If you like schadenfreud , you’ll love this
Ben Rhodes and Samantha Power talk about their experiences on election night, when they had assembled a large group of other liberals and Obama officials to watch the returns and joyously celebrate Hillary Clinton’s election to the presidency. To top it all off, the event was recorded, and it seems that this documentary will someday be available to the public (I’m not completely sure about that last part—but it was filmed by HBO, and so my guess is that it will be aired).
I predict that more conservatives will want to see it than Democrats, just to savor the deliciouds schadenfreude.
But strangely enough, I’m more into identifying with Rhodes and Power. No, not with their politics, but with their stunned disbelief. If you’d had a camera on me that night, it would have recorded a strange sight indeed. I don’t remember exactly—I was in a kind of fog of shock—but there was a lot of pacing around, shaking my head, startled exclamations that I couldn’t f-ing believe it, phone calls to various people, and staring at the TV in disbelief, all interspersed with a slowly dawning joy that Hillary Clinton would never be president, which balanced with my fear of the unknown with Trump.
So I can identify with a portion of what Ben Rhodes says here, strangely enough, although other parts are the opposite of my feelings that election night. I’ve bolded the places where he describes what I felt, too:
As people who know me know, probably to a fault, I am usually not without thoughts and words. But you know, I think””I kept trying””beginning to say something, and the film shows that basically I can’t speak, because anything I was going to say was just going to be kind of a lame rationalization.
And when, in reality, you know, sometimes things are just terrible. And I think that that two layers of feelings that I had after the election, one is just on a very personal level, you know, we just spent ten years””you’re watching the film, it’s like watching yourself run the 26-mile marathon, and to just feel””and President Obama used to describe it as we’re going to hand off the baton. And it’s like you could see someone reaching back to take the baton, and suddenly nobody is there.
Because, personally, you’re feeling like, ”˜well, all these things I worked on, what’s going to happen to them?’ And this sense of, you know, you put all this time and effort and caring into different things that are now going to be threatened or attacked or undermined in some ways, it was powerful. But then, more broadly, I think, beyond just me personally was the sense of the unknown.
I mean, that’s why I didn’t have anything to say. Like, if Jeb Bush was elected president, or even Marco Rubio, you know, I wouldn’t have liked that, but I could have foreseen what was going to happen, and what that was going to look like.
What’s more, what Rhodes says about watching his work being undone is exactly and precisely what conservatives felt during the Obama era. Hey Ben, I feel your pain—actually, I felt your pain, and someday I may feel it again at the next election, depending on how it goes. I’m sure that people who actually worked on these things—for example, many of the military members who fought to secure Iraq or those who helped them—felt even worse than I did when they watched Obama give them away. The message is that what’s done can be undone.
One difference, of course, is that Democrats thought they not only had this one in the bag and that the baton would be handed off safely and easily to relay runner Hillary, but they thought they had established supreme dominance in the presidential electoral race and would never again be defeated by the upstart GOP, and that the least likely person in the world to accomplish that defeat would be Donald Trump. So their shock was doubled, tripled, quadrupled by their arrogance.
There are parts of the interview where Rhodes and Power seem to me to be sincerely self-deluded (as opposed to just spinning, which they’re also fully capable of) in their perception of what happened during the Obama administration and what has happened during Trump’s tenure so far in the international arena:
Well, I think that there’s something very, very different about President Obama investing in alliances, building a hyper-charged different kind of relationship with China and with India, and then drawing on that political capital to get them to do more in the international system, than holding our allies in contempt, ripping up international treaties, showing our word means nothing, and then demanding that people do what we say.
Or maybe the difference that when Obama “held our allies in contempt, ripped up international treaties, and showed our word meant nothing,” he didn’t “demand that people do what we say.” In fact, the “holding our allies in contempt and ripping up treaties” part was so commonplace for Obama that it received a name pretty early on in his presidency: the Obama doctrine.
And by the way, I’m curious: which allies does Trump hold in contempt? And which treaties has he ripped up?
See this. And the Paris climate agreement, which he did pull out of, was no treaty. Trump hasn’t even pulled out of the Iran deal yet, which also isn’t a treaty, and which was entered into by Obama without a majority in Congress approving.
