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Progressives, You Need to STOP (or…How the Democrats Can Save Themselves in the Age of Trump).
Enough is enough. My fellow progressives, we need to quit navel gazing, break up the circular firing squad and just stop. Especially you…and you know who you are.
You need to stop quoting Federalist Paper 68, which not a single person here has probably read. If you had you would not be trying to hinge a wholesale Electoral College revolt on this all too brief of an essay (one of 85) written by Alexander Hamilton among others, under a pseudonym no less, for the benefit of making an argument to ratify the Constitution…in New York. There will be no abolition of the Electoral College. It will not happen and why? As I once wrote, it’s very difficult to alter the Constitution to accomplish that. The Founding Fathers designed the Constitution to make that sort of thing extraordinarily hard to do. If it was as easy as you are hoping and praying it is, then the Republicans would have already changed it to get rid of gay marriage, ban abortion, flag burning, etc. and all of the other culture war issues they have threatened to use Constitutional amendments against. As for us? We would have abolished “dark money” in electoral politics, enshrined universal suffrage, guaranteed equal pay for equal work, etc. and all of the other issues we have threatened to amend the Constitution for over the years. The last time the Constitution was amended was in 1992 and it was regarding Congressional salaries. Look it up. It took 202 years for that to get ratified. The drive to abolish the Electoral College is a waste of time. Just stop.
You need to stop leaving scripted phone messages and sending canned emails addressed to members of Congress, the U.S. Attorney General or the Attorneys General of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida or whomever. Absolutely nobody except some poor unpaid interns are going to read prefab emails sent from terrified liberals who still can’t accept that millions of people simply didn’t vote on Election Day. Quit trying to find excuses for why we didn’t come out in large enough numbers for Hillary Clinton, or wound up voting for people like Gary Johnson or Jill Stein who could never, repeat, never win the Presidency. It’s over and done with. Donald Trump is the going to be the 45th President of the United States. We put him there and no public official, court officer or arcane law is going to come and save you from him. You were warned. All of these emails and electronic petitions you are “signing” on sites like Change.org or MoveOn are worth absolutely nothing. The electors will not read them and God knows Trump and the GOP, who are still in charge of Congress right now incidentally, do not give a damn about these petitions. It’s a waste of time. Just stop.
You need to stop trying to change state laws that govern how their electors are chosen. It’s far, far too late for that now and besides, in doing so we may shoot ourselves in the foot again one day. Do you really want to risk this nightmare a second time? You can’t hope for or rely on “faithless electors” changing the result either and you really shouldn’t. This is how we choose our Presidents and Democrats, I’m sorry…but we lost. As appalling and frightening as his administration is going to be, this country earned and deserves this President because we weren’t paying attention. We thought this would be a cakewalk. It wasn’t and it is completely our fault. Not the Russians. Ours. We took our eye off the ball. Well, never again. We all need to admit that over the last 8 years, we have been in a bubble. We are still in a hermetically sealed media bubble telling us exactly what makes us feel good as surely as conservatives were over the last 20 years. If you are in this bubble (God knows I was), you need to get out and now. We were listening to the talking heads at MSNBC and reading progressive “news” sites like Blue Nation Review and US Uncut and we stopped fighting as if our lives depended on it to stop Trump. These “Daily Actions” everyone is taking on Facebook are terrific, but they are aimed at completely the wrong target. They are a waste of time. Just stop.
Fellow progressives, you need to START. You need to start thinking about the real target which is 2018. After that, the target is 2020.
You need to start raising money, making phone calls, sending emails, signing petitions in ink, knocking on doors and all of the other things you are currently doing in some vain effort to deny Trump the White House. Break out your wallet, checkbook, PayPal account or the sock under your mattress stuffed with rainy day cash and start giving until it hurts. The rainy day is here and the storm’s name is Hurricane Donald. You need to give and give and give to all those organizations who will be taking fire for us over the next 4 years. Organizations like the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center will need dollars now more than ever. So will Planned Parenthood, the Human Rights Campaign and the Sierra Club to name a few. Money talks. Even a moron like Trump knows that. If progressive values are to remain alive under his regime, it will mean being in court. A lot. Lawyers cost money, even progressive ones, so don’t be stingy.
You need to start putting your time and effort into helping Democrats capture the House and Senate in 2018 and later the White House in 2020. There needs to be a progressive legislature as a check against Trump because without one, this lunatic and his administration will have virtually zero obstacles to destroying everything we have fought for generations to achieve. Do you really think a Republican controlled Congress will have any meaningful investigations into anything Trump does that are blatant violations of law, ethics…even the Constitution? We all know what’s at stake. We all know what the issues are because God knows we debated them long enough among ourselves during the year. Everyone needs to immediately cease and desist from any more finger pointing because in the end we will wind up right back where we started, with Kellyanne Conway’s stupid face gloating on TV that “I’m a winner”.
You need to start supporting good, strong candidates who believe in the issues…and in the people whose lives they affect every day. Find candidates who have broad appeal among all progressives who can win. Here’s a good test. If you have run for the Oval Office before, go away. Hillary Clinton is never coming back, people. Ever. Start looking for someone else to be President. And in case you get any funny ideas, Bernie Sanders isn’t coming back either. He might have shown up with Chris Hayes recently, but come on. The guy will be 79 in 2020. He may very well be dead by then. And leave poor Joe Biden alone. He is never going to run for President because it’s not in the cards for him and he has told us as much. Quips on the Senate floor are simply not enough to start making yard signs, OK? Hasn’t he been through enough? Gary Johnson is an idiot. If you insist on somebody from the old Libertarian ticket from this year, try Johnson’s running mate who is a lot smarter than he is. Jill Stein has gotten rich over our foolish panic to grasp at any straw that could deny Trump his victory and it was stupid of us to fall for it. She also can’t win any elected office above town council and she has the last 8 consecutive losses including this year to prove it. Let her go. How about finding some new, fresh and great candidates every progressive can rally around? How about Elizabeth Warren? How about Cory Booker? How about Tammy Duckworth? How about Sherrod Brown? Hell, show me why we can’t get behind Kamala Harris? We need to start working to fight Trump’s administration at every turn and at the same time do all the hard work we failed to get done in 2016 to make sure this does not happen in 2018, 2020, or ever again. We need to do this now and enough with trying to undo what has already been done.
The first step to beating the son of a bitch is to admit he that beat us. Period. STOP your crying and START getting to work.
Illegitimi non carborundum. Don’t let the bastards grind you down.
Contrarian Guest Contributor: How Poor Whites See Themselves
I live in a Post-Explanation America and so do you. This is a country where if you are wondering about how a real estate developer and television personality with virtually no qualifications for elected office (outside the Constitutional requirements) ascended to the Presidency of the United States, you are liable to be sitting like Rodin’s “Thinker” wondering for all time. There a million theories as to how this happened and regrettably even more finger-pointing and blame than theories. Since Election Day, progressives have been groping for answers as to why so many white working-class Americans, once Democratic mainstays, voted overwhelmingly for a man who shows little interest outside of media stunts in pursuing policies that will work for their economic benefit. But maybe that was never the basis for their vote. Maybe all of us, sitting on our high horses with our fancy educations, completely misunderstood these people and what motivates them.
