Category Archives: electoral politics

Election 2016: Looking Past July from May

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Democrats for Trump (after July) = Hillary Clinton voters (before July).

The American electorate wants an independent and outsider as the next President.

Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are the only major independents and outsiders now in the race.

Between the two major independent outsiders, the electorate substantially prefers Bernie Sanders.

Hillary Clinton’s popularity is in steady decline, at present (in May) being slightly above Trump’s.

If the only major independent outsider available in November is Trump, he will win the presidency.

The fight for the Democratic Party nomination is a struggle between:
– the corrupt and parasitic careerism of a privileged few (Hillary Clinton people), against
– a national renewal for the common good, desired by the many (Bernie Sanders people).

Trump’s supporters are motivated by anger at the neoliberal establishment for impoverishing them, but they partly misdirect that anger to scapegoated minorities.

Hillary’s timorous simple-minded supporters are motivated by a desire to experience power and public glory vicariously, without any loss of their material comforts.

Hillary’s powerful patrons are motivated to maintain control of the government, to ensure continuation of their neoliberal establishment.

Bernie’s supporters are motivated by anger at the neoliberal establishment, and by a desire to actually experience an ecstasy of revolutionary national renewal, in solidarity.

National unity is not in the interests of Hillary’s ambitions: she preaches “lower expectations,” willfully alienates Bernie Sanders people, and has long been bought by the neoliberal establishment to prosecute their class war.

National unity is out of Trump’s reach: he gains the support of the ignorant portion of the white working class by misdirecting their anger to scapegoated minorities.

Bernie Sanders has achieved national unity, which is opposed by the neoliberal establishment, its young careerists, and its older, timorous, comfortably simple-minded flunkies.

The selfish ambitions of careerist mediocrities finds its greatest resonance in Hillary Clinton’s invertebrate character of blatant corruption, blithe incompetence and wily mendacity.

The hunger for the power to be able to bully without personal hazard, which great wealth can pay for, finds its paragon in Donald Trump.

The yearning for living immersed in a society of peace, freedom and compassion, finds its political focus in the campaign and person of Bernie Sanders.

Some of us will get what we deserve, and some of us won’t.

Voter Matrix 2016

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VOTER MATRIX

Political types:

anti-establishment = populist = democratic
establishment = oligarchy = undemocratic

Candidate types:

Trump = anti-establishment bigotry,
Clinton = establishment corruption,
Sanders = anti-establishment socialism.

Voter types:

Clinton (from most to least):
– selfish non-thinking brand-loyal D-voters,
– careerist D-party members (insiders and wannabe insiders),
– establishment capitalists,
– crossover R-voters repelled by Trump.

Trump (from most to least):
– proletarian white non-thinkers,
– brand-loyal R-voters (subset of above),
– maverick establishment capitalists,
– elite careerist R-party members (insiders).

Sanders (from most to least):
– proletarians under 45 years of age (most of the USA),
– petite & moyenne bourgeois (“middle class”) socialists,
– grande bourgeois (“rich”) socialists.

Queen Hillary Faces the California Primary

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Queen Hillary Faces the California Primary:
Mirror, Mirror on the wall,
Who’ll be President of them all?
It must be me, I say it must!
For who but Hillary can Wall Street trust?
You must rig all those voting machines
To prevent democracy from going to extremes.
For I must guide, control and shape it
With greater wisdom than any voters’ edict.
I’ve got the spinsters all, and childless biddies,
And the scared suburban mommies with all their kiddies.
Thank God for those old trusting Blacks,
With Scarlett O’Hara’s luck, they have my back.
On their sacrifices I can always call,
So endearing seeing them on their swords fall.
It’s great to know I have my people
Ready to stay behind and raise my steeple.
For I am a Goddess and this is my Church,
To lead an American incremental rightward lurch.
Hail!, hail!, obey and revere!,
For I am Hillary and this is my year!
But that white-haired man is such a problem,
Waking up the nation to all the swag I’ve been grabbin’.
And how annoying those damned Millennials
Who can’t see past their fairness ideals,
Who think being shackled to their school debts
Gives them excuse to question Wall Street’s bets.
Why don’t they just join the military?
I’ll see they get enough comes time for them to bury.
If only they could see obeying me
Will let then share in my glorious history.
The first American woman President
Able to make privatizing Social Security permanent.
Honestly, with America I’m so disgusted
That I’m not more widely loved and trusted.
Trump’s a fool, I’ll beat him, I hope,
Or else America is really on dope.
Trump’s a sexist, but Bernie’s worse
Convincing young women pay imbalance he’ll reverse.
The majority commits Lèse-majesté
Against their natural given leader: Hillary!
Mirror, Mirror on the wall,
Who’ll be President of them all?
Tell me now and tell me quick
Or I’ll hit you with my girl-flogging Billy stick!
Tell me now and tell me right
Or my hissy fit will be a dreadful fright!
And the Mirror replied:
Oh great Queen!, on June 7 you’ll receive my answer,
Whether for America it’s bright future or disaster.

