Heyyy America. Rest of the world here. How’s it goin’? How are the kids? Are you still making those Marvel movies? Those are fun.
So, I know you don’t like us to bother you during an election year, but all the people in all the other countries in the world have been talking, and there’s just one teensy, weensy issue we wanted to chat with you about, if you don’t mind.
Ummmm… so, like, are you guys really going to do this Joe Biden thing? Like, for real?
Because, you know, far be it from us to ever interfere in your electoral process, perish the thought please don’t sanction us. But we couldn’t help noticing that you appear to be getting ready to run an actual, literal dementia victim against the current occupant of the White House, who actually seems quite delighted about the matter.
I agree with Joe! https://t.co/h84mD7jVPW
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 8, 2020
Now of course we all fully support and adore your wonderful reality TV star president. He certainly keeps things… interesting. But we thought that maybe he would be, I don’t know, more of a phase? Like, not something you planned on doing for another four years?
Because you see how he’s already repeatedly mocking Mr Biden’s nonstop neurological misfirings? We just wanted to give you a friendly tip that there is exactly zero chance that that’s going to get better, and 100 percent certainty that it is going to get much, much worse.
If you allow the Democratic Party to successfully install Biden as the nominee, your lovely president is going to make sure his undeniable signs of cognitive decline dominate all news headlines every single day until November. That will happen.
Trump’s attacks on Biden’s mental deterioration are going to get worse, and his dementia probably will too. New video footage of his latest episode of forgetfulness, confusion or inappropriate behavior has been surfacing on what seems a daily basis now, and that’s certainly not going to improve. One day he’s saying “Super Thursday” and forgetting Obama’s name, the next, who knows? Maybe his next stump speech will see him accused of plagiarizing the letter jumble in a bowl of alphabet soup.
Trump will use the bully pulpit as he always has: to manipulate the hyper-reactive mass media into talking about whatever he wants them to talk about. And what he will want them to talk about will be his opponent’s vanishing gray matter.
He will do this constantly. He will do it until Americans are no more likely to vote for Biden than they would for someone screaming about UFOs on a street corner.
Please don’t do that to us, America. We just want a world that doesn’t get destroyed by climate chaos or World War 3 or the total collapse of civilization. We just want to live, dammit! We just want to live.
What’s wrong with that other fellow running for president? The old guy who’s just trying to give you the same social safety nets we’ve all been enjoying for generations? He seems okay, and, as an added bonus, his brain isn’t committing harakiri inside his skull.
We can see that your media’s brilliant solution to Biden’s most obvious and glaring weakness as a candidate has been to ignore the story completely, or to tell people their eyes and ears are lying to them about what they are seeing and hearing. This Washington Monthly article that’s getting shared around a lot by imperial narrative managers, for example, decries what its headline calls “The Disinformation Campaign Being Launched Against Biden”, saying things like “There is no data to support the allegation that he is in cognitive decline” and “his doctor declared he is a ‘healthy, vigorous’ 77-year-old fully capable of taking on the role of president.”
Insulting and cursing at voters for seeing what is completely visible to the naked eye about Biden, and then topping it off with accusations of bigotry, is definitely a winning strategy against Trump.
The only thing missing is to call anyone who notices this a "deplorable." 👍 https://t.co/7TgV2YWVtd
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 7, 2020
The article tries to spin people’s organic observations of unedited footage of Joe Biden struggling to maintain verbal and behavioral cohesion as some sort of coordinated, conspiratorial plot instead of just people talking about what they are hearing with their own ears from the mouth of the Democratic Party’s anointed establishment pick. It cites supposed experts who neither directly address any of Biden’s specific recent mental failings nor give any indication that they are even aware of them. It also contains the following problematic section:
“The only test that hasn’t been done is the cognitive functioning test,” Olshansky added. “But the fact that he’s on the campaign trail and meeting a rigorous travel and meeting schedule probably would suffice as a replacement for the formal test for cognitive functioning.”
He said that cognitive tests are typically not required unless problems are detected.
To be clear, this article saying Biden’s cognitive functioning has not been tested is being passed around to assure people that Biden does not have cognitive functioning problems. Because Biden is performing so outstandingly on the campaign trail.
This isn’t going to work, America. You will not be able to beat Donald Trump by telling them that they are imagining signs and symptoms of dementia that are clearly and unquestionably there, no matter how many think pieces and op-eds you churn out telling people that they are horrible ageist ableist monsters for seeing what they see and hearing what they hear.