The following was reprinted with permission from John Paul Brammer, a writer, speaker, and activist based in New York City. His work has been published in The Guardian, Slate, Vox, BuzzFeed, NBC and many other outlets. According to his website, “His work blends the deeply personal with the political.” Mr. Brammer brings personal experience and profound insight to help answer a question that all of us need to consider at length. Follow him at johnpaulbrammer.com and on Twitter @jpbrammer.
How Poor Whites See Themselves
So I’m a Mexican-American from a poor, rural, mostly white town in Oklahoma. What’s missing from this debate? How poor whites see themselves. If you’re wondering how poor, exploited white people could vote for a guy with a golden elevator who will fuck them over, here’s how.
They don’t see themselves as poor. They don’t base their identity on it. They see themselves as “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”. The stigma against poverty is incredibly strong. It is shameful to be poor; to not have the comforts of the middle class. So they pretend that they aren’t poor. They purchase things to make it seem like they’re not. They are willing to lie to make it seem like they aren’t poor. In my town, wealth wasn’t associated with greed, but with hard work and inherent goodness. You are blessed if you have material wealth. When they see Trump, they don’t see an extortionist who is rich because of the very conditions that keep their own communities in poverty. They see someone who worked hard and was justly rewarded with wealth. Most men, especially, think they too could be Trump were it not for the unfair obstacles put in their way. White men who don’t consider themselves successful enough have so many excuses for their “failures”. The idea that immigrants are the reason they are poor and not wealthy like Trump is so appealing. It takes all the shame and blame away. And here we have a man who, they think, “tells it like it is” and is willing to name the things stealing prosperity out of their hands. If these people saw themselves as an exploited class of people, if American culture didn’t stigmatize poverty so much, it might be different. But America has so entangled wealth with goodness and poverty with moral deficiency that they can’t build that identity. They won’t.
Trump is rich, and so according to American criteria, he is also:
- Wise
- Fair
- Moral
- Deserving
- Strong
- Clever
He has to be.
Capitalism and the American Dream teach that poverty is a temporary state that can be transcended with hard work and cleverness. To fail to transcend poverty, and admit you are poor, is to admit that you are neither hardworking nor clever. It’s cultural brainwashing. So if an exploited class of people doesn’t want to admit that they’re exploited, to blame themselves for their oppression, what manifests? Xenophobia. Hatred of anyone who is “different”: queer people, people of color. These people are eroding the “goodness” of America. And if they would just stop ruining America, then the perfect design of America could work again and deliver prosperity. I’m telling you, as someone who has spent almost his entire life in this environment, that if you think cities are a “bubble”? Good God. But the reality is, of course, that these exploited people are indeed exploited, even while they victimize others, when they victimize us, they are still victims. How do you balance those realities and what conclusions do you reach to improve the lives of both? Well, I’m not smart enough to have the answer. Still, we need to understand that the identity white working class people have built for themselves is diametrically opposed to, well, reality.
Because Trump won’t make them rich. Even if he deports all the brown people, it won’t bring them what they’re hoping for.
The original piece, written as a series of Tweets, can be found at https://storify.com/positiveforcedc/how-poor-whites-see-themselves
Do you know what Privilege is?
Do you know what Privilege is?
It is the ability of being able to vote for someone like Donald Trump, to support him and his policies, and yet insist that you are not a bigot.
It is the ability to say “I Matter, Too”, “I’m Being Left Out” and “I Want My Country Back” when people like you have been running this nation ever since it was founded.
It is the ability to ignore the fact that if you are a white, straight, Christian man, you have never had occasion to fear who you are in this country and that so very many people because of the color of their skin, because of where they came from, because of what they believe, because of who they love or simply because they are women have had a very long time to become afraid of you and with good reason.
It is the ability to say something absurd like “The millions of people who voted for Trump can’t all be bigots”, including your family, friends and neighbors based solely on the belief that half the country can’t be so brazenly racist, sexist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, misogynistic and ultra-nationalist. Yes they can and yes they are, regardless of how as shockingly high a number that appears to be.
What allows us to rise as one people is the understanding that all of us are bigots to some extent. Nobody likes to think they are a bigot, but to some degree everyone is. I’m a bigot. You’re a bigot. Everyone is somehow prejudiced and it is something that each one of us must strive to overcome.
What many of us fail to understand is that prejudice does not require intent. All it requires is the refusal to acknowledge that there are so many people who hate and despise other people solely because of their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc. and then justify their hatred as something other than plain and simple bigotry. We must acknowledge once and for all that racism comes in many forms. It comes as traditions, rules, laws, codes of behavior and all manner of things above and beyond calling someone a cruel name or using an arcane label.
It is saying “You people are lazy”, “You people aren’t strong enough”, “You people cheat and are miserly”, “You people are an abomination against God”, “You people are all violent” or just “You people don’t know your place” and not understand that this is bigotry in its purest form. It is the delusion that by depriving basic human rights from others that you are just protecting your heritage, your religion or your “way of life”. It is excusing your own hatred as “just my opinion”. It is this belief that “No, it can’t be me. I’m not a bigot.” which permits institutions that allow bigotry to stand, function and grow unabated.
What is Privilege? It is the ability to excuse a man who divides the country using every form of bigotry there is and then speaks about unity only after he gets his way. It is believing that by having women and minorities on the staff will somehow make him immune to the charge of being a sexist, a misogynist or a racist. It is ability to ignore the reality that this same man, who by filling the West Wing with known racists, white supremacists and even eugenicists, sends a powerful signal to many in this nation that he intends to hold his grip on power by continuing to divide with fear and prejudice. And it is the inability to acknowledge that by supporting him, you have taken sides with a terrible man who has said terrible things against millions of your brothers and sisters and appears prepared to continue to do terrible things because he like all of us is a bigot. But not just any ordinary bigot. He is a bigot with near limitless power to act on his hatred.
November 8, 2016 may in all likelihood be remembered as the day when we literally decided to make this country as ugly as it could be. I remain curious. What was the Great Sin his opponent committed that you couldn’t live with? Perceived dishonesty? The potential for graft? The failure to acknowledge that These People Don’t Belong Here? The desire for vengeance and punishment for crimes that for over four decades the law could not see but somehow he could? What was it that for all the danger, the hatred and the bigotry that this man represents you still found him a better choice? How comfortable will you still feel about what you did that day when it’s Election Day 2020 and you have the chance to validate him yet again? How about four years after that when the true extent of the damage he has done can be seen? Or in ten years, when you try to explain to your children why you did it to begin with?
We were asked by his supporters to give him a chance. But how many chances do you want us to keep giving and how long do you ask that we wait? The next election cycle will undoubtedly be too late for some.
Maybe for all.
It Depends On Whose Dead Bodies We’re Talking About.
The Dakota Access Pipeline has “environmental disaster” written all over it. It’s a senseless destruction of land and culture and a blatant disregard of treaty with the Standing Rock Sioux Nation. I hate this pipeline and would love to see it scrapped. But it’s time to be truthful. The protest against it near Cannon Ball, North Dakota is a tragic exercise in futility.