Caucusing for Bernie in Oakland, California

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I live in the 13th Congressional District of California, which includes the cities of: Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland, Piedmont, and San Leandro. Barbara Lee (D) is currently our US congressional representative (who won 86.8% of the 288,582 votes cast in the 2012 election for her House seat). Today (1 May 2016), I participated in a Democratic Party caucus to select the prospective delegates pledged to Bernie Sanders, for the party convention in Philadelphia on 25-28 July 2016. Let me tell you about this caucus.

The Democratic Party primary election in California will occur on June 7. That election is one of a series of similar state-wide contests from which the party’s two remaining presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, hope to accumulate sufficient support (formally from within the party, but also from the general public) to become the party’s nominee for the national election in November. Only Californians registered as members of the Democratic Party (and registered independents who request a Democratic Party ballot) can vote in that party’s primary election on June 7. Clinton and Sanders will each win a number of delegates from each congressional district, on a proportional basis of the primary votes they win within each district.

In our 13th district, a minimum gain of 15% of the primary vote is required in order to be awarded one delegate. A total of 9 delegates have been allocated to the 13th district. So, in anticipation of the results on June 7, both the Clinton and Sanders campaigns have to select nine individuals, each, who can act as pledged delegates for them (respectively) at the national convention in July. That process occurred today as two caucuses (at different locations!). I caucused with the “Berners” at the ILWU Auditorium (International Longshoremen and Warehouse Union) in Oakland.

A prospective delegate for any district must be a registered Democrat residing within that district, who chooses to sign up (by a specific date) to run in the delegate elections. There were 115 Bernie enthusiasts signed up to run for the 9 slots of potential delegates from the 13th district. Among this group of delegate hopefuls were some of the most hardworking activists, canvassers, phone-bankers, petition-carriers and volunteers dedicated to the Bernie Sanders campaign. A total of 618 people signed in as attendees to this caucus, and a total of 608 ballots were eventually tallied.

The doors of the union hall had opened at 2 PM, and were closed to further entry at 3:15 PM. The convener of the caucus then explained the rules (both by state law and by Democratic Party regulation), so that by 3:30 PM the delegate candidates could each give short speeches (if they wished), which continued till 4 PM when the attendees were left to complete their ballots. By 4:30 PM, the ballots had been collected and the twenty volunteers assisting the convener began tallying the results.

Even with the numerous dropouts from today’s election for Bernie delegates, and the number of such candidates still running but who chose not to speak, there was still a very large contingent of speakers (about 60). By party rules, speeches by candidate delegates are limited to 30 seconds (strictly timed) in any delegate election with more than 20 candidates. It was quite a show.

Some attendees looked for strong speakers, who could hold their own in debates with Bernie’s opponents at the convention (and Hillary trolls generally). Others looked for less-confrontational speakers who were nevertheless articulate and persistent, who they thought might be able to persuade others into joining the revolution: like super-delegates (professional politicians looking out for #1) thinking about their political futures given the national preference for Bernie over Trump, and Hillary’s potentially fatal weakness in this regard. The candidate pool was evenly spilt between men and women.

