The Five Stages of Accepting President Clinton

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross gained some minor fame as a psychologist for studying the stages of grief.  She noted five major stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.   In watching the Democratic Primary (which ended roughly the moment NY polls closed), we have now moved well into the second stage of the model.

Anger:

In Nevada, however, that first day of voting was only the beginning. In an intermediary round of county caucuses, the Sanders campaign turned out greater numbers, which tilted the balance toward his side. At the state convention on Saturday, Mrs Clinton once again had the higher turnout – in part because some Sanders delegates showed up late, provided insufficient information or were not registered as members of the Democratic Party.

The Sanders team wanted the rules changed to accommodate their delegates. The Clinton team refused. Then all hell broke loose.

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36291939

Anger is the second stage in the grief model.  A great many people were passionately attached to the Bernie Sanders campaign, and watching something you love die is never easy.

Next up is the bargaining stage that will come after Clinton seals it up *officially* in NJ.  The idea here being that Sanders will get to have/be bribed with more power in the Democratic party in exchange for not tearing it apart (he has bee a Democrat for about a year now).

Depression will set in during July when a lifelong independent fails to get permission to re-write the Democratic Party platform (especially considering the actual nominee is a hardcore policy wonk).

Acceptance comes in August with the convention, and the *start* of the mainstream campaign against Voldemort and the United States’ racist and bigoted past.

It’ll be a blowout by at least 10 points, barring some major act of God or jihad between now and then.

Guy who got Booted from Congress for Ethics Violations Teams with 3rd Generation Real Estate Heir (hair?) to Teach Poor Kids Value of Janitorial Work

Gingrich Says Trump Agrees to Create School ‘Apprenticeships’ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/12/06/bloomberg_articlesLVR0B76K50YM.DTL

“We’re looking to help the poorest children in America,” Gingrich said. Apprenticeships in New York’s poorest schools are a way to demonstrate the transformative power of holding a job that pays money, he said.

Gingrich said he and Trump, the host of NBC’s reality television show, “The Apprentice” who earlier this year considered an independent presidential run, would try “to create a model.”

Gingrich, 68, the former House speaker from Georgia, said his experience in public housing developments began several years ago with a program that paid students $2 for each book they read over summer break. “You’ll find remarkably few people with work experience” in public housing projects, he said.

‘Master Janitor’

Last month, he suggested before an audience at Harvard University that some poor students in failing schools could gain work experience as janitors.

And I’ll bet you read that headline and thought I was making stuff up.  Yes, the guy who got paid multiple millions of dollars because of who he knows, is giving lessons on the value of menial labor….while advocating cutting education spending. 

Idiot Billionaire Says Stupid Stuff, Makes Money Off It

News from The Associated Press http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TRUMP_2012?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-08-16-15-50-08

Trump also defended Perry’s suggestion Monday that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would be committing a “treasonous” act if he pumped more money into the economy. “It was a meaningless phrase, it was just rhetorical. He’s very emotional about how the country is doing,”

Trump said of Perry, pushing back on President George W. Bush’s former political director Karl Rove and other Republicans who have criticized Perry’s comment. “Karl Rove is an empty hat,” Trump said. “We ended up with Obama because of Karl Rove and George W. Bush.”

My apologies for even mentioning this asshat, but the whole “treasonous” thing is not meaningless*.

Calling the Fed Chairman a traitor for “printing money” is dumb on so many levels I can’t evem….words fail….I’m going to have to find a PhotoShop.

Regardless, what Perry is doing is VERY SMART politics.  That stock market rally/dump last week?   The main reason is wasn’t completely one-sided was that Bernanke left the door open to QE3.   It probably won’t happen, but it brought some calm to some very dangerous waters.

What Perry is doing is pre-emptively  attacking any move by *anyone* that may do *anything* to improve our economy before 2012 as a partisan political move.   “He’s only helping you find work so it’ll help Obama, that bastard!”

The Republicans are playing a dangerous game here.  Running on a “failed recovery” for 14 months can get tiresome, especially when there is some improvement.   Constantly saying “it’s been raining all summer” when it’s been over 100 degrees for 48 of the last 50 days eventually wear’s thin, one would think.

But as the Idiot Billionaire notes, by that time everyone will have forgotten that it was Bush’s policies, not his personality, that led to financial collapse.  And if they sell it hard enough, Republicans might even convince enough folks that TARP, and the Stimulus, and the bailouts actually *caused* the worst financial crisis in living memory.

You’d be surprised what a catchy slogan and a billion dollars can do to shape a culture’s perception.   Heck, it can even re-write history.

* check that Constitution you love so much, Rick, for that thing you like to do to people so much you don’t really care if they turn out to be innocent after all.   There’s a specific penalty mentioned for that thing you just accused the Fed Chairman of.   You hoping to pull the switch yourself?  Or just hire a buddy to do it on taxpayer dime?

Funny note: From the linked article…

Dozens of studies have shown that witnesses’ memories of events often change when they are supplied with new contextual information. Itiel Dror, a cognitive psychologist who has done extensive research on eyewitness and expert testimony in criminal investigations, told me, “The mind is not a passive machine. Once you believe in something—once you expect something—it changes the way you perceive information and the way your memory recalls it.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann#ixzz1VFBGPmVy

[ahem..although what one mind finds logical often has more to do with emotion, curiously enough]