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The comparisons were inevitable.

With the Atlanta Falcons leading the New England Patriots 140 in the second quarter of last nights Super Bowl, New York Times elections and polling reporter Nate Cohn tweeted that the Falcons had an 86 percent chance of winning the gamearound the same winning probability that Hillary Clinton had going into election night. By the third quarter, when the Falcons had extended that lead to 283, that percentage had increased to 99 percent.

But then, before bandwaggon fans had a chance to learn the Dirty Bird, the Falcons melted down, the Patriots got their groove back, and as quickly as you can say Ohio, the confetti was falling down on the Patriots in overtime. Trump tweeted congratulations to his dear friends, Patriots owner Bob Kraft, coach Bill Belichick, and quarterback Tom Brady; noted neo-Nazi Richard Spencer was tweeting a photo of Brady kissing his wife Giselle Bunchen with the typlically inflamatory caption, For the White Race, Its never over; and Donald Trump Jr. was trolling statisticians everywhere.

For many progressives outside of New England, the game felt like another win for racism and bigotry and, well, the version of America that Trump has so brazenly amplified and empowered.

But, while there are striking parallels on the surface, staring too deeply into the abyss is both dangerous and unproductive. After all, when you look at the bigger picture, there were plenty of victories for progressive values on Sunday evening as well.

Super Bowl commercials have, historically, been a bastion of sexism and stereotypes. But this year, almost all of them carried strong messages about unity, togetherness, and the importance of diversity.

Audi ran an advertisement that focused on the importance of equal pay for women. Coca-Cola, which has spoken out against Trumps Muslim ban, re-ran a commercial from 2014 that featured America the Beautiful sung in many different languages, and promoted the ad on social media with the message, Today millions cheer together, because together is beautiful.

Budweisers adwhich had already caused such an uproar among a small faction of conservatives after it was posted online last week that some were organizing a boycottshowcased their co-founders story of immigrating into the United States. While the company claims it wasnt in response to Trumps immigration policies, many arent buying it, for better or for worse.

Then there was the ad that was deemed too political to air in its original form84 Lumbers 90-second spot depicting a mother and daughter crossing the dessert in Mexico to try and cross the United States border. (Fox reportedly made them cut out the end of the ad, where the family comes face-to-face with a wall at the border, only to ultimately discover a door in the wall. However, you can see the ad in full below.)

Progressives are loathe to give these corporations too much credit, and rightly so: behind the scenes, many of them have plenty of flaws. But the fact that so many of these commercials championed equality and acceptance instead of sexist tropes proves that diversity and inclusion can be good business as much as good policy.

In fact, as pollster Geoff Garin highlighted on Sunday, despite Trumps electoral college victory, Clinton won the parts of America that generate 64 percent of countrys economic activity. The consumers that advertisers covet most voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clintons vision of America.

There was also Lady Gagas halftime showwhich, while not as overtly political as many expected, did promote LGBT rights and the suddenly-radical concept that this land is made for you and meand the Schuyler Sisters sisterhood spin on America the Beautiful before the game.

Plus, as necessary as it is to hold Brady and Belichick and Kraft accountable for their extremely public relationships with Trump, its also important to note that the three of them do not encompass the entire Patriots organization. Two Patriots players, tight end Martellus Bennett and defensive back Devin McCourty, raised their fists after the national anthem in the first NFL game of the season as a nod to Colin Kaepernicks protest against police brutality and racial injustices in America.

Bennett even confirmed on Sunday night that he would not be attending the White House when the Patriots visit to celebrate their championship because he does not support Trump. It remains to be seen if any of his teammates will join him in that protest.

So, sure, seeing a team led by Trump supporters win in improbable fashion over a team from one of the most diverse cities in America, and realizing that Spencer and other white supremacists were celebrating, was enough to trigger Election Day flashbacks. But scratching beneath the surface just a bit reveals just how flimsy the analogy is.

After all, the Patriots were the favorites going into this game, and ultimately its their talent and experience that led them to victory, not bigotry and bluster. They won because they have the best quarterback and coachlikely in NFL historyon their side. (And, yes, atrocious Falcons play calling helped.) We need to stop reading more into it than thatafter all, conflating reality and entertainment might just be what got us into this mess to begin with.

