Time to tear ourselves away from obsessing about the national election and refocus, of course, on Maryland. The anatomy of the state and its voters as shown by election results are analyzed; prospects for the dominant but shaky Democrats in the Free State, and, well, a look at urban areas as sites of resistance and the January inaugural festivities as protest locale...

The return of the Progressive Maryland Weekend Reader. The temptation, of course, is to keep ruminating about the national election, but the argument that progressive resistance to worst-case scenarios has to start at the local and state level leads us to think about Maryland and what needs to be done.

Here’s a piece from Josh Kurtz about how Maryland Democrats need to assess the next steps. He is not supremely confident. http://marylandreporter.com/2016/11/17/guest-column-democrats-in-a-daze-again-the-elections-implications-for-maryland-in-2018/

The crack student reporters and editors at UMCP’s Capital News Service look over the state’s increasing polarization as reflected in Nov. 8 results. Sure, the state went overwhelmingly Democratic in the presidential race, as expected, but “the state’s liberal base didn’t perform according to expectations.” And red counties – which vastly outnumber the blue ones, but not in population – are becoming redder. http://marylandreporter.com/2016/11/09/maryland-grows-more-politically-polarized-like-rest-of-u-s/

The stark difference between Maryland’s urbanized and rural areas, as analyzed by the CNS article above, is reflected nationally and brings a suggestion from a Yes! magazine writer that the place for progressives to hunker down and push back is the generic city. http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/how-cities-can-protect-people-threatened-by-trumpism-20161111

And then there’s the January event, the Inauguration, which is beginning to look more like a celebration of the resistance to the incoming, er, President. None of these people, we might guess, will be staying at Trump’s hotel downtown (it may be tied up in a lawsuit anyway). So we progressives in the region might want to start planning on being welcoming hosts for the people who, like us, are ready to resist. http://portside.org/2016-11-19/gathering-storm-protest-against-trump