How did we wind up in this mess?
How did we end up here?
We're witnessing the nominations of each political party being sewn up by the candidates with the highest unfavorability ratings. And it's not just the normal one party's supporters don't like anyone that's on the other side. These are historically high negative ratings for leading contenders to have.
How in the world did that happen?
Like many things, there is no one reason. It is a kaleidoscope of things that are taking us to the brink of our political collapse.
First, there are the independents. They are actually a much more mixed group than the name suggests. Most independents lean conservative or liberal. Although there are some people who vote for someone like Ted Cruz in one election, and then in the next vote for someone like Bernie Sanders, they are fairly rare. Most call themselves independent, but they normally vote within a certain very narrow range. It is just a modern thing to do, when asked, to call yourself an independent. And with the way the parties are behaving, who can blame them?
Even I would call myself an independent. But that doesn't mean my vote is up for grabs by the likes of Ted Cruz. I'm generally, in most positions but not all, a progressive. Although, given the nasty division in our body politic, I vote Democratic 95% of the time, that doesn't mean they have a lock on my vote. If the Republican, Libertarian, or Green Party (the Greens are not on the ballot on Georgia, but they should be) present a candidate that better represents my views, I will gladly vote for them.
The messy part with the growing number of Independents is they don't always get a chance to vote or register an opinion in the different state primaries and caucuses that are held. I don't know what the effect including more independents would have been on Donald Trump (although my gut tells me it might have helped him), but I have seen polling that indicates that Bernie Sanders does much, much better when independents are included.
So the exclusion of the growing number of independents is skewing the process.
Secondly, party rules are interfering with the process. Don't get me wrong. The political parties are like private clubs, and they can set the rules to select their candidate any way they want. They don't even have to have primaries and caucuses if they don't want to. And it's done state by state, so each state can set up whatever they want within the broad framework allowed by the party.
The Democrats have superdelegates, 712 of them (15% of the total delegates), and they usually weigh in on the side of Corporate Democrats. It's specifically designed to hamper grass root campaigns of progressive candidates. It started after the McGovern nomination, and because he lost so badly they wanted to prevent it from happening again. Unfortunately politics change, and it is leaving the Democratic Party in the hands of corporatists who often do not have the interests of the working class and the poor first and foremost.
The Republicans have fewer superdelegates (7%), but they also have winner-take-all primaries and strange state delegates rules that allows some of them to defy the results of their state primaries and caucuses. The winner-take-all primaries skew results to a candidate who might be just the flavor of the moment, or wins the state with a very low percentage but still comes out on top because there are so many competing. Trump won Florida with less than half the vote, but still won all 99 of Florida's delegates. Cruz is taking delegates at state conventions in states that Trump won, taking advantage of arcane rules (Ron Paul did the same thing in 2012).
In both parties, the rules are designed to elect the most corporate candidate possible, not the one with the highest popularity.
Given that, it is quite clear that establishment Republicans did not want Trump to be their nominee. And they still might get their way. I would argue that as terrible as Trump is (and is by far the worst major candidate since at least George Wallace), he is still a corporatist, and for all his erratic rhetoric, will serve those corporate interests. That said, they really don't want him. There will be whole wings of libraries devoted to books that try to explain all the mistakes that were made in trying to stop Trump from getting the nomination.
Thirdly, I blame the group that everybody always attacks - the media. They have given Trump so much free publicity, it boggles the mind. Even MSNBC, once a force for moderate liberalism, plays into the hands of Trump, by constantly cutting away to his appearances. They sure to god don't do that for Bernie Sanders, who they break away from in a heartbeat to go to someplace where Trump is spewing verbal diarrhea.
The years of heated rhetoric barfing out from Fox News haven taken their toll. When you spend so much time hating and ginning people up over ridiculous issues, it eventually comes back to bite you in the posterior. Trump is a creation of all the hate and venom that has vomited out of the mouths of Fox News personalities.
Finally, and most importantly, I blame the American people, both those who vote and those who can't be bothered with performing a civic duty. The candidates that are leading are there because many of you voted for them. My county, Pierce County, had a choice. It chose Clinton and Trump.
Republicans - a plurality of you voted for a narcissistic, racist, sexist, xenophobic con man. That is on YOU and your conscience.
Democrats - even though you KNOW that politics are changing, and that Corporate Democrats can only take us so far and have lost touch with their working class base, a majority of you STILL voted for voted Hillary Clinton, a candidate you KNOW has high negatives and little appeal outside of the Democratic Party, a candidate who does not really represent your opinions and interests (I know because I have seen my friends who support Clinton abandon or compromise their positions, like suddenly not favoring true universal health care), a candidate that represents the past rather than the future (and this in a change year election) -you know all this and you still support her.
This will be a terrible election year. The choice will be brutal, and the campaigning will reach lows you didn't even think possible. Yes, I will suck it up and vote for Clinton. I can't hand the keys to the nuclear codes to a madman, and that's what Trump is. He's like Lex Luthor, but without the intelligence.
Thank you, political parties and the media and the American people, for putting us in this mess.
But I have hope. As a Christian, I have to believe that we can work towards making the world a better place.
And it is coming. There is a new, emerging Progressive majority, a revolution that will revitalize the American political system, a spirit that will allow us to move forward and dream again.
You say you want a female President?
How about this ticket?
Elizabeth Warren/Tulsi Gabbard 2020!!!
You heard it here first.
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