Most everyone on the left is sincerely deluded. Proven by various degrees of rejection on the Left of both basic aspects of human nature and operative principles of the external reality within which we all exist.
A common characteristic of the dogmatic is certainty. Emotion based resistance to facts and logic, the basis of reason is what separates principle from dogma.
The ONLY thing I want to hear Ben Rhodes or Samantha Power say… “I plead guilty Your Honor.” I’d really like to hear that from the majority of the Obama/Clinton cabal. But I take what I can get. 😉
Other than that…I’ve got all the schaden-stuff I need. Every day that HRC is NOT POTUS…that’s a happy day.
Yep, self-delusion is the apt description.
Like most everyone else I was convinced Hillary would win, that Trump was just too far from the usually preferred presidential candidate, too unusual a politician, with so many flaws that he couldn’t get enough support across the states to win. Wrong (I’m really not good at this prediction thing and I believed all the supposed SMART people).
On the evening of election day I checked in to see what the talking heads were saying. Polls hadn’t closed yet so they weren’t saying much other than repeating the conventional wisdom that Hillary would win – just arguing over by how much. Turned off the election coverage and read before going to bed.
I woke at my usual time the next morning, made some coffee, and then went on my computer to see how badly Hillary beat Trump. Fortunately my coffee was still brewing because had I had some in my mouth when I saw the news that Trump won I would have spit it all over.
Like you I was delighted that Hillary lost and unsure about what to expect from President Trump. I worried most about what the Trump haters would do – seriously thought an assassination attempt was possible. I did look forward to seeing how it would play out, figured there would be very few dull moments for awhile at least. That sure has proven to be the case.
Schadenfreude for the folks like Rhodes and Powers is very strong for me. I also feel a bit sorry for people like them who are so heavily invested personally and emotionally in the outcome of an election. As Trump would tweet: SAD!
After my initial surprise that night, I remember the stock futures markets dropping just like the left-wind econ hacks had predicted. I remember it as being an hour long drop but I think it was a few hours, as I was up ’till 1AM Pacific, at least.
Then of course, the markets turned upward the early hours of Wed. morning. And they’ve been rising ever since, even more so since the tax bill passed.
People forget that in the first few months of Obama’s presidency, the stock market declined by a hair more than 20% until it bottomed in mid March. That was a bear market decline on top of Bush’s bear market decline. But the Obama people measure their market performance with mid March as the starting point.
Lest anyone be deluded, the market had been stalled after Obama’s inauguration waiting for his first actions. When those actions came, in early Feb. (I think) the big market declines commenced.
steve walsh:
Wow, that’s quite a story. So you didn’t know until the next day.
After Brexit I thought, surely this is possible. I was also puzzled how polls could say HRC would walk away with this thing when the woman is so flagrantly a criminal who flaunts her law breaking, her winning was not in the America I believe in. I felt strongly that other Americans must be thinking like me. Baby boomers like me, heck we have Davy Crockett, the lone ranger, & Robin Hood as heroes, none of them would condone HER. Finally the women who rejected her too, we all heard the stories her man rapes and humiliates and she is there to pile on, what decent Jane Doe voter could look away from that? & hey, I convinced my millennial daughter in law who was all 1st woman prez, to vote Trump ! Proud of that !!
I really did not – that is how completely I believed Hillary would win. In that way I was like Rhodes and Power, just couldn’t conceive at that point any other outcome. A certain part of me didn’t want to watch all the happy talk and joyfulness of the election coverage when Hillary won. 😉
This piece is causing me to go back to the 2000 presidential election. But first, a Preamble.
Preamble: M J R will never vote for a Democrat, for reasons that might render this comment far too long if enumerated. I’ll vote for a Republican *sometimes*; for a libertarian or an independent *sometimes*, depending on the circumstances; or for no one at all (which I regard as a form of voting). However, since I lived and worked in a very left-leaning environment, and since I have undergone therapy to *not* drag my knuckles, and since I have had my horns and arrow-shaped tail amputated right above my forehead and butt (respectively), and since I speak in grammaticaly coherent sentences (even if those sentences are too often run-on sentences) — many of those with whom I work and casually interact often take me for a left-leaner, too. (End of Preamble.)
