I am trying to be sympathetic to all of you who are completely done with 2016 and all of the bad things you seem to recall, but I've got two days left in this blessed year before 2017 comes in fresh and new and pretends to be better just because it's new.
Don't get me wrong. I'm sad about Prince Roger Nelson , Muhammad Ali and so many others leaving us during the same calendar year, yet I'm hard pressed to beg for a better 2017 when death keeps reminding me to be thankful for today, because tomorrow isn't promised to any of us.
I'm not attempting to make light of a tumultuous year. I clearly realize that the spirits that seemed to make 2016 feel like 20666 came to visit me and you too, not just Hillary Clinton and celebrities. Many of us lost loved ones and/or had relationships tested to the core. Either we experienced true death and dying, or we lived the death and dying of love and friendships that we thought would last forever.
In hindsight, getting Donald Trump mostly felt like piling on. Trump's victory seems like a death of something noble; of an image that WE believed of ourselves right up to the moment of Hillary's defeat. Not only was it difficult accepting the notion of a president Trump, but Hillary's bitter inability to lose with dignity made the entire scene that much worse. In one embarrassing night, WE were announcing to the world that we are lazy voters, semi-crazy voters and also poor losers all at the same time. We did that towards Obama too, but I just assumed that was because of his skin color, not because we don't know how to politically lose anymore.
WE did experience more nasty episodes with gun violence in 2016, which is something I'm admittedly forcing myself to include because I know WE've learned- as a coping mechanism- how to fully forget about domestic terror incidents as quickly as our minds will allow. Since we forget our own terroristic ways, police across the nation are currently learning the end of year data of officers killed on duty as well as a sharp rise (6 to 21) of those directly targeted for violence. I have to assume that this information is either a message begging those who assassinate cops to stop, or it's an effort to make cops more aware of the level of angst against them.
Either way, is it totally bad that cops have been exposed to the extremity of our collective societal concern about imbalanced policing or policing for profit efforts that disproportionately impact minorities across the land? Is it even horrible that cops are being filmed and confronted for the bad behaviors of the relative few of their brethren? I don't condone the assassination of cops, but I hear the voice of anger that it saying "enough", and so do cops. Isn't it better that we begin the movement towards nationwide mandated chest camera usage and community policing as a standard, not an exception? Personally, I will mark 2016 as the turning point in that crucial conversation?
If that's too heavy a point to consider, what about Pokemon-Go (bad choice?)? Or how about those Cubs? In 2016 the Chicago Cubs broke a long-standing curse by beating the Cleveland Indians, another team that expelled a curse themselves by simply making it to the World Series. We could feel sad for the city of Cleveland and the Indians, if not for the exploits of those Cleveland Cavaliers? Was that an incredible series and an improbable outcome or what?
I'm trying to be a bit humble, but we can't forget about Peyton Manning and my Denver Broncos. While Broncos haters are quick to remind me of our present putrid performance on the field, they seem to forget that this is still 2016, and there will never be another Superbowl Champion crowned in this calendar year. Well, actually, we never allow anyone to forget about the Broncos being a huge part of the 2016 story, even if that's part of the stuff they'd like to forget.
If you aren't a Broncos fan and don't like successful swan song stories of HOF quarterbacks, what about the Rio Olympics? They turned out to be amazing despite the concerns going in and despite the Ryan Lochte nonsense on the way out.
Even if you want to use the seriously draining impact of the presidential election process as a reason for our sucky '16, I would counter you with the fact that Americans are more aware of their personal impact on an election than they ever were before. We all understand the electoral college, and some of us- including Donald Trump himself- now believe there is a redeeming value for it. Thanks to 2016, we are now capable of debating the finer points of the electoral system against the legions of Americans who are suddenly engaged in politics and believe that a popular vote is a better way to go. When Al Gore lost the electoral college thanks to a few hanging chads, nobody really understood what the hell that all meant.
We are so sophisticated now that we even understand the difference between a primary and a caucus and how each party protects their own process from the impact of outside intrusion by forcing participants to register for a caucus or primary months in advance instead of allowing an opposing party to taint a primary by participating only to sway the vote one way or another. We don't really like a lot of the realities of all that exclusionary behavior that comes along with caucuses and primaries, but we actually understand it now. ......and what is so bad about that?
If 2016 has been one thing positive for us, it has been muscle building that we sorely needed. We've never needed muscle building that involves paying too much for gas (Thanks, Obama) so hopefully Trump and Putin aren't working on a plan to raise prices for major oil producers like Russia and Exxon who have suffered under the new market reality relative to the price of oil. WE will also never need housing prices that our wages can not afford, yet, we did need some muscle building relative to our family budgets and our ability to make more out of our money by eating more rice and beans and DIY living that we often reject during times of prosperity.
Unemployment is down even if it's partly because of people quitting the workforce altogether. Our unwillingness to accept low-paying work in the months leading up to 2016 has forced the hands of every low-wage employer. Now, whether states increase the minimum wage or not, companies are currently desperate for employees, forcing many employers to offer wages above the liberal pursuit of $15.
Thanks, 2016!!
Maybe, 2016 doesn't deserve credit for people quitting the workforce, but 2016 was the year when the employers gave in and started trying to lure them back with better wages. If we are simply asking for 2016 to go away because we think that 2017 couldn't be worse, how exactly do we know that?
High expectation is the mother of disappointment, and I am not willing to waste all of the muscles that I gained in 2016 begging for easier workouts in 2017. In fact, I don't really want an easy 2017 if it means a return to the flimsy muscles that produced the fake relationships that I let go of already. Sure, fake felt easier, but easy isn't always a sign of substance. In 2016, I discovered much more clearly who is for me and who is not, just as many of you did too. I refuse to go back and nurture fake relationships anymore.
I'd prefer 2016's realness and rawness for the rest of my life. Not the pain necessarily, but certainly the pain if it comes with a deeper well of emotion and a stronger capacity for feeling. In a deeper well, there is a lot more things to hurt you, however, that is the well in which love and hope reside too.
Yeah, we lost Prince. But thanks to 2016, I'll never have to
be too macho to blast "Do Me Baby" while driving down the street again. WE grew in 2016 and have evolved into something new and different. Quite frankly, 2017 had better be ready for the change in US.
Apparently, Mitt Romney is either not loyal enough or just too swampy to avoid the drain plug that Donald Trump promised to pull within the first 100 days of his administration. Not only that, Trump also promised to implement term limits on the very people he'll need to pass the bill that will limit their terms in office. I've lost track of the other million broken campaign promise' that Trump has either already renigged on or intends to real soon. Should we wait until he get's sworn in to be so critical? We would wait if those cabinet appointments could wait too. As it stands, they are the clearest signal of how he intends to Make America Great Again.
As for Romney? He's among the too sane or too unloyal that Trump is being challenged to steer clear of as he forms his cabinet. Indirectly, Trump is deciding that many of the most important jobs in American politics will either be filled by inexperienced novices who will need a fair amount of time to ramp up to their job description, or it will smell a little swampy in a few rooms while looking eerily familiar to the all white male America that used to rule our political landscape.
What America never seems to accept- especially as our future president crosses the dividing line between cronyism and full-fledged corruption in our government- is that WE are our government. Those of us who work in politics (media and lobbyist) or directly for the government become the learned body of knowledge that guides the way through the jungle WE've created for ourselves. The social necessity of finding cabinet workers sufficiently learned in a particular area of government can not be intertwined with some hand slapping agenda of punishing people who campaigned to ensure that you'd lose.
To Trump's credit, Rex Tillerson, the Exxon CEO tabbed to become the Secretary of State, was not chosen because he is a Washington insider, but he is also someone with a dubious history relative to Putin. Once honored for his innovative efforts while doing oil related business in Russia, Tillerson is now going to be asked to hold Putin to task for war crimes and the like. Is he looking to nurture an existing relationship or test one with the understanding that you too could become a target of Putin if you cross him.