I, along with many others, had arrived by 2 PM and had mixed and mingled and spoken with candidate delegates, had made my choices, marked my ballot (circling the names of 1 to 9 choices), and then inserted it into the taped cardboard ballot box. I chose people who had a history of union and progressive activism, had done a great deal of legwork for the Sanders campaign for many months, and who were diehard “Bernie or Bust” people. I thought they deserved the opportunity to carry the revolution to the national convention in Philadelphia, and to try to convert super-delegates (and not yet brain-dead Hillary delegates) into Bernie delegates. There were really no bad choices, since all the delegate hopefuls are committed to Bernie’s (and our) platform.

The nine delegates from the 13th district who will actually go to the national convention will be selected from the pool of Bernie’s nine and Hillary’s nine, by proportional representation based on the results of the June 7 primary.

The 13th’s nine (a delegation undoubtedly split between Bernie and Hillary supporters) will travel to Long Beach for a meeting of the state Democratic Party (June 17-19). There, the 317 district level delegates (for all of California) will participate in ratifying: 105 at-large delegates, 10 at-large alternates, and 53 party leaders and elected officials. All of these elected delegates, alternates and committee members, together with 71 un-pledged delegates (a.k.a “super-delegates,” who are California DNC members and members of Congress) will make up California’s delegation to the national convention: 546 delegates, 40 alternates and 51 committee members. Being initially a delegate-candidate and then an elected delegate can be quite a commitment both in time and personal expense. However, succeeding at becoming a delegate to the national convention can also be a very significant step toward initiating a political career.

At the national convention, the state’s elected delegates are required to vote for the presidential candidate they were pledged to at their district election. But this is only true for the first ballot cast at the national convention to determine the party’s nominee. In the case of a brokered convention, which can occur when there are multiple presidential candidates and none has won a clear (specified) majority through the primary process (as once seemed possible for the Republicans); or when two presidential candidates are closely matched in pledged (elected) delegates but there exists uncertainty and flux among the un-pledged (super) delegates (as possible for the Democrats); delegates are formally released from their pledges for subsequent ballots. In other words, back-room deals can be made (in what used to be smoke-filled rooms).

What everyone in our 13th district caucus wanted, and every prospective Bernie delegate promised, was for delegates who would always vote for Bernie in every ballot cast at the national convention. Most of these 13th district prospective delegates are also pure Bernie-or-Bust voters (like me), committed to never voting for Hillary ever (including in November).

It was very satisfying to be in an auditorium filled with people who share my socio-economic and political enthusiasms. Politically, most of the time I feel like a human on the Planet Of The Apes. I think that opposition to Bernie is of the same type as that to acknowledging climate change, it is a reluctance to relinquish selfishness.

Some of my favorite candidate-delegate personalities at the 13th district Berners’ event included: members of the California Nurses Association (fiercely compassionate, dedicated and organized); a longshoreman member of the ILWU (a past president of the local, and veteran organizer, negotiator, and strike leader); a founding member of the union of technical and health-care professionals and skilled trades employees at the University of California; an electronic musician working single mother and African-American (a good speaker and a presentable candidate, but sadly the only African American I noticed there); a democratic socialist Latina who leads a project to produce “people of color” murals related to the Sanders campaign; an arts management person (a person like the 19th century Theo van Gogh, enabling art by finding funding and other support for the flakey creative types) who emerged from a politically conservative (Trump-like) rural setting; and numerous young and middle-aged professionals (lawyers, teachers, computer types).

Today’s delegate election was the closest I have ever come to experiencing democracy-in-action of a type that would have been familiar to Pericles. The spirit of the 13th district Bernie event was one of shared vision: a democratic socialist “national union.” Today, I shared this vision on a face-to-face personal basis with a series of very varied individuals present in one gathering, instead of as an isolated abstract intellectual exercise with virtual connections through cyberspace to unseen and unknown humans.

If you live in California and you “feel the bern,” then note these imminent voting deadlines:

May 9, primary election vote-by-mail ballots are sent out (to current stay-at-home voters).

May 23, voter registration deadline; you must be a registered Democrat or No Party Preferred (NPP) to vote for Bernie on June 7.

May 31, deadline to request a Democratic ballot for NPP and vote-by-mail people.

June 7, the California Democratic Party primary election.

Albert Camus: “I rebel, therefore we exist.”