Back to late 2000. Once it appeared that Dubya was going to defeat AlGore, a friend at work came by to commiserate. I was my usual empathetic and (if I do say so myself) charming self; she’d been a work-friend of many years’ standing. But I do confess — inward I was loving it. Loving it, loving it, loving it.
(At some point, she must have realized that my empathy was less than gushing, because all my responses to her were very non-committal. She was not such a good friend after that.)
Hmmmm . . . my Preamble was longer than my comment.
steve walsh Says:
January 17th, 2018 at 4:19 pm
I really did not — that is how completely I believed Hillary would win. In that way I was like Rhodes and Power, just couldn’t conceive at that point any other outcome. A certain part of me didn’t want to watch all the happy talk and joyfulness of the election coverage when Hillary won. 😉
* * *
Like Steve, I went to bed and eschewed the punditry — there was nothing more to be done, and I hated the idea of watching the talking heads gloating.
I was very pleasantly surprised in the morning, and also concerned that the violent threats made by the Left would be carried out, but I suppose that even the crazies aren’t that crazy: it would guarantee Republican landslides for years.
In the end my vote came down to Never Hillary, but I was never afraid of President Trump, because I could see the rational — and patriotic — executive behind the glitzy-ditsy showman
TommyJay Says:
January 17th, 2018 at 3:38 pm
…
People forget that in the first few months of Obama’s presidency, the stock market declined by a hair more than 20% until it bottomed in mid March. That was a bear market decline on top of Bush’s bear market decline. But the Obama people measure their market performance with mid March as the starting point.
* * *
It’s rather like the way the climatistas measure global warming by starting from an unusually low point amid normally higher temperatures.
I relate to M J R. Never vote Democrat. Their reprehensible history has been destroyed and people don’t know their history but it is too awful and not just in 1861 but throughout the last 200 years and including the Fascism of today.
They are control freaks.
Election night I was at a basketball game. The Sacramento Kings. As I am LESS interested in sports – I kept checking the news and knew real time. I double-checked CNN (I never do that) and about 5 different sources that I never checked.
I looked OVER my shoulder to ensure that people could not see my smart phone. I told my wife and said we’ll have to leave before the game is over – that there might be issues in the streets. While I was wrong – there were no issues in the streets it was more or less because nobody knew there. I kept trying to read the faces of everyone present.
And please tell me why these control freaks have helped garner 89% support for net neutrality and my coworkers (tech) are for it. THey have ALL lost their minds. All my coworkers were repeating the same what if scenarios about ISP’s and junk as if 2015 was a fecal pit for Internet.
I still have never uttered the word that CNN loves to use now. And I heard fecal pit on AM radio so that is what I’ll use.
Clinton’s defeat was indeed surrealistic. America literally dodged a bullet.
steve walsh,
An assassination attempt is not only still possible but arguably, its probability increases with every day, especially if Trump continues to make inroads against the Left’s agenda.
Fanatics do not go quietly into the night.
Molly NH,
A bit more than half of the voters, voted for that criminal. The MSM never gave serious coverage to her criminality or her treatment of the women her husband assaulted.
That was the biggest thing (i.e., that Hillary Clinton would not be president for at least 4 more years, if ever).
All through the evening, the word “wow” kept resounding in my head, louder and louder, except for those comic relief moments when I saw left television networks’ folks crying.
I think the treaties they’re talking about are two treaties that never were. The Paris accord was never ratified by the Senate which the US Constitution requires of an international treaty. The other was the Iran Nuclear Deal — same reason.
Oops. Sorry. I guess I missed your last paragraph.
I think that neither agreement was submitted to Congress for ratification because the Obama administration knew that Congress would reject them both. John Kerry admitted as much regarding the Iran Nuclear Deal. Being the dunce that he (Kerry) is, I don’t think it ever dawned on him that the reason it would not pass the Senate was because it was such a bad deal. I think he thought that in this new era of history it will never again be possible to get Senate ratification. Its just something the Senate doesn’t do anymore regardless of the agreements’ merits.
