Why are you apologizing? You, Andrew Sullivan, Ruy Texiera and a few others made crystal clear your revulsion at the mere thought of Trump, but were also crystal clear about the things you thought the other team had gotten wrong. Now is the time to open your mind to the possibility that disaster does not lie ahead. What if he doesn't set up concentration camps and deport millions?Suppose he just brings the border under control, and instructs law enforcement to find and rid us of the bad actors who never should have been able to get in? What if he appoints a normal, albeit conservative, lawyer as Attorney General -- a non-Eastman, Clark or Giuliani -- who doesn't unleash law fare part 2? What if he knocks Putin's and Zelensky's heads together and persuades them that their respective maximum objectives are out of reach? What if he is better than Biden at persuading Bibi to "take the win"? May not happen, but is the alternative of resuming all-out resistance from the git-go a better idea? Where did goading the bear get liberals the last time around?
I think a turning point in the campaign was Vance crushing Tim Walz in the VP debate on October 1. Walz was Kamala’s first major major public decision and it turned out to be a bad choice. In the debate, Walz was always looking down anxiously at his notes, befuddled, slow and, above all, weak. He didn’t seem a convincing president, if it came to that. By contrast, Vance was quick, smart and, above all, strong. He seemed a convincing president, if it came to that. I was surprised, in both cases. Wish it had been the other way around! I think Walz’s performance was one of the reasons Kamala’s campaign stalled. Not just because of Walz himself. Because of what it revealed about Kamala’s judgment.
I'm a pro-choice woman in my thirties. I've been frustrated by how much Harris focused on abortion in her campaign. This wasn't even in my top ten issues for the election. There are so many things happening in our country right now, and the assumption that abortion access must be the top priority for every woman really strikes me as condescending.
Nice essay, Joe. It's a difficult day. America will be ok!
So in other words, the electorate fired the guy who did a really bad job by proxy. Feel a bit badly for Ms Harris but she allowed her ambition to overrule her common sense. They should have had a primary. You know, like the last 25 or so elections.
We reap what we sow… this is a political realignment. The Leviathan has overreached and was caught in its own echo chamber. ..It needs to be knocked down and rebuilt. The Republic still stands and the Constitution needs to be defended and protected every damn day. There is work to do.
But I thought we were all the Leviathan and the Democrats were the almighty Sovereign. Hobbes has been on my mind recently because of a project that examines a cops and robbers tale that took place almost entirely in the "state of nature." The FBI becomes the "sword of the Sovereign" and the big question is how far into Outlaw Country the government's swordsmen can go. Your comment makes me examine my premises. Maybe we are members of the Leviathan, scales on that mighty fish, and maybe at the same time we all wrestle with our outlaw nature. That is worth thinking about.
And again, one side tried shaming the other to get them to "act right", and the other side said "In your face, motherf*ckers!" ("Second verse, same as the first.")
I have no brilliant suggestions for how to get all of us to acknowledge that this is one lifeboat, and all of us need to sit down and row, TOGETHER. All I can do for now is breathe in compassion for those who are hurting, and breathe out healing, without looking for tangible results. Starting with me.
Women need men to be their best versions of themselves- protect us and children against sick men in our spaces, sports and prisons. We need each other and we need to recognize our strengths and differences. Protect children - Get the T out of LGB!
Don’t want to eliminate the “T” entirely, but it needs to be reigned in. I suspect no other issue moved women, particularly moms, from Harris to Trump. I agree with the assertion, put forth by Andrew Sullivan most passionately, that most trans kids would, left alone, grow up to be perfectly idiosyncratic gays and lesbians. A few years ago, “well meaning” teachers decided that my niece, a fairly fierce “butch” lesbian, should transition. It was utter nonsense - her mom told them to screw off- and the girl grew up to be a fairly normal (slightly crazy) butch femme, just as nature intended. Adults should be allowed to do as they please, but hands off the kids.
I have so much respect for Mark Halperin and 2Way. No one has done more to help both sides understand each other and find ways to communicate with respect.