Many of the “police” at the site are privately contracted security guards, not unlike the ones the US military had in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are a heavily armed, paramilitary force and really answerable to nobody other their employers who pay them very, very well. Local and state government stand to benefit greatly when the pipeline is operational so they are going to be of no help. Quite the contrary, they apparently are all too thrilled to throw as many of the protesters behind bars and to be blunt, people are crazy to think they will lift a finger to stop any violence when it happens. Some in this country may even welcome a forcible crushing of this protest, the First Amendment be damned. As such, in the absence of direct intervention at the Federal level, the self-described “water protectors” out there are sitting ducks. When the time comes that the corporate overseers of this project back in Dallas decide they are bored with this nuisance, those guards will be given leave to do whatever they want.
Let me say that again. They can and will do whatever they want.
If those security contractors, or the Morton County Sheriff’s office, or the North Dakota State Police, or any of the myriad enforcers with a badge and a gun out there decide to go in and kill fifty protesters, they will likely do just that and there isn’t a single court with any jurisdiction in these United States that will send a single one of those men to jail. The law, right or wrong, will call the protest “trespassing on private property” and that is all that will be required to initiate a legal mass execution. At the rate we are going, there is nothing to indicate that this will not end in a brutal and violent crackdown. Why? There has never been a point in our national history where the needs and rights of Indigenous Peoples have ever trumped private interests. This pipeline is 60% completed, has cost almost $4 billion and despite the injunctions currently in place, construction will resume sooner than later and it will resume through Indigenous land. It’s oil, people. Nobody is going to get in the way of the flow of oil which everybody needs and loves. And ugly as it sounds, obscure petitions on even more obscure websites, appeals to the United Nations or a protest that is smaller than the average Grateful Dead concert will do little if anything to dislodge a powerful oil developer like Energy Transfer Partners.
I’m very upset at this. Not so much because of the construction of the pipeline itself. I’m upset because it’s only when the abuse of the Indigenous people of this nation reach an absolutely horrendous point such as this exigency do white people start to care and that is the rub. This is why it’s now acceptable for the rich and famous to now make “appearances” in opposition to the project. Rarely, however, are the elite of Hollywood’s activist class actually going anywhere near North Dakota. Some do, but it’s always best to play it safe. Protests in New York and Washington, DC are great. So are interviews on YouTube, primetime cable news shows and of course, what could be better than the ever popular hashtag activism on their Twitter feed? They want you to know that they “stand with Standing Rock”.
Well, so what?
Well-known entertainers and media stars don’t want trouble. They just want exposure. Honestly, who wants to go to where there’s the potential for real danger to life and limb? Especially theirs, since they have a vested interest in maintaining those faces and bodies that keep them so very well compensated at the box office. Does anyone think these celebrities will go to North Dakota and stick it out long-term to fight a real injustice? Hell, no. They want a photo-op and then they are gone. Lawrence O’Donnell will not lose a day of sleep once the protest has been successfully terminated. America barely knows who Amy Goodman is now much less cares. So when she was arrested for reporting on this travesty, it was hardly noticed.
Worse yet, the endless parade of celebrities who never trouble themselves with Indigenous matters at any other time will still be able to enjoy their lives of luxury when this protest inevitably ends. It’s a disgusting spectacle. Think about it. What do Leonardo DiCaprio, Susan Sarandon, Pharrell Williams, Rosario Dawson, Mark Ruffalo, et al really have to lose if the pipeline goes through? Not a damn thing. Riley Keogh is out there taking promotional selfies with people there like she’s at a family barbecue, for God’s sake. Now, I’ll give credit where credit is due. Shaliene Woodley went to Standing Rock and got herself arrested and humiliated and brought attention to the cause. Good for her. On the other hand, Ms. Woodley is privileged enough to have the best of attorneys at her disposal to get her out of jail as quickly as she can get thrown in. Plus, as soon as her agent calls with the latest Divergent script, she is on the next plane back to Los Angeles. Guaranteed. Who do the people who live there all the time have to turn to when they get beaten, strip searched and imprisoned? Nobody, that’s who.
Dr. Jill Stein has been out there, but seeing as her future in politics is up in smoke, she may as well take up professional activism full-time. As for the Rev. Jesse Jackson? He just goes where the cameras are and has for the last thirty years. As nice as it may appear, it’s all just famous people making themselves feel good by going somewhere to have a camera pointed at them and say “Look at me! I’m progressive! I care about issues! And by the way, check out my new movie.” Don’t believe me? Then ask Ben Affleck about the attachment of this protest with promotion of the new Justice League movie set for 2017 release. Wow. Now that’s what I call heroism.
So what’s the solution? Let the Dakota Access Pipeline go though.
Seriously.
Let it go through and wait for catastrophe to strike. When white people start dying after the pipeline breaks down, which at some point in the future it will, you can rest assured that the Powers That Be will get their collective asses in gear and fast. When rich white people are getting hurt then things get done. That’s a fact. Things never get done when the people who were here thousands of years before America even existed are the ones getting hurt.
This Isn’t Denmark
Let me make this perfectly clear. You can vote for whatever third-party candidate you want to. It’s your right as an American to vote for whomever you please so long as they meet the qualifications set forth in Article II of the Constitution. But here is your quandary. None of those candidates have any mathematical hope of winning the Presidency and that is an inescapable fact. A protest vote in this election is crazy, petulant and above all extremely dangerous.
In case this frightening reality managed to elude anyone, Donald J. Trump is the Republican nominee and he may very well win. It’s easy to say “If not now, when?” OK, that’s a fair question. How about when you don’t have a certifiably crazy demagogue who demeans and insults every person he comes into contact with, calls for racial profiling, banning all members of a religion totaling 1.6 billion followers worldwide from entering the U.S., building a wall on the southern border and forcing another country to pay for it, punishing women who exercise their right to choose and holds foreign dictators in high esteem as models for “strong leadership”? Do it when Paul Ryan is the Republican nominee in 2020, that’s when.
Has anyone else noticed that so many people who want to cast a “protest” vote are young, mostly white and can’t imagine that a Trump presidency will be all that different from the 44 that preceded it? Well, it’s easy when you have enough advantages or privilege granted to you from birth that you feel insulated enough from the machinations of Donald Trump and his ilk. It’s easy when you’re somebody like Susan Sarandon and can watch society burn from the comfort of your penthouse in New York because you have enough money to shield you. It’s easy to shout slogans like CORRUPTION! OLIGARCHY! CORPORATE MEDIA! It’s easy when you think a Trump presidency won’t affect you that much.
Believe me it will and not for the better.
Yes, yes, yes, we all know that money is the root of all evil in politics. But let’s also be a little realistic. You need it to run an effective campaign and neither of the two major “third” parties have much of it. As of August 22, 2016, Jill Stein and the Green Party had $1,876,899 in their campaign coffers. You can purchase two taxi medallions in New York City with that but it’s going to be awfully hard to run a full-blown presidential campaign with the same amount. The Libertarians don’t fare much better. As of the same date, they have $2,953,292 in their campaign war chest. That’s less than the amount of money proposed to upgrade the public swimming pools in Lexington, Kentucky.
