/seen online/

"Tr666p got the full 2020 experience:
he got coronavirus, he lost his job, he'll be broke soon, AND he's about to be evicted from public housing."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Sadly, this is relevant now more than ever. We urgently need a widespread de-Tr666pification effort modeled after Germany’s de-nazification program, because obviously, America has a massive nazi problem, and they’re going to kill us all with their psychopathic racism, wars, lies, chaos, insanity, grotesque stupidity, and abject incompetence:

Who Goes Nazi?

“It is preposterous to think that they are divided by any racial characteristics. Germans may be more susceptible to Nazism than most people, but I doubt it. Jews are barred out, but it is an arbitrary ruling. I know lots of Jews who are born Nazis and many others who would heil Hitler tomorrow morning if given a chance. There are Jews who have repudiated their own ancestors in order to become Honorary Aryans and Nazis; there are full-blooded Jews who have enthusiastically entered Hitler’s secret service. Nazism has nothing to do with race and nationality. It appeals to a certain type of mind.”

https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/

Trump has arguably done 20 years of damage to the U S A. Hope I am wrong about the time frame.
Time to start undong the damage.

Shout out to Feebs and David in Shoreline! Enjoy yourselves!

I don't think its correct to say that Roberts "drifts to the left". He's utterly ruthless and doctrinaire but he takes a long view and is not greedy for cheap, immediate wins.

Someone also needs to remind $hitler that this is the 2ND election he's lost, since he went down in flames by ~3 million ballots in 2016. and only the (s)Electoral College installed this abomination in the White House against us.

HAHAHAHA FUCK YOU TRUMP GTFO AND CRY MORE YOU ORANGE BITCH

@TS, "Roberts once in a while (and really only once in a while) drifts to A MOMENT OF SANITY.”

FTFY.

We HAVE to stop framing this as “left” vs “right”. It should not be a “left” political position to believe in fair democratic process, like voting.

We got the turd out of the punch bowl , but lots of clean up left before we can party

@11 - That's a great point to make.

as an old white man, allow me to thank everyone who isn't: Thank you!

(and yes, there're a few of us managed to vote sanely)

Glad Joe won. Can’t wait to call him a dickhead the first time he does something I don’t like. Seriously the president is a public employee and doesn’t need an army of fanboy nutthuggers.

The electoral collage is still a piece of shit and needs to be replaced with the popular vote.

"Ding, dong, the wicked witch is dead..."

@8: The extra-judicial execution of George Floyd, coupled with the inactivity required by the pandemic, mobilized huge numbers of liberal voters, as the voter-registration graphic in the headline post showed. The excesses committed in the name of #BLM may have done some damage, but I haven't seen numbers comparable to the increase in liberal voter turnout described in this headline post.

And the next senate is not necessarily under GOP control. Both senate seats in Georgia will have elections. Let's concentrate in getting Democrats into offices there, instead of recriminations about old news.

Since I'm feeling all warm & fuzzy this morning -
great re-cap guys... really - good job.
No caveats to anything you wrote.

Hey MAGAts: If any of you still have your old "Fuck Your Feelings" shirts - I'll give you $2 apiece for them, cash only. Asking for Democracy.

I'll post it again.

These are the numbers that need to be being talked about. Trump is a loser. He has lost in almost every significant way he could lose (despite an increase in votes, which is cancelled out by the increase in votes overall and the fact that Biden has more votes than any other presidential candidate in history).

Did America Repudiate Donald Trump?

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/11/6/1993555/-Did-America-Repudiate-Donald-Trump

Between 2016 and 2020, Trump’s percentage of votes won decreased in 37 states! Trump lost ground in 73% of American states—nearly 3/4 of them.

In 2016, Trump won 304 electoral votes. In 2020, he is likely to win only 232 electoral votes. This is a 24% drop in electoral votes won—a massive collapse for Trump in the Electoral College.

The overall percentages don’t show Trump’s state by state, swing state, Electoral College, base support, or history-making collapses. But the other measures we possess portray just how widespread was America’s repudiation of Donald Trump, coast to coast, among large demographic groups, and historically.

“Michigan University”

Did one of the writers go to State University of Ohio or State University of Michigan? I see you trolling...

@ 8,

Still waiting for someone to explain why being anti-fascism is bad.

Georgia will go for Biden, too. And if it can be done in Georgia it can be done in states like Mississippi and Alabama, too. Right now we need to do what needs to be done to get the two Georgia senators (D) elected in the run-off election in January so that this country can forge ahead without Mitch McConnell continuing to refuse to do anything other than collect his paycheck and blow the rich.

@5,

I've been thinking we should temporarily reinstate posting rights for ol' David in Shoreline (or Dumbfuckistan, as I gather the area is known colloquially.) He offered an amusing window into the RWNJ mindset and I've gotta figure he's really gonna be pushing the latest Obamagate rumors this morning.

@8:

That's bullshit - racism is and has been a predominant characteristic of your modern Republican going back at least since Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign. McConnell has been holding up Democratic judicial appointments since Obama's inauguration in 2009 - nearly eight years before Jayapal was even elected to the House, so holding her up, or recent protests, as a rationalization for him continuing to do so is a completely fallacious argument. The very simple, very obvious fact is that as a minority party the GOP's only real power lies in its ability to obstruct, thwart and suppress the will of the majority - something they have become extremely adept at doing over the course of the past half-century; and which our fucked up system of government has been specifically designed to facilitate.

@20 xina, I don’t think America repudiated Trump.

As usual, we’re still looking at this through the lens of traditional politics.

