Now you’re describing the racial stalemate that we’ve been in for the Obama years. And so this presumption of unimpeachable white innocence on every question of race is a feature of the Trump voter’s paradigm. The struggle I’m having is to be in two conversations at the same time. Because I am a progressive racial-justice advocate. I understand our paradigm really well, and I wish more people would adopt it. But I also have to live in a country where there are tens of millions of people who are living in a completely different paradigm. I want the 24-year-old Latina, Sanders-supporting, racial-justice activist to understand that there aren’t 30 million or 50 million white Trump voters who hate her. And I want for that 54-year-old white heterosexual red-state voter to understand that because they voted for someone who said such outrageous things, there are now millions of people of color who think that he hates them.
Philippines' Duterte says may follow Russia's withdrawal from 'useless' ICC →
Courts (and social institutions in general) do best when everyone's willing to participate.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said on Thursday he might follow Russia and withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in response to Western criticism of a rash of killings unleashed by his war on drugs.
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"They are useless, those in the international criminal (court). They (Russia) withdrew. I might follow. Why? Only the small ones like us are battered," Duterte said before his departure for Lima to attend an Asia-Pacific summit.
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The court is already reeling from withdrawals by some of the African states that make up a third of its membership, many of whom complain it has unfairly singled out Africans for prosecution.
Watching 81% of My White Brothers and Sisters Vote For Trump Has Broken Something in Me →
(Minor quibble: the 81% statistic is based on exit polls (so only those who voted, and who were willing to say they were "evangelical"), which tend to be fairly inaccurate. The points about morality, hypocrisy, and the division they cause, still stand.)
Too often we have demanded that men and women of color teach us both about their own history and about white racism. We have long insisted that unwilling faculty members or church members be teachers when we are too lazy to do the historical and theological work of understanding how racism functions in Christendom. We have cried for more conversation in order to facilitate our understandings of each other, even while always demanding that people of color disproportionately carry the load. But I chose this work.
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I lament that, for white evangelicals, my brothers and sisters in Christ (some of whom have joined me in the work of racial justice), the very real lives and experiences of black and brown peoples, Muslims, immigrants, and so many others were apparently not on their radar. People whose highest commandment is to love God and then love your neighbor.
There are real people on the other side of these lies and racism and misogyny. There are Muslims who face physical assault because of an Islamophobia that is being embraced and celebrated in this country. There are women who are raped or sexually assaulted, and who will never seek justice, since sexual assault has been reduced to merely “locker room” antics.
There are children who will endure bullying, and potentially consider suicide, because of the president-elect’s public behavior of bullying and demeaning those with whom he disagrees. There are African Americans living in fear when someone shouts “Kill Obama” during an acceptance speech and the president-elect fails to shut it down–because black folks know we serve as surrogates for racist rage directed against the president.
Seven Observations on the 2016 Election →
The best summary analysis I've seen on how Clinton lost/Trump won the election, as well as likely potential paths the Trump admin may take.
My takeaways:
This did not need to happen and is primarily the result of mind-boggling incompetence by the professionals of the Democratic Party.
Fundamentally—consistent with pretty much everything everyone is saying—the election was lost by taking Rust Belt whites for granted [5]: without question, flip Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania and Clinton would have been president. Everything else—Wikileaks, Comey, emails—was just gravy.
The existing opinion and likely-voter models have been shown to be woefully inadequate, however much individuals making money off these will protest otherwise.
And a couple things we should keep in mind did not happen
The country did not shift radically to the right: Trump did not even get a majority of the votes cast, much less of eligible voters.
Trump is not a Republican in any conventional sense, though clearly the Republicans benefited from the Trump victory more than the Democrats did. Well, probablybenefited more.
There is a whole lot to still play out here.
Seven observations:...
Decision Boundary 2016: Margin of Terror →
If you're interested in understanding how/where the polls went wrong, very good (podcast) discussion between various polling and data science pros, including from the media and from both the RNC's and DNC's data teams.
The Lawfare Podcast: "The First Day of the Rest of Our Lives" Edition →
Good podcast discussing the issues with serving (or not) under Trump. Because of his constant lies, obvious sociopathy, and calls for flagrantly illegal and immoral policies on the future part of US military and intelligence officials, Trump and his campaign staff received "No"s from seemingly everyone they contacted about serving in senior and middle administration. They're now scrambling to fill any and all positions, which could mean the Trump administration is being led by some of the most extremist people with little if any experience.
Veterans Day, 2016
Thank You to all of those willing to give up your Constitutional rights in the hope your sacrifice serves the people of this country and creates a better tomorrow. May we all do better to honor that sacrifice and ensure a peaceful future.
Politics Is the Solution →
Heavily quoting this article (please read the rest), as it's the best *very* *very* PRELIMINARY analysis I've seen so far (and I'm curious how well the data will hold up over the next few weeks).
To believe that Trump’s appeal was entirely based on ethnic nationalism is to believe that a near majority of Americans are driven only by hate and a shared desire for a white supremacist political program.
We don’t believe that. And the facts don’t bear it out.
This election, in the words of New York Times analyst Nate Cohn, was decided by people who voted for Barack Obama in 2012. Not all of them can be bigots.
Clinton won only 65 percent of Latino voters, compared to Obama’s 71 percent four years ago. She performed this poorly against a candidate who ran on a program of building a wall along America’s southern border, a candidate who kicked off his campaign by calling Mexicans rapists.
Clinton won 34 percent of white women without college degrees. And she won just 54 percent of women overall, compared to Obama’s 55 percent in 2012. Clinton, of course, was running against a candidate who has gloated on film about grabbing women “by the pussy.”
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The problem with Clinton wasn’t her peculiarity but her typicality. It was characteristic of this Democratic Party that the power players in Washington decided on the nominee — with overwhelming endorsements — many months before a single ballot was cast.
They made a fateful choice for all of us by stacking the deck, decisively, against the kind of politics that could win: a working-class politics.
Seventy-two percent of Americans who voted last night believed that “the economy is rigged to the advantage of the rich and powerful.” Sixty-eight percent agreed that “traditional parties and politicians don’t care about people like me.”
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This is a new era that requires a new type of politics — one that speaks to people’s pressing needs and hopes, rather than to their fears. Elite liberalism, it turns out, cannot defeat right-wing populism. We can’t move to Canada or hide under the bed. This is a moment to embrace democratic politics, not repudiate them.