I saw Bernie on Charlie Rose last night. As he always does, he made a strong case for his policies and programs that he believes would control Wall Street greed and uplift the working class, curb the police state, and inspire confidence in America around the world. All well and good, but by pleading with Trump to do the right thing, he's essentially declared the Democratic Party irrelevant.
Of course.
Democrats have been yielding power to the Rs for decades, truly since Reagan, but they weren't so savvy about wielding power after Nixon defeated Humphrey either. Nixon was practically a Communist compared to Trump, and the Republicans in Congress in Nixon's day weren't anything like today's radical reactionaries who call themselves Republicans. But Nixon's election signaled the end of the New Deal/Great Society coalition headed by Democrats and progressives, and the coming reversion to prior theories of what it was appropriate for government to do.
As things have devolved from that point, the Democratic Party has reverted more and more to its roots as an aristocratic and deeply conservative party not particularly intent on rule so much as it is on influence. Democrats have adopted populist and/or progressive positions periodically throughout the long history of the Party, but they've also been perfectly willing to throw them away.
During the most recent campaign for president, it appeared that Hillary was attempting to pull off something Democrats have long yearned for -- the union of the Democratic Party with top level Republican "moderates," those Republicans who had rejected Trump.
I think she thought she had achieved her objective, but lo and behold, she hadn't. The R "moderates" went right back to the fold once Trump was declared the victor. The power that Rs can wield by holding the White House and both houses of congress is truly intoxicating, They won't let this moment pass unexploited. Oh no.
Trump's apparent EC victory was stunning because it wasn't expected or planned for. The shock waves ran through the Ruling Clique, just as they did through the media and the public; it was in its own way an even greater shock than the Supreme Court's lawless interference in 2000 to give the presidency to GW and his bloodthirsty cohort. It makes no sense, and it is "illegitimate" from the get. Just as GW's elevation was. GW was forced upon an unwilling but also largely unresistant public and he caused the very horrors his opponents warned he would. Wars and economic collapse being the highlights -- or lowlights as the case may be.
Democrats, to their undying shame, did not serve as an opposition party but were instead enablers, co-conspirators, and willing victims. Even when they were given back Congress in 2006 they sat on their hands and essentially pretended that everything was OK, and Bush and Company would not be more than ritually challenged. For some, it was a shocking revelation: Democrats were useless.
And in 2008 when Obama was elected in a landslide and congress had a filibuster proof Democratic majority, guess what? Obama's prime objective was rehabilitating the Rs, resuscitating them from their near-death experience, and carrying on the Republican lite programs and policies the Ds had been notorious for since the victory-debacle of 2006.
To say the public was disappointed is to put it gently, and the Ds were given their punishment in 2010. The interesting thing to me is that the Ds didn't even try to reverse the trend. They essentially conceded state houses all over the country without a fight, knowing full well that by doing so, Republican gerrymandering would ensure R political dominance for at least ten years and possibly much longer than that. The Ds knew what would happen and they let it, if they didn't actually help engineer it.
They lost most of their Congressional majority as well.
As long as they had the White House, apparently the Ds didn't care. Of course the policies which essentially favored Rs, Wall Street, and the financial elites were enacted right and left (intentional pun) to the horror of many Americans who simply wanted fairness and justice from their government and got something else entirely. Disappointment? Ha.
Government obviously was totally out of the hands of the public, governing contrary to the public interest was the operating theory of both parties, and for all intents and purposes, there was no alternative. NeoLibCon capture was complete.
There was nothing We the Rabble could do about it. Elections in 2012, 2014 and now 2016 confirmed the People's powerlessness.
But this time, instead of the stability and continuity that would have been Hillary's direction in office, we get another shock to the system, equivalent to, maybe even greater than that of 2000, and literally nobody knows for sure where we go from here. I'm convinced that's designed and deliberate, not an accident of the voters' unexpected preference. I think the voters had very little to do with it. And it is obvious from Hillary's increasing, indeed unprecedented, lead in the popular vote (now up above 1,000,000 it seems and headed toward 2,000,000 maybe even 3,000,000 or more) that the voters chose stability and continuity -- even if they didn't like Hillary -- not whatever radical upheaval is in the works.