Also, consider this. There are 8,163 Federal, state and territorial offices in the United States, starting with the President, Senate and House of Representatives all the way down to state and territorial governorships and seats in their respective legislative bodies. Do you know how many the Green Party holds? Zero. The highest public official in the United States who is a member of the Green Party is Bruce Delgado, who is the mayor of Marina, California. How about the Libertarian Party? Nope. They don’t have any either. Libertarian Robert Stephens is the mayor of Springfield, Missouri. A third-party needs to have far more candidates at the local, state and Federal level if they want to begin building coalitions and working with Democrats and Republicans to get effective and positive legislation passed. Just shooting for the top office isn’t enough.
It would also help to not have candidates who appear as crazy and unprepared as Trump. Libertarian Gary Johnson doesn’t know what or where Aleppo is and was under the impression that nobody was hurt in the recent bombing in New York. These aren’t gaffes. They’re ignorance. Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein, the ultimate liberal conspiracy theorist, states that Donald Trump would be better than Hillary Clinton or even Barack Obama, that unemployment figures are manipulated as part of a government cover-up to oppress the masses and is more concerned with childhood vaccines and GMOs than how to combat terrorism. Come on, people. You can find more qualified candidates than that.
Here’s something else. Do you know how many electoral votes the Green Party has won in their entire history as a political party? The answer is none. How about the Libertarian Party? They can boast one electoral vote and that was courtesy of an unfaithful elector in 1972. But any third-party can sure throw a monkey wrench into an election with disastrous consequences. Just ask Ralph Nader.
I can sympathize with many eager revolutionaries who were crushed when Bernie Sanders wasn’t the nominee of a party he eschewed for the whole of his political career. But let’s be honest. He was as cold and calculating a politician as any of the other big-ticket candidates for President. His campaign was pure political calculus. He remained either an Independent or a member of the old Liberty Union Party stretching all the way back to 1981 and became a Democrat in 2015 solely because he knew you can’t win the White House as an independent. But for so many people left enthralled by his campaign, they came to the conclusion if they vote third-party, even at this most dangerous time in our history, you could conceivably have everything you and the rest of the country is entitled to: free education, a decent place to live, free medical care, good jobs, etc. because they have it Denmark, right?
This Isn’t Denmark.
We Are Not F***ing Kidding About Donald Trump and Nuclear Weapons.
First, a history lesson because context is everything…
In October of 1962, nearly 54 years ago, President John F. Kennedy squared off against Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in what would become known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. This political and military standoff over the installation of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles from the United States, prompted almost everyone around the nation to conclude that the world was on the brink of nuclear war and the end of civilization as we know it was imminent.
In his now famous televised address to the nation on October 22, 1962, President Kennedy revealed the presence of the missiles in Cuba to the American people and announced his decision to enforce a naval blockade to prevent any further buildup of such weapons there. He also made it clear that the United States was prepared to take whatever action was necessary to compel the Soviet Union to remove this doomsday threat to our country. In his address, President Kennedy said:
“…Aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged, ultimately leads to war. This nation is opposed to war. We are also true to our word. Our unswerving objective, therefore, must be to prevent the use of these missiles against this or any other country, and to secure their withdrawal or elimination from the Western Hemisphere….It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”
In the waning days of the standoff, US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara said of October 27, 1962, “I thought it was the last Saturday I would ever see”.
Whether it was because of strong American diplomatic efforts and military resolve, Divine Providence or just sheer unadulterated luck, cooler heads ultimately prevailed. Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles if the United States would pledge that there would never be an attempt to invade Cuba, along with a further agreement from Kennedy to remove US nuclear missiles in Turkey that were aimed at the USSR. As a result of clear thinking and sound judgment, you and I get to sit here and read this today. It is no exaggeration to state that had there been even the slightest alteration in the events of those Thirteen Days, if anyone on either side made just one wrong move, our planet would have quickly been reduced to a lifeless, radioactive rock. Those days in 1962 were as real as it gets.
So far.
This is the crux of the discussion now taking place about Donald Trump and nuclear weapons. When we walk into the voting booth in November, we must consider his temperament and judgment, or the lack thereof, and the near limitless ability that we have granted our Commander-in-Chief with regard to the decision to use the most powerful weapons ever constructed. Each American President has been obliged in some way to deal with provocations from hostile nations. Countless decisions are made in the White House with regard to foreign policy and military action, but since the end of the Second World War, all those decisions are tempered by the knowledge that we now live in a world where we can wipe each other out completely in a matter of minutes. The decision to use the Atomic Bomb against Japan was said to have tormented President Harry S. Truman until the day he died. And the weapons that exist today in our nuclear arsenal far outweigh the destructive power that was first unleashed at Hiroshima. The “Little Boy” Bomb dropped there on August 6, 1945 had a blast equivalent to 18 kilotons of TNT and we’ve all seen footage of the destruction that device was capable of. Now consider that the most common type of warhead in the US nuclear arsenal has a yield of 1.2 megatons of TNT.
Now imagine Donald Trump, who is so unbelievably thin-skinned he is that is easily goaded into apoplexy when simply asked about why he hasn’t released his tax returns, having control of about 4,500 such warheads.
There are numerous threats that face our nation today. Between large-scale aggression from nations such as Russia, China and North Korea to a seemingly endless parade of unconventional threats from terrorist factions, the next Commander-in-Chief will have many tools to work with. Diplomatic and economic pressure, intelligence gathering and cyber warfare, covert special operations and yes, large-scale conventional troop deployments are all options the President has. But as one who remembers a time when the Berlin Wall was still very much standing, the threat of global annihilation is still very palpable to me. It should make everyone shake with terror a when we consider a man who can barely keep his hands off of Twitter when he’s angry having direct access to the Football, which is the briefcase that gives the President the ability order a nuclear strike from anywhere.
We cannot allow any candidate from any party to the nation’s highest office to cavalierly treat the nuclear option as simply one of many that can be employed to deal with whatever threat might come our way. Economic sanctions and special operations should not be considered as reasonable a choice as a nuclear strike. You can’t nuke terrorism out of existence as much as you might want to. Smaller nations attempting to get nuclear capability of their own or just saber-rattling cannot be casually blasted off the map just because they piss us off.
And you most certainly cannot use the threat of nuclear destruction as leverage for negotiation, to make you “unpredictable” or to extract the behavior you want or political concessions from a nation because they fear you might make them glow in the dark for the next 25,000 years. There is a term for that. It’s called nuclear terrorism. Is that what you want in the White House?
In her speech at the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton said:
“Donald Trump can’t even handle the rough-and-tumble of a presidential campaign. He loses his cool at the slightest provocation. When he’s gotten a tough question from a reporter, when he’s challenged in a debate, when he sees a protestor at a rally…imagine, if you dare, imagine — imagine him in the Oval Office facing a real crisis. A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons. I can’t put it any better than Jackie Kennedy did after the Cuban Missile Crisis. She said that what worried President Kennedy during that very dangerous time was that a war might be started – not by big men with self-control and restraint, but by little men – the ones moved by fear and pride.”
There is perhaps no better definition of the Little Man moved by Fear and Pride than Donald Trump.
