The new debate arising in the Demo Party is whether Bernie Sanders' supporters will vote for Secretary Hillary Clinton after she secures the party's nomination. Bernie has indicated that he would support Clinton and has urged his fervent supporters to do the same. Other key Bernie supporters like Thom Hartmann have strongly pushed this idea to the disappointed Bernies . Hartmann even alludes to 2008 exit polling when then Senator Clinton was bested by Barack Obama. Over 50% of her supporters said they would not vote for Obama and some even said they would support Senator McCain. Well, it turns out that many did support Obama and he won by five million votes, twice.
However, Robert Reich suggests that 2016 is a lot different from 2008 when the election came on the heals of the housing/financial crash from the corruption of Wall Street and the Bush Administration. He states in an April 25 Alternet article: But 2008 may not be a good guide to the 2016 election, whose most conspicuous feature is furious antipathy to the political establishment. Outsiders and mavericks are often attractive to an American electorate chronically suspicious of political insiders, but the anti-establishment sentiments unleashed this election year of a different magnitude. The Trump and Sanders candidacies are both dramatic repudiations of politics as usual. If Hillary Clinton is perceived to have won the Democratic primary because of insider “superdelegates” and contests closed to independents, it may confirm for hardcore Bernie supporters the systemic political corruption Sanders has been railing against. Similarly, if the Republican Party ends up nominating someone other than Trump who hasn’t attracted nearly the votes than he has, it may be viewed as proof of Trump’s argument that the Republican Party is corrupt. Many Sanders supporters will gravitate to Hillary Clinton nonetheless out of repulsion toward the Republican candidate, especially if it’s Donald Trump. Likewise, if Trump loses his bid for the nomination, many of his supporters will vote Republican in any event, particularly if the Democratic nominee is Hillary Clinton. But, unlike previous elections, a good number may simply decide to sit out the election because of their even greater repulsion toward politics as usual – and the conviction it’s rigged by the establishment for its own benefit... In addition, another bad sign for Demo Party, the Pennsylvania GOP rolls have increased by 143,000 since 2014 with 65,000 working class Demos switching to the GOP for the 4/26/2016 primary. These people claim they like Trump because he is anti-establishment and speaks for them. Obviously, there is no accounting for intelligence in that anti-logical conclusion. Still another less talked about reason for not supporting HRC is offered by Thomas Frank in his new book, Listen Liberal. Frank concludes that perhaps the reason why Demo voters and potential other voters won't vote for HRC is that they have reached the conclusion that: ...that the direction the Democrats have chosen to follow for the last few decades has been a failure for both the nation and for their own partisan health. "Failure" is admittedly a harsh word, but else are we to call it when the left party in a system chooses to confront an economic breakdown by talking hopefully about entrepreneurship and innovation? When the party of professionals repeatedly falls for bad, self-serving ideas like bank deregulation, the "creative class," and empowerment through bank loans? When the party of the common man basically allows aristocracy to return? Finally, maybe these are the reasons why I will hold my nose and press the button for Hillary "Goldman Sachs" Clinton even though I know that she is just more of the same but is marginally better than a treasonous, hateful, war-mongering, racist, thieving Republican.
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Some recent headlines to demonstrate the GOP is a worthless entity dedicated to aiding the rich at the expense of the 99%:
1. Boston Globe denounces Trump candidacy in ‘front page’ satire 2. Dennis Hastert Abuse Exposes Hypocrisy of Republican Family Values 3. President Obama Leaves Republicans Whimpering After Conquering Fox News 4. Most Americans Actually Hate Donald Trump 5. Big Oil-backed group promotes Sarah Palin and Bill Nye as part of climate change panel 6. Kentucky’s Tea Party Governor Is Getting Sued For Unilaterally Slashing Education Funding 7. Trump’s Lies About Donations To Charity Expose Republican Selfishness And Greed Above is just a partial list of the GOP's family values, "take America back" bullshit. Now how dumb do you have to be to believe that the GOP gives a damn about working people and the disadvantaged. |
Comments to think about.
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