Voting in 2016: Compassionate Pragmatism Versus Ideology

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The following is a modified version of comments I posted on Louis Proyect’s website (blog), “The Unrepentant Marxist,” where I was arguing against the Marxists’ idea of: not voting for Bernie Sanders (or anybody), on the principle of not supporting the capitalist electoral system because doing so would drain away activist energy that should instead go into forming an “authentic” socialist revolutionary movement. Proyect himself is a lively intellect, an amazing researcher and scholar, and a prolific author who frequently publishes penetrating insights about politics and culture. We both used to write essays for Swans.com (between 2003 to 2013, for me). Here are those comments (from 18 April 2016):

I had the unfortunate experience in 1968 of being called by the draft for induction into the US military during the height of the Tet Offensive (Vietnam War). My initial draft deferment was soon revoked because I was confused with some other New York Puerto Rican, who had flunked out of school (I was on the Dean’s list). This error could not be changed because “once we start the process we just keep going” (how the Draft Board explained it to me on the phone).

I was 1A (classified as ready for immediate use), holding out on month-to-month appeals (you were allowed a hearing, and there was a big backlog!) until the draft lottery of December 1969 gifted me with a very high number (they drafted people whose birthdays fell into the first 200+ picked out of a big jug, as in bingo; my birthday was in the 360s). And so, like a small-fry catch-and-release trout, I was tossed back into the wild.

I have never had illusions about Democrats or Republicans or anyone else. My point about voting (one way or the other, or even not at all) is very simple: I believe in pragmatic action, “people over ideas,” especially given unusually favorable opportunities like the wildly popular Bernie Sanders campaign (a rarity). I believe in being pragmatic instead of hewing to an inflexible ideology, which is basically a fundamentalist religion, “ideas over people.”

Here is one example of what I mean. When Louis Proyect — the “Unrepentant Marxist” — allowed himself to be moved by his heart, instead of his supposedly rigid anti-US-imperialism Western-leftist comfort-zone isolationist “intellect,” and “ideology,” over the imminent (and subsequently thwarted at the last minute by NATO intervention) Benghazi massacre by Gaddafi (in March 2011 during the Libyan Civil War), and also over the continuing war and atrocities by Assad against the majority of Syrians who don’t want Assad as their dictator, he (Louis) was pilloried by many of his Marxist colleagues because he broke ranks with the ideology (anti-interventionism regardless of circumstances). He had blasphemed against the word-as-law, really “the word” as secular god. I have unbounded admiration for Louis because of this display of compassion, which causes him now to have so many rhetorical and semantic difficulties (on his blog) in doing the verbal origami necessary to fashion a “logical” argument for these stands being correct and direct conclusions based on the ideology supposedly shared by the Marxist (argumentative and disunited) community he has been a lifelong activist and author in.

By the way, the argument I am giving here is the central moral principle of Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn (“a book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision, and conscience suffers defeat”). So, if you can view voting as a tactic (even if perhaps often trivial) rather than a Holy Sacrament or a potential Mortal Sin, and you can feel solidarity with most of the people (the actual people, even though I personally don’t like most people) who have awakened to Bernie Sanders’ message, then given a sound heart you easily chuck “the word” and vote to help make this magnificent (and never-to-be perfect) revolution succeed, because it is both a once-in-a(my)-lifetime opportunity, and it is BIG and REAL.

Are you really going to suffer by “going against your principles” in this situation? Is the question of voting “all about me” regardless, even over participating in a genuine popular movement to overturn much of the enslavement and corruption imposed on us today? Do you realize what a real revolution $15/hour nationally, and Medicare-for-all, and socialized public college would be for perhaps 100,000,000 Americans today?

Instead of waiting for the perfect revolution to drop into you laps sometime in the future (never, basically), don’t you think you would have much more influence in organizing for that grander revolution from within the movement that has captured popular enthusiasm today: the Sanders revolution? And we all know that Bernie is just the current flag-bearer of this revolution, we may need to find new personifications of it after July, or November. It is clear Bernie knows this too.

