Bernie’s grassroots campaign shook up the Dem establishment. While the old guard, especially older establishment blacks, don’t want any changes in the organization of Dem primaries, younger voters—and by that I mean many people forty-years-old or less—are demanding a change to a more democratic selection of the Dem nominee. But that’s not all! Those same people want nothing to do with the Clinton dynasty.

Even Wall Street is thinking twice about Mrs. Bill Clinton because “Pocahontas” Warren is making noise as a potential veep. (Probably won’t happen, though. Warren labeled Clinton as a Wall Street sycophant in a recent book.) Sanders’s supporters should remember that Warren is a traitor to their cause—she didn’t endorse Bernie in Massachusetts—but Wall Street is still nervous because she pretends to be anti-corporate largesse and anti-Wall Street excess at least, and Clinton is mouthing some of Bernie’s words to mollify Bernie’s supporters. Wall Street just might end up backing Trump over Clinton for these reasons. That would waste all those nice efforts by Hillary to court Wall Street execs with her soothing “I’m on your side” speeches—what a hypocrite!

The Democratic Party establishment must fear two things about all those younger voters in Bernie’s camp: (1) they’re likely to sit out the 2016 general election now or vote for another candidate—I’m voting Green; and (2) they ARE THE FUTURE for progressive action in America—well, maybe not ye olde curmudgeon (I’ll probably either be dead or the country will be if progressive thought doesn’t become reality soon)—but those young voters, especially millennials, will carry the progressive torch (maybe literally?). The Clinton machine isn’t likely to win over those young voters, so said machine and the Dem establishment have to make it an anti-Trump campaign. But idealists get tired of voting for the lesser of two evils when both evils are so flawed—I certainly am, and I’ve been doing it since the sixties.

#2 gives hope. I might not see the consequences of Bernie’s work in my lifetime, but events like the recent People’s Summit in Chicago the weekend of June 18 bodes well for progressive change in the future. People are fed up with the inequities engendered by snaky, sneaky politicians like the Clintons selling their souls to big corporations and Wall Street execs. They’re fed up observing that the one-percenters just get richer and the middle class and poor get poorer—it’s more like the middle class is disappearing! The income gap is strangling Americans, and people being strangled are going to raise up and go after the stranglers and those who enable them, a group that includes the Clintons.

Many young people are facing a lifetime of debt if they go to college; the elderly are having to choose between paying for rent, food, or medical costs. Pension plans are disappearing. The 401(k), the retirement plan de jour, and Social Security, the failsafe retirement plan, aren’t working so well for Americans. The GOP wants to end all entitlement programs. Finally the Clinton camp has come around to the idea that Social Security must be expanded (the solution to financing that is simple: remove the cap on personal income!). Who knows? They might even recognize that sticking with Mr. Obama’s Affordable Care Act cannot work because the Obama administration sold their souls to Big Pharma and the insurance industry to get Obamacare passed. Single payer healthcare for all is needed ASAP.

Bernie exposed a lot of diseased areas in the American body politic. The Dem establishment has chosen to ignore these for many years and still bury their heads in the sand for the most part because they have been selling their souls to the one-percenters and their lobbyists and special interests for decades. America will NOT survive if they don’t see the error of their ways. Certainly the anti-democratic Democratic Party as we now know it won’t survive. (Under Trump and Ryan, the GOP won’t either, but that’s another story.)  People can only take so much.

We must thank Bernie for all that he’s done. He didn’t quite make it—the Clinton machine knows too many dirty tricks and the primary system was rigged against him to begin with. She has convinced older blacks and Hispanics that she’s on their side—that electorate can’t remember the 90s.  Billy was the first black president, don’t you know? And she wants to continue that second black president’s failed policies. Bernie knew all that from the start, but he continued on, maybe even surprising himself. He discovered various rip tides that threatened to carry establishment swimmers out to sea, currents formed by people who want significant change. Yes, a political revolution! Unless it happens, Americans are doomed to become slaves of an uncaring oligarchy, becoming a carbon copy of Putin’s Russia. Maybe we’re already there, but possibly, just possibly, there is hope for the future, thanks to Bernie. And it won’t be the Clinton dynasty or Mr. Trump who make that hope reality, that’s for sure, but true progressives who yearn for that healing revolution.

***

Last day! The “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” is on sale.  Some authors bundle a series or part of a series.  Here’s an alternative: from now until July 1, all three books in the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” are on sale AT SMASHWORDS, $0.99 for each ebook, reduced from $2.99.  The clones make their appearance in Full Medical (coupon code VJ44L) as part of a complex government conspiracy, they combine forces with the mutant in Evil Agenda (coupon code LE48D) to thwart another plot, and they all save the world in No Amber Waves of Grain (coupon code PZ86X).  These aren’t comic book characters like X-Men—they’re real people who work to halt an apocalyptic future.  Use the links and go directly to Smashwords to enter the coupon codes and get hours of summer reading for only $3.  (Amazon addicts, did you know Smashwords also sells .mobi files for your Kindle? They handle all popular ebook formats.) Pass the word about this sale to your relatives and friends.

And so it goes…

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 30th, 2016 at 4:00 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.