Just Thinking

[Kathianne]

Fell asleep early, woke up early, might take a nap before going to work.

Came across this, which I think NT alluded to earlier? http://townhall.com/tipsheet/jasonho...ampaign=buffer

Democrat Senator to Harry Reid: You’re an Embarrassment

Jason Hopkins
|
Posted: Nov 12, 2016 11:24 AM



Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia did not appreciate what Harry Reid had to say after Trump’s election victory upset. To quote the conservative Democrat correctly, he told Reid he was, “an absolute embarrassment to the Senate as an institution, our Democratic party, and the nation."

Ouch.

Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Reid is not loved by Republicans, but to have a member of your party (and caucus) call you out so harshly should give you pause.
After Trump won the Electoral College, Reid referred to Trump as a sexual predator.

It may not be so surprising Manchin is taking this tone, however. Trump won West Virginia by a resounding 42-point margin. A Democrat in a state turning bright red, Manchin has had to be very careful navigating the political waters. He is already perhaps the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, but his election in 2018 may make him pivot even further right in the coming months. There were rumors that he may begin caucusing with Senate Republicans, but Manchin made clear this week he would continue as a Democrat while in office.

...

He made clear he'll stick with Democrats, but are there any likely flips to see in the near future? Seems that there's been a trend in past few elections for some of the members to flip to the majority party.

[Kathianne]

Another weird thing I was thinking about before falling asleep quite early; I heard that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are taking on the roles of leaders of the Democrat Party. Both are getting way up there, they are to be the 'new faces?' Ok. I think there may be a bit of a problem right now for that Party. It appears the common knowledge now is that Clinton wasn't liberal enough?

[NightTrain]

Fell asleep early, woke up early, might take a nap before going to work.

Came across this, which I think NT alluded to earlier? http://townhall.com/tipsheet/jasonho...ampaign=buffer




He made clear he'll stick with Democrats, but are there any likely flips to see in the near future? Seems that there's been a trend in past few elections for some of the members to flip to the majority party.

Yep, that was the article.

It's going to get real entertaining in the next couple of months as the power struggle erupts out into the street!

[Kathianne]

There's nothing wrong with Party members questioning where they are heading, of all people I wouldn't argue that.

I haven't changed my recent change of party back to R and won't until seeing where all the pieces appear to be falling. My concerns about populism and/or nationalism haven't changed. Those concerns didn't just pop up with Trump, they have been 'dangerous' to me since I began academic studies of politics in college decades ago, indeed they are what directed me away from the more 'liberal' party in those formative years.

It's a good thing when a party becomes more inclusive in that new members suddenly choose it over the other. On the other hand, it behooves the growing party to analyze that it is moving where it intended to move. For every gain, there must be an evaluation of what message is being received-is the message being received intended? If not, is this where the party is going, intended or not? Will it hold up and does the party want it to be? Can the party work with it?

Over the course of the election process, both parties gained and lost significant parts of what were assumed to be their bases. The Republicans were losing the college educated base and women-the drumbeat of that was known by leadership, the press, and the opposition party. That the Democrat party was losing the 'working man' vote was a question that was answered Tuesday. There wasn't the coverage by the media or the Republicans on the possible loses of base of the Democrats-which made the idea of it losing more than the Republicans underreported. At the end of the day, the Democrats lost more than predicted and the Republicans gained back significant numbers by the time the polls closed of the college educated and women. The results were obvious by end of the night.

Now comes the reevaluations. The 'good thing' about losing, you get to that immediately, what's remains of the party demands it. So the Democrats are diving in immediately and a couple hundred hours later it looks like the far left is pushing to dominate. Heck the streets are full of potential members demanding to be led by Marx! There are leaders in that party that are going to let that thread run itself out, it must in order to move on. They have to figure out what went wrong as the dust settles. No doubt-their candidate on Nov. 8 was judged to be worse than the other. That both candidates weren't well received would be a monumental understatement. So, is the problem in the long haul that their message was wrong or the candidate? If it were mostly the candidate, where do they look for a better one for the next election? How do they remove the stain of the last candidate to those running in two years? How do they repackage their message to gain back the base losses?

Meanwhile, the 'winning' party has to get a government up and running, their inquiries into what went right and wrong with the election will take backseat for awhile. What is obvious is there will be little celebrating, the protests are making that clear. There are going to be disruptions from all appearances. This is going to anger members of their own party and make it more difficult to get on with their plans. Can the president-elect strike the balance to reach out to unreasonable people? Not easy for those that are natural unifiers.

In this election, demonizing of both candidates was easy and done often. The majority of those that didn't vote for the president elect do want him to succeed, for the good of the country. They have gone back to work, taking care of their kids, basically getting on with it. Those with a different agenda are those that are still protesting, trying to encourage faithless electors, i.e., continuing the election after it's over. The media will continue to cover these people as long as they create a story-a lot of that depends on how others provide the fodder for them to continue to make stories. If they are ignored, they can get more violent or they'll go home and eat turkey, in which case the stories will write themselves. If there is a lot of backlash to them from others, then there will be other stories. In other words, the next few weeks are fraught with tension.

Then there is 'to pardon or not?' If so, Obama pardon or Trump? If not? What about governing and unifying?

After the inauguration and the direction is set, then the winning party will begin to figure out where they are and where they're going. Of course, unlike the losing party, they won't have the full picture for quite some time. Their message will still be under construction, depending on how the new government is working or not.

There are reasons that the 'pendulum' tends to swing back and forth.

[Kathianne]

The Dems have a problem, what powers they created are now open to 'the other side':



It's been noticed:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poste...hem/?tid=ss_fb

Glenn Greenwald: Trump will have vast powers. He can thank Democrats for them.By Glenn GreenwaldNovember 11

<section id="top-content" class="col-lg-12 col-md-12 col-sm-10 col-xs-10 col-xs-offset-1 col-sm-offset-1 col-md-offset-0 col-lg-offset-0 layout" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative; min-height: 1px; float: left; width: 1080.8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-bottom: 40px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: FranklinITCProLight, HelveticaNeue, &quot;Helvetica Neue Light&quot;, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, &quot;Lucida Grande&quot;, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; padding: 0px !important; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(213, 213, 213) !important;"><iframe frameborder="0" src="https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-5/html/container.html#xpc=sf-gdn-exp-1&p=https%3A//www.washingtonpost.com" id="google_ads_iframe_/701/wpni.opinions/blog/posteverything_2" title="3rd party ad content" name="" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" width="200" height="60" data-is-safeframe="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px; border-style: initial; vertical-align: bottom;"></iframe>








</section><section id="main-content" class="col-xl-9 col-lg-8 col-md-8 col-sm-12 col-xs-12 col-xs-offset-0 col-sm-offset-0 col-md-offset-0 col-lg-offset-0 layout" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative; min-height: 1px; padding-right: 90.0625px; float: left; width: 720.531px; margin-left: 0px; border-right: none; margin-bottom: 1.875rem; background-image: url(&quot;//img.washingtonpost.com/pb/resources/img/spacer-gray.png&quot; background-repeat: repeat-y; background-position: 94% center; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: FranklinITCProLight, HelveticaNeue, &quot;Helvetica Neue Light&quot;, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, &quot;Lucida Grande&quot;, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px !important;">Liberals liked executive authority as long as Obama wielded it. Now they've set a precedent.


...


</section>

[gabosaurus]

What will Manchin think when he discovers that Trump can't bring back coal as a fuel source?

[NightTrain]

What will Manchin think when he discovers that Trump can't bring back coal as a fuel source?

It doesn't matter what Manchin thinks. He's a democrat in the US Senate with no filibuster.