A President must accept the responsibility of having such awesome power at their command with grim seriousness and profound reverence. Does Donald Trump have grim seriousness or profound reverence about anything save his own fragile ego? Can any of us imagine this ego, this hypermasculine Id amplified by the ability to completely level a whole a continent on a whim? Contrary to popular belief, there really are no checks against a President if he chooses to order a nuclear attack. There’s nobody to act as a counterbalance. If he wants a missile to be fired, it will be fired. A person must be absolutely f***ing crazy if they believe someone like Donald Trump would act with anything resembling restraint if given power that our forbears once believed was reserved for God.
It’s not an easy thing to be able to literally blow up the world and nobody should make light of it. President Truman understood all of this. He made the choice to use the Ultimate Weapon to end the most terrible conflict the world had ever witnessed and even then he only used it against two cities. But the consequences were so profound that we debate his use of it to this very day and continually struggle to limit the presence of this destructive force on our world. President Kennedy was without a doubt confronted with far worse. He stared down the greatest fear our species has ever faced. In 1962, humanity faced extinction by our own hand. He knew that the penalty of miscalculation or arrogance would be planetary suicide. Kennedy understood that nuclear aggression could not be left unchallenged. But he also understood what a nuclear exchange would mean for the people of the United States and…well, everyone else on the planet. He made difficult decisions and each carefully calculated move was fraught with risk. The consequence of failure with any decision regarding the use of nuclear weapons could mean total, complete and absolute destruction of our world.
We have done this dance as nation already. Let’s not do it again.
Why Are You Complaining? These Are Exactly The Candidates You Wanted.
According the Pew Research Center, 2016 was a big year for people turning out for the presidential primaries. More than 57.6 million people voted between the Democratic and Republican contests, a number that fell just short of the 2008 record.
Think about that.
With over 28% of eligible voters casting ballots this past spring, it is crystal clear that there were quite a lot of people who wanted a say in who the 45th President of the United States would be. So I remain baffled at recent polling data reported in the Washington Post that shows so many people are dissatisfied with the two candidates they have to choose from this November. OK, so exactly who were over a quarter of American voters going to their polling places to vote for? If the current narrative is to be believed, they must have been voting for Ferris Bueller or Santa Claus, because according to the Post’s research, and who am I to question this august publication, neither Trump nor Clinton are likely to change Americans’ generally pessimistic feeling about the state of American politics after November. This malaise is probably not helped the infinitesimally small chance of any third-party candidate successfully winning White House…and this was before the Libertarian candidate for President shoved a grenade into his campaign on national television by admitting he had no idea what Aleppo was. Ouch. It would seem that the guy from behind the deli counter and the neighbor’s cat are re-emerging as America’s best hope at ending the hyperpolarization and gridlock in Washington. My apologies go out to delicatessen proprietors and feline lovers everywhere.
So what happened? Well, as it was, it appears that neither Democrats nor Republicans had much to complain about during the primaries, with a grand total of 23 major candidates who announced their intention to seek the nomination of one of the two parties. Republican voters are in the worst position to bemoan their nominee for President in 2016. There were twelve candidates for GOP voters to pick from when the primary season began in Iowa on February 1, 2016. An additional five candidates dropped out before the primaries even began and that may have made a significant difference in who the nominee would ultimately have been if only support for those five had been greater. Yet they still wound up with Donald Trump…but how? This was a guy who seems to have based his quixotic campaign for President in 2012 on demands to see Barack Obama’s birth certificate and college transcripts and ended it only when NBC renewed Celebrity Apprentice for the 2011 season.
The answer was disturbingly simple. The GOP establishment assumed, incorrectly, that Trump was going to be a flash in the pan; a fringe candidate who would quickly wither away under the unforgiving scrutiny of the press due to his total lack of policy proposals and sheer naked bigotry. But the base of the party, who the GOP had inadvertently yet carefully cultivated to be drawn to authoritarian loudmouths courtesy of a steady diet of Fox News and right-wing radio fed over the span of nearly 20 years, loved and adored him. He was entertaining. A real celebrity running for President! He was giving the people what the Roman satirist Juvenal called bread and circuses…and were they ever happy! The activist Republican base wanted only two things in their candidate: someone to spout unceasing hatred of the Democrats and loudly marginalize people who the right-wing media had long deemed undesirable. Anyone who would assume that mantle in the most vocal way would have little trouble getting the nomination. It was amazing to watch. Nobody knew how to deal with him. I almost think some of the other candidates in the GOP failed to confront him simply because they were afraid that either Trump himself or one of his supporters would actually physically assault them. It was, to coin a well-worn phrase, a disaster. The Republicans had 17 total options and the one candidate who absolutely could not be managed or controlled by the party elite, who would not stay on point, who was actually a Democrat as early as 2008, is the guy they picked as their standard bearer. When the Dallas Morning News hasn’t endorsed a Democrat for President since Franklin Roosevelt in 1940, not even fellow Texan Lyndon Johnson in 1964, but nevertheless feels compelled to endorse the one now because of your current nominee, you know you have a problem and a big one. Well, he’s yours now. Have a blast.
As for the Democrats, only six major candidates were ever in the running for the nomination and that number was quickly whittled down to two after Iowa was all said and done. But I have yet to hear of a single Democrat who laments the fact that Jim Webb, Lincoln Chaffee or Lawrence Lessig didn’t make it to the primaries. As for the eventual nominee herself, I sometimes wonder whether the opposition to Hillary Clinton lay almost exclusively in the common perception that it was “her turn” to be the nominee. Let no one deny that long before she even announced her candidacy, there was a general consensus that her nomination was “inevitable” and that any challengers would be squashed like a bug. Maybe so. The problem is that people generally dislike the feeling of entitlement for anybody. Nobody likes a coronation.
Enter Bernie Sanders. Once decried as a heretic by many progressives for openly suggesting President Obama be primaried from the left during his bid for re-election in 2012, he became a darling among those seeking somebody other than “the chosen one” on the Democratic ticket. In any other year, he probably wouldn’t have even made it past the first few primaries. Even his announcement wasn’t taken very seriously: a hastily arranged press conference in Washington on April 30, 2015 after which he just walked back inside and returned to work. But looks can be deceiving and it turned out there was a genuine desire for somebody to stand in opposition to “The Clinton Machine” (remember that phrase?) and at least give her a run for her money. At worst he could pull her a little to the left. At best he could secure the nomination so why not? And so there was much crying, screaming and gnashing of teeth in the Democratic Party. Had it not been for Sanders, Clinton could have strolled through the primaries, secure the nomination and have all the time in the world prepare for the Republican nominee who was certainly not going to be Donald Trump. Wasn’t it supposed to be Jeb Bush? Things never work out the way anybody plans. I think many progressives came after Clinton because they simply wanted a choice and to be honest it could have been anybody. The base of the party just lucked out with Sanders. But the race to Philadelphia became so embittered that even now so many Democrats remain upset and therefore ambivalent about their choice in November. Remember, it wasn’t just the GOP waving signs that said “Never Hillary”. She isn’t electrifying. She isn’t revolutionary. But like the Republicans, she’s yours now. Have a blast.
I really don’t believe Americans are that pessimistic about their choices at the ballot box this year. My impression is that because of a very tumultuous primary season for both parties, coupled with very early conventions, we are just getting worn down by the near saturation coverage of who the final two are. In this nonstop blitz of talking heads analyzing every move each candidate makes, more warts are coming out than most of us are prepared to tolerate.
