he is a sitting or former president, for his boy's protection.

"The bill [FPA] also alters the protection of children of former presidents. Under the old statute, children were to be protected for up to 10 years after their parents’ service or when they turned 16, whichever occurred first. Under the new act, it will protect minor children until they turn 16." (from Politico)

Even I know that having you girlfriend or wife need to get off with a vibrator or something should not be your worst nightmare. Until your dick comes with a vibrating function and can look like something from a Bad Dragon catalog, you, along with every other man on the entire planet, are going to be pound-for-pound outdone by most dildos worth their salt. If that is your worst nightmare, if you feel nonconsensually cuckolded by your wife's hand and brain, you are going to have one hell of a tough time in the bedroom with anyone who likes being penetrated. In reverse, the same happens with flashlights and penetratable toys. No vagina or ass can take a pounding like one of them and keep on giving. So, why haven't we all masturbated ourselves to extinction yet? Because it turns out that we're still attracted to other people, and your wife is still attracted to you. So, suck it the fuck up and accept that yeah, sometimes to finish, she needs more than just you, but she's not going to turn around and dump your ass to date her hand, though she might have reason to if you're being hopelessly insecure.

Conversely, LW, she shouldn't be threatened by your porn use unless you are punishing her for it. Unfortunately for her, that seems like exactly what you're doing, my vindictive friend, and you need to knock that shit off right now. Let it go. If you can understand your reasoning for using porn, you can understand her reasoning for using it. You both should deal with the non-problem of one another's porn use and find common ground or else come to a mutual arrangement. If you can't, there is a deeper issue at play.

@98 "You both should deal with the non-problem of one another's porn use and find common ground... "

Not to kick a dead horse here, but
maybe they could make a little bit o' porn,
themselves.....

I dont need to be lectured by a guy like @2 who prefers an authoritarian hellhole with concentration camps for brown kids over Hillary Clinton.

@98 - I wonder if you saw Dan's reader round-up response? I'm the LW for PORN and I kinda clarified some things, which Dan published.

the letter came off sound far more serious than I intended. It's mainly just something we laugh about that I thought would be entertaining. Unfortunately, I've been roundly scolded by commenters who think I'm dripping with insecurity (well, I am, but not about sex.)
Her vibrator is far from a source of insecurity for me. We always (ALWAYS!) incorporate it into our fuck sessions.
I think it's hot when she looks at porn. She rolls her eyes when I do, and then I gently remind her of the time she banished me so she could use it to come. We then both laugh. So yeah, non issue? Maybe. But I still thought it was a funny situation that would fit Dan's column.

@101 Sorry, it was a phrasing thing, it looked like it was more serious than it is. No worries!

@100 Oh sorry, we’ve already tried it your Republican Lite way. Hillary was already imprisoning Brown kids under President Obama. You just didn’t care because it was to a smaller extent and it was a Democrat who did it. How does that saying go? It’s OK if you are Democrat?

Maybe, if you didn’t want the Orange Menace, you would have rallied in the primaries for somebody other than a Democratic politician who was despised throughout the rust belt swing states (FKA the Democratic Firewall). If you cared about the country, you would have heeded the polls saying she would lose against Drumpf. But, we all know you were blinded by your neoliberal Republican-Lite values and nominated a sure loser ensuring the victory of this monstrosity we have in office. (Dan, as we all know, was blinded by Terry’s neoliberal hardon)

Anybody who voted for Hillary in the primaries bears the responsibility for this presidency.

But, don’t let me lecture you. I’ll let your conscience do that for me.