and trying. not to grind my teeth out of my head in frustration.

Makes me feel like a stooge.

Apparently it's not so bad, according to our leadership. We should all regroup and get back out there and continue fighting. What a crock of shit.

Democracy in America is finished *FOREVER MORE*..........

There are even those saying the Dem Party Leaders, besides being incompetent, actually even went so far to allow the steal, because they were worried about the impending Civil War which would take place if Kamala won.........I, for one, thought that a Civil War was a certainty if Trump/Republicans didn't win.........

There are those of us Dems, who have been screaming from the rooftops since the election in 1980, and were blown off by other Dems as being fanatics, and to get off our "soap boxes".........Look no farther than the so called "Reagan Democrats"

Many forget, during the 2016 debates, when Hillary stated: "There is a giant Right Wing Conspiracy"..........even a lot of dems blew her statement off as ridiculous.......

The ONLY redeeming thing, is that the ignorant/stupid Trumphumping voters are about to learn that THEY TOO will crash and burn, and be obliterated, due to their voting.........They were all incredibly brainwashed by Fox News, and their ignorance, to realize they were being played...........

Recently, Trump even told his voters "to vote for him and they would never need to vote again"....They were soooo ignorant and stupid they didn't hear what he was REALLY saying in that statement......

A frenchman? in 1776? when we were just forming our democracy, said:
"Democracy will work until some individuals or groups figure out they can vote themselves money".............

I am just waiting until the TrumpHumper Voters figure out, (if ever), that they were PLAYED, big time.............and that they actively enabled it to go TO THE POINT OF NO RETURN, with their voting..... and that there will be no return to Democracy ever again.
They just will have to live with the guilt, never having to have ever even thought of their children and grand children's future.....

It is Alexis De Tocqueville who supposedly said that or something like it. Except he didn't say anything even remotely like that. "Democracy will work until some individuals or groups figure out they can vote themselves money" promotes a racist and antidemocratic right wing idea., that people, especially non-white people, are only voting Democratic in the hope of getting undeserved goodies. Donald Trump Jr. tweeted it not long ago.

A similar quotation is sometimes seen on social media and is falsely attributed to Scottish academic and author Alexander Fraser Tytler. He supposedly said “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.”

Thx for the information.......Regardless, it seems to me that it applies to our current situation...but that it applies, in my thinking, to the UBER Rich oligarchs and the top 1%, and not anyone else.......

Sorry, but with my extremely limited education, it seems to me, that we have the best politicians that money can buy, financed by the UberRich and Corporations........

I am open to your thoughts, as I am still trying to learn as much as I can about everything......

The billionaires are bribing the politicians, the Democrats are not bribing us to get our votes. Big difference between the two ideas. One is progressive, the other is reactionary. Which one would Donald Trump Jr. tweet?

The Republicans have said for a long time that people vote for the Democrats not on principle nor on policy, but rather to get welfare (undeserved is the implication.) African American voters have been especially targeted with that smear campaign.

Your post was good, but the reference to that quotation caught my attention ad was bothersome. There are so many ways that right wing propaganda has surreptitiously seeped into the everyday thinking of so many of us. I think it is important to be vigilant about that.

#1 Anything, and everything these "New" Republicans say is pure hypocrisy

#2 Anything, and everything these "New" Republicans say is a flagrant lie

#3 Anything, and everything these "New" Republicans say is 180 degrees from the truth or reality

#4 Anything, and everything these "New" Republicans say is pure projection of things THEY are actually guilty of doing.


Again, I am very old, un-educated, and still reading info so thx for your comments......

We should all be learning all the time, and yes, some of us are old.

By the way, I added to my previous post after you replied.

you commented on was my quote. How about any or all the other things in my original comment?

The rest of your post was very good.

I am critical of the party leadership. Others see that criticism as disloyalty, a "circular firing squad." That feud has been going on for over 50 years in my experience . I don't think it can be resolved. I don't even think there can be rational discussions about it anymore. People are entrenched in their positions. I know that I am.

A Danish investigative Journalist clued me into how the U.S. Media & press, very subtly, uses their political bias and power to influence us.....He showed me countless examples of how subtle it could be....like making Obama's picture several skin shades darker, in their "News" articles etc....