Plus, that darn Constitution thing is just such a pain in the bum. Better to just do an end run around it.
How many times have I gone back to YouTube and watch reruns of the Talking Heads as they sank lower and lower and lower? It’s been several. Utterly failing in their attempts to put meaning to reality.
A couple of weeks before the ’16 election, I was the last of several old men, who had been waiting to move into the seat in my old men’s barbershop. The barber, an employee, and mere late 50’s fellow, had correctly identified me as an oddball customer, safe to ask a politically incorrect question in the empty shop. “Who do you think will win the election?”
(If barbershops were once venues where men argued politics, they are carefully politically correct today.)
“Well, among nice people, one never answers that question” was my answer. I think he got both answers. So, on election night, I was both very surprised and pleased, but not surprised at the reactions from us elites.
Election night I cried. Seriously, tears of joy. Not because Trump had won (I’ve slowly come around to him though); but, tears of Joy thinking that maybe, just maybe, the self-anointed political elites couldn’t always get their way while stepping on our backs.
My tears of joy were for the hope that maybe America could be refurbished after the long years of Obamanation.
And Trump’s administration is proving my hopes are not in vain. With the economy roaring again, folks getting real jobs (not the temp jobs that the MSM always thrilled about under Obama as “new” jobs – real jobs with good pay and benefits), and Trump saying/doing what needs to be done.
After Obama’s second election I realized that too many on the left just didn’t care about the rest of America who were falling on hard times – they felt that their ideology was more important . So, now, I couldn’t care less about those on the left – feed them to their own crocodiles of their own making for all I care.
Count me in as one who will watch such a movie just to watch them weep. Cold? yep, but after years of name-calling from the left I don’t care any more.
As ye sow, so shall ye reap.
Poor Ben and Samantha, all those lies, for all those years, for nought. Tagic. (not)
“deliciouds schadenfreude”
Spell checker off? I usually misspell the second word.
The comments on this topic are odd.
All hoped Hillary would lose but concomitantly were afraid her opponent would/could/might win. That’s a voter’s double negative, and it’s kinda goofy. A presidential election is like a prizefight: one of the two will win, period.
It suggests to me that even the really smart people (e.g., here) are more hung up on style than on substance, were MSM-influenced, and did not pay attention to Trump’s full sentences, e.g. hearing only the condemnation of “some” Mexicans, ignoring the final portion of his pronouncement that “some” were good people.
And they come around only slowly. They still are not sure, despite his rather stellar first-year record. What is it? You want a Gore, a Bush I or II, a BJ Clinton, a repeat Obama? You had those characters! Which served the nation well? None? But they were “presidential”!!! Ah, yes: style over substance.
I too believed Hillary had it in the bag. Watched the returns and was shocked, shocked.
I had been very conservative in the market after Obama’s re-election in 2012. After Trump was sworn in, I went back into the market bit by bit. Like his election, the market has amazed me. It has melted up since the tax bill passed. Can’t last forever, but is fun while it lasts. Schadenfreud, indeed.
What Trump is doing – cutting regulations, lowering taxes, opening up our energy reserves, being openly pro-business, and rebuilding our defenses – is doing all the things I have been calling for for the last 15 years. An economic experiment is what it is. He’s placing the stagnation forming economic policies of Obama and the Dems next to free market growth policies of the GOP. (At least those in the GOP who are for Trump.) It could very well determine the economic path of this country for the next generation. Living well, it’s the best revenge.
Frog:
I completely disagree.
First of all, a person can be worried about two different consequences and also be fully aware that one of those consequences will occur.
Secondly, it had little to nothing to do with style over substance for most if not all of the people here during the campaign. We’re not talking about the crease in Trump’s pants, a la Obama and Brooks, and I think it’s insulting to people here to suggest that sort of shallow thinking was operating.
In the absence of any political experience whatsoever, which was the case with candidate Trump, voters needed to rely on two things: his words and his character, because so far there were no political deeds. His words meant little to nothing because he was known to have lied many times during his life, he even shifted back on forth on quite a few policy matters during the campaign, and he had a history of having been quite liberal on a great many issues. Therefore there was no reason to trust what he said and plenty of reason to distrust it.