The Republican Party clearly has the most amount of buyer’s remorse. Donald Trump’s persona is no longer the hard and practical businessman who talks tough and channels the anger of the common man. Now he’s just a blithering idiot; a bombastic demagogue with little or no grasp of domestic or foreign policy and completely uninterested in the nuances and complexities that are a part of national governance. In short, we are being confronted with terrifying reality that the man the Republican Party chose as their candidate in 2016 is in no way qualified to be the next President. He is in constant state of agitation; always appearing unhinged, unbalanced, unprepared and sometimes just good old-fashioned nuts. Is this an act? Does he even want the job? It would certainly be a step down in both pay and residence as far as what he is accustomed to. Donald Trump has been vilified by the press and 99% of the time rightfully so. But whether he believes it or not, there is such a thing as bad press and his will hang around his neck like an albatross until Election Day.
As for Hillary Clinton, she is more than qualified for the job, but as her round-the-clock coverage continues, she is actually emerging as a fairly dull candidate. She has strong and sensible policy positions and would make a highly effective Chief Executive. Regrettably, it also makes her stunningly boring for a television audience that craves political intrigue. Hence, this ceaseless obsession with emails and trying to find something, anything to make her interesting to the mainstream media. Nothing makes for good ratings like scandals. But I’m curious to know when Americans suddenly became fixated on the idea that everyone running for higher office must be pure of heart in word and deed? Hillary Clinton is often called “untrustworthy” and “a liar” with little evidence to support anyone’s contention that whatever lies she may have told or whatever breaches of trust may have occurred in her years of public service actually disqualify her for the Presidency. That is the perception, however, whether she likes it or not, and like Trump’s perceived lunacy, it’s a problem that will dog her to Election Day.
America, for better or for worse, these are the people you have picked. These are the candidates you wanted. You had plenty of other options earlier, but as I once wrote, only one of these two has any mathematical chance of becoming the 45th President of the United States. You can’t go back in time and it’s a hell of a wait until 2020. Election Day is coming up fast and it is ill-advised that any American relinquishes their sacred right to vote in these uncertain times and just sit at home. So choose…
But choose wisely.
The Moron’s Case For Hillary Clinton…because some of you really are that stupid.
An old colleague and I were having breakfast this morning when he looked up at the news (I can’t remember which network …MSNBC, I think) and noticed a split screen of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. He lamented long about how terrible both candidates are in this election and I guess we just have to choose the lesser of the two evils or, as he put it, “…put on a blindfold and just pick. It doesn’t really make any difference.”
And that’s when I went off.
I am really sick and tired of people saying both candidates are equally horrible choices, how much America thoroughly hates both of them to the core, that there’s not a single positive trait in either one of them and wow, if only we had voted for that guy behind the deli counter or the neighbor’s cat, America would be WAY better off.
Fuck you. Fuck the deli guy and fuck your neighbor’s cat.
There are only 2 candidates who stand any mathematical chance of prevailing in this year’s election and one of them is, in fact, eminently qualified to become the 45th President of the United States, perhaps more so than any of the other 44 previous office holders. She (that’s right…SHE) has been dedicated to public service in one capacity or another since 1971. Her accomplishments are tremendous. To name a few (edited from the list once provided by Daily Kos for space):
- First ever student commencement speaker at Wellesley College.
- Distinguished graduate of Yale Law School.
- Editorial board of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action.
- Co-founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families.
- Former civil litigation attorney.
- Staff attorney for Children’s Defense Fund.
- Faculty member in the School of Law at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
- Former Director of the Arkansas Legal Aid Clinic.
- First female chair of the Legal Services Corporation.
- First female partner at Rose Law Firm, the oldest and one of the largest law firms in Arkansas.
- Twice named by The National Law Journal as one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America.
- Former First Lady of Arkansas.
- Arkansas Woman of the Year in 1983.
- Chair of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession.
- Created Arkansas’s Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youth.
- Instrumental in passage of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
- First Lady of the United States.
- Promoted nationwide immunization against childhood illnesses.
- Successfully sought to increase research funding for prostate cancer and childhood asthma at the National Institutes of Health.
- Worked to investigate reports of an illness that affected veterans of the Gulf War (now recognized as Gulf War Syndrome).
- Helped create the Office on Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice.
- Initiated and shepherded the Adoption and Safe Families Act.
- First FLOTUS in US History to hold a postgraduate degree.
- Helped create Vital Voices, an international initiative to promote the participation of women in the political processes of their countries.
- Two-term New York Senator and the first ex-FLOTUS in US History to be elected to the United States Senate.
- Served on five Senate committees: Budget (2001–2002), Armed Services (2003–2009), Environment and Public Works (2001–2009), Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (2001–2009) and the Special Committee on Aging.
- Member of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
- Leading role in investigating the health issues faced by 9/11 first responders.
- Worked with Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York on securing $21.4 billion in funding for the World Trade Center redevelopment.
- Former United States Secretary of State.
- Brokered a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in 2012.
Go ahead and try to show what the other candidate has done in the public interest during his whole worthless life.
Go on.
Try.
You can’t and why?
The other candidate who is supposedly “equally bad” is a real estate developer and television personality who was born into a family whose wealth has been estimated to exceed $300 million and makes racism, sexism, misogyny, nihilism and ultra-nationalism the pillars of his candidacy. So far he has called for:
- Building a wall across the southern border that Mexico is supposedly going to pay for.
- The deportation, by force if necessary, of 11 million undocumented immigrants (and stop saying “illegal”, you jackass).
- Banning and deporting all members of a religious faith that total over 1 billion adherents worldwide, even if they are American citizens, because “everybody knows” they’re just a bunch of murdering terrorists.
- Lists among his associates known white supremacists and eugenicists.
- Speaks admiringly of ruthless foreign despots and encourages espionage against the United States by hostile governments.
- Ruminates about not defending our NATO allies against Russian invasion.
- States openly and freely that using nuclear weapons should always be an option simply to make him more “unpredictable”. That’s not a strategy. That’s insanity.
Did I mention his blithe refusal to offer concrete policy proposals on how any of this neo-Nazi wish list could possibly be achieved? And all the while still finding the time to be rude, nasty, loud, mean, cruel, hateful and boorish.
And it’s still August.
But they’re supposedly “equally awful” and “everybody hates them both”. Yes, you can’t vote for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump because, you know…emails. And Benghazi. And Foundations. And Wall Street. And secret assassinations. And pantsuits. And, and, and.
OK, listen up. Nobody cares about emails that show Bono wanted State Department assistance to stream his music from the International Space Station. You should thank Almighty God and Jedi Jebus he failed. So far all we have seen is a public official in extraordinary circumstances who should have known better demonstrate “extreme carelessness” to which I believe she has owned up to sufficiently and which, by the way, no wrongdoing was ever uncovered even after a year-long investigation by the FBI for the love of God. We all know that trustworthiness is important in a President. But if absolutely no slack is given at all, and I mean none, if this is how we treat people who make public service their life and profession, then you will always get “crooks” as politicians because who in their right mind would want the job? It’s like being a firefighter. When there’s a fire everybody runs out. You run in. It’s a maniac’s job but it has to be done so let’s have the best do it and not get wrapped up in what amounts to paperwork. That’s all this really is. Paperwork. You would rather stay at home or vote for someone George Orwell or Edgar Allan Poe couldn’t have dreamed up over emails? Then you’re even dumber than you look.