Please do whatever you need to do to stop this nonsense and ensure that Donald Trump winds up running against someone who can, at the very least, string sentences together to form complete thoughts.
Thank you and please don’t bomb us,
The rest of the world.
______________________________________
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90 responses to “Dear America, Please Stop This Nonsense Immediately. Love, The Rest Of The World.”
Years ago I saw an interview with Biden. The interviewer asked him if his precursor to the patriot act was ethical policy, he replied that he knew nothing of ethics, that he was a pragmatic man who gets the job done.
He got the job done on putting more minorities and poor whites (also a minority) behind bars in rape infested privatized for profit gulags than the all the fascists or communists have ever been able to push through, establishing a historic world record for incarceration that not even Hitler or Stalin or Mao could boast about.
Unlike fascists and communists who imagined they had a “way of life” to protect his excuse was mostly to protect America from marijuana
He went on to embroil us in Mideast war after Mideast war with draconian violations of the constitution back at home
He topped all that off by supporting unforgivable student dept that amounts to the enslavement of the intelligentsia by the wealthy, (“unforgivable dept” was the definition of slavery for much of world history)
Now he wants to be president and the minorities he has abused seem to support their abuser in a perfect storm of Stockhausen syndrome played out on a mass scale
I would sooner vote for Trump who at least provides some amusement along with the abuse, he seems focused primarily on making a big show unlike the pragmatic contempt for any but the entitled elite that I expect from Biden
How can I vote a man into the presidency who says he knows nothing of ethics? Even Trump would not say something that vacant
I will write in Sanders, then I will never vote again.
https://medium.com/@moon_bat/the-real-joe-biden-7e9023009dee
This comprehensive article, well-researched with a plethora of links, is a damning indictment of Biden’s political career.
It is not about Biden, don’t you see that they prop up that poor old man to be able to take him out at the convention and slip hillary in? He is too confused. Easy too do – who can object?
In the West, too many people have interest in protecting the “System” at all cost. So, I bet on “business as usual” to continue.
Because it is the “System” that allows you to have a social status superior to your neighbor; and also to have more money than your neighbor and to be more important in society than your neighbor. The “System” is allowing to perpetuate inequalities and this is what most people want, sadly.
And because we are in the return of the days of Noah just before the Second Coming of Jesus, it is just more so. This is why, people will swear they have clearly seen wreckages of airplanes in the Pentagone and in a field in Pennsylvania on 9/11 even if there were no wreckage at all to be seen because they want to protect the “System” at all cost and there are ready to do anything in that end.
The only thing left is to pray the Rosary to hasten the return of Jesus because the bs is becoming unbearable.
My take on the desire to be superior to the neighbour is that it is instilled in very young school children. While the children are happily and creatively playing their nonsense games they are dragged away and forced to take part in competitive sport. The very nature of children – happy, nonsensical play is turned into a commodity that one must strive for: Being the best, being better than your friends. Put up on a pedestal.
Competitive sport is as evil as war. It pollutes the minds of children, many of whom continue to strive to be the best, richest, most glamorous gatherers of treasure for the rest of their lives. The life of a billionaire is miserable because they do not have real friends who love them. They have reached the pinnacle, they are better than everyone else. They swim around in a sea of diamonds and luxury trinkets, so far removed from the true meaning of life that they will never be able to enjoy the simpler joys of life that ordinary people do.
The elites who strive to control us with their power games are to be pitied. They are soulless, weak in spirit and live miserable, useless lives.
Step, I agee with you 100%. I don’t think that there is any better way of putting the life of an oligarch than Simon and Garfunkel did when I was actually a young person:
Thanks for that clip Ishkabibble. I hadn’t heard that song of theirs before. It’s a shame Richard Corey chose to kill himself rather than doing a good thing and share his profits with his workers.
Only one thing matters to the oligarchs. It is not democracy. It is not truth. It is not the consent of the governed. It is not income inequality. It is not the surveillance state. It is not endless war. It is not jobs. It is not the climate. It is the primacy of corporate power — which has extinguished our democracy and left most of the working class in misery — and the continued increase and consolidation of their wealth. It is impossible working within the system to shatter the hegemony of oligarchic power or institute meaningful reform. Change, real change, will only come by sustained acts of civil disobedience and mass mobilization, as with the yellow vests movement in France and the British-based Extinction Rebellion. The longer we are fooled by the electoral burlesque, the more disempowered we will become. Please read this fine article here:
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-one-choice-election/
Of course the world will become the kumbaya paradise we all envision, if we can just elect the right sociopath. LOL.
