Thanks Obama!

Photograph Source: Daniel Lobo – CC BY 2.0

Here we are again—an election that will likely be in dispute for quite a long time. I certainly called it wrong, believing in the veracity of recent polling—I believed that the results would give a wide enough margin to make shenanigans largely impossible for Trump. Oh how wrong I was. With a clear head this morning, I can’t really imagine how I was taken in again by polling results. I had heard that some were considering that Trump supporters might not be reporting their voting inclinations correctly, but I didn’t give that the weight it deserved.  I also suppose I suffered from a 4 year memory loss condition since the Clinton victory was all but assured as well—even more so.

Our brains are made to forget pain or there would never be second babies born.  Anecdotally I had heard many coworker Trump supporters calling him among other things “a dumbass” for getting covid. I thought maybe that was a sign that he was losing even those cultists—but in the last couple of days, I heard murmurs among the same people voicing ample disgust at Biden. They sure weren’t shifting in his direction. Trump was a dumbass, but he was their dumbass, by god.

I also thought covid would be a gamechanger, but the Trump supporters view the shutdowns as the enemy, not the virus.

We do need to consider how we arrived at this place and there’s not going to be room for a blame Susan Sarandon/Bernie Sanders shtick like last time that the where is our brunchers pulled. This falls completely on Obama and the corrupt DNC machinery. As you all know, prior to Super Tuesday, Obama pulled the strings of the other primary candidates, creating a situation that unearthed a most inorganic Biden victory. He got them to pull out and support Biden en masse. Though Obama was reported to have said “don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up”, he opted to intervene in the democratic process of a legitimate primary. Elizabeth Warren (oh don’t upset her with snake emojis) helped out too, making sure the progressive vote was splintered. It makes you wonder what was going on there. She sells her soul for no payout, it seems. The whole thing was very well orchestrated if you wanted to set the country up for Donald Trump to win again.

Who knows what Obama’s true motivation was. He’s always been a superficial platitude machine (Buttigieg looking to be that heir)–always beholden to corporate interests– or maybe in a more Freudian manner…… perhaps wanted to be the last “successful” Democrat. Pushing someone you have such reservations about is suspect in that direction. Anyway, he rat-fucked the process. A candidate so completely inappropriate (even Johnny Carson, Robin Williams and Corn Pop had bits about the trashy, plagiarist from years back). In a post Me-Too world that anyone involved in silencing (hell in charge of the process of silencing) those who were there to back up Anita Hill—that lumbering dinosaur should have been left in the Mesozoic. And please don’t forget he wanted to keep his kids out of a racial jungle. Thank god avoiding such geographical locations kept Hunter on the straight and narrow.

One has to question if the aim of the Democrats has ever been to win or if it has simply been to beat back progressives and to continue to bring in virtue signaling donations. It’s always lucrative to be the hand wringing agent that is not in power. Look at what a Rush Limbaugh could accomplish under Clinton. If your goal isn’t to win, but to be financially enriched, perhaps the artificial Biden elevation makes sense. Probably the answer is just that progressives had to be defeated more than Republicans, let the chips fall where they may kind of thing.

It’s a sad fact that our nation looks to be wildly racist and a bit suicidal given Trump’s large numbers coming in. Even if Biden pulls out a victory from the gums of defeat, it’s frightening to consider the bipolar civil war-ishness of it all. This is all so very close. But one thing seems to pull in even the most racist, and that is clear financial self-interest. If the Democrats had been pushing anything but “nothing will change” perhaps even those with abhorrent social views would give them a vote (even if they wouldn’t admit it to friends).Everyone in this country, other than the mega-wealthy has had huge medical bills or has avoided care to avoid those bills. Universal healthcare during a pandemic might have had some damn traction. Even without a pandemic, it would be a huge stress reliever for the average American not to have this sword over their head at all times, like you know, in all the other developed countries of the world. The fact that Florida went with a minimum wage increase shows the very policies that corporate Biden Democrats run from are largely popular. All the cannabis initiatives did very, very well. There are a few issues that leftists to right-wingers feel the same about. The Democrats didn’t even try along these lines. Instead, groups like the Lincoln Project dropped money on NY billboards (where Biden was already going to win). These Country Club Republicans had nothing to offer the vast majority of the populace. In much the same way, using an Ana Navarro  with her please, please let me have back my family slave estate vibe–well, it didn’t resonate for most Hispanic Americans, seeing as Trump looks to have increased his support with these groups this time around. Looking at these results using rational thought won’t explain it. This is an exercise in the power of the id.

Obama was yet another politician out there screaming of the existential threat of a continued Trump presidency, but he felt his right to foist a feeble old idiot on Democrats was worth the risk of giving it all over to Trump again. His pre-super Tuesday three point shot took away the choice of a fair primary. Someone should check his basketballs for aerial wires or a remote control.

This is all not to say that Sanders isn’t clearly at fault in this situation as well. He embraced the sheepdog role and after the first Lucy football incident, he should have run as an Independent if he was serious about truly winning the presidency. How many people who couldn’t afford it plunged what assistance they could into his campaign? It’s a pretty craven and bitter move to do to those young idealists. At some point, you have to hold to your convictions. Say what you will, but these scary Trumpers do hold to their (often toxic convictions) and it’s powerful. They win that way. Bernie has done much to push progressive ideals and has done well introducing them to a large audience, but he also has been instrumental in ripping the hearts out of those who truly believed in his platform. How can you be for the ideas that he offered and still hit the campaign trail for a Biden? Sure, sure the bigger threat thing is what is always given as the excuse— but he likely knew exactly what would happen this second time around. He coalesced progressive support around him during the primary, keeping a trend towards any third party leanings down. He was an instrumental cog in all of this….again.

So here’s to our ride in hell…… a most likely contested election during a pandemic winter. People being placed in the ridiculous position where they fervently hope their dementia riddled old guy wins over the mentally unstable old guy.

And we really have one person to give credit to……

THANKS OBAMA!

 

Kathleen Wallace writes out of the US Midwest. Her writing is collected on her Substack page.