There Won't Be a Happy Ending

Come Wednesday morning, we will not wake up from our "long national nightmare".  No matter who wins, we lose.  The ads on TV will stop and our PO boxes will no longer be stuffed with political junk mail, but things aren't going back to normal. 

If Trump wins, there will be fear and anger among all he's threatened and insulted during the campaign.  If he loses, his supporters will feel cheated, frustrated and angry.  The crazier ones will want to get violent.  The rest will be divided between those who shrug off politics forever, lick their wounds and go back to their lives and those wishing to regroup and fight on.  Do they simply take over the Republican Party?  Do they form another party?  Unlike Bernie Sanders' supporters, they did not get co opted by the party.  Their guy got nominated. 

I'm not going to waste time pondering what life under Trump will be like if he wins. We know he would be dangerous.  He is unfit for office.  He clearly doesn't read.  He has no attention span.  He is uninformed, vindictive and seeks instant gratification.  That's a volatile combination. 

Then there will be counter moves in the street.  Most Americans are docile as sheep, but a Trump victory would wake up many, and demonstrations by the masses would probably be accompanied by rioting and other acts of violence by the few. 

What if Clinton wins?  In 2008, she mocked Obama's young supporters, saying they thought "celestial choirs will be singing...  and the world will be perfect", if he won.  Now, that's essentially what we hear that from her supporters, including many who just last spring

were Bernie Sanders backers who said they could not vote for Hillary Clinton because she's a war monger.  She hasn't changed.  They have.

War and Peace

Donald Trump should not be President and certainly should not have access to the nuclear launch codes.  However, Hillary Clinton's election does not usher in an era of peace.  Just the opposite. She's not insane, or ignorant, like Trump, but that doesn't mean we're safe.  This is a woman who gets her advice from the likes of Henry Kissinger, Madeline Albright and Benjamin Netanyahu.  Look at those names and you know we're in for more subversion of democracies, coups, wars and an increasingly unstable Middle East. 

She will continue arming the Saudis to the teeth, so they can continue their current war crimes in Yemen.  She will continue to arm the Israelis and give them political cover to continue turning the West Bank and Gaza into open air prisons.  And people wonder why "they" hate us and want to kill us.

Her vote, in the Senate, helped start the Iraq War.  That war led to the creation of ISIS.  Now that ISIS has spread to Syria, she wants to implement a "no fly" zone, supposedly to protect civilians, but, in reality to contain the Assad government, as her husband did with Saddam Hussein in the 1990s.  That will require bombing radar installations and probably killing Iranians, Russians and members of Hezbollah.  It also could involve shooting down Russian planes.  Feeling safe yet? 

Race relations

Keeping Donald Trump and his band of white supremacist followers out of the White House does not equate to an era of racial justice.  Think the Clintons would not throw black females under a bus, if would serve their ends?  Ask Loretta Lynch, who will never be appointed to the Supreme Court. Ask Lani Guinier, who will never be Attorney General.  Ask Sister Souljah.  Ask Hillary's mentor, Marion Wright Edelman, if the Edelmans and Clintons are still political friends. 

Climate and the environment

A Trump victory will abolish the Environmental Protection Agency.  But, a Clinton victory is just a slow death.  Does anyone, who believes that global climate change is an immediate existential threat, believe that Hillary' incrementalism will provide the solutions necessary, in time, to save our children from planetary disaster? 

Dancing on Donald Trump's grave is fine.  I plan to.  But why celebrate a Clinton victory?  Why celebrate a candidate we saw attack a young Greenpeace activist, last spring?  Why celebrate a woman who told her patrons that environmental activists need to "get a life"? 

Secrecy

Donald Trump will unshackle the FBI and other security services to bring us all to heel.  But, let' not forget who voted for the Patriot Act.  What is the practical difference between Trump and Clinton's attitude toward Edward Snowden, who went into exile in order to reveal to us what our government had been doing to us?

Money

All through 2015 and the first third of 2015, we witnessed tens of thousands attending Bernie Sanders rallies in a rejection of the monied interests control of our government and politics.  Donald Trump is one of the billionaires he was railing against.  But Hillary and Bill Clinton took hundreds of millions of dollars in legalized bribes.  Those debts will come due when Hillary is sworn in.  We now know why she didn't want to release transcripts, of her talks to the bankers, during her primary run against Sanders.  She had told the bankers she thought they should be allowed to write banking regulations!

So, we're screwed

The two party system has driven us down a dead end alley.  In the darkness, is unrelieved political and cultural polarization, oligarchy and war.  The Republican Party, in its institutional denial of science and reason, ensured a purge of its Old Guard and gave themselves, and us, Trump. 

The Democrats, and their allies in the corporate media, have been exposed gaming the nomination and electoral process, with back channel communication between the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign against Bernie Sanders and between the DNC and at least one national news network (CNN).  CNN asked the DNC for questions to pose to Republican candidates.   Donna Brazille, epitomizing the revolving door between political elites and the media, slipped questions she copped, as a temporary CNN employee for Clinton to use in her debate against Sanders. 

We learned this through the emails revealed by WikiLeaks.  DNC and Hillary mouthpieces wish to distract us with supposed Russian hacking of their computers.  I'll have to be excused if my level of outrage seems low.  These are the same people that are OK with our own government hacking our email. 

If you are genuinely for Clinton, not just scared shitless (as you should be) of Trump, celebrate if she wins.  But be proud of what you are getting, not what you are avoiding.  If you are OK with fracking, OK with the death penalty, OK with government surveillance, OK with banks writing the rules they play by, OK with hundred million dollar arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Israel, OK with wars of intervention, OK with CIA coups, believe there is an equivalency between the water protectors in North Dakota and the cops, construction workers and security guards beating them down and believe the fossil fuel industry is being unfairly put upon by radical environmentalists, then shout and dance and set off fireworks! 

But, if not, and Hillary wins, wipe your forehead in relief, have a beer and wake up Wednesday, ready to continue the Revolution.  If Trump wins, hold your neighbor tight, speak quietly, plan and be ready to resist the fascists and the fools.