I like that idea :)

I've been reading a lot of dystopian novels lately (yeah I know, maybe not a great subject matter for right now, but it's all I got).

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is fantastic! Anyone who grew up in the 80's should definitely read it. It's full of cool pop-culture references.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is haunting and poetic. A really interesting look at a world after it's been wiped out by a sickness.

Currently reading Stranger (Not Camus' The Stranger, a different book) by Sherwood Smith and Rachel Manija Brown. Post-apocalyptic Los Angeles. Mutants. Mystery. Pretty cool so far!

I'm really looking forward to the bargaining after you work through anger. Depression should be fun to watch too...

During his acceptance speech at the convention he flatly said that he'd protect the rights of gays and thanked the audience for applauding that. I think that took balls to go against the grain of the party like that. Right thing to do. He's not a monster. He just an unapologetic, noisy white male who won't apologize for being white and male. A deadly unforgivable sin to SJW types.

I am glad you are taking time to grieve and appreciate your ideas for how to spend this ... er ... down time. Teh webz is too full of anger, quick fixes and pointing today. That is though, unfortunately, what got us here. We all need to take minute, rest, heal as much as we can, and be ready for Jan. 20.

However: "I argued fiercely for Hillary around the office." There are two things I'd submit you did wrong right there. But don't beat yourself up. We need you ready.

Invite me! I'll start hosting my own dinner parties while I wait for my invitation.

Invite me! I'll host my own dinner parties while I wait for my invitation. Beautiful piece of writing. All I've wanted to do it write and I'm encouraging others to do the same. Write to process. Write to remember. Write for future generations.

@6 Not all Trump supporters are racists but they sure are all complete fucking idiots. Is that better? Genuine motivations? Ho boy. Do I need to tell you what you can do with your fucking genuine motivations?

Hey there's a dearth of St. Bernie acolytes around here today. Let me do my part: told you so! St. B would have totally kicked Trump's ass. Nothing would win over the zombie hordes of middle American more than promising to raise their taxes and replace their health insurance with a government run plan.

@10 Indeed, the support of Democrats, most of whom are middle class and would not vote for having their 'health care taken away' or an income tax increase with a gun pointed at their heads. I understand you're not real big in the area of, you know, paying attention to reality and shit though. You voted for Trump. You voted for Trump. Wow!

Just in case no one has puked yet. Here's this:

"As the president-elect, Mr. Trump will soon be briefed on how to use America’s nuclear codes – the codes Hillary Clinton and Mr. Obama said he could never be trusted to hold."

@12 As mentioned, you don't seem to be too good at paying attention to reality. Once 'single payer' health insurance is actually explained to actual real members of the electorate rather than some fanciful Democratic voters the shrieking about government takeover commences. Most middle class people have employer provided health insurance and they are fearful and paranoid about any plan to tamper with it. This is demonstrable fact. Not some made up fantasy entertained only by addled Sanders fanatics. And middle class income tax increases are an absolute no go zone in any election in this country.

Clinton was defeated due to conspiracy theories and faux scandals pumped out by the right-wing hate machine, fake ludicrous nonsense, that you yahoos, and way too many on the fringe left, lapped up. They would have had actual real concrete things to take Sanders down with. Trump may have well been too stupid to exploit them, but his surrogates sure wouldn't have been.

Be sure to check back in 4 years from now David in Shoreline and we'll have a discussion about 'corruption'. You want to talk about silly ideas, the belief that a Trump administration is going to be a model of propriety is about the most laughable one ever shat out.

And I grew up in a small town so I'd say whatever opinion I have of inhabitants of fly-over country (mostly negative it just so happens) are at least semi-well informed.

@6,
You voted for Obama twice, hated Bush, and would have voted for Sanders... and you voted for Trump?

Why? (seriously)

I blame Wisconsin!

@6 Pretty much this right here. Thousands if not millions of Americans did the exact same thing for each of those cycles.

@Rhizome You're the problem.

Ok, then what IS the motivation for someone who previously voted for Obama and hated bush to now vote for Trump?

HRC "stole" the nomination? How? There were primaries and caucuses and it seemed she was pretty far ahead in all of them. Was everyone supposed to say "well, she won the nomination but some people don't like her so we're going to do a do-over and leave her out"? Doing something like that would have set a pretty frightening precedent for all future nominations.

@20 An unequivocal rejection of establishment politics.
The primaries gave us the rise of Trump and the outstanding galvanism of Sanders.
It should have been quite clear then that pushing Clinton was a bad play.
This answer does not resolve the very real inequities in our world or address how individual nation-states should responds to the rise of the global economy.
But if you expect the executive office or even one American president to be the wholesale anodyne to these things you are a fool.

Ah well we now have the perfect representative of this country as head of state. A fucking moron in charge of a nation of fucking morons. Enjoy your shit sandwich bros. We're going to make sure you eat the whole thing.

@21,
Ok. Trump is definitely not part of establishment politics, that's for sure.