Then there’s the issue of character. Trump was a philanderer and cheater in the personal sense, and he was in a business known for its cutthroat and shady ethics (or lack thereof). So again, no reason to trust either his word or his judgment on foreign policy and that sort of thing (I think that foreign policy was the big fear for most people). His volatile-seeming personality did not engender trust, either.
There was no reason to trust him and no reason to think he was even very much on the right. Plenty of people voted for him because they thought Hillary was worse, and it was as simple as that. They were happy she wouldn’t be president. They were apprehensive that he would. And it had nothing to do with style over substance for the vast majority of them.
The only people for whom style was an issue would have been those who thought he was reliably conservative and yet didn’t vote for him because they didn’t like his hair or his language. I don’t think anyone here meets that description.
Rhodes hands Iran billions and nukes. Powers does nothing and thousands killed in Syria. The two of them presided over the greatest migration since WW2.
Two of the worst people in American history.
Like Ben Rhodes, I was surprised. Unlike him, I was pleasantly surprised. Over the years I had gradually changed from Demo to third party to always for the Pub- in response to my increasing disgust with the Demos. As I would vote Demo only over my dead body, I had no difficulty voting for Trump, warts and all.
It was a dark and stormy- or at least rainy- election night. I didn’t want to ruin my sleep with bad news from the election returns, so I went to bed early without knowing any results. I would find out in the morning how the election went. When I woke up at 3 a.m., I decided that I would break the news fast and turn on the computer. Good news. It was sweet to see videos of the sad news people. Democrat operatives, indeed. Schadenfreude, indeed!
Like steve walsh, I went to bed not knowing. After covfefe I checked in and was glad we escaped the drunken pant suit sjw’s reign of terror.
Who do i have sex wiith;I am both a misogynist and HOMOPHOBE
Who do sleep wiith;I am both a misogynist and HOMOPHOBE
I will not have sufficient schadenfreud over Rhodes until he is sharing a jail cell with a 300-lb transsexual.
As for the election I expected Hillary to win but thought Trump had a chance because all the negative publicity, not to mention Hillary’s 2 or 3 to 1 spending advantage, could not keep him far from the MOE. I live in CA so the night of the election I was driving home about 9:30 EST. I turned on the radio and the first thing I heard was, “Hillary underperforming in Florida, the Hispanic vote not turning out as expected”. I knew then it was going to be interesting.
As is the case with many other commenters here, the schadenfreude is delicious. I live in the Pacific Time Zone so was able to see the results without staying up too late. And I, too, was absolutely delighted Hillary would never be president. My wife was even more delighted: she has a deeper dislike for Hillary than I do, if such a thing is possible, and doesn’t worry as much as I do about Trump mishandling matters.
While I would love to watch a film of Rhodes and Power being crushed, I really don’t want to see or hear from either one of them ever again. Ever. Except maybe when they say goodbye to their spouse and are marched into prison.
“They” are still crazy!
http://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-president-trump-russia-probe-lawrence-lessig-784081
“Hillary Clinton Could Still Become President if Russia Probe Finds Conspiracy Evidence” so says Lawrence Lessig, the Roy L. Furman professor of law and leadership at Harvard Law School.
I did suspect Hillary might lose, starting with the day she told the coal miners she was going to put them all out of work. I’m watching her on TV and saying to myself, “This woman is a Democrat? She’s out of her mind!” Then the Border Patrol Officers union endorsed Trump — a government workers’ union! Then the Fraternal Order of Police. I’m from Philly; I know how Important the FOP has been to Democratic politics in the eastern seaboard cities. Then I learned that Felonia von Pantsuit (to use Kurt Schlicter’s marvelous cognomen) was basically ignoring the center of the country — flyover country.
So I thought early on that there was a possibility
Hillary could lose, which is why I took parker’s 5 to 1 bet that Trump wouldn’t get more than 100 electoral votes — which, of course, he has never paid off.
When Trump won, I was very happy and pleasantly surprised, but I wasn’t shocked.
