Normal Voters Really Want Normalcy To Return

Apparently, denying something happened
is all that matters to Donald Trump.

It used to be normal that we defend the actual victims of domestic violence.

Not the accusers! Those liars remain exactly what they were ten years before the #metoo movement decided to be. I know we would like to pretend that WE are a new America poised to give a damn when women insist we should, but this is Real Talk...For People Who Need It (SquareBiz), and I'm not convinced that enough abusers or women are ready to vote for a woman or believe her claim of abuse.

This matter of America's foremost leader being an unrepentant misogynist works because plenty of men remain just like him and plenty of women voted for this man with complete knowledge of his history with women. Those women- who shall primarily remain anonymous, for obvious reasons- are excused for their support of president Trump because the bulk of the evangelical community has also joined him and are clearly going to vote for him again if given the chance to do so.

It used to be normal that we'd fight against the efforts of the Soviet Union.

That nation is now simply called Russia because they fought the United States beyond their ability to afford the war, and it cost them an entire union. Yes, that Russia is the same Russia that is now happily fighting us in other ways, including automated bots that disseminate spoon fed information to the same list of people that I mentioned above:  my oldest brother, women who question #metoo and other women but not Trump, prominent evangelicals and the Trump base, aka, the Trumpians.

It used to be normal that certain standards of operation like having a presidential staff with security clearances or obvious obstruction efforts of an ongoing investigation would draw the ire of a Congress that most of us were raised as children to understand had an equal balance of power within the three branches of government. It used to be normal that Congress eagerly jumped upon opportunities to show the president their equal level of power like they did when overwhemingly voting in favor of sanctions against Vladimir Putin and Russia.

This Congress wont even force Trump to enact those sanctions that were voted upon with a veto proof majority, further conceding their equal level of power to a president that wants our military to give him a parade.

If you've seen this meme, maybe normal is just an illusion
Click here to compare the actual 1956 platform to this meme

It used to be normal that going through background checks, vetting, bonding or anything of the sort was considered "due process".

Now we have presidents- and supporters of the president- willingly defending a man who can't get permanent security clearance due to domestic violence issues. Instead of questioning why he remained in that job and who gave the call to keep him there every time his interim clearance lapsed over the past year (they last for 180 days with an option for another 180 days), this conversation has devolved into a question of due process with no trial under way and no reason to invoke the idea of due process unless you are confusing Rob Porter's issues with your own, Mr. President.


Even with acknowledgement for the sharing of platforms planks when politics demand, it used to be normal that Republicans behaved like Republicans and Democrats like Democrats.

Now, we have  a president that has control over both houses of Congress and is embroiled in a debate with his own party over immigration and increasing the deficit. If the signs of the death of political normalcy aren't clear enough, what more do you need?

I am personally a bit weary of those who keep seeing the obvious but continuously ask themselves the most obvious, thus rhetorical questions imagined. Yes, there are plenty of people that continue to support this man despite all the reasons "you" think they shouldn't. His issues with style, delivery, focus, empathy and a history twice as bad as his present gaffs are not enough to run off prominent preachers who either see something beyond the ability of the rest of us, or they see a puppet who they can get stuff from. Either way, they are with him and by default against you, Bob Mueller and normalcy.

They are also not against Russians because they are not dumb. What most of you people wishing for your normal back don't quite get is that smart people don't discount the fact that Donald Trump probably did benefit from the Russian intrusion into our election. They also don't automatically look at the polling numbers and tell themselves that he could win again without Russian involvement.

What you people who need your normal back also don't quite realize is that these are the same people who willingly gerrymander as well as obstruct voters for the sake of keeping their slipping grip on power, so why not Russians?

I still think exiling the spiritual understanding of forgiveness and Grace away from our schools because it offended people while letting everything else in was stupid. But that's the conservative me talking. Mostly, I am too proudly Socialist and too against the two-party hustle to care that the Democrats could be begging for a problem if they keeping frowning in disbelief over the notion that people support Trump.

Get over it and get over your wish for normalcy. If our lazy voters had a chance to do it all over again, they would have voted Bernie Sanders into office. I would be dancing, but we would all be trying to figure out how a Socialist will govern without any Socialist driven legislation coming out of either branch of Congress. While people like @RachelMaddow try to keep a calibration of what normal used to be so that we don't allow this administration to confuse us when normal finally returns, I say she and everyone else is dazed and confused and probably won't see things clearly until their concussions symptoms clear.