Rick Perry might actually get a job too, because the plethora of people on the list of Trump enemies is much too vast for Trump to function like someone looking to hand down repercussions as well. Other than Omarosa and a couple of political talking heads, Trump never really had sufficiently learned supporters anyway, so his selection pool of people to put in key positions was depleted from the moment he won. As it stands, he would much rather use his children- the only people he really trusts much at all- and not have to do any business with people who could be hustling him the way he's hustled so many others in his lifetime. If only it weren't the biggest conflict of interest in political history; one so huge, it could threaten his office before it ever get's underway.
Has anyone stopped to think if Putin understands Trump's potential conflicts of interest too? The Art Of The Deal
Trump is soon to learn that you really can't drain the swamp unless you restock the damn thing with some fresh fish when you are done. Keep in mind that the new fish will need a little time to grow, so you must implement a catch and release policy for the newbies, or they may never survive to fix our public school problem, much less Putin. Nothing Trump's new swamp creatures do for 2-4 year's can really be counted against them anyway as they learn to replace those knowledgeable swamp critters he promised to get rid of.
What he is really going to learn the most is that Putin is not his friend and certainly not a man to be played with in a friendly manner. He may not be the devil for his retaliation against Hillary Clinton- someone he loathed- but he is hell bent on restoring the former Soviet Union to Cold War era size and strength, and he needs a weak America to assist with that agenda. His restoration of the Soviet Union started in Crimea, but it surely won't end there.
So whenever Trump repeats the refrain about "is it so bad if Russia and America got along", he must be reminded that it is okay, so long as he's prepared to deal with a dictatorial president inspired by everything damaging to America and helpful to the restoration of Soviet dominance.
Will nations that normally censor US choose to broadcast Trump's rigged election claims?
I'm not sure if I can really write an expose more significant than my headline, but I'll do my best.
Donald Trump's rigged election claims are the most damaging blow to the image of America and our potential for future greatness since Donald Trump won the nomination. No really. The world, manipulated by hacked information from Russian president Vladimir Putin himself, laughed at US just for allowing that television show hustler to get this far. Now even Putin isn't laughing because Trump has essentially declared that the democrats and Hillary Clinton are about to win the election the exact same way that he would do it.
What Trump is way too uneducated or unsuspecting to understand is that his newest rhetoric is only likely to suppress his own voters by giving them very little cause to believe that waiting in the line will matter very much.
I won't attempt to connect this dot back to my nearly year old claim that Trump is Hillary's plant who doesn't really want to win, though documents have been wikileaked showing that Hillary at least encouraged his running and spoiling of the GOP well. Regardless of the impetus, Trump is here, but he is either way too dumb to understand which vote gets suppressed by tainting the legitimacy of an election that he's losing in the polls, or he understands oh too well and intends the results he's influencing.
Disregard the very smart election experts that work for Trump, who have to know the truth about Trump's approach. Remind yourself of the broadcast people that are his key consultants, and remember that Trump's son in law has been reported as seeking an initial contact towards creating a media network.
To win any presidential election, you need a team of people called surrogates and subordinates who speak on your behalf via various media outlets, and they make media productions, also on your behalf. In other words, running for a political office is the equivalent of building a media production organization. The process of transferring that highly functioning organization into a working entity involves paperwork and naming. That's it. Win or lose, Trump has an alt-right ready media organization and a gang of people motivated to stay on the Trump payroll either way. It explains why so many people are willing to risk their reputations while supporting things that are ambivalent to the very word democracy.
Things like calling our elections rigged and then hoping to legitimize that same election when it's over. Keep in mind what exactly Trump is saying here. He is saying that our elections are so flooded with illegal votes, that the only way for him to win is for....for what? More illegal votes than expected from the other side or more real voters than expected? And how does Trump gain those real voters while making rigged election claims that hardly appeal to the people he's got? What is the remedy for this inevitable illegality and how in fact would we consider Trump a legitimate winner if he insists he can only win by getting votes from his own millions of dead people just like Clinton has?
Isn't this the statement that political spectators from South Africa- who've fought to gain free and untainted elections themselves- are hearing? We know Russian and Chinese citizens are typically censored from American media, but wouldn't it be rather smart for these countries to broadcast this nonsense uncensored? Doesn't it make those fascist countries look a little less wrong if America no longer has an unrigged election? Doesn't all of this make the world a less hopeful place in the minds of foreign citizens who believe Trump? How hopeful will those who admire US be if even one person decides to take this revolution into their own hands as a result of Donald's dumbness? Was there truly only one Dylann Roof with the balls to stop talking and do something?
How long have conservatives been so comfortable with Putin?
If alt-right talk show hosts on radio and television have sold the notion that Hillary has a body double- someone who plays her when she is not healthy enough to do it herself (another odd conspiracy that dumb Donald keep's trying to sell, among others), I actually hope that the alt-right is right this time. I am hopeful that Hillary's body double is the unfortunate soul that takes the bullet that, we'll pray, doesn't kill her. I am hopeful that plans are well underway to deal with the toxic situation that no person, who really plans to win the presidency, would ever create.
I repeat. There is no way in the world that any person who plans to win the most distinguished office in the world would ever taint the job before getting it. The only reason you taint that post is not because you don't believe you can win it, but because you never really wanted it.
Maybe he'll have the nerve to admit it one day during an exclusive interview on Trumpivision. While embarrassing, could you imagine his ratings?
Very few people seem to realize that we already built a wall on the southern border, and its actually working fairly well. Until recent surges from growth in the economy, more Mexican were leaving than coming in.
You young folks may not recall these days because of cell phones and Netflix, but we used to eagerly wait for the Harlem Globetrotters to come to town so we could rush to the convention center to take in the show, even though the show never really changed at all.
To this day, the Globetrotters are still somehow big time entertainment despite coming to town with essentially the exact same act every single time- for decades.
Of all the magical moments associated with a Harlem Globetrotter game, we all seemed to be on the edge of our seats while wondering, waiting and hoping for that old bucket of water trick that they still do.
You remember the one. One mischievous teammate chases down another mischievous teammate with a bucket that appears to be water, but is usually just a bunch of paper confetti each time they throw the bucket. Until the very last time, of course, in which they actually throw water on some totally suspecting patron.
You may not suspect it will be you, but you always know someone would get all wet. Aside from the tricks the Globetrotters display on the court, this one is their Russian roulette of show gags, and we just can't get enough of blowing our brains out with anticipation.
This is the equivalent scenario I think about when I try to make sense of what were experiencing with Putin's friend Donald Trump and this stage of the presidential election. Donald Trump does too many interviews for this stage of fund raising, while Hillary does to much fundraising while the press keeps pressing her for interviews. They both seem to do more for the other side than to help themselves when they speak, however, Trump refuses to be gagged while pulling a gag on US.
Assuming Jill Stein (Green Party) and Gary Johnson (Libertarian) actually get included in the presidential debate, four people debating on stage for one job will turn this basketball game into a circus show, with more dog and pony acts than we've ever seen on a single televised presidential debate stage. The circus is plenty fun, but kind of smelly and it's really risky to work with so many animals.
Neither the Democrats or the Republicans will take the circus risk of sharing their political market share with an outside party by sharing the stage with them and assisting them in the process of stealing the show.
So they won't.
They won't give stage room to their own external damage, even if the externals achieve the 15% threshold that is required by television networks, as both democrats and republicans fully collude on this ball game we are watching and will find a way to box out the other party's candidates one way or another. If Johnson and Stein are really hoping for a stage to perform, they'll both need to build their own.