I just paid $80 so that I could post this comment, Joe, because you seem like a guy that another guy can talk to. Sorry to all the gals out there, we can talk too, if you want to, but this is just between Joe and me right now. And speaking of "between," I'm broad-minded enough I hope that I can talk to any member of the human race, no matter how that member is constituted, but, again, this comment is for Joe just now.
There's a major flaw in your ointment here, Joe. You wrote in your analysis, "If you didn’t want to be considered a chauvinist brute, you had to talk and act the way women demanded you do." You speak of "women" monolithically when in reality, "women" are amazingly varied. Imagine that? "Women" have brains and minds and hearts and opinions too, and they perceive and act politically in varied ways!
Two weeks before this election in which I honestly detested both candidates, and still do, I realized that Donald Trump was going to win when I bought a Sonoran Hot Dog from a Hispanic street vender at a low rider car show on the closed off Main Street in our downtown of Yuma, Arizona. (Taking an aside for a moment, if you've never had a Sonoran Hot Dog, like I'd never had until that day, you've GOT TO TRY ONE! It was the best damned hot dog that I'd ever eaten in my life!) Anyway, back to my point. As I sat at one of the tables to eat my hot dog, the Hispanic lady vender came out of the trailer and sat down across the table from me and asked me directly, "Who are you voting for?" I said that I honestly didn't know, and she quickly responded, "Vote for Trump!" When I said, "Oh yeah?" She said, "He's the only one who can fix things for us!" She said that she and her husband who was standing there very passively listening lived on the edge of a golf course, and that she . . . not he . . . put up big "Trump/Vance" banners in their back yard facing the golf course for all the golfers to see, and that she . . . not he . . . had put up big banners in their front yard too for people in the passing cars to see. I asked her husband, "Are you a Trump supporter too?" He said that he was, but that he stayed out of politics unlike his wife. I said to him, "She's a real spitfire, huh?" He said with a hint of pride and admiration, "Yes, she is . . . sometimes too much!" I asked her if her extended family and friends were all Trump supporters too. She said, "ALL of us! We all love Donald Trump!" After finishing my hot dog, I asked if I could take their picture to post her comments on my blog, and the man said, "No, I stay out of politics," but she said, "Of course!" She called her teenaged son over to sit beside her for my photo while she beamed her big, beautiful smile for my photo!
Down the street after I'd strolled along admiring the beautiful cars, trucks, and motorcycles, I happened upon the local Republican Party Headquarters Office and stopped in to tell the two elderly white couples who were in there that "Donald Trump is gonna win this election." When they asked me how I could be so sure, I told them about the Hispanic lady at the Sonoran Hot Dog stand on the other end of Main Street and said that "If Donald Trump has the female Hispanic vote, then this thing is over, and you'd better go get yourself the best damned hot dog that you'll ever have in your lives and hear all about it for yourselves!"
I love you, Joe! Keep writing! As for suggestions, I would love to read more about how the Democrats can regain their sanity and appeal to the working class again. My father was a Yellow Dog Democrat who revered Harry Truman and would always tell me that the Republicans were only for the rich and that the Democrats were for everyone else, especially the working class. What happened to the Democrats? My father is turning over in his grave.
Yep, Oof is right. My current reaction is how can 140M people be so wrong? I admit that I see the trans, DEI,'masculinity', etc. issues as cocktail party chatter but ripping up the Constitution, using the DOJ or SEAL Team Six to go after 'enemies' and choosing Putin over our own Intelligence people to be catastrophic. Somehow the folks who voted for T***p seem to believe just the opposite. I think maybe we're all wrong. I hope we live through what's to come.
I understand your feelings. I share them. But I don't think we can assume DJT is the guy my former colleagues in the corporate media told us he was. Many of them have taken to gleaning through his seemingly undisciplined comments, looking for phrases that can be warped into weapons used against him. I understand the process but I think it has become perverted. I used to select whole sentences quotes, or even clean them up into whole sentences, to reflect what I thought the news source was trying to say. Part of that process involved paying attention to the context in which the words were spoken. Context has gone out the window, it seems.