My Father and I talk politics almost daily. He was sure that Hillary would win, rather easily. He was not a fan by any stretch. I predicted Trump would win, partially to have some hope, and also because his rallies were SRO.
Election night, I was tense with anxiety 10x. I made it a point to watch CNN and MSNBC because I still had hope, and wanted to watch the faces of the talking heads transpose.
I remember the Florida results were being announced, with 90% of precincts reporting (IIRC) and the numbers for Trump kept climbing. That’s when my hope took on some momentum, and flirted with “He is going to win”.
Yes, I will watch that documentary, just to see their sadzz.
Also, that “baton” pass is just crying for a meme.
HRC’s faction was promised that the election would be in their bag given Hussein or Soros vote cheats. Even Johnson and Kennedy pulled one over Nixon a few times.
However, HRC did not expect her spoiler, DJT, to pull in so many Democrats not in the cities. This disrupted the calculations of the cabal.
The cabal is a SS or Deep State lineage, mostly associated with spirit cooking, soul cracking, child sexual slave trafficking, and various other interesting side businesses.
Gringo,
Aren’t you worried that your dead body will start voting Democrat? I used to wonder why all the dead people voted democrat and I finally realized it was obviously because they were brain dead.
Ray, I better not die in a Democrat-controlled county. 🙂
Ray Stevens is on the case. Grandpa Voted Democrat.
Richard Saunders Says:
January 18th, 2018 at 3:28 pm
I did suspect Hillary might lose, starting with the day she told the coal miners she was going to put them all out of work. I’m watching her on TV and saying to myself, “This woman is a Democrat? She’s out of her mind!” Then the Border Patrol Officers union endorsed Trump – a government workers’ union! Then the Fraternal Order of Police.
* * *
Well, she heard Obama say he was going to bankrupt all the coal companies, so she was just speaking truth to power.
And who cares what the people on the front line of the war against Americans think?
And BLMs not LEOs have more votes.
She just did the math.
neo-neocon Says:
January 17th, 2018 at 11:02 pm
* *
Nice job of parsing out at least three major factions of response to Trump’s campaign.
Neo:
My observation had three parts, of which style v. substance was #1. You did not respond to “were MSM-influenced, and did not pay attention to Trump’s full sentences”.
Following on with what Neo wrote, here is a more expansive article that addresses the question of style, substance, and existential decision making in politics.
(via American Greatness today)
http://www.libertylawsite.org/liberty-forum/making-politics-possible-again/
“Whereas Weiner and others fear what Trump may mean for conservatism, those (like me) who have come to realize that they care little for “conservatism” have asked instead what Trump may mean for America. It is a different and a better question. If you are concerned primarily with the reputation of a political movement (particularly one that admits it is destined over time to lose), questions about the private nature and habits of an individual said to represent it will naturally preoccupy you. It’s all you’ve got to console you, I guess.
But when you understand that the object of our politics is bigger than the reputation of a man or a movement and indeed, that this movement in which you’ve invested so much of yourself may have become a hindrance rather than a help to your stated objective of good government–in that case, the personal flaws of an individual politician can be viewed in a more sober and disinterested light.
This man was hired to do a particular job the voters want done. He is not auditioning to be our boyfriend, our husband, our father, or especially our priest. We needn’t endorse every aspect of a man’s character (and one hopes that with many past Presidents people did not imagine they were doing that!) in order to think he is qualified to do the job we want done and will do it well. Nor need we be suggesting, in praising Trump for the admirable job he is now doing, that he is also the beau ideal of a human being. He was hired. If he fails, he can be fired, too. It’s nothing personal.
Why is there such fear that the good ideas Trump champions will be tainted by any unsavory aspects of his personal character and private life? I submit it is because we are not thinking politically when we talk this way. “
We will never know how many legal votes were cast for Hillary or Trump. Even if a voter registration investigation makes any progress and clears all the illegal and dead voters off the rolls, absentee and mail-in voting procedures are cleaned up, and miraculously states cooperate to identify double voting across state lines, no one will ever be able to calculate the true 2016 vote totals.
I fully believe there were more illegal votes than Hillary’s popular vote margin.