What makes Bernie run?: he has 7 grandchildren, he cares about their futures, which is NOW. What makes me spend this time writing to you?, I have three children and am far more concerned about their futures (which is NOW) than about the purity of my ideological allegiances and cohesiveness of my intellectual constructs: people over ideas.

The ideas (and “faiths”) are useful to give you a sense of direction, and sharpen your awareness and remind you of compassion, but the realities of your life and the currents and incidents of the history (and chaos) you live through should be the actual forces you dance with to produce your actions. It’s all very simple: is it about me, or is it about us? “I rebel, therefore we exist.”

Democratic Party Unity Without Bernie?

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MG,Jr. response to Robert Reich

Robert Reich (2 posts on his Facebook web-page, 15 April 2016):

(#1) Bernie Sanders’s candidacy is not really about Bernie. It’s about a movement to reclaim our economy and democracy from the moneyed interests that have a choke hold on it. Bernie is the voice of that movement — which gives his candidacy purpose and urgency. Hillary Clinton’s fundamental handicap is that her candidacy is about her. She is not leading a movement. Which leaves her candidacy with only one real purpose — to elect her. And in many people’s minds, at least at this point, that purpose doesn’t feel particularly urgent. What do you think?

(#2) I thought tonight’s debate (14 April 2016, NYC) between Bernie and Hillary Clinton was too belligerent on both sides. It’s understandable that both candidates would feel pressure to be more combative, but I worry that if this keeps up it will be harder for either’s supporters to enthusiastically unite behind the opponent as nominee just 90 days from now — when unity and enthusiasm will be essential in order to overcome a far greater Republican menace. What do you think?

MG,Jr. (a combined response, posted to #2):

Bernie or Bust. I’m done with being lesser-evilled into voting for corporate corruption as government.

HRC is a Republican to the right of Eisenhower disguised as a Democrat, and the DNC-controlled Democratic Party is just a name brand that long ago abandoned its once-core FDR principles. I haven’t.

As to DNC’s bogeyman of the “Republican menace,” let the DNC reap what it sowed for sabotaging Bernie every step of the way. They don’t care about the country, only about maintaining their positions getting slopped by the Big Money, and that would continue under President Trump (or Cruz, or Kasich) but not under President Bernie.

To HRC cultists, your denial of reality is purely selfish halo-polishing: if HRC is elected you will never notice (and take responsibility for) the damage she does, just as GWBush voters have never noticed his.

If the DNC & HRC cultists succeed in stopping our revolution with Bernie (this time), and demand we choose HRC’s smooth management of continuing corruption over Trump (or whoever’s) unleashing of chaos, then I abstain, and I accept that chaos may be what the country needs before it can wake up to reform and renewal. I will vote for any Democrat on my ballot only if they endorsed Bernie.

“I’d rather vote for what I want and not get it, than vote for what I don’t want and get it.”

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Why Vote for Hillary?

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What motivates people to vote for Hillary Clinton? I think such voters are seeking one or several of the following:

1, financial advantage,

2, aggrandizement of one’s self-image (of personal character),

3, power by association to counter a sense of weakness,

4, validation by association to justify a sense of entitlement.

Financial Advantage

The Wall Street financiers and other Big Money capitalists who are funding Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and pumping money into the Clinton Family Foundation, are making the very logical choice to vote for her because she is their best hope for a continuation of the present corrupt system of payoffs to American politicians (Citizens United style “campaign financing”).

That system, of Big Business control and ownership of the U.S. Government, ensures Big Money’s freedom to continue stealing from the public by:

– manipulating the national economy (evading regulatory oversight and taxes, getting “too big to fail” public bailouts for gambling losses),

– grossly exploiting workers (domestic and foreign),

– violating Earth’s climate and environment (with extractive industries and chemical-GMO agri-monocultures),

– and subverting foreign governments and launching wars (to “open markets”).

Financial advantage is the only logically justifiable reason to vote for Hillary Clinton, and also the only essentially criminal one (“Behind every great fortune is a great crime” – Balzac). Most of Hillary’s voters do not have the financial wherewithal to justify their support with this clear-eyed logic, theirs are emotional choices, as follows.

