Establishment-shmeshtablishment, super PACs – super schmucks, Idiots United, and all the rest of the stupid talking points in between can now finally be laid to rest. Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee, and none of this supposedly oh-so-crucial stuff has managed to counter the will of the people. Yip-dee-doo.
The political establishment has been defeated, and we can now observe what remains once it’s brought down. Time to celebrate.
Clarissa's Blog 
Yes, let’s celebrate, while a New Dark Age settles over American politics and casts its deadly pall across the globe. The Republicans have chosen a madman to lead them, and the Democrats will try to defeat him with an equally unprincipled sociopath, who at least is a real politician and a reliable warmonger.
The next six months will be VERY interesting. As for the four years after the fateful November election — well. we’ll see, won’t we???????????
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That sums things up pretty well, Dreidel. I was conflicted as to whether to just click the “thumbs up” button or comment, but the horrifying situation does not warrant a thumbs up.
I wonder whether the Green and Libertarian parties will now do better than anyone expects in November. I am likely to vote Green if Sanders is not the nominee of the Democratic Party.
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But honestly, would a Cruz nomination be better? If anything, he’s a worse candidate than Trump, so I don’t understand why anybody would mourn his dropping out.
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I think Cruz would be a better nominee in that he would handily be crushed by Clinton. Trump…. I’m not so sure.
I don’t want Trump to be president and I’m still hoping they steal the nomination from him so the Republicans can be freed from their enslavement by the evangelicals and the neocons.
I’m not… enthusiastic about Clinton but I think she’d be better than any of the other current choices.
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There seemed to be such a crowd of nominees on the Republican side but I was right this whole time: Republicans have no real nominee. The field is so empty that a TV character is running away with the nomination.
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Although my “time to celebrate” in the post was, of course, sarcastic.
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Dreidel, don’t let your famous optimism desert you now. Everything will be fine, I promise. Trump doesn’t believe anything of what he says. It’s all a trick to con the “poorly educated.” And Hillary will be a fine president. It’s all good.
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She’ll be asking AIPAC when to bow and when to curtesy, so you neededn’t worry on that score.
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Do I need to reiterate my request that anti-Semitic outbursts be taken somewhere else?
It boggles the mind that seemingly intelligent people don’t manage to notice that Israel is a project of the US paid for by the US and not vice versa. Israel doesn’t do anything the US doesn’t want it to do. Wake up, people.
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She won’t be cutting the money off if elected, but at least unlike Netenyahu, she has the best interests of the Israelis in mind.
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The Will of the People
A la volonté du peuple?
It’s not necessarily Trump I worry about; it’s the people who think this is all hunky-dory.
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I’m especially entertained by the Democrats in my news feed who are trying to convince themselves that not voting for Hillary and handing the election to Trump is justified. Poor simpletons.
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“I am likely to vote Green if Sanders is not the nominee of the Democratic Party.”
Everyone should vote how they like of course. But it it does come down to Trump vs. Clinton, I wish my fellow progressives would understand that a vote for Stein, or a write-in for Sanders, or a refusal to vote, is a vote for Trump.
And the electoral map might be different this election: Trump might be competitive in “rust belt” and Clinton might be competitive in the south. So I think the idea that “I live in Mississippi so I can vote Green Party” is also misdirected.
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I’m afraid they do understand it but subscribe to Susan Sarandon ‘ s belief that major upheaval is better than absence of major upheaval. And Trump is likely to cause a lot of upheaval.
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“I’m afraid they do understand it . . . ”
Yes. You may be right. But then such people should be honest and just vote directly for Trump instead of pretending they are voting for the more “radical” choice.
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What’s really sad is that the exact same people handed the 2000 election to Bush because they didn’t want to vote for Gore. The reasons were identical: Gore represented the status quo, NAFTA, etc.
The result was the disastrous Bush presidency, the war in Iraq, the global economic crisis, etc. And now these same people are all eager to tell us how opposed they are to the Iraq war. You made it possible, fools. And you still learned nothing.
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“What’s really sad is that the exact same people handed the 2000 election to Bush because they didn’t want to vote for Gore. The reasons were identical: Gore represented the status quo, NAFTA, etc.”
YES. Exactly. It’s making me insane. We have already seen the results of this “Republicans and Democrats are the same” mentality. We had the most disastrous presidency in modern times (and one that continues to affect the Middle East to this day.)
And it is literally the exact same people! Young people, I can forgive. They don’t quite remember the Bush years and certainly don’t remember the Bush/Gore election. But polls show that young people will vote for Clinton over Trump when push comes to shove. The “Never Clinton” folks are are older: people who do remember the Bush years and who do remember the ridiculous Nader vote. I can’t believe that this is happening again.
I feel fairly confident that Clinton can still beat Trump but if she loses, I will so angry at the supposed “left” in this country.
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What I really fear is that Bernie will ask his supporters to vote Green as a protest vote. He’s 75 years old, he might just do it. And then we are all done for and it’s President Trump all the way.
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If Sanders does that, I will lose all respect for him. I hope and believe he won’t do it.
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What’s really sad is that the exact same people handed the 2000 election to Bush because they didn’t want to vote for Gore.
Jeb Bush controlling the state of Florida and its voting apparatuses handed the election to Shrub. The SCOTUS justices appointed by Republicans, including Shrub’s daddy, handed the election to Shrub. I blame that far more than the breakdown of Nader voters.
I say this as someone whose first election was in 2000. I was so proud that I got to vote I got my friends to take a picture of me outside of the voting place with my voter’s registration card.
I am doing election protection this year. Florida was a mess last time; and I fully expect a shitshow this year. Expect shit shows in states like Ohio as well.
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If Gore had had a 10% advantage, Florida would have meant nothing.
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I honestly wonder to what extent Trump’s success, especially early on, was driven by the entire collective of media and political insiders effectively telling the voters that they weren’t allowed to make Trump the nominee.
That attitude – “We, the elites, decide. This whole ‘election’ business is just theater for the proles.” – really pisses people off. Many supported Trump mostly as way of saying f*ck you to the establishment.
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I’ve read that Trump will attempt to appeal to Bernie supporters arguing that he represents the more anti-establishment of the two candidates. Frankly, what needs to happen is for Hillary and Bernie to sit down together, negotiate and establish policy initiatives that both can endorse and that would allow Bernie to back Hillary enthusiastically. Hillary is going to have to take the lead in making that happen and she’s shown no inclination to do that.
Hillary will have no problem with campaign contributions from this point forward. All corporate and PAC money will flow to her because everyone expects her to win, and they want to back the winner. That happens in every normal election. By one report, she’s already raised more than $263 million this year, over 4x the average raised by candidates for that office.
What’s not normal, now, is the willingness of those whose hopes have been dashed (hopes, misled expectations, same difference) and are willing to accept any change over the current reality. How deep does that sentiment run? I guess we’re going to find out.
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“I’ve read that Trump will attempt to appeal to Bernie supporters arguing that he represents the more anti-establishment of the two candidates.”
Absolutely.
“Frankly, what needs to happen is for Hillary and Bernie to sit down together, negotiate and establish policy initiatives that both can endorse and that would allow Bernie to back Hillary enthusiastically.”
I hope this happens, I really do.
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