From my perspective, whether Hillary is the Washington Generals and Trump is the Harlem Globetrotters, or vice versa, I 've long since believed that they are in this game together essentially playing on separate teams but working for the same measured result.
Though we will never see his taxes to know if he is "that" rich or friends with Putin, $400,000 dollars a year is a good job for Obama the community organizer, not Trump. If the Clinton's are expected to dissolve their relationship with their own organization CGI (Clinton Global Initiative) to avoid conflicts of interest while in office, why doesn't Donald have to do the same thing? Wouldn't his presidential photo ops taken from his own golf course or Trump towers represent a conflict of interest for him too?
It's All About Money
Donald is currently conducting this presidential election like a concert/speaking tour because it was just too damn lucrative to miss the economic opportunity presented to him. As Hillary runs a conventional presidential campaign in which you avoid media interviews until you step on the gas starting after Labor Day, Trump is running a conventional campaign in which you rent out convention halls, even in states that you have NO CHANCE AT WINNING, and milk the media for free marketing so you can sell hats t-shirts and raucous rhetoric.
This Globetrotter comparison explains why the Trumpians are continuing to rush to the convention halls across the nation, hoping to get their shirt and hat, and to have that bucket of confetti tossed all over them too. Mostly they are afraid that a country that was never only theirs, feels like it's slipping from their grip nonetheless. Wayne Allyn Root for Foxnews.com wrote these words in response to Trump's immigration speech.
"As a conservative, I’ve waited a lifetime for this speech. Why? Because it was a speech that didn’t back down by even one inch. It was a speech aimed at Americans, for Americans, delivered by a proud American, who values American exceptionalism". In other words, it was a speech for us...not them.
If you are curious why Trump can't, or won't pivot to the softer center, it's because that old bucket gag is what they came to see. It really doesn't matter how many times we've seen that same old gag, it never gets old. Even to this day it remains a mainstay of the Harlem Globetrotters routine, and is the secret, silent reason that people still can't get enough of this team or their act. If for some odd reason they were to eliminate that bucket gag from the act, I'm not sure that people would be as eager to watch the show, or forced to remain on the edge of their seats while doing it.
Build that wall, and make Mexico pay for it has become the bucket gag for Trumpians eager to feel like they are behind a president smart enough and tough enough to fix the problems besetting our land. When you peel back the layers on this mystery, you discover that these folks just want to be entertained. They don't care about a real wall or that the plentiful employers (the true criminals) in America are what generates the migration demand, they just love the comforting passion of a convention hall full of people screaming the same noise as the guy or gal next to him.
What they also probably don't already know is that we've got a wall on the southern border. Granted, all of the wall is actually fencing, and half of the fencing is actually fencing designed to stop vehicles while the other half is taller, barbed pedestrian fencing. But the wall is there and it is complete.
Apparently, the Secure Fence Act of 2006 was originally designated to be handled by the Department of Homeland Security who started the project but quickly went back to congress when the original double fencing requirement proved unreasonable across the entire 700 mile stretch of border. As a result, they had the Fence Act amended allowing for reasonable adjustments (vehicle fencing) where Homeland Security deemed appropriate.
If and when Trump finally finishes his bigger and better version of a fence, he will need to build unto the existing fencing on our southern border, or build his behind the existing fencing since placing the wall in front would be a real waste of the current fence including all of the time and money spent to put it there.
Don't forget that every time Mexico talks back to Trump about his wall, he will make them pay for the additional 10 feet he'll add to help quench his anger from their defiance. Given his quick tempered nature and the number of years it took to finally build our first fence, Trump's 50 foot wall construction project could be a never ending story.
Sort of like that bucket gag.
Why do we keep running back to see that same song and dance over and over and over, as if there is a mystery to what we are witnessing or what might happen next? Actually, there is a bit of mystery involved because we never really know when that bucket of confetti will suddenly become water, so you to have to anxiously wait and wonder if this time it will be real.
If you are waiting for Trump to get real and actually appear as if he wants to win the presidency instead of indirectly forcing us to vote for Hillary in fear of him, it won't happen. In fact, Trump has thrown that real bucket of water a long time ago, and WE're all wet.
Those people who keep going back for more just like to be entertained.
I wont attempt to share some personal claim of inspiration from the great Muhammad Ali. We were all inspired in one way or another. In fact, his life and death inspire me even now as I reflect on why did he die now and not sooner-or later, and what can we learn from his passing?
The unexplained success of Donald Trump with his odd way with women proves that misogyny has not yet grown as detestable as it should have been way back when Ali was courting multiple women and having children by a few. Our slow evolving morays gave Ali societal support as he became our honest gigolo hero with the temerity to share his entire life with us. As a result, we know of his various women and offspring, and can fill in the blanks on the lifestyle that might have produced many more if our minds need to imagine all of that.
The fact that a balanced biography inspires us so much upon the death of our stars is probably because hidden, sordid details of our own lives are the primary benefit of being unknown. It's like a soul bearing measure of self defense that allows most of us to forgive ourselves of hidden hell as we chew and digest the sordid side of stars.
With Ali, he knew what we all came to understand;that his life was not some hidden treasure, but an American treasure to be admired throughout the world-good, bad or ugly- and to be used accordingly until he died.
If you are 50 and under, it's important to remember what we did and didn't get to see from Ali. The best of his skill was seen by those older than 50, while the just under 50 folks got the return to the ring version that was more about the cause than the craft.
Until he could no longer speak, he reminded us how strong and quick footed and fast and pretty he was, but when he first said it, he also added the words"I must be the greatest", as if he was deducing something that he would entertain the counter arguments if you had one.
Before long, no one ever argued anymore.
Ali didn't ask to be the greatest. he assumed a face and personality and a skill set so perfect for the times that he must have been meant to sacrifice himself- and his brain eventually- to inspire change.
Was Ali the greatest boxer ever? Every great champion who isn't named Joe Frazier seems to think so. After three epic bouts with Frazier, Ali lived and died okay with Joe having the voice to say he was better while he had the rest of us to say maybe not.
People over 50 started the debate over his greatness. Just under 50's were the small children like me that cried when Joe won that first fight and when Foreman crushed his ribs before the rope-a-dope brought us to tears of jubilant joy. Many people over 50 cried too, but some digested Clay like chalk dust, unwilling to even acknowledge his religious conversion or name change for years after he no longer answered to Cassius.
They also argued Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano as true GOATS until one day the arguing just stopped happening so much. Eventually, we all had to analyze him on a weighted scale after he told us who he was before being stripped down to ground zero, only to rise up again and again. Good, Bad or Ugly, he told no lies.
I didn't cry for my hero until I reminded myself of that Joe Frazier fight, and even then, only in memory of the tears I shed as a very young kid watching an aging hero do exactly what heroes do.
Get back up and press on.
I had no sorrow because Ali died as Ali lived. The man that inspired us in the ring passed on moons ago from brain trauma and the debilitating impact of his Parkinson encased shell. Yet even then, he understood the power of his persona and milked it towards every moment of worldwide influence that he could muster showing us all how to give everything you have until you have no more to give, and then give that too.
He fought Parkinson's and stayed in our midst because we needed him, but also because he needed to hear from the legions of influences that his life created. The death of his physical prowess and speech gave us a fortunate and unique opportunity to talk to a man the way we usually only do when they are dead and gone. His mass appeal is much greater, but similar to that of Prince when you think about it. Both remained intensely true to themselves until the time that we came around to understand and love them for the genuine genius they offered without wavering.
These death's and this odd year had me thinking.
Is it just a coincidence that we lose Prince and Ali in the year of Trump? Given the fact that there is only one native, might this wall really uncover our stifled greatness- and that American judge from Indiana whose family came from Mexico really is mad about the wall- or might there be a chance that America's greatness does not come from our ill begotten soil or current territory lines, but from the unbelievable people WE the people produce of every national origin? Isn't our greatness the triumph of the immigrant and the unified demand that all nations tear down walls instead of build them up?