Furthermore, I want to know why everyone has their knickers in a twist over the tragic deaths of 4 State Department personnel in Benghazi in 2012 when nobody raised a peep about, count ‘em, 241 armed and ready US servicemen who were blown to bits by a suicide bomber in Beirut in 1983? Well? WHY NOT? We all know why but I won’t denigrate the deaths of brave people serving their country in the diplomatic corps and the military while performing what is often a filthy and difficult job. But other people love to bring it up as often as possible as a political weapon. They want you to believe she is some kind of cold and diabolical monster without any concern for the lives of people who often must work in really dangerous places in the name of peace and diplomacy. That is also a load of steaming horseshit and if you spread it around then you ought to be ashamed to show your face in public. So please stop. Now.
I know, I know. Damn it all! Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just forget all of that pesky accomplishment stuff of hers and remember that what really matters is the thrill of waiting for indictments which makes for great television? That way we could finally “lock her up” and enough with these stupid women who think they can run a country. Well, enough out of YOU, you moron. This isn’t the lesser of two evils. This is a choice between one great and qualified candidate for the nation’s highest office who you really should be excited about and a dolt with a bad toupee who if you were honest with yourself you wouldn’t trust to manage a Dairy Queen much less the Oval Office.
And by the way, don’t give me any of your crap about Bernie, Martin, Ted, John, Marco, Jeb, Chris, Rand, Carly, Ben, Lindsey or any of the others because they aren’t running anymore. And I certainly don’t want to hear some fantastic load of tripe about Gary or Jill because they can’t win either and that’s simply the way it is. Deal with it. Those two are just like all of the other hundreds of people legitimately on the ballot to become President in November who are never going to get within spitting distance of the White House. Ever heard of Rod Silva? Me neither, but he’s running for President on the Nutrition Party ticket. Don’t believe me? Look him up. Here’s the bottom line: only two people can win and it’s not going to be anyone on this Rogue’s Gallery of wannabes…or the guy behind the deli counter or your neighbor’s cat so wake up.
We have a great opportunity here, people. We also have the potential for real catastrophe and that’s not being hyperbolic. You know damn good and well which is which.
Don’t be stupid.
Thank you.
I, Berniebot
There has been a surge in outbreaks of violence at Donald Trump rallies over the last few months; violence that in no small measure are being encouraged by the candidate himself. It has even been suggested that such incidents are being wholesale underwritten by the Trump campaign, up to and including now famous offers to cover his supporters’ legal fees if they are arrested and charged with assault. What these displays have done that is positive, however, if anything truly positive can come from a riot, is to provoke a wide national discussion about civility, or the lack of it, in the current presidential election cycle. But while Trump is pilloried in the national media for his supporters’ epileptic outbursts of rage, another type of violence has been going on for months unchecked and virtually unreported.
The crusade to elect Bernie Sanders the 45th President of the United States, and it is a crusade, has generated its own ranks of angry supporters engaging in vitriol which has often devolved into downright hate and abuse. It is not the streets or in his opponent’s campaign rallies that these zealots wander, but on the pages of Facebook, Twitter feeds and blog articles written on the premise that any attempt to stop Bernie Sanders is a useless, ill-fated, stupid and futile gesture. Hillary Clinton is a monster. This can be easily demonstrated even to the meanest observer by the fact that she gave paid speeches (that’s right…speeches) before Wall Street executives. She and her husband have a foundation. A foundation! Surely there can be no greater disqualifier to the nation’s highest office than being associated with a foundation. But there is. Worst of all, her campaign has money, lots of it, and it comes from just the worst sort of people. Nobody is quite sure who entirely, but the mere existence of a PAC to Sanders is damning enough.
These and other exhortations that in their totality sound eerily like passages from Quotations of Chairman Mao have made the Sanders campaign into a virtual caricature of itself. People have come to expect wide-eyed throngs at rallies for the candidate. What has been unexpected, the upset in Michigan and run of low delegate contests in the West notwithstanding is that Sanders is rapidly losing any hope of securing the nomination. National perceptions of Bernie Sanders, which translates into votes and the resultant delegate math, may at this stage have left his campaign hopelessly crippled, or more to the point mortally wounded. Like the ill-fated emperor in Julius Caesar, those who are the most steadfast and loyal, those who are closest to him, may be the very ones that wielded the daggers.
Back in July, I wrote a brief observation that garnered little attention which stated using no offensive terminology that I was just not feeling the Bernie Sanders mojo and I wasn’t. I’m still not and that is the fine point of it. To be a Bernie Sanders supporter is to be all about political revolution. It’s not about fixing or reforming Washington politics or ending the crippling gridlock that has plagued Congress for years. It’s not about compromise or bipartisanship. It’s about blowing up the system completely. It’s about approaching every issue that confronts this nation, from the environment to taxes, Middle East policy to guns, healthcare to energy, as a simple matter of income inequality. You aren’t even a Bernie Sanders supporter. You’re a believer. It is a movement that claims to be an honest, sincere and legitimate effort by Sanders to upend the system in Washington. But by the same token, every political candidate in every election, regardless of party or ideology, says that Washington is broken, corrupt beyond repair and needs to be ripped out like a moldy, old rug. So…you want to be President? Well, strange line of work you want to be going into, then.
I should like to state unequivocally that I wrote this long before his campaign and its accompanying hashtag became a national sensation on social media to propel the self-described democratic socialist to national prominence. It was clear at least to this observer that the entire Sanders campaign appeared to be little more than a figment of MSNBC’s fevered imagination. The classic, liberal Democratic candidate, with a curious and somewhat uncomfortable appeal almost exclusively to progressive, college educated white voters under 40, lay firmly in the fact that he wasn’t even a Democrat. Bernie Sanders had only become a Democrat in 2015, being an independent and a member of the old Liberty Union party prior to that. The move looked cynical. It appeared quite clear to almost everyone at the time that running as a Democrat was the only way he logically compete for the Presidency. How quickly we forget.
Of course, no discussion of Sanders’ quixotic campaign would be complete without noting the endless hashtag advocacy mentioned earlier that has become a hemorrhoid on the rear end of political discourse on social media. It is unbelievably irritating and nothing seems to relieve the “Berning Sensation” to coin an overused phrase. Virtually anything can be said, regardless of how outlandish or offensive, if one simply follows the statement with #FeelTheBern. It’s like Catholic indulgences in the Middle Ages. There is no sin that cannot be expunged with just a simple hashtag expressing the love and support you feel for your beloved candidate. You could put a picture of your child holding her new puppy or a statement wishing someone a speedy recovery after an appendectomy and invariably some moron would come along to post “F*** YOU! #FeelTheBern”.
