These marches are great, but where the hell were they three months ago??!!!!

[RBInMaine]

The election of Trump = APATHY and COMPLACENCY in MANY, MANY cases. I give HUGE credit to those who did vote, who did volunteer, and who donated. But if more people had gotten active, had donated, had VOTED then this SHIT STORM would never have happened in the first fucking place!!!!

We could have won with just a few more people, relatively, in the Philadelphia area, Detroit, and the Milwaukee area. How many of the marchers, in whatever march over the last few days, did not volunteer, did not donate, and did not even vote or went and voted for FUCKING Jonnson or FUCKING Stein therefore HELPING TRUMP??

With Trump on the fucking ballot there should have been million-person marches during the CAMPAIGN!!!! But no, people sat on their asses and ignored the clear and present danger. And look what the FUCK happened!!!

So GREAT that these marches and mobilizations are happening. But we MUST understand the colossal FUCKUP that way too many people made in this election by not staging this movement during the CAMPAIGN with Trump threatening to win the American presidency. Now, on one level, it is TOO FUCKING LATE!! The damage is DONE!!

But on another level, it's not in vain and not too late. In 2018 ORGANIZE, CAMPAIGN, and get off the couch and FUCKING VOTE!!!!!!! Elections have consequences, and this is the ULTIMATE one!! WE MUST LEARN THE LESSON ONCE AND FOR ALL!! GO AND FUCKING VOTE!!!! AND VOTE THE RIGHT FUCKING WAY!!!

[Retrograde]

1. More important: where will they be in 2018?

We need all these people who turned out today to turn out for their local elections now and until we take back Congress.

[RBInMaine]

3. Will the organization and activism continue? Hopefully. But where was it three months ago????????

The LESSON must be LEARNED!!

[justiceischeap]

2. One of the things I heard at the march was that

they thought HRC had it in the bag and could vote 3rd party or not at all. Neither statement makes sense but I heard that numerous times.

[RBInMaine]

4. You never, ever, ever take ANYTHING for granted! It was DUMB thinking and DUMB behavior!! Hopefully

they have now LEARNED!!

[Agschmid]

13. Unfortunately it seems every generation has to learn that for themselves.

[liquid diamond]

33. They will learn the hard way.

I for one will never ever trust another fucking election poll regardless of the source.

[forjusticethunders]

35. Most people I talked to DID vote and volunteer

But I think the runaway polls depressed turnout quite a bit, made people think they didn't NEED to vote HRC. Hopefully that won't happen again.

[orwell]

5. I was just saying this...

...the only march that matters is on election day.

"We" didn't "march" when it counted...

[Agschmid]

14. Actuallly we did. Check the popular vote totals.

[RBInMaine]

22. We didn't where needed, and MILLIONS didn't vote or voted third party. Colossal FUCK UP, PERIOD!

[RBInMaine]

20. Absolutely positively CORRECT! Learn the lesson, and March in October/November 2018!!!!!

[tinrobot]

6. If all those people actually voted...

We wouldn't have to march.

[kairos12]

7. 78,000 votes in three states. Keeps me up at night.

[progree]

8. The gory details: Trump margins: PA: 0.73%, WI: 0.77%, MI: 0.23%

[font face = courier new]
Wikipedia visited 1/17/17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2016

Trump vote to Clinton vote:

# Pennsylvania: 2,970,733 to 2,926,441 delta = 44,292 (48.58% to 47.85%, delta = 0.73% )
` ` ` ` Stein: 0.82% Johnson: 2.40%

# Wisconsin: 1,405,284 to 1,382,536 delta = 22,748 (47.22% to 46.45%, delta = 0.77% )
` ` ` ` Stein: 1.04%, Johnson: 3.58%

# Michigan: 2,279,543 to 2,268,839 delta = 10,704 (47.50% to 47.27%, delta = 0.23% )
` ` ` ` Stein: 1.07%, Johnson: 3.59%

# Sum of the 3 states: 77,744 , or about 78,000

----------------------------
Nationwide: Trump 62,979,879 (46.1%) Clinton 65,844,954 (48.2%) Delta (for Clinton this time) = 2,865,075 and 2.1%[/font]

[kairos12]

12. Back to my regularly scheduled tequila network.

[Takket]

9. Ask Putin and Comey

3 months ago every indication was that the march to the polls was going to be definitive.

Then treason and a foreign bloodless conquering occurred.

[RBInMaine]

24. Comey and Putin didn't force "progressives" to stay home or vote third party. OWN the FUCK UP!

[Kingofalldems]

10. Media was bombarding us with 'her emails, her emails'.

Every freaking day.

[RBInMaine]

19. With the mega-monster that is Trump, that should not have mattered. Many were APATHETIC! Period!

[JHan]

11. K & R ..

Excellent lesson in civics.