Of course the Sociopaths In Charge of the rest of the world are soooo much better.
A 100 year old grumpy communist with a heart condition would be a better choice. LOL
He’s not 100 years old and he’s not a communist. Please kindly stuff your propaganda where we don’t have to see it.
There are no viable candidates for the office of president in the USA. This is done quite deliberately every four years. It’s part of the control mechanism. The office of the president was originally designed to be one of symbolism, with no real power over the people. Power was supposed to reside in the hands of the people’s representatives in Congress. Unfortunately, the members of Congress now represent exclusively the shadowy monetary controllers of the nation. The common people are completely shut out. They are given a circus every four years to make them think they are driving the bus. They aren’t. Not even close.
Very few viable candidates period. Frame up the party leaders in both houses of congress, and all the presidential candidates, and you’ll see they are all morons and/or lunatics. Once you put forth the proposition that a gang of armed thieves should control you, what do you expect? Saints and/or geniuses?
At a certain point this control will break down, once the bread is gone and the circuses can no longer amuse.
I guess Americans will keep voting back and forth to be slapped on the other cheek until they can no longer survive, then all hell will break loose.
Sometimes they who think themselves in control crash that bus by accident
The drug addict thinks “by this drug I am in control” and in a limited sense that might even be true, but everyone can see that really it is the drug that is in control.
The powerful think themselves in POSSESSION of power, but really they are possessed BY power, eventually they will make a mistake but it will be too late for them to utilize the realization that they are not in control of THEMSELVES.
Every alpha has their day, until they don’t. The fact that Bernie Sanders has come so close means the long run of the current alphas is drawing to a close while technology is changing the name of every game, the new order may be nothing like the old when it arrives.
Question: HOW can a country (Corporate USA) that was STOLEN from its “Indigenous people” even talk about “Loving the rest of the world”…Especially when they are “Attempting (Falsely) to represent what They call GOD???
Even THEY Know this but still push the “Greatest LIE in Universal existence”…The WHITE god…Witch most of the “Sheeple” on this planet still “Believe” is truth, and has ultimate power over the entire planet!
Ever since the ancient Greeks and Romans invaded the ORIGINAL “First-Born Indigenous Beings” Created by “Divine Female Energy” THEY have STOLEN what they were TAUGHT From those ancient Civilizations…and are attempting to FALSELY Represent Them-Selves as those ORIGINAL Human Beings created on this planet.
Have STOLEN ALL its wealth from almost EVERY country on Earth…Now talking about “Loving the REST of the world?!?!
The Corporate USA is nothing more than the GREATEST HYPOCRITE IN UNIVERSAL EXISTENCE!!!
Understand folks: A CORPS is a DEAD Entity attempting to stay alive by FEEDING on the ORIGINAL Creations…Just like so-called ‘Vampires” do….Understand???
Uh….No.
The DNC folk are only concerned with retaining their positions and income, so a trump presidency is fine with them. A Sanders presidency would rob them of their power and position while helping all of US. They’ll do anything to stop that. Their constant war on Bernie and Tulsi makes this clear.
A Sanders presidency would do nothing more than change the players. The game would remain the same. If you insist on being ruled by a club of sociopaths, sociopaths are what you’ll get.
Citigroup picked Obama’s cabinet. How do you think they got that ability? Sanders doesn’t take money from corporations only individuals. What kind of selections do you think Sanders is going to make? His own or some big conglomerate?
Since US presidents insist on ruling the entire world, wouldn’t it be more democratic if the entire world got to vote?
Thank you and please don’t bomb us,
The rest of the world.
Exactly!
Unfortunately, Caitlin fell for a phony edited clip by Dan Scavino. I am not disputing Biden’s senility but this edited clip is a fake. The entire event is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0w6rxEStBw #NewsUpdate Live | #Biden campaigns in St. Louis, #Missouri | #USElections2020. I watched the Biden part in its entirety. Biden comes onstage circa 1:31:00. He never says what the Scavino clip has him saying. It appears to be an edited mix of circa 1:36:50 and 1:40:46. There is a moment where Biden refers to himself as an “ObidenBama Democrat” but this is a relatively benign slip of the tongue or perhaps a creative innovation. This sad part is that Caitlin has used this fake clip to launch an entire column, giving some support and credence to the profound fog of denial that rules this country.
Michael, there are dozens of completely separate clips showing Biden struggling. Dozens. Do your homework.
Consider reading what I wrote, especially the second sentence: “I am not disputing Biden’s senility but this edited clip is a fake.” Then read my reply to NAADIRA below.