Our old normal only involved the participation of less than half of the country, and that was at the best of times, not mid-terms when turnout is significantly less. Several citizens have to watch, listen or actively ignore our embarrassment of a president while they rethink their previous belief that their vote didn't matter, but many citizens turn on this circus and feel more than justified of their decision to wash their hands of all of it. Whether we have an electorate more motivated to do their civic duty is still a wait and see proposition that has apathy, gerrymandering and suppression efforts it still must overcome.

Mitch McConnell looked flabbergasted as he stared into the camera and tried to explain to a section of Trump's current support how Barack Hussein Obama became our 44th president. His only recourse was to promise them that he would block Obama at every turn and make his effort to preside over this country as difficult as one human being possibly could. Now, all of that energy is being recalled and renewed against Trump, except Republicans have a political majority so the parallel isn't quite the same even if the sentiment is.

The new normal is likely being evidenced at anti-Trump protest rallies and with recent special election results. Governor Scott Walker, in Wisconsin, is refusing to hold a special election because the last one he allowed went for the Democrats. Right now, the generally motivated as well as the generally interested but hardly motivated voters are running off of the same energy, and that is a good thing. Whether it shall be an enduring thing is something to worry about when you realize that our president- who loves his freedom and Russia way more than your sense of normalcy- has decided that the best way to protect himself and Putin is to flood the waters with more press than the average person can endure and hope it makes them downright weary when it comes time to vote.

His plan seems worthwhile given the fact that the media is stuck in a paradigm of unprecedented ratings and interest in the latest news while simultaneously being disgusted by the person they are giving so much shine to each day. Trump's presidency may be saving a few dying newspapers across the country as we speak. Although his rhetoric continuously drives those he disgusts towards further hatred of him, it gets spin'd and retold by FOX news and by those Russian bots that keep generating half-truth memes to keep Trumpians motivated and fully on board.

If Russia is still as against America as it was when it was a union too, they have NOT only reignited the Cold-War that we declared victory over, they are winning the damn thing from the inside out with Donald Trump in office.

I write to you today because our president is also a Russian bot who refuses to denounce or fight back against Putin and quite possibly colluded with him to win the job. Our Congress is loathe in their responsibilities because they are unsure of how to do their job and keep their power at the same time. Meanwhile, WAY too many of you are looking for normal again while the war for our ability to still be called a union rages on.

What many of us see- including Facebook, finally- is that the necessity for nuclear war has been usurped by the simplicity of a digital one. WE are currently engaged in a war that WE don't understand so we can not be winning it. By the time we fully discover the extent of this war we will have endured internal damage that will never allow us to return to whatever normal used to be. In fact, when you think of it, old normal is probably to blame for this mess.

So please, stop looking for it.

If Trump Falls, Twitter Will Become His Nixon Tapes

Waking up the first working day of the new year to another twit-parade of comments from our Twitter-In-Chief, Donald J. Trump, has me thinking about the value of his idiocracy of a presidency.

I would love to focus my attention on the scary international tweets Trump directed to start the year towards the instability in Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan where he felt the need to tweet threat the withholding of U.S. aid instead of just withholding it with back-channel admonition like Obama and others have done, but those feel like the very distractions that he intends them to be.

Trump seems focused on a lot of things to the potential exclusion of preparing for the November elections, elections that we can now describe as this year since 2018 is no longer some distant date of future political concern. 2018 is now, and NOW is the time for Republicans to focus on fighting off the Blue Wave of Democrats who are threatening to overtake Congress and pressure Trump in ways he can't fully understand based on his current Twitter focus. In between golfing and Tweeting, he probably hasn't seen recent reports about is plummeting poll numbers in Iowa

Reince Priebus, former RNC Chair, has seen the numbers and has sounded off recently on the immense risk Trump will face if he allows the Democrats to overtake the House and the Senate. But the Christmas push to pass an unpopular tax present for rich folks while blasting the credibility of FBI Special Investigator Robert Mueller and the entire FBI is starting to make curious observers wonder if Trump is feeling the heat of the investigation too much to focus on the other things that threaten his presidency even more than Mueller.

