dagblog - Comments for "Trump is Trump, But Who Are We?"

I've added this on to my page

Ramona — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 20:46:00 +0000

I've added this on to my page, too, even though much of it depresses the hell out of me.

I aim to be a flaming Pollyanna throughout all of this, at least most of the time. I can't do much but I can and will keep trying to rally the troops.

Gabler says,

This country has survived a civil war, two world wars, and a great depression. There are many who say we will survive this, too. Maybe we will, but we won’t survive unscathed. We know too much about each other to heal. No more can we pretend that we are exceptional or good or progressive or united. We are none of those things. Nor can we pretend that democracy works and that elections have more or less happy endings. Democracy only functions when its participants abide by certain conventions, certain codes of conduct and a respect for the process.

I say we will get through this, but, no, not unscathed. Neal wrote this two days after the election. I know exactly how he felt--I could barely speak and was convinced this would be the long, black depression that would finally do me in. It's easy to see nothing but doom ahead--right now there's nothing but doom ahead. But if enough of us don't give up and keep on fighting, even against all odds, we'll at least know we tried to do something. That's better than doing nothing. We'll need to be the participants working to keep Democracy alive.

Duerte is more popular now

rmrd0000 — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 14:33:09 +0000

In reply to But what we can do is reach

Duerte is more popular now than when he was elected. Trump may follow suit. The police clubs are swinging at protesters in the Philippines unabated.

But what we can do is reach

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 14:20:14 +0000

In reply to Who are we? Just sayin… Mac

But what we can do is reach out to include righteously frustrated people — regardless of race or station in life. Genuinely. Personally. If we’d done a better job of that in the first place, neither the US nor the Philippines would be in the mess we’re in right now. As anyone who owns the latest iPhone can tell you, gullible isn’t the same thing as stupid. And above all, this sorry state of affairs must not be allowed to normalize — as the never-ending street killings are beginning to do here now.

Here are Bill Moyer's

CVille Dem — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 14:02:40 +0000

In reply to Thanks so much, Jan. James

Here are Bill Moyer's thoughts on the future post-Trump:

http://billmoyers.com/story/farewell-america/

It begins,

America died on Nov. 8, 2016, not with a bang or a whimper, but at its own hand via electoral suicide. We the people chose a man who has shredded our values, our morals, our compassion, our tolerance, our decency, our sense of common purpose, our very identity — all the things that, however tenuously, made a nation out of a country.

Whatever place we now live in is not the same place it was on Nov. 7. No matter how the rest of the world looked at us on Nov. 7, they will now look at us differently. We are likely to be a pariah country. And we are lost for it. Snip

And ends...

But the disempowered media may have one more role to fill: They must bear witness. Many years from now, future generations will need to know what happened to us and how it happened. They will need to know how disgruntled white Americans, full of self-righteous indignation, found a way to take back a country they felt they were entitled to and which they believed had been lost. They will need to know about the ugliness and evil that destroyed us as a nation after great men like Lincoln and Roosevelt guided us through previous crises and kept our values intact. They will need to know, and they will need a vigorous, engaged, moral media to tell them. They will also need us.

We are not living for ourselves anymore in this country. Now we are living for history.

Not a "feel good" piece at all.

Who are we? Just sayin… Mac

stratofrog — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 04:51:43 +0000

In reply to Trump is Trump, But Who Are We?

Who are we? Just sayin… Mac McCarty has an idea or two…

“We too were angry; but we were too busy being angry at corporate avariciousness and regulatory capture to see that a whole segment of the population lumped us in with the same people we were angry with. We didn’t relate. We didn’t communicate. We lost to popular anger. We, the elite, tilled the field and planted the seeds that Duterte and Trump used their demagoguery to harvest. We need to do better than that. Fast. For real — not superficially. Personally. We need some “woke” liberal elites real bad right now."

https://medium.com/@macmccarty/the-revolutions-long-christmas-break-1034452aa6d4#.xnmajtfyg

Thanks so much, Jan. James

Ramona — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 03:02:50 +0000

In reply to This, from the Atlantic:

Thanks so much, Jan. James Fallows is one of the great ones. I've added the link to my new blog page, Writers Against Trump, Ignorance, and Fascism.

Keep 'em coming! (Where were some of these guys before the election? Don't want to seem ungrateful, but we sure could have used them then.)

This, from the Atlantic:

CVille Dem — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 00:34:20 +0000

In reply to Trump is Trump, But Who Are We?

This, from the Atlantic:

http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/11/a-reflexive-liar-in-command-gui...

There really is too much to do any justice to it with a quote or two. Everyone should read this.