Trump has murdered 200,000 people. In 2020 (not 1920), Trump is OPENLY racist, misogynistic, sexual predator, homo/transphobic. He is against education. He is against science. He is anti-environment. He is anti-intellectual. He is objectively the dumbest person to ever be president relative to the time they lived in. He openly makes fun of the disabled, poor people, and war veterans. He committed treason on multiple occasions. He cozied up to dictators while turning on our allies. He was impeached only after 3 years of committing dozens of impeachable offenses. There will be revelation after revelation for years to come of wrongdoings as what we’ve seen is just the tip of the iceberg of how much corruption is at play here. He used the presidency for his own personal gain. He cozied up to white supremacists. He lied so frequently that fact-checkers literally couldn’t keep up. You could not believe anything that the POTUS or anyone in his administration said. He undermined the integrity of every government agency, and the military. He completely destroyed the independence and credibility of the judicial branch of government, particuarly the DOJ. He literally could not perform even the most basic responsibilities of being the President. He openly undermined our democracy and the democratic process. We became a world embarassment. He openly spoke of being president for life… what in some circles is called being a dictator. He suppressed the free press. He suppressed the vote. He supressed democracy.

Yet 48 out of 100 voters still voted for that shit stain of a human being. Due to the electoral college, the percentage of votes separating a Biden win from a Trump win is less than 1%.

What do you think is going to happen in 4 years when we’re still struggling with the ramifications of COVID, Republican obstructionism, and the damage the Trump/Republicans did (and will continue to do), and then the Republicans put up someone that is remotely competent?

I think we should give a shout-out to the (largely black) voters of the South who put Biden over the top in the primaries. There was a lot of gnashing of teeth over the lack of support for progressives or POC, but the results speak volumes that was sound judgement on their part.

Republicanism is a cult. That’s not hyperbole. We have to start addressing it as though we're dealing with a cult.

We have to stop looking at this as "political differences".

Biden keeps speaking of "unity", which means only one of two things - he doesn't really mean it, or still doesn’t get it (4 more years of capitulating to Republicans). I’m firmly in the camp of “doesn’t get it”. I watched his speech last night. As always with Democrats, they care more about what Republicans think than what Democrats think. They are in a long-term abusive relationship and they can't admit it.

I'm happy and relieved that Biden won. But forget about "progress". We’re not going to see court packing or eliminating the electoral college, or taxing the rich, or protecting civil rights, or anything like that. Not even with the remote possibility of a Democrat-controlled Congress. The next 4 years will be stopping the bleeding from the gunshot wound while the patient is slowly dying of cancer.

But I'm happy for today. I'll be quietly celebrating.

Stacy Abrams, over and over. And, with the possible runoffs of not one but both Senate seats in Georgia, we need her again.

Black women get shit done.

I want to highlight my agreement on two points in this post.

Biden would not have performed the miracle of winning GA if not for the tireless efforts of Stacey Abrams. As a control group, just look at North Carolina, which does have a Dem governor, staying with Trump.

And if not for John Roberts being the one conservative justice who's still an institutionalist and not a total partisan hack, there would have been nothing short of a judicial coup in PA.

Also, I want to respond to Bess @16: "I can only hope Biden outlives him, the economy is going great guns, particularly for fly-over country, that Hispanic refugees from collapsed socialist Latin American States don't flood the country,…"

First, just focusing on Central America. Just because Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras are lawless quasi-failed states doesn't mean they're socialist states.

Second, you would think by now that, with all the Hispanic Americans that voted Republican this year and George W. Bush's past success with Hispanic voters, grumpy white conservatives like Bess here would be more receptive to Hispanic immigrants who are at least legal. These immigrants are totally up for grabs as future Republican voters. And let me put words in Bess's mouth and actually relocate those refugees in "flyover country." Hispanic immigrants are proving to be the most viable engine I can think of for pumping some growth and economic dynamism into the parts of rural and small-town America (i.e. the reddest of red America) that are struggling. It's like folks like Bess would rather hang on to their superficial racism than advance their conservative vision.

Oh, and fabulous comment by Pretty in Pink @27.

@ 27/30,

Everything you wrote is absolutely true and written far more eloquently than I could have.

There is hope:

1) As a result of the virus crisis, economic crash, and Republinazi psychosis, traditional methods of bipartisanship are doomed to fail and will force "centrist" Dems to adopt progressive positions or watch the country implode;

2) Due to changing diverse demographics, it may be simply impossible for Republinazis to win the presidency ever again as more hate-KKKrazed far-white Baby Boomers head for their final Klan rally in hell. We've won 7 out of the last 8 presidential elections.

@24 Mike, I know everyone spends time in these comment sections for different reasons. You like to engage with trolls. That's fine, that's your choice of entertainment, not my place to judge. But really, there are other placed to do that. Have you ever checked out the Fox News website? They have comment sections for almost all their "articles", and you can argue with RWNJ trolls all you want there. You'll get plenty of "entertaining" "insights" into their mindset.

Maybe that doesn't do it for you, because you like to see the overwhelming response of putdowns (well deserved) directed toward them.

Personally, I already know plenty about their mindset, and I don't think it contributes anything here. I think it just gets in the way of addressing our own centrist to leftist spectrum of mindsets. And if you haven't figured out a RWNJ's mindset yet after all these years of engaging with them, I'm not sure you ever will? That's not directed at you - again, I understand that you're really talking about "entertainment" and not "understanding".

Frankly, it gets really boring for me. I would so much rather see discussions amongst commenters who actually agree with the general gist of what The Stranger has to offer. But I know, that's too "boring" for most, and not the reason they are here. There's always a noticeably drop in comments when the trolls are booted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFb_sm4mPGU&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0lOSD55XEFr9XGQMksxMji_p3i23H4l5q4qwOyxO2GBnklcB2k-qULmi0

Woke vs. anti-woke is just a tad idiotically reductivist. Are you sure that the majority of Black and Latino voters who helped deliver this win for Biden are for the incessant fringe-left contest to stake out ever more rarefied moral high-ground to screech from? Are you sure they are for the smash capitalism twits who have largely hijacked protests against police brutality in Seattle and Portland? Understanding the thuddingly obvious reality that the excesses of the righteous left are (shall we say) counter-productive does not make one 'anti-woke'.