A friend of mine recently described Bernie Sanders online media enthusiasts as “smug, entitled, clueless, and overall annoying”. Another friend showed me a screen print from a so-called “liberal chat room” demonstrating how she was subjected to interminable abuse from male Sanders supporters incensed at Clinton’s interruptions of the Revolutionary Leader at a televised debate, something permissible to him but never to the unrighteous. Even on her own Facebook page, my friend found herself on the receiving end of needless haranguing after posting an article from the blog Blue Nation Review that had the heretical temerity to question Sanders’ integrity. Any argument that was brought up to defend the author’s viewpoints or, heaven forbid, show any support for Hillary Clinton, was met with a barrage of insults and name-calling more suited to an elementary playground. One especially passive-aggressive Sanders supporter went so far as to dismiss any statement favoring Clinton as illogical and made only because my friend had “an emotional investment” in Clinton. Only by divorcing herself from emotions could she make a rational argument, which naturally would bring her around to Sanders. It was like listening to Spock with no Dr. McCoy to even him out.
On November 7, 2012 Rachel Maddow said: “…In this country, we have a two-party system in government. And the idea is supposed to be that the two sides both come up with ways to confront and fix the real problems facing our country. They both propose possible solutions to our real problems. And we debate between those possible solutions. And by the process of debate, we pick the best idea. That competition between good ideas from both sides about real problems in the real country should result in our country having better choices, better options, than if only one side is really working on the hard stuff.” This is the problem so many Sanders supporters fail to comprehend. There is one small obstruction to the glorious revolution that will reshape the future of America: the Republican Party. Like it or not, there is a firmly entrenched, well-funded and frankly rather numerous party that stands in solid opposition to everything both Democratic candidates want and stand for. For her part, Hillary Clinton, as unpopular as the notion may be with the progressive activist wing of her party, is keenly aware of that fact. Bernie Sanders, however, seems only keenly aware of Hillary Clinton.
This past January, in an installment of “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell”, MSNBC asked for representatives to appear from both campaigns to discuss foreign policy. The Clinton campaign sent Christopher Hill, a lifelong diplomat who served as deputy Secretary of State, former US Ambassador to Iraq, Korea and Poland and is currently dean of the Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. The Sanders campaign sent…nobody. Thom Hartmann, a progressive radio commentator, volunteered to offer his thoughts as a supporter. Does anybody see the problem here? Again, this is a cult of personality. The Bernie Sanders message is about domestic oligarchy and doesn’t concern itself with the intricacies, nuances and sheer complexity of American foreign policy. It’s just about War and Peace broadly. Occasionally it may drift to his opponent’s vote on the Iraq War in 2002 if he’s in a particularly feisty mood. But that’s really it. Fundamentally, the Sanders view on foreign policy is the same as his take on domestic issues: Are the rich or corporations involved? Then it’s not important.
Regardless of whether one believes in the ideas of his campaign or not, the question of judging Sanders as a candidate on the merits has become a dangerous game if one wants to tackle it online. There is genuine violence that occurs every day in the relative physical safety of social media. It is violence directed against Hillary Clinton and anyone who supports her that has been generated by many backers of Bernie Sanders. Although obviously not all Sanders supporters are like this, online cooler heads are very much in the minority. Primarily driven by young, college educated white men, the so-called “Berniebros” or “Berniebots” do not allow for the possibility of eventual party unity and that it a concern that must be discussed immediately, before Donald Trump locks up the Republican nomination. These fanatical Sanders supporters, who are legion on social media, are so caught up with the cult of personality that is his campaign (or crusade, or revolution, depending on your perspective), that they cannot conceive of an America that does not include a President Sanders after the election. The “Bernie or Bust” crowd from within the Sanders movement, sworn to vote for him or nobody, has enormous pitfalls inherent within it. As Bill Maher noted, “They’re revolting against the plutocracy. No, actually you’ll be helping elect a plutocrat who’s revolting.” It is, to use Trump’s own words, “a mess…a disaster” just waiting to happen.
The bile from these “Berniebots” is often directed straight at women and people of color. One begins to wonder if the Sanders campaign feels such people support Clinton because they are women or people of color and therefore are corporate trolls like she is who must be eradicated. There are strong racial overtones in this rhetoric that cannot be ignored. Statements such as “We are now moving out of the Deep South and into states more favorable to us” do not subtly imply that “us” are generally white and that is no way to build a coalition for victory in November. The “Berniebots” are approaching the election with all the enthusiasm and poor judgment of a fraternity keger and are beginning to rival Trump’s campaign for rancor. It is time for such people to be called out for what they are: mindless diehards who in their zeal may hand the White House to the GOP if their attacks continue to divide the Democrats. It is the Last Stand of White Male Privilege and it is coming from the left. Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy died trying to stave off this kind of division almost 50 years ago. It’s very disheartening to think that perhaps they were spared in not being able to see the great progressive movement come off the rails like this.
Say what you will, but Hillary Clinton supporters do not even come close to this kind of anger. Any objective observer can go on Facebook and Twitter and see whose supporters are the loudest and most petulant. Remember that she has a campaign. Bernie Sanders has a movement, perhaps even a cult by the Oxford definition standard. Certainly he has a revolution and thus believers and followers. Any opponents to the cause are thus being inordinately harassed, harangued and abused in an attempt to purge heretics from the pure faith and it needs to stop. Bernie Sanders is a good, decent and thoughtful man who wants only the best for his country. He needs to tell the more fanatical elements of his movement to back off, relax and remember who the enemy really is.
Hint: it’s NOT Hillary Clinton. It’s a loudmouth carnival barker with a bad toupee who will be very, very dangerous if allowed to reach the White House.
Contrarian Quick Take: Article II, Section 2
I didn’t watch the GOP Debate, which again are not debates but essentially WWF matches with suits and ties, and also apparently a form of self abuse I do not wish to indulge in. I would rather swallow glass. Instead, I found much better fare in the MSNBC College Tour Special with Bernie Sanders. It’s amazing how soothing it is to hear a reasonable person speak reasonably about the issues. I did, discover, however, one critical aspect of the junior senator from Vermont’s platform that in one fashion or another will probably doom him in a general election; one that until tonight has been largely glossed over by the mainstream media.
The role of the President as Commander-in-Chief is clearly one that if Sanders could work his will would be divorced entirely from the job as Chief Executive. He has very few substantive stances on foreign policy issues other than he voted against the Iraq War. That fact will carry him only so far against any GOP nominee, as I think Americans in general want to feel safe and be confident that there is no nation or group they cannot demolish on the world stage, anywhere at any time, militarily.
Sanders was clearly extremely uncomfortable with Chris Matthews’ line of questioning and awkwardly pivoted from the discussion about being Commander-in-Chief to what he stated is unequivocally far more important. You guessed it: Wall Street. Campaign finance reform. Millionaires and billionaires.
Sooner or later, Sanders must realize that either Hillary Clinton or the Republicans are going to press him about what he is going to do as President if he is brought to the situation room because America is under attack. Terrorists are not going to care about his vote against the AUMF or the Patriot Act 15 years ago. His campaign and their supporters must come to grips with the reality that Sanders will be pressed about this hard and mercilessly. Matthews went easy on him. Clinton will be vicious. The Republican nominee will be savage. The voters? Cruel, relentless and totally unforgiving.
Let’s not even ponder what will be going through the minds of the ones carrying out an attack.
The Contrarian Blog 