If you lean left, the only presidential candidate who shares your values is Dr. Jill Stein. But she can’t win. The two major parties have left — sorry for the pun — you and your concerns high and dry.
Certainly, Donald Trump is not your man. Though he has recently made noises to the contrary, Trump has repeatedly argued that wages are too high and that America’s pathetically low minimum wage should remain at its present poverty level. He’s a fan of torture. Trump calls the police — the police! — “the most mistreated people” in America. The governing philosophy that best approximates his ideology is authoritarianism. His opposition to “free trade” and the Iraq War aren’t nearly enough to justify casting a vote for him.
Polls show Hillary Clinton heading toward the White House. But that prospect should make liberals shudder in horror. Like Trump, Hillary is an enemy of human rights and the struggle for equality and justice. But she’s worse than him in one important respect: she’ll send the Bernie Sanders wing of the party packing.
A right-wing Trump presidency would galvanize the Left. We saw that during the Nixon, Reagan and Bush Jr. years, which generated massive street protests. But DINOs (Democrats In Name Only) like Bill Clinton and Obama have the opposite effect. Satisfied that a Democrat is president, progressives tend to stay home, their criticisms muted to the point of nonexistence. Under Democratic presidents, outrageous acts of repression — like Obama’s brutal coordinated raids on the Occupy Wall Street movement — are received by liberals with little more than a mildly annoyed tweet. Look for the Left to be defanged under First Woman President/DINO Hillary Clinton.
Don’t vote for Trump. But don’t fall for the same identity politics crap that tricked progressives and liberals in 2008.
Obama made history as the first black president, but he didn’t share the liberal politics or values of most black Americans. On the issues that matter most, he turned out to be a right-winger: expanded old wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (he voted six times to fund the Iraq bloodshed), new wars in Libya and Syria and Yemen and Somalia, drones gone wild, and talk about mass deportations — no president has ever expelled more illegal immigrants than Obama.
Corporate media political observers say that progressive stalwarts Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders will influence cabinet picks and policy in a Hillary Clinton administration. But the tea leaves as well as her track record suggest that right-wing forces – particularly Wall Street and the war industry – will exert a much stronger gravitational pull.
Thanks to WikiLeaks, we know that top Hillary Clinton insiders consider Bernie Sanders to be a “doofus,” that she looks forward to an interventionist foreign policy, will continue to be highly secretive to the point that she would love to wage war covertly, and considers Wall Street bankers to be the most qualified people to write financial regulations.
Like her husband, she is likely to choose cabinet members who lean right. The one possible exception would echo Bill’s. Former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, a liberal, is being considered for the relatively minor post of secretary of labor, where Robert Reich famously languished without portfolio or influence before leaving in disgust after a few years. All the others are conservatives.
Pro-Hillary Democrats argue that Clinton might nominate big-time liberals to the Supreme Court. But the judges she has on her shortlist for SCOTUS vacancies are closer to the centrist wing of her party. Obviously she will nominate Democrats for seats where Donald Trump would nominate Republicans. But I wouldn’t look for a seismic shift there.
What liberal Democrats should worry more about than anything else is probably her current saber-rattling with Russia and its president Vladimir Putin. First, she’s challenging the Russians’ alliance with Syria and threatening to shoot down Russian planes.
She’s blaming Russia to deflect revelations about her machinations against Bernie Sanders. “We have 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks [like the WikiLeaks DNC and John Podesta hacks], these cyberattacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin, and they are designed to influence our election,” Hillary Clinton says. Why does she expect us to take government agencies at their word? After all, these are the same idiotic spooks who supposedly convinced her that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass distraction. No one has presented the slightest evidence, much less proof, that Russia was involved in the hacks.
It’s irresponsible and scary to accuse a nuclear-armed nation of wrongdoing without solid proof. People in the know say that her over-the-top rhetoric has convinced Kremlin officials that she plans to start a war with Russia.