But it does matter this was a fake …. part of the disinformation campaigns we’re going to be exposed to from now until election day.
This video isn’t remotely the same background as the Scavino clip. Nor are the words available to create the supposedly fake gaffe. He simply spoke in two different locations.
Scavino’s clip doesn’t even have the same background as yours. Nor are the words even available to create the gaffe you claim is faked. Just stop! Scavino’s clip was probably from a press briefing.
I agree with you about the background–I thought it was also fabricated. Scavino’s may have been another indoor venue the same day in Missouri. Biden has the same suit and pin, the same two mikes, and a speaker’s podium that seems similar if not identical as well as a “Firefighters for Biden” banner periodically in the outdoor venue. I hope that Scavino gave it straight, but it’s a shame that he did not link to the entire video. My YouTube search for the day and place turned up only the video I cited, but another search just now pops up the correct full speech at https://youtu.be/l1-6cwetV5k
What Scavino gave did occur so Caitlin did not make a complete mistake in using it as an example, but it is a weak example at best because because Scavino was very dishonest in his editing. Biden misspeaks, but recovers in mid-stream and has a good ending that fits perfectly with how he introduced the topic and makes a fully coherent paragraph. His full quote is (13:50–14:20):
“You want a nominee who will bring this party together, who will run a progressive positive campaign and turn this primary from a campaign that’s about negative attacks into one about what we’re for. Because we cannot get re-elected. We cannot win this re-election. Excuse me, we can only re-elect Donald Trump if in fact we get engaged in this circular firing squad. It’s got to be a positive campaign, so join us. Folks, we’re building a coalition!”
By deleting everything after “we can only re-elect Donald Trump” Scavino made Biden appear wholly demented in this moment, but the full quote reveals just the opposite, and Scavino’s gross distortion.
Apparently the loathsome Twitter has noticed what a distorted example Scavino used and Caitlin fell for. See below. It’s a sad day when Twitter is right and Caitlin isn’t. This provides grist for all those who want to believe that Joe’s mind ain’t all that bad. See https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/03/09/twitter-labels-video-shared-by-trump-as-manipulated-media/
LOL, well that’s how it’s going to go down dear, because the same things that put Trump in power pay the Democrats to lose. The fact is dear is that almost every American has something but stuck up its rear end that these things put there and are helpless at withdrawing them. If you want to help get rid of these things in your own country’s.
As soon as Biden gets the nomination they’ll declare him unfit and install Hillary.
That’s what worries me, too.
If he gets nominated, the DNC will pick his running mate, which if he is elected will shortly be the POTUS.
I think part of the problem is that the POTUS is no longer a job that a single person can handle. Alexander the great had an empire that got by on inertia for a while, but it got too big and fell apart. Then the Romans did the same thing- the empire got too big, the military was overstretched and eventually the empire couldn’t run at all. The late emperors couldn’t accept it and kept pretending that everything was fine, trying to apply old solutions to new problems- just like we are doing now. Fortunately, they didn’t have nukes.
That is the whole point. They have consolidated power. Not to “serve,” the people but to rule them.
In a perfect world, maybe Sanders would be a good choice. Considering the United States has taken on the role to protect the world from a Eurasian “hegemon”, we can’t afford the “social programs” you enjoy in Australia. I suggest Australia “nuke up” and spend more on your own defense. You might want to have your neighbors do the same. It wasn’t that many years ago when Japan was bombing Darwin and there was a worry about Australia being invaded. Fast forward to the 21st Century. We could save a ton of money letting any Chinese expansion and domination be “your problem”.
Australia 1.9% vs USA 3.2% GDP https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS
America’s Role in the world. https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/02/27/assessing-role-of-united-states-in-world-pub-78465
BTW. I am a fan and there are some things we can agree on. I subscribe to your newsletter. There is no ideal world and it isn’t coming any time soon
I understand that I am in a minority here in Australia when I say that I don’t want to be part of an international military alliance with the USA. I believe that most Australians are afraid of the world and would like to at least feel as though they can hide behind America’s coat tails.
Australia has no enemies. If Australia stopped supporting USA hegemony we would continue to have no enemies.
Looking from the Japanese perspective, they bombed Darwin in retaliation for Australia’s role in opposing their efforts to de-colonize Asia. They sent the European slave drivers packing from south east Asia. I do not know if Japan intended to colonize Indonesia or not, but they certainly helped Indonesia rid itself of the cruel Dutch East Indies regime.