If there is a need for a return to greatness, it would be great if we fully appreciate those who pursue and achieve greatness, by modeling their sacrifice to society before their lives become nothing but a memory.
I heard a recent commentator remind us how presidential candidates used to be sought out. Now, political candidates seek out the presidency like a flashback to high school politics. As if being head boy or girl is equivalent to staring down Putin to make him deal with Syria before you do.
Senator Bernie Sanders started a revolution of thought that might have made him the only remaining candidate that was sought out for the post. His poll numbers justify that idea thoroughly in that no candidate comes close to competing in a head to head with Bernie. If the real reason that Mr. Sanders remains in the game, despite the hoops and hurdles he must navigate to win, is because he is the only candidate that can soundly secure the presidency, he is doing a noble thing.
Can Bernie actually run as a Democrat but preside as a Socialist? Who becomes a part of his bill making coalition?
Noble because campaigning is grueling on candidate and family. Any real reason to doubt your prospects is a real reason to spare your family the strain and struggle of fighting from behind. That is the reason most candidates bow out expeditiously. At some point when fighting from behind, you are mathematically needing to eat the whole pie- or most of it- while your opponent continues to get their fair share of bites.
Like a puppy in a litter, you simply can't eat fast enough to get all of the food, even if you are the bully of the bunch.
Sanders is not a bully, but he is trying to bully his way into a process that wasn't made for bullying. In the end, he must convince the superdelegates to change their mind about Hillary and to cast their support behind the best chance Dem's have at winning.
Hillary can claim a lot of positives, but her approval rating and head to head polling against Donald are not among them. She is stuck between needing Bernie and his support, and needing him to shut up already at the same time. Without the volume of voters that Bernie can inspire to turnout on her behalf, the republican party might have just enough Obama anger to energize their way back into the white house.
If the real mission is to simply keep Donald Trump away from the presidency, I'm starting to get confused by Bernie and his pathway problems. Not the problems he'll have procuring the lion share of the remaining electorate just to block Hillary's path, but the problem he and his surrogates keep having and declaring with the process and it's rigging's.
I hate to find myself lambasting my brother Bernie once again because we Socialist really do need to stick together. Not that we are a dying breed. On the contrary. Capitalism is simply way too notorious for attracting the slime of the world for any clear eyed young adult to view it without some skepticism. Old folks like myself have been fairly brainwashed into our position on Socialism, so there really isn't a lot you can do to change that. We grew up with parents whose parents fought the last great war in this world, and they left that experience thoroughly convinced that we must draw a line.
Socialism bad. Capitalism good.
Our generations have the images of Mikhail Gorbachev and Nikita Khrushchev on the television screen and magazines. TIME magazine had me fairly convinced that the odd birthmark on Gorbachev's head was surely as sign of something evil. When President Ronald Reagan declared that he must tear down that wall, the world came to some odd sense of comfort that the age old Cold War had finally come to an end. In reality, our nuclear race between the former soviet union was not a Cold War at all. In reality, the Cold War was always one that we've been fighting with ourselves. The fear of the rise of the proletariat has been embedded into the psyche of old folks like myself and older. Our generations read Karl Marx as a warning of something demonic and dangerous, not as a warning of what happens when Capitalism is not given the kind of balance that it demands.
Bernie Sanders is nothing more than the voice of the proletariat that Marx promised. And surely, just as forewarned, they are fed up with economic imbalance and want to point a finger and find a fix. If you're looking rather closely, Trump has quite a few proletariat's himself, except they are pointing their fingers at different causes while complaining about the EXACT SAME PROBLEM.
Some think Donald Trump can fix it while others believe he'd be more of the same since he's been rubbing elbows with the same candidates that we've grown weary of trusting. Candidates like Hillary Clinton in fact. She is a notorious insider who has just a few points of favorability (42% versus 39% ) over Trump, probably only because she doesn't intentionally offend people on a weekly basis- but that is the only reason.
As a result of these dismal polls on the two remaining front runners, Bernie Sanders now has a really interesting decision that he needs to make for himself and his so-called party, seeing as how he's Democratic Socialist running under the Democrat flag. Sanders must fully legitimize the manner in which his party chooses a candidate and legitimately use it to whoop Hillary's ass in California and give the party a SERIOUS reason to believe that he can secure enough of the kind of voters that represent most of America.
Sanders has won plenty of state caucuses to fully justify remaining in this race. What he hasn't won is more primary voters than Hillary or diverse populations like New York or California, places vital to victory for any Democrat candidate.
As a result of what he's doing absent the tailwind to justify doing it, the process itself has been brought into question- by Bernie himself no less. Process, meaning those superdelegates that are free to do what they want. They (superdelegates) must want Bernie over Hillary for Bernie to be the Democrats nominee. But Sanders does not need them or any party just to secure more votes in a general election than Trump or Hillary. The numbers say that he could do that now, yet not from the inside. Bernie must come to grips withe the fact that either it's okay that superdelegates exist (without them, Trump might have run as the Democrat he truly is), or they need to go away right away and not be courted as a legitimate pathway to the presidency for Sanders.
The real point is this.
What if you actually win Bernie? In essence, you will be declaring that an unfair game just unfairly flipped in your favor as you proceed to happily use it to achieve your presidential aspirations. Will you lambaste it similarly if you actually win? In fact, by courting superdelegates while besmirching the process, you are offending them and asking for their support all in the same campaign speech. The integrity to insist that a system is totally unfair and must be changed, but then say their remains a pathway to make it work for you- so stay with me supporters- is beyond odd, it is disingenuous and destructive to the party you are asking for support from.
Bernie is the first candidate in the history of our political system with a legitimate shot at winning the popular vote over both of the two-party options, forcing the Supreme Court to figure out what the hell happens next when the laws are written to cater to the these two parties against the rise of another.
By all means, Bernie Sanders should press on to the convention and make his claim for the portion of delegates (super or not) that he truly deserves. Trump and Clinton are just as flawed as the numbers say they are and every attempt to tell US that they are actually something different and better than what WE already know of the two is kind of pissing me off.
Yet, I'm much more enraged by my brother Bernie who wants his cake and wants to eat it too. When Marx described the rise of the proletariat, he might not have anticipated the two-party counter efforts from those who've feared their arrival ever since he warned of it. Like it or not, the Two-party system was, and is, made to resist that rise. Either accept it and overtake it nonetheless, or shut the hell up and run as a third party candidate.
Stated more succinctly. Be a damn socialist Bernie or not. You can't run as a democrat and not accept the full implications of that choice. Since I am totally convinced that Sanders has not the courage to actually blow the whole thing apart and run third party, I am a mad Socialist who wishes he'd just shut up and stop helping Trump.
Was the emergence and anticipation of Elizabeth Warren for president the red carpet that Bernie Sanders used to initiate the populist revolt that has turned American politics upside down? Populism is a easy description of all of this because it fits the narrative we wrote in anticipation of capitalism's demise and socialism's rise. What few have accepted is that those leading this wave of populism are also those who missed the Cold War and don't appreciate everything capitalism has accomplished.
Much like all things in hindsight, there is perfect clarity upon experiential analysis. With eyes now wide open, Sanders. who we all wished had been Warren instead, should have simply remained under the democratic socialist label that he clearly feared when he chose to dump it to run as a democrat. He was unlikely to dismantle the two party blockade to win either way, but the agenda of a democratic socialist is different than that of the party he chose to run under. By scrapping his true label, he beholds himself to the party cause of winning an election, not just fulfilling an agenda.
Yet, as he currently insists on the right to press on, listing reasons other than winning to justify the choice, the potential to help improve the democrat party is among the main reasons he says he won't discard his agenda and quit the race.
