I know the answer; the question answers itself. We haven’t buried 2000 (or 1972 for that matter). Why would we bury 2016?
As you may have seen, there’s a whole new round of outrage over a Daily Beast story (not linking) about bots. This one says “hot takes” that were anti-HRC may have originated from Russia. Eric Boellert’s reaction is typical of what I say.
I’m not arguing against the Daily Beast publishing this, and obviously we can’t control how people react, but let’s at least try to move on.
Eric Boehlert
Verified account @EricBoehlert
so yes, large part of the anti-Clinton left in 2016 was wallowing in misogyny *and* peddling Kremlin talking points. what a complete disgrace
Where’s the disgrace? If someone knew they were passing on Russian propaganda, yes that’s a disgrace. But if they were honestly fooled, Boehlert is blaming the victim.
One of the open questions in all this is why Russian lies are considered so much worse than decades of lies on Fox. Give Boehlert credit, he’s whacked Fox plenty over the years. But he (and many others) have spent far too much time since the election casting around for blame. Why? I can only think of bad reasons why.
Let’s focus on what unites us, beyond “They’re the party of Trump” (though that can’t be forgotten). I’ll pledge right now to not mention 2016 for the purpose of relitigation. I’ll talk about whatever Mueller finds, obviously, but that will be it.
The future is now.
Here’s an example of the type of story we should be hearing more about today from activists.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/26/trump-cabinet-agenda-secret-319046
“A POLITICO review of the practices of 17 Cabinet heads found that at least seven routinely decline to release information on their planned schedules or travels — information that was more widely available during the Obama and George W. Bush administrations. Four other departments — Agriculture, Labor, Homeland Security and Education — provide the secretaries’ schedules only sporadically or with few details. The Treasury Department began releasing weekly schedules for Secretary Steven Mnuchin only in November.”
There;s some understandable outrage fatigue,, but transparency is a good issue for us.
Politically I sympathize with focusing on candidates of the current election, but legally we must continue to investigate what happened in 2016.
Frankly, I think winning is the antidote to our frustrations over 2016. Winning big in VA and AL seems to have ended a lot of the divisive internal debates I see on social media and the punditry. That answers your first point. The Clinton Sanders drama is finally blowing over, Brazilles book landed as a dud thanks to the VA win, and new faces like Gillibrand are getting the headlines. That answers your first point. I’d separate your second point as a different issue entirely.
I think there is an important distinction between investigating a very real possibility of collusion between a foreign power and an American political party and crying sour grapes over Fox News lies. The difference between what Fox does and what Putin did, is that Fox is an American corporation entitled to free speech under the law while foreign governments are prohibited under the law from influencing our electoral process. Even if Russian interference ultimately changed no votes, which is hard to believe, it is still worth investigating to the fullest extent of the law and prosecuting anyone who can credibly be convicted of cooperating with them.
We all know President Hillary Clinton would be getting impeached right now over her emails, which are a misdemeanor compared to the very serious charges of domestic corruption and foreign collusion we could point Trump’s way. I wouldn’t emphasize it to the extent many Democrats are, I would emphasize how we would govern differently. Make America Work Again has a nice ring to it, since Trump is incompetent and he isn’t putting any Americans to work. Protecting the Mueller investigation is a constitutional priority, even if I agree it’s a political dud.
Yes, but —
“Frankly, I think winning is the antidote to our frustrations over 2016.”
Putting 2016 away (as much as possible) is the key to winning. More unites us than divides us, etc.
I think Ta-Nehisi Coates and the TIME magazines person(s) of the year: the silence breakers, put an end to the divisive internal debates that ran along the lines of “It was the economic anxiety what made ’em do it’ v “they was sexist and they was racist.’ And I think it was the end of those divisive debates that fueled the victories in VA and AL … and the resignation of the Senator from Minnesota… and not the other way around .
Interesting tidbit I heard today. Part of the reason the Sal Lake Tribune is so mad at Orrin Hatch is that Hatch might run again –violating a pledge he made when he ran last time, that this would be his last term. He hasn’t officially declared, but he’s been raising money like crazy.
Hatch was supposed to step aside for Mitt Romney, but Trump has convinced him to stay in the Senate since his ego can’t handle another Republican national figure occasionally critical of his conduct. Whether Mitt decides to run anyway is another question, if he doesn’t, the majority of would be Hatch challengers would be coming from his right.
Charlie Pierce on Trump’s New York Times interview.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a14516912/donald-trump-new-york-times-michael-schmidt/
“In this interview, the president* is only intermittently coherent. He talks in semi-sentences and is always groping for something that sounds familiar, even if it makes no sense whatsoever and even if it blatantly contradicts something he said two minutes earlier. To my ears, anyway, this is more than the president*’s well-known allergy to the truth. This is a classic coping mechanism employed when language skills are coming apart.”