I will never figure out why the country thought it would be cool to send a grifting, carnival-barking, pussygrabbing “fucking moron” to the White House to succeed Barack Obama. Never.
Racism and sexism. I accept that Hilary Clinton was a somewhat flawed candidate, but she had experience as Secretary of State and she worked to become an effective senator.
In retrospect perhaps Obama erred in working to convince Biden to stand down in 2016. That said, Hilary was still a far better candidate for president.
Republicans were setting up to anoint Trump way back in Gingrich days -- probably before, according to historians. They just needed someone to burn a pathway that they could passively follow....
The biggest factor in VP Biden's decision not to run in 2016 was the death of his son and protege, Beau, who passed away from brain cancer in May 2015. He and his family were grieving, and by the time he felt 'well, maybe I should run', the window for mounting a successful primary against Clinton had closed. President Obama also weighed in, but it was largely due to Beau Biden's death that Joe Biden decided to put his family first and skip the 2016 race.
It took a HUGE toll not just on Joe Biden but on Jill and their whole family. He announced his decision not to run in October 2015 by which time any serious campaign for president should have already been in full swing.
I hate to remind us but there was his debate against Trump. I thought Biden came away well in what he said... But he had a cold and had made two plane trips that week and wasn't really looking his best. It was perception vs. reality and the wrong person got the better marks.... in spite of how correct Biden had been in his answers.. to my mind... It is all so sad.
We just have to move forward. I'm thinking about working to get all the seniors in my area to register and vote... In case they haven't voted before... and the mail in ballot is superb. No lines to wait on and no depending on weather that can keep seniors at home.
Let's stop announcing that every woman is a "flawed" candidate — EVERY candidate is "flawed" in some way. Keep in mind that Hillary had approvals as high as 70% when she was Secretary of State but when she announced her run for president they went into freefall. Her baseline "flaw" was being a woman who wanted the top job. The media had to invent her overarching "flaw" — the baseless "her emails" scandal.
Hillary had real plans for making America great instead of the orange menace with his MAGA message. Are you aware that after Trump won, Finland put in classes in critical thinking into the school curriculums. They spotted the flaw in the rhetoric and the way people don't bother to actually analyze what they are being told.. The lies are easier to swallow rather than actually think. But I don't want to beat on Americans. I'm one of us.. But consider France, where they work to live and here, where we live to work. I know I did. I worked until I was 84. I loved being the editor of a small town newspaper... so it wasn't working to me.
But I arranged to take my two week vacation by leaving two weeks of work in the hopper so that issues were covered without my being there..
But the one interesting event during a vacation that, I missed was the one open meeting Charles Wang did in our area, but it was covered by another editor. I met him and enjoyed meeting him. He graduated from Queens College, my alma mater.
How are voter perceptions created? I saw this firsthand when I canvassed in 2016. I canvassed almost entirely in inner city Cleveland so about 95% of voters I talked to were Black. I ran into so many who said "Of course I'd never vote for Trump but I just don't like Hillary." When I asked them why, they almost inevitably said "I keep hearing about her emails," and when I asked what about the emails bothered them, they never knew what it was about. Look at those word cloud graphics from that election and you will see that "emails" dominates Hillary's. The media created an impression of some ghastly misdeed when in fact, the emails barely amounted to anything. But they loomed large in voters' minds. (A month after the election, Jared and Ivanka were using personal phones and email to do government business and it was a half-day story, spun by the media as trivial.)
What infuriated me then, and still does,were the Dems who railed against Clinton, using a long list of the same negative adjectives. At the time, I thought the words were from circulating emails or literature, but now I think it was bots. In any case, Clinton was not far enough left for them. One Dem told me on the phone that she wasn't voting for President because she saw no difference between Clinton and DJT. It was all I could do not to scream at her. When I reminded a woman at the polls that the Supreme Court was at stake, she railed against Merrick Garland's record. I wonder how she likes Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett.
I can't deal with those "no difference" types, especially when one of the choices is Trump. That's just too ignorant for me. And yeah, I'm still seething about every Bernie Bro who said that "but the Supreme Court" wasn't a good enough argument to "make" them vote for a "warmongering, neoliberal Wall Street shill" like Hillary. I'm getting angry thinking about it.
Again I do hate to state my opinions... but I would have had Hillary take speech lessons. Women often talk higher to impress and end up sounding preachy instead of lowering their voices to a deeper tone to gain a serious tone. Again it's all perception vs. reality. And while I am being bitchy.. I would have given Camela a new haircut and better suits. Sorry... but perception vs. reality...
Maybe you'd like to give some advice to Trump whose speech is disjointed, singsong and incoherent, whose hair and melting orange greasepaint are grotesque and whose suits never fit. Apparently this reality doesn't matter.
I so very much agree with you.. My only defense is that we expect so little from Trump that what he says goes without comment. Imagine when he stood up at the United Nations and said Global Warming was a hoax. How come the delegates didn't all laugh at him. He is known as a liar and we, the world, just accept it. It's as if we are all being too polite to laugh at him. We're civilized and he is out of control.
This is a problem: normalizing his outlandish behavior so we don't comment on it. The media has a problem with this. Imagine any other president said or did the kind of things he says and does. It would stick out like a sore thumb because it's so absurd. But people have gotten used to him shattering all norms of civilized and respectful behavior.
I got to see Hilary Clinton speak last year. She was brilliant and amazing. Her command of history and details and politics around the world is just stunning. I believe any flaws she has were only noted in relationship to her sex. Which makes life almost unbearably sad as a woman. And then watching Kamala Harris go down to Trumpelstein is too much. We cannot accept this any longer.