My personal opinion (again not the majority of Australians) is: Please don’t ever help us America. Since 2001 you have helped Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Venezuela, Bolivia and many others. It’s time for America to have a rest from helping the world now. We will be OK thanks.
Canadians are always glad that Americans ignore us.
Any country attracting the attention of the US quickly goes to hell. Mexico: ‘Poor Mexico – so far from God, so close to the US.’
The American Empire’s role in the world is that of a global overlord that wages serial wars of aggression with impunity, rationalized by the Goebbelsian justification that the USA is “defending” against some putative threat–even as the USA rapes multiple nations and slaughters millions of people as a result in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, etc.
But all along, it has been America that is the true threat with its ambitions for what the Pentagon calls US Full Spectrum Domination of the planet. Indeed, this America drive for world dominance has been the thinly concealed agenda behind the USA’s endless wars since the end of the Cold War.
Whereas during the Cold War, the planet was a bipolar world divided between the USA and USSR, the post-Cold War era became a unipolar world with America as the “sole superpower” and global hegemon.
Hidden behind US lies about its (fake) War on Terrorism; non-existent Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction; Humanitarian Intervention against Serbia, Libya, or Syria; or regime change operations disguised as “pro-democracy” movements, America has sought to expand this unipolar USA world order.
As such, America threatens any nation that challenges this totalitarian vision of American unipolarity–particularly Eurasian states like Russia, China, or Iran, who represent a multipolar alternative.
That is the reality that most American apologists of all political stripes–Demorats or Republicans–cannot bear to admit.
Possessed by their quasi-religious belief in American moral righteousness and US Exceptionalism, Americans psychologically project their own aggressive and predatory behavior onto their multipolar adversaries like China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, etc.
Fake progressives like Bernie Sanders support this American drive for world dominance just as surely as Joe Biden or Donald Trump. The only “differences” are the political mask that they and their grassroots supporters hide behind.
National Security Strategy document affirms US drive for world domination
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/02/07/nssd-f07.html
Manifesto for world dictatorship
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/22/1032055033082.html
U.S. STRATEGY PLAN CALLS FOR INSURING NO RIVALS DEVELOP
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/world/us-strategy-plan-calls-for-insuring-no-rivals-develop.html
Well said. Jason, take note. The USA is the biggest threat to the world not China or Russia.
It seems the world insists on having an evil empire. There’s always been one.
Yes the bogeyman has been around for a long, long time and it is used to control people in all cultures, everywhere.
Bogeyman has to go now if the human race is going to grow up and step into an age of peace, justice and social equity.
You nailed it!
A little ways down the road it could be Mr. Putin and the Russian people that have the last laugh. Please check out this fine article.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/53080.htm
I have a complex neurological condition; am 3 years into it but have no disgnosis yet. (It’s okay). So I’ve spent hours, days and years reading about them and observing my fellow patients. There are 100s of neuro disorders, and many types of dementia and many involve speech impairment, and I would rather see folks point out it looks like Joe has some neuro disorder, rather than jump to conclusion he has dementia because, say he has, speaking by way of example and not hard fact, some neurological condition, or something that affects speech, and maybe cognition, then do we box ourselves in because they can say he doesn’t have dementia. Remember, his handlers are insane, vile, desperados. Or am I splitting hairs here? Or…are they letting it go to ensure DT’s re-election.
Dear World,
Don’t worry, we could nominate a potted plant and the unelected power structure will make sure the Empire runs as smoothly as it always has. Also, we can and will nominate a potted plant before we let Sanders win.
The Deep State
P.S. If you call us The Deep State we’ll bomb you, you insolent peasants.
this column needs to be spread far and wide! the dnc just had its incitatus moment. the dnc plays caligula.
Brilliant for every one here. thisis the RE-evolution. led by Ms Sarcasm Personified.
love ya! the comments are all A’s tens on a ten scale. i’m very impressed. now go out andmate have babies raise the children well, and make them vote.
we will win when the wrld is cold stone rock again. and life is starting over. probably with a prion first then a virus–those pesky natural genetic engineers that try to demolish the two-legged thinkers–they think! so we must exterminate them.
when they all go crazy due to inhaling too much tire dust teflon car[ept shreds and those tiny tips of toothpaste brushes. do not swallow ANYTHING ..it might be plastic?!
do not swim in the polluted oceans…and do not drink the water. any water. only alcohol will cure you.
do not eat meat because meat ate plastic. do not eat soil eating plants either because they destroyed the soil for their evil preference for chemicals.
mate and mate furiously. we need workers to keep up with China. …before we blow them up!
we can always eat India. those useless eaters. it will be “worthit.” and we have enough money to pay half the world’s poor to kill the other half.”
he who controls oil controls the .GOV but he who controls food controls the people…unless we are eating India. or Islam. the taste is yours. follow your heart on that one.