"I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at the very inadequate securities which exist against tyranny".

I was just pointing out that there is a phony de Tocqueville quote floating around out there.

"The American republic will endure until the day Congress discovers it can bribe the public with the public’s money."

"In such conditions, we might become so enamored with 'a relaxed love of present enjoyments' that we lose interest in the future of our descendants...and meekly allow ourselves to be led in ignorance by a despotic force all the more powerful because it does not resemble one"

A lot of Americans have been completely blinded to this despotism.

I hear you

We've been let down by basically everyone

Integrity-free campaigning is not a "clean" and "free" election.

Citizens United stands no chance of repeal now, but that was the biggest influencce on this election. Evidence: Nazi Muskrat accompanying TSF to the WH this morning.

To use an analogy, I feel like we are hens and chickens that the farmers kept warning there were foxes outside the door, but not to worry they would protect us. Only to wake up and discover the farmers are just flinging the door open to the foxes and inviting them in.

In my view our leaders should be more concerned about protecting the people they swore to serve and less about trying to perform CPR on a system that is aleady dead and gone.

Because, as you have noted, Democratic leaders don't seem to be acting as if this is anything other than business as usual.

This is one of those issues which tells me that all of the rhetoric about this being the most consequential election of my lifetime, like 2016 and 2020, may not have been on the minds of Biden or the Democrats after the inauguration. Garland could have resolved this entire problem by having the buffoon indicted, tried and sent off to prison before the Supreme Court could get their robes on.

I don't care how political it looked, and I'm going to sound like an armchair quarterback, but if I'd been President, and my predecessor who tried to overturn a legitimate election by inciting a riot, was on trial for that and for absconding with classified documentation, I'd have walked up the street from the WH to the Justice Department, taken the seat across from the AG, and given him five minutes to get his ass moving if he wanted to keep his job. He had all the evidence he needed to get started, and from what legal experts who consult with several of the networks, and WAPO, have said, the power of the justice department to get court dates it wants is virtually infinite. We saw that when Bill Barr was there.

Democrats by and large are shy to do this. But when faced with an existential threat, that virtue becomes a vice.
It's a lack of moral clarity IMO.

Look at how fundraising emails are always a crisis. The Red Cross does the same thing for blood donations. But that wears off like the boy who cried wolf. I roll my eyes at the Red Cross emails.

Yes Trump will be a horrible president this time too. And yes he will be worse than a lot of Republicans. But will he be worse than Lauren Bobert or Marjorie Taylor Greene for example? I don't know, all of them seem horrible.

For whatever reason Democrats don't seem to respond as well to that as Republicans do. They've been getting hit with it since the 70s with the southern strategy and keep falling for it. Trump and his American carnage and speaking to fear of others (immigrants/DEI/women) was in that same mood.

Where Democrats seem to win when we speak to people's hopes and aspirations like Bill Clinton and Obama. Not saying others haven't done some of that, but Harris seemed to be doing better in the polls when the campaign was about joy. I'm not entirely certain on that timeline, just my off the top of my head recollection.

...talking about 'we' this, and 'we' that, as they misrepresent the Harris campaign.

It wasn't hyperbole for the people who will be impacted by this presidency, many who will lose their lives and livelihoods because of it, others who will struggle financially, many will lose even more protections that we've relied on for decades and decades.

In the face of that, we have this appeal to sanguinity about it all... new poster.

Because the person you are replying to was replying to a different low-count new poster -- not you.

Think about that very hard.

They already have money.

If you end up homeless in the middle of this, there's a good chance you'll end up incarcerated.

I believe that the struggle has shifted to specific agenda items.

This is how you stay politically relevant after an electoral loss.

Anyone that believes Trump was afraid of running against Biden is in denial.

There are many great Democrats here that exist in a blue bubble, we saw that in the run up to the election. Polls that showed a tight race were lambasted as Republican propaganda.

But we are still asking who killed JFK. We gave all of our attention to this for the last forever, gave money we didn't have, were stalked on line by the DNC to give a little more of our SS income so we could fight this devil. That POS has never done an honest thing in his life, there is no way he didn't cheat.

out of line. Wherever you are on the issue, he dropped out or was pushed out because enough Democrats genuinely believed he couldn't win. Did you see the polls before he dropped out of the race? Minnesota, had become a swing state, and many others. The swings states had turned red. Kamala gave us a shot.

