My last post enraged the Trump true-believers. It’s only fair that I make Mrs Clinton’s supporters mad at me, as well.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is grinding through the primary election process, fighting with all she’s got for a nomination that political insiders have long considered to be hers to lose. Senator Bernie Sanders has touched a nerve in the body politic in much the same way that Donald Trump has among Republicans.
The significant difference is that the Republican machine lost control of their nominating process. Their hand-picked boy turned out to be a no-magic man who never got up on the scoreboard. Instead Donald Trump managed to parlay his famous face and fortune, along with a sleazy show of demagoguery into a win against all the odds.
Mrs Clinton was supposed to sweep the primaries for an easy nomination. Instead an Independent/Democrat can’t-win candidate has come along and given her a real fight.
She is still widely considered to be the likely nominee, but her position is nowhere near as solid as Mr Trump’s. The reason is that her nomination depends largely on super delegates rather than support of the rank and file party faithful. Super delegates are party insiders, many of whom are elected officials.
Most of these people need the good wishes and support of the party machine to keep their own political ship afloat. They have a lot at stake in how they vote. They are not in any way free agents. In this election, that means that most of them have lined up behind Mrs Clinton.
In 2008, it meant that they lined up against her. One of the ironies of this race is that Mrs Clinton, who won the popular vote in 2008, was shut out of the nomination by her opponent’s grand sweep of super delegates.
The big difference between then and now is that, even though she has the aggressive backing of the party machine, many stalwart party loyalists in the rank and file have turned against her.
Why?
There are a lot of reasons, many of them having to do with their view of her as “too conservative.”
Mrs Clinton bothers me in the same way that Mr Trump bothers me. I think she would make a dangerously bad president.
I disagree with her vehemently about abortion, gay marriage, her conduct as a senator concerning the war with Iraq and the mess she made in Libya. But I am also troubled by the glassy-eyed stare, phony laugh and overall sense that she is both pandering and plastic.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been in the public eye for too long, and I think it has harmed her on a fundamental psychological and moral level. She’s not real anymore. I don’t think she knows how to be real.
Her push for the nomination has been marred by serious allegations of election fraud in the primaries and the bullying of voters in precinct meetings. Added to that is the fact that there are rumblings that she might be indicted over her conduct of government business during her time as Secretary of State.
The Republican primaries reflected something that I think is true of the larger electorate: We are all tired of dynastic re-tread candidates. Two Bushes were enough for the voters. The question remains if it will turn out that two Clintons are one too many.
America is not indestructible. We’ve had one bad president after another ever since John Kennedy was murdered. Much of this is due to the ever-increasing rise in campaign costs. That has put special interests in control of both political parties and most candidates.
This election cycle, with its run-away party faithful who refuse to toe the party line, is a symptom of the rising dissatisfaction Americans feel about an unresponsive government that does not serve their interests.
Voters have risen up repeatedly and thrown the jerks out. They’ve gone from tossing out all the Ds to dumping the Rs, and then back round again. Their frustration comes from the fact that no matter how many times they toss the jerks out, all they seem to get are all new jerks.
That’s because they are just changing one set of puppet politicians for another. The same old corporatist puppet masters remain in control.
That is what the voter behavior in this election year is about. The tragedy is that a choice between Donald Trump and Mrs Clinton is essentially no choice at all.
Either way, this nation is in for hard times.