Quit the race, or quit lying to yourself, Bernie?
I'm sorry, but with all due respek (teehee), Mr. Sanders is not a democrat.
He is a somewhat proud socialist who believes in invoking the democratic process to his variety of socialism as a means of implementing socially healthy socialist and capitalist programs. Nobody fully understands his plans to break up the big banks, or how he'll democratically redistribute taxes, because the assumption he provides with the intensity of his revolutionary rhetoric is one of a socialist agenda applied with pressure, not established in a conciliatory way.
Donald Trump, the GOP populist candidate, really doesn't come off as a conciliatory negotiator either, but anyone in business and everyone close to someone who is in business understands the win win of deal making, so they assume what is vital for being successful in business is also translatable to the business of being president. Trump appeals to intentionally ignorant folks or really smart folks who play ignorant when they fill in the blanks and clean up the mess in their minds each time Trump speaks.
Speak bad about milleneals if you will, but they are clearly the only ones not fooled by this dude.
I'm currently confused as to whether or not the apparent apathy of the generation called milleneals is healthy for our democracy in ways we've not quite understood. While we pretend to desire wide reaching participation from the general electorate, the movements milleneals have made towards things that mattered to them- first Obama, now Bernie- has forced everyone to recognize the immense risk of agitating these young folks into action.
Milleneals may catch a lot of heat for a lot of apparent apathy and not holding doors open for others, but the 99% movement, Black Lives Matter, Bernie and the Hell No To Donald movements have all been ignited by milleneals. Some look at that list with contempt, but only fools look at it without the respek (sorry) they've earned. These movements are headline grabbing, and headlines create the type of attention that creates change. For better or for worse, any actual movement towards better wages for all must be creditted to milleneals.
Those who support the mainstream Stop Trump movement need to recognize how useless and dysfunctional it has been. In fact, that mainstream movement might be the fuel that feeds his growth since republican voters are insisting that they need change too. Both parties are hearing the exact same message since Clinton has yet to prove that she will inspire our youth to do for her what they did for Obama and what they are trying to do for Bernie with $27 donations.
Disregard the milleneals at your own peril. They have the collective power to show up and dictate the direction of this election, or stay home and make the whole damn thing a total crap shoot on election day. Polls show Trump and Clinton way too close for statistical comfort while Sanders destroys any candidate that the GOP can muster up. Why? Because milleneals will clearly show up for old man Sanders, not for Aunt Hillary.
Who Doesn't Love Aunt Hillary?
Aunt Hillary is the recently unleashed embracing of the age and disconnection of Hillary Clinton instead of pretending it doesn't exist. Even Barack Obama has started his surrogacy for Hillary by making humor of her age disconnect in the midst of his comedic monologue at his final White House Correspondence Dinner recently.
From the appearance of things, Aunt Hillary- wary of who caused her to get beat by Obama- is now trying to bake some cookies and put out some milk to entice milleneals to embrace her in a different way. Trump, the ever observant media watcher, is hoping to expose her for every hustle she tries, especially the woman card. As for old age pandering, Clinton, Sanders and Trump all must accept age as their shared shortcoming since each is in their late 70's. Bernie is the only old person with milleneal support, so in some ways, he might actually have a right to demand the nomination.
Our three real selections for our future president are each going to be in their 80's if they live to complete one or two highly stressful terms as president, much less survive until November given the grueling demand of campaigning to become a party nominee, and each are at the mercy of millineal consent. We've seen millineals move in many ways lately, so we know they can show up. If they choose to stay home as a political statement, it will be just as impactful as if they actually show up to make a different statement.
Love them or hate them, our lazy millineals are speaking with a resounding voice. Ignore them at your own demise.
Yes, Bernie has the right to fight all the way to the convention just like Ted Cruz, John Kasich or like Hillary, who refused to stop fighting her last time out until it was abundantly clear that nothing good would come from pressing on. What Bernie doesn't have the right to do is pretend that ALL money doesn't have needs, big or small.
Does Hillary have financial backers who hopes she wins so that they can gain certain favors? Well of course she does. Yet, the larger purpose for pressing on to the convention 8 years ago was to inspire hope for change in a nation with a glass ceiling that Hillary fractured during her last run at it.
Before it was all over, she had to press on just to show respect to her main super pack, the world's first minority- women- for taking them excruciatingly close to breaking that glass into bits. In hindsight, breaking the glass does little for cleaning the mess that comes from glass ceiling removal. In hindsight, the white woman president would have encountered a similar challenge to the one that the black man president encountered when shattering a different ceiling. For both, the challenge is in trying to make people accept and respect you in an environment that you admittedly just broke in to on purpose.
If Clinton were to survive until the end this time, she will be a pioneer just like her predecessor Obama, but so will the Jewish socialist, Bernie Sanders, or the straight off the street rebellion candidate, Donald Trump for that matter. All represent a path of inevitable change for a nation refusing to accept more of the same.
Once again, we are steering fairly clear of the only demographic that has represented the position prior to Obama's shake up of the White House family tree. White males are still thoroughly in the mix of things, but not one in a position of strength except the two guys that should have been third party entrants because few really expect either to win the general while fully dependant upon the two party system they are rejecting.
Pioneers are notorious for carving out a path laden with gold but difficult to break through. Sometimes they make it after a few tries, other times they pave the way for someone else to finally break through. Either way, they are always offering something new, something unavailable before their pioneering efforts began.
New things like immigration walls that you make Mexico pay for. Or $15 per hour wages and free college tuition, maybe even some help with current college debt. While many complain now about the Citizens United decision, somebody in congress voted to expand campaign finance limits for those who needed more access to influence, because the reality is, we all have needs. Big money and small money too.
That super pack of people showing up at rallies for certain candidates?
They believe in the men on stage for what each promised they could do for them, not because they promised that there was very little any president can do while congress remains unwilling to write and pass laws. What will make Donald's fence more likely to get approved in congress than all the other infrastructure work (including old water pipes like those in Flint) that congress refuses to deal with?
Bernie might think he is free and clear of the negative influence of a Political Action Committee, but those packs of people who support him don't want to hear that they felt the Bern way too late for it to matter now. They may not even want to know that the best he can do is alter the agenda of the party by staying around. They really don't want to hear they that he is staying because the party needs them all to stay in the game till the end instead of quitting the moment he does.
This is all pioneering stuff when you talk about the areas of our society he could impact before long. In reality, Bernie also has a duty to his people to feel their burn from this rigged system we've uncovered, and to stay around so that it might be exposed and disposed of someday, giving candidates like him, and efforts like theirs, hope.
Donald might be in this thing for the exact same reason if you're watching closely and wondering exactly who he is courting as a candidate. His constant willingness to accuse Hillary- the glass ceiling speer head- of playing the woman card; or comparing his long arduous walk around the back side of a convention center just to avoid ANOTHER group of Trump protestors, to walking across the border, means he doesn't understand the impact hispanics and women will have on EVERY election for the foreseeable future.
Or he does. (my theory)
Trump does finally gets this delegate thing, and realizes that it will be used against him no matter how many states he wins prior to the convention. He, and WE, are learning that it might have been created to stop people exactly like him. Whether Trump anticipated thousands upon thousands of people coming to campaign events (I doubt that he did), he is now the face for those people and the political pioneer for exposing our undemocratic politics. For Trump, he must press on to achieve this righteous cause and justify his followers, all while hopefully offending just enough people to not have to actually preside over this miserably disfunctional nation.
Bottom line, the support dictates the agenda or there is none. And whether you are beholden to a traditional campaign Super PAC or just a super pack of supporters, WE all need and expect our political candidates to make our selection of them worthwhile by making something better for us and ours.
Sorry Bernie, but that means even you have a super pack too.
