"I did not..."
"Indeed I did..."
Those were, you should pardon the expression, the seminal words of the last Clinton administration. Anyone who thinks the next one will be different probably thinks Ricky Ray Rector finished dessert. Although to see Bill Clinton shamble around the land like some purulent Tiberius, croaking his crap to half filled gymnasiums of the disinterested, is one of the pure pleasures of this campaign.
Democrats justifiably rail against GOP efforts to restrict access to the ballot. Yet of all the obscene acts of voter suppression none is more hideously debilitating or easily preventable than having a Clinton on the ticket.
There are no words for Donald Trump. Only anger. Raw and gnawing. Anger that unites supporters who believe what he says with others who believe he doesn't believe what he's saying.
As for "principled" Republicans like Ben Sasse being hailed for their #NeverTrump stand, does anyone doubt that if Trump were more easily dependable on corporatism, neocon militarism and 12th century morality, Sasse and every other howling loon would have no trouble getting comfortable with a Trump/Bormann ticket?
A Trump vs. Clinton general election will do for the dissemination of bullshit what the refrigerated rail car did for the transportation of meat. A multi-billion dollar contest between a party that stands for the powerful and the connected and the greedy and the dishonest and the vile. And one that stands for the powerful and the connected and the greedy and the dishonest and the vile and transgender bathrooms.
So, as Lenin once said to Bernie Sanders, what is to be done?
Everybody knows the adult thing to do. Everybody knows the imperative of coming down on the responsible side of Reinhold Niebuhr's ethical divide. God knows the Clintonites who rigged the game are freaking out at the realization that everyone has the option not to play.
But the Clintons, like Bialystock and Bloom, expect you to part with 25,000 percent of your soul along the way. And while Team Hillary defines the first woman presidency as extending from Bush donors to Max Boot to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, shouldn't somebody ask if we are really about to return a family of self-absorbed opportunists to power just because we can't see another option? Opportunists who, sure as they're breathing, will engage in some monumental act of selfishness for which we'll all be asked to rally around in support of a larger "truth".
The Clintons are nothing if not post-event Cassandras. Always able to tell you what they meant to do or should have done. Maybe, against Trump, that's all we can hope for.
Maybe. But maybe the correct philosophy is not Niebuhr's but Otter's from Animal House. Maybe this "situation absolutely requires that a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part." There's time to figure it out.
Donald Trump may indeed kill the GOP, but Clintonism, given 4-8 years to further secrete triangulating pus into every party organ, will render Democrats just as dead.
In lieu of flowers send scorn for this appalling choice, and hope like hell for Bernie to find a way.