But it doesn't matter. What the voters want in any given election is of no interest or consequence to the Ruling Clique. They want what they want, and they will get it by hook or crook. The trouble is, until the outcome was announced, they obviously wanted stability and continuity, though not for the same reasons the public did.
So what happened?
Somebody or some faction which could do so pulled the plug.
Given the tiny margins in some of the battleground states that switched the outcome, and given the exit polls showing a substantial Hillary victory in those same states -- much like Gore's exit poll victory in Florida which was conveniently overruled -- it's pretty obvious that the count was interfered with (somehow) by a faction that wanted shock and destabilization rather than stability and continuity.
Crisis-opportunity, right?
Crisis=Opportunity.
We've been through this so many times, we should understand it by now. And we should have some way to counter it. But no.
Every time is like the first time. "Whut?!" And the cycle repeats over and over.
That is one of the ways Our Rulers keep their grip on power no matter the wishes of the public.
But it's a factional rulership, not a monolith, and the factions are constantly contending for the upper hand.
The fact that Hillary, Obama, and nearly all the Democratic hierarchy went along with the... odd... outcome without question and rank and file Democratic office holders are stunningly mute about it indicates to me -- having observed these things over the years and having had an inside view of DP operations for a while in California -- that the Dems really don't care, never did, and as far as they're concerned, it's no problem -- for them. In other words, they're useless and irrelevant as a political opposition, for they do not oppose; they enable.
Of course I and many others have known that for years, but seeing it so obviously presented in this case is still a shock.
But that's the intention.
Shock the public and get away with god knows what while they're fighting among themselves.
Works every time.
So far anyway. This time it may run into a few speed bumps, but what needs to happen are spike strips at least.
That can happen if the results in the battleground states are investigated thoroughly enough to discover the kind of jiggering I suspect went on. But I don't see that on any agenda. I don't think anybody wants to do it for fear of what they'll find. This is essentially complicity in fraud but that's hardly unusual in American politics and elections.
If it were discovered that the results actually were jiggered in Trump's favor just enough to clinch the EC, that would essentially cancel the election. The whole thing, the vote in its entirety would have to be reviewed (which wouldn't bother me) and the transition schedule would be thrown into chaos. What would be found would likely be appalling to everyone. One shock would follow another. Our Rulers would find that unacceptable because the whole system would shudder and potentially collapse. A crisis indeed, but one which the Wrong People could use as an Opportunity. The Wrong People being the Rabble.
The Rabble want fairness, justice, economic comfort/prosperity for themselves, and a sense of self-worth. Our Rulers do not want the Rabble to have those things because if they do, they can't be exploited to the extent they must be to please and pleasure their Betters.
What the Trump cabal appears to be preparing to do is to restore White Supremacy pretty much as it was in the 1950s and before, as a sop to some of the Rabble to make them think they're getting what they want while exploiting and robbing them to the hilt.
It's a nasty tactic, but it worked back in the day, so I suspect the Trumpists think it will work again. Why not?
The rest of the Rabble, the ones who will suffer the most under this scheme, "deserve their punishment" according to the principles of White Supremacy. They are inferior. Period. End of discussion. Some of them are Good Mexicans, Good Darkies and such, and so they can be rewarded, but the rest? They're lucky to be alive, they can bow down and shut up. Or leave. Or die. Their choice.
No, this isn't Nazi-ism or straight on Fascism. This is the way the US was ruled and operated from its origin until the mid Sixties and LBJ's Great Society when many of the disabilities imposed on Out Groups began to be removed.
The Trumpists want to restore America's Greatness by reverting to the white supremacist principles that they believe made America "great" in the first place.
Whether the Ruling Clique is down with that, I don't know. Some of the factions aren't, but some are.
The Democrats, in the end, though, will go along with whatever faction wins.
The Rabble can have a say, if they take the reins and force the issue, but in the meantime, the Trump cabal can get away with a lot of mischief while the issue of White Supremacy is serving to distract the masses.
Oh, these people know how to run cons all right, and they know most people are marks. Breaking free of this crap is what the People need to do. Whether they or we can, I dunno....
More later. I'm tired.
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