Thanks for sharing your experience of hearing Hillary speak.
The level of misogyny accepted by our society is troubling. That we now have rightwing female podcasters and influencers talking about women not needing the right to vote is scary.
I truly will never understand why so many men are so threatened by accepting women as fully human.
Maybe it's because we have a competitive society. Where anyone can go as far as they can with the result we are all each other's competition... How is this for reaching for an answer.... We are a country that is only 250 years old. We are
so new and without enough shared traditions and rules of behavior. Think of the Navaho... I love and loved the Tony Hillerman books that told of their beliefs. One was that a man's mother was not welcome in he and his wife's home because a man could only have one woman to love/respect.
We need some unifying traditions, coming together times to bond us as a country. We are so diverse at a time when the world is so large and different. How's this... remember when we were all singing.."Where have all the flowers gone...". and "They paved over paradise and made it a parking lot." I guess I am talking about songs that identified our common thoughts and united us as Americans.
As opposed to what Trump has been doing, trying to divide and conquer us as a nation. I guess we need to find out soul.
I heard Hillary speak 7 times during the 2016 campaign. She was friendly, warm, empathetic, relatable, and had strong, well-articulated ideas. The media never reported on her as she was, always picking her apart to find tiny flaws and amplify them. (To be fair, they did this to John Kerry too, caricaturing him as rigid, humorless and "patrician", which was the opposite of how he came across. I heard him speak 4 or 5 times, and he was funny, warm and approachable.)
No, no ladies. Men are just lovely and kind and can you imagine they are willing to devote their lives to supporting a wife and children. They make my endorphins bloom. I like being with men as people. They are different from us and just wonderful. There is a special bond I do feel and I hope you do too.
Her voice has mellowed with age. She is amazing. She should have been president. Why didn't we women all stand up and cheer for her. If I remember it correctly, we sort of didn't want to push that for fear of making that an issue that might have cost her votes.
Of course it is. See the comment above. Considering Trump's clown-like appearance and incoherent and annoying speech, it's laughable to critique Hillary and Kamala.
I do too. No forgiveness. I still don't think Trump has any grounds for going after him, especially since Comey got Trump elected. He should be thanking him instead.
It is so sad that Hillary didn't become president. I still think that Comet was the reason. He threw yet another doubt into some people's minds...
and then a lot of people assumed no one in their right mind would vote for Trump. Were they surprised.
and this time around we had Elon Musk in Penn. offering to pay voters one million dollars to vote for Trump. And how many millions did he pay to help him get elected... and see how it has paid off for Musk. That investment has made him a trillionaire.
Had Mitch McConnell and his "boys" in the senate done the job either time the House of Representatives presented them with articles of impeachment, convicting and removing the felon, we would have faced none of what we have today.
The job description of McConnell, as the majority leader of the Senate, was to serve the base of his party. The base of the so-called Republican Party consists of racial & religious bigots. Trump anointed himself as the Bigot in Chief. The "Republican Base" became the MAGA Mob. The current leaders of the MAGA Party can't go against the base.
He gave people permission to let their worst selves flourish and come out. Before there was a certain restraint that kept America in a more cultured civil state
Yes, yes. And that was when Chief Justice Roberts ran a trial without any witnesses. How was that allowed. How to they get away with what they do. And Roberts is still there on the Superme Court along with Justice Thomas who is a bought man.
We have so many areas we need to clean up and fix.
Hillary still had almost 3 million more votes. Trump was elected by our antiquated electoral college system which was very likely manipulated by Russian propaganda.
Once you realize that it mostly started with Nixon's "Southern Strategy" but got seriously under way with Reagan, it's not hard to understand at all. The capitalism-über-alles crowd didn't have the votes, plus they had a long history of crashing the economy. Once they made common cause with the backlash to civil rights and women's rights, they were (fool's) golden pretty much up to the present day.
In some ways the Obama presidency -- the election of a Black man -- was an anomaly, but it other ways it wasn't: a Republican administration had just crashed the economy *again* and on top of that it had squandered the world's regard in the wake of 9/11 by going to war with Iraq and digging itself (and the rest of the world) into a quagmire that we're still slogging through. Brilliant idea, wasn't it? Destabilizing Iraq and leaving the way clear for a resurgent Iran to dominate the Middle East.
I still believe the vote was so low because so many of us didn’t think tRump could win,after his first disastrous term. And a Lot of young white men who couldn’t get dates decided to vote their anger…
There was (and still is) a very strong anti-incumbency “wind” blowing through the world’s politics. We can argue about the causes, but its existence is undeniable. It swept the Democrats out of office in 2024. Given the abject failure of Trump and the Republicans to address or even make an attempt to understand the causes of the sentiment, this wind has switched and now seems poised to sweep Democrats back into office in 2026 and (hopefully) 2028. As I look across the developed world, I don’t see anyone who seems to have yet successfully cracked the code on how to stay in power. The announcement from the UK today is just the latest example of how hard it is to satisfy an electorate these days.
I heard a wonderul woman talking on NPR radio one morning about how as we elect one party, it takes over and gets rid of the past administration's work, and then the other party wins and does the same. Her view was that we are going nowhere with this policy and other countries are making better decisions for their people. Think of Norway and the Scandinavian countries where people do pay high taxes but they are all taken care of to live a happier peaceful life together.
Obama worked to give us health care and Trump came along and destroyed the programs. How truly awful.
But there was Project 2026, that told us what was planned but we never believed it would happen.
The best thing is that we have the Contrarians and other groups fighting in the courts to stop the Orange Menace's plans. It is awful for us but I hope inspirational for other countries to see that it is possible to fight governments that oppress their people.
