Please read the whole thing, but here’s part of the nut:
So why didn’t she [win]? The answer is pretty simple: despite running a pretty good campaign, she got walloped by things that decidedly don’t come with the territory: Russian interference via the WikiLeaks drip; an indefensible letter released by the FBI director; and a press corps that treated the Comey letter like the OJ trial. She got slammed late in the game, and had no time to recover.
Yep.
Superb piece by Rick Perstein, a tiny bit of which is this:
It’s almost like they keep score in editorial offices. Only a certain number of horrifying—which is to say, truthful—things can be allowed in a major publication about our president-elect every day, which then must be balanced by something reassuring. Which is to say, something not true.
You really must read the whole thing. It’s excellent.
Disgraced former Speaker Newt Gingrich, the Sunday before the election on Meet the Press: Every foreign gift, every foreign speech — Senator or Secretary of State, everyone, no, it’s not a big charge, it’s the U.S. Constitution. There’s a section in the Constitution called the Emoluments Clause, it says, “No one, nor their spouse can take money from foreigners … I think the real corruption is the lack of the media being willing to be honest about how much lawlessness the Clintons stand for and how much they have ripped off the American people.
Disgraced former Speaker Newt Gingrich as quoted in Politico, after the election: This is a great test case between the pre-Trump and post-Trump worlds. In a pre-Trump world dominated by left-wing ideas, anyone successful is inherently dangerous and should be punished for trying to serve the country. The American people knowingly voted for a businessman whose name is inextricably tied to his fortune. … I’d say to the left wing, get over it.
Lemkin: If the Republic is to survive, Trump will have to be impeached, and it’s going to have to be the GOP that does it. It’s the only way out that includes our extant form of government, such as it is.
…[T]he thing that Mitch McConnell figured out on Day One of my Presidency [is that] people aren’t paying that close attention to how Washington works. They know there are lobbyists, special interests, gridlock; that the powerful have more influence and access than they do. And if things aren’t working, if there’s gridlock, then the only guy that they actually know is supposed to be in charge and supposed to be helping them is the President. And so the very deliberate strategy that Mitch McConnell and the Republican Party generally employed during the course of my Presidency was effective. What they understood was that, if you embraced old-fashioned dealing, trading, horse-trading, bipartisan achievement, people feel better. And, if people feel better, then they feel better about the President’s party, and the President’s party continues. And, if it feels broken, stuck, and everybody is angry, then that hurts the President or the President’s party.
Carl Higbie, former Navy SEAL and spokesman for the pro-Trump Great American PAC: Yeah, and to be perfectly honest, it is legal. They say it will hold constitutional muster. I know the ACLU is gonna challenge it, but I think it’ll pass, and we’ve done it with Iran back – back a while ago. We did it during World War II with Japanese, which, you know, call it what you will, maybe –
FOXNEWS’ MEGYN KELLY: Come on. You’re not – you’re not proposing we go back to the days of internment camps, I hope.
HIGBIE: No, no, no. I’m not proposing that at all, Megyn, but what I am saying is we need to protect America from –
KELLY: You know better than to suggest that. I mean, that’s the kind of stuff that gets people scared, Carl.
HIGBIE: Right, but it’s – I’m just saying there is precedent for it, and I’m not saying I agree with it, but in this case I absolutely believe that a regional based –
KELLY: You can’t be citing Japanese internment camps as precedent for anything the president-elect is gonna do.
HIGBIE: Look, the president needs to protect America first, and if that means having people that are not protected under our Constitution have some sort of registry so we can understand, until we can identify the true threat and where it’s coming from, I support it.
A tweetstorm’s tweetstorm from David Frum:
Slicing away one’s memory lobes an excellent basis for decision-making, so sure (he said with heavy sarcasm). [A Fresh Start for Trump!]
Let’s have a fresh start and forget that the president-elect owes his victory in large part to aid by a hostile foreign intelligence agency
Let’s have a fresh start and pretend that the president-elect didn’t alert allies and enemies that America may ignore its NATO pledges
Let’s have a fresh start and forget that the president-elect remains committed to a religious test for the rights of citizenship
Let’s have a fresh start and never mind that the president elect is a confessed serial sexual assailant
Let’s have a fresh start and who cares that the new administration is already developing fraternal ties to fascist parties in Europe
Let’s have a fresh start and believe that it doesn’t matter that the president-elect owes hundreds of millions to the Bank of China
Let’s have a fresh start, because who is bothered that black, brown, & Muslim fellow citizens have been demeaned and feel terrified?
Let’s have a fresh start, and hope that pro-Trump trolls will cease bullying women into silencing themselves on social media
Let’s have a fresh start, because it will take time to learn how the president-elect has prostituted his office for personal gain
Let’s have a fresh start, because 70 year old men afflicted by narcissistic personality disorder often suddenly become better people
Lets have a fresh start, because it’s only fair play to give would-be kleptocrats a 6-month head start before we act to stop them
Let’s have a fresh start, because Trump’s contemptuous assumption of media gullibility is fully justified.
The process of [the Electoral College] affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.
The most depressing message from this election is not that Trump might win. He won’t. What’s truly frightening is that very few Republicans are peeling away from their 2012 voting patterns. The most abhorrent political figure to rise in from our political system, perhaps ever, will inspire a decline in internal Republican support of only about 3-4 percentage points. That tells a terrible story about the weakness of conscience in the face of group pressure. It is a reminder that “it can’t happen here” is a myth.
You know what the magic word, the only thing that matters in American sexual mores today is? One thing. You can do anything, the left will promote and understand and tolerate anything, as long as there is one element. Do you know what it is? Consent. If there is consent on both or all three or all four, however many are involved in the sex act, it’s perfectly fine. Whatever it is. But if the left ever senses and smells that there’s no consent in part of the equation then here come the rape police. But consent is the magic key to the left.
Lemkin 