Aggrandizement of One’s Self-Image

Many of Hillary’s voters are entranced with their self-image of rising to the occasion of helping to make a historic advance by voting for the first American woman elected to the US presidency. The bragging rights and emotional uplift to be gained from this supersedes any other consideration, Hitler-in-skirts could get elected by these people. It is useless to talk logic and facts with such cultists, theirs is an ecstatic blindness to all of Hillary’s failings and the negative potentialities if she gains power.

The more rational among this segment of Hillary’s voters can be lower-level functionaries in the Democratic Party and organizations allied with it, who seek promotion within their organizational and corporate structures. These are “company men” and “company women” who want to feel good about their subservient ambitions, timid joiners who value their acceptance by the DNC-Tammany Hall herd, and need to go along to get along and maybe get ahead.

Power by Association, to Counter a Sense of Weakness

Many women who have been wronged by faithless men feel an instinctive bond with Hillary Clinton (Bill Clinton is a masher). They want to see a reflection of themselves raised to a position of great power, and their vote for Hillary is a subconscious act of vengeance on their male persecutors.

These are votes motivated by a sense of weakness seeking power, and respect, by association. Such women are viewing the election through the lens of their own wounded emotions, and fearfulness, and this exclusive self-focus blinds them to any logical consideration of the benefits to their own children’s futures with a Bernie Sanders presidency.

Validation by Association, to Justify a Sense of Entitlement

There are many happily situated American women who are enthused to vote for Hillary Clinton because they also want a reflection of themselves raised to a position of great power. In this case the reflection is of spoiled brats with an overweening sense of entitlement. Hillary’s ascension to the presidency would give such women validation-by-association that their social and economic privileges are “deserved.”

“It’s all about me.”

The unifying principle between the four archetypes of Hillary Clinton voter described here is this: “It’s all about me.” Hillary Clinton is clearly a paragon of this principle, and it is easy to see why others who share it — whether cynically avaricious, pathetically halo-polishing, pitifully acting out, or vainly self-absorbed — would gravitate into her black hole of political careerism.

About Trump’s 1998 Quote

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Trump 1998

[This is not an actual Trump quote, but someone’s characterization of Trump-speak. Still, I think my response remains a valid explanation of Trump’s popularity with his supporters.]

MG,Jr. (on Trump 1998, see picture): Probably 1/3 of the people voting for him think precisely the same thing.

Ella Garcia (on above comment): That doesn’t make sense. Are you saying there are Democrats that are voting for Trump?

MG,Jr response:

There are blue collar (craft & trade laborers, and non-professional workers, non-college types) and rural workers (wage earners [poorer], rather than dividend-earning [richer] investors), who can be:

1, anti-immigrant because they fear labor competition (that lowers wages offered for jobs that become harder to get), and

2, racially bigoted (which is often how poor people convince themselves they are intrinsically superior, and “deserving”),

3, who can also be religious (Christian) fundamentalists, and so also

4, often sexist (women are 2nd class people and need to be controlled by men, so abortion is “immoral,” and “murder” punishable by government)

who are ALWAYS suckered to vote for the Republican Party, which is controlled by very savvy college-educated Big Business/Wall Street types (bankers, financiers, defense industry executives, major media owners), who play on the fears and biases of these “hicks” and “rubes” and “white trash,” (which is how these Republican Party insiders think of their “voter base”) to get their Big Business-owned candidates elected (like Ronald Reagan [1981-1988], George H. W. Bush [1989-1992], George W. Bush from 2001-2008).

These “populist” Republican Party voters have been called the “Tea Party” in recent years, and they have come to HATE the rich snobs who play them for votes (for Republicans), and then never work to make an economy that provides them with decent jobs. Also, the Tea Party people HATE the rich/corporate R.P. snobs for never following through on any of the “punishments” the Tea Party people want to see inflicted on the “inferior” and “threatening” people Tea Partiers want to be “protected” and “distanced” from, and who “should” be prevented from competing with them economically (in the labor market): blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, “uppity” women.

The smarter and/or more thoughtful of these Tea Party Republicans (right-wing populists) want to up-end the Republican Party, and that is why they are so enthused about Donald Trump: someone who spouts their views and is NOT owned and controlled by the Big Business “East Coast Establishment” that has owned the Republican Party since the Civil War [since Abraham Lincoln, from 1859].