I’m old enough to remember the days when there was an actual ideological overlap between our two major parties. There were New England Republicans and Southern Democrats who could often find enough common ground to work together on substantive legislation rather than simply scoring points off each other in the media. That’s how we got Medicare, Medicaid, and various pieces of civil rights legislation. That died, mostly because of the Republicans’ embrace of the far right and Newt Gingrich’s “scorched earth” tactics as Speaker of the House back in the 90’s that set the stage for our current legislative gridlock. Our parties are more ideologically “pure” these days, but I don’t think that we as citizens are better off as a result.
"I will never figure out why the country thought it would be cool to send a grifting, carnival-barking, pussygrabbing “fucking moron” to the White House to succeed Barack Obama. Never."
The fact that Trump was elected twice means the Democrats missed something (probably several "somethings"). They have managed to blame everything and everyone except themselves. You haven't heard a peep out of Jen Rubin as to the "why" of the 2024 loss.
Irrelevant in a system that selects a President based on electoral votes, which relies on state-level votes, not a national total. Despite your grumblings, the Founders of our Constitution got it right. If you want a change, it requires the nation to go through the amendment process.
They "got it right" for the world that existed 250 years ago — a world with slavery, a world with restive southern states who needed to be lured into the Union, and a world without communication faster than face-to-face conversations and transportation faster than horses. By 1860, that world was obsolete and so was the Electoral College. There was talk in the 1990s about abolishing it but after George Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 but won the presidency the GOP bailed on it. No other country in the world has such a cockamamie system that overrides the popular vote — for good reason. We no longer need to bribe slave states to be part of the system.
We also used the EC system because those who were voting were educated and the general population wasn't. Today we're all better educated and don't need an elite to vote for us. Obviously, as we see, we are doing a better job... Mostly.
"Today we're all better educated and don't need an elite to vote for us."
We may be "better educated", but not in the arena of politics. Most voters in the U.S. only care if there is a (D) or an (R) after a name. No thinking required, just blind party loyalty. And I believe that both the Dems and the Repubs like it that way.
Yes, there are as ton of reasons the electoral college is outdated. And everyone recognized it back at the end of the 1900s. Then Bush took the presidency without the majority in 2000 (as did Trump in 2016)and suddenly the GOP saw the potential in it for gaming elections and now they oppose eliminating it.
"They "got it right" for the world that existed 250 years ago..."
When the Constitution was ratified, there were three different methods for selecting federal officials for office: House members, Senators, and the President, and the length of terms for each was different. Do you know the "why" behind that?
Yes, I do. And I know the full story behind the electoral college. Senators and House members were selected by individual states; the president was not, and it was essential then to lure the southern states into the union — the basis of the electoral college.which like I said, was obsolete, once slavery was abolished and trains and telegraph existed.
There are so many "why's", so many variables. You can see that in the
ntanswers many of us have tried to give. I think we were surprised to find the latino population followed the Catholic Church on abortion. And were young men against abortion in that they lost the ability to protect an embryo they created - who would have thought that. They wanted that control, sadly. Women just want to pick the right time to have children for the best of reasons. Michael Chricton in one of his books said that the English leave the question of abortion to a woman and her doctor. Why is it anyone else's business. There is no giant movement to provide child care in America, just the claim that a woman has no rights to decide what happens to her own body although they aren't willing to put their money where their demands leave us.
Yet no one has bothered to enunciate them, most prominently The Contrarian staff. Most demographic groups shifted to the right in the 2024 election. Clearly the Democrats' views, positions and policies had something to do with it, but it's still "crickets" from this forum and Jen Rubin.
I can see that you want answers from the Contrarians and I can understand that. But of course, I have one more comment.. of my own, and that is what James Carvile said: "It's the money stupid" is what I recall him saying. In other words, WE didn't get out the message the American people wanted. WE thought abortion rights and women's rights would get a Democrat elected. It turned out WE were wrong. I have no answers, only comments, opinions and opines. And I think we do have to figure out what was done wrong so that we can make course corrections, but my guess is your guess and other's guesses are still going to be guesses.
"I can see that you want answers from the Contrarians..."
Actually, I couldn't care less if this forum replies or not. I'm perfectly fine just showing the blind spots and hypocrisy of the Democrats/Progressives/Liberals. Republicans/Conservatives show the same attributes in their forums as well.
Great column! President Obama is right, of course: We don't have to blame others when we find problems that need fixing.
We can work together as Americans to build solutions that reflect our common unity -- our comm-unity -- and stop pitting individual against individual.
We are one nation, one people, sharing a common set of ideals -- liberty and justice for all.
Mabe not. I've been reading how Alberta might secede from Canada.
All politics is (and are) local. I live in Baghdad By the Sea, where Cuban/South American affairs are apparently more inportant politically than whether our president is a crooked caudillo and is dragging us down the tubes.
I listened in tears to the speeches given by both Michelle and Barack Obama last Friday. I do believe their insistence that hope is a choice we can make is tremendously important right now. Let's not give up. There are more of us who want the future promised by our aspirational founding document than there are white, Christian nationalists. We just need to mobilize and recognize that our strength is in forming coalitions across our many differences. Diversity is strength.
Watching the celebration of the opening of the Obama center in Chicago and the Knick’s celebration in NYC was a wonderful reminder of what we’ve been missing this past year and a half. Trump has done much to suck the joy out of our lives. His regime has done serious damage but watching these celebrations remind us that great leaders are still among us. We need to work and make sure our voices are heard in the Midterm Elections.
You captured it! Beautifully articulated both the rot at the center of MAGA and the hope contained in the values and dreams the rest of us can work to restore and build ,together.
