Trump’s Silver Lining: Big Reasons Not to Lose Heart

Edit: 2026-05-26 1020 AM

So obviously all this was wrong, but it’s because I thought elections and reform were a thing. I learned A LOT from being this badly wrong. https://innomen.substack.com/p/how-i-came-to-see

Edit: 2019-02-08 0205 AM

A lot of this clearly doesn’t apply anymore, but I’m not gonna edit anything below this edit from now on.

Here’s why:

Please. Convince me. from SandersForPresident

(Obviously I was wrong about a lot of this, but I am not going to edit history and pretend like I’ve always thought as I do now. Then again I’d like to share that evolution, it’s hard to capture that change in a static document, hence the clumsy strike-through edits, which I’ve stopped adding to avoid further confusion.)

Edit: 2016-11-28 0845 AM

Total number of Americans: 324,964,000
Total number of Americans eligible to vote: 218,959,000
Total number of Americans who voted for Trump: 61,900,651

We all know that progressives are not even remotely represented by the DNC and neoliberals. Beating HRC is hardly an achievement. She was the most pathetic candidate in the entire history of politics.

The DNC, in spectacular and fraudulent contravention of the people’s will, put HRC on the general election ticket. A broken system is the ONLY reason Trump won. Wilson from castaway would literally have done better.

We all know Sanders would have crushed Trump.

The DNC failed precisely because it chose to copy regressives. Regressivism is by definition backwards. They’re a bunch of callow, ignorant, wannabe time travelers, when they aren’t straight up psychopaths and bigots or worse.

They’d have been thrown on the ash heap of history already if 2008 hadn’t been won by a smooth talking covert republican psychopath.

Trump never scared me.

My ranked choice for 2016:
1. Sanders
2. Jill.
3. Trump.
4. Johnson.
5. HRC.

Sanders would have won the general and did win the primary.

The rest is cheating.

See you in 2018/2020. 🙂

Congratulations on your last extension regressives. You’re literally the past. Your only possible victory is a slower defeat.

See also: underlore.com/forgiveness-for-bernie/

Ok, many people are upset at Trump’s victory.