No sooner did I hop on this thread to praise Pretty in Pink's comment @27, but now I have to hop back on just to declare Pretty in Pink's comment @35 the Slog Comment of the Year. (OK, I know there's more year left, but I'm not expecting to revoke this award.)

While the Confederate Army has been defeated in detail, there is still going to be a lot of mopping up after their surrender.

Kamala: "We did it Joe"

https://twitter.com/i/status/1325128075672088576

@28 I'd say there is an argument to be made that black voters in South Carolina almost single-handedly resurrected Biden's campaign. I hope that he is well aware of that.

@33: McConnell may still be minority leader next year. Two senate races in Georgia will decide that. Please get working on making that happen, and stop rehashing old claims which lack evidence.

Republicans are not only horrible people, they've babies and sore losers.

@34 OA, thanks for the kind words, and I know you could have articulated that quite well yourself. I always look forward to your comments.

1) I of course hope you’re right. I know what you’re saying would be the logical approach. That’s how WE would think. However, do you see any political trends amongst Dem leadership that give you hope there?

2) You could be right here. Over time, demographics will change the political spectrum as it always has. Just like the 1700’s were an improvement over the middle ages, just like the 1900’s were an improvement over the 1700’s, and just like the 2000’s will be an improvement over past centuries. I have no doubt that a hundred years from now, things will be “better” than they are now. The issue is that I’m living NOW.

We have to keep in mind that there is a reason that the vote is always 50-50 within a few percentage points. It’s “self-correcting” - the “center” is not a static position.

If the “center” meant what it meant 40 years ago, Biden would have won in a true landslide, like Regan did over Carter. Reagan picked up 489 electoral votes and beat Carter by 10% in the popular vote - all because Carter couldn’t fix the economy fast enough after an 8-year Republican shit-show, and Iran held 50 Americans hostage. A Republican voter from 1980 would be dumbfounded by Trump and modern day Republicans.

But those same voters were slowly indoctrinated into the cult, and they indoctrinated their children into the cult as well, most of which have failed to escape. They will be a new generation of Republicans who will carry on the tradition, and future Dems will wait for their demise, just like we wait for this generation of older Republican’s demise now (I’ve been hearing about this for 30 years). With Trump out of office, Republicans will re-adjust that “center”. But they’re not going to adjust their policy - they’re going to adjust their messaging.

The idea that demographics is going to change the country to blue over the next 50 years is unfortunately not going to happen. Republicans will change and Dems will change, but the basic equation will not.

I hope I’m wrong.

@33 So you're saying that voters in Alabama, Iowa and South Carolina would have split their ticket and voted D for Senate had it not been for the riots? Pull the other one. If you're going to derp like that, use Maine and maybe North Carolina where at least its plausible. In Maine they wouldn't even be splitting the ticket!

Democrats have immense structural obstacles to overcome in every election. They will have received tens of millions more votes for both House and Senate but the results of that are there for all to see. Because the Founders, in their Wisdom, found principles more important to than than One Person, One Vote. Alas.

The fact that a divided government can occur at all is a travesty. After winning election, a party should be able to act and then face the consequences of the outcome at the next election.

@35,

Hmmm. Yeah, I can't deny there's an element of schadenfreude-ish entertainment in witnessing the dumpster fires that erupt whenever they (trolls) get something started. And I'm sure there's a strong case to be made that it's not particularly constructive and may even serve the opposite means or be personally unhealthy. On the other hand, it can sometimes feel like an echo chamber here, which is why I'm at least tolerant of them, provided they're actually willing to engage in something resembling good faith debate (an unwillingness to engage in any sort of dialogue, agreeable or otherwise, is why I couldn't stand that mcbikeface ass and was quite happy when he, and all of his future iterations were banned.)

I'm headed out for the afternoon to get some outdoors time in with the dog and will probably chew on it there for a while to see if anything else comes to light.

Congrats all, adios shitler!!!

Senate ratifies, Jan. 6. Inauguration, Jan. 20. I cannot yet breathe.

@46 mike, I can't deny a bit of schadenfreude-ish entertainment myself. I think a "collection" of the Prof's (and others) putdowns would be an entertaining read. You have to get pretty creative to keep coming up with different ways to putdown someone who's already called a dumbfuck on a daily basis.

I'll also admit that I'm fascinated by the intersection of this online world and the real world. Like, what kind of person continues to participate in a community where they’re called a dumbfuck on a daily basis? What kind of a person brushes that sort of criticism off and just keeps posting comments anyway? What kind of person spends so much time in a comment section where they inherently disagree with everything the publication stands for. Like, that’s so weird to me. I check out Fox News occasionally for research purposes, but it would never occur to me to post a comment there, let alone, every day.

I should get on with my day too. Best.

@47- kill the leader, kill the cult. You dont hear much about the Peoples’ Temple anymore.

Wasn’t the issue in the Florida case whether or not they could count votes RECEIVED after Election Day, rather than whether they had to stop counting ALL the votes after Election Day?

since we're handing out accolades on this most joyous of days,
saw this comment on another blog, want to give credit-

I'm gummy45 minutes ago
Good point made on that thread.

You want to know how much the Navajo Nation dislikes trump?

of the 85,000 registered voters on Navajo 76,000 voted. 89% turn out
Of those 76,000 voters 74,000 voted for Biden & 2,000 for Trump
Biden’s current lead in Arizona sits at about 40,000

Ya’ah’teeh MFs

Possibly they were getting paid to do it. Would not be the first time.

