A few days ago Donald Trump made a comment about wanting to be “president for life” and a chill went through me. I had recently said to a friend that Bernie Sanders would be running as a Democrat in 2020 and that he would easily defeat Trump (just as he would have in 2016 without the shenanigans of the “Democratic” Party.) But I quickly added “But I do not think Trump will step down so easily.”
My friend queried me as to what I meant and I explained to him that I felt that Trump admired dictators and had zero respect for the peaceful transfer of power. I told him that I suspect that in 2020 Bernie Sanders will win and Trump will contest the election results and go crazy in the press accusing Socialists of having rigged the election and will use Twitter to rile up his base to civil war and potentially there could be millions of lives lost. I told my friend that I believed that Trump’s goal was to weaken the country’s already weak faith in the press so that he could declare the election results a media lie.
I explained to my friend how Wikileaks had already told Trump to contest the election if he had lost to Hillary Clinton and how their ultimate goal was to destabilize our democracy and to push our country towards and an alt-right fascist agenda. I explained to him how this same movement had succeeded in forcing Brexit and how hackers attempted to sway the French election towards alt-right fascist Marine Le Pen.
“Dude this sounds like the Twilight Zone.” my friend said.
“You’re living in the Twilight Zone.” I assured him.
We do not know if Trump was planning on following Wikileaks suggestion to contest the election, because the Democrats chose to run a pathetic candidate, allowing Trump to backdoor his way into power. But it appears that he was actually planning to contest, due to the fact that he suggested that “the Second Amendment people” could take matters into their own hands if he were to lose to Hillary Clinton.
Why would anyone be shocked if Trump pulled such shenanigans in 2020? From day one his entire presidency has been about disrespecting the very foundations of our country. This is how dictators take over. They stretch the very fabric of the country until it gives way. Trump’s constant attacks on the most vulnerable members of our society erode the foundation of what makes America great. The Trump regime has had this country in constant constitutional crisis since its first day in office and this is not by accident.
Nazi Germany did not happen overnight. It was a progression in the midst of desperate times. Hitler declared himself leader and already had a standing army of civilians ready to do his bidding. Does Trump not already have the same standing army at his disposal with the millions of heavily-armed supporters who are just waiting for the word to act on their patriotic duty? This is a very real possibility. Who will protect you from a heavily armed militia of alt-right rednecks going house to house and rounding up Socialists? The police? Not a chance. Cops love Donald Trump.
Trump’s presidency is a shock event to this country and the very institutions that hold it together. When Trump loses in 2020, I do not expect that he will have any respect for the peaceful exchange of power. I believe he will seek to rally his base to start a civil war in America and Americans will have to choose rather they have the temerity and weaponry to forcibly remove a dictator from the White House.
And you thought revolution only happened on your television.
Michael E Sparks will be one of the first people rounded up and put into Emperor Trump’s work camps. He is an Independent journalist and has zero corporate sponsors. If his work has value to you, please consider supporting it by donating $1 HERE or by buying his book HERE.
Donald Trump has ramped up his rhetoric involving Kim Jong Un and is promising to “totally destroy” North Korea in his latest speech before the U.N.. Simultaneously the U.S. Senate passed a military spending bill for 700 billion dollars.
I am tempted to say “Here we go again” regarding the endless cycle of hawkish maneuvers by the United States, but to do so would be to dismiss that this is not like any other time in U.S. history. There has never been anyone in The White House quite like Donald Trump, a man who reads a Breitbart article at 3:00 AM and begins tweeting about his hotel room being wiretapped.
While most question the merits of Kim Jong Un having nuclear weapons, the idea of “totally destroying” North Korea is an act of genocide against a people that are already oppressed by a ruthless dictator. To punish the innocent citizens of North Korea is no better than “totally destroying” the United States, simply because we have a madman dictator in power. America and North Korea both have toddlers with nuclear weapons running their respective governments. Killing millions of innocent civilians does nothing to rectify either situation.
The problem isn’t that Donald Trump is incompetent. That much we could let slide. He would not be the first nincompoop figurehead to occupy The Oval Office. Perhaps we could even find a kind-of silver-lining to his presidency by framing it as a collective stupidity tax on every member of a society that allowed it’s culture to fall so deeply into the gutter that an orange racist punchline with bad hair could so easily lie his way into power.
If it were only Trump’s incompetence at play then we could all just share in the unified embarrassment of his Apprentice-style presidency for four years and then vote for Bernie Sanders (YES, then 79 year old Bernie Sanders!!) in 2020 and begin our nation’s healing process. We could work towards being a better country. We could apologize for our flawed electoral system (yes, $uper-delegates, I’m looking at you) and promise to take democracy more seriously going forward.
One day some inquisitive student would ask
“Is it true that there was once a president who was elected with no prior political experience, who bragged about sexually-assaulting women and said that women should be punished for having abortions, who made racist comments, who defended Nazis and used an ancient form of non-telepathic communication called tweeting to throw temper tantrums in the middle of the night?”
And an adult would say
“Yes, it’s true. That was when Americans woke up and realized that they had to participate in their democracy and do better as a culture. If you’d like to learn more about that dark time in our country’s history, you should check out the Mike Judge documentary Idiocracy. You can experience it in the Holodeck for just three galactic credits.”
Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution has sparked great interest of late. The wording clearly states that if a president is incapable of fulfilling his duties for any reason, including mental incompetence, that the vice-president has the power to begin immediate precedings to remove the president from office.
In this scenario Mike Pence would be forced to lead the charge and he would have to convince more than half of Trump’s 24 cabinet members to declare him mentally incompetent to hold office. In this case, Pence would immediately take power (this means that Trump is stripped of his ability to use nuclear weapons) while Congress voted on the matter. If 2/3rds of Congress agrees with Pence’s assessment of incompetence then Trump is removed from office permanently, pending appeal.
Trump’s cabinet is a mess and leaks from inside The White House point to ever-increasing instability. But for Pence to perform a hostile takeover of the office, he would not only need to be certain of the outcome, he would also need to somehow perform the maneuver without alienating Trump’s base, if he were to have any hope of reelection in 2020. If Pence initiated the takeover and it failed it would redefine awkwardness as Trump and Pence would still have to continue working together after the failed coup. For this reason, and many others, Pence will have to make sure that all the pieces are in their ideal positions before launching his attack.
The GOP will be more than happy to help him with this chess-match.
If those on the left are hoping for a quick and clean dissolution of temperamental Trump’s hold on said nuclear codes, there is really only one way to effectively create this possibility. Those on the left must do something that is completely out of their comfort zone. They must do something that will be completely foreign to them. They must act like they are Republicans for one day and actually show up to vote in the 2018 midterm elections so the left can take control of The House.
The only way that Pence would make such an ostentatious move is if he could then blame the Democrat-controlled Congress for passing the measure that he, himself initiated.