Our next legal hurdle is to defeat Trump's plan to restrict mail-in voting to those states he approves. Just like he denies Federal money to blue states. Norm Eisen is on the case, right?
Poor poor MAGA cult members are going nuts seeing their "hero" disintegrating before their very eyes. They cannot accept that Obama is an honorable man while their "hero" is a dispicable non-human. They cannot accept the inevitable. They are terrified to think for themselves and transition back to the real world.
Real world, indeed. It must have been on a Substack because I'm not on X, but it was a pic of the four presidents there - Bush, Clinton, Obama and Biden. "Four pieces of shit" was an X poster's caption. Is that what it's come to - any president NOT Trump, or anyone not allied with Trump is automatically a "piece of shit"? I really don't get it.
Yes indeed! Many of us are out here working on behalf of democracy. In Kansas, that’s a real challenge as our legislature pushes to become one of the worst of the worst. But we won’t give up. Thank you for sharing Obama’s optimism. We need an encouraging and long view if we are to overcome the autocratic and destructive MAGA movement, for it is much bigger than Trump.
It's getting late at night and I am still engrossed in our conversation. I am thrilled that we are taking the high road in spite of what we are experiencing.
And I am grateful for all of you who care, and to Norm and Jen for getting us all together..
We have to stand up to the crude, callous, corrupt conman! But it is getting easier as he humiliates and beclowns himself every single day. Just as his feckless VP was anxiously awaiting the Iranian delegation in Geneva, tRump threatens to kill the negotiators and occupy their country… I certainly didn’t have that choice on my Bingo card.
Pardons for J6 cop beaters & insurrections fraudsters drug kingpins "No quarter no mercy” for sandwich throwers or other Trump critics who are the worst of the worst/the enemy within? Resist the corrupt authoritarians. Vote Blue!
If you recall, the minute after Obama was elected, Mitchell McConnell collected a group of political cronies to develop means and strategies to defeat Obama's legislative goals. Hateful and irrational racism at its finest.
It's less the flaws in the Constitution than the duties that congress (small c intentional) relinquished to the president. Not wanting to be responsive or responsible to the voters and the Constitution itself.
The GOP would not be able to control Congress if the number of Reps and Senators were in office due to population in each state. A state like California should have more Senators than Wyoming because a large populated state should be more represented. And why do we need an Electoral College? We don't. It is antiquated.
Trump 2.0 a disaster every which way you turn. It may well take a generation or more to undo the damage. Republicans may never recover. They will have to reinvent themselves.
Maybe, just maybe (hopefully), we will recover from this dystopian Trump era and the pendulum will swing back toward decency, truthfulness, honor, compassion, and commitment. Historians may see “Trump” as a wake up call for the sleepwalking American complacency that allowed us to believe politicians work for our interests rather than their own grift and grandiose illusions. We are getting schooled on how devious criminals can use our insecurities to divide us for their corruption. Maybe, just maybe, if we survive this low period we will emerge a more lucid nation.
The former GOP will never be accepted again. Conservative viewpoints are legit but TOTAL ABDICATION of DUTY is not. That, my friends, is what the former GOP members will be remembered for in this period of our history.
They have done it before. Former Democratic Republicans created the business orientated Whig Party, then morphed into the abolitionist party the GOP, only to fall back on its Whig party line. Now it has no standards, morals, or ethics. It only stands for Felon Trump. The Republican Party, like the Federalist Party and the now Libertarians, will fade to a small, vocal voice but little power in government. Thomas Jefferson believed there should be no political parties, just those who espoused ideas that were either accepted or rejected by the voters. He may get his wish for a short time.
Other political parties before them have failed and disappeared (Whigs, Know-Nothings, and even the Tea Party [absorbed into what became MAga]). It's quite possible that the Republican Pary will have the same end.
I will never figure out why the country thought it would be cool to send a grifting, carnival-barking, pussygrabbing “fucking moron” to the White House to succeed Barack Obama. Never.
Racism and sexism. I accept that Hilary Clinton was a somewhat flawed candidate, but she had experience as Secretary of State and she worked to become an effective senator.
In retrospect perhaps Obama erred in working to convince Biden to stand down in 2016. That said, Hilary was still a far better candidate for president.
“ Racism and sexism.”
And both at the same time in the case of Kamala Harris.
The Republicans had run a two decade (or more) campaign against the Clintons to poison their brand.
Very true. Given the GOP's capitulation to Trump in 2016
their outrage at Clinton's behavior while in office looks hypocritical and performative.
Ken Starr later went on to a high position at Baylor where he helped to cover up sexual misconduct by college athletes.
Republicans were setting up to anoint Trump way back in Gingrich days -- probably before, according to historians. They just needed someone to burn a pathway that they could passively follow....
The biggest factor in VP Biden's decision not to run in 2016 was the death of his son and protege, Beau, who passed away from brain cancer in May 2015. He and his family were grieving, and by the time he felt 'well, maybe I should run', the window for mounting a successful primary against Clinton had closed. President Obama also weighed in, but it was largely due to Beau Biden's death that Joe Biden decided to put his family first and skip the 2016 race.
Yes, Beau Biden's illness and death had a great impact on Biden's decision in 2016.
It took a HUGE toll not just on Joe Biden but on Jill and their whole family. He announced his decision not to run in October 2015 by which time any serious campaign for president should have already been in full swing.
I hate to remind us but there was his debate against Trump. I thought Biden came away well in what he said... But he had a cold and had made two plane trips that week and wasn't really looking his best. It was perception vs. reality and the wrong person got the better marks.... in spite of how correct Biden had been in his answers.. to my mind... It is all so sad.