Not smart.
It’s no secret that Hillary Clinton has always been a foreign policy hawk, a corporatist on domestic economic matters, and an incrementalist in general. (Personally, I don’t see how you can call for incremental changes on problems like poverty and unemployment and keep a straight face. Here’s 10% of a job!)
Problem is, she is all but certain to enter office under conditions that will magnify her conservative instincts. House Republicans will still be in a position to block anything ambitious. And it will be all but impossible for Clinton to claim a mandate in an election where the vast majority of voters were motivated by fear and contempt for Trump rather than affirmative support for her and her proposals.
So if you are a member of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, there’s only one thing to do after Election Day. Roll up your sleeves and start organizing protests — regardless of who wins.
(Ted Rall is author of “Trump: A Graphic Biography,” an examination of the life of the Republican presidential nominee in comics form. Please support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)
26 Comments.
Ted,
I’ll add one thing. CONFRONT.
When HRC starts a war? Mention it to all her supporters. “Gee, I wonder how many women this is gonna kill?”
When HRC signs another corporation-friendly bill into law? Mention it to all her supporters. “Gee, I wonder how many women this is gonna put into poverty.”
When HRC fails to repair Obamacare or simply start over with universal healthcare? “Gee. What kind of moron can’t implement a system that’s used with great success in every other first-world nation on Earth? I mean, golly, how dumb is HRC and her cabinet that they can’t just call up Canada and ask for a copy of their plan? Is it because HRC doesn’t understand computers? That was one of her defenses for that server, right? That she, tee-hee, didn’t really understand all this AOL stuff, right? Gee. I wonder how many women are going to suffer because of this?”
You get the idea. Hillary wanted this. She wanted it so badly that she did every dirty trick she could to get it. So let her have it.
I like to ask righties how many unbornded bebbe child persons have been killed to death when their mother-to-be is blown into hamburger by a “surgical strike.”
I’ll have to ask Killary’s Hillbots the same question. (“Killary’s Hillbots” – I just crack me up.)
The Clintonbots are vehemently attacking the Dilbert Blog. As the writer complains, they don’t stop at criticising his praise of Trump for saying exactly the right things to get nominated, they also criticise his comic strip.
And the Trumpists are just as bad, if not worse.
Secretary Clinton promised lots that she cannot possibly deliver, given that the patriotic Gerrymander will eat enough votes that a majority can (and probably will) vote for Democrats for the House, but it will stay Republican, and will block anything President Clinton tries to pass (except for her war resolutions against Syria and Russia).
Ultimately, I agree with Fred on Everything: http://fredoneverything.org/ready-ronald-mcdonald-or-lucretia-borgia-in-the-long-run-we-are-all-dead/
i.e., that this election is a contest between Ronald and Lucretia.
«What liberal Democrats should worry more about than anything else is probably her current saber-rattling with Russia and its president Vladimir Putin. First, she’s challenging the Russians’ alliance with Syria and threatening to shoot down Russian planes.» May I add «and anyone concerned about H sapiens sapiens making it through the next four years» to your noun phrase «liberal Democrats» above, Ted ? Here a link to a brief article from that dastardly Russian propaganda outlet, RT on the speechifying of one Chris Morell – who is expected to play a major foreign policy role in a HDRC administration – before a no doubt receptive audience at Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s «think tank», «Center för American Progress [sic !]»….
But of course, those nasty Russians are making this of the whole cloth – that sensible, pragmatic, incremental Ms Clinton, attuned as she is to the suffering that a major war would bring to women and children, would certainly never choose someone like Mr Morell as an advisor, now would she ?…
Henri
How many trillions of words have been expended on this presidential campaign? And yet here it ALL is in three…High and Dry.
Thanks, Mr. Rall.
One good thing about all this is that it does seem to be jelling the disconnect between pro-coporate-warhawk-Democrat-liberals (not to be redundant) and the real left. The absence of a strong left in this country is the basic problem with it.
