You know, it is looking increasingly like Hillary is going to win. There was a time when I would have dreamed of Democrats winning the White House for three straight terms, since I had seen the Republicans do exactly that in the 1980's.
Yet, my enthusiasm has been tempered considerably by the reality of this situation. About the only good thing that came from the Trump-Clinton race this year is the knowledge that one of them will be going away for good. The bad news is that one of them will get the highest office in the land. The most enthusiasm that I can muster about Hillary likely winning it is that she is probably - probably - not quite as bad as Trump. Still, I say that with some reservations, knowing full well that she has connections, that she promised to go to war once she became president, that she has intimate defense contractor ties that should disqualify her from being president, and that, being a Clinton, she seems to be a pathological liar. It's just their thing.
We really could have used somebody with integrity. For a while there, it looked like we might have that, too. But Bernie Sanders had too much going against him - most especially the Democratic party establishment. Had Sanders won (which I think he would have done against the weak candidate now officially cast as the Democratic nominee without the interference of certain people in positions of power who obviously used their influence to affect the results), then we might have finally had a leader in the White House with an ounce of integrity, and who would have put country before themselves and their political ambitions.
Instead, we have Hillary. Many people are excited about this "change," and feel that this is a sign of progress. With a woman being in charge, surely the country is moving forward in a positive direction, no?
Well, not really. After all, Hillary Clinton is going to push forward the corporate agenda that has been increasingly dominant within the American political landscape for decades now. She is not an agent of change, but an agent of the stale political pragmatism that makes lofty sounding speeches advertising enormous accomplishments, even while the actual feel is one of not much going on. This was very much in evidence throughout the Bill Clinton years when, according to him, the economy of the nation was incredibly strong, when he managed to pay off 60% of the national debt, when there were sweeping laws that greatly strengthened environmental standards in the country. That was their version of "forcing the spring."
A closer look, however, will show that the 60% of the national debt that he boasted of was actually paid off by taking out temporary loans, which is to say that the country, in a very real sense, owed exactly as much as it had before. Just smoke and mirrors. Same with his environmental record, where a huge chunk of the most impressive legislation came in the final three days of his eight years in office, knowing full well that his successor would waste no time doing away with these measures. It was a political gimmick, to make it seem like the Clinton administration did far more than it did, and then being able to make George W. Bush into the bad guy when he did away with these "new" environmental regulations. Oh, and let us not forget the prison reform, which helped to create the "for profit" political system that has seen this country now with more prisoners than any other country in the world.
It is a tired and old political game, and people have grown sick of this kind of falsehood posing as legitimate leadership. I think that people had grown sick and tired of it particularly after the feeling of being scammed by the sham invasion of Iraq under false pretenses, while being fed the standard lines of fighting for Iraqi freedom, while corporations exploited the oil profits there instead. Also, perhaps even more than the Iraq invasion, people grew very skeptical about the system, political and economic alike, following the near collapse of the economy and the "Great Recession" that followed. CEO's and elite board members went right back to the same practices that had come so close to bankrupting the country in the first place.
If there were any further proof required of just how tired people are of the same old same old political gimmicks, then this election was it. Bernie Sanders had a good chance of beating the heavily favored and more established Hillary Clinton. And now, despite all of the idiotic and offensive things that he has said and done, Donald Trump still has not been fully put away by Hillary Clinton. He insults Mexicans, Muslims, women, blacks, veterans, and so on and so forth. He comes across in such an exaggerated manner, making ridiculous assertions like he would be the greatest job creating president ever, and is the fittest man ever to run for president, and he knows ISIS better than anyone else (including military leaders), that he loves war, and that he is the least racist person that you have ever met, that it has made a mockery of this race.
Yet, he actually has more of a chance than most of the media gives him credit for. As impossible as it might seem, a Donald Trump presidency is not actually out of the question.
So, how is this happening?
Well, it seems clear that people are fed up with overly scripted and calculated plliticians seeking to mold their answers and their images to appeal to as many people as possible. With Donald Trump, there is none of that. This, in turn, likely is seen as a refreshing change for many people, because Trump usually cannot keep his mouth closed before inserting his foot in it. Sure, he has misspoken, but a lot of people feel that this is more "real" than anything that Hillary Clinton has ever offered.
And let's face it: on that score, Trump supporters are right.
