Article #41: Politics

If there was ever an amazing, yet terrifying prediction that was considered ‘dead on,’ it was this prediction through a Twitter.com post from 2014:

How did something like this happen? We mean…

• She had every celebrity in the world performing for her…
• She had every neo-liberal kissing her feet…
• She had every neo-con backing her…
• She had war criminals endorsing her…
• She had hot sauce in her bag…
• She went on every “hip” television show…
• She did the whip and the nae nae…
• She dressed the right way…
• Every strand of hair was in place…
• She said all the right platitudes…
• She had the endorsement of the entire Establishment, including the beloved President Obama…
• She had the private endorsements of most of the right wing Establishment, including General Colin Powell…

…and Hillary Clinton, both the most Establishment and supposedly the most qualified candidate to every run for the presidency of the United States, lost the election to a man who repeatedly spouted racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and war crimes.

How could something like this happen in the richest, supposed ‘freest country in the world?’

The simplicity of the answer consistently eluded the Establishment, which are some of the richest people in the richest country in the world, prior to her loss.

You see, people didn’t vote for Trump. They just didn’t come out to or vote for Hillary because she is the epitome of everything the majority of America’s citizens loathe about what has happened to the country, especially on the left.

• Her pro-voting record for neo-con policies.
• Her pro-voting record for neo-liberal policies.
• Her “polished politician” fakeness.
• Her underhanded campaign tactics.
• Her putting former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz on her transition team right after she was let go by the DNC for corruption, in essence saying to us that she accepts corruption and will give it a promotion.
• Her changing her mind based on political winds and corporate money (political chameleon).
• Her ridiculous and obvious pandering (sickening).
• Her not having an interview for over 200 days (secrecy).
• The more she talked the more people saw how disingenuous she was.
• Her smearing Barack Obama voters as sexist and then doing the same thing to Bernie Sanders’ supporters #BernieBros, like we don’t have video to go back and see her doing it.
• Her arrogance of thinking she somehow deserves the office of the Presidency and that she doesn’t have to go and get votes.
• Her complete disconnection with half her base telling her that policy is what matters, but, instead, she played the ‘political platitudes’ game and completely ignored our issues.
• Her repeatedly insulting those who were supporting other candidates on the left.
• Her brazenly being stubborn and standoffish about coming to get our votes, thinking she didn’t need our votes to win.
• Her wanting a ‘no-fly zone’ over Syria, which means that we could shoot down Russian planes, which could start WWIII.
• Her talking about she is going to have “a more muscular foreign policy.” (We do NOT want a more muscular foreign policy!)
• Her leaving democratic rallies just to go straight to meetings with right-wing donors.
• Her talking about she would “obliterate” Iran. (We DO NOT want a war with Iran!)
• Her repeated “pay-for-play” in the State Department.
• Her touting of the endorsement of literal war criminals (John Negroponte and Henry Kissinger, who are responsible for literally millions of deaths).
• Her COMPLETE DISCONNECT of how the Establishment is not America, which she obviously sees now…

…but we don’t like her because she’s a woman though, right Tim Kaine? (Rigggggggggggght. THAT’S why).

No, Progressives didn’t cause her to lose. She caused herself to lose.
No, Liberals didn’t cause her to lose. She caused herself to lose.
No, 3rd parties didn’t cause her to lose. She caused herself to lose.

Unfortunately, Hillary supporters were and seem to still be so stuck on the candidate instead of the issues that anytime someone tried/tries to tell them who “her” really was, they just cover their ears, say “Bernie Bro!” (fake sexism), and start yelling, “#ImWithHer!!”

Is that really how you get people to vote for your candidate, by just putting your head in the sand regarding their policy decisions and their devastating repercussions?

Unwise.

THE LEFT-WING ESTABLISHMENT AND ITS BASE, DISCONNECTED

Did you know that in the last two presidential elections, the two Republican candidates averaged more votes than Hillary Clinton?

2012 -vs.- 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION VOTER TURNOUT*:

Now why is that?

It’s because people don’t come out to vote AGAINST someone. They come out to vote FOR someone, and the Left didn’t come out to vote for more of Hillary Clinton’s record.

THINK ABOUT IT: Who wants to come out to vote for a person who represents corporate-owned, completely-disconnected leaders like soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who said:

“For every blue-collar Democrat we will lose in western Pennsylvania we will pick up two or three moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Philadelphia.”

Really Nostradamus? Well we think Thomas Frank has some words specifically for you, your Establishment friends, and never-again Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton:

“She was the Democratic candidate because it was ‘her turn’ and because a Clinton victory would have moved every Democrat in Washington up one notch. Whether or not she would win was always a secondary matter. Something that was taken for granted. Had winning been the party’s #1 concern, several more suitable candidates were ready to go. There was Joe Biden with his powerful, plain-spoken style, and there was Bernie Sanders, an inspiring and largely scandal-free figure. Each of them would probably have beaten Trump, but neither of them would really have served the interests of the party insider.“

He continued:

“The even larger problem is that there is a kind of chronic complacency that has been rotting American liberalism for years; a hubris that tells Democrats they need to do nothing different. They need deliver nothing really to anyone, except their friends on the Google® jet and those nice people at Goldman Sachs®. The rest of us are treated as though we have nowhere else to go and no role to play except to vote enthusiastically on the grounds that these Democrats are the last thing standing between us and the end of the world. It is a liberalism of the rich, it has failed the middle class, and now it has failed on its own terms of electability.“

TRANSLATION: Neo-liberalism has become the cancer of the Left, and is now in a political coma.

Hubris.
Arrogance.
Corruption.
Dismissiveness.
Corporate Control.
Shifting to the Right.
Cognitive Dissonance.
Ignoring their Progressive base.

All of this has the Progressive wing currently laughing at the left-wing Establishment being stunned at their electoral defeat, which (hopefully) has them questioning their entire political existence.

It also has the Progressive wing smiling sinisterly at the left-wing Establishment’s overflowing of virtual and actual tears. In other words, as far as the left-wing Establishment goes, the Progressive base is pretty much like this with them at the moment:

Can you hear your base now, left-wing elites?

Hillary Clinton; both the most Establishment and supposedly the most qualified candidate to every run for the presidency of the United States, with the most powerful political machine the country may have ever seen, will never be President of the United States.

She lost the election to a bigoted, fascist-tendencied, low self-esteem, Dubya-the-2nd-like, self-conscious, intellectually-non-curious madman, all because her and her political conglomerate cared more about the money she was getting from corporations than listening to and securing the votes she needed from the citizens in her base that they’ve been screwing over.

Catastrophic mistake. However…

…like it or not, this is what Democracy looks like.

(*Source: The Jimmy Dore Show. Final 2016 tally will change.)