Bees are our greatest enemy left behind as an evil empire of Nature led by an evil princess called pachamama. Her trademark Bluebirds is nigh on to out of here. thank godifthereisagod. and we are ready for the RAPTURE….Isreal is NOW! c’mon. heaven now! aren’t we suffering enough for you?
i’d shower for you but the water here burns my skin…..this is california y’know where fracking is approved 20 years in advance….omigod if thereis….i smell COREXIT!
we’re flushing corexit….joe a Xian? hope so….we need someone stable in here….
I am a 52-year-old American woman who spent 25 years in higher ed. I have only four friends left because I spoke out about HRC in 2015-2016, am critical of Obama’s policies, have spoken out in defense of Assange, have defended Tulsi, etc. Seriously, most oof the academics I know personally are all over Facebook (because most can’t work Twitter) declaring that they are “Warren to Biden to No one” and heaping love upon each other for this brave stance. Posting about Bernie or Drucilla Cornell or offering proof of Biden’s dementia is met only with stone-cold silence from this demographic. This new movement includes many who were pro-Bernie in 2016, and I cannot figure out what happened, except the doubling-down on the amorphous idea that Bernie supporters are toxic, (aka should be denied freedom of speech). Since that charge was disingenuous bullshit from the beginning, every Bernie supporter in the U.S. could respond “we support your choice of candidate and have a good day” and still be labeled toxic. Meanwhile it seems to me there’s little chance the dems will not hobble Joe all the way to the convention, release a cognitive function test, cry rivers of crocodile tears, and hand the nomination to someone with <10% delegates or who never campaigned at all. What really appalls me, though, is the cluelessness of a traditionally well-informed demographic. I'll keep phone banking for Bernie but this shit is straightup whack. I wrote this comment because I consider this a safe space and it's exhausting out here.
I agree across the board. I am a 27 y/o man but everyone I have talked to beneath the age of 60 is on Bernie’s side, so I really wonder where the swath of support Biden found is. It feels like an Orwellian media facade.
Dear AF, boy do I feel ya! I am a 60 year old retired NP and though I still have a few friends left, lol, I have definitely lost a few over the last 4 years, most of them since Trump was anointed by our thoroughly decrepit EC. I am constantly amazed at these supposedly well-educated, “progressive” liberals lack of curiosity, their shocking ignorance about the actual right-wing backgrounds of nearly all the Dem candidates this season, their lack of compassion for their fellow citizens, their truly deep down rightward bents, and their nose-in-the-air elitist “I know better than those peons, so I will decree whom the next POTUS should be” attitude. I don’t know what to tell you AF, only that I wish you lived near me in Oregon. Sign me, Lonelier and Lonelier in this Little Blue State. P.S. I hope we survive the ghastly incompetence of the CDC and the Trump administration with respect to Covid-19. Stay well!
The Democratic Party HAS changed enormously in your lifetime, friend. It used to stand for the rights and lifestyle of the working and middle classes, both of whom used to show some compassion for the poor and disenfranchised. The party apparatus and political campaigns used to be funded largely by the money of the labor unions. There were liberal newspapers and broadcast media outlets that championed progressive policy in counterpoint to the conservative institutions that supported the Republican propositions./////////////
Things pretty much reliably conformed to the political and social dialectic outlined for me by my father in the early ’50’s when I asked him why our country had the donkeys and the elephants portrayed as constantly bickering in the political cartoons of the day. All that changed when conservatism on steroids took over the Republican party by the Reaganauts.//////////////
Their previous few presidents (from Ike to Tricky Dick) had been downright liberal (by today’s standards) in much of their domestic and foreign policy, expanding social and environmental programs and pursuing detente with the Soviet Union. Reagan and then Bushdaddy clamped closed the pocket book and pulled a gun on this society and the world (naked military aggression was a shared value with the Johnson Democrats, temporarily abandoned by Jimmy Carter). Milton Freidman and the Chicago School of Neofeudalism became tinpot gods and the MIC became the sole recipient of taxpayer revenues, damn infrastructure, education and social safety nets which have not recovered since, not in 40 years.//////////
