Paul Waldman at the Washington Post underlines the obvious: if you think Trump is going to do away with “the establishment,” you’re smoking something.

This was near the heart of Trump’s appeal to the disaffected and disempowered: Send me to Washington, and that “establishment” you’ve been hearing so much about? We’ll blow it up, send it packing, punch it right in the face, and when it’s over the government will finally be working for you again. And the people who voted for Trump bought it. After all, he’s no politician, right? He’s an outsider, a glass-breaker, a guy who can cut out the bull and get things done. Right?

But the idea that he would do this was based on

Michelle Goldberg considers the role of misogyny in the recent disaster.

Forty-six years ago, Germaine Greer wrote in The Female Eunuch, “Women have very little idea of how much men hate them.” Well, now we do.

On Tuesday, faced with a choice between a highly competent if uncharismatic female candidate and the deranged distillation of the angry white male id, America chose the latter. (Or, at least, the Americans whose votes count most in the Electoral College chose the latter: Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.) We don’t yet have a full picture of the electorate, but according to exit polls published by the New York Times, 54 percent of women voted for Clinton while 53 percent of men chose

Damon Lewis on Facebook:

What do you tell your kids?

You tell them the truth.

You tell them that the majority of Americans are good people. But, you also tell them they can’t rely on the good people of this country to protect them from evils because here, being a “good person” does not require actually being good. Being a “good person” merely means not being actively evil. Here, you can still be a “good person” if you don’t stop an evil. You can still be a good person if you don’t even try. You can still be a good person if you just maintain an unawareness that you’re being evil.

You tell them the truth that the majority

President Pussygrabber tweets again.

Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 11, 2016

Love the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country. We will all come together and be proud!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 11, 2016

Nine hours between the two. I suppose somewhere in those nine hours one of his handlers reminded him he needed to start acting presidential now.

Good save.… Read the rest

Another reason Trump’s win is so distressing – the fact that being relentlessly horrible didn’t cause him to lose. I’ve realize that the reason I was feeling so cheerful in the last few weeks was because I thought his hatefulness was causing him to lose. It looked that way.

But no. His hatefulness was exhaustively documented, and he won anyway. He won because of it.

That makes me feel sick, and profoundly alienated.

Cruelty and bullying should cause people to turn away in disgust. They did many, of course, but to many others they were like catnip to a cat.

He’s demonstrated that cruelty and bullying are rewarded. That’s very bad news.… Read the rest

Garrison Keillor says Trump voters aren’t going to like what Trump does.

Raw ego and proud illiteracy have won out, and a severely learning-disabled man with a real character problem will be president. We are so exhausted from thinking about this election, millions of people will take up leaf-raking and garage cleaning with intense pleasure. We liberal elitists are wrecks. The Trumpers had a whale of a good time, waving their signs, jeering at the media, beating up protesters, chanting “Lock her up” — we elitists just stood and clapped. Nobody chanted “Stronger Together.” It just doesn’t chant.

The Trumpers never expected their guy to actually win the thing, and that’s their problem now. They wanted only to whoop

Oh dear god – the Breitbart guy might be chief of staff. Breitbart. Twitter trolls running the country.

Steve Bannon, the conservative provocateur and Mr. Trump’s campaign chief, is now a leading candidate to become White House chief of staff, but he’d have to beat out another campaign veteran in the running, Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.

Mr. Bannon, the executive chairman of the conservative website Breitbart News, who took a leave to help manage the final weeks of Mr. Trump’s campaign, is well liked among Mr. Trump’s circle of overlapping advisers, who see him as a favorable influence on the president-elect.

What’s a “favorable … Read the rest

A collection of tweets from Day 1.

As I'm stopped at a gas station this morning, a group of guys yell over: "Time to get out of this country, Apu!"

Day 1.

— Manik R (@ManikRathee) November 9, 2016

Someone on the streets of LA just yelled at one of my girl's Latina coworkers to "go back where you came from." #TrumpsAmerica

— Alex Gale (@AlexGale) November 9, 2016

Whoever did this I'm throwin' hands pic.twitter.com/9Xn1YaCFmK

— Chris Weatherd ™ (@Chris_Weatherd) November 9, 2016

White students @ Southern Illinois University (@SIUC) decided to put on blackface and pose in front of a Confederate Flag to celebrate Trump pic.twitter.com/OEP2yEW3So

— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) November 10, 2016

… Read the rest

It’s strange, I’ve just noticed, having a soon-to-be president who has expressed angry, loud, hostile contempt for most of the population.

You’d think someone campaigning for the job would think of that and decide it might not be such a good idea.

I realize he endeared himself to a segment of angry white people, but he did it at the price of wholly alienating massive demographics. That’s not usually how presidential campaigns play out. We get candidates who seem brutally indifferent to our concerns and needs, but not ones who get up at 3 a.m to express furious contempt for us.

I don’t see this working out well. He’s lit a whole bunch of fuses, and he has no plans … Read the rest

Robert Reich points out that the Clintonistas abandoned the working class. I agree with him about that, but I still don’t see how it translates to voting for Trump. He lays out a lot of true claims, but doesn’t explain the ===> Trump part.

Recent economic indicators may be up, but those indicators don’t reflect the insecurity most Americans continue to feel, nor the seeming arbitrariness and unfairness they experience. Nor do the major indicators show the linkages many Americans see between wealth and power, stagnant or declining real wages, soaring CEO pay, and the undermining of democracy by big money.

Median family income is lower now than it was 16 years ago, adjusted for inflation. Workers without college