Despite the irony of Trump potentially committing the kind of crimes that could "Lock Him Up", America is not interested in locking up presidents anymore than it is in locking up the loser from a political campaign as some countries do.  For Trump to focus his energy on attacking losing political opponents and discrediting an investigation that will never result in jail time for the president- even if it might for his subordinates- proves he doesn't understand civics enough to see the clear off-ramps of immunity our laws have made to avoid jailing deposed presidents and embarrassing an entire nation in the process.

Trump also isn't civically aware enough to realize that losing a Republican majority in 2018 elections is even more dangerous than liquored up George Papadapolous who was reported to have kick-started the investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign, a report that debunks the recent Republican counter-claim of the Steel Dossier being the sole reason for the Russian investigation. 

Trump also seems not to understand how his own Twitter initiated words paint a picture any basic smart person can follow, much less a brilliant lawyer and lifelong FBI investigator like Robert Mueller.

What former President Ricard Nixon did to counter the efforts of an investigation against him came to our knowledge in the years following his resignation. How Trump thinks he can stop Mueller from doing a job he has given his entire life to do on behalf of this great nation is a matter you can decipher while you sit on the toilet or drink your morning coffee because that's when Trump is likely to lay his cards on the Twitter table, for all the world to read.

Occasionally, Trump's Twitter type tirades have come via two old-school mediums called audio and video recording, but they are no less public and just as revealing of a man who has lived his entire life spilling his guts all over the current medium of the moment, confident that no exposure is ever bad as long as you use it in your favor.

Twitter is an expose for and of Trump, and history will probably look to a connected chain of tweets that will unravel the mentality of a mentally disturbed man who displays both his mentality and his disturbances nearly every morning via Tweet, for all the world to read.

The damage to this nation is definite even if yet to be defined. The global trust we've lost in the process of selecting a president has rendered us as untrustworthy as our process.  Stated more clearly, WE the People will need the world community to believe we preferred Bozo the Clown over our Donald Trump mistake. We have to prove him an accident of populism and of political apathy, or possibly a clownish byproduct of Communist collusion. A fair combination of each would help even more, however, that proving can only be done in the same place of the initial accident. Voting Booths.

Has The Twitter-In-Chief tweeted his cards unto
the table revealing penis insecurity while
pointing investigators to a path of his own demise?

Clowns thrive on entertaining you to get your attention. As we finished the first working day of the new year, news reporter left and right have slapped their own hands for breaking a resolution to not allow the Clown to distract them with Tweets, only to have Trump issue multiple tirades of a madman on Twitter to kick off the new year. 

Are these Tweets distractions of an attention hound or head-fakes to hide collusion? Before I could edit this piece for syntax and synchronicity, Trump Twitter bombed the world with a slew of late night tweets, the kind of stuff that usually happens when most of us are well into our second glass of our adult beverage of preference. Tweets during certain times of day are always more revealing but often terribly regrettable, like the late night comparison of nuclear button size Trump decided to have with Kim Jong Un of North Korea.

I personally am viewing his regurgitations via Tweet as his version of the Nixon Tapes being dictated before our eyes. Much like Nixon, they are the ramblings of fear and of a foolish leader who doesn't know any better but thinks he does. Nixon recorded his happenings because he became overwhelmed with distrust of the crumbling walls around him. Eventually, the presence of the tapes and the evidence they showed of his cover-up of a petty crime became much worse than the crime itself.

Trump may or may not have recordings as he threatened to have when attempting to bully former FBI Director, James Comey, into obeisance, but he has resorted to making Twitter declarations for the jailing of James Comey and several other "Deep State" political opponents.

Yep. He did that too. Via Twitter!!

Donald J. Trump needs to direct a news narrative that he can't control, he can only share how he feels about it and what he wishes he could do if he had the power to do what he wants with the DOJ. He can also accidentally expose his mental makeup by speaking on important things in frivolous ways that promise to threaten his presidency and the world at large but not Make Anything Great Again. 

In an effort to own the news, Trump literally launched the new year with a Twitter threat against Rocket Man (North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un), Pakistan, Iran, Obama, Huma Abedin, the entire FBI and someone else that will inevitably happen just before, or soon after I publish this piece.