«The absence of a strong left in this country [i e, the US] is the basic problem with it.» Indeed. And the electoral system is designed (some would say «rigged») to prevent the emergence of a «left» which could influence policy….
Henri
“… no president has ever expelled more illegal immigrants than Obama.” Are you sure they’re “immigrants”? A real-life “immigrant” is a person who has collaborated with the U.S. Government in order to produce an acceptable paper trail proving that person’s immigration status. The overwhelming majority of people BarryHO has kicked out of America are in fact UNDOCUMENTED border-crashers.
There may also be an obtuse minority of immigrants who violated their immigration contracts, and as a result, were also catapulted back across the border. You know, the felon, sex-crook variety of failed immigrant. But unless they’ve committed a significant crime, chances are, they still have their green card. But if they’re not even documented by the INS (or whatever alphabet initials being used today), how can you honestly characterize those captured and deported criminals as immigrants?
Ultimatey, THE ONLY entity authorized by the U.S. Constitution that may classify any foreign national as an “immigrant:” is the U.S. Government. So tell me, why does the government let border-crashers get away with labelling themselves as immigrants, especially when their very first act of “immigration” was trespassing across the U.S. border?
Just sayin’.
DanD
« So tell me, why does the government let border-crashers get away with labelling themselves as immigrants, especially when their very first act of “immigration” was trespassing across the U.S. border?»
Or, as a frequent poster to these threads puts it :
«Blind hate is the most essential ingredient in a “Divide-and-Conquer” culture»….
Henri
Henri ~
Is intolerance of culturally destructive criminal conduct = to “hate?”
So, if a foreign national has the chutzpa to invade our country without permission and live that less-discovered lie as a legal resident, in more dangerous times, they become perpetual fodder for any other crook to blackmail. “Look “Pablo/Mugambi/McDonald, just carry this package* for me across the border, put it a mailbox, and I won’t rat you (and your family) out to the immigration man …”.
So, in order to not perpetuate “hate,” your answer would be to simply reward an international trespasser’s criminal conduct by not severely punishing that invader for the high crime that he/she’s committed. You must be an “open-borders” type of selective bigot. The target of your bigotry is the law-abiding.
So, how does a governing elite use populations of criminal migrants to “divide-and-conquer?” Simple, those invading crooks are treated as if their un-vetted presents is as morally acceptable as the legal residency of their more law-abiding neighbors. After a while, people start wondering why any healthy migrant should attempt becoming a documented immigrant (who must first prove their value to the community they want to join) when you can simply wetback it in and then successfully play the economic refugee-card later?
After a while, a significant minority of the encompassing community becomes a marginal majority that wonders why anybody should even obey the law at all if it becomes too inconvenient. Ultimately, border-crashers are criminals who have been politically exempted from the full rule of law. Their unabated criminality eventually infects the greater body politic with a general cultural acceptance of criminal intent, and its profligate display.
Is this truly what you endorse?
*terror device
DanD
«Is intolerance of culturally destructive criminal conduct = to “hate?”» I suspect, DanD, that you answered your own question in the very act of asking it, thus rendering the rest of your lengthy diatribe superfluous. If your attitude to these later immigrants is not adequately encompassed by the term «blind hatred», then perhaps it should be complemented by «blind rage»….
Of course, there are indeed arguments for the need for stricter immigration controls – the coming of the Europeans to the Americas being a case in point….
Henri
Henri,
When the trespassers is allowed by the violated nation exactly how they are legally defined, any nation-hood of the infected population is dissolved. America doesn’t need better “immigration control,” it needs much more effective invasion interdiction. There is an irreconciIable difference between the two groups. I have no problem with “immigrants.” Immigrants (by applying and becoming immigrants) are law-abiding. On the other hand, criminal border crashers are just economic shock troopers.