You are probably wondering about my logic at this point. How could Pence initiate a move to remove Trump from office then blame the Democrats for passing the measure that he started?
Simple. Pence would just use the GOP controlled media outlets to continually cast blame at the feet of the Democrats until Trump’s base believed the corporate propaganda. This would be aligned with the wishes of the party that sees Trump as a wrecking-ball. Most Trump voters will believe whatever the corporate media tells them to believe. After all, these are the same people who fell for the Democratic Party’s cross-party manipulation of their primary process.
If the media continues to focus on the Democrat’s passing of the bill that removed Trump, then that’s where Trump’s base will be more than happy to direct their anger towards the Democrats. Pence can give a few speeches about how much he hates the Dems and how he is looking forward to carrying on Trump’s excellent leadership and the country will be duped into believing what they are told to believe. The left will feel victorious and the right will have what they wanted all along; a predictable easy to manipulate corporate puppet for president, in the person of Mike Pence.
Some will say that Mike Pence is worse than Donald Trump, due to the fact that he is actually a skilled politician who can work with the factions inside the GOP to pass draconian laws that will hurt American citizens more than Trump’s ego-tweeting ever could. I am inclined to agree with this assessment, but Pence, for all his flaws, is unlikely to launch nukes just because he’s having a rough night, whereas Trump is extremely unstable and is actually a very real threat to life on this planet. As far as passing law goes, Pence’s half-presidency would be completely handcuffed by a Democratic majority in The House and Senate.
Launching nukes is done by executive order and does not have a series of checks and balances. This is why Trump must be removed via the 25th Amendment. Any other method of removing him from power, including voting him out democratically in 2020, would result in a scorned Trump still having access to his nuclear arsenal, an inevitable scenario too dire for any of us to contemplate.
While invoking the 25th Amendment sets a dangerous precedent that will undoubtedly have repercussions going forward, it is infinitely better than allowing this wannabe dictator to continue escalating his nuclear rhetoric with his narcissistic finger on the trigger of a gun that can and will destroy all life on this planet.
If you want Trump removed from office then the next step is to do something absolutely radical, something unprecedented, something so crazy that it just might work.
You’re going to actually have to show up and vote in the 2018 midterms.
That is if any of us are still alive by then.
Michael E Sparks is a Progressive activist and independent content producer for Activist Media. If you believe in Michael’s work consider donating $1 so he can continue to expand his voice and affect positive change.
(WRITER’S NOTE: After writing this I thought more about the title and decided that it was important to remind everyone to be careful taking things at face value (face value…masks…get it?) For example, this title, while catchy, is not 100% accurate. Surgeons wear masks. Nurses wear masks. Fire-fighters wear masks. And Batman, the most bad-ass of all superheroes, wears a mask. So be skeptical of everything you read. Now onward.)
“The extreme always seems to make an impression.” – J.D., from the movie Heathers
We live in an extreme world. Even though great leaders have long espoused the power of moderation, over the long term, as a path towards permanent change, Americans often lack patience and prefer extreme measures to rational ones. The word extreme has been reduced to little more than a marketing tool. Your deodorant offers EXTREME protection. Your toothpaste offers EXTREME whitening. Even your snack foods are EXTREME. Why would anyone waste their time on normal when you can have an extreme? Americans love extremes. They want the immediate outcome promised from extreme actions.
It is interesting to note that when we look at things that are at opposite extremes, we often see that they have more in common than they have differences. For example, a devout atheist and a Christian fundamentalist may seem to be at extreme opposites, but often times share much in common. Both sides are often intolerant of differing views to the point of feeling compelled to constantly lecture those naive enough to believe differently than they do. Both sides often believe that the world would be a better place if everyone shared their views. Both sides believe that they know something that is scientifically unknowable. The list of similarities between opposing extremes is usually greater than the differences. Thus is the nature of extremism.
One extremist group that has been working overtime in the United States since the election of Donald Trump, are the White Nationalists/White Supremecists/Nazi fringe hate groups. While these groups may differentiate themselves in degrees and goals, they still represent roughly the same agenda, which is the exaltation of white people and their culture above other races. Some of these groups are particularly problematic, because they are well-armed and believe in using any means necessary to achieve their agenda.
Seemingly, at the opposite extreme is Antifa (ANTI-FAscist). Like the KKK these extremists hide behind masks and believe in using “any means necessary” to further their agenda.
While I am in absolute agreement with Antifa that fascism must be battled wherever it is found, I also believe that there is a blueprint for fighting White Supremacy that has been employed with great success by people such as Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. That path, of course, is not extreme and therefore does not necessarily appeal to people who desire the instant ego-gratification achieved through violence. It is a path that exalts strength of character above physical strength. It is the path chosen by Rosa Parks, Gautama Buddha, Bob Marley and John Lennon. I am speaking, of course, of non-violent resistance.
Using violence against White Nationalists elevates their cause. White Nationalist rallies like the one in Virginia last week occur on a regular basis. You don’t hear about them, because there is nothing newsworthy about morons yelling and holding Tiki-torches. The Nazis show up, hoping to elicit a reaction from counter-protesters. When they fail at their goal, they go home feeling further marginalized. The only reason why you are hearing so much about what happened in Charlottesville is because, in this case, the Nazis were able to achieve their goal of finding a counter-force that was willing to use violence. This offers them free media exposure which helps them to recruit others to their cause. It is for this reason that some have speculated that Antifa is actually an alt-right organization designed to help White Nationalists with recruiting.
Antifa members use their own form of hate-speech against those who do not believe in using violence to elevate the White Nationalist movement. They call those who disagree with their tactics “Nazi sympathizers”, a term designed to put peaceful Progressives in the same group as the fascists Antifa claim to be fighting. These tactics weaken non-violent resistance and allow Antifa members to attack peaceful leftists. Similar tactics have been used throughout history to divide movements.
An extreme type of black and white thinking pervades Antifa. Their very name is set up to divide with black and white thinking. If you are against Antifa’s tactics, then you must be pro-fascist, right? Extremist groups often seek to divide by eliminating the gray area of an issue. Extreme black and white thinking is a cornerstone of nearly every personality disorder in the DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual used by psychologists to evaluate mental disorders). One could make the case that Antifa is a cult that preys on people with violent personality disorders. Like any cult they believe that they are doing righteous work. Attempting to debate someone who suffers from extreme black and white thinking is difficult at best and usually resembles the following conversation.
Progressive: I hate Nazis, but I’m not sure that using violence is the best way to go about it?
Antifa: So you are a Nazi-sympathizer?!
Progressive: No. Like I said I hate Nazis but..
Antifa: Pick a side!! You are either FOR Nazis or you are AGAINST them!! Which is it?!
Progressive: I’m against Nazi-ism, but like I was saying..