But that was just half of the transformation. Bill Clinton and a cadre of his fellow Ivy League Wall Street bankers and lawyers (what was called the “meritocracy”) took over the Democratic Party and proceeded to disassemble the Roosevelt New Deal. They took up where the Reaganauts left off under the guidance of Republican financial extremist Phil Graham of Texas, making sure to ditch any constraints on MonteCarlo banking and regulation of the airwaves or their monopolistic ownership of all media. The unions were systematically destroyed under Clinton and the Dems as completely and rapidly as they were under Reagan, who started with the air traffic controllers. Union political contributions were considered leftist propaganda but private money from a host of wealthy oligarchs came to be considered “free speech” by the courts. The corporations they owned came to be considered private citizens with even more rights than you or anyone you personally know has (because they can afford to buy them and you can’t).//////////
Under Cheney and his sidekick Dubya, the regime in Washington went totally rogue and started intiating wars of aggression based on pure lies all over the globe. They stopped caring that the whole world could discern their lies and their subterfuge, simply telling everyone else if they didn’t like it they could lump it (“You’re either with us or against us,” and the dire implications that carries).////////////
If they weren’t kinetic wars they were attacks via economic sanctions or subterfuge against sovereign states, such as Russia, via the not so subtle actions of NGO’s in service to the American Empire and paid for with your tax dollar. Barack Obomber was delighted to continue both the aggressive, warmongering foreign policies of his predecessors and the abandonment of a stable functional polity at home. He started by ignoring his critics within the Dem party and later by deriding them, using the same snide gutter language he directed repeatedly at Russia and Putin.////////////
He and Jibbering Joe Biden were constantly floating “grand bargains” with the Republicans to diminish needed social programs. They didn’t get done only because the GOPer Speakers of the House (most notably “Cryin’ Man” John Boehner) couldn’t wheedle 95% of the loaf rather than the mere 85% that the great orator with his Nobel Prize offered to cede on Bal’s altar of capitalism.////////////
Under Slick Willy and Obomber, the Democratic Party stopped being the loyal opposition to the Republicans and champion of workers and started serving as dedicated enablers of the aristocracy’s war against the 99%. The fact that a sizable chunk of the Democratic caucus was now always just a faction of Blue Dog DINO’s guaranteed that only reactionary legislation would ever be pursued and passed in the Congress. Only dogs that do the appropriate tricks for their contributors receive the essential campaign support… and other benefits. It’s why Obamacare has been such an expensive fiasco for all but the private insurance industry.////////////////
In a nutshell, I believe that is the state of democracy in this country and its transformation before your very eyes during your lifetime that you were alluding to. Do you see any way back? I fail to, try as I might.
Thanks for that concise history Realist. It explains to an outsider how the current state of the Democrat party came about.
Great post, Realist. Thank you. M
I’m a 73-yo retired professor from a major state flagship uni. I’m in the vanguard of boomers and you’d be solidly a gen-Xer, if my maths haven’t eroded from dementia (I jest). I find it intriguing how much the political environment in academia has changed for the worse since I retired about a decade ago. Back in my day, at least in the hard science departments (I directed RO1-funded research and taught in biochem), the tenured faculty generally did not discuss politics, though I had the impression from a few remarks in passing that most of my colleagues were probably moderate Republicans, even when many public mouthpieces from that party were ripping science and striving to reduce federal funding of it, especially for research in environmental science, evolutionary biology and genetics, which the religious fundies and the rigorous tax-cutters hate with a passion. (My students had to be disabused of so many Limbaugh misrepresentations of the physical world.) These academics weren’t fools, but were, I think, trapped by their own ability to compartmentalise mutally contradictory concepts. Individuals seem always to be lured by any tax cut beneficial to themselves, even though it is massively more beneficial to the ultra-rich who do not need the relief and may worsen the lot of those less privileged. Engineers are said to be the extreme example of this strain of thinking, and frequently tend to be self-described libertarians: “Don’t fence me in, but don’t expect me to voluntarily help society either.” Of course, humans–even engineers–are really not that predictable and often change their minds on any given day, often for reasons other than what they assume to be true.
AF, I would have voted for Bernie this afternoon if I had not seen Biden north of 50% in the Florida polls and Bernie down at about 20% (go figure with so many FL retirees dependent on SS and Medicare and Jibbering Joe’s record of favoring Obomber’s “Grand Bargain”), so I voted for Tulsi, who was my philosophical anti-war comrade against arms, hoping to encourage her to run again some day. She stood at about 1% in the Florida polls, but there are still 30% of voters outstanding. It would become suitably interesting if she could capture a big hunk of that.