What happens if North Korea does not dismantle? Are WE
ready to back our words or prove them ineffective forever?
Neither of those options is good for the United States,

Donald J.Trump does all of those things, and more, via Twitter every day. As we resolve to avoid over-indulging in his clownery, we would be historical jesters to not listen to this era's Nixon tapes before they are formerly compiled, vetted and released to the public. Making New Year's resolutions to try not to give Trump's Tweets the historical significance they will have in 20-year hindsight will not change the psychological revelations they contain today.

Trump's Twitter trail will also show the destruction to the mantle of world leadership once maintained by the U.S. Granted, it is slightly presumptive to say what his overall impact will be as we stand here today, but the world could soon look back on Trump's Twitter ramblings as our most salient view into the psyche and the psychosis of president #45. 

Tax Plan Will Put Icing On GOP Identity Crisis Cake

In a search for fair and balanced political criticism, it's increasingly difficult for many of my Republican voting friends to read anything I have to say as it relates to politics. Maybe they DO NOT find my strong support of Donna Brazile as enough of a rebuke on Barack Obama, the guy who caused most of this mess to begin with.

Yes, Barack Obama did bankrupt- in more ways than one- the entire DNC leaving it in a situation where Hillary Clinton had to save it or go it alone. Clinton sort of did both if we take Brazile at her word. Obama hasn't opened his mouth once in defense of himself and most people who dislike the decision of Donna describe her book as a money grab, not a lie.

I quickly echoed the concern about Hillary long before she announced she'd run, just as I've acknowledged how Obama left the DNC in a position to do very little work down ticket, forcing Clinton to trust that black people would simply obey the Obama's and fear Trump way more than we eventually did. I voiced concerns during the DNC succession war that left boring Tom Perez as the head while forward thinking Keith Ellison (the first man to predict Trump btw) was designated co-chair as a white-flag concession. And I've written, on several occasions, my concern with progressive messaging. ( I'm A Socialist Who Doesn't Believe In $15, Warning!! Trump's Guilt Is Not A Campaign Message )

And then Virginia and Alabama happened.

Despite the apparent possibility of this moment, I am still of the mindset that it's vital for Democrats to recognize their own identity crisis and not misread what happened in Alabama as probable anywhere else in America while forgetting that black people apathy in the 2016 presidential election might have lead to a p***y grabbing nincompoop of a president. We blacks don't openly take blame for Donald, yet we indirectly accepted blame when we refused to worry about it being our fault with that pedophile in Alabama. In record numbers, black people came out to vote in Alabama overcoming major impediments- intentional or not- that typically thwart our participation.

While I would love to see this black voter participation trend continue, I don't blame black folks for our apathy all alone. Once again, I blame Obama for disappointing the lazy black voters who wanted him to deliver 40 acres and/or a mule.

I certainly blame him for bankrupting the DNC.

But, I also blame him for scaring the shit out of way too many white people with that smile and charismatic way of his. I thank him immensely for living a virtuous life with a virtuous wife and kids, but that doesn't take away the blame we have to give Obama for passing a healthcare plan designed to placate Republicans, who mostly found the whole idea of universal healthcare objectionable back in those days anyway.

I blame Barack Hussein Obama for having the audacity to become our glorious 44th president with such a Muslim'y name. I don't blame him for racial intolerance and stuff like that, but I have no option but to blame Barack Obama for not having the courage, or the core principles, to demand single-payer healthcare when he had the chance to do it.

Does Little Marco actually have big hands
and big courage, or is he just igniting a trend
that can only explode the deficit further?

As a result of Obama's willingness to concede to the Republican plan, despite obstructionism from day one, we are now at a place where progressive voters are described as such because calling yourself a Republican or a Democrat has no value when each party's ideas, policies and plans all end up leaving regular people in the same spot WE started.

Black Democrats in America, and in Alabama, have very little reason to expect Hillary Clinton, Doug Jones or any other so-called Democrat to fix the issue with wages. In fact, despite what will inevitably add more to the overall deficit scoring of their tax plan, it is a Republican that is fighting to retain that same old Child Tax Credit that occasionally makes you wish you were Mormon (Thanks Marco Rubio).

Rubio's rescue, combined with doubling the standard deduction, never amounts to more than an extra few bucks or so that you will only see during tax season, and doesn't actually apply to the 44 million people who itemize their deductions anyway. So, if you are poor without children, you had better pray the GOP wage increase promise pans out because their tax plan has nothing at all in it for you.