Antifa: What?! What are you saying?! You’re going to make excuses for Nazis?! Then YOU’RE a Nazi!!
Now you find yourself one step away from being attacked by a violent extremist who believes that they are righteous in attacking you, because they have now labeled you as a fascist. In the Antifa extremist worldview, a fascist is anyone who does not agree 100% with their violent ideology. In their extreme black and white thinking you are either part of their myopic solution or you are part of the problem and Antifa believes fully in solving any and all problems with violence and destruction.
It is easy enough to pick an unpopular stance and name your group after the opposite of that stance. For example we could start a group against hate and call it Antiha (ANTI-HAte). This catchy name would allow us to use “any and all means necessary” to counteract hate. We could even use hate to counteract hate. If anyone opposed our hateful measures we could accuse them of being pro-hate and marginalize their voice. If it sounds ridiculous, that’s because it absolutely is.
Life is not black and white. There’s more than one way to fight Nazi-ism. Breaking windows of local businesses like Antifa did in Seattle or destroying University property as they did at Berkeley does nothing to stop White Nationalism and unfortunately moves us closer to the right-wing police state that the elites have been trying to thrust on us since the Orwellian days of Richard Nixon. Simply put, Antifa’s tactics are counterproductive to our movement. If you are a Republican governor trying to get anti-protest laws passed in your state, having Antifa smashing in the windows of local businesses and starting fires in the streets is a quick and dirty way to scare the locals into agreeing with your Draconian law.
I certainly identify with the anger felt by Antifa and even admit to feeling schadenfreude at the sight of seeing Richard Spencer getting punched in his stupid, racist face. But this punch did nothing to change Spencer’s ideology. In fact, getting punched while expressing his views, however unpopular, made him into a sympathetic character in the eyes of those not particularly schooled on the finer details of Spencer’s creed. Most people had never heard of Spencer before the infamous sucker-punch. Antifa’s attack expanded Spencer’s base greatly and as Spencer is a deceptive and articulate speaker, this new broader base has allowed him to recruit new members to his disgusting cause.
White Nationalists are always seeking to recruit from the millions of white Americans who use the phrase “I’m not racist, but…” Many white Americans do not call themselves racist and would be appalled to be part of a group that openly and blatantly hated any minority group. White Nationalists like Richard Spencer and David Duke know this, so instead they seek to paint themselves as patriotic Americans who are simply trying to preserve American heritage. When a group that is dressed like Isis shows up and engages in violence against these “patriotic” Americans, it allows them to use their sympathetic position to recruit the “I’m not racist, but…” white Americans, who now begin to see themselves as fellow patriots who are simply trying to defend white heritage against an extremist group. In this way, “Antifa is a major gift to the right.” as Noam Chomsky has been pointing out recently.
I cannot stress enough that Antifa is the absolute best recruiting tool that alt-right White Nationalists have at their disposal. Without Antifa, these clowns are exposed for exactly what they are, or they are ignored, which is the very thing they fear the most. The Nazi movement in America is small and fringe. You can equate it roughly to a toddler who has been put in timeout. It will kick and scream and throw anything it can get its hands on in order to try to gain your attention. Antifa is the equivalent of smacking the toddler in the face. Their extreme actions give these Nazis EXACTLY what they are seeking. Listen to the disgraceful words of their White Supremacist President, Donald Trump. Over and over again he says “What about the actions of the alt-left?!” in his attempts to normalize the behavior of these Nazis while simultaneously marginalizing our powerful leftist voice. Antifa pushes us closer to the second civil war the White Nationalists has been courting for decades. Antifa makes the White Nationalist movement sympathetic to those who otherwise would not have aligned themselves with it.
Antifa says that they believe in the use of physical violence as to “make racism so unpalatable as to discourage anyone from practicing it.” If only humans were actually wired this way, then I would fully support this use of force. But we know intuitively that violence only causes those on the receiving end to double-down on their belief, while simultaneously recruiting others to feel sympathy for the victim and their cause.
Imagine that you were exercising your First Amendment Right to free speech on the subject of pro-choice, for example. You believe very strongly in a woman’s right to choose and you are peacefully demonstrating, using your voice, when suddenly someone in a black mask comes up and punches you in the face. How hard would the person have to punch you to turn you pro-life? Of course the question is ludicrous. Violence will never change your mind on that subject or any other. All it will do is to cause you to be more locked into your belief than ever. Now you have been assaulted for your belief. Before you were simply a single voice. Now you are a martyr. It will be much easier to recruit people to your side for future rallies. People who normally could not care less about your politics will suddenly want to be by your side. Violence against you has made you more effective at spreading your ideology. It has had the opposite effect of its intention. Enduring a punch is a small price to pay for the ability to effectively spread one’s philosophy. If I were Richard Spencer, I would pay someone to dress up in all black and punch me. My jaw would feel better with a few aspirin, but my message would be heard by millions of people I couldn’t have reached previously.
Let us not dismiss violent resistance entirely. For example, during World War II violence against Nazis was absolutely necessary. But let’s not make ourselves look foolish by comparing hate-mongering idiot, Milo Yiannopoulos, to Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich. To do so would be to give him entirely too much credit. Milo Yiannopoulos was a virtual unknown before Antifa burned the Berkeley campus. Overnight he became a household name. Once again Antifa had the effect of elevating the alt-right cause. Their antics canceled one speech that would have only been heard by a handful of people. But as a result of their violence, millions who had never heard of Milo Yiannopoulos before, became interested in what he had to say and as Milo is a deceptive and persuasive speaker, surely he was able to sway some of this newfound audience over to his garbage ideology. If I were Milo Yiannopoulos, I might even consider hiring people to dress up like Isis and burn down the place where I was suppose to be speaking as a publicity stunt.
As much as I would like personally to slap Milo Yiannopoulos in his little bitch mouth, I simply cannot reward him by turning him into a martyr. Nor can I make the claim that his rhetoric is somehow violent, simply because it leads others to inaccurate viewpoints that can lead to violence. The most proactive thing I could do to counteract hate-speech is to educate others as to their methods, so they will not fall victim to them. If I really want to silence Nazis I can use The First Amendment and apply a variety of different political pressures to the venues that allow them a place to speak, reminding venue operators of the peril they are putting themselves in as hate-speech is not protected under The First Amendment. I can threaten to publicize their position and this will undoubtedly cost them future revenue. This is the strength that the left has long been known for, the strength of creativity and relentless political pressure.
We have these Nazis outnumbered 10,000 to 1. Let’s not help them grow their numbers. If a Nazi puts his hands on you, then knock his stupid-ass back into the dark ages he crawled out of. But don’t allow yourself to be provoked to violence with words.
Because that is EXACTLY the reaction they are looking for.
Michael E Sparks fights hate through political means and by educating people with articles such as this one. If you believe in his message, consider donating by clicking HERE. All donations go towards furthering the mission of Resist/Revolt Activist Media.
