I want to urge activists to use caution in the post-Bernie stage of this election cycle. I’m a little worried about the tone the analyses have taken–not for Bernie, I’m worried for the activists. It is crucial to the health of the movement to be able to put things in their proper perspective, especially now. At this time the pundits are apparently just coming to terms with the fact that Bernie is out and they have to watch the smirking idiots in Washington calmly go on with their plans. I won’t deny it is disgusting to watch–one can’t help but think they should be more afraid than they are, and yet their so-called plans lurch determinedly on. If you think the job of government is to serve the people, it seems to go forward without rhyme or reason.
Still, it is not time to lash out. For one thing, it’s not over yet. I’m not implying that our dreams still might miraculously come true, although if the world makes any kind of sense at all they should come true. What I’m saying is that at this point we have no choice but to wait and hope. Rather than tear everything down, we should be using this time to reconnoitre.
We have learned some important facts during the course of these two campaigns. For example, we’ve seen that our people in Congress have a firm grip on the mechanism of government at every level–including the press which is not even supposed to be a branch of government–and they have no fear of repercussions.
My own analysis of Sanders’ campaign would go something like this: we could have used our time better in the interim between the two campaigns. I would also like to suggest that some of Bernie’s million volunteers were not really Bernie supporters. I believe that if our progressive pundits had volunteered by making calls and knocking on doors, they would have the same concern. Who were the volunteers who sabotaged the good volunteers you ask? Ask yourself what you would do if it was your job to keep Bernie out of the White House? Wouldn’t you sign up to volunteer so you could sabotage the attempts by real supporters trying to do their job? It would be so easy–you could be virtually anonymous. Finally, I would like to ask the pundits how they thought Bernie could win by being humiliated at the polls in all of the remaining states, which I believe would certainly have happened. If you didn’t see that coming after Iowa I’m not going to waste my time explaining it. Anyway, I’ve already written about it here.
To continue with my analysis, we jumped into this torrent in the middle of the river with no preparation. It wasn’t our fault. When I started talking about the 2016 presidential campaign, I had in mind the responsibility of citizens to pay attention to elections and to vote. The presidential election was on the horizon and it seemed like a good idea. The thing is, no one knew that Bernie would take the country by storm and that we would have to stand by while those devils took it from us. All I hoped back then is that his campaign would add a little sanity to the downward spiral of our republic.
I still think we have the responsibility to vote, but I clearly had some unrealistic expectations. I thought we could choose our candidates based on what we understood to be the most pressing needs of the nation. That would be our second lesson–we can’t. The election process, at least at the presidential level, is nothing more than a long, expensive spectacle. Oh, we still have free speech alright, but what does that do for us? It saves us from the punishment of cement overshoes for speaking our mind, which is a good thing, but unfortunately it lasts a lot longer than cement overshoes. At least with cement overshoes we’d be sleeping with the fishes, whereas elections never end. And no, this is not an invitation for Bernie’s former supporters to check out. We’re going to find a way to go on and this is how you do that–by calmly thinking it over. Well, maybe not so calmly in every case.
Now let’s turn our attention to these people who claim to be Democrats, but who have been treating us like poor relations at the reading of the will. Who exactly are these people against whom we’ve been sending our own personal gladiator, Bernie Sanders, to do battle? Where do they fit in the overall scheme of American history and world history? Let’s look at them first in the context of American history.
I won’t keep you in suspense. The explanation is too long and I’m afraid you’ll forget the question by the time I get to the answer. Our Democratic establishment is kin to the conservatives who defeated the liberal Republicans in the 1960s and 70s. How do I know this? Because the main issue that divided the Republican Party at that time was the New Deal. Of course now the Conservatives are all about social issues, while back in the sixties they used anti-Communism as a rallying point for bringing the GOP together, but they kept their animosity toward the American middle class. The liberal Republicans were in favor of the New Deal and the conservatives were against it. The Clintons have always been on board with this conservative focus.
We know that Hillary Clinton was a Young Republican and that she supported the great conservative hope, Barry Goldwater. Of course now she makes a joke of it but I’ve never heard her renounce his ideas, have you? You might be interested to know that her father used the same tactic. He ran for a local office as a Democrat, although he was a Republican, and then switched back to being a Republican. I only wish Hillary Clinton had the decency to switch back!
Fast forward to the Clinton administration. Bill Clinton did battle against the middle class on several fronts, the most egregious assault being NAFTA, but also including financial deregulation with the end of the Glass Steagall Act, and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Interesting isn’t it, that certain Democrats accuse others of not being Democrats when they are the ones who are not Democrats?
You might want to read about how the conservative Republicans took over the party. It’s explained in a book, Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the GOP by Marry C. Brennan. ((Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the GOP, the University of North Carolina Press, 1995))