We just have to move forward. I'm thinking about working to get all the seniors in my area to register and vote... In case they haven't voted before... and the mail in ballot is superb. No lines to wait on and no depending on weather that can keep seniors at home.
Let's stop announcing that every woman is a "flawed" candidate — EVERY candidate is "flawed" in some way. Keep in mind that Hillary had approvals as high as 70% when she was Secretary of State but when she announced her run for president they went into freefall. Her baseline "flaw" was being a woman who wanted the top job. The media had to invent her overarching "flaw" — the baseless "her emails" scandal.
Exactly, Ms Clinton would have made a great President. If we had a woman President, we would not be in the mess we are now.
Harris would've been a better president too. On the other hand, so would my cat.
How funny.
Anything other than Trump would be an improvement.
Hillary had real plans for making America great instead of the orange menace with his MAGA message. Are you aware that after Trump won, Finland put in classes in critical thinking into the school curriculums. They spotted the flaw in the rhetoric and the way people don't bother to actually analyze what they are being told.. The lies are easier to swallow rather than actually think. But I don't want to beat on Americans. I'm one of us.. But consider France, where they work to live and here, where we live to work. I know I did. I worked until I was 84. I loved being the editor of a small town newspaper... so it wasn't working to me.
But I arranged to take my two week vacation by leaving two weeks of work in the hopper so that issues were covered without my being there..
But the one interesting event during a vacation that, I missed was the one open meeting Charles Wang did in our area, but it was covered by another editor. I met him and enjoyed meeting him. He graduated from Queens College, my alma mater.
I described Hillary Clinton as a flawed candidate. I did not refer to all female candidates as flawed.
It might have been more accurate ro say that Hillary Clinton was perceived by some voters as flawed.
Not really — she won the popular vote. You will never have unanimous agreement in any election, unless a candidate is unchallenged.
I said "perceived by some voters ".
I'm opting of of this discussion.
How are voter perceptions created? I saw this firsthand when I canvassed in 2016. I canvassed almost entirely in inner city Cleveland so about 95% of voters I talked to were Black. I ran into so many who said "Of course I'd never vote for Trump but I just don't like Hillary." When I asked them why, they almost inevitably said "I keep hearing about her emails," and when I asked what about the emails bothered them, they never knew what it was about. Look at those word cloud graphics from that election and you will see that "emails" dominates Hillary's. The media created an impression of some ghastly misdeed when in fact, the emails barely amounted to anything. But they loomed large in voters' minds. (A month after the election, Jared and Ivanka were using personal phones and email to do government business and it was a half-day story, spun by the media as trivial.)
So it was the electoral college that defeated her. Not the
American people. We have a flawed system to repair.
What infuriated me then, and still does,were the Dems who railed against Clinton, using a long list of the same negative adjectives. At the time, I thought the words were from circulating emails or literature, but now I think it was bots. In any case, Clinton was not far enough left for them. One Dem told me on the phone that she wasn't voting for President because she saw no difference between Clinton and DJT. It was all I could do not to scream at her. When I reminded a woman at the polls that the Supreme Court was at stake, she railed against Merrick Garland's record. I wonder how she likes Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett.
I can't deal with those "no difference" types, especially when one of the choices is Trump. That's just too ignorant for me. And yeah, I'm still seething about every Bernie Bro who said that "but the Supreme Court" wasn't a good enough argument to "make" them vote for a "warmongering, neoliberal Wall Street shill" like Hillary. I'm getting angry thinking about it.
Again I do hate to state my opinions... but I would have had Hillary take speech lessons. Women often talk higher to impress and end up sounding preachy instead of lowering their voices to a deeper tone to gain a serious tone. Again it's all perception vs. reality. And while I am being bitchy.. I would have given Camela a new haircut and better suits. Sorry... but perception vs. reality...
Maybe you'd like to give some advice to Trump whose speech is disjointed, singsong and incoherent, whose hair and melting orange greasepaint are grotesque and whose suits never fit. Apparently this reality doesn't matter.
I so very much agree with you.. My only defense is that we expect so little from Trump that what he says goes without comment. Imagine when he stood up at the United Nations and said Global Warming was a hoax. How come the delegates didn't all laugh at him. He is known as a liar and we, the world, just accept it. It's as if we are all being too polite to laugh at him. We're civilized and he is out of control.
This is a problem: normalizing his outlandish behavior so we don't comment on it. The media has a problem with this. Imagine any other president said or did the kind of things he says and does. It would stick out like a sore thumb because it's so absurd. But people have gotten used to him shattering all norms of civilized and respectful behavior.
I got to see Hilary Clinton speak last year. She was brilliant and amazing. Her command of history and details and politics around the world is just stunning. I believe any flaws she has were only noted in relationship to her sex. Which makes life almost unbearably sad as a woman. And then watching Kamala Harris go down to Trumpelstein is too much. We cannot accept this any longer.
Thanks for sharing your experience of hearing Hillary speak.
The level of misogyny accepted by our society is troubling. That we now have rightwing female podcasters and influencers talking about women not needing the right to vote is scary.
I truly will never understand why so many men are so threatened by accepting women as fully human.
Because many men, too many, have the emotional maturity of 13 year olds.
Except Trump who has the emotional maturity of a five-year-old.
Maybe it's because we have a competitive society. Where anyone can go as far as they can with the result we are all each other's competition... How is this for reaching for an answer.... We are a country that is only 250 years old. We are
so new and without enough shared traditions and rules of behavior. Think of the Navaho... I love and loved the Tony Hillerman books that told of their beliefs. One was that a man's mother was not welcome in he and his wife's home because a man could only have one woman to love/respect.