The propaganda is equally deceptive on both sides of the ideological line. More and more I hear intelligent people saying “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
On one hand it’s wonderful that people are waking up. CNN has always been neoliberal propaganda. Fox “News” and Breitbart have always been alt-right lies designed to capitalize on fear.
On the other hand the underground news sources that people have flocked to in their attempts to gain information are often just as bad as the corporate media misinformation factories that have sought to deceive the American people since Bill Clinton cast the death blow to media integrity in 1996.
It has been my goal as a political writer to ALWAYS speak the truth, but this is a perilous path. I have often sent an article out for proofreading and heard back..
“If you publish this, you will lose a lot of followers.”
As if the goal behind writing is to attain popularity.
I am immediately suspicious of popularity, as most of the time it is garnered by appealing to the most number of demographics through spoon-feeding garbage coated in sugar.
But there is something alluring to me about integrity.
I am, in many ways, still that same punk-rock kid with the Mohawk and nose-ring who screamed about social injustice and the ideals of truth back when it seemed that no one cared about such things.
One can make a lot of money pandering to people’s fears and integrity is a commodity that not far too few care about, so it saddens me deeply to see people falling for lies, regardless of where they land on the political spectrum.
Media outlets are more concerned with getting traffic than reporting the truth and as a result sensationalist stories rule the day and allow small media outlets to gain massive exposure in a short period of time through publishing their own propaganda.
As is often the case, extremes have more in common than they do differences. This can be exemplified by the Pizzagate scandal, which was first floated by alt-right websites in an attack on Hillary Clinton. The story was quickly picked up by those on the alt-left and spread faster than the common cold.
It has all the makings of a successful fake news story. It targets someone who is universally hated, in Hillary Clinton. It is dark and scary. But perhaps most importantly, it allows the believer to see themselves as being on “the good side”. After all, we ALL agree that the wealthy elites passing around children like party favors is something that we must stand against.
The problem is that the story isn’t true.
I could lie and say that it was true and increase my readership.
I could be silent and cowardly.
After all, what is to be gained by pointing out the obvious flaws in this story?
One cannot prove a negative and those who lack the reasoning (or motivation) to figure out that this is fake news will surely use logical fallacies to defend it.
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that those of us who dislike Hillary Clinton for VALID reasons are shouted down by the self-righteous misinformed who have been searching back-channel sources who understand all too well the flaws in human logic that can be exploited by those skilled in rhetoric.
Disagree with Pizzagate and you are accused of being a neoliberal shill who secretly works for Hillary Clinton.
It’s hard to argue with the mentally ill.
It’s impossible to argue with someone who has an agenda.
The casualty of these propaganda factories is The Truth and of course this is the very thing that misinformation sites claim to be standing up for.
The challenge is that one out of several thousand conspiracy theories end up actually being true.
For example, I know, FOR A FACT, that the Democratic Party stacked the deck against Bernie Sanders in their attempts to further the voice of The People and further the agenda of their corporate oligarchy.
But before Wikileaks published the emails showing that the DNC put their collective thumb on the scale for Hillary Clinton, all we had was a conspiracy theory.
What further complicates matters is that it is impossible to prove a negative and those who devour fake news have effectively turned the tables of logic and now use the strategy of making outrageous bogus claims then putting the onus on the recipient to prove its lack of validity.
If someone says that Hillary Clinton was using a body-double, even if you know that the claim is ludicrous, you simply cannot prove a negative. The person who believes this can spend several hours finding sites that will provide “proof” for their confirmation bias and they will do so with completely pure intent.
After several hours of “research” they will think of you as an idiot who is brainwashed by corporate media for not believing what has become completely obvious to them and you will likely lose faith in their reasoning abilities as well.
Thus a chasm is formed between people who believe that they know the truth and those who have the courage to admit that they don’t have any REAL evidence one way or another.
What the propaganda consumer is missing is that their arguments suffer from an extremely emotional pathogenesis. They believe with all their heart that they have discovered some great and secret truth. Then they alienate those who disagree with them in order to create a self-sustaining echo-chamber that will perpetuate their beliefs. As they add more and more “evidence” to support their belief, they become more and more removed from the reality that the rest of us try to function in.
What they fail to realize is that their confirmation bias must be engaged in order for them to fall victim to the propaganda.
For example, if someone says to you that Hillary Clinton actually died in September, but employed a body double and that this body double is part of the DNC oligarchy in their attempts to form a one world corporate government, you will probably dismiss this claim if your feelings about Clinton are either positive or neutral.
But if you have tremendous hatred for Clinton, then this theory fulfills several of your emotionally charged preconceived notions about the entity that you hate and therefore provides the motivation one needs to dive deeper and find the information that confirms this ludicrous belief.
Thankfully not everyone steps into these logical potholes on the back-roads of reasoning.
Many people are excellent critical thinkers.
So how do we know what truth is?
You’re not going to like the answer.
The truth of the matter is that often you simply will not be able to find the truth without a master’s degree in sleuthing and even then you will find that often the information is not available and you will have to say the one thing that no ego wants to hear…
“I don’t know”
No one wants to admit that they don’t have the answers and The Internet provides a steady stream of opinions issued as facts for those who are seeking a quick resolution from the anxiety of not knowing.
Why read THIS article that is asking you to use reason, logic and skepticism when there are thousands of websites that will offer instant ego gratification to fulfill your confirmation bias.
Most people will agree that Julian Assange publishing emails that showed how the DNC conspired with corporate media in order to assure that Hillary Clinton attained the nomination for their corrupt party was the catalyst that helped Trump attain the Presidency.
And most people will agree that it appears that Trump and Putin seem to have some sort of preexisting relationship that the American public is not privy to.
But just try to discuss Assange’s motivation behind releasing these emails and leftists who have become mired in identity politics will blindly support the assertion that Assange had no motivation to help the Russians.
What is the basis for this belief?
Because Assange said so.
This is the epitome of identity politics and identify politics is the most prevalent and destructive form of confirmation bias in all of politics.
It is the lie we tell ourselves to gather information to fulfill our own confirmation bias for people whom we believe are on our side.
Am I saying that I believe the six American intelligence agencies that all report that Russia hacked the DNC?
Of course I’m not saying that, because to say such a thing would make me a “sheeple who has been brainwashed by corporate media and is nothing more than a sheepherder for the Oligarchy.”
And herein lies the most insidious part of thinking that your news is better than someone else’s news. The end result is the complete invalidation of the person who disagrees with you.