I'm happy all over for Joe, Kamala, and all of us. Yes, talk of "unity" is cliched, but I far prefer that kind of cliche to the disgusting stream of dichotomizing epithets and stereotypes manufactured by Trump and his army of enablers. We all know court battles will be nasty; intra-party struggles will be intense; Biden will be under heavy pressure from all sides to reward particular groups and individuals for his victory; and right-wing media propagandists will flood the airwaves with hearsay and misinformation. All of that's a given, and Biden knows this a million times over. But Joe and Kamala: you ran a smart, tough campaign that asserted a credible, winnable balance between progressive reform and centrist reassurance. Many will complain--witness Trump's grumpy denialism--but this evening I'm celebrating!!!!! And joy to everyone of you who helped make this a reality!

Oh, @55: you just keep on being your racist, conspiracy-theory spewing RWNJ self!

https://thefreethoughtproject.com/american-police-state-voting/?utm_source=getresponse&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=rssfeednewsletter&utm_content=The+Free+Thought+Project+Newsletter

"No Matter How the Ballots are Counted, the American Police State Will Continue

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”—George Orwell

(TRI) — The American people remain eager to be persuaded that a new president in the White House can solve the problems that plague us.

Yet no matter who wins this presidential election, you can rest assured that the new boss will be the same as the old boss, and we—the permanent underclass in America—will continue to be forced to march in lockstep with the police state in all matters, public and private.

Indeed, it really doesn’t matter what you call them—the Deep State, the 1%, the elite, the controllers, the masterminds, the shadow government, the police state, the surveillance state, the military industrial complex—so long as you understand that no matter which party occupies the White House in 2021, the unelected bureaucracy that actually calls the shots will continue to do so.

In the interest of liberty and truth, here are a few hard truths about life in the American police state that will persist no matter who wins the 2020 presidential election. Indeed, these issues persisted—and in many cases flourished—under both Republican and Democratic administrations in recent years.

Police militarization will continue. Thanks to federal grant programs allowing the Pentagon to transfer surplus military supplies and weapons to local law enforcement agencies without charge, police forces will continue to be transformed from peace officers to heavily armed extensions of the military, complete with jackboots, helmets, shields, batons, pepper-spray, stun guns, assault rifles, body armor, miniature tanks and weaponized drones. “Today, 17,000 local police forces are equipped with such military equipment as Blackhawk helicopters, machine guns, grenade launchers, battering rams, explosives, chemical sprays, body armor, night vision, rappelling gear and armored vehicles,” stated Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. “Some have tanks.”

Overcriminalization will continue. In the face of a government bureaucracy consumed with churning out laws, statutes, codes and regulations that reinforce its powers and value systems and those of the police state and its corporate allies, we will all continue to be viewed as petty criminals, guilty of violating some minor law. Thanks to an overabundance of 4,500-plus federal crimes and 400,000-plus rules and regulations, it is estimated that the average American actually commits three felonies a day without knowing it. In fact, according to law professor John Baker, “There is no one in the United States over the age of 18 who cannot be indicted for some federal crime.” Consequently, we now find ourselves operating in a strange new world where small farmers who dare to make unpasteurized goat cheese and share it with members of their community are finding their farms raided, while home gardeners face jail time for daring to cultivate their own varieties of orchids without having completed sufficient paperwork. This frightening state of affairs—where a person can actually be arrested and incarcerated for the most innocent and inane activities, including feeding a whale and collecting rainwater on their own property—is due to what law scholars refer to as overcriminalization.

Jailing Americans for profit will continue. At one time, the American penal system operated under the idea that dangerous criminals needed to be put under lock and key in order to protect society. Today, as states attempt to save money by outsourcing prisons to private corporations, imprisoning Americans in private prisons run by mega-corporations has turned into a cash cow for big business. In exchange for corporations buying and managing public prisons across the country at a supposed savings to the states, the states have to agree to maintain a 90% occupancy rate in the privately run prisons for at least 20 years. Such a scheme simply encourages incarceration for the sake of profits, while causing millions of Americans, most of them minor, nonviolent criminals, to be handed over to corporations for lengthy prison sentences which do nothing to protect society or prevent recidivism. Thus, although the number of violent crimes in the country is down substantially, the number of Americans being jailed for nonviolent crimes such as driving with a suspended license is skyrocketing.

Poverty will continue. Despite the fact that we have 46 million Americans living at or below the poverty line, 16 million children living in households without adequate access to food, and at least 900,000 veterans relying on food stamps (mind you, these are pre-COVID numbers, which have only got worse during this pandemic), enormous sums continue to be doled out for presidential excursions (taxpayers have been forced to pay at least $100 million so that Donald Trump could visit his golf clubs and private properties more than 500 times during his four years in office).

Endless wars that enrich the military industrial complex will continue. Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $15 billion a month (or $20 million an hour)—and that’s just what the government spends on foreign wars. That does not include the cost of maintaining and staffing the 1000-plus U.S. military bases spread around the globe. Incredibly, although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world’s population, America boasts almost 50% of the world’s total military expenditure, spending more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined. In fact, the Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. Yet what most Americans fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with enriching the military industrial complex at taxpayer expense. Consider that since 2001, Americans have spent $10.5 million every hour for numerous foreign military occupations, including in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Police shootings of unarmed Americans will continue. No matter what our party politics, race, religion, or any other distinction used to divide us, we all suffer when violence becomes the government’s calling card. Remember, in a police state, you’re either the one with your hand on the trigger or you’re staring down the barrel of a loaded gun. At least 400 to 500 innocent people are killed by police officers every year. Indeed, Americans are now eight times more likely to die in a police confrontation than they are to be killed by a terrorist. Americans are 110 times more likely to die of foodborne illness than in a terrorist attack. Police officers are more likely to be struck by lightning than be made financially liable for their wrongdoing. As a result, Americans are largely powerless in the face of militarized police.