My contempt for the electoral college system dates back to that hanging chad matter in Florida that clarified to me the futility of the popular vote, and the rigging's of the two party hustle, even to the degree of their coordinated acquiescence rituals that help keep the rigging's intact.
Without the process of raising the white flag and shifting to support the very person you denigrated days before, the people (US) start to see the unethical aspects of our democracy, the parts that typically get quarantined with acquiescence so that each party's strength is not compromised from exposing ugly truth's every two years in this desperate struggle for power. If the parties have a quarantine, there was first a disease that made it necessary. Very close elections were the first disease to our version of representative democracy. Rogue candidates like Donald Trump are the newest.
In regards to simple politics, acquiescence is actually smart. Acquiescence wards off close vote recounts and brokered conventions, things that force more truth's to be exposed. The2 (my new name for the two-party hustlers) never wanted any of us exposed to the real truth that half of all of our votes (provisional ballots), due to things like late arriving mail or people who vote in the incorrect precint, never get counted anyway. Without quick concessions during close presidential elections, each state with a close outcome would have to be FULLY recounted, including all excluded ballots.
In the end, Al Gore probably acquiesced to Bush with very little fight because The2 really needed him to do it or risk exposing too many of our electoral flaws to concerned voters. For inquisitive people like me, it was already too late.
So What Are Electors and Delegates Good For?
While many aspects of the delegate and elector system were written in a day gone by and are antiquated for a modern world, delegates are actually still very important to manage votes that get cast towards candidates that don't survive until the convention. Without a delegate system, those votes are cast towards absolete candidates and essentially wasted at the convention.
Electors, on the other hand, are useful for balancing the power between California and Wyoming (for example), state's that would have a wider power disparity under a strict popular voting system. A system where EVERY state's electors are bound and proportionately distributed towards WHOEVER receives votes, regardless of party could be a useful, more democratic change. As it stands, electors can ignore the voters, and on 157 occasions, that is exactly what happened. (votesmart.org)
As WE remain hopeful for an economic evolution sparked by a political revolution, The2 should be viewed as one, and must be challenged accordingly. For lack of better example, challenged like Donald has done after laws upholding campaign finance increases (Citizens United v. FEC) were upheld, threatening to enslave US all to rich donors. Trumps free, full throttled control over the airwaves has rendered SuperPAC's as super dubious now, maybe even something we don't really need in politics if small donors keep feeling the Bern, and media outlets keeps getting ratings revenue by sticking a microphone in the face of The Donald.
Before Donald and Bernie, political press often waited outside of exquisite homes and fund raising venues to interview Romney, Hillary or any traditional candidate as they hob nobbed with rich and powerful donors just to fund the process. As for the press following Sanders? Not even once has this happened with Sanders, who is thriving on small donations to dominate and redefine the fund raising game, but has yet to do a closed door, big money fund raising event.
George Clooney not only agree's that the big money fund
raising events do produce obscene amounts of money that
needs to be removed from politics, he thinks Hillary can
help win congress and the White House to fix it.
Aside from the extreme infusion of money, not much about The2 party power maintenance program has actually changed in decades or longer. The key change is mass media and social media that allow the inquisitive to instantly discover details that The2 could readily hide before.
Details such the rules are always adjusted as needed during the convention; or how unbound delegates and faithless electors can, and have disregarded the popular vote during the primary season and the general election.
Are there any laws to prevent delegate faithlessness? Only in 24 states, but NO ONE has ever been held accountable for acting in bad faith as an elector or delegate. and there is NO WAY to change the election results from their faithless act, even with criminal prosecution. In the world's greatest democracy, only two states in the entire union- Maine and Nebraska- democratically distribute the electors proportionate to the actual voting results, and even they suffer a significant flaw.
Proportionate distribution, while very altruistic, exposes the real problem with American politics and the reason why delegates and electors have value. Voter apathy. Distributing the votes fairly demands a fair representation of the populace, which NOBODY has figured out how to achieve since ONLY Bernie Sanders is calling for MASS voter turnout as a national necessity- possibly the only hope to save America. He and I agree.
Is this recent lesson about The2 enough to ignite our lazy electorate? God willing. But for now, the democrats are willingly playing the old hush hush game better than republicans who are currently cursed by Trump's tantrum, which has made our rigged system the headline issue for the GOP.
Bernie Sanders complains about everything, but never term limits for congress or the need to win over superdelegates just to stay even in primaries and caucuses that he's destroys Hillary on popular vote.
Why no burn from Bern?
Because Sanders, a Senator of MANY years, who voted in favor of Bill Clinton's crime bill by the way. is well aware of how things work. While he is technically not part of the democrat establishment, a democratic socialist who runs as a democrat is hardly someone the democrats have not depended on to support causes sensitive to democrats. From all assessments, Bernie is only an independent in congress because he is so far left on most things that he is ends up on the right over one key issue. Gun control.
Other than his NRA loyalties and decades in congress, what makes Bernie completely a part of the establishment of The2- from which he is seeking a nomination from one- is his willingness to stay around when the mirky pathway says he might be running on symbolism only. Bernie is not staying in this race because he's too stupid to see that his path is simply blocked thanks to superdelegates, he is staying in this race because he was asked to do so and understands that, for Hillary's sake, he must.
Sanders has already conceded in a recent interview that he wished he had realized sooner how truly relevant his movement was. In other words, he realizes that it's too late already to win the nominaton, otherwise Sander's would have NEVER allowed those words to come out before quittng or writing his autobiography about the experience.
Disregard all of the contentiousness that we've seen between the two remaining candidates for the democrat nomination. Hillary not only needs Sanders to stay, she needs him to stay viable enough for news coverage because, although the delegate game is rigged already, the news coverage game has been exposed, and is under the grips of The Donald and The Bern, not Clinton, Cruz, or Kasich
8 years ago, when Hillary was overwhelmed by The2 herself, she was smart enough to keep her mouth shut and learn what they allowed Obama to do to her so that she could do it herself next time. She could have blown the whistle on flip flopping delegates herself, who she improperly courted and eventually lost some as they switched to Obama in the closing weeks of that primary.
Trump, on the other hand, can smell the hustle happening early, and he's not having it. Nobody has been fired, but Trump is scrambling to hire the kind of people that he needs to win this delegate game, while basically exposing the world to the fact that many really smart Americans have no real understanding of the very system WE all depend upon to fill the office of the U.S. president. What isn't quite clear, is how exactly did the deal maker, Trump, not deal with the demand for delegates.
The2 have been able to write wrong rules because they know that few understand the rules in the first place. With a couple of tweaks to the rules, The2 ruse together two similar puppets and prop them up for US to choose between. May the strongest money machine win.
I call it a ruse because many of the big money donors that finance campaigns give money to both sides, during the same election often. Trump funded this kind of ruse himself before actually running for president. But it will probably come from our Colorado republicans, who disregarded stupid voters and made the entire caucus process nothing but a ritual this time around after assigning their delegates to Mitt Romney last time, a candidate that didn't survive the 2008 presidential season. Soon after, Colorado republicans decided to disregard dumb voters and distribute their delegates as they saw fit.
I'm prettty proud of my state, because once again, as with the direct democracy of weed laws, Colorado could play a pivotal role in shaking up the direction of national politics and policy for years to come. If something finally changes relative to The2 and their hustle, Colorado's extremely undemocratic decision from the republicans of our state could impact a constitutional amendment that mandates our national manner of distributing votes.
But WE must show up to vote and let politicians know we're aware.
Many American's have no clue that right now, it is already too late to register to vote even if they get the gumption to give in to the urge. This is another 2party trick that helps polling to remain consistent with the registered voters and turnout trends and not population or eligible voters. If the electoral hustle proves too complex to dismantle, at the very least, every eligible American should be able to register to vote the moment they decide it is important. It is hard to imagine US reaching massive voter turnout without a massive overhaul in the ease of voting.