Bringing it back to the subject, if you were to ask me personally what I think of Assange’s alleged links to the Russians, I would say…
“It’s tough to say. All six intelligence agencies agree, but then again these agencies have lied in the past. They lied about the WMDs in Iraq. The CIA was more than likely involved in the assassination of John Kennedy. Furthermore we know that the United States intelligence agencies have many times decided to keep pertinent information from the people (Pearl Harbor for example). So there is definitely reason to mistrust these agencies. They are not spotless. Having said that, being locked down in an Ecuadorian embassy, counting down the days until US forces storm the building, take you to a blacksite and torture you to death can’t be fun and one could not blame Assange for striking a deal with Putin. Also, these incidents of the intelligence agencies lying are memorable, because they are infrequent. A review of their track records shows that most of the time they seem to be telling the truth. I am left to wonder why Assange did not publish Trump’s tax returns as he once hinted that he would. I am also left to wonder why Wikileaks did not publish hacks of the RNC database. Am I to believe that they could not hack the RNC? Because that is simply too far-fetched to believe as almost any skilled hacker could have infiltrated either party’s system. Then there is the matter of the traces of Russian information in the code itself. Some would say that this is enough to implicate Assange. I would counter that this could be intentionally left behind as a way to throw the intelligence agencies off the scent. So in the end I will have to say the only reasonable thing that one could say in this situation. That I will wait for further information and not make a fool of myself proclaiming to know Truth that is actually just my emotionally charged opinion disguised as Truth.”
But who wants to hear all that?
It’s much easier to just side with the people we like and passionately sing their praises in a celebration of the limitations of identity politics.
In effect, this is a human problem.
We must overcome our own psychological limitations in order to actually find truth and no one wants to accept the ultimate Truth that many times we simply cannot know.
Our “reward” for using reason is ambiguity.
While the rest of the children are off playing with their “facts”, overflowing social media with their poorly argued logic, you have to sit on the sidelines with your “I don’t know.”
Why accept our human limitations when there are thousands of propaganda machines willing to produce something that hacks into these psychological blind spots and deliver something that looks like truth and smells like truth, but is actually one big lie served up to those desperate to know what the actual f+ck is going on?
Not everyone who engages in misinformation has been duped so blatantly.
Some have motivations that cause them to abandon logic and reason.
Many use the specter of imagined corruption to justify their slactivism.
It is so much more alluring to know some secret truth about the boogeyman, George Soros and his shadow involvement in the grassroots organization that you have decided isn’t worth your time.
These “keyboard warriors” will jump down any rabbit-hole that allows them to justify their complete lack of real activism. This allows them to hide behind the safety of their keyboards without ever doing any actual work.
These Social Justice Warriors are lured by the idea of knowing some dark secret that the peasants haven’t discovered. Facts are not important to them, identity is.
Tell them that you are going to an Our Revolution meeting and they will tell you that it is secretly ran by billionaires (based on how Jeff Weaver filed the corporation for tax purposes).
Tell them that Justice Democrats is doing so great work and they will tell you that Cenk Uyguy actually works for Hillary Clinton Super-Pac Correct the Record.
Facts and research are not important to these trolls.
Their goal is to shoot holes in the activism of others.
They engage in character assassination and anyone who disagrees with them is a “tool for the oligarchy”.
Even Bernie Sanders himself is not pure enough for these people, who will ONLY accept that which is universally rejected.
These people are contrarians in the same vein as that kid you knew in high-school who hated every band that you liked and only listened to the bands that no one had ever heard of and rejected those same artists when they achieved social acceptance.
For these people it is about being superior, not about being factual.
They are easy to identify as they will use ad hominem attacks to deflect from the fact that on some level they know that they are operating with fabricated data.
Never mind that they have literally NOTHING to back up their claim.
They now want to devalue you as a person and then expect you to prove a negative, while simultaneously dismissing every one of your thoughts as propaganda.
Truth is the ultimate casualty of fake news.
Michael E Sparks is an independent writer and hosts of the show Resist/Revolt. If you believe in his voice you can donate $1 by clicking HERE. All money goes towards supporting Progressive activism.
Bernie Sanders came out on live TV recently and said that he agrees with American intelligence saying that Russia was responsible for the alleged hacks of the DNC and that their goal was to “undermine our democracy”.
Julian Assange has been on record stating that the Russian government was not the source of the alleged hacks.
Whom do we believe when two leftist icons disagree?
Furthermore, why is this even important?
Regardless of who leaked or hacked the emails, the content remains the same. When taken as a whole, we see very clearly that the DNC not only wanted Hillary Clinton as their nominee, but that they were in collusion with corporate media outlets to insure that Sanders never stood a realistic chance to win.
Let us not forget that the DNC sought to use these same corporate media arms to help Donald Trump to become the GOP nominee, because they felt that this would lead to an easy Clinton victory.
America sat by and watched this strategy blow up in Clinton’s face, in an absolutely disastrous election, that saw the Democrats lose control of every branch of government.
Now from the rubble of the Democratic Party come accusations that the Russians are behind the Wikileaks. Some even go so far as to say that we need a complete reelection, starting at the primary level.
This entire situation is such a huge mess that it’s difficult to even begin unraveling it. Even if the Russians were responsible for the alleged hack, this certainly does nothing to change the fact that the Democrats conspired to ruin Sanders and some would say that the source of the leak is not relevant, due to the content found in the emails.
It’s no wonder that Sanders’ supporters find it particularly disturbing that Sanders is on TV saying that the “evidence is overwhelming” that the Russian government is behind the alleged hacks, when he and his followers were the victims of the content found in the emails.
When leftist icons like Sanders and Assange disagree, what are Progressives to believe?
Even though Sanders says that the evidence supports the intelligence claim of Russian involvement, we the people, have no hard evidence that can be linked to the Russian government and there is no reason to believe that Senator Sanders has any more knowledge than the public has.
These accusations against the Russians smell eerily similar to the Bush/Cheney administration’s claims that Iraq was secretly harboring Weapons of Mass Destruction, in the Bush administration’s efforts to sway public sentiment, in order to enter into a war that should have never occurred.
These accusations are dangerous.
What the US government and their corporate media arms hope to accomplish with these allegations can be the subject of infinite speculation, but if we use history as our guide, it is likely a power-play designed to increase the United States’ leverage in their agenda to supplant Assad in Syria, which would give the US access to the building of a pipeline, which would result in trillions of dollars in gains for the corporations that own our government.
Or perhaps it is a ploy to weaken Trump and set him up for impeachment, in hopes of putting the more malleable Mike Pence in charge.
The American people are left to speculate when their government claims that they have proof, but are unwilling or unable to provide said proof.
The unnecessary declaration of war on Iraq lead to the creation of Isis and now we see what appear to be similar maneuverings by our government less than two decades later.
Am I saying that the accusations against the Russian state are untrue? I would not go that far. But upon careful investigation, we see that there is no concrete evidence available to the public to support such a claim.
Forgive us, if we do not trust our government.
But they have a long history of lying to the American people.