In that 1998 quote, “Donald Trump” said aloud what the Republican Party Establishment thinks but does not say aloud (to not anger “the base” and then have a mutiny), and many in that base now know this, and are voting for Trump PRECISELY because he is what the Republican Party Establishment DOES NOT WANT. Hillary Clinton is the most favorable (and widely popular) candidate today for the interests of the Big Business establishment (whether under the “Democratic” or “Republican” labels). So, right-wing populist Tea Party “disrupters” are voting for Trump to vote AGAINST the continued control of the Republican Party by the Big Business interests.

This is quite similar to Bernie Sanders’ voters, who are supporting Bernie (and hating Hillary) because they want to wrest control of the Democratic Party from the Big Business interests (called the Democratic National Council = DNC, a Big Business-financed party-control group founded by Bill and Hillary Clinton).

So, YES, there are plenty of grassroots Republicans who are voting for Trump because HE IS NOT A HYPOCRITE; he has “outed” the R.P. establishment (by saying aloud what they think in secret but deny publicly), which demonstrates he is not controlled by them, and that is a rebellion that the populist Tea Party people are excited to join.

What the candidates represent are the following:

Donald Trump — bigots in rebellion against control and exploitation of the (“superior” and “deserving”) working people, by Big Business (i.e., the East Coast Republican Party establishment);

Hillary Clinton — Big Business in a fool-and-control-the-public campaign to maintain the corrupt system they now have (of payoffs to politicians) for freedom to manipulate the national economy for their benefit (e.g., shamelessly exploiting labor), by ownership/control of the government;

Bernie Sanders — an inclusive (non-bigoted) rebellion against control and exploitation of all the people, by Big Business (i.e., the DNC/Wall Street establishment in the Democratic Party, as well as the long-standing Big Business establishment in the Republican Party).

When Bernie Sanders said that the national election he is hoping for is between him and Donald Trump, he meant that such an election would be the result of the first part of his revolution having occurred: the Big Business controllers of BOTH the Democratic and Republican parties would have lost the the allegiance of the people (the majority). In that case, the national election (between Sanders and Trump) would be a contest to determine what kind of populist administration we would inaugurate in 2017: Trump’s right-wing nationalism (like early Mussolini, with some crudeness similar to that of Berlusconi), or Sanders’ all-inclusive democratic socialism (like the best of European systems).

Bernie versus the Leftist Halo-Polishers and Clinton Vanity Queens

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These comments were written after reading articles (on Counterpunch and Facebook, 26-30 March 2016) by sanctimonious leftist “anti-imperialists” (Paul Street and Eric Draister, in particular), complaining about Bernie Sanders, who they see as not being a “real” socialist, and of ‘certainly’ being another pro-US military imperialist and pro-drone War On Terror adherent.

These writers find the many enthusiasts for Bernie Sanders to be naive and simplistic for being distracted from organizing “real” and “authentic” anti-war and social justice movements, by the excitement and drama of the Bernie Sanders campaign and by their participation in American electoral politics in general. Presumably, those yet-to-occur authentic socialist anti-war movements would recognize the authors of these articles as essential mentors and leaders of those virtual movements of higher vision for the greater good.

On the other hand, maybe these snobbish blowhards, enamored with the loftiness of their visions, the superiority of their acumen, and the goodness of their secular holiness, missed what is obvious to millions: the Bernie Sanders campaign is the authentic mass movement in America for social justice, and against war and imperialism.

Empire abroad has its domestic reflection in colonialism at home. Democratic socialism at home has it projection abroad as a more diplomatic and internationalist-collaborative foreign policy. No political leader, including Bernie Sanders, is “perfect.” The issue here is to recognize reality, and to take advantage of a historic opportunity in the here-and-now of our imperfect country in an imperfect world, to make some tangible changes in the near future for the better, for the real lives of real people (millions, perhaps billions of them). “In a land without sheep, a goat is a prized possession.”