Someone should remind Rubio and the Republicans that Child Tax Credits, doubling the standard deductions and things like that used to be a dangling carrot that only Democrats used. In reality, Democrats or Republicans could offer to quadruple the standard deduction and it wouldn't dramatically change the way tax liability or tax return checks work. Unless you are still willing to game the system by illegally claiming charitable donations as a way to squeeze out a tax return check, the GOP tax plan does little to truly benefit the average Joe or Josephine.

In fact, the corporate tax cuts don't expire but Josephine's and Joe's cuts will expire sooner, not later. It's as if congressional Republicans can't truly forecast a vibrant future economy their tax plan depends on and understand the long-term deficit risk of giving cuts to everybody based on potential growth. The problem they have is that they also can't begin to pretend they are helping everyone fairly without shining too much light on the fact that they are not. So, the message becomes, " ignore your expiring tax cuts, Joe and Josephine, and trust that bad companies will finally be good to you after WE give them lots more money to be good to you with"

Also, try to forget about the fact that the corporations will see their benefits starting this February, but WE will have to wait until 2019 tax time to get our one-time $1,000 Christmas present. In the long run, the tax cuts that they insist are for us might afford you a couple of cool family nights at the football game, so long as your car is already in good shape and you live in a city like Atlanta where the Mercedes Benz stadium has foot long hot dogs that are only $2.50, and the inexpensive soft drinks ($2-$4) come with free refill stations all over the stadium.

Everywhere else in America, the average game ticket starts at $150. Car repairs can be ten times that amount.

The truth about both parties are that neither has fixed inflation's deflation of our income and savings. Way too many of us already put off those car repairs waiting for the Republicans and Democrats to throw us an inflation sensitive bone each spring. Yet, no matter how many different ways they attempt to throw those tax time bones, it is never hard to recognize how little meat remains for the immense amount of ravenous dogs attempting to scavenge for their share.

So yes, Obama is to blame for the skepticism of a voting block that was already too skeptical for him to concede as much as he did. Assuming he conceded at all?

Maybe Obama has overtaken Russia and is controlling
Putin as a devious plot against Trump and America?

I am still of the mindset that me, Hillary and Obama are way too conservative for the taste of many progressive voters who hate the flavor from the last 8 years and demand entitlement sharing much more than empowerment plans. Aside from his single payer mistake, which is actually more or less a mistake when viewed from hindsight than an actual mistake, I generally supported Obama's pseudo-liberalism. Whether the policies of Obama were concessions of a much too kind demon or true ideology might be resolved one day in his own version of Revelations. He might even snap back at Brazile and create an East Coast, West Coast type political battle of biblical proportions, like we had with rap music in the 90's? Or he will concede that she was right.

As for my personal concession? 

My Obama rebuke is all that I can offer to my Republican friends who accuse me of not being even handed when sharing too many comical postings against Trump and his team. If you try to Google something funny and fair about Barack, Hillary and Democrats, the pictures of demonic horns don't seem funny enough, even the few that have a smiling face attached to them.


No matter how easy a target Donald's ducklings are, Democrats can't rest on Huckabee humor, pedophile hatred or whatever a laurel might be. They need to replicate the ground game that swept through Virginia and Alabama even if it was a pedophile that motivated them to press harder in Alabama, a place Democrats rarely waste money. Now, the DNC is forced to find enough money to throw at every Southern wall just to see where their message actually sticks.

Oh yeah, they also need a believable economic message to avoid the risk of relying on their own Grand Old Philosophies that no one cares to believe anymore. Hopefully, they are fashioning a message of economic hope that sounds a lot better than "Trump Sucks".

Whether this guy who is proving to be politically toxic to his own party actually survives Mueller and wants to give this horrendous job of his a second go, has little to do with the necessity for each party to clean up from the Trump-era fallout and establish a firmer identity in an era beset with identity politics.

Despite an image of desperately wanting to help people, the results of Democrat policies have done no more than Republican policies at closing the widening gap between rich and poor. In the end, both parties can only tinker with wage minimums or give you a small check each spring.


What Is Identity Politics?

