But, will 2017 be better than 2016? Will people finally get wise to Russian/Corporate/Republican false news? Will Democrats stop blaming other Dems for the loss and unify to achieve their common goals (and maybe in the process wake up, energized, and get a backbone)? Will people get tired of Trump’s terrible tweets?
Or will 2017 be far worse, with a horrible president surrounded by sycophants and other con men, destroying what’s left of our democracy, economy, and freedoms? Will he start new wars? Will other countries drop the dollar as their reserve currency and destroy our economy? Will he abuse his presidential powers and create a kleptocracy?
Can we even be cautiously hopeful? Time will tell.
20 Comments
I have one hope.
It was the overwhelming win of the Democrats and the first election of Obama that caused the launch of the Tea Party and the energized Republican reawakening. That led to the 2010 wave and ultimately the election of Hair Furor.
I hope now his election launches the progressive revolution and leads to a progressive wave in 2018. We will see.
I think liberals/democrats and their messiah (Obama) should start 2017 by apologizing to Mitt Romney for this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1409sXBleg
All liberals had field day with this making fun of Mitt Romney and enjoying Obama’s zinger.
So let’s admit your grievous mistake of not recognizing Russia’s threat and apologize to Mitt Romney.
Hassan, you are conflating the hacking of our election and geopolitical well being of the world. Two very different things.
Is Russia a YUGE threat to the US, no. They potentially could be, but currently, in the geopolitical world, ISIS is a much more immanent threat.
That said, the fact that they probably (no way to confirm to what extent) played a part in undermining our election process certainly makes them a nation that we should keep an eye out for.
BOBSURUNCLE, “That said, the fact that they probably (no way to confirm to what extent) played a part in undermining our election process certainly makes them a nation that we should keep an eye out for.”
Then why liberals are crying about Russia every second? Either Romney was right that Russia is threat to US (US interests) or they are not. Either they need to stop whining about Russia, or they need to admit that Romney was right.
Oh well, so much for my goal of having liberals stop blaming other liberals.
Hassan – your point is well taken, but I would argue that both Romney and Obama may have been off about Russia at the time, Romney overestimating and Obama underestimating the Russian threat, at least publicly on the campaign trail. In 2012, Al Qaida was seen the more immediate threat and I didn’t get the impression, either at the time or from reviewing that short clip, that Obama was dismissing Russia out of hand as a formidable adversary (he certainly wasn’t sucking up to them like Trump does now). Their intervention into Ukraine and annexing of Crimea wasn’t until 2014 and was more likely a response to various factors (eg. Nato expansion, falling oil prices and weakening Russian economy, Putin’s insecurity complex and illusions of former Soviet grandeur) more than anything Obama said or did directly. Russia, esp with Putin at the helm, has always been recognized as a potential military threat, though not such an immediate one as Al Qaida was during Obama’s first term. I also don’t recall hearing anything at the time about Russian hacking into the 2012 election either.
But let’s be honest, the US isn’t exactly an innocent bystander when it comes to intervention and attempts to influence foreign elections and governments. That seems pretty much the CIA’s prime directive; that and responding to blowback from previous failed policies over the years that boil down to controlling (or trying to) the Middle East oil fields and containing the perennial Arab-Jewish problem. The 2005 documentary “Why We Fight” is still as relevant now as then. There’s always someplace in the world we think needs “fixing”, regardless of who is president.
I would give Obama a C+/B- in foreign policy overall. But given the mess he inherited in the Middle East, festering for decades now and only exacerbated since the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions, he was in a Catch-22 situation, damn if you do and damn if you don’t. It’s like whack-a-mole over there; knock one out and another soon pops up nearby. Clearly, drone strikes and special ops have not been the path to a lasting peace. We still have Gitmo, we’re still in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s not likely to change anytime soon, perpetual wars seem to be our MO anymore, and we’re probably in for an even bigger quagmire in Syria. But I digress.
RALPH, I understand and agree what you are saying to most part. Isn’t it the case that Russian’s interference was detected a while back and Obama told Putin to cut it out (like Hillary telling wall street to cut it out). Why him and intelligence agencies do enough to counter it?
Only reason I can think Obama could not counter it because tactics used by Russian were mostly legal and were based on dumb (or ill-informed) masses. Even now you can see people will believe what they want to believe (goes for both sides). Russia just manufactured consent among masses, and used already existing flaws in voting rights and laziness of liberals to vote or lack of enthusiasm for Hillary.
So… Liberals are “lazy” because we did not do a good enough job of informing MIS-informed Conservative voters? Not only MIS-informed, but too lazy, it seems, to bother to check facts for themselves… and yet able with a straight face to call Liberals “lazy” for not doing it FOR THEM?!? Are Conservatives not responsible to inform themselves accurately?
And we wonder why the country is in the state it is, today.
Firstly, @ bobsuruncle. News Flash!
The Election Was Not Hacked
Some idiots at the DNC responded to spear fishing attacks and had their emails hacked. Our election process was not interfered with.
Lastly, the Republicans are hoping and praying that liberals keep pushing progressive ideas and ignoring the middle class concerns of average Americans. That strategy will insure that more local, state and federal legislative seats are gained by the GOP. If Trump fulfills just half of his promises it will guarantee a 2nd term in 2020.