Oof is right. My first time voting in a Presidential election was in 1972, for McGovern of course. We all know how that went. Seems like kinda the same thing to me.
Read that Bret Stephens column. He's very often annoying, possibly because he is very often right.
The resolution in this household is to stop watching MSNBC. Hello, Criterion Channel.
Joe, it’s going to be hard enough to endure Andrew Sullivan’s “I told so” screed on Friday, YOU have to stay positive - please stick around. The need for sanity is now greater than ever -and the need for rational arguments to enter into the national discourse from cells such as these is paramount.
The gender gap was certainly something we recognized and discussed, but it was going to be tough for Kamala to address it in her short candidacy. The forces of DEI, economic transformation and a certain brand of vitriolic feminism have been eating away at the male psyche for decades now (and the “swipe right” culture doesn’t help, another topic of discussion). I had a hope that enough wives, girlfriends, mothers and daughters would look their men in the eye and say “do this for me, at least this time.” That this did not happen is at least partly due to something I continually ran into into canvassing: politics has become so toxic and wearying, people don’t want to talk about it at all.
Athletic coaches will always tell you “The best time to criticize your team is after a win”. Like the Giants, we don’t have that luxury - but the need to go to the tape room and work through the errors that led to this disaster remains. I, for one, will show up early tomorrow to start getting ready for the next game.
Joe, perhaps you could turn your political instincts and gift for communication (even when your rationale is dubious) to the process of reforming the electoral system. Campaign finance. Proportional representation. Open primaries. As well as structural ideas to tackle toxic political partisanship. I also hope you stay around to evaluate your thesis that a President Trump is a clear and present danger to US democracy and The Republic. Thanks for being so authentic and knowledgeable....your musings have certainly helped me make sense of the insanity.
Why are you apologizing? You, Andrew Sullivan, Ruy Texiera and a few others made crystal clear your revulsion at the mere thought of Trump, but were also crystal clear about the things you thought the other team had gotten wrong. Now is the time to open your mind to the possibility that disaster does not lie ahead. What if he doesn't set up concentration camps and deport millions?Suppose he just brings the border under control, and instructs law enforcement to find and rid us of the bad actors who never should have been able to get in? What if he appoints a normal, albeit conservative, lawyer as Attorney General -- a non-Eastman, Clark or Giuliani -- who doesn't unleash law fare part 2? What if he knocks Putin's and Zelensky's heads together and persuades them that their respective maximum objectives are out of reach? What if he is better than Biden at persuading Bibi to "take the win"? May not happen, but is the alternative of resuming all-out resistance from the git-go a better idea? Where did goading the bear get liberals the last time around?
I think a turning point in the campaign was Vance crushing Tim Walz in the VP debate on October 1. Walz was Kamala’s first major major public decision and it turned out to be a bad choice. In the debate, Walz was always looking down anxiously at his notes, befuddled, slow and, above all, weak. He didn’t seem a convincing president, if it came to that. By contrast, Vance was quick, smart and, above all, strong. He seemed a convincing president, if it came to that. I was surprised, in both cases. Wish it had been the other way around! I think Walz’s performance was one of the reasons Kamala’s campaign stalled. Not just because of Walz himself. Because of what it revealed about Kamala’s judgment.
I'm a pro-choice woman in my thirties. I've been frustrated by how much Harris focused on abortion in her campaign. This wasn't even in my top ten issues for the election. There are so many things happening in our country right now, and the assumption that abortion access must be the top priority for every woman really strikes me as condescending.
Nice essay, Joe. It's a difficult day. America will be ok!
So in other words, the electorate fired the guy who did a really bad job by proxy. Feel a bit badly for Ms Harris but she allowed her ambition to overrule her common sense. They should have had a primary. You know, like the last 25 or so elections.
We reap what we sow… this is a political realignment. The Leviathan has overreached and was caught in its own echo chamber. ..It needs to be knocked down and rebuilt. The Republic still stands and the Constitution needs to be defended and protected every damn day. There is work to do.