We need some unifying traditions, coming together times to bond us as a country. We are so diverse at a time when the world is so large and different. How's this... remember when we were all singing.."Where have all the flowers gone...". and "They paved over paradise and made it a parking lot." I guess I am talking about songs that identified our common thoughts and united us as Americans.
As opposed to what Trump has been doing, trying to divide and conquer us as a nation. I guess we need to find out soul.
I was thinking about that this morning. They make life so much worse for both sexes and why???
I heard Hillary speak 7 times during the 2016 campaign. She was friendly, warm, empathetic, relatable, and had strong, well-articulated ideas. The media never reported on her as she was, always picking her apart to find tiny flaws and amplify them. (To be fair, they did this to John Kerry too, caricaturing him as rigid, humorless and "patrician", which was the opposite of how he came across. I heard him speak 4 or 5 times, and he was funny, warm and approachable.)
how many smart men do we have in america ? about 7 say ?
No, no ladies. Men are just lovely and kind and can you imagine they are willing to devote their lives to supporting a wife and children. They make my endorphins bloom. I like being with men as people. They are different from us and just wonderful. There is a special bond I do feel and I hope you do too.
!
Her voice has mellowed with age. She is amazing. She should have been president. Why didn't we women all stand up and cheer for her. If I remember it correctly, we sort of didn't want to push that for fear of making that an issue that might have cost her votes.
Of course it is. See the comment above. Considering Trump's clown-like appearance and incoherent and annoying speech, it's laughable to critique Hillary and Kamala.
Well said.
Let's not forget that it was the Electoral College that prevented her from assuming the presidency in January 2017.
and comey
Comey in his holier than thou mode, along with the NYT going bonkers over "her emails"
I still blame James Comey for Hilary's loss.
I can't let go of that myself
I do too. No forgiveness. I still don't think Trump has any grounds for going after him, especially since Comey got Trump elected. He should be thanking him instead.
For sure!
It is so sad that Hillary didn't become president. I still think that Comet was the reason. He threw yet another doubt into some people's minds...
and then a lot of people assumed no one in their right mind would vote for Trump. Were they surprised.
and this time around we had Elon Musk in Penn. offering to pay voters one million dollars to vote for Trump. And how many millions did he pay to help him get elected... and see how it has paid off for Musk. That investment has made him a trillionaire.
And the buffoon got elected TWICE!
Had Mitch McConnell and his "boys" in the senate done the job either time the House of Representatives presented them with articles of impeachment, convicting and removing the felon, we would have faced none of what we have today.
The job description of McConnell, as the majority leader of the Senate, was to serve the base of his party. The base of the so-called Republican Party consists of racial & religious bigots. Trump anointed himself as the Bigot in Chief. The "Republican Base" became the MAGA Mob. The current leaders of the MAGA Party can't go against the base.
I do not think they want to do this. Closet racists perhaps?
Yes, but Dirt Bag Donny gave them permission to come out. Not many racists will admit they are racists.
He gave people permission to let their worst selves flourish and come out. Before there was a certain restraint that kept America in a more cultured civil state
Yes, yes. And that was when Chief Justice Roberts ran a trial without any witnesses. How was that allowed. How to they get away with what they do. And Roberts is still there on the Superme Court along with Justice Thomas who is a bought man.
We have so many areas we need to clean up and fix.
Hillary still had almost 3 million more votes. Trump was elected by our antiquated electoral college system which was very likely manipulated by Russian propaganda.
a lot of americans are idiots...
There's this thing called the bell curve...:-)
I would rather say complacent and maybe what Gertrude Stein said,
America has no culture.
Fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again.
Trump is, on top of all you say, a gormless git.
Hard to believe
Once you realize that it mostly started with Nixon's "Southern Strategy" but got seriously under way with Reagan, it's not hard to understand at all. The capitalism-über-alles crowd didn't have the votes, plus they had a long history of crashing the economy. Once they made common cause with the backlash to civil rights and women's rights, they were (fool's) golden pretty much up to the present day.
In some ways the Obama presidency -- the election of a Black man -- was an anomaly, but it other ways it wasn't: a Republican administration had just crashed the economy *again* and on top of that it had squandered the world's regard in the wake of 9/11 by going to war with Iraq and digging itself (and the rest of the world) into a quagmire that we're still slogging through. Brilliant idea, wasn't it? Destabilizing Iraq and leaving the way clear for a resurgent Iran to dominate the Middle East.
I still believe the vote was so low because so many of us didn’t think tRump could win,after his first disastrous term. And a Lot of young white men who couldn’t get dates decided to vote their anger…
Three factors underlying the election of Trump III - misogyny, xenophobia, and machismo.
You forgot the #1: racism.
Elegantly put! Thank you!
So well stated. It does not speak well of those who actually voted for this vulgar felonious swine and thought yeah, he will be good for this Country.
There was (and still is) a very strong anti-incumbency “wind” blowing through the world’s politics. We can argue about the causes, but its existence is undeniable. It swept the Democrats out of office in 2024. Given the abject failure of Trump and the Republicans to address or even make an attempt to understand the causes of the sentiment, this wind has switched and now seems poised to sweep Democrats back into office in 2026 and (hopefully) 2028. As I look across the developed world, I don’t see anyone who seems to have yet successfully cracked the code on how to stay in power. The announcement from the UK today is just the latest example of how hard it is to satisfy an electorate these days.
I heard a wonderul woman talking on NPR radio one morning about how as we elect one party, it takes over and gets rid of the past administration's work, and then the other party wins and does the same. Her view was that we are going nowhere with this policy and other countries are making better decisions for their people. Think of Norway and the Scandinavian countries where people do pay high taxes but they are all taken care of to live a happier peaceful life together.