If you are raised to see Democrats as much more reprehensible than pedophile's, it isn't difficult to confuse one man's reprehensible behaviors as a political assassination attempt.The sad but true reality of identity politics is that Roy Moore had way more support than any civilized human should be comfortable with (I did not say deplorable). Identity politics made it absolutely necessary for 97% of black women, and 92% of black men (eligible voters), to show up in Alabama.

Thanks to identity politics, black people were begged to assume their identity of Democrat in numbers never seen before in Alabama. While it saved their state from being culpable in pedophilia, the stench of those who laid down with the skunk, and the p***y grabbing president who endorsed pedophilia, will be smelled for years to come. As we reminisce on this, WE the People will also recall the visuals and imagine the smell of body sweat and oppression left behind in those Democrat precincts where budget cuts killed voting locations and lengthened lines in Alabama, but only stiffened the resolve of those identified as US.

For a party that is currently making folks question their identification of Christian and Republican, the Roy Moore debacle might be the largest relinquishment of a party's identity save for the one they are proposing to do next week.

Assuming the Republican Tax plan moves forward without another Marco Rubio hero stunt- which only further inflates the cost of doing the entire thing- the GOP will be on the hook to prove that adding 2 trillion dollars (and rising) to the deficit can be deficit neutral, or deficit reducing from increased incomes and consumer spending that increases tax revenues.

"Have I got a gift for you!"

Disregard the blind eye Republicans have turned towards our Soviet sympathizer-in-chief, or the desperate desire to take your healthcare away just because they promised to. If the GOP was interested in you and I, or interested in keeping their image as the fiscally conservative party, they would all get behind Paul Ryan's proposed cuts of entitlements, a move that will surely get them all sent packing but would at least retain the last remnant of a party identity that they are essentially scrapping by adding 2 trillion (plus) to our deficit.

The blurred lines between the two parties will grow even blurrier after tomorrow when every Republican Senator and his mama will seek to do the Rubio and get their last minute pork barrel add-on's at the stage when the pressure of the holiday season conspires to make another legislative failure the first present the GOP opens.

Assuming they get so lucky.

Much like Roy Moore, losing will be a special form of winning for the GOP who can actually avoid some of the public backlash of this terribly unpopular president and tax plan if they are fortunate enough for it- and Trump indirectly- to go down in legislative flames just as Repeal and Replace did. As for the average Joe or Josephine? Aside from remembering who passed it, there's just not enough in it for most of US to worry about it passing or failing.


 
     

Democrats Fight Gerrymandering. Is It Too Late?

Keep your eyes open for this big time push from the DGA (Democratic Governors Association) and the NDRC (National Democratic Redistricting Committee), founded and lead by former President Barack Obama and former AG Eric Holder. This issue represents a major reason I no longer register as a Democrat.
              ________________________

https://unrigthemap.com/

....this is a lot like that Colin Kaepernick issue and the NFL.

..a curse you bring on yourself.
            
            ___________________  



I won't claim to already know who started with this gerrymandering nonsense, though I could probably Google it. I feel utter disappointment, however, when I discovered how often both parties have misused it over the years. The fact that the Republicans have taken our national shame called gerrymandering to a new level of shamefulness makes me mad at the system and ALL of those who proliferated it, not just the current beneficiaries and better players of the game.


I actually started registering independent when Al Gore helped us to discover the electoral college hustle that can override wilful votes and lawful recounts if it so chooses.


Upon backing a non-inspiring guy like Gore against George W. Bush, I found myself indignant and more inspired to caucus for stronger candidates that I support. I discovered, however, that I potentially need to choose these candidates before I even know them if I want to take part in supporting said candidate via caucuses or primaries, as both parties block you out of the process unless you register well in advance of the caucus or primary for a candidate who interests you.


I get more and more convinced of my decision to NOT tout either of these two party labels with every passing day. Did either party realize how dangerous opening the pandora's box of gerrymandering would be? Did they care?

Furthermore, doesn't either party have interest in pulling voters who don't already agree with them via label? Don't Republicans and Democrats practice political segregation and fear of the corrupted caucus or primary to their own demise? How hard could it be to send out a caucus voucher that allows each voter into one caucus per election season? Do we really fear political corruption and outsider inclusion over desiring political involvement which is severely lacking? In this current version of our two-party system, each party is only interested in you if they think you support them already.