Don’t lose heart. Give it time and hear me out…

1. First of all, a lot of what you think you know about Trump’s policies is complete bullshit. When you combine lies to get elected, limits on the office of the presidency, with a psychopathic opponent in full control of the entire media, you get hysterical hyperbole of the first order. Do the homework and vet your sources.
2. *Unknown quantity. We have no idea what he’ll actually do. We KNOW what HRC would have done. For all we know he’ll be the Obama of the right. A republican in name only. He was a democrat for decades. Update: We know some of what he’s doing and so far it appears to be limited to reversible social policy shifts and protectionist economic measures.
3. *This is all short term. 2018/2020 is gonna be a progressive firestorm even if Trump is tolerable. I had hoped that Trump would totally galvanize the left. That seems not to be the case, yet anyway. However, we are certainly still paying more attention to his blunders and treachery than we ever did Obama’s or would have Hillary’s. Though our protesting habits as ever need direction to keep from spinning our wheels in the mud. Turnout is going to skyrocket so long as a Berniecrat like Tulsi is in play. Finally we have an enemy labeled as such. Beyond that, the singularity is still on the way. Technology is the real driver for change and it’s exponential still. Update: Apparently the neoliberal wing of the party is oblivious to its own failure. It blames outside factors and still considers itself relevant. However, we are paying more attention and they are more exposed and weaker than ever before. There’s opportunity here. And 2020 will be a progressive rout if Tulsi or Nina is on the ticket.
4. Speaking of climate change, don’t fret there because that ship has sailed. And we CAN’T run the planet on solar/wind power. (But I’m fine with us trying. I’d rather waste money on windmills than bombs. But solar panels killing people because it’s toxic to make them and dangerous to clean and install them.) There’s a LOT people don’t generally know about intermittent power sources. There’s a reason Germany’s CO2 emissions have actually gone up. But with Trump being a republican on paper, he could do nuclear power as a back bone for solar and wind. If he actually shifts us from bomb war to trade war we’ll have to go nuclear, and that would choke off all the oil wars.
5. With the presidency once again given to a candidate who lost the popular vote maybe we’ll finally revisit the whole system. Perhaps at the state level?
6. *Trump is not your standard republican. He’s not an extremest like Cruz. He literally could be to the left of neoliberalism and to the right of democratic socialism. He might simply be a real centrist ultimately. Which would make sense in someone who was, and donated to, democrats many years. He might even be the Obama of the right. (He speaks like an anti-TPP protectionist after all.) In theory at least he could accomplish new-deal scale improvements that the left, especially under neoliberalism, wouldn’t even try let alone could accomplish. Update: He actually did kill the TPP. That’s undeniably good and more than Obama did. The completely pointless wall could function as a pretty massive jobs program. And like windmills I’d rather waste money on a wall than a bomb. Though of course we’re likely to waste money on both.
7. *All kinds of options for holding the old guard accountable and making a fresh start. He’s got a change mandate similar to Obama’s. It’s just that Obama didn’t use it. How Trump uses his remains to be seen. Update: Looks like this one was a total bust. So far anyway. But ever day that passes it gets less likely.
8. *Neoliberalism is dead or dying. Being the most republican of the democrats is no longer a winning tactic. This will have profoundly positive implications. They’ll have no choice but to be progressives or someone will take their place. Neoliberalism had to lose eventually. The sooner the better. It’s was tumor. Now it’s merely a wound. Update: See point #3.
9. *No war with Russia in Syria. The neoliberal war plan is done. Expect the war on terror to dial back. Update: Though he intends to raise military funding that need not signify more war. It could simply be graft. After all, why waste money dropping a bomb when you can make money selling two to your enemies for dropping on each other?
10. The first woman president won’t be a corrupted, election stealing, neocon. It’ll be someone history can be proud of because:
11. Like him or not, he was elected fairly. DNC whining about Russian hacks makes me more sure of that than ever. The exit polls for the RNC primary match perfectly the results. Democracy has not been canceled. Even if they rigged the general election in his favor he was the only legitimate major party candidate left meaning that it was just either way. It’s foolish and selfish to prefer an illegitimate candidate you like to a legitimate one you don’t. If you disagree then simply own being against democracy itself.
12. We have a real chance to reform elections now from the type to their transparency and accountability.
13. *Obamacare is a bailout of the insurance industry. If the right wingers end it, we’ll finally have a chance to demand single payer without Obama/HRC being there to knife us in the back. Update: It seems Trump is already facing realities of the limits of the office in that he’s admitting no opposition to portions of the ACA.
14. *He’s gonna be the most obstructed president in history either in the government or not. We have a blueprint for obstructionism. The RNC has taught us well how to grind government to a halt. Trump won’t be able to name a post office. Trump can’t help himself. His ego will sabotage everything he tries. Update: He’s showing signs of being able to contain himself and a willingness to change positions in the face of reality, which is ironically what many liked to pretend was a truth about HRC. While the republicans do control the entire government now, more or less, Bernie Sanders has essentially come out as the leader of the democratic party. It should be obvious the power that fact alone has in checking any true madness Trump may attempt. Update 2: And a 2018 blue wave gave us the most diverse House in history.

Some funny tweets:

Clinton HQ is so quiet you can hear an email be deleted. #ElectionNight

— Bryan (@RealBryGuy) November 9, 2016

England: Nothing can be more embarrassing than Brexit.

America: Hold my beer.

— Mad Victor (@Schokovic) November 9, 2016

@KellyO pic.twitter.com/MkcdefpWhv

— Shane Quinn (@shizane) November 9, 2016

@BobbyRead @Hardline_Stance @KellyO @GayPatriot Does Gary know that the election was yesterday?

— Thomas J Edwards (@Conservative4MI) November 9, 2016