SWAT team raids will continue. More than 80,000 SWAT team raids are carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans for relatively routine police matters. Nationwide, SWAT teams have been employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of criminal activity or mere community nuisances including angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession, to give a brief sampling. On an average day in America, over 100 Americans have their homes raided by SWAT teams. There has been a notable buildup in recent years of SWAT teams within non-security-related federal agencies such as the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Education Department.

The government’s war on the American people will continue. “We the people” are no longer shielded by the rule of law. While the First Amendment—which gives us a voice—is being muzzled, the Fourth Amendment—which protects us from being bullied, badgered, beaten, broken and spied on by government agents—is being disemboweled. Consequently, you no longer have to be poor, black or guilty to be treated like a criminal in America. All that is required is that you belong to the suspect class—that is, the citizenry—of the American police state. As a de facto member of this so-called criminal class, every U.S. citizen is now guilty until proven innocent. The oppression and injustice—be it in the form of shootings, surveillance, fines, asset forfeiture, prison terms, roadside searches, and so on—will come to all of us eventually unless we do something to stop it now.

Government corruption will continue. The government is not our friend. Nor does it work for “we the people.” Americans instinctively understand this. When asked to name the greatest problem facing the nation, Americans of all political stripes ranked the government as the number one concern. In fact, almost eight out of ten Americans believe that government corruption is widespread. Our so-called government representatives do not actually represent us, the citizenry. We are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests whose main interest is in perpetuating power and control. Congress is dominated by a majority of millionaires who are, on average, fourteen times wealthier than the average American.

The rise of the surveillance state will continue. Government eyes are watching you. They see your every move: what you read, how much you spend, where you go, with whom you interact, when you wake up in the morning, what you’re watching on television and reading on the internet. Every move you make is being monitored, mined for data, crunched, and tabulated in order to form a picture of who you are, what makes you tick, and how best to control you when and if it becomes necessary to bring you in line. Police have been outfitted with a litany of surveillance gear, from license plate readers and cell phone tracking devices to biometric data recorders. Technology now makes it possible for the police to scan passersby in order to detect the contents of their pockets, purses, briefcases, etc. Full-body scanners, which perform virtual strip-searches of Americans traveling by plane, have gone mobile, with roving police vans that peer into vehicles and buildings alike—including homes. Coupled with the nation’s growing network of real-time surveillance cameras and facial recognition software, soon there really will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

The erection of a suspect society will continue. Due in large part to rapid advances in technology and a heightened surveillance culture, the burden of proof has been shifted so that the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty has been usurped by a new norm in which all citizens are suspects. This is exemplified by police practices of stopping and frisking people who are merely walking down the street and where there is no evidence of wrongdoing. Making matters worse are Terrorism Liaison Officers (firefighters, police officers, and even corporate employees) who have been trained to spy on their fellow citizens and report “suspicious activity,” which includes taking pictures with no apparent aesthetic value, making measurements and drawings, taking notes, conversing in code, espousing radical beliefs and buying items in bulk. TLOs report back to “fusion centers,” which are a driving force behind the government’s quest to collect, analyze, and disseminate information on American citizens.

Government tyranny under the reign of an Imperial President will continue. The Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers: to serve as Commander in Chief of the military, grant pardons, make treaties (with the approval of Congress), appoint ambassadors and federal judges (again with Congress’ blessing), and veto legislation. In recent years, however, American presidents have anointed themselves with the power to wage war, unilaterally kill Americans, torture prisoners, strip citizens of their rights, arrest and detain citizens indefinitely, carry out warrantless spying on Americans, and erect their own secretive, shadow government. The powers amassed by each past president and inherited by each successive president—powers which add up to a toolbox of terror for an imperial ruler—empower whomever occupies the Oval Office to act as a dictator, above the law and beyond any real accountability. The grim reality we must come to terms with is the fact that the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned. More than terrorism, more than domestic extremism, more than gun violence and organized crime, the U.S. government has become a greater menace to the life, liberty and property of its citizens than any of the so-called dangers from which the government claims to protect us. This state of affairs has become the status quo, no matter which party is in power.

The government’s manipulation of national crises in order to expand its powers will continue. “We the people” have been the subjected to an “emergency state” that justifies all manner of government tyranny and power grabs in the so-called name of national security. Whatever the so-called threat to the nation—whether it’s civil unrest, school shootings, alleged acts of terrorism, or the threat of a global pandemic in the case of COVID-19—the government has a tendency to capitalize on the nation’s heightened emotions, confusion and fear as a means of extending the reach of the police state. Indeed, the government’s answer to every problem continues to be more government—at taxpayer expense—and less individual liberty.

The bottom line is this: nothing taking place on Election Day will alleviate the suffering of the American people. Unless we do something more than vote, the government as we have come to know it—corrupt, bloated and controlled by big-money corporations, lobbyists and special interest groups—will remain unchanged. And “we the people”—overtaxed, overpoliced, overburdened by big government, underrepresented by those who should speak for us and blissfully ignorant of the prison walls closing in on us—will continue to trudge along a path of misery.

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, these problems will continue to plague our nation unless and until Americans wake up to the fact that we’re the only ones who can change things for the better and then do something about it. If there is to be any hope of restoring our freedoms and reclaiming control over our government, it will rest not with the politicians but with the people themselves.

After all, Indeed, the Constitution opens with those three vital words, “We the people.”

What the founders wanted us to understand is that we are the government.

There is no government without us—our sheer numbers, our muscle, our economy, our physical presence in this land. There can also be no police state—no tyranny—no routine violations of our rights without our complicity and collusion—without our turning a blind eye, shrugging our shoulders, allowing ourselves to be distracted and our civic awareness diluted.

No matter which candidate wins this election, the citizenry and those who represent us need to be held accountable to this powerful truth."

@27 / @30 Pretty in Pink: Agreed and seconded with Original Andrew @34.