Obama worked to give us health care and Trump came along and destroyed the programs. How truly awful.
But there was Project 2026, that told us what was planned but we never believed it would happen.
The best thing is that we have the Contrarians and other groups fighting in the courts to stop the Orange Menace's plans. It is awful for us but I hope inspirational for other countries to see that it is possible to fight governments that oppress their people.
I’m old enough to remember the days when there was an actual ideological overlap between our two major parties. There were New England Republicans and Southern Democrats who could often find enough common ground to work together on substantive legislation rather than simply scoring points off each other in the media. That’s how we got Medicare, Medicaid, and various pieces of civil rights legislation. That died, mostly because of the Republicans’ embrace of the far right and Newt Gingrich’s “scorched earth” tactics as Speaker of the House back in the 90’s that set the stage for our current legislative gridlock. Our parties are more ideologically “pure” these days, but I don’t think that we as citizens are better off as a result.
"I will never figure out why the country thought it would be cool to send a grifting, carnival-barking, pussygrabbing “fucking moron” to the White House to succeed Barack Obama. Never."
The fact that Trump was elected twice means the Democrats missed something (probably several "somethings"). They have managed to blame everything and everyone except themselves. You haven't heard a peep out of Jen Rubin as to the "why" of the 2024 loss.
Hillary won VOTERS in 2016, so she obviously did something right. The Constitution did something wrong, with its outdated electoral college system.
"Hillary won VOTERS in 2016..."
Irrelevant in a system that selects a President based on electoral votes, which relies on state-level votes, not a national total. Despite your grumblings, the Founders of our Constitution got it right. If you want a change, it requires the nation to go through the amendment process.
They "got it right" for the world that existed 250 years ago — a world with slavery, a world with restive southern states who needed to be lured into the Union, and a world without communication faster than face-to-face conversations and transportation faster than horses. By 1860, that world was obsolete and so was the Electoral College. There was talk in the 1990s about abolishing it but after George Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 but won the presidency the GOP bailed on it. No other country in the world has such a cockamamie system that overrides the popular vote — for good reason. We no longer need to bribe slave states to be part of the system.
We also used the EC system because those who were voting were educated and the general population wasn't. Today we're all better educated and don't need an elite to vote for us. Obviously, as we see, we are doing a better job... Mostly.
"Today we're all better educated and don't need an elite to vote for us."
We may be "better educated", but not in the arena of politics. Most voters in the U.S. only care if there is a (D) or an (R) after a name. No thinking required, just blind party loyalty. And I believe that both the Dems and the Repubs like it that way.
Yes, there are as ton of reasons the electoral college is outdated. And everyone recognized it back at the end of the 1900s. Then Bush took the presidency without the majority in 2000 (as did Trump in 2016)and suddenly the GOP saw the potential in it for gaming elections and now they oppose eliminating it.
"They "got it right" for the world that existed 250 years ago..."
When the Constitution was ratified, there were three different methods for selecting federal officials for office: House members, Senators, and the President, and the length of terms for each was different. Do you know the "why" behind that?
Yes, I do. And I know the full story behind the electoral college. Senators and House members were selected by individual states; the president was not, and it was essential then to lure the southern states into the union — the basis of the electoral college.which like I said, was obsolete, once slavery was abolished and trains and telegraph existed.
There are so many "why's", so many variables. You can see that in the
ntanswers many of us have tried to give. I think we were surprised to find the latino population followed the Catholic Church on abortion. And were young men against abortion in that they lost the ability to protect an embryo they created - who would have thought that. They wanted that control, sadly. Women just want to pick the right time to have children for the best of reasons. Michael Chricton in one of his books said that the English leave the question of abortion to a woman and her doctor. Why is it anyone else's business. There is no giant movement to provide child care in America, just the claim that a woman has no rights to decide what happens to her own body although they aren't willing to put their money where their demands leave us.
"There are so many "why's", so many variables."
Yet no one has bothered to enunciate them, most prominently The Contrarian staff. Most demographic groups shifted to the right in the 2024 election. Clearly the Democrats' views, positions and policies had something to do with it, but it's still "crickets" from this forum and Jen Rubin.
I can see that you want answers from the Contrarians and I can understand that. But of course, I have one more comment.. of my own, and that is what James Carvile said: "It's the money stupid" is what I recall him saying. In other words, WE didn't get out the message the American people wanted. WE thought abortion rights and women's rights would get a Democrat elected. It turned out WE were wrong. I have no answers, only comments, opinions and opines. And I think we do have to figure out what was done wrong so that we can make course corrections, but my guess is your guess and other's guesses are still going to be guesses.
t
"I can see that you want answers from the Contrarians..."
Actually, I couldn't care less if this forum replies or not. I'm perfectly fine just showing the blind spots and hypocrisy of the Democrats/Progressives/Liberals. Republicans/Conservatives show the same attributes in their forums as well.
Great column! President Obama is right, of course: We don't have to blame others when we find problems that need fixing.
We can work together as Americans to build solutions that reflect our common unity -- our comm-unity -- and stop pitting individual against individual.
We are one nation, one people, sharing a common set of ideals -- liberty and justice for all.
Mabe not. I've been reading how Alberta might secede from Canada.
All politics is (and are) local. I live in Baghdad By the Sea, where Cuban/South American affairs are apparently more inportant politically than whether our president is a crooked caudillo and is dragging us down the tubes.
Alberta is not seceding any more than Mississippi is. Talk is talk.
It's on the ballot in October.
That is not a binding vote. It's a pipe dream.
Jen Rubin SHREDS Trump. LLtO! (Long Live the Obamas)
Amen!