Julian Assange has repeatedly busted the American government in the act of cheating and therefore has become a hero to leftists everywhere. But Assange clearly has an agenda and it is not necessarily simply finding the truth.
It is curious that somehow each time Assange finds out something about the American government and its shady dealings, that somehow these findings always seem to benefit Russia. If we are to find truth, we must hold our icons up to the light of skepticism and expect the same transparency that we desire from our own government.
Had Assange released Donald Trump’s tax returns, as Wikileaks originally promised, then the American voter would have had a much clearer picture of the two incredibly corrupt candidates that were running for our nation’s highest office, but Assange reneged on Wikileaks claim that they would deliver Trump’s tax returns and repeatedly focused on Clinton’s corruption. As a result, the American people will learn about Trump’s malfeasance firsthand, once he begins running our country further into the ground by using our nation’s highest office to line his pockets.
Disdain for Hillary Clinton is a separate issue and does not let Assange off the hook here. The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend and Assange has a history of helping the Russian government. Add to this Putin’s desire to see Trump in office and we begin to see Assange’s one-sided agenda through a lens of suspicion.
It is no wonder that Assange has become such an icon for the leftist movement. His boyish good looks, charm and accent make him incredibly likable. The fact that he is hiding from our tyrannical government makes him seem downright heroic. Furthermore, he brought down the oligarchy, which makes him an activist legend. But, if you are searching for actual truth, it is worth asking why Assange’s findings repeatedly benefit the Russians. Assange is literally on the Kremlin payroll, with his show, The World Tomorrow, airing on Russian Times, a network founded by Vladimir Putin.
Putin wanted Trump.
Putin pays Assange.
Assange helps deliver Trump.
Don’t we always say to “follow the money”?
Have we become so angry at our own government, that we are willing to embrace Vladimir Putin and allow him power in our elections?
Are we so disgusted with the findings regarding the DNC, that we forget to ask the obvious questions about the intent of those who went hunting for said information to begin with?
Do any of us actually believe that the Russian government is any less corrupt than our own government, with its recent history of propping up dictators in France, Germany, Austria and the Ukraine?
The American people are right to be suspect of our own intelligence agencies, as they have lied to us repeatedly, but you would be doing yourself a great disservice, if you didn’t ask why Putin was so excited to see Trump’s rise to power.
Just as it would be foolish to accept American intelligence as gospel, it would be equally foolhardy to dismiss the preponderance of circumstantial evidence that points directly to Vladimir Putin and his employee, Julian Assange.
Wikileaks fans will repeatedly point out that Wikileaks have never had to retract a single story in their ten year existence. And while I definitely think they deserve tremendous credit for being one of the only sources of truth left on this tyrannical, corporate-controlled planet, it is the stories that Wikileaks isn’t covering that should make you suspicious of their motives.
So why did Bernie Sanders say that the “evidence is overwhelming” when the American people have no hard evidence to implicate the Russians?
Before we attempt to answer this, let’s first congratulate the corporate media, on finally getting Sanders to say something that they can use.
For nearly two years they have been putting microphones in Sanders’ face and asking him tough questions, much tougher questions than any other candidate was ever asked. Each time, Sanders did what he always does, he answered with the truth and then the corporate media did what it always does, they cut out everything he said, only to air a sensationalist story to deceive and distract the public.
But that’s not what happened this time. This time Bernie Sanders said something that actually was consistent with what the corporate media wanted him to say and they have ran the sound-bite on a nonstop loop since he uttered it.
As Sanders attempts to reform the Democrats in his image, those scorned by the party, have been quick to accuse Sanders of being a puppet for the corporate establishment, a scenario that is possible, but highly unlikely.
Sanders has no such record of being in bed with these corporatists and has literally spent his entire life fighting them. Sanders’ life would have been much simpler had he buckled and joined the Democratic Party decades ago, but instead he literally spent his entire career fighting against the Dems and the GOP simultaneously.
What’s more amazing is that he won most of these battles.
Let us also take note that since the general election, Sanders has been incredibly critical of the Democratic Party, saying that it was not enough to say “I’m a woman. Vote for me.” and repeatedly calling on party leaders to shed their corporate ties and serve the American people again.
So if there is no concrete proof of Russian involvement in the DNC hacks, why did Senator Sanders say that “the evidence is overwhelming.”?
I submit that Sanders simply said it because he believes it to be true.
Sanders was asked a direct question on live TV and he spoke on the matter for 30 seconds and never revisited the topic.
He did not bring it up.
He did not say that it cost the Democrats the election.
He said that he “agreed with the intelligence community’s assessment” and based on this, many on the left went right to the “Bernie sold us out” rhetoric that has become the mantra of wannabe revolutionaries.
Of course, it makes perfect sense that every word Sanders says is amplified with white-hot intensity. It is, at once, the best and worst part of his revolution. Sanders brought new blood into politics. Many of the people who follow him are incredibly passionate, but passion can be a double-edged sword. The same people who exult Sanders one minute, will oppose him with intense anger a moment later.
Sanders has become a leftist political icon, but perhaps his followers put him under too much scrutiny, constantly looking for the tiniest defect to prove their hypothesis, that all politicians are corrupt, much in the same way that a teenager will rally behind an obscure punk band, only to turn on that band when the band achieves some measure of commercial success.
Sanders has become Kale Soup for the Leftist/Activist Soul.
When the mountain seems too steep to climb, Sanders’ supporters think of him speaking to those empty Senate floors and feel emboldened. When they feel overwhelmed in their attempts to free our country from tyranny, they think back to the young man who was so determined to fight injustice that he had to be dragged away in handcuffs.
Sanders’ has become more than just a politician. He has become a symbol of hope in the face of impossible odds. So it is only natural that his followers would hover a microscope over his every word and action, looking for cracks in the facade. It is only natural that Sanders’ followers would have a religious zealotry towards this great man and come apart at the seams at the possibility that he has been absorbed by the very machine they have been attempting to bring down.
But Sanders isn’t in anyone’s pocket.
He simply believes that Russia was behind the alleged hack.
You can choose to believe him.
You can choose to believe Julian Assange.
You can choose to believe neither and hope that further evidence comes to light.
The truth is out there.
But in this case, we will probably never know.
Michael E Sparks is a Progressive independent writer. If you believe in the importance of his voice, you can donate $1 by clicking HERE.
A lot of people showed up late, because they were at my city’s anti-Trump rally.
I did not attend, as much as I dislike Donald Trump.
I’m more of a proactive guy, rather than a reactive guy.
I had already spent the last 18 months of my life protesting Donald Trump by doing everything in my power to get Bernie Sanders elected, so I didn’t see the point in crying about it now.
Instead I threw a Thank God This Fucking Election Is Over party and we imbibed alcohol from various lands and talked about what we could do to make the world a better place, despite our recent catastrophic election.
One lady said that she had been creating care packages for the homeless and was just keeping them in her car and passing them out to people who needed them.