@34 Original Andrew: Yes, there indeed is hope. Thank heavens for that.

@28 kallipugos: For the WIN!

In addition to Biden / Harris and everyone who made the much more welcome outcome of the 2020 Presidential Election possible, a shoutout to Stacey Abrams, and increase in African-Amaerican, Latino, and Asian voters in rural, suburban, and battleground states as well as Democratic leaning regions. Well done to all!
This is what democracy looks like.

Is that the triumphant rubbing together of a meat fork and carving knife I hear? Look out, Trumpty Dumpty, the New York State Police are coming fer ya. They've got a nice, big nuclear orange jumpsuit ready, size double wide Goodyear Blimp to match your diapers. Have fun being dragged out, kicking and screaming like Ethel Merman, lil pool boy.
Meanwhile, the White Trash House will have to be razed and a new presidential mansion built on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue before Biden / Harris can take office on January 20, 2021.

@60: And a big thank you, too, to all young voters who registered to vote this election, making your voices heard, as well.

Congrats to the fucking Voters
who brought this National
Nightmare to a
screeching
fawking
Halt.

Time to Heal
America.

Alrightty, Smokin' Joe
let's get the Panfuckingdemic
whittled down and since why not, let's get
the Age of Social Security down to Newborn
(or earlier). And let's Invest like Motherfuckers
in the Infrastructure that'll Sustain this Planet for
Human Beings and other living Cfreatures. Well Done.

@59: Yawn. Never has so much copypasta yielded so little nutritional value.

Meanwhile, back out here in reality, de-criminalization of drugs continues. Give the police less to do, and we'll see fewer problems with our police.

@62 -- let's get the Age of Medicare* down to -.85

*not (necessarily) Social Security

Wee, wee, wee. and this little Republican party cried all the way home

@57,

So what? I don't even know who Washington's LG is, but the possibility of that person taking over the office is always a known possibility and surely Inslee is intelligent enough to have run with someone capable of handling the job owing to that possibility.

What a great pair of speeches! Biden and Harris are going to be a great team for America!

What all of the Trump cultists need to come to terms with is THERE ARE A LOT OF REPUBLICANS WHO DID NOT VOTE FOR TRUMP!!!

DO YOU THINK ALL OF THE RED STATES THAT FLIPPED WENT BLUE WITHOUT REPUBLICANS VOTING FOR BIDEN?!

May the Blue Wave Wash Clean.

@62 kristofarian: Amen!

@65: Yeah. I, too, have noticed that the usual bullshit pigpen of ranting MAGA trolls has suddenly fallen silent. Nice, isn't it?

btw, as long as we are still handing out plaudits here I would like to give a shout-out to the teen-age TikTok users and K-pop folks who helped sabotage that inaugural Trump Oklahoma rally.
That was clever and perfect timing, as a lot of us were concerned about the potential for Trump's neo-klan rallies to gain momentum again.
After that event we realized those rallies would not be a significant factor.

@69 xina: Yes. There are Republicans who voted for Biden / Harris. They call themselves RINOs (Republican in Name Only) or Never Trumpers. Der Gropenfuhrer proved to be a gross national embarrassment even for them. We need a vaccine for remaining Trump cultists so that they don't inbreed any further.

Oh and there's this:

Trump Team Holds News Conference Outside Drab Landscaping Firm, Next to Adult Book Store

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/four-seasons-total-landscaping-trump-team-news-conference.html

@71 kallipugos: Thank you for bringing that up. Agreed and seconded.Another big YAAAAY to Tik-tok and K-pop folks!

So I know next to nothing about Harris, but know that progressives aren't huge fans. The only major blemish I'm aware of is the prosecutorial record for low level drug offenses. Which is admittedly pretty ugly, but probably not insurmountable. Is there more? What little I do know about her otherwise seems generally decent and her speeches have been pretty great.

(and yeah, it's maybe premature to begin contemplating 2024, but I've gotta figure it's in the back of her mind, and I feel like JB will do the right thing and step aside regardless of how the next four years play.)

Jesus, everyone should really check out xina's link @73. It really seems completely credible that the campaign thought they were booking their presser at the Four Seasons hotel in downtown Philly and were too goddamn stupid to realize they weren't. Holy shit.

Covfefe now, covfefe forever!

@67, it's Denny Heck, and the Lieutenant Governor doesn't run in tandem with the Guv like the President/Vice President do - it's a separate race. Fortunately, if it comes to taking over as Guv, he knows the work. He was Booth Gardner's chief of staff, among other things.

People are acting like this was a great victory...it is EMBARASSING. Biden BARELY beat Trump. Trump....who is a complete liar and con-man...it should have been a LANDSLIDE victory...yet it is SO CLOSE Trump may STILL have a chance after his legal wrangling's. The 'Blue Wave' never materialized and the Republicans now have an even stronger senate. I have been a Liberal all my life....However the nonsense in Seattle in the last few months have really tested me. Dems need to STOP with the identity politics, STOP with this DEFUND nonsense...and STOP calling everyone who disagrees with them 'White Supremacists' AND STOP searching for almost non-existent 'racism' high and low...The average American wants NOTHING to do with these policies and does not agree with them....I hope the Dems and left propaganda rags like this wake up...before the next 'Trump' is elected because you didn't change your ways. Andrew Yang nailed it perfectly.... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8922985/Andrew-Yang-leads-Democrats-tearing-party-turning-urban-coastal-elite.html

@73 xina: OMG!!

Sang Joni Mitchell in Big Yellow Taxi:

Don't it always seem to go
You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot!

@59: Well how intuitive of you to notice that my intentionally cut and pasted article was a cut and paste. Did the quotation marks clue you in? Wow, nothing gets past you sharpie.

The war on drugs is ending with hundreds of thousands of victims still serving long prison sentences for victimless crimes, but the police war on the homeless and sex workers has replaced it for mass incarceration and justification for the surveillance state.

