Basically all you can do is send money to the right orgs.
I live in California so the (correct) and frequent advice to “call your reps” has no effect – all my reps are already as anti Trump resistance as it gets. Now if I could call reps in South Carolina, but I hear that does not work and is frowned upon…
Sure?
On the Nomination
(Confirmation: John F. Kelly, of VA, to be Secretary of Homeland Security)
Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
On the Nomination
(Confirmation: Mike Pompeo, of Kansas, to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency)
Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
On the Nomination
(Confirmation: James N. Mattis, of WA, to be Secretary of Defense)
Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Harris (D-CA), Yea
The new top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, declined to take a hard line against Sessions
That’s not very reassuring, Jeff; but I am well aware that it’s not your “job” to ‘reassure’ me (or anyone else.)
But there has to be more that we can do. There just has to be.
And I’m also in CA; thank Dumbledore.
For all the shit that some people like to talk about this state, it’s kinda mind-blowing to see that California is one of the first (and presently only) states to stand up against Mango Mussolini.
I never thought I’d see the day that I’d be cheering on Jerry Brown.
“Hi- I’m considering relocating my business to your state, but I’m concerned about the effect some of your policies would have on my employees, and don’t know if it’s worth making the move.”
Fine, I’m lumping in “Pennsylvania” as midwestern. Let me say instead specifically “Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.”
The point is, losing those 3 states is what cost Clinton the election. They were expected to be in her column, and the margin that they were lost by was pretty light. So it seems pretty reasonable to state that more effort would have saved them.
And there are more things that could have fixed that than Clinton campaigning there - besides her campaigning as much as Trump did or more in all of those states. The Clinton campaign could and clearly should have put more resources into ground game. Instead they were over-confident and trying to run up the score with Nevada and similar.
Note also that I’m not presenting this as an either/or. Yes, the Clinton campaign could have improved their message also.
But again, since her message and appeal got her 3 million more votes, the key problem does not appear to be the message. It appears to be simple attention to these states.
Only if the question is “how can I resist in a way that doesn’t require any substantial inconvenience, risk or sacrifice on my part?”.
Running against the most disliked GOP candidate in history got her three million more votes. But a hell of a lot of those voters were voting purely defensively.
The message was a problem. Mileage obviously varies on how much of a problem, but I’d put it front and centre. The Dems have been vigorously fucking over their own voters for decades, and millions of those voters refuse to continue endorsing their own impoverishment.
Well, you try “resisting” with three small kids, two full time jobs, and a company you own to run. “resisting” is largely a job for old people (who love the status quo, sadly) or young people.
I “resisted” by voting, but that didn’t work out too well for anyone.
You’ve got three kids? So maintaining a non-apocalyptic future, particularly around issues like climate change, should be of particular salience to you?
Just going out to vote occasionally is nowhere near enough.
I get that it’s hard. It’s hard for everybody. But if you think that your situation is unusually tough, you really need to think about what it’s like raising three kids as an impoverished single parent.
Oh, the old “who is more privileged” bingo. Such fun for the whole family!
How about this instead?
I’m fine with wanting to improve the message.
I’m just zeroing in again on the key here.
We can theorize that the Clinton campaign’s message could have been improved; but we know that Clinton campaign didn’t do enough in those specific three states.
If the Clinton campaign did nothing different at all with their message but at least matched the amount of effort the Trump campaign put into those 3 states, then it seems likely the outcome would have been different.
If the Clinton campaign did different things to their message but didn’t increase their campaign efforts in those 3 states, it seems likely the outcome would have been the same.
It’s a good start.
Soon he will be pres. i. dent. 
You think this stance is actually prep for a run in 2020?
Jokes aside, you and I both are.
I think there is some chance that Jello Biafra was on to something, but more to the literal point, not impossible and definitely preferable to what we have now.
Not what I said.
In our democracy, money is power. You make things happen by shuffling money around to the “right” Places. I’ve been doing that. And voting.
It’s one type of power; there are others.
One of the lessons of the recent election appears to be that the power of campaign expenditure is waning. The torrents of advertising unleashed by Citizens United appear to have largely immunised the public against it; nobody believes or pays attention to overt political ads anymore.
You still need a certain minimum amount of money to run an effective campaign, just for organisation and visibility. But beyond that minimum, there is a steeply rising curve of diminishing returns.
We’re being strangled to death. This is one of those cases where the “immune system” doesn’t get strengthened, and what hurts us doesn’t make us get stronger.
The market is booming until eeeeveryone is heavily leveraged and then it’s going to fucking drop and keep dropping.
Especially in the fossil fuel energy markets. Capitalists are going to flock there (have already started), only to find out that there’s already too much supply for demand and go bankrupt. Unfortunately, it won’t only affect their bottom line: in the process, job losses will be significant.