Another lady said that she was working on creating an activist website.
Another guest was convinced that the Green Party was the answer.
I passed out Bernie Sanders buttons along with the challenge that people wear the buttons everyday, as a reminder to people who might be afraid, that they had allies.
“Bernie Sanders has superseded politics and is now a symbol of love and equality” I reasoned aloud.
Everyone liked the idea or maybe they just liked the idea of getting free Bernie buttons.
Regardless, everyone took a bunch and everyone put one on.
Then the safety-pin people showed up.
The safety-pin people had just come from protesting Donald Trump and told us that by wearing a safety-pin we could signal people who felt fear of violence and discrimination that we were a safe person.
“Oh, just like my Bernie button idea!” I said.
“No.” they said “This movement involves wearing safety pins.”
Someone produced a box of safety pins and soon everyone was wearing them, strutting around, feeling good about themselves for defending the downtrodden..
“So what happens when bad people wear safety-pins to trick people into letting their guards down and becoming victims?”, I asked.
“Oh Mike!!” one girl said “Don’t say things like that!!”
I had sucked the air out of the room.
They didn’t want to worry about things possible complications.
They wanted to wear their safety pins and feel good.
I could hear the sound of a thousand corporate think-tanks conspiring on ideas to make millions from this new trend.
“Don’t be outdone by your liberal suburban friends. Our fair-trade safety pins are all organic and help get clean water to aboriginal tribes in developing nations. These safety-pins are just $49.95 each and symbolize to the world that you are much more compassionate than the people who wear the competitor’s safety-pins.”
As much as it smacks of the worst parts of white-guilt liberalism, I honestly don’t have a problem with the safety-pin.
Although I’m confident if we researched the origins of the safety-pins passed out at anti-Trump rallies across America, we would probably find they were ironically created in Chinese sweatshops by eight-year olds.
Still I know the wearer means well.
And it’s important to not underestimate the sacrifice these protesters are making.
After all, when a Hillary supporter pierces a safety-pin through their $250 Aeropostale sweater it’s a greater sacrifice than when I do it, in my ratty $2 thrift-store t-shirt.
Not to say that everyone who protested also voted for Hillary.
If only there had been something they could have done BEFORE the election to stop the government from falling under alt-right control.
If only there had been a candidate who actually beat Trump by 18-24% in head to head polls, that they could have rallied around when they had the chance.
If only there had been a candidate that could have kept Trump out of The White House, who had a longstanding record of defending the LBGT community and a perfect animal rights record.
If only there had been someone who had spent their entire life fighting for civil rights.
If only there had been some other option besides Hillary Clinton, then maybe all of these Trump protesters would have been getting drunk with me by my bonfire instead of waiting until AFTER THE FACT and then protesting A DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED PRESIDENT!!!
If only there had been someone like that, then all of this silliness could have been avoided.
But I guess these protesters were probably pretty busy during the last 18 months, when there was a clear and present danger rising in our nation.
They probably didn’t have time to worry about such things as universal healthcare and ending mass incarceration and a for-profit prison industry that funds the wealthy elite.
Who can be troubled to vote when there are book clubs and youth “everybody wins” soccer games to attend.
Why volunteer for a crowd-funded candidate when it is “her time”.
Why bother working hard when your candidate is simply “more electable”?
Just be “with her” and ignore the “basement dwellers” screaming about the giant orange iceberg protruding through the fog.
After all, a safety-pin on your NPR tote bag just means so much to the 20 million people who will now lose their health insurance.
Everyone knows that a safety-pin clipped to a Whole Foods bag will be more than enough to offset the tens of thousands of elderly who will die as a result of the GOP gutting Social Security.
In the light of Trump’s alt-right Supreme Court justices and the threat they will pose to Roe v. Wade, perhaps we should all wear tiny coat-hangers instead.
Too soon?
Okay, we will stick to safety pins (get it? stick?!?).
I’ll take Symbolic Gestures That Don’t Mean Shit for $500, Alex.
In the event of a crash, your safety-pin can be used a flotation device.
You’ll still sink and die.
But at least you’ll feel extremely good about yourself while drowning.
All kidding aside, I hold no grudge against the safety-pin movement.
There’s nothing wrong with feeling good about yourself, as long as you actually take action and really stand up for equality.
I don’t begrudge anyone grandstanding for minorities, as long as they are willing to actually engage in true activism.
It bothers me that people can show up and protest Trump’s DEMOCRATIC election over a candidate who needed $uper-delegates to “win”, when the people of Standing Rock are fighting for their basic human right to water.
Why don’t these protesters show up in North Dakota and stare down the armored police?
Perhaps it’s easier to complain and wear pins than it is to stare down rubber bullets and attack dogs.
Still, there is nothing saying that we can’t do both, so when I see my friends wearing safety-pins, I will congratulate them on their commitment to activism and ask them what they are working on at the time.
I will probably even help them with whatever initiative they are working for and hope the next time we have the chance to vote for an honest candidate who actually cares about the American people, we don’t bury our heads in the sand and support a corrupt corporatist who has taken money from for-profit prison lobbyists and stood on the broken backs of the very minorities we are suddenly so concerned for.
Because when you don’t vote or you support an inferior candidate based on gender, then your safety-pin becomes the liberal equivalent of Republican “thoughts and prayers”.
I choose to believe that my safety-pin friends are awake now and ready to fight against any and all oppression that may come our way.
I choose to believe that America is awake now.
And I really hope that we are.
I’d really hate to see a bunch of people running around in 2020 wearing staples on their clothes.
Or an actual stapler..
Or a three-hole punch..
Or any other office supplies, for that matter.
When Michael isn’t dressing silly and attending Planned Parenthood rallies with his daughter, he is an independent writer. You can support his work by clicking HERE and donating $1!!
Donald Trump is President of the United States and liberals are in chaos.
Around the country people rally in anti-Trump protests.
I can’t help wondering where these people were when Bernie Sanders supporters were screaming from the rooftops that Hillary polled poorly against Trump, whereas Sanders beat Trump in a head to head match-up by a record-breaking 18-24 points.
Actually, I know exactly where they were.
They were at their jobs and in their homes, living their lives, just as they normally would.
Sanders supporters were screaming about the impending iceberg, while Clinton voters were calling them “sore losers”.
They weren’t out knocking on doors.
They couldn’t be bothered.
Bernie people knocked on doors.
In fact we traveled from state to state interrupting people in their homes to talk to them about Bernie Sanders.
It wasn’t just that we believed that Bernie was a better candidate.
It was also because we had looked at the numbers.
We knew that it was likely that Clinton would lose to Trump.
I even wrote articles reflecting the reasons WHY this would happen.
But our voices were silenced.
Hillary supporters didn’t want to hear about universal healthcare or creating 13 million new jobs repairing America’s crumbling infrastructure.