Isn't it also important for leaders (not just the executive, as you point out, but congress and state leaders too) to be able to accomplish things though? It's one thing to excite people and rile them up and get them moving... once you're elected though, you can't just keep holding rallies... you've won, now you have to get the things you promised done. Yes?

Really don't understand your second question w/r to your first. Are you advocating HRC for the 2020 ticket?

I would have been fine with Hillary in the White House.
But there is a vast difference between a political campaign and a political administration.
Thom Hartmann is saying that her campaign was just mismanaged. Maybe.
I would say it was doomed from the start. She hasn't been a viable national candidate since getting beat by Obama...

To look ahead...Knute Berger had good advice on The Record today regarding the maintenance of our regional values.
But the national stage is much different than our region or our city.

I'm not buying in to the pessimism that there's no political solution.
There is plenty of room at the national level for a progressive platform. It is going to take candidates who are willing to collaborate and compromise.
That is the way it is. Stop the hand wringing, stop the culture war and let's find those politicians.

Nope, definitely not suggesting HRC to run for anything ever again.

put on your big boys pants. i've been angry since day fucking one.

@6 David: Trump is not racist? He got endorsed by the KKK! Even the then-head of his own party, Paul Ryan, said that Trump's denigration of a judge solely for being of Mexican descent was "pretty much the definition of racism." And plenty more instances. Were you just not conscious these past 6 months? I'll take you at your word that you are not racist, but when you ignore obvious evidence that your hero is, you can understand why others think you are, too.
And misogynist, too. In the debates, he interrupted Hillary CONSTANTLY. Would you have respected Hillary more if she had been as obnoxious to him as he was to her? His and his VP's main goal for women is to appoint justices who will allow the states to ban abortion and birth control (the "right to privacy" was first cited in Griswold v. Connecticut; that state banned the use of condoms even for married couples, until 1965-do you really want to see states ban contraception again)? (and you know Texas would do it).
The sole economic policy that he has endorsed without qualification since the election is the removal of the inheritance tax, which will benefit ONLY the top 0.2% of people, and allow the rich to establish a de facto monarchy (i.e. the inherited transfer of power) something that hasn't been seen in this country since 1776.
Russia bombed 5 hospitals in Aleppo today; I'm sure that has NOTHING to do with Putin talking to Trump yesterday. There may not be more Americans in our war zones, but there will be more civilian war deaths....not helped when Trump endorsed the war crime of bombing civilians during his campaign.
...and while I grant you that the odds of war with Russia go down with Trump, as long as we let Russia invade Ukraine and the Baltics without complaint, the odds of war with China go WAAY up, after his accusations of their being currency manipulators and threatening a trade war.
Finally, his denial of the fact of global warming is extremely reckless. It won't be the end of all life, as the far left claims, but it will be extremely expensive to "build those walls"-i.e. a moat around all our major coastal cities to keep them from being inundated over the next 50 years.
What exactly do you see as the advantages of a Trump presidency, or do you just assume that he doesn't actually mean anything he said during the campaign or debates or in his tweets or on his website?
p.s. I caucused eagerly for Sanders, and was happy to see him win my state. It shows how much you supported and believed in Sanders by your ignoring his post-primary election advice to you.

@23 said "Isn't it also important for leaders (not just the executive, as you point out, but congress and state leaders too) to be able to accomplish things though?"

This was actually a really good reason to vote against Clinton. Let's suppose she won. What's next?

The Republicans in the Senate were already talking about never confirming any of her Supreme Court nominees. The House would have continued doing what it was doing. The stasis we've been living under for the last 6 years would have continued for at least 2 more and probably 4.

How might Clinton respond? Well she might continue doing what Obama in his frustration has done: keep seizing more and more executive power to act unilaterally. Do you think that's a good thing? Or should there be limits on what the President can do on his own? Answer the question in light of President Trump.

Let's face it: the reality is that there would have been no honeymoon. Congress would have been doing its utmost to hamper her from day 1. Starting with all kinds of Congressional investigations of emails and Benghazi and who knows what. She probably would have been impeached within the first half of her term. And the status quo would have continued.

Trump has this virtue: he breaks the logjam. He puts responsibility for the country's welfare squarely in the hands of the GOP. They have to govern now. And they'll probably do a crappy job. But at least someone will be doing the job now.

Now for me, that's not enough to justify a vote for him. But it's one rationale I might potentially have bought into.

@29,
So progress is preferred even if it's in the wrong direction?

I disagree. You fight the fights that are worth fighting, even if you can't win. I would rather have Clinton in office, accomplishing nothing whatsoever, than a republican in office, starting wars, running up the national credit card, stuffing the pockets of the wealthy, and turning their backs on minorities.

No, I wouldn't want Clinton (or anyone) to give even more power to the executive branch, but she was the candidate we had, imperfect as she was.

@26
Word.

@24 "stop the culture war"

stop standing up to bigots and racists? No.