Incredibly, it is not the only issue that they are right about, either. They are lambasting her on being corrupt, much like Trump himself calls her "Crooked Hillary" and warns of inevitable election fraud. The thing is, Hillary and the Democrats already did cheat. They made absolutely sure that she would be the Democratic nominee no matter what, even as the tide of support for Bernie Sanders seemed to be rising higher and higher, and could possibly have washed her political ambitions away in a truly fair and square election. But she asked for help, and she got it. The Democratic elites stupidly did everything within their power to make sure that she would win, and they got their wish. There were some highly questionable and at least borderline illegal practices which they engaged in which greatly contributed to their victory.
Somehow, the media remained mysteriously silent on all of this. No major stories on how certain states and cities opened up inquiries of voting irregularities. When the whole scandal broke out about how Democratic party insiders had not remained neutral, but had actively assisted Clinton and undermined the democratic process in so doing, it was a flavor of the moment story for a couple of days at most, and then went away quickly and neatly.
All of this reeks badly of corruption, of her being essentially the chosen one to receive the coronation by the powers that be. It was hard not to notice. Bernie Sanders sure noticed. So did Republicans. So did the rest of the world, and everyone is holding it against her. The only one who are not are those who actively support her, who conveniently turned a blind eye to some pretty blatant examples of corruption. That would be the Democrats who helped her, and who currently support her unconditionally. And apparently, it would include the media, who went right along with her by continually dismissing Bernie Sanders as not viable, and who focus almost exclusively on every idiotic thing that Trump does, but hardly ever seriously criticize Hillary Clinton.
Naturally, there was going to be a backlash to all of this. And this time, unlike some of the criticisms by Tea Party extremists and some of the ridiculous beliefs of Trump supporters, the critics of Clinton have something there. Again, the only ones who do not see it are the most staunch supporters of Hillary.
People have grown tired of the overly polished politicians with the ready made answers carefully crafted by a team of experts, with messages that become so diluted, that they wind up not meaning anything. That is what the Clintons are. Has there ever been an American family so immediately associated with all of the worst elements of politics these days? Even the Bushes have something else - oil. But the Clintons? What would they be, and where would they work, if not for politics? It is rare when one family embodies so much of what is wrong with America, especially when posing as what is right about America.
Sure enough, Americans have grown tired of the Clintons and Bushes, tired of the political dynasties. Even more than this, though, I think that people have grown tired of politicians with perfect hair and the perfect image and the perfect words to appeal to as many people as humanly possible. They want someone who at least understand their pains, their fears, their sense that something has gone terribly wrong with their country. They want someone more real, with fewer "experts"and bosses telling them what to do, with an absence of an extensive history of sucking up to and being bought by the powerful interests that have taken over and eroded democracy as we know it.
That is where we are right now, and it has been going on for quite some time now. It probably started with the excessive cynicism of Americans regarding the political process, and I would single out Reagan's message of vilifying everything that has anything to do with government as inherently evil, as the problem. He capitalized on the growing skepticism that Americans rightly felt about government, and authority figures in general, following the Kennedy Assassination and the Warren Commission Report, the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and numerous other things that were divisive and/or went wrong in the 1960's and 1970's, and manipulated all of that to pose as an anti-Big Government crusader, when really what he represented was that very threat of increased big government control. The government grew, rather than shrank, during his tenure, and the military industrial complex grew disproportionately powerful and influential. Corporations were increasingly placed in powerful and privileges positions.
Ever since then, the military industrial complex and major corporations have grown ever more powerful. Politicians looked at Reagan;s example, cracking jokes and getting away with scandals, with a more than willing American populace willingly believing whatever Reagan said to get away with scandals and, yes, crimes, and this has become the very model which prominent politicians, particularly presidents, have followed ever since. President Obama, allegedly a Democrat, holds up President Reagan as his example of what a successful president was and, presumably, models his own presidency on the Reagan White House.
Slowly but surely, these politicians served the interests of their corporate masters. They perfected the art of packaging an agenda that sounded like it was protecting economic freedom and restricting big government but that, in fact, ran against the best interests of the American people. After all, government is answerable to the people that elects it, while corporations are not. And it is corporate control that has become the danger now.