So please if you want change, look in the mirror. The progressive ideology was rejected. Get over it.
The Democratic Party IMO needs to go back to its roots of fiscal conservatism, a strong military, border security and looking out for the middle class.
News flash? Umm, sorry boss, I read the news and it clearly states what I said. If you like clarification, by the phrase hacking our election, I don’t mean that they hacked the die bolds which are easily hacked, and changed results. I mean that they interfered and skewed the results through several means as is easily confirmed with CNN or other AP stories.
Hassan, by that same logic, Japan is a threat because they once bombed Pearl Harbor. Horses and bayonets my brother, a goggle search will explain the context. Was Russia a threat to the us 8 years ago? 4 yrs ago? Will they be in 4 years? I think each has a different distinct answer. Again, to conflate Russia from 8 yrs ago and the posturing then with them interfering in our election now is silly.
And just like that its obvious some people now think the fiscal conservatism and strong military of the Bush era brought about peace and prosperity from 2000-2008. The greatest recession, and the numerous wars during that time never happened!!
Ironically, our of the two presidential candidates it seems clear that HRC was the better candidate for the above as well as border security. Trump’s fiscal policiy will increase the deficit and make the 1% even wealthier. Russia and Wikileaks are more trusted than our own intelligence agencies. And trump only listens to intelligence briefings when he feels like it. What are the odds that national and border security ends up being chaotic and more like the wild west than a discipled organized service? Hopefully our president is as smart as he says he is!
“The progressive ideology was rejected.”
Yeah, in three states by about 100k votes. Nationally it won by nearly 3,000,000 voters. Democrats need to message better, obviously, but there’s only so much you can do when faced with a massive amount of ignorant people hell bent on ignoring facts and voting against their self interest.
The GOP is better for the middle class? Sure thing. They’ll benefit greatly from worse health insurance, tax cuts that won’t touch them, the gutting of public schools, elimination of worker protections, and so on and so forth until this gothic nightmare is clear even to the people who voted Trump but are shocked, just shocked, that now he wants to get rid of their newly acquired insurance.
Pushing civil rights and equality is not taking focus off the middle class. It’s trying to benefit everyone with things like insurance access and cheaper education, higher wages, childcare, and a general assurance of mobility. Trump promised the return of jobs that don’t exist and a Leave it to Beaver societal picture. It’s pure fantasy.
Bobsuruncle, that’s the problem Bob, you get your info from the news. How accurate was the news covering the election? How accurate were the “news” pols? Conflating hacked emails with hacked ballot boxes is a spin, not a fact, boss.
As to the rest, we’ll have to wait for history to unfold.
A few questions boss:
1) Do you think American citizens need to stay informed of their governments’ (all levels) activities and policies?
2) If your answer to question 1 is yes, then how do you propose that American citizens get the information they need to stay informed?
As far as I know the ultimate result of the election fell within the margin of error for most news polls. Clinton was up by about four points nationally with a three point (ish) margin of error. She won that vote by two points or so.
The problem (that anyone following FiveThirtyEight or even the very Clinton-bullish Upshot would have read) is that being off by two points nationally means polls in states are also likely off as well, which was indeed the case.
Being skeptical of the news is right. Taking them to task when they’re wrong is right. Forsaking fact-based journalism as a whole (in favor of what, exactly?) is entirely crazy. Jwhat is exactly right.
Thatguy- I agree with all you’ve said. The problem is as I see it, journalism. Reporting the facts without a left/ right view is hard to find. An off the wall estimate is that 90% of “news” is actually opinion or at best punditry. Both the left and right will state a fact, then bend it to their politixal leaning.
The only way to counter it is through research into the facts. Also, maybe a disclaimer at the beginning that it is an opinion piece concerning some facts. Maybe colleges need to retool their journalism courses.
And yes Jwhat- I do think the public needs to hold journalists to a standard, problem is if the reporter, pundit, etc is ideologically matched to the reader that doesn’t happen.
“Everyone is biased” is a pretty lazy excuse. It’s a false equivalence that acts as though both left and right have a similar issue with truth. That’s nonsense.
We’ve just elected the most dishonest and overtly false President in living memory, perhaps of all time. One of the issues was that news outlets of all stripes failed to call him on this. Another was that distrust of the media led many to believe that when he was called on it, it was simply partisan sniping.
Look to the ends of the political spectrum and see who regularly denounces science. Who claims fact checkers are biased against them. Who really claim the media is out to get them.
But it’s easier than that. Look at what party is pushing through cabinet appointments before those appointees have been vetted. Look who is pushing them through in a single day to ensure no concentrated media scrutiny is possible. Then see that this group matches that of the previous paragraph.
This really isn’t as confused as you make it out to be.
To be fair, thatguy, the far left is, to some extent, equally non science. Just look at holistic healing, and alt medicine. Anti vaxxers are predominantly left.
That should have said alt medicine.
But again, do those things cause as many problems as climate change denial? As much pain as forcing women to hold funerals for miscarried or aborted fetuses? As nonsense economics?
Yeah, there’s some seriously silly crap on the left. I spent part of my Christmas Day hearing about how WiFi is so dangerous I should be turning off my router whenever I’m not using it. That doesn’t hurt anyone anywhere near as much as continuing to pump carbon into the atmosphere.