With that in mind, I support this effort by the Democrats to fix something that needed fixing long ago. I'll admit though, that this is a lot like that Colin Kaepernick issue and the NFL. I find no sympathy for any losing team that is currently playing a QB worse than Kaep', even my own team. Gerrymandering (and hiring collusion too) has always been like dabbling with black magic; a curse you bring on yourself. 

Independence Must Be More Than Another Political Label

The recent book release announcement of former DNC chair, Donna Brazile, has ignited a firestorm of debate verging on a Civil war that the Republicans have to be enjoying, even if only for its diversion from their own problems. I, unlike Brazile, am no longer a registered Democrat but an Independent, which I realize is somewhat a joke even though I (independent voters) might be the reason Brazile wrote the book in the first place, not reliably voting Democrats.

If you are someone truly open to the notion of change in America, you realize that more of the same is unlikely to garner the change WE seek. Sure, we’ve accomplished much in our history as a nation, but seldom with a bi-partisan accord.  When the Senate voted 98-2 to sanction Trump and Putin for disrupting the sanctity of our overly partisan attempt at democracy, it felt like the beginning of change. Those two Senate hold-outs, however, must be confused about the seriousness of this moment, or maybe I am confused about the change.

An article about a poltical change in America is tough because our partisan reality typically means getting the other side to finally see how they are flawed as the change most of us seek. Afterall, who really wants to take another chance at trickle down economics?

People who have a reasonable excess of resources but want more, that’s who still believes in trickle down.

Conversely, hand-outs that barely keep poor people above water seem to drown more people than they teach to swim. The conservatives who read that last sentence applauded while the progressives frowned at the notion that our collected taxes can also be considered a handout.

My view is, who cares what you call it, it simply is not working well enough. No plan that lacked sufficient agreement at inception ever really does achieve its purpose in general perception or reality, which are invariably the same.

In other words, political change WE seek is never going to be achieved absent bi-partisan agreement because the other side will nitpick the bad to prove a point they already believed. Each of our perceptions becomes our collective bi-partisan political reality....facts be damned.

My knee-jerk reaction to the Brazile indictments against Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the DNC is to defend Brazile- who just so happens to be echoing criticisms I made long before she did, so take my view with that disclaimer in mind. Those currently defending Clinton have mostly done the same as me, which amounts to the challenge WE face in politics and society overall.

How do we achieve lasting change when we’ve made partisan decisions on what change looks like?

Brazile might be seemingly the starter of a fight, but reasonable people think that fight started with the progressive movement led by Bernie Sanders during the campaign and Brazile is simply pointing it out. This problem amongst progressives is much deeper than how we vote and what labels we allow ourselves to be connected with. In many ways, the intense effort for independence as voters- and people- has inspired the massive effort to toss each of us in a bucket whether we want to be there or not.

Search engines and website cookies leave crumbs of evidence about who we are and how we might vote even when we choose to not use our face on Facebook, or log into social media at all.

Today, simple GPS tracking can decide who we are, how we vote, purchase products and everything else. We have to turn ourselves off altogether to hide what we do because everything we do speaks- in part- to how we are likely to vote.

Unfortunately, whether we choose to carry party labels or not, our partisanship is predictable, even for those who think they don't care one way or the other. Our ability to challenge the GPS tracker of our lives and frequent the untracked street vendor versus the retail outlet that speaks to our tendencies is just as difficult as telling the people we support they are wrong and probably need to see things another way. Disrupting the grid and challenging our own orthodoxy are both needed practices for political and societal change.

Was Brazile declaring an intention to join Bernie or become an independent if the Democrats don’t figure things out? She says she considered Joe Biden, who wasn’t running, over Bernie who was as a replacement for a potential health stricken Hillary, so I doubt that Brazile's book is a threat of secession.

As for me?

I am not a Democrat. I’m THE Conservative Socialist who registers independently.I don’t care to be predictable to the unseen trackers in life or politics if I can help it because there is very little hope for change in that approach. I love street vendors and yet to be discovered entrepreneurs. I also hate political labels even though I realize my political voice labels me just as all of our thoughts, opinions, shared memes and websites visited tell a story we wish could remain unknown at times. 

          If change is what we seek, being a truly independent thinker and not just another predictable partisan can help, but it must involve real examination of issues including self-examinations and incriminations in the face of failures.

More of the same is unlikely to work.