The result on the football field was just about football. Its everything that happened around the field that serves as a much better example of who we are as a country.

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The Super Bowl had more for progressives to love than you might realize - ThinkProgress

OLEAN, N.Y. In a county where more than 66 percent of voters cast ballots for President Donald Trump, local progressives gathered Saturday morning to discuss how they can impact issues both nationally and locally in response to the new Trump administration.

About 90 people, including local residents, legislators and school board members, packed inside and outside the Olean Public Librarys Gallery Room and discussed a wide range of actions, from participating in the potential national strike day and running for elected positions, to simply calling their local congressman and attending more public meetings.

Residents stood up to voice their ideas, with several women who attended the Womens March in Washington, D.C. giving advice on protesting, and one resident, a former employee of the closed Olean tile plant, simply standing to say hes been depressed since the election and the meeting had been therapeutic for him.

I think it shows there are a lot of local people who are interested, who are concerned about the direction the country is going, and who want to see how they can actually act and make a difference, said Chris Stanley, a St. Bonaventure University theology professor who led the meeting. Its obvious this is an area where Trump won about two thirds of the vote and a lot of people feel isolated, so having a sense of community that there are other people like me who can work together and do something and not feel hopeless.

The meeting mostly centered around grassroots efforts to improve the local area in response to things happening in Washington. Some in attendance argued the group cant ignore local matters and brought up several Cattaraugus County issues, such as the potential sale of the county nursing homes.

I would say most of the people in this room are motivated by whats going on on the national level, but when it comes down to thinking about where you can make a difference, I guess I was kind of inclined to the possibility where the local level is where you can do that more, Stanley said.

Several questioned if the group should begin finding candidates to support for the 2018 mid-terms, with Stanley theorizing that while Democrats are lousy at showing up for local off-year elections, 2018 could be different in light of Trump.

Cattaraugus County Legislator John Padlo, D-Olean, said there needs to be people campaigning for candidates using databases, social media and yard signs.

It is so critically important we start at the grassroots level and build this thing up rather than top-down theory, he said.

John Nelson, an Ellicottville attorney who ran for Cattaraugus County District 3 legislator this past November, told attendees to remember there are are 145 open positions up for election across the countys cities, towns and villages this November and only 23 are currently held by Democrats. He said conservatives in the area often run unopposed, and encouraged residents to run if they want to have an impact on their communities.

For those that dont think you can do it, obviously you can somebody did and became president, he joked.

Frank Puglisi, who ran Nelsons campaign and is the town of Lyndon clerk, said those interested in running for elected positions need to remember theres a process, and that the democratic elections commissioner will hold a class in May to show residents how they can get their name on the ballot.

City of Olean Common Council President Paul Gonzalez said the citys Democratic party is desperately trying to reinvigorate itself, and encouraged those interested in coming to a party committee.

Attendees also discussed getting other demographics involved in their efforts. Gonzalezs wife, Nichole, who is St. Bonaventures executive director of residential living, said looking around the meeting its clear they are missing vital people in the community. She also suggested they recruit and encourage people from diverse backgrounds to run for open county positions.

We need to stop looking and acting all the same, she said.

The lack of young people at the meeting was also raised as a concern. When Diane Cox, an Alma resident, asked those in the room to raise their hands if they were between the ages of 21 and 30, just one person did. Stanley said he is working to have similar meetings and discussions with St. Bonaventure students.

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Residents also discussed how they can best reach those in the area living in poverty. Linda Witte, Olean alderman and the citys former mayor, said most of the people she encounters while working at the Olean Food Pantry do not vote, therefore their needs are not being reflected in elections.

Stanley added that he would like the group to give a voice to the poor, and he plans to notify the Warming House of the groups next meeting.

There was also discussion of how to connect with those on the other side of the political spectrum. Ideas floated included educating conservatives on the outcomes of their voting as they feel conservatives are sometimes voting against their own interests or finding common ground with them.

We need to understand why they are voting the way they did, said Olean resident Mike Kelly. I cant imagine in my wildest dream voting the way others did, but I know some intelligent people who did vote that way.