I’m 63 years old and have 2 close friends, one 66 and the other 60, who are quite intelligent and all of us usually in close agreement on political matters. Unfortunately, though neither has openly said so, I get an uneasy feeling they voted for Biden in the N.C. primary and will have no problem voting for him in November should he be the party nominee. I am fully confident there are two overriding reasons why that is so. First, there is a strong conviction (subconscious?) that Bernie is simply unelectable. But the second, and by far the strongest, reason is Trump Derangement Syndrome. Their hatred of Trump….. (sorry) …trumps everything else. It is a visceral hatred such that nothing else matters but to defeat Trump, and if it’s someone who, in their view, is the most electable (how ironic), even though he exhibits clear signs of deteriorating mental faculties…. then so be it.
I totally support their hatred of Trump. But it never occurs to them to VOTE FOR a candidate like Tulsi or Bernie they might actually prefer, only to vote for whatever empty suit they perceive as being the one to get Trump out of the White House. That the DNC makes no secret of actively blocking candidates like Tulsi and Bernie means practically nothing to them. Trump Derangement Syndrome makes them incapable of anything else.
Ms Johnstone I got an email this morning from someone that is hoping the the entire Democratic Party just ceases to exist anymore. Mr. Joe Biden ( propped up by his handlers ) and President Trump every single day and night making light and fun of Mr. Biden and his corrupt party might pull that off by November. This whole situation is only going to get much worse every single day. Chaos is coming; bet on it!
As Michael Corleone would say, “you’re just being hysterical… hysterical.” Clearly the powers lurking in the shadows think they can stage manage this campaign just long enough to get Jibbering Joe nominated at the convention and Bernie entirely out of the picture as any threat to their system of totally unregulated uber-capitalism. Then, as if by magic coincidence, Joe will either drop dead of a stroke, contract Covid-19, or fail to pass his yearly physical requiring him to be substituted by his selected running mate Hillary Clinton or Michael Bloomberg. All of his verbal tics, gaffs and word salads will continue to be ignored just as Hillary’s seizures were in ’16 and any stray allusion to them will be condemned as the work of meddling Russian bots (and convenient reasons to dump more sanctions on that hapless country of congenital meanies). Never fear, Caitlin, our keepers have got this! Just settle down, cuz our CIA has sixty ways from Sunday to getcha if you keep trying to stir up trouble for our aristocracy. Might even be more, anyways it’s a big number.
“Thank you and please don’t bomb us,”
The article keeps striking the nerves clear at the end.
How can it be any clearer that the Democratic Party does not want the White House? Not only does a Republican White House absolve the party from blame as the average citizen’s economic life hits the shitter, but their best political asset remains right in the headlights, where he’s of use. Remember, the true powers at the top of the food chain will do well regardless. Who cares who wins?
What we must not have is credibility for Bernie Sanders’ modest approaches to class inequality and economic justice. That’s why his candidacy must be defeated (again).
You got it. Thanks, Lindalee.
We’re Americans Caitlin! We believe any narrative that supports our inherent moral superiority, our God-given indispensability, our right and duty to “own the finish line,” as our wonderful Vice-President at the time boisterously intoned at the ‘16 Democratic Coronation, um….Convention. C’mon!
If our best-in-the-world leaders and trustworthy American free press news anchors say our eyes and ears are lying, well then, our eyes sand ears are lying! We have experts for everything—and they, and thus we, know best!
Empirical evidence is nothing as compared to magical gas canisters, magical passports, magical bullets, and any number of physics-defying explanations for things such as near-complete, beautifully symmetrical, and sudden and speedy pulverisation of massive amounts of steel and concrete.
There’s much more, but you get the picture.
The same corporate media and Democratic establishment that declare Biden cognitively sound have been declaring Trump cognitively wrecked since 2016. There’s been a steady drip, drip of articles and interviews from psychologists and psychiatrists discussing the latest evidence of Trump’s rapid and very dangerously obvious mental decline, his slide into dementia, etc., since his inauguration.
Trump is personality disordered, meaning there’s no fixing him because he’s not mentally ill. Donald Trump exhibits most symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder and scores over 30 of 40 points on the psychopath test. Whether he’s declining or not is difficult to assess because his rhetorical style looks a lot like cognitive decline.
Joe Biden’s perpetual demonstration of classic and irrefutable symptoms of senility forces Democrats and their corporate media PR machine to disassemble and reassemble Biden’s sound and image almost in real time. It’s not quite up to