You think it’s a “racist” thing with me … wrong. If Caucasian Canucks were similarly crashing the border with culturally destitute and economically impoverished welfare-depleting foot-soldiers, I’d say mow them motherfuckers down too.
Or have you already joined the borderless NWO?
DanD
«You think it’s a “racist” thing with me … wrong. If Caucasian Canucks were similarly crashing the border with culturally destitute and economically impoverished welfare-depleting foot-soldiers, I’d say mow them motherfuckers down too.» If you bother to check, «DanD», you will note that I have nowhere used the term «racist» in connexion with your posts ; rather I have confined myself to discussing the term «hate» which you used in one of your posts to a thread on this forum. Given the adjectivals and nouns you have chosen to employ in the two sentences I cite above, I submit that we here have a classic quod erat demonstrandum…. 😉
Henri
Okay Henri,
What are the other options? Tell me, do you “hate” criminals? Or do you just hate the crime … . Right now, over the last two months or so, tens-of-thousands of migrating economic shock troops are pouring over America’s southern border, mostly along the Rio Grand. So you tell me, who will be paying first for all this shit? At the bottom line, it will be America’s poor people first who feel the economic pinch of processing these vile invaders. I’m one of those poor white trash motherfuckers, and I’d prefer that my problems be addressed first.
Perpetually again, it’s another “divide-and-conquer” circumstance. Prospectively, if I decided to come up to your house, break in, and then claim squatter’s rights because I’m a (n economic) refugee, are you going to let me set camp up in the empty bed next to your daughter?
Or will you become all Baptist about it, say you love me as your default enemy, and then chop my ass down? Go ahead … try being an “illegal-immigrant” down in Mexico and see just how many testicles you may lose. The Mexican government doesn’t play with invaders … unless they’re enlisting in a Mexican agenda of economic warfare. If you’re Gringo, then you better have some fuckin’ cash.
Furthermore, the migrating hordes coming north KNOW that they’re being used by their own leaders as shock troops for an economic war agenda.
Tell me, just how much of your own comfortable lifestyle are you willing to surrender so that they (that being the poor, cute little cum-scum of those economic invaders) can be treated more humanely than you own government treats you and yours?
America is getting overrun by an international crowd of lawless invaders. But it’s okay with you that nobody has the balls to at least first check their IDs at the door before they come spreading their cultural and biological diseases?
DanD
> Tell me, do you “hate” criminals? Or do you just hate the crime .
That’s a specious argument – specifically false equivalence. Criminals do something to harm someone, simply walking across an imaginary line doesn’t even hurt you, despite all the whining you do about it. (also despite the fact that’s how your ancestors got here in the first place)
> Right now, over the last two months or so, tens-of-thousands of migrating economic shock troops are pouring over America’s southern border
And that’s just plain false. Your scary, scary, Mexican neighbors are going south much faster than their southern neighbors are moving north.
«America is getting overrun by an international crowd of lawless invaders.» Karma’s a bitch, «DanD» – but then again, you’ve probably forgotten about the US annexation of Texas and the following war on Mexico, in which that state lost half its territory….
My ability to sympathise with a United States that is, according to your claim, being «overrun by an international crowd of lawless invaders», is limited by the fact that that country maintains more than 800 military bases outside its own territory. Perhaps these forces could be better employed in watching empty beds next to sleeping daughters at home ?…
Henri
CH,
Here’s an update regarding the criminal invasion across America’s southern border ~
http://www.cnsnews.com/blog/eric-scheiner/surge-illegal-aliens-crossing-border-us-election
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2014/0606/Border-crisis-Why-the-surge-in-illegal-border-crossers-with-children-video
https://counterjihadreport.com/2016/09/15/soros-instigating-pre-election-surge-at-border/
Your perspective is outdated.
DanD
Hey, Henri,
I agree with you, America’s past of empire-expansion is morally reprehensible … but that’s not the point of my post. This is dominantly about “lesser-evil” balloting.