Have you seen Biden speak lately? The decline has continued.
Old age is a bear, and no fair. I just watched my Dad decline faster than I thought possible.

Biden, and only Biden decided that it had to be Kamala. I think she was brilliant, I don't think she was the problem. But if you think she was, look to Biden. Pelosi and others wanted a mini-primary.

Am I comfortable that the election was fair and square? No. But rolling Biden into it makes your otherwise understandable concerns less credible

Trump had his whole campaign lined up against pretty much everything Biden had done in the four years he was in office. But to each his own. I am of the opinion that Biden should have made the decision not to run again before the primaries, and allowed the process to work its way out. It may well have been that Harris would have come to the top, though it seems that even in the Democratic party, reluctance with having a woman at the top of the ticket might still have been a problem. She waged a flawless, excellent campaign, which is one reason why I have doubts about election integrity.

We've been in the money pit with elections ever since citizens united. That was the turning point. Americans are gullible. We won't be able to get this back from this point.

We've lost our free press as a result. It, too, is corporate media, owned by those whose interests lie with the billionaire class that is taking over.

Of thoughts about it all. It is looking a lot like the climate crisis, nobody sees the collapse until it's too late and now that its gone, can't get it back.

has dubbed this thinking as 'BlueAnon."
I happen to agree; it is just as delusional as MAGA's 2020 nonsense.

...that's what has me wondering.

This isn't support for the Democratic party, it's party bashing , talking about 'no one in the Democratic party has guts' and consipracy peddling about Biden's exit without any proof of anything.

How many people here think we benefit from this kind of negativity about the party?

They're valid questions, not party bashing. So far, I haven't seen anyone even ask for random recounts. And enough was said, and put into the media file, to leave any question about how the transition was made from Biden to Harris. I'm not blaming Harris, BTW. She ran a flawless campaign, for three months. Trump had a media-supported four year long, 24-7 campaign carried out by the mainstream media.

There should be someone with credibility who can raise questions about election integrity without upsetting the impression the President wants to leave about a peaceful transition of power.

I'm entitled to ask questions. I worked my ass off, I went out of state to canvass, I took the train to work and ate soup for dinner to have enough money to boost my contribution. I took people at their word, that this was consequential. And my intention is to resist at every point, fight back, and push.

Do those who feel the same no longer count in this party?

...ask whatever you want.

Claiming you're being 'counted out of the party' by my pushing back against your unfounded suspicions and projected nonsense about 'guts' is a curious faint for someone making broad-brush aspersions against 'Democrats' without any prompting from me at all.

And point me to evidence my suspicions are unfounded.

...is it?

Is the answer you?

I just have high expectations for the politicians who have solicited, and taken advantage of, my help.

the candidates ask for recounts. The Democratic party does not have a say in how states choose to run their elections, but you do. Or at least you did. Don't know what state you live in, but rather than look at Kamala Harris, or Joe Biden to count your vote, look at the people that actually count it for every election

I think she got 55% of the vote. The only problem we had was low turnout.

Haven't seen or heard of him since election.Did I miss something?

I wouldn't go hiking around in the woods near where he lives (wouldn't anyway but especially not now)...

Vance had been trying to find the hole for the past week.

NT

adds steel to their fascist armor, and cements their whole
rigging system not only in place, but ready to get even
stronger.

And, to all the young first time voters out there; I caution you, if you wait for a candidate to vote 'for', you will always be disappointed.
I spent my whole life voting against, and you too, need to think about what is best for this country as a whole, and its 340 million citizens before you think about who it is you 'like' our who agrees with your selfish ideas. It's not a beauty contest, it's not a reality show, you are, in essence, electing a leader of the free world and who will have their fingers on the nuclear codes.
Not someone to be giving them away to his buddies.
I feel a lot more comfortable with Kamala Harris in that position whether I agree with her policies or not.
Now was NOT the time for a 'protest' vote.

But you're talking about voting as a strategic exercise and too often people make it about themselves.

But, now is not the time to lay down and surrender.

We have many battles ahead of us. VP Harris said it well - "When we fight, we win!"