While some Saturday compared their grassroots efforts to the Tea Partys during former President Barack Obamas administration, Stanley said he hopes the progressive movement will be different than the Tea Partys.

I think, as Ive read it, the Tea Party movement has been predominately one of anger and negativity. Im not aware of them actually trying to do good, constructive things in the community, in terms of providing for the poor or needy or a lot of the other issues that came up today, he said. So I would like to hope that on one hand, we can follow the playbook as far as it works, but do it in a way thats less angry and more cooperative, and more trying to make a constructive difference in the community along the way.

The exact time and location of the groups next meeting has not yet been determined. Those interested in attending or getting involved can contact Stanley at 372-4232 or cstanley@sbu.edu, or join the Southern Tier Activists for Peace & Equality Facebook page.

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Olean progressives hold grassroots meeting in response to Trump - Bradford Era

AlterNet

What Progressives Need to Beat TrumpThe Answer Isn't Copying What Right-Wingers Do AlterNet But without that focus on the part of progressives and liberals, the fate of the republic looks bleak. Donald Trump may not have been the dream candidate of right-wing leaders, but in the end, they deemed him close enough. For that, they're being ...

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What Progressives Need to Beat TrumpThe Answer Isn't Copying What Right-Wingers Do - AlterNet

DETROIT The Democratic National Committees future forums four public meetings ahead of the partys vote to pick new leadership, set this year for Feb. 25 are largely friendly affairs. Over a few hours, the candidates for top DNC jobs field questions and decline to take cheap shots. More often, they take time out to praise each other for running.

That made it easier to see the wincing when Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., spoke up at Saturdays forum to declare his solidarity with the protest movements that have sprung up since President Trumps election.

I am the only candidate on this stage who joined the Womens March, Buttigieg told the gathering at Detroits Wayne State University.

The audience cheered; the mayors leading rivals stayed poker-faced. It benefited none of them to point out that they had missed the Womens March only because they were in Miami, at a long-scheduled meeting of progressive donors, organized by Democratic activist David Brock. They had agreed to do it before anyone realized the largest mass mobilization since the Vietnam War would be happening that day.

The DNC race, the partys firstreal internal contest since 2005, was originally scheduled to be over by now. It was delayed until the last week of February so that the party, ostensibly, could debate what it stood for and what went wrong while its representatives in Washington figured out an opposition strategy.

But the speed with which protests have built against an unpopular Trump has given the race the feeling of an endlesss directors cut, with less public engagement than Democrats hoped.

I look at those marches, and all I can think is: Theres millions of pieces of data well never get, grumbled one candidates strategist on Friday night.

Ostensibly, the first three future forums allowed DNC members from the West, South and Midwest to meet their candidates in person and for local activists to feel some buy-in to the party.

In reality, the three forums have attracted around a quarter of the DNCs 447 voting members, and the turnout by local activists for all-day Saturday meetings has been wan in part, because those meetings overlapped with protests. In Houston, the host of the second forum, dozens of activists showed up still angry about the pre-2016 rules that allowed Hillary Clinton to build and pad a lead with superdelegates.

Meanwhile, the unity commission that will rewrite delegate rules existed in the form of a table manned by chairman Larry Cohen, a Bernie Sanders supporter and former Communications Workers of America president who is waiting for the DNC race to end so that the commission seats can actually be filled. The party still has 20 days to go before it can join the protest movement, already in progress.

The shape and form of this new movement has no real parallels in history because we have never seen anything like Donald Trump in modern American politics, said interim DNC chair Donna Brazile.

The leading candidates for DNC chair and vice chair have made the most of the forums, with each week prompting reactions to the latest Trump administration outrage. Theyve filled the space outside the forums with campaign literature and swag and have brought along supporters meant to serve as previews of the energy they could harness.

In the chairs race, former secretary of labor Thomas Perez has changed the most in relation to Trump. The race began before he left the Obama administration, but at the forums since, Perez has become a fount of outrage. At Houstons forum, which came right after Trumps executive orders on immigration and refugees and a threatened (but as yet nonexistent) order on voter fraud, he raised his voice and accused the president of peddling bulls***. In Detroit, he paced around the hospitality suite rented by his campaign, raging at how Trump had undone a Labor Department rule designed to prevent fraud by financial managers.