The prospect of empire will always fuck over somebody somewhere. How has the American Empire fucked you over so much that you seem to wish for its destruction by a “lowest-rent” populating, migrating invasion?
DanD
«… but that’s not the point of my post. This is dominantly about “lesser-evil” balloting.» Interesting comment, «DanD», not least because this seems to be the first instance in which you’ve even mentioned «lesser-evil balloting». My point was – and remains – that for a person who warns against «[b]lind hate», your posts seem to be full of it….
Henri
> that for a person who warns against «[b]lind hate», your posts seem to be full of it
To which he is quite obviously blind. It seems to a symptom of the disease that those who are infected are completely oblivious to the fact. They believe that it’s the rest of us who simply don’t comprehend the threat posed by The Other. Whereas the truth is that it is the haters themselves who are the problem.
Henri, CH;
Ad hominem responses are the refuge of people who have lost an argument. First off, I hate no one “blindly.” If I dislike a person, corporation, or circumstance, it is for specific reasons.
Lesser-evil voting is the only smartest method left for the average enfranchisee. There are no more Kennedys, or even an erstwhile Carter to raise ones hopes.
CH, you avoided the facts I presented. The invasion of America by the dregs of foreign invasion has increased tragically. Instead, you help Henri change the subject.
T-rumps agenda is personal and nationalistic. Kankles is global and corporatist. I’ll go with the severely flawed lesser-evil of the man in the Orange hair set.
DanD
«Ad hominem responses are the refuge of people who have lost an argument.» I fear that you don’t quite understand what would constitute an «[a]d hominem response», «DanD» – were I, in replying to you, to comment on your personal habits or sexual preferences, etc in an uncomplimentary manner, that might indeed comprise an argumentum ad hominem, i e, one that addresses the speaker/writer, not the issue at hand…..
I submit the adjectives you have chosen to use in referring to certain immigrants to the United States who have crossed into that country without, so to speak, benefit of clergy suffice to show that your attitude to them is one of hate and moreover, a hatred that is blind. You could have made the argument that you did not want those people in your country and enumerated the reasons for your position without resorting to denigrating their persons ; the fact that you did not choose to do so indicates that either you felt your argument to be inherently weak or that you lacked the ability to present it in an effective manner or both…..
Henri
«Like Trump, Hillary is an enemy of human rights and the struggle for equality and justice.» I wonder if you are not being a tad unfair to Ms Clinton here, Ted ; after all, she is certainly a great proponent of «human rights» in those cases in which purported violations of same can conveniently be utilised as an excuse to bomb some country or other of which she disapproves. Consider, e g, the current situation in the eastern districts of the Syrian city of Aleppo as a case in point….
Henri
trespassers ARE … edit-flaw
So didja see that the FIB has released more info about Hillary’s emails? Suspicious timing … no? This, in violation of their long-standing rule about not interfering with elections (at least not out in public where they might get seen.)
I would just like to point out that this plays right into my paranoid fantasy about how TPTB were going to A) conspire to get Hillary nominated. and B) torpedo her at the last minute so the Christie or Bush would take the prize. But TPTB didn’t think they’d be dealing with The Donald any more than any other rational person did.
Evidently, Comey didn’t get the memo about the change in plans and he just continued on with the original script.
«So didja see that the FIB has released more info about Hillary’s emails? Suspicious timing … no?» CrazyH, was it not suspicious when Mr Comey decided not to recommend that MS Clinton be prosecuted despite her «and her colleagues» having been, in his words, «extremely careless» ? Was that not to «interfere in the election» ?…
As I understand it, Mr Comey’s letter to the US House of Representatives was motivated by the need to apprise the Congress of new information regarding the investigation, which he had earlier testified had been completed….
In any event, it seems likely that Mr Comey will be looking for a new job after the 20 January 2017 – on the other hand, given the generosity of unemployment benefits in the US, he probably won’t be hurting….
Henri