But I thought we were all the Leviathan and the Democrats were the almighty Sovereign. Hobbes has been on my mind recently because of a project that examines a cops and robbers tale that took place almost entirely in the "state of nature." The FBI becomes the "sword of the Sovereign" and the big question is how far into Outlaw Country the government's swordsmen can go. Your comment makes me examine my premises. Maybe we are members of the Leviathan, scales on that mighty fish, and maybe at the same time we all wrestle with our outlaw nature. That is worth thinking about.
And again, one side tried shaming the other to get them to "act right", and the other side said "In your face, motherf*ckers!" ("Second verse, same as the first.")
I have no brilliant suggestions for how to get all of us to acknowledge that this is one lifeboat, and all of us need to sit down and row, TOGETHER. All I can do for now is breathe in compassion for those who are hurting, and breathe out healing, without looking for tangible results. Starting with me.
Women need men to be their best versions of themselves- protect us and children against sick men in our spaces, sports and prisons. We need each other and we need to recognize our strengths and differences. Protect children - Get the T out of LGB!
Don’t want to eliminate the “T” entirely, but it needs to be reigned in. I suspect no other issue moved women, particularly moms, from Harris to Trump. I agree with the assertion, put forth by Andrew Sullivan most passionately, that most trans kids would, left alone, grow up to be perfectly idiosyncratic gays and lesbians. A few years ago, “well meaning” teachers decided that my niece, a fairly fierce “butch” lesbian, should transition. It was utter nonsense - her mom told them to screw off- and the girl grew up to be a fairly normal (slightly crazy) butch femme, just as nature intended. Adults should be allowed to do as they please, but hands off the kids.
Agree with you! And gender ideology out of schools!
I read this again… great essay! We Americans need you to dig in “with Grace and forgiveness” like Mark Halperin chides us all to do moving forward.
I have so much respect for Mark Halperin and 2Way. No one has done more to help both sides understand each other and find ways to communicate with respect.
I just paid $80 so that I could post this comment, Joe, because you seem like a guy that another guy can talk to. Sorry to all the gals out there, we can talk too, if you want to, but this is just between Joe and me right now. And speaking of "between," I'm broad-minded enough I hope that I can talk to any member of the human race, no matter how that member is constituted, but, again, this comment is for Joe just now.
There's a major flaw in your ointment here, Joe. You wrote in your analysis, "If you didn’t want to be considered a chauvinist brute, you had to talk and act the way women demanded you do." You speak of "women" monolithically when in reality, "women" are amazingly varied. Imagine that? "Women" have brains and minds and hearts and opinions too, and they perceive and act politically in varied ways!
Two weeks before this election in which I honestly detested both candidates, and still do, I realized that Donald Trump was going to win when I bought a Sonoran Hot Dog from a Hispanic street vender at a low rider car show on the closed off Main Street in our downtown of Yuma, Arizona. (Taking an aside for a moment, if you've never had a Sonoran Hot Dog, like I'd never had until that day, you've GOT TO TRY ONE! It was the best damned hot dog that I'd ever eaten in my life!) Anyway, back to my point. As I sat at one of the tables to eat my hot dog, the Hispanic lady vender came out of the trailer and sat down across the table from me and asked me directly, "Who are you voting for?" I said that I honestly didn't know, and she quickly responded, "Vote for Trump!" When I said, "Oh yeah?" She said, "He's the only one who can fix things for us!" She said that she and her husband who was standing there very passively listening lived on the edge of a golf course, and that she . . . not he . . . put up big "Trump/Vance" banners in their back yard facing the golf course for all the golfers to see, and that she . . . not he . . . had put up big banners in their front yard too for people in the passing cars to see. I asked her husband, "Are you a Trump supporter too?" He said that he was, but that he stayed out of politics unlike his wife. I said to him, "She's a real spitfire, huh?" He said with a hint of pride and admiration, "Yes, she is . . . sometimes too much!" I asked her if her extended family and friends were all Trump supporters too. She said, "ALL of us! We all love Donald Trump!" After finishing my hot dog, I asked if I could take their picture to post her comments on my blog, and the man said, "No, I stay out of politics," but she said, "Of course!" She called her teenaged son over to sit beside her for my photo while she beamed her big, beautiful smile for my photo!