[JI7]

15. she got 3 million more votes than he did

She had a bigger lead until comey

[RBInMaine]

17. She didn't win where NEEDED, and APATHY killed us, not just Comey and Putin!!!

[JI7]

21. the comey thing was a huge factor and a lot has come out after about how it was too hurt Clinton

While keeping info on trump from coming out

[Calculating]

16. Complacency leads to disaster

Just look at the story of the Titanic. "Oh, it's unsinkable/we have nothing to worry about! Might as well charge through iceberg filled waters at high speed".

Now look at the Hillary campaign. "She has it in the bag, America will never vote for that idiot Trump! I can stay home, or vote for Jill stein or Johnson because I'm still mad about how Bernie got screwed."

[RBInMaine]

18. Spot on correct!

[liquid diamond]

34. + 1

[Laura PourMeADrink]

23. I hear ya. Maybe few thought he would win so it didn't matter. wrong

[wildeyed]

25. People don't pay attention.

They didn't believe the things Trump said. They didn't believe he could win. They disliked Clinton and bought BOB bullshit that was mostly started by white supremacist and Russian trollbots. Media is broken. Our government has been broken for a long time. People are shallow, have tiny attention spans and crave amusement above facts and decency. Bad people took advantage of our moral failings and the weakness of our institutions and ran a huge propaganda game all over our heads. Trump won. It is what it is. We should learn from that and move on. Nothing to gain from regretting the past.

Maybe they will wake up now. Maybe we will save democracy. Maybe not. But these protests are a huge shot across the bow of the RW political and propaganda machine. They are pushing too hard and too far to the right and will continue to face massive backlash if they don't dial their shit back tout sweet. Or they will have to shoot middle class white people in the streets to keep us all in line.

I made a meme for them, special Cannot WAIT for midterms.

[meadowlander]

26. This is the opposite of helpful.

We need to move past the election and look forward.

1. Most of these people probably did vote (and volunteer and donate)

2. Nobody thought Trump was going to win, including Trump. Nate Silver had between a 70-90% of Clinton winning for months before the election. Why would you hold marches and rallies when you're already 90% sure your candidate is going to win?

3. It takes months to organise something like this. Pink hats and signs don't materialise out of thin air.

4. A few more people in Philly, Detroit and Milwaukee would not have helped because the problem is gerrymandering, voter roll purging, broken machines in Democratic districts, misinformation campaigns, etc. The problem is the system, not the people. And you don't fix the system by lecturing the people, many of whom live in districts where they have to take time off work, hunt down a polling station that difficult to access, stand in line for four hours and then find out their vote didn't count anyway because either the machine was broken or they live in a district that was always going to go D anyway.

More people voted in 2016 that in any previous election and 3 million more of them voted for Clinton. Don't buy into the meme that Trump is sitting in the Oval Office for any reason other than the fact that the system is rigged to keep Republicans in power.

[Cal Carpenter]

27. Interesting that I don't see the word "disenfranchised" anywhere on this thread. n/t

[truebluegreen]

28. WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THEY DIDN'T VOTE?

Further, what makes you think they didn't vote for Hillary?

Or do you just feel sure that they didn't. 65 million people voted for Hillary; somewhere around 3 million marched today. Why would you assume that the marchers didn't vote, or campaign, or voted the wrong fucking way? Sounds like scapegoating to me--a popular sport in the Democratic party--and that crap ain't helping.

[Generic Other]

38. Plenty of Hillary voters raised their voices today!

[oberliner]

29. Some folks (like march co-chair Linda Sarsour) find it easier to be anti-Trump than pro-Hillary

That was part of the problem.

The way in which people turned their back on Hillary and shouted down speakers at the Democratic convention was not helpful.

[HassleCat]

31. Sure you want to go there?

This could be a good opportunity for us to move on to the next election. I'm not sure it's wise to call out those who didn't vote for Hillary. I mean, you can if you want to, but I don't think it will win them over.

[betsuni]

32. With each fresh Trump horror, I think of those who said they couldn't vote for Clinton

because of emails or they just didn't like her and . No wonder Americans need so many warning labels on things, like don't iron clothing while wearing them or heat up frozen food before eating.

[Generator]

36. People are fools

Also I bet most of these voted Hillary. Not all but most. Also people never take stuff seriously till it happens. AND I blame Putin. And the FBI. Otherwise I would feel too much anger at non=voters and third party. I mean we need all decent people to take this country BACK. YEAH I said their bullshit line. Take it back from sociopath and the evil GOP who want to literally kill people by taking away health care. For starters.

[DonCoquixote]

37. honestly

I think people honestly thought there was no way trump would win. We know better. We should have known better after 2000.