Nitpicking the color scheme and appointments of a lifeboat plucking you out of the ocean after a shipwreck, or of a firetruck arriving to hose down your house that has burst into flames, or of Bernie Sanders’ misalignments with your personal vision of a worthier “foreign policy” despite the current reality of US foreign policy (of a Clinton-Kissinger and Obama-Reagan variety) is definitely the symptom of a self-righteous snobbish elitist sense of entitlement: “I am holier than thou (y’all simple-minded clods) because I am the most refined gourmand of utopian political philosophies, and I polish my halo and pedestal thus (as I shall school you in my erudite sermon of complaint).”

This nation has too damn many spoiled brat privileged white boys and girls, from the over-educated under-achieving, self-important anti-imperialist internet leftists who can’t bring themselves to vote for an “imperialist” Bernie Sanders, and who don’t have any concept of what a minimum wage raised to $15 an hour means to tens of millions, or of what a revolution that would represent in this country. Also, we have too many self-absorbed high-earning white female “feminists,” who want to safeguard their “right to choose” but don’t particularly care if their daycare nannies earn less than $15 an hour (minimum wage in South Carolina is $7.75/hr., unlicensed daycare workers get “whatever”) or gain socialized healthcare. They have to vote for Hillary Clinton, regardless of the consequences, because Hillary is just like them: vapid and entitled.

Realistic revolutionaries take the favorable opportunities that history may surprisingly offer them at a propitious moment — with gratitude (easily felt if you have a family or cultural memory of oppression) — and then subsequently try to eliminate the blemishes of these imperfect gifts of historical quantum jumps of liberation, after the revolution is established.

People are people, they are imperfect, they will never be perfectly agreeable, so politics never ends. Peace is an endless continuing process, it is not a static finality; there is no perfect politics, no perfect state, no utopian terminus to actual human societies.

Get real, and stop complaining that reality always fails to match your ideal — it never will. “In politics, the choice is never between good and evil, but between the preferable and the detestable.” In the reality of America in 2016, Bernie Sanders is by far the preferable. Don’t waste my time with your vain navel-gazing and halo-polishing.

Today’s View of Campaign 2016

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To refresh your memory about the status of Campaign 2016: Hillary Clinton is the Democratic Party’s Nixon, and is the opponent that the Confederacy prefers Donald Trump to beat in the general election. Bernie Sanders is the candidate that the American people prefer to be the next American President.

Even though Hillary Clinton is the donna of an organized crime syndicate known as the DNC-controlled Democratic Party, many Americans are keen to vote for her.

What do I say to “proud Hillary Clinton voters” who protest over my characterizations of their candidate and their voting choice: if you know what your are doing, it’s criminal, and if you don’t know what you are doing, it’s stupid.

The criminals-for-Hillary are simply cold calculating careerists, logically pursuing self aggrandizement. For them the vote is an investment. The muddled-brained-for Hillary are “I will make history by voting for the first American woman president” cultists. For them the vote is a pathetic grasp at self-importance by association.

Why else join the parasites whose career hopes cling to the Tammany Hall DNC-Clintonite Democratic Party, and cling to the establishment’s duopoly in general? Why else vote for a continuation of the Wall Street owned, duopoly-fronted, Citizens United underwritten, American economic plantation?

Trump is leading a bigot’s liberation insurgency in a Pickett’s Charge against the right flank of the duopoly: the Republicans, and seeking to separate the “wheat” from the “chaff” — as he sees it — in the many-flavored mix of the American people. Sanders is leading a workers’ (wage earners’) insurgency in a broad assault on the duopoly across its entire line, and seeking to harmonize the many personal bubbles of self-centered world view within the American popular mix, with a unifying democratic-socialist vision.

If Donald Trump wins the presidency, The Wall Street ownership club will restructure a Republican Party around him, and through it slowly reabsorb him into control, like a Venus Flytrap gradually digesting a captive insect.

If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, nothing changes. We will all continue to pick Wall Street’s cotton with Scarlett O’Hara Clinton (whip in hand) benevolently smiling down upon us.

If Bernie Sanders wins the presidency, the rebels in the Democratic Party will have won, or at least gained the upper hand, in the intra-party civil war between the socialist reformers and the corporate kleptocrats, and Bernie will carry on with the reform movement on a national scale.