We lost this important election BUT we have more intelligent people on our side. I believe also, there are more of us. If we unite and work strategically, just as we had been doing prior to last Tuesday, we can at least alter the worst possible outcomes to better ones in the near term and regain Congress in two years. This has to be what we do now. We have a lot of work we can and must do. Our democracy is way too important to surrender it to a bunch of greedy, selfish, ignorant fascists.

There is also value in preserving the norms. President Biden restored decency to the nation. Trump is president-elect, like it or not. President Biden is reminding us of what the transfer of power should look like.

Judges so chicken they lay eggs...
When Pelosi's husband was hammered by that Trump fanatic, we should not tolerate such bs. The guy was brainwashed by Fox and IQ 45.


Way off topic, sorry.
á, (I am experimenting with Linux how to do accents!) é í ó ú ñ ¿ ¡ ü If you have one and need these (Eng US International) On mine I hold right alt and then press the letter except for ü which is hold y.

I believe that was his biggest obstacle. His son was going through hell because of his name. Look at what was going on with Hunter during Joe’s worst times.

What pisses me off is those who had no empathy for him and publicly told him to step down

The numbers were stark:
From January 2024 until he dropped out in July, Biden's favorability ratings among independents ranged between 31% and 35% and among Democrats it was between 81% and 83%. Going back to the last six months of 2023, the story was similar: 27%-38% among independents and 75%-87% among Democrats.

Those numbers are worse than what Trump had when he lost he 2020:
From January 2020 until election day, which included the worst of the pandemic, his favorability amongst independents was 33%-47% and among Republicans it was 85% - 94%, with only three survey periods below 90%. For the six months of 2019, Trump's favorability among independents was 34%-42% and among Republicans it was 875-91%.

And despite everything and as ridiculous as it might seem, Trump continued to have very high favorability ratings in 2024 among republicans -- much higher than Biden's favorability ratings among Democrats. And while Trump wasn't viewed favorability by most independents, his ratings were higher among independents than Biden's. That was a recipe for impending electoral disaster. And it worked to a certain extent -- Harris's favorability ratings as the campaign wore on were significantly higher among Democrats than Biden's had been for most of his presidency.

But, at this moment in time the greatest conspiracy is the plan to "make sure this transition is done in traditional lame-duck style".
Regardless of any currently identifiable evidence, the election was a farce from the start. The Republican candidate shouldn't have even been running around at all. A prison cell should have been his campaign headquarters and every American with an ounce of integrity knows it. Hell, the rest of the world wonders how stupid we are to let this happen. Biden must arrest Trump et al. He cannot be allowed to sit in the oval office again. Once he's in there the only thing which will remove him and his entourage is force of arms. 2028 election is irrelevant. Vance will assume that victory. 2032? Maybe I'll be dead by then, but my (and your) progeny will still be around to witness the fact of what I'm saying today.

I was surprised that he decided to run again, especially since he seemed not up for the ordeal of actually running.

I am willing to say he was the best president of my lifetime (born in the LBJ years), but he is visibly diminished since 2000.

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/11/biden-single-term-082129

… is that those are not mutually exclusive things.

Despite taking the oath to protect the Constitution from enemies, both foreign and domestic, many in govenment are normalizing a president-elect who promises to destroy the Constitution and has allegiance to foreign powers.

Every aspect of the vote should be scrutinized, given the claims that votes weren’t necessary - instead the current gov’t has fallen into line and is failing to keep their oaths.

I think millions of would-be Harris voters stayed home over Gaza. An article in May stated that as many as 13% would stay home over the loss of life in Gaza. Then when you also factor in the way bibi intentionally ramped up the slaughter as the election neared--he successfully interfered in our election.

That said, I'm not going to rule out shenanigans. I just think in this situation, our only hope is to produce receipts. I also think the recounts should have been automatic. trump was acting suspiciously after the election, but we need proof.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/13-ex-biden-voters-gaza

Sounds like a case of BlueAnon.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

WHAT. THE. FUCK?????????

Trump Advertised on his plaque, 'Trump Will Fix It".
He hinted he already had all the votes he needed.
He hinted he and Mike Johnson had a "little secret".
So was the fix in?