Down the street after I'd strolled along admiring the beautiful cars, trucks, and motorcycles, I happened upon the local Republican Party Headquarters Office and stopped in to tell the two elderly white couples who were in there that "Donald Trump is gonna win this election." When they asked me how I could be so sure, I told them about the Hispanic lady at the Sonoran Hot Dog stand on the other end of Main Street and said that "If Donald Trump has the female Hispanic vote, then this thing is over, and you'd better go get yourself the best damned hot dog that you'll ever have in your lives and hear all about it for yourselves!"
I love you, Joe! Keep writing! As for suggestions, I would love to read more about how the Democrats can regain their sanity and appeal to the working class again. My father was a Yellow Dog Democrat who revered Harry Truman and would always tell me that the Republicans were only for the rich and that the Democrats were for everyone else, especially the working class. What happened to the Democrats? My father is turning over in his grave.
Yep, Oof is right. My current reaction is how can 140M people be so wrong? I admit that I see the trans, DEI,'masculinity', etc. issues as cocktail party chatter but ripping up the Constitution, using the DOJ or SEAL Team Six to go after 'enemies' and choosing Putin over our own Intelligence people to be catastrophic. Somehow the folks who voted for T***p seem to believe just the opposite. I think maybe we're all wrong. I hope we live through what's to come.
I understand your feelings. I share them. But I don't think we can assume DJT is the guy my former colleagues in the corporate media told us he was. Many of them have taken to gleaning through his seemingly undisciplined comments, looking for phrases that can be warped into weapons used against him. I understand the process but I think it has become perverted. I used to select whole sentences quotes, or even clean them up into whole sentences, to reflect what I thought the news source was trying to say. Part of that process involved paying attention to the context in which the words were spoken. Context has gone out the window, it seems.
Oof is right. My first time voting in a Presidential election was in 1972, for McGovern of course. We all know how that went. Seems like kinda the same thing to me.
Read that Bret Stephens column. He's very often annoying, possibly because he is very often right.
The resolution in this household is to stop watching MSNBC. Hello, Criterion Channel.
Joe, it’s going to be hard enough to endure Andrew Sullivan’s “I told so” screed on Friday, YOU have to stay positive - please stick around. The need for sanity is now greater than ever -and the need for rational arguments to enter into the national discourse from cells such as these is paramount.
The gender gap was certainly something we recognized and discussed, but it was going to be tough for Kamala to address it in her short candidacy. The forces of DEI, economic transformation and a certain brand of vitriolic feminism have been eating away at the male psyche for decades now (and the “swipe right” culture doesn’t help, another topic of discussion). I had a hope that enough wives, girlfriends, mothers and daughters would look their men in the eye and say “do this for me, at least this time.” That this did not happen is at least partly due to something I continually ran into into canvassing: politics has become so toxic and wearying, people don’t want to talk about it at all.
Athletic coaches will always tell you “The best time to criticize your team is after a win”. Like the Giants, we don’t have that luxury - but the need to go to the tape room and work through the errors that led to this disaster remains. I, for one, will show up early tomorrow to start getting ready for the next game.
BTW Joe, don't stop. I consider your willingness to speak your mind absolutely pure gold. If we all did that we'd be in a better place today.
Joe, perhaps you could turn your political instincts and gift for communication (even when your rationale is dubious) to the process of reforming the electoral system. Campaign finance. Proportional representation. Open primaries. As well as structural ideas to tackle toxic political partisanship. I also hope you stay around to evaluate your thesis that a President Trump is a clear and present danger to US democracy and The Republic. Thanks for being so authentic and knowledgeable....your musings have certainly helped me make sense of the insanity.
Joe I plan to stick around for the ride. Don't feel bad about agetting it wrong. Lots of others did too.