I listened in tears to the speeches given by both Michelle and Barack Obama last Friday. I do believe their insistence that hope is a choice we can make is tremendously important right now. Let's not give up. There are more of us who want the future promised by our aspirational founding document than there are white, Christian nationalists. We just need to mobilize and recognize that our strength is in forming coalitions across our many differences. Diversity is strength.
Diversity is indeed strength…if we let it be so!
Christianity decided to be DEI and grew, far outpacing its root faith.
Watching the celebration of the opening of the Obama center in Chicago and the Knick’s celebration in NYC was a wonderful reminder of what we’ve been missing this past year and a half. Trump has done much to suck the joy out of our lives. His regime has done serious damage but watching these celebrations remind us that great leaders are still among us. We need to work and make sure our voices are heard in the Midterm Elections.
“Fetid” says it all. Leave it to you to find le mot juste, Jen. You leave us with real hope, just as Obama did.
The Obamas have a quality that Don the Con wouldn't have (or even know) if he managed to live to 120 (Heaven forbid):
CLASS!
In fact, Don the Con is living proof that while money can buy lots of things, it doesn't buy class.
Class, in addition to intelligence, compassion and empathy. Three more qualities that Trump lacks.
You captured it! Beautifully articulated both the rot at the center of MAGA and the hope contained in the values and dreams the rest of us can work to restore and build ,together.
Our next legal hurdle is to defeat Trump's plan to restrict mail-in voting to those states he approves. Just like he denies Federal money to blue states. Norm Eisen is on the case, right?
"Fetid" is most apt in describing Trump.
Poor poor MAGA cult members are going nuts seeing their "hero" disintegrating before their very eyes. They cannot accept that Obama is an honorable man while their "hero" is a dispicable non-human. They cannot accept the inevitable. They are terrified to think for themselves and transition back to the real world.
Real world, indeed. It must have been on a Substack because I'm not on X, but it was a pic of the four presidents there - Bush, Clinton, Obama and Biden. "Four pieces of shit" was an X poster's caption. Is that what it's come to - any president NOT Trump, or anyone not allied with Trump is automatically a "piece of shit"? I really don't get it.
You got it exactly. That’s what a cult mentality looks like when the cult is based on hate and fear.
Kool aid…that’s the reason. And inability to challenge what they think.
All I can say is that I want President Obama back.
Yes indeed! Many of us are out here working on behalf of democracy. In Kansas, that’s a real challenge as our legislature pushes to become one of the worst of the worst. But we won’t give up. Thank you for sharing Obama’s optimism. We need an encouraging and long view if we are to overcome the autocratic and destructive MAGA movement, for it is much bigger than Trump.
It's getting late at night and I am still engrossed in our conversation. I am thrilled that we are taking the high road in spite of what we are experiencing.
And I am grateful for all of you who care, and to Norm and Jen for getting us all together..
We have to stand up to the crude, callous, corrupt conman! But it is getting easier as he humiliates and beclowns himself every single day. Just as his feckless VP was anxiously awaiting the Iranian delegation in Geneva, tRump threatens to kill the negotiators and occupy their country… I certainly didn’t have that choice on my Bingo card.
Pardons for J6 cop beaters & insurrections fraudsters drug kingpins "No quarter no mercy” for sandwich throwers or other Trump critics who are the worst of the worst/the enemy within? Resist the corrupt authoritarians. Vote Blue!
If you recall, the minute after Obama was elected, Mitchell McConnell collected a group of political cronies to develop means and strategies to defeat Obama's legislative goals. Hateful and irrational racism at its finest.
He and his ilk in the senate are responsible for what we're dealing with today.
As well as the flaws in our Constitution that gave them so much power!
It's less the flaws in the Constitution than the duties that congress (small c intentional) relinquished to the president. Not wanting to be responsive or responsible to the voters and the Constitution itself.
The GOP would not be able to control Congress if the number of Reps and Senators were in office due to population in each state. A state like California should have more Senators than Wyoming because a large populated state should be more represented. And why do we need an Electoral College? We don't. It is antiquated.
Trump 2.0 a disaster every which way you turn. It may well take a generation or more to undo the damage. Republicans may never recover. They will have to reinvent themselves.
Maybe, just maybe (hopefully), we will recover from this dystopian Trump era and the pendulum will swing back toward decency, truthfulness, honor, compassion, and commitment. Historians may see “Trump” as a wake up call for the sleepwalking American complacency that allowed us to believe politicians work for our interests rather than their own grift and grandiose illusions. We are getting schooled on how devious criminals can use our insecurities to divide us for their corruption. Maybe, just maybe, if we survive this low period we will emerge a more lucid nation.
We have been tested, and should now see the need for stronger guard rails to prevent this catastrophe from happening again.
The former GOP will never be accepted again. Conservative viewpoints are legit but TOTAL ABDICATION of DUTY is not. That, my friends, is what the former GOP members will be remembered for in this period of our history.
They have done it before. Former Democratic Republicans created the business orientated Whig Party, then morphed into the abolitionist party the GOP, only to fall back on its Whig party line. Now it has no standards, morals, or ethics. It only stands for Felon Trump. The Republican Party, like the Federalist Party and the now Libertarians, will fade to a small, vocal voice but little power in government. Thomas Jefferson believed there should be no political parties, just those who espoused ideas that were either accepted or rejected by the voters. He may get his wish for a short time.
Other political parties before them have failed and disappeared (Whigs, Know-Nothings, and even the Tea Party [absorbed into what became MAga]). It's quite possible that the Republican Pary will have the same end.
Thank you Jen. This is the most uplifting thing I’ve read recently. It, and you, literally watered my eyes.