Hes got a degree from MSU Makin S*** Up university, said Perez.

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who was born and raised in Detroit, has been accompanied at forums by members of National Nurses United, who have tried to evoke the feeling of a presidential campaign by waving signs and singing pro-Ellison songs. (To the tune of Chain of Fools: Change change change/ unity. Change change change/ experience.) Buttigieg has asked young supporters to join him at forums and dispatched them in the hours before the gatherings to conduct voter-registration drives another line that always gets a cheer.

Little has affected the race itself, which is being decided out of view in phone calls and visits with the 447 voting members. This weeks high-profile endorsements put former vice president Joe Biden and the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers behind Perez, while former vice president Walter Mondale, the Teamsters and a crew of Michigan legislators endorsed Ellison.

None of those backers, of course, are voting members of the DNC. Less than a quarter of DNC members have made public endorsements. Privately, both the Ellison and Perez campaigns see themselves in a close race, with most DNC members still undecided. Ray Buckley, the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, is seen as a safe first ballot choice for undecided members, as is Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party. Sally Boynton Brown, the executive director of Idahos Democratic Party, and Democratic strategist Jehmu Greene, have benefited from the in-person forums but not broken through.

The party has also maneuvered to include late-declaring fringe candidates, who have not disrupted the race.Sam Ronan, a 27-year old Air Force veteran who ran for Ohios state legislature in 2016, has been a self-effacing and generous presence at the forums, dressing in jeans and talking about how to make millennials feel included. Peter Peckarsky, a Wisconsin attorney, has talked dryly about voting rights. A third candidate was cut from the forums after insulting Ellisons religion; a fourth has not showed up to the forums.

And with one exception this week, the party has changed the story line about the race from the one it espoused in December, when the rise of Ellison and entry of Perez prompted analysis of the race as a rematch between supporters of the Obama administration and supporters of Bernie Sanders. The Vermont senator leaned back into that story after Bidens endorsement, reiterating his advice that the party could choose a failed status-quo approach or reform itself.

Asked on CNNs State of the Union on Sunday to explain the criticism, Sanders largely repeated himself.

The Democratic Party has got to say: Yes, were going to take on the greed of Wall Street, the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, the greed of corporate America that throws American workers out on the streets and moves to Mexico and China, Sanders said. We are on the side of the elderly and the workers, not on the side of big business.

But freed from the Obama administration, which had defended the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Perez has taken no position to the right of Ellison or Sanders. The future forums have focused more on party strategy than policy, and outside of the forums, the Democrats who warn that the party might swing too far to the left to compete are nearly invisible.

The conversation, instead, is dominated by activists, by Sanders who will appear on CNN on Tuesday night to defend the Affordable Care Act in a debate with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who told a meeting of the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Saturday that Trump had won only by plagiarizing radical rhetoric from politicians of the left. His failure to deliver on that rhetoric would be the partys opening to win.

There are some in the Democratic Party who urge caution, Warren said. They say this is just a tactical problem. We need better data. We need better social media. We need better outreach. We need better talking points. Better talking points? Are you kidding me? People are so desperate for economic change in this country that Donald Trump was just inaugurated as president, and people think we just have a messaging problem? What planet are they living on?

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DNC race grinds on as progressives and protesters strategize - Washington Post

Radical progressive Democrats have resorted to their old playbook: If you lose at the voting box, you then protest, demonstrate, sue in court, hold up the president's Cabinet picks, do everything to divide people, and stifle Donald Trumps presidency.

When the country looks for unity, the radicals drive a wedge between progressives and those who believe in America First.

Radicals want open borders, and if you disagree, they label you anti-immigrant, racist or worse. It's the same way with the radical approach to climate change; anyone who does not adhere to their theory is labeled a denier. Whatever happened to debate? The radical approach is: The debate is over!

Radical progressives lost an election. Get used to it with the power struggle over the borders, climate change, health care, judicial nominations and much more. In the name of unity, progressives should now do what they can to hold on to what power they have left by reaching out to President Trump. Do what's good for the country and leave the radical element of the party behind.

Tom Ploski, Mount Prospect

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For progressives, the debate is over - Chicago Tribune