So, it looks like Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. There was some (super-slim) hope that the Democratic superdelegates might actually want to win an election and vote for the guy who can, but with Obama endorsing Clinton, that ain’t happening.
So now, I’m angry. Practically frothing at the mouth with blind, impotent rage. Impotent, naturally, because it’s very clear from the results of this election - from the process of this election, that in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter what you do, American Democracy just doesn’t work.
It used to be a punchline on the Simpsons, now it’s political reality.
In America, the most corrupt are the most likely to get elected. Need we any other proof than looking at our two nominees this year?
I mean, for Bernie Sanders -- Bernie Sanders for Christ’s sake -- to have almost beaten someone with all the big money, corporate ties, name recognition of Clinton? Bernie Sanders should have been an also-ran, like Martin O’Malley or Jim Webb. But he almost succeeded, not just because there’s a sizable group of Americans who really do see how the one issue that is blocking progress on all issues is political corruption, but also because Clinton is human garbage.
But that’s not what made me really angry. I mean, say what you want about Clinton, at the very least you could say that she won the popular vote, and despite all the thumbs on her side of the scale, it wouldn’t have been possible if Democratic voters were just a little more informed and a little more intelligent.
No, what made me really angry, what made me frothing at the mouth angry, what made me yelling at random squirrels angry, was Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s endorsement of Clinton.
Especially since it would have been very easy for her to just not endorse anyone. Instead, someone who was once the “darling” of the “Sanders-Warren” wing, and someone who was my particular first choice for President, has betrayed everything we thought she stood for. Her endorsement has done nothing to convince progressives that Clinton is in any way shape or form anything but everything we’ve opposed from the moment we got in politics. All it did was lower our esteem of Sen. Warren. I don’t mind that maybe someone working three jobs and raising two kids on a G.E.D. doesn’t have time to really understand the issues at play here. But Sen. Warren should damn well know better.
I guess I don’t understand why Democrats can call out Paul Ryan for holding out for weeks before endorsing Donald Trump, when we can’t even have our own people saying: “This isn’t right. She doesn’t stand for what the Democratic Party stands for.” Well, I guess that’s because, de facto, the Democratic party does stand for corruption, regulatory capture, graft, and cheating simply because you can get away with it. Just like the Republican Party now stands for overt racism, belligerence, totalitarianism, and the advocation of war crimes.
The problem is that the Clinton wing of the Democratic party, the Establishment wing, has assumed that (like Republicans) all Democrats will rally around their candidate simply because the opposition put up someone completely unacceptable.
So, our choices this year are between a corrupt shill who has conned their way into the top levels of the public psyche while doing nothing to help people along the way, who will do anything and say anything to get elected, no matter who it hurts, who refuses to think the rules apply to them and who has a complete lack of common decency, someone who perfectly embodies everything I got into politics to oppose… and Donald Trump.
This may just be the red-mist speaking, but I really don’t think Sanders supporters will show up at the polls for Clinton. I don’t think Sanders supporters would show up for Clinton if she were drowning and we were all holding life preservers.
Which probably means President Trump will have his hands on the nuclear button by this time next year.
At this point, I’m willing to listen to anybody who can provide a way out of this false dichotomy between the worst man in the world and the worst woman in the world being our only two choices. Amend the constitution sometime in the next couple of months to prohibit them by name from holding office? Give Alex Trebek unlimited power until we can re-establish a democratic form of government that works? Say: “Just kidding about all that Revolution stuff” and return all lands and holdings to our rightful dominion, the Queen Elizabeth the second of the United Kingdom?
Because if there’s one thing that this election year has proven, it’s this: We, as Americans, are incapable of the knowledge and wisdom it takes to govern ourselves.