It is a vicious cycle, and one that we cannot break. The modern day Democrats are what Republicans used to be, and the Clintons are the perfect example of this. I remember feel quite depressed back in the 1990's, when President Bill Clinton was referred to by some as "republican light." If anything, it seems to me that Hillary Clinton, who within the last year reminded us that her politics are rooted in conservatism, and who once proudly considered herself a "Goldwater girl," is even more conservative than her husband, and equally as untrustworthy. As for the Republicans, they are off the charts at this point politically, but seem to be flirting with an outright fascist kind of mindset. Never has this been so clear as with Donald Trump.
The choice for the American voters in this election seems to come down to either the continued slow strangulation of democratic values in the country, and the erosion of real liberty and opportunity for the vast majority, or a quick leap away from democracy and towards a more transparent dictatorship with Trump.
Some choice.
We are told that one of these two will have to win, and surely, one of them will be elected as the next president. The only good news, supposedly, is that the loser will finally go away, crawl back under the rock from which he or she came to begin with.
Maybe. But to me, it is clear that the real loser for this coming election will be the American people, although truth be told, they have only themselves to blame for allowing such mediocrity to prosper to the degree that it has, and to dominate American politics for going on decades now.
Sure enough, Americans have grown tired of the Clintons and Bushes, tired of the political dynasties. Even more than this, though, I think that people have grown tired of politicians with perfect hair and the perfect image and the perfect words to appeal to as many people as humanly possible. They want someone who at least understand their pains, their fears, their sense that something has gone terribly wrong with their country. They want someone more real, with fewer "experts"and bosses telling them what to do, with an absence of an extensive history of sucking up to and being bought by the powerful interests that have taken over and eroded democracy as we know it.
That is where we are right now, and it has been going on for quite some time now. It probably started with the excessive cynicism of Americans regarding the political process, and I would single out Reagan's message of vilifying everything that has anything to do with government as inherently evil, as the problem. He capitalized on the growing skepticism that Americans rightly felt about government, and authority figures in general, following the Kennedy Assassination and the Warren Commission Report, the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and numerous other things that were divisive and/or went wrong in the 1960's and 1970's, and manipulated all of that to pose as an anti-Big Government crusader, when really what he represented was that very threat of increased big government control. The government grew, rather than shrank, during his tenure, and the military industrial complex grew disproportionately powerful and influential. Corporations were increasingly placed in powerful and privileges positions.
Ever since then, the military industrial complex and major corporations have grown ever more powerful. Politicians looked at Reagan;s example, cracking jokes and getting away with scandals, with a more than willing American populace willingly believing whatever Reagan said to get away with scandals and, yes, crimes, and this has become the very model which prominent politicians, particularly presidents, have followed ever since. President Obama, allegedly a Democrat, holds up President Reagan as his example of what a successful president was and, presumably, models his own presidency on the Reagan White House.
Slowly but surely, these politicians served the interests of their corporate masters. They perfected the art of packaging an agenda that sounded like it was protecting economic freedom and restricting big government but that, in fact, ran against the best interests of the American people. After all, government is answerable to the people that elects it, while corporations are not. And it is corporate control that has become the danger now.
It is a vicious cycle, and one that we cannot break. The modern day Democrats are what Republicans used to be, and the Clintons are the perfect example of this. I remember feel quite depressed back in the 1990's, when President Bill Clinton was referred to by some as "republican light." If anything, it seems to me that Hillary Clinton, who within the last year reminded us that her politics are rooted in conservatism, and who once proudly considered herself a "Goldwater girl," is even more conservative than her husband, and equally as untrustworthy. As for the Republicans, they are off the charts at this point politically, but seem to be flirting with an outright fascist kind of mindset. Never has this been so clear as with Donald Trump.
The choice for the American voters in this election seems to come down to either the continued slow strangulation of democratic values in the country, and the erosion of real liberty and opportunity for the vast majority, or a quick leap away from democracy and towards a more transparent dictatorship with Trump.
Some choice.
We are told that one of these two will have to win, and surely, one of them will be elected as the next president. The only good news, supposedly, is that the loser will finally go away, crawl back under the rock from which he or she came to begin with.
Maybe. But to me, it is clear that the real loser for this coming election will be the American people, although truth be told, they have only themselves to blame for allowing such mediocrity to prosper to the degree that it has, and to dominate American politics for going on decades now.
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