The New York Times depicted an extraordinary spectacle: the gathering of a group of people wearing swastikas and giving the Nazi salute, convening in a federal office building to celebrate the election of the new President.

They call themselves the “alt-right.” But when people give the “sieg heil” salute, when they babble about the racial inferiority of nonwhites,  when they use German expressions, they are neo-Nazis at best.

Their leader, Richard B. Spencer, spoke in familiar terms:

But now his tone changed as he began to tell the audience of more than 200 people, mostly young men, what they had been waiting to hear. He railed against Jews and, with a smile, quoted Nazi propaganda in the original German. America, he said, belonged to white people, whom he called the “children of the sun,” a race of conquerors and creators who had been marginalized but now, in the era of President-elect Donald J. Trump, were “awakening to their own identity.”

As he finished, several audience members had their arms outstretched in a Nazi salute. Mr. Spencer called out: “Hail Trump! Hail our people!” and then, “Hail victory!” — the English translation of the Nazi exhortation “Sieg Heil!” The room shouted back…

Mr. Spencer’s after-dinner speech began with a polemic against the “mainstream media,” before he briefly paused. “Perhaps we should refer to them in the original German?” he said.

The audience immediately screamed back, “Lügenpresse,” reviving a Nazi-era word that means “lying press….”

“America was, until this last generation, a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity,” Mr. Spencer thundered. “It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.”

But the white race, he added, is “a race that travels forever on an upward path.”

“To be white is to be a creator, an explorer, a conqueror,” he said.

More members of the audience were on their feet as Mr. Spencer described the choice facing white people as to “conquer or die.”

Of other races, Mr. Spencer said: “We don’t exploit other groups, we don’t gain anything from their presence. They need us, and not the other way around.”

This is America. There is free speech for all, even for the speech we deplore. But let’s get the terminology right. “Alt-right” is a weasel word. Just call them fascists.

Kurt Eichenwald of Newsweek covered the Presidential campaign for Newsweek. He wrote some powerful stories about Donald Trump’s international empire and how difficult it would be for Trump to separate his business from decisions he might make as President. Now that the election is over, Eichenwald explores two views that he finds to be common among Sanders supporters: First, that Sanders was cheated by the Democratic National Committee, which “rigged” the process for Hillary. Second, that Sanders would have beaten Trump. Eichenwald says he actually read the Republican opposition research on Sanders, and he cites some of it.

I post this with some trepidation because I don’t want to see readers get entangled in angry arguments about Bernie and Hillary. The election is over.

But I decided to take my chances because I like to share with you what I find interesting.

So, please, comment if you wish, but be civil, don’t insult anyone else. And let’s think together.

Ruth Conniff of “The Progressive” analyzes the election from the perspective of progressivism.

What Does Trump’s Victory Mean for Progressives?

It was a stunning election night. After an exhausting eighteen-month campaign and a vote count that went into the wee hours, we learned that the next President of the United States will be a rightwing authoritarian populist whose explicit racism prompted KKK leader David Duke to tweet, triumphantly:

Two terms of the nation’s first African-American President, a broad expansion of health care, the rescue of the auto industry, and an infusion of federal infrastructure spending that staved off a Great Depression, end like this. Black people, Latinos, Muslims, and immigrants cannot help but feel the blow the hardest.

The explicit misogyny and gleeful boasting about abusing women by Trump, which appeared to drive a surge for Hillary Clinton’s historic candidacy as the first woman major party nominee, ended with a definitive victory for the benighted macho aggressor.

There will be plenty to chew on over the next days and months for progressives.

There is, of course, what might have been: Had Bernie Sanders been the nominee, would the outcome have been different? Had Sanders lost to Trump (which he might have done), the mainstream pundits would have been unified in smug disdain for his outsider candidacy—as they were from the beginning.

But the establishment candidate lost instead.

Will Democrats and their friends and allies question their belief that the political professionals are best suited to decide who runs?

Voter turnout numbers suggest that the optimism and energy that drove Bernie Sanders’s primary campaign was not fully transferable to his Democratic rival. Little wonder. Sanders captured many of the same frustrations Trump voters expressed. As Trump put it in his victory speech, “The forgotten men and women of this country will be forgotten no longer.”

The difference, of course, is that while Sanders offered a vision of economic and racial justice, universal health care, free college, and taxes on the obscene wealth of the top 1 percent to pay for a more equal society, Trump offered immigrant-bashing, tax cuts for the wealthy, and a restoration of white, male supremacy. The only area of overlap was on changing U.S. trade policy—and there the details are fuzzy.

Democrats and progressives must grapple with the deep sense of alienation that drove both the Sanders and Trump campaigns. A status-quo, insider candidate who is close to both the Washington establishment and Wall Street was never going to be a credible vehicle for populist concerns.

It will be tempting for Democrats to make fun of Trump, and of the people who support him. Cultural disdain for “white trash” voters helped feed those voters’ sense of alienation. Democrats have to offer more comfort to the afflicted and affliction to the comfortable if they hope to build a real and effective opposition.

Then there are the agonizing details.

FBI Director James Comey played a unique role with his announcement to Congress that the FBI was again examining Hillary Clinton’s emails in the last few days of the campaign—only to announce, two days before the election, when the political damage was done, that there was nothing there. Never mind.

Republicans now control all branches of government. They cannot pretend to be outsiders anymore. The harm they can do is daunting. Democrats and progressives must unite in opposition, and figure out how to truly represent the better vision of America that we hold in common.

We have no choice. Let’s get going.

Sincerely,

Ruth Conniff
Editor-in-Chief
The Progressive 

P.S. – Subscribe now to get our special December/January double-issue. We really need your help to keep a progressive voice alive! Please make a donation today!

The following post appeared on Facebook, was reposted on The Daily Kos, and brought to my attention to our reader Ellen Lubic. The author is Charles Hirschhorn.

When Hillary Clinton picked Tim Kaine as her running mate, friends of mine speculated on her reasoning. Why didn’t she pick someone from a key state like Pennsylvania or Ohio or Florida. My uneducated guess was that she picked someone she thought was prepared, by temperament, character, and ability, to succeed her if anything happened to her while she was in office. This column confirms my hunch.

He wrote:

Full Disclosure: My Roommate is Running for VP

Thirty-five years ago a new roommate moved into the attic bedroom. We were both single and trying to figure out our future. My parents called and asked what I thought of him. Long distance calls were expensive, so my answer was short and to the point. Thirty-five years later we are both married, fathers of three adult children and experienced in our chosen fields. My parents still call to ask questions about Tim. Voice plans now allow for unlimited talk, but my brief answer has never changed: “He’s the best person I have ever met.”