One way or another, our system sanctions political rape in too many deeply entrenched ways to dismantle them all. Yet, it is very hard to imagine that we allow The2 to continue to screw US in the same way again. Four years from now, something will change.
When Trump tried to tell us that he is surprisingly good at uniting people all while functionally dividing the entire GOP, we should not have been so surprised. Actually, he chose to preface his statement with how surprised we are going to be in his ability to unite people, so never mind. Feel free to be as surprised as you'd like as Trump proceeds to expose US- to US.
Speaking of pledges, did you see the Hitler pledge to Trump?
After stealing Florida from Marco Rubio and forcing him to bow out of the race, Donald Trump has each of his remaining Republican opponent's fighting just to keep him from the delegate count (1273) that would force them to finally stop giving Hillary so much general election ammunition against the entire party. Soon, they all must choose to either endorse no one, or endorse Trump while trying not to look like Chris Christie does while doing it.
I would love to completely focus on those television ads to come from Hillary, with those supporters of Trump's doing that hail Hitler pledge, but why bother?
Although modern Republicans behave like Democrats by no longer promoting trickle down economics or any economic idea beyond eliminating most regulatory agencies- and by not caring much about deficits anymore- none of that matters because voting for a Democrat is unreasonable to those raised staunchly against such an thing.
There is something ingrained inside of the political DNA of many American voters raised to disregard the bleeding heart intentions of the left, and to only see the futility of the liberal nature. Moreover, many Republicans have been taught that party trumps candidate for reasons of sustained strength. The concept proves valuable for state and local elections, but the party rejected it as well as their own internal autopsy report from the first presidential election defeat by Obama when they allowed the Tea Party and the Libertarian fractures to weaken their bone structure by pushing their own ideologies to the forefront of a party with few binding ideas.
Consequently, bewildered Republicans, angry Independents who still vote Republican along with those aforementioned fractures, have given in to the eventuality of Trump as a Republican in name only over the alternative of Hillary the Democrat, a Communist in Bernie Sanders (something Republicans called Democrats long before Bernie openly embraced the Socialist label btw), or not voting at all and functionally handing the election to either one.
I would love to hate Trump for recognizing that some people will never consider liberalism- even over a megalomaniac- and for noticing how left leaning independents don't vote enough to have ingrained beliefs one way or the other, but I can't. Trump has drafted lots of former dem's into his cause, and is exposing America to the fact that fence straddling dem's who thought electing Obama meant 40 acres and a mule for everybody, and are still angry enough with Obama's right leaning presidency to cross over too. Trump also knows that Republicans don't care THAT much about policy or positions as long as you can win for a party they've sworn an allegiance to from birth. Because of losing to Obama, Republicans would rather trust a life long liberal donor in Trump than their own party faithful anymore.
Didn't you hear it too? That statement from Trump came eerily close to being a policy position- which means it was probably a knee jerk response- so Trump doesn't repeat it anymore, but he certainly said it.
Trump's position that Mexico would build the wall was also nothing more than a counter puncher's approach to the question of funding the thing. Even if you hate his answer, you can't say he isn't ready for a fight, or that he doesn't stay on his toes ready to knock out potential objections before they rise. Politician's have always promised the world without any concern of how to harness the moon first, because details aren't necessarily their duty.
Trump is quickly adjusting to this demand for details that is an aspect of a political campaign, and nothing like business or war where surprising your opponent is helpful for victory. In a presidential battle, the most important detail is that your so called opponents are every voting citizen in this nation who quickly become your only hope for victory too.
The Trumpians might be concerned that too many American corporations are starting to do business in Mexico, but they won't even follow that thought to it's natural conclusion which is, people who can find work at home don't need to migrate elsewhere for it. If someone tells you that Mexican's still prefer to come here because of welfare and jobs, don't believe them since no illegal immigrant is eligible for any benefit except emergency medical assistance if needed. Assuming American corporations have been perfectly happy with offsetting jobs into countries like China, Mexico was a no-brainer alternative to our immigration problem and our Asian trade imbalance as well.
Trump could easily offer to exchange a fair pathway into (or back into) America for a wall of Mexico's building, which might not be a bad way to sell the deal to Democrats or to Republican supporters who got interested in Trump because of his wall promise. What Trump is exposing us to is that republicanism is bound by an every man for himself business negotiation mindset in which the goal is to get the best deal possible for yourself. There's no doubt in my mind that if Republicans are considering the necessity of higher wages for millions who rarely vote for them, there has to be something in it for them.
While Trump took victory laps after winning Florida and knocking out Rubio, he was surprisingly humble enough to admit that the rich are indeed going to have to get a lot richer for any of you regulars to have your wage hopes realized. He declared this with apologies realizing that he is already extremely rich, so promising that he'll get richer first wasn't easy to admit.
Powerfully rich people and those who long to be them, don't seek more power and riches for some altruistic promise to share with the poor. Their commitment is to the promise that getting richer and more powerful beats the hell out of any alternative. Besides, who would reasonably set an agenda for sharing power and wealth except people who don't already have it?
Food stamps, ObamaCare, college tuition assistance? If most middle class families can't qualify for social assistance, all social assistance becomes means tested wastes of time to people with money, power and influence. Welfare is only worthy of salvaging or expanding in the eyes of citizens who consider it reasonable that every one of us will pay for the health and well being of the other, be that directly or indirectly.
It is fairly reasonable to believe that every one of us is already paying for the ignorance and sickness of the other, yet people in America work with contagious illnesses all the time, as if their bills give them an immunity to spreading germs. Aside from the rare few, WE all complain about people working sick, yet everyone does it, because we are rugged individuals who don't need anybody to help us get by in life (cough, cough).
Trump and his rugged individualistic supporters didn't cause sick workers who feel pressured to make bills, and not public health, their greater priority. The Trumpians might also be among those rare Americans who never needed some really great coach, teacher, professor, parent/s, neighbor who watched your kids, or all of the above in order to be who they are today. Sometimes, ruggedly individualistic Republicans make me wonder if only Democrats do the daycare hustle or have kids that don't leave home after college due to the economy, so they support Bernie because they need a job.
Is segregation in politics part of a Republican creed or just a reflection of our other segregation issues? Do parents of children from both parties work to indoctrinate their offspring or is this just a Republican thing?
Trump is exposing America to the ingrained problems of both parties and of the system as a whole that allows for the party elite to continually manipulate the rest of us into a corner of their choosing. Currently, congressional Republicans appear to be compromised from a lack of ideology, so they survive on a steady diet of American segregation and gerrymandering. Hillary, on the other hand, has to promise a continuation of the right leaning agenda's of Obama and Bill while grafting the populist mission of Bernie Sanders into her plan at the same time.
Populism versus Capitalism
Populism is entirely contradictory to capitalism because capitalism isn't a way of life, it is the economy of life, and no civilization functions without some system of exchange and profit. Conversely, populism is not an economic system but a means of disrupting and redistributing one; sometimes for the good, but there simply aren't enough great functioning examples of populism/socialism to brag about. Sorry Bernie.
You Can't Win The Deal Without Making One First
Capitalistic efforts like NAFTA or the TPP are Bernie's greatest contempt and key differentiation from Obama, Trump and Hillary, though Hillary has expressed some "reservations" with the TPP too. Trade deals, past present and future, are also the reason that Bernie likely loses my support and the support of Obama who needs a capable successor to his tenure. Trade is simply a necessity of our world, and one that my Socialist brother Bernie will never be in a position of strength to handle while standing against it philosophically.