They didn’t want to hear about expanding Social Security or making sure all qualified students could attend public colleges, regardless of socioeconomic level.
They didn’t want to force corporations to pay their fair share of taxes and they didn’t care about ending mass incarceration in for-profit prisons.
They wanted a woman president.
“It’s her time” they told me.
“It’s time for a woman.” they said.
“She’s just more electable.” they parroted.
The Hillary supporters didn’t seem to know why they were voting for her, outside of the fact that she was female and electing a woman president after a black president just seemed like the next step for liberals.
Never mind her hawkish record or weekly scandals.
They didn’t want to hear it.
They didn’t need our votes.
We were just “basement dwellers” who tried to disrupt their coronation.
When I tried to speak with my Hillary supporting friends about real issues they would say either…
“I don’t believe that!!”
or
“So what? You want Trump then?”
We didn’t want Trump.
We wanted Bernie Sanders.
We wanted free and fair elections.
We wanted veteran’s programs.
We wanted a fair living wage.
We wanted a candidate who supported LBGT rights since day one, not someone who supported DOMA and only came over to our team when it was politically expedient to do so.
We wanted someone who wouldn’t install a no-fly zone over Syria and start a war with Russia.
We wanted a candidate who could beat Donald Trump.
Now liberals are pointing fingers wildly.
Jill Stein is to blame.
The electoral college is to blame.
James Comey is to blame.
Sexism is to blame.
I have even heard people say that Bernie Sanders is to blame for not campaigning hard enough for Hillary.
Of course all of these arguments hold little basis in reality and point to an overall victim mentality that Hillary fostered throughout her campaign.
Bernie Sanders would have been our nation’s first Jewish president, but he never mentioned it, because Progressives know that it is inexcusable to vote for someone based on race, gender or sexual orientation.
Voting for someone based on gender is just as insulting as voting AGAINST someone for this reason, yet still Clinton and her supporters seem to point the finger at everyone but themselves.
I guess this is to be expected from someone who literally played The Woman Card as part of her disastrous campaign.
The blame for this complete and utter defeat lies clearly at the feet of the “Democratic” National Committee and Hillary Clinton and any attempts to blame others will keep the Dems from learning the lessons they so desperately need to learn in order to rebuild their crumbled party, which has become completely out of touch with the working class it once represented.
Hillary’s loss was not the fault of third-parties.
Jill Stein received 1% of the vote and if you look at the states where Clinton lost close races like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, you will see that Stein was not a factor at all in those states.
The Dems would do better to ask themselves why people feel so disenfranchised that they need to reach out to an underdeveloped party to feel represented.
Voters on both sides of the aisle are fed up with corporate money controlling their politicians.
When Sanders stood up and said that he refused to take money from super-pacs the people responded in a YUGE way.
Instead of the “Democrats” adapting, they just sabotaged Sanders and in doing so sabotaged their party.
Of course it is much easier to blame others for Clinton’s epic fail, than to ask why her campaign had multiple field offices in deep-red Texas, yet never stepped foot in formerly-blue Wisconsin.
Before blaming a third-party, it might be important to ask why 90,000 Michigan voters filled out their down-ballot, but refused to vote for president.
Perhaps they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for another Clinton after watching NAFTA send their jobs overseas and destroy their cities and towns.
Perhaps they could no longer support a party that left the children of Flint to drink poison water under the Obama administration, while Clinton used their suffering as a campaigning opportunity.
Of course it’s easier to blame James Comey for dropping a bombshell a week before the election, but perhaps the finger should be pointed at the party itself, who chose to force an already rejected candidate down our throats when The People clearly did not trust her.
And of course, winning the popular vote while losing in the electoral college is heartbreaking, but any Clinton supporter who cries foul is engaging in blatant hypocrisy, as they blindly supported a candidate who used closed primaries, corporate media propaganda and $uper-delegates to insure a “victory” for a candidate that was highly vulnerable against Trump.
And yet there are still Clinton supporters who actually believe that her loss was about sexism.
Of course people who voted based entirely on gender would think that others refused to vote for Hillary based on this same “reasoning”.
Clinton supporters didn’t want to talk about policy.
They wanted to talk about the first woman president.
Even as prominent feminists like Camille Paglia came out and stated why Hillary’s policies were anti-feminist, Clinton supporters continued to blame every criticism on sexism.
If you were to point out how female civil rights leaders were murdered as a result of Clinton’s foreign policy, then you were told that “you just can’t handle women in power.”
This election WAS largely about sexism, but not AGAINST Hillary Clinton.
The ugly sexism in the 2016 election was the fact that Clinton supporters voted for a genocidal tyrant based COMPLETELY on her gender.
Had Clinton been male, she would have been susceptible to the same scrutiny as any other politician, but instead her followers saw her as immune to criticism.
In the mind of a Clinton supporter, every scandal was the result of either a right-wing witch-hunt or an attack on her womanhood.
She was the victim of James Comey.
She was the victim of Bernie Sanders.
She was the victim of Jill Stein.
She was the victim of Julian Assange.
She was the victim of the electoral college.
She was a victim of the Russians.
Accountability isn’t part of the faux-feminism of the Clinton supporter.
Although I rejoice in the fact that Hillary’s cheating was not rewarded, it is sad that the “Democrats” had this amazing opportunity to reinvent itself as a true party for The People, but instead took the populace for granted and lost all branches of the government.
There is no doubt that there will be hard times in America with Republicans controlling the House, Senate and the presidency and our children’s children will be dealing with these alt-right Supreme Court judges that Trump will nominate.
In the words of Clinton supporter, Morgan Freeman, in The Shawshank Redemption, the time is now for Progressives to “get busy livin or get busy dyin.”
Our backs are against the wall and drastic activism is needed.
Although I find it laughable that Clinton supporters have chosen to wait until AFTER the election to finally start protesting, it’s good that they are learning how to use their voice.
We will need their voice.
Progressives can allow themselves a short period of time to say “I told you so.”, especially after the reprehensible way that they were treated by Clinton supporters over the last 18 months, but ultimately we have to move on and forgive if we are going to have an actual revolution in America.
Progressives and Independents must join forces with the LBGT+ community and Black Lives Matter and take hold of this amazing opportunity to rebuild the broken “Democratic” Party in our own image.
Our revolution is just getting started and we all have a common enemy in power.
The “Democratic” Party needs us more than we need them.
We can use that.
Their firewall is down and they are vulnerable.
Attention DNC,
Move to the left or perish.
Represent The People or be replaced.
If the 2016 election taught you anything..
It should have taught you that we will no longer be held hostage.
Sincerely,
The People
Hillary supporters direct your angry comments at this guy. For those of you who believe in Independent Progressive voices, you can support Michael’s work by donating $1 by clicking HERE.
theindependentthinker2016 