On virtually every issue, Trump took both sides at one or more points in the campaign. In the case of Planned Parenthood, he partly defended the organization in at least two of the primary debates. A person who watched one of those debates could reasonably be surprised that now Trump wants to defund it, cause he said Planned Parenthood does some good things. At this point, I doubt anybody including Trumps know what he is going to do.
Likewise, a voter could expect that Trump will repeal Obamacare, and replace with government provide healthcare, or keep most of it, since he’s also said.
Neither does Vegas. They’d look at that and go 'nope. You can bet on which genre of idiotic thing however, we have
say something racist 2:1
say something about Clinton 1:1
say bigly 3:1
make insulting remark about protest nearby 1:3
in some way reference his genitalia 5:2
and we have over under on Make America Great Again/ MAGA at 27’
I am going to get straight up optimistic here. The really funny part of all of the next 4-8 years will be, that #brands will save us.
Look at what happened to NC. You have a historically gerrymandered electorate, making it nigh impossible for a Democrat to win the governership. The conservatives there introduced HB2, which made it illegal to use restrooms opposite of your birth gender.
What happened? Corporate #brands happened.
The NBA moved the All Star game, the NCAA removed march madness games. Companies refused to open offices in North Carolina. The state lost a heck of a lot of money. Because brands care. Because a majority of Americans are good people who think bathroom laws and things that block civil rights are a bad thing. Sure, the electoral vote went one way, but the majority of Americans didn’t want our current president.
And the majority of Americans are what #brands care about. Sure, you will have mom and pop stores that say “we won’t bake cakes for gay couples” but nationwide chains? Nah. They can’t and won’t. Chik Fil A’s owners might say some bigoted stuff, but Gay couples can eat food in their stores like everyone else. If they couldn’t… there would be outrage.
So, that being said. Keep fucking being pissed at bigotry, and calling companies on their sponsorship and relationships, and the money will talk and the bigots will be forced to choose between their fucked up morals and money… and we all know where they go then.
Or, we will fall into some dystopic mess in a nuclear crater.
While I appreciate the optimism @JonRowe I also am not totally cool with the cyberpunk notion of corporations having all the power either. Because then we basically absolve democracy in favor of corporatism, and let the big companies be the arbiters of our fate. (hint: they aren’t our friends either, except by circumstance).
They don’t have all the power, however. We do. Consumers have a lot of the power as well. Sure, this could lead to some corporate overtaking and mass ad campaign brainwashing. “Global Warming isn’t a big deal! Look at these polar bears, they are happy with it!” buy BP! But we will cross that bridge when we get there.
But, at least to some degree, while politicians get to backslide and play up to their rural bases, big nationwide companies have to cater to the clear majority of Americans who buy their products every day. Some companies can cater to bigoted niches, but companies are slaves to the American public. They will be forced to not piss us off.
So, stay pissed and angry at companies, and be happy when they decide to move businesses out of bigoted cities and states. If we can’t vote with our ballots, we can vote with our dollars.
It worked in N.C., and will probably continue to work, as you see a lot of very large tech companies vocally disagree with Trump’s policies (muslim registry etc.) He can shrug off boos, but big companies can’t afford bad publicity. They don’t get a free pass for 2-6 years in office. If sales go down, or good employees leave for competitiors… they have to close the doors of the factories, and get fired.
As someone who was raised in a town full of old-school lefties, the notion that we’re now pointing to corporations and the CIA as being among the remaining institutions that protect the values of a democracy is both terrifying and hilarious.
Sure, but the Trump and GOP loosening the reins will further push us this way, and the need for liberals to exercise political power through corporations means that now both the left and the right are further pushing politics into the realm of corporate control at the same time.
[quote]
“In his revised questionnaire, Mr. Mnuchin disclosed several additional financial assets, including $95 million worth of real estate — a co-op in New York City, a residence in Southampton, New York, a residence in Los Angeles, California, and $15 million in real estate holdings in Mexico,” Democratic staff members of the Senate Finance Committee wrote in a memo on Thursday. “Mr. Mnuchin has claimed these omissions were due to a misunderstanding of the questionnaire.”
According to the memo, Mr. Mnuchin also initially failed to disclose that he is the director of Dune Capital International, an investment fund incorporated in the Cayman Islands, which is a tax haven, along with management posts in seven other investment funds.
And he belatedly disclosed that his children own nearly $1 million in artwork.[/quote]
[quote]
“I think as you all can appreciate, filling out these government forms is quite complicated,” Mr. Mnuchin said, noting that he had handed over 5,000 pages of disclosures. “Let me first say, any oversight, it was unintentional.”[/quote]
“Oh, shucks! I totally forgot about that $100 million.”
This made me chuckle. We should definitely have an inauguration day drinkinggambling tallies dear leader support thread.
Here’s someone who had that harder choice:
Easy to call her dumb and duped and be angry that she voted that way. Better to applaud her return to sanity and try to encourage more people to do so.
