I can't stand Trump, and you can't stand Clinton. Who would be a logical choice for us if we could have only one person as president? This is a big problem when both candidates are equally easy to hate?
Over the years, Clinton has been pilloried by the GOP and lied about at every turn. But she had done little to make things better for herself, and has only reinforced the lies told about her. But Trump is no paragon of honor, as he has been in bed with foreign powers who are no friends of the USA. Even in this paragraph, you can sense a very slight bias towards Clinton - but not a bias I'd have if the GOP put up a more honorable candidate.
Recently, Clinton was diagnosed with pneumonia. Her surrogates covered up for her instead of telling the truth and letting the chips fall where they may. As a result, her health has become an issue for the campaign. Gone are the days that Kennedy could hide his Addison's disease. Gone are the days that Wilson could hide an almost fatal stroke. And gone are the days that FDR's polio related paralysis would be ignored by the press. The health of a potential president is very important to us.
Given Trump's doctor's note, I feel that the note was in effect written by Trump himself. Even a 12th grader would use more adult language than was on the note. (Trump's speeches have been analyzed, and they are at a 4th grade level. What does this say about the doctor's note?) With Trump calling for full disclosure by Hillary, but not being willing to do so himself, there is little reason to consider him an honorable candidate for president.
So where does this leave us? We do have a choice - the Libertarians and their candidate, Gary Johnson. No, I don't expect him to win. But I do expect him to be able to throw a monkey wrench into this election. Voting Libertarian is the best way of saying "NO!" to both parties and their corruption. Once they start getting some victories, it will be much harder for the duopoly to keep this third party off the ballot. And with victories will come change.
Some people will say that Johnson should have known about Aleppo. Yet, how many of us remember that Syrian city unless it is in the news? I can't fault him for being forgetful - he doesn't have the luxury of big staffs like the Democrats and the GOP can provide for their candidates. At least, he has a coherent philosophy. And if by some miracle he won our nation's highest office, I'm pretty sure that Willie Nelson, Snoop Dogg, and Bill Maher would be there at the swearing in ceremony - as well as the unofficial "after party". (I'd love to be there for that one!)
We have a lot to think about before November 8th. And I hope that either one of the major party candidates shows him/herself worthy of high office. Or I hope that the Libertarians would finally come of age and win something....
With the 2016 election cycle, we may be seeing a seismic change in American politics as we know it. America saw it happen on the brink of the Civil War, when the Whig party collapsed, and the Republicans took their place. In 1912, something similar almost happened, where the Reform (better known as "Bull Moose" party) under Teddy Roosevelt had a shot at disrupting the two party system. And now, we had two major disruptors in the name of Trump and Sanders who almost emasculated the power of the political elites to control elections.
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Over the past 50 years or so, we've seen great cultural change. Bill Maher commented "If you liked the 50's, you're a Republican. If you liked the 60's, you're a Democrat." In so many ways it is true - the cultural divide we have now comes from the conflict from that era. If you were a white male, the 1950's were the apex of White privilege in America. If you were a white male, you had virtually everything handed to you - as there were no challengers from other backgrounds, nor did any females pose a threat. People of color (Blacks, Latinos, Asians) had yet to demand political inclusion, and women were expected to be at home. This started to change with the protest movements of the 1960's, and the extension of civil rights to most people upset those who formerly held all the power in our society.
During LBJ's presidency (1963-1969), the Democratic party sowed the seeds that would cause it to lose the American South as a voting bloc. LBJ was forced to carry out JFK's promises (always meant to be hollow ones) to deliver civil rights to people of color and to women. This did not go well in the South. As a result, in the late 1960's / early 1970's, Richard Nixon developed a strategy to wrest the American South from the Democratic party. The "Party of Lincoln" sold its soul to gain these votes by putting every roadblock it could in the way of helping the groups LBJ helped, so urban dwellers who once voted for the GOP started to vote Democratic for the first time. This tendency continued through the presidency of Ronald Reagan, where the South and rural areas of the country became solidly Republican, while the North and urban areas of the country became solidly Democrat.
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America became a culturally divided country from its beginning. Rural areas of any country tend to be the most conservative in nature. In the United States, this meant that few people took chances to unionize their work forces in these areas, unless the work had become extremely dangerous (such as mine work). For the most part, jobs were few, and people took work at whatever terms were offered by their employers. It was only one step above slavery, save that the mill owner did not have to care for his employees once fired. Contrast this with what happened in urban areas. Jobs were plenty, and employees had greater bargaining power. Unions formed both to provide better working conditions and to provide better pay. Corporate socialism evolved here, and prospered when America was the unchallenged economic power in the world.
With technological change, the globalization of world markets, and a greater concern for the environment, the old orders became threatened by pressures they could not control. As technology eliminated many jobs, nothing was done for the displaced workers. As competitors from abroad forced American manufacturing to cut costs, many American workers lost good jobs and had nothing to fall back on. And as we slowly learned to stop polluting our local environment, we put local workers out of work as we shipped dirty businesses to places where they didn't care about their people and their land. In short, the promises made by both business and government to the public at large were broken. The elites didn't care what happened to the common person, as long as they stayed in power.
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The rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders is an indication that the public is tired of an elite that makes promises every election cycle, and that never delivers on its promises. Trump lies in every speech that he is making, and his supporters don't give a damn. He appeals to these voters on a more primitive level of thought. The same might be said about Bernie Sanders, except that he is not peppering his speeches with falsehoods. Instead, Bernie told the truth as he saw it - America hasn't been run for the benefit of "the people" for years, and made both an intellectual and emotional appeal to his base. Bernie's supporters are young, and see that there is no way the elites can or will do anything for them. So they gave the system a vote of no confidence by supporting Bernie. In short, the insurgents from both extremes realized the same truth - it's time to replace the ruling elites.
Trump's nomination and Bernie's failure to be nominated pose a question that America has to answer. Do we want to overthrow the elites and deal with the risks of the amateurs being in charge? Or, do we want to allow them to stay in power (with a big warning) as long as they change their tune and start looking out for the people as a whole? This question gets complicated when rumors fly about Jeb Bush looking to support the Libertarian Party's candidate for the presidency. Could the GOP establishment be looking to flee their old party, clean up its mess, and find a path to becoming a center-right party again? If so, I see the old GOP becoming a populist party for a generation or two. And I would also see the Libertarians becoming like the GOP of the 1950's. Could this be a harbinger of a potential three-party system? Who knows? But I'm looking forward to the ascendancy of the Libertarians the the collapse of the GOP.
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If the Libertarians become a political force to be reckoned with, the democrats will face attacks on two fronts - one social, and the other, economic. In a way, this will be good for the Democratic party. It has been around almost since the founding of the republic, and it has been good at adapting to change. Will it adapt again? Who knows? But all I can say is that I think we're seeing a political shift like we haven't seen in 150 years....