Trump won't really talk a lot about the TPP much because he is running so that he can dive head first into this deal, that deal and every deal in between. If Trump gets his way, he'll be going TPP all over that entire world and beyond if possible. The author of "The Art of the Deal" can't possibly be against our dealing in foreign lands. In fact, he's certain that he can be the reason WE finish out on top of these deals instead of feeling like the biggest loser with every trade pact we make.
But deal he will.
Anyone who is still unclear that Trump is all for every deal that he can engage in is unclear about Trump. When he says we'll get sick of winning, it's because he'll never get sick of dealing, whether it's negotiating to convince Republicans to vote for him regardless of what he truly espouses (or because of it), Trump even has a fix for angry voters who quit voting,which just so happens to be the same fix for those who got tired of supporting the losing team.
Trump has all of US trapped inside of a rare, life sized art exhibit called "Exposition"- masterfully exposing the harsh truth of who we are as a nation of voters and how miserably we respond to the duty of leading and governing ourselves.
By virtue of the overriding sickness of ignorance, we've never taught ourselves enough details about our electoral process of selecting a president to know if we approve of it or not. Trump is exposing to both his supporters and detractors, things WE never had reason to care about much before he made us learn and care about.
For example:
Did you know that each party has the power to rewrite the rules at the convention so that it benefits the needs of the party. In other words, if the Republicans decide to broker their convention exclusive of Mitt Romney, who currently isn't running and needs to win 8 states to qualify as a potential nominee, they can simply rewrite those rules to allow Romney to overtake the convention and be the party nominee regardless of all the voting on behalf of other people.
In addition, while they are fighting to keep him from winning enough delegates, Trump could actually reach the delegate threshold and still be forced into a brokered convention because the parties write the rules as needed.
The Democrats can do this too, but their use of uncommitted superdelegates is their personal technique for avoiding the risk of entering the convention with a candidate who doesn't have a great chance to win In essence, they've done their brokering on the front side by soliciting superdelegates that can do the party's bidding without voters recognizing their impact.
Trump's presence in this presidential race has exposed more aspects of our fractured republic than many of us were willing to recognize. Whether we are talking race, immigration or the manner of choosing a president, WE've got real problems.
I would like to take Trump to task for his assault on these Constitutionally designed party protections called delegates, but I can't. He has single-handily exposed the absolutely undemocratic aspects of the very Constitution that WE hold near and dear, while simultaneously exposing the differences of emotions each of us feel when we talk about the sanctity of the U.S. Constitution itself.
Is the Constitution a divinely crafted guide from our founding father's and political elders, or is it the sanctioned way in which we allowed for "White Only" drinking faucets?
It is both.
Our Constitution has fully sanctioned our organized failures as a society, while offering both the light and a pathway towards correcting them.
Through the sturdy flexibility that the Constitution insures, Colorado and a couple of other states stopped giving citizens felony convictions and immense legal and life hurdles for small amounts of weed possession, even while weed still continues to make felons out of recreational and medical marijuana users all across the nation. It took a similar state by state rejection of Constitutional standards to kill the Prohibition of alcohol and bend the Constitution back towards the will of the people, even if our will towards alcohol green lighted one of America's most deadly addiction problems.
Trump doesn't talk a lot about confronting addiction problems or dealing with inner city policing issues with Constitutional measures, but he might start IF he wins the GOP nomination and enters a general election versus Hillary who virtually locked up her party's nomination with a Super Tuesday sweep (3/15/16) including the big boys, Florida, Ohio and Illinois. As a salesman, Trump is willing to do what every good salesman does to close a deal, and right now, feigning moderation is just not part of the negotiation.
Like any expert salesman, Trump is a master at reflective listening and leaving those he encounters with this odd sense of feeling heard and understood. What Trump won't have to do is actually make good on his promise to make US great again because the great he's promising involves things being more great for US and less great for Trump and the one percent. In reality, Obama has already done the part of making the rich richer, so more of the same won't impress anyone. If Obama the redistributor could force open America's economic flood gates but can't force the poor people faucet to trickle even as the rich are getting richer, there is simply something wrong with the pipes.
Just call him sucker punch Sam. He doesn't deserve a real name.
As president, there will always be limitations to what a can be done to actually impact greatness because every move demands a long wait while the ship makes the turn. As president, Trump won't be free to hire a whole lot of Mexicans anymore like he always brags about doing. even as those who support him express frustration from jobs lost to Mexico and its immigrants. He can encourage diversity, but he could not insure the diversity of Trump inc. or any corporation until after he serves in office.
If elected president, Trump will be able to finally ignore the angry people that he's basically using to usher himself into the final stages of this race. That won't fix stagnant wages, or clear him of our fear that he'll preside as a Democrat even while he competes under the banner of Republican. But once elected, he can track as far left as he wants and just call it as right as he chooses. Essentially, president Trump would be free to govern as he pleases and then spin every decision he makes as he see's fit, since spin and marketing are is his top two skill sets.
Policy agenda nuggets that mistakenly slips from Donald's wealthy lips glistens of third term Obama except with a southern fence. He'll finish off what Obama started with ISIS. He'll humanely bring the Mexican's back after finding and deporting them.(??) He'll take care of people who need better wages and fix universal health care with something better than ObamaCare. (????) And he'll be a uniting force like we Hoped Obama could be, except for banning Muslim's from entering America until he can figure out what the hell is going on with Islamic terror.
All of this on the notion that he, unlike any president before him, is uniquely tough enough to make people do as he demands. Instead of firing them like he did for years on television, he's throwing them out of his rally's and inciting his crowd to do his violent bidding by expressing what he would do if only he could.
Trump feeds off of this narcissistic exploitation of vulnerable people, and no one is more vulnerable than the angry. He who angers you owns you- but he who can incite your existing anger has the power to evoke immature rage on command. Trump has placed a segment of America's angry and afraid on a chain like a ravenous dog. Some are actually immature enough to sneak a bite at departing rally protester's while the rest are prepared to blame the victims for getting too close. As one united coalition, the Trumpian's are answering the clarion call of their leader to get tough, play dumb and make America great by any means necessary- and Trump will clean up your legal mess if necessary.
How adults can be groomed to be more loyal to party than country is answered in the children they raise. From a very early age, right wing offspring are given an image of liberalism attached with fear and loathing, not an endearing Republican theme that becomes their unified mantra of party loyalty. As the Republican party becomes increasingly segmented, the various options of which way to go are slowly pulling the party to its death. Add a little populism spewing from every presidential candidates voice, and the only distinct ideas become that crazy Muslim ban and the Trumpian wall.
Trump has even exposed the fact that every politician is trying to figure out our preferences just to sale us a bill of goods exactly like the other candidates, only better.
Will Republicans alter the Constitution so that it mirrors their love of Christ and hate of abortion and gays, or do they love guns and freedom more and decide to leave people alone so that people will do the same for them? If Obama and every other modern president have had no problem creating policies to make the rich get richer, why can't either party find a way to make America's wealth trickle down- and which party actually deserves another chance to finally make it happen?
If either party had an easy answer to issue of wealth disparity, they would have used it a long time ago. Now, Trump has exposed this failure from both sides of the two-party political conspiracy forcing both sides to join together in figuring a simple method to stop Trump and start opening pathways to wealth before America fixes this electoral college hustle and gives Trump a try.
I am trying to be sympathetic to all of you who are completely done with 2016 and all of the bad things you seem to recall, but I've got two days left in this blessed year before 2017 comes in fresh and new and pretends to be better just because it's new.
High expectation is the mother of disappointment, and I am not willing to waste all of the muscles that I gained in 2016 begging for easier workouts in 2017. In fact, I don't really want an easy 2017 if it means a return to the flimsy muscles that produced the fake relationships that I let go of already. Sure, fake felt easier, but easy isn't always a sign of substance. In 2016, I discovered much more clearly who is for me and who is not, just as many of you did too. I refuse to go back and nurture fake relationships anymore.
