Week of 07/25/2016

My Problem With... The DNC
– by David Matthews 2

(Note: This is the continuation of the ongoing look at the factors and candidates that make up the 2016 Farce.  Each of the “dominant” factors will be examined.  The author will not entertain nor permit anyone to try to negate the focus of each look by saying “X is bad but Y is even worse” because they all are bad in their own way.  Each will have their turn to be examined and castigated, and you probably will not like it when it is your group’s turn.)

Once upon a time, I had an idea for an ongoing look at the 2016 Farce, aka the 2016 Presidential Election.  I wanted to focus on each one of the presidential wannabes from the two dominant political parties and show why I thought they were part of the ongoing problem and not the solutions that they pretend to be.

And then something stupid happened... the wannabes dropped out, leaving us with just two:  Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.  A thin-skinned #whinylittlebitch narcissist and a scheming modern-day Lady Macbeth in a pantsuit. 

Yeah, there was also Bernie Sanders, but someone forgot to let the Senator from Vermont know that he wasn’t supposed to be in the script to the 2016 Farce.

“Whose script” you ask?  Well you’ll have to ask the Democratic National Committee.

You see, I have a problem with the DNC.

Well, actually several problems.  And since this article will be posted on the opening day of their national convention, now is the perfect time to vent those problems.

Much like my condemnation of the “Grand Old Party” in the previous article, the DNC is very much a major factor behind how Hillary Clinton became “the nominee”.  But unlike the so-called “Republicans” (who are not in any sense of the word), the DNC didn’t “end up” with their nominee.  They goddamned orchestrated it!

The whistleblower website Wikileaks recently confirmed what many people in America – especially myself – have long suspected: that members of the Democratic National Committee played favorites and manipulated the system so that their BFF, Hillary Rodham Clinton, would win and be their nominee.  She didn’t want it to be a “nomination”, but rather a “confirmation”.

Believe me, this is the batch of emails that Hillary wished would never be released.  Screw the witch hunt over a “private server”; this is the real email scandal!

It’s one thing to simply say that the game is rigged.  It’s one thing to speculate how the DNC is favoring one candidate over another, especially when it’s your candidate that is losing out and you don’t know any other reason to explain it.  Even when you don’t have a dog in that race, it’s easy to dismiss a political outsider like myself when they make that kind of observation.  But it’s another thing entirely to have an electronic trail actually proving it.  To show actual bias from people that are supposed be neutral.  Hell, there’s an email showing money changing hands between the DNC and Hillary’s campaign!

And it’s not the first time this has happened. Remember 2008?  That was supposed to be Hillary’s nomination back then, if not for that “uppity” junior senator from Illinois coming in and “stealing” all her thunder and becoming President of the United States.  How “dare” Barrack Obama do that to her!

Hell, the narrative this time around mirrored the start of 2008’s season.  How Hillary was supposed to be “the” nominee, and everyone else shouldn’t even bother trying, how she’s lined up every single super-delegate before a single vote could be entered.  The script is pretty much cut-and-paste, much like Melania Trump’s GOP speech, only this time around they made sure that they wouldn’t have that “uppity” senator problem.

And this, right here, is pretty much my problem with the DNC.  Much like how there is nothing “Republican” with the GOP, there’s nothing at all “democratic” about this party! It’s all plutocratic!  It’s all about the party bosses and whom they will allow to represent them publicly. 

Think about this: just how did Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid end up being the “leaders” in their respective legislative bodies?  They both were inept and incompetent when they served as Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader, but somehow they “defaulted” to those positions.  Why?  Because they knew how to play the game.  And that’s all that matters to them.

Look at how the DNC are treating the Bernie supporters.  Rather than trying to reach out and appeal to them and try to accommodate what they want, the DNC is muscling through their own people and their own agendas. 

Look at who Hillary selected as her running-mate!  Instead of choosing Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has general appeal for the whole party, Hillary selected Senator Tim Kaine, who mirrors the things that she likes.  They love big banks and Wall Street.  They’d continue the screwjobs that Eric Holder dished out when he was Attorney General when he let the banks get away with their crimes against America with pocket change for fines. 

That’s not reaching out to the Bernie supporters.  That’s kicking them in the nuts and telling them to be thankful for it, and, oh, by the way, they “need” to vote for Hillary or else the GOP wins.  Forget about fixing the bugs in the Affordable Care Act.  Forget about holding the banks and big corporations to account for their actions.  Forget about help for sky-high college prices or job-killing trade deals.  Just sit down, shut up, and vote for Hillary or else the GOP wins.  That’s their “unity” speech right there.  It’s “Vote for Hillary or else Trump wins.”

You see, that’s the DNC’s standard operating procedure.  They have become the party of “default”, and they embrace that status more than Kaitlin Jenner embraces hers.

And it’s easy to see why.  It’s like the old joke about two men being chased by a bear, with the punchline being “I don’t have to outrun the bear; I just have to outrun you.”  They don’t have to do anything to “fix” the problems of the nation.  They just have to show that the GOP can’t.  They don’t have to prove that they’re the “better” option, just not “the worst”.  They don’t have to demonstrate their worthiness, only show that the GOP isn’t worthy. 

It’s the lazy slacker approach to things.  They don’t have to put in any effort.  They just have to show that the “alternative” is worse.

But here’s the thing:  the Dems really need those Bernie voters.  They’re young and enthusiastic and right now they’re interested in the political system!  They need those people to vote for them. But that will change if the Dems alienate those young voters.  Kick them in the nuts and tell them they “have” to sacrifice everything they believe in to vote for someone they hate “or else the GOP wins”, and the DNC will send most of them back into apathy and into their parents’ basement.

The Democrats can’t rely on the senior citizens like they used to.  Not only are they dying, which happens when you get old, but they’re spending more and more time watching Fox News and becoming GOP voters.  The other special interest groups that the DNC used to rely on have been dying out as well, thanks mostly in part to the GOP.  They need that new blood, and they’re spitting in the faces of that new blood in the name of politics.

Let’s get brutally honest here... the DNC has become a merit system of cronyism.  There’s no actual principle anymore with them.  They’re not really “for” anything other than getting in power and staying in power.

Remember what I said before about how you have a contingent of GOP party players that believe that getting in office is simply a matter of “paying your dues” and “waiting your turn”?  Well that’s the DNC in a nutshell!  It’s no wonder why people like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry and Vice-President Al Gore all think that they “deserve” the Presidency.  The party bosses and party players have deluded themselves into thinking that this is how the world works and they are pompous enough to expect it to be that way and then they wonder why they lose.

And, yes, this is Hillary Clinton’s race to lose, and if she does lose in November, then she only has herself and the DNC to blame for it!  They wrote the rules and they need to be held to account for it should it fail.

The only good thing about the events of this past weekend is that DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is out.  She’s taking the fall for her party’s games being exposed, and rightly so.  But don’t think for a moment that this will fix anything.  This week’s DNC convention is all-Hillary, all the time.  She’s still the standard-bearer for merit cronyism, and the party bosses and players will still demand that everyone rally around her simply to deny Donald Trump the presidency.  It’s still a death-spiral from a two-sided death-cult that is strangling America with each election season that passes, which is now never-ending.

Don’t like it?  Too bad.  If you want things to change, then there are two more groups that are an integral part of the 2016 Farce that need to be exposed and they need to be castigated and they need to be cajoled and they are the only ones that can fix things.  We sure as hell cannot expect either the GOP or the DNC to fix things for us.  They don’t know how... and they certainly lack any possible incentive to.