Photo by woodleywonderworks | CC BY 2.0
Hot on the heels of Donna Brazile’s ‘shocking’ new book Hacks, that alleges that the Democratic Party, which is anything but, cooked the books in Hillary Clinton’s favor, come the 2017 elections in various states, including Virginia and New Jersey. Democrats won the State House in both those states, and the wide-eyed pundits who direct what we should think and who we should care about have now proclaimed that the Democrats are on a roll, with control of the House and Senate all but a sure thing in the next elections.
This writer must pose a question: Who cares? The two parties have been slowly merging for decades, and at this point there are only minor, cosmetic differences between them. Oh, he can concede that there will less bad (‘better’ might be over-stating the case) Supreme Court nominees, and that certainly can’t be discounted. But wars will continue; lobbyists will write legislation that their bought-and-paid-for Congress members will introduce and vote for, the rich will continue to get richer, the poor, poorer, and the middle class will continue to shrink. Please do not think that its numbers are diminishing because some of them are working their way up the ladder of financial success; no they are tumbling into poverty due to high medical bills, college debt, and lack of decent employment.
Ms. Brazile, who was twice the interim chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), states in her new book that the Democratic Party had it in for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders from day one. What a surprise! No one, of course, knew this until her revealing book was published; the same way that no one knows that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
The nomination was to be the coronation of Hillary Clinton, whose blatant ambition for herself and her husband belie any idea of ‘service’ to the nation. But with Super-delegates, who needn’t bother about the will of the people (what on earth does such a concept have to do with ‘democracy’ anyway?), and providing other advantages to the former First Lady, her nomination was assured.
Never mind that she is one of the most polarizing figures of modern times! Forget that many people would vote for Satan himself before they’d ever pull the voter lever beside her name! She is Hillary Clinton, after all, who was going to smash through the glass ceiling, and prove to the world that a woman could be elected president of the mighty United States.
Although Mr. Sanders decided to make nice after he lost the nomination, many of his loyal fans were not so forgiving. Some remained at home on Election Day, choosing not to vote. Some voted for third-party candidates. Some, possibly, too angry to not vent it somehow, may even have voted for the odious Republican candidate.
And that odious candidate is now president of the United States. The voters were faced with a greedy, scheming, dishonest career politician, or an obnoxious, misogynistic, homophobic, Islamaphobic racist. Such a choice! The voters chose the former, but the Electoral College installed the latter in the White House.
As President Donald Trump runs amok on the world stage, we are now told that, yes, the saviors are coming! And who are these saviors? The same people who thwarted the will of the members of their own party just a year ago. These, we are told, are going to rescue the world from Trumpism.
Who can we look to? There is talk that Mr. Sanders will seek the nomination again. He will be 79 years old by 2020, and it will be hard for him to portray himself as a dynamic, youthful agent of change. There is much talk of Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren taking a shot at breaking through the glass ceiling. She, like many in her party, is PEP: Progressive, Except for Palestine. Do we really need someone else beholden to powerful lobbies? Tulsi Gabbard, member of the House of Representatives (that body that diligently represents such lobbies as the National Rifle Association (NRA), the Apartheid Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and so many others), is making quite a name for herself in her own, PEP way. Such officials, who demand that some countries follow international law, but condone its violation by others, are what the hapless voter will, no doubt, have to choose between come 2020.
But no, the talking heads of CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and others tell us: these are the very people who will save the United States from the evils of Donald Trump, the intrigues of Russian collusion, the threat of nuclear war.
One wonders which is worse: that such so-called political analysts say such things, or that a gullible population believes it. Let’s look at a few facts:
+ While Democrats may decry Republican threats against North Korea, many also say that ‘all options should be on the table’.
+ Many among Democratic elected officials want the U.S. to remain in and abide by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, yet they are only too happy to vote for sanctions against that country unrelated to the JCPOA.
+ Democrats, like their corrupt Republican counterparts, are, for the most part, unwavering in their support of Israel, which is in violation of numerous international laws.
+ The ethics violations of the current White House are happening with barely a peep of protest heard from the Democrats. Perhaps that party’s members want the same advantages once they are again in the White House.
Where is integrity? Where is the elected official, Democrat or Republican, who will look at justice before considering the finances required for their re-election campaign? Where were Democrats in 2016, who knew, as the rest of the planet did, that the Party was violating its own principles by skewing the nomination to Clinton? Super-delegates! What a concept!
The movers and shakers of U.S. governance have established a system whereby it is next to impossible for a third-party candidate to gain the same viability that the Republicans and Democrats enjoy. And until such a party is able to compete within the corrupt, current two-party system, we will continue to see greedy and unethical candidates elected at all levels of government.
It is a sorry state of affairs for a country with over 300 million people; it is a terrifying state of affairs for a country with the nuclear capacity of the U.S.