The police don't care which marginalized group they exploit as long as they have some underprivileged group to terrorize and lock in cages. The homeless and sex workers are their current target of choice until they lose their federal funding and move on to handing out beer felonies under the future war on "alcohol trafficking."

You're right that police violence abuse be less noticed in Seattle going forward. Many who hated the unaccountable police under Trump will love them under Biden, just as many Republicans will how love libertarians again until they regain power.

I'm looking forward to watching you flip on every "value" you claimed to hold over the last 4 years. Chimpanzees are always looking for a leader to give them an opinion and tell them what they think.

speaking of:
AOC MMXXIV!

let's take Healthcare outta the hands of the profiteers
and build us an infratructure our kids can be Proud of.

@77,

Gah, thanks. I just briefly looked into it and apparently some states elect their Gubernatorial tickets jointly, others independently. Weird. Good to know my point stands, even if just coincidentally.

Ooo, look, the concern trolls are dropping in scold us to tone it down.
Okay guys, thanks for your input, nice to see ya, concern duly noted.

Now-
back to the PARTY!!!!!!!

@73 -- had the trumpfster gotten a second term (and the tubby lady hasn't Sung, quite yet), he'd been J. Stalin, Jr, and had the person responsible (they went ahead with it anyway? wtff?)? executed right there, live, so to speak, on camera -- a valuable lesson on what incompetence'll get ya: when the Boss looks Bad the Boss get Mad.

oh and if you haven't seen the Death of Stalin on netflix you prolly should. it's the trumpf crime fambly reality teevee show. brought to you by Corruption, LLC. it's horrifying.

Wow, this is a really substantive, thoughtful thread. I just want to hop back on here to give a huge +1 to foto @78.

We now have a South Asian American woman as our VP-elect. But I can guarantee you there are two other ambitious South Asian American women who are going to do everything in their power to win the White House back for the GOP in 2024. One is Nikki Haley. The other is the woman Fox News should make the face of the Democratic Party (even though she isn't a Democrat), Kshama Sawant.

Checking out that Andrew Yang column...

@78 & @82: After four years of Trumpty Dumpty's criminal acts of corruption, lies, propaganda, and gross incompetence I'm just glad that Biden / Harris WON. This is largely because of grassroots organizations and many people who this time paid attention, listened, and voted in 2020 (even "meh" sayers cast ballots this time and voted early).
A lot of registered eligible voters were misled by the polls in 2016 into believing that Hillary would win by a landslide, and that no way would a xenophobic narcissistic incompetent TeeVee con man with no prior experience in office possibly win a general election. Clinton won by nearly 3 million popular votes---only to get screwed by many factors: Russian hackers, Trump's fixers, lawyers, and lobbyists; the Koch brothers, the outcome of the electoral system, gerrymandering, voter suppression, and that many voters in this country are still too chickenshit to ever elect a woman President of the United States.

@80: OH the irony of the Trump team botching their 2020 campaign and ending up in a parking lot!

@83 kristofarian: That sounds good to me.

Party on!

@85 kallipugos: Indeed. Back to the PARTY!!! Clink!

And Alicia Rule beat out the incumbent Republican dingbat, LuAnne ven Wuerven. It's nice to finally see some wise voting in the 42nd District. Cheers!

If Covid-19 or police killings didn't happen, Trump probably would have won. Scary to think about.

Funny how when Trump won by far less (the skin of his teeth) MAGAts called it a mandate and Biden wins HUGE numbers and significantly changed the EC map by flipping states blue that people here would like us to believe it's embarrassing.

It's not embarrassing for Biden or anyone who voted for him and Harris. It is embarrassing for Trump. He and his administration and the GOP did EVERYTHING THEY COULD POSSIBLY DO TO STEAL THE ELECTION. They LIED REPEATEDLY AND DID SO MUCH DAMAGE TO THE USPS AND THE INTEGRITY OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION and everything they did, everything they did PUBLICLY AND WITH PRIDE, and THEY STILL FAILED TO STEAL THE ELECTION.

Trump, despite every action taking to ensure he sailed into re-election, FAILED.

THAT IS THE STORY. The world watching Trump lie on TV about the election being stolen because votes were being counted WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS THE LOWEST POINT IN AMERICAN HISTORY EVER.

Now none of us knows what is going to happen, but Trump and his humiliation, that will drag out over months and hopefully end with him in prison (or dead as there is a real possibility he will die, either of a massive stroke or complications from COVID) is the EMBARRASSMENT here. Trump was white supremacist terrorism's repudiation of the presidency of Barack Obama (who served TWO TERMS, winning the popular vote TWICE). Biden/Harris being elected is repudiation of Trump and his base and white supremacist terrorism. Trump lost the popular vote twice. He's one and done. When all is said and done he will have murdered more of his own supporters than anyone else (though let's not kid ourselves the body count of everyone else is far too high to be considered acceptable). This is war. And with this election the side on the correct side of history and humanity won.

Trump, if he were anywhere near normal, would be so mortified by his loss he would commit himself to pulling a Hitler in the White House bunker. Instead he will scream and cry and whine and sue and lie and flail. What he won't be doing is living in the White House or playing president anymore.

Of course there's a corporate Democrat backlash against progressives. Now that they have the presidency, they'll be expected to deliver, yet the problem is that they're still paid off by the same people.

Look, I donated $$$$ munnie til it hurts--Act Blue actually froze my account for a day because I slammed the donate button so many times. I voted for Diamond Joe and Auntie Kamala, I pleaded with everyone I could think of to vote, and I'm thrilled that they won!!!

Buuuuuuuuuut...

That doesn't change the fact that we're still a kleptocracy and the degenerate billionaire oligarchs are stealing everything they can get their greedy, sleazy hands on. "In China you're forced to swallow one bitter pill, in America you get two placebos," as the saying goes. Of course the geriatric corporate Democratic leadership is still corrupt and incompetent--Duuuuuhhhhh!

In a healthy democracy our size, we'd have five or six major political parties. We are not a healthy democracy; we're a near-collapse fraud on the same level as Belarus, Russia, or Turkey, that's choking to death on its own propaganda.

Praise the Flying Spaghetti Monster that we have these fearless, amazing women leading us: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pramila Jayapal, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Elizabeth Warren. They're our guiding lights to the future.

@81: "@59: Well how intuitive of you to notice that my intentionally cut and pasted article was a cut and paste."

That actually wasn't my point. Read harder: "Never has so much copypasta yielded so little nutritional value."

Then I riposted directly against one of your "police state" points: we, the people, are decriminalizing drug use.

Better luck next time!

@78 Well, a few things: 5 million votes is not close, take it up with the founders and the brilliant idea of the electoral college AND let's not forget this is a nation filled with absolutely astonishing idiots, 40+ percent of whom apparently believe the earth is 6000 years old.

@81 Yeah dude 'both sides' 'no difference'. There are probably roughly 1 trillion differences. The Lord Jesus Christ is not descending on this world infusing everything with ectoplasmic purity and light, this is true. Also true that you have your head so far up your ass that liquified cerebral material is squirting out of your nostrils.

Find those kids their parents Mr. Biden.

Seriously, MAGAs. It's. OVER. Begone before you draw your beloved Twitler's Right Hand Motherrapist, Dencey Pencey's (GASP!!!) flies.

Oh. And Biden / Harris won the electorate by....290 votes (270 required to win)!
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAH!!

Well, we were having a nice celebratory thread until the angrys.

@102 "Both ex-military afaik, so booze and anger are not out of the ordinary for that demographic unfortunately."

What an unfortunate generalization. I seldom drink and one of the few things I'm unhappy with is the transformation of a robust and thriving Capitol Hill into a murder hole, and the balance of Seattle into a festering filthy campground.

@33:

It didn't take ant-racist protests in 2020 to push those good ole' boys and gals, whose ancestors resided south of the Mason Dixon line, to suddenly become disgusted with the Democratic party; that happened in 1965 when a certain southern Democratic president signed the Voting Rights Act into law, ensuring that Black citizens, many of whose own ancestors were once your ancestors' property, had the same rights to elect their leaders as they did.

But it's funny how you RWNJ's keep trying to convince everyone your racist fear, hatred and paranoia is a recent development caused by the Left and not one you-all have been harboring for more than 400 years on this continent...

@100:

Have you watched that movie all the way to the end?

Well I guess if Joe won the election legally then that's gods will. I guess its also gods will if he let the democrats cheat to win so I accept gods will.

@ 106,

Well, for a festering, filthy, murder hole in a leftist, anti-fascist, anarchist jurisdiction, it sure is incredible that so many people want to live here that you can't buy a middle class home for less than a million fucking dollars.

Must be all of our soshalizms.

@110 My hairdresser is near 10th and Pike, the scene of last night's murder. Every storefront is boarded up against protest violence and looting. The police station on the next block looks like something from the Iraq war. The park is full of the poor and dispossessed. Tweakers and heroin addicts roam the streets at will and businesses close almost every day.

It's no way to go through life, even if you have a million dollars, which doesn't go near as far as it used to. Anarchy seems a fine thing until you're robbed at gunpoint.

Rarely has the difference between framing something as "X loses" or "Y wins" made such a difference.

@113 If you seek a placid agrarian existence, Idaho beckons.

@ 111,

So... you blame the poor for their poverty, blame people of color for protesting against their relentless harrassment and brutal victimization by the police, blame addicts for the despair that causes them to become addicted. Nice.

A friendly word of advice: Move. I speak from experience. I grew up poor and gay with a divorced mom in the South in the 80s and 90s, worked my way through college, overcame the homophobic hatred of both Democrats and Republinazis of that era, managed to save up a few grand, then moved to Seattle 20 years ago. Geographically, this is the same distance as moving from Ankara to London and might as well be a different country. I'm so thankful every single day that I did, and I was lucky that I was able to do so when so many others can't.

I've traveled back to the South many times to visit family over the years, and the town that I grew up in has become an unrecognizable Depression-esque hell hole after decades of Republinazi rule. They're clinging to their guns, and their cruel god, and their racism, and that's all they've got left. The oligarchs have moved what little industry that was there on to Mexico, China, and Vietnam in the relentless quest to maximize profits and crush workers' wages.

I've since traveled to Canada, Europe, and Asia, and Seattle is one of the best places in the world to live, period. Every place has its own seemingly intractable problems. If Seattle, isn't working for you, then find a place that does. Bellevue, perhaps? There's no reason to tie yourself to a place that makes you miserable, and you'll be happier for it.

@114 Already moved out two years ago, but at times I have business in the city and it's sad to see it deteriorate through a lack of leadership and fortitude on the part of its elected officials.

@ 117,

Then let Seattle's people solve Seattle's problems. It's no longer any of your business or concern.

I certainly don't give a fuck that the people in the Southern town I grew up in are ratfucking themselves to death. Go ahead.

@118 But it is my business as I still do business there and as a resident of Washington State my tax dollars subsidize its repeated failures. The blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the feckless and inept Mayor and City Council.

Amidst all of this partisan mud-slinging, there is one thing that all true Americans can unite around

Alex Trebek 1940 - 1980, RIP

And he wasn't even American. Canadian. Thank you Canada.

oops, how did that happen? 1940 - 2020 of course. 80 years old, thats what I meant.

@ 119,

You're wrong, and that's a lie. Seattle/Western Washington subsidizes the rest of the state. Try the googles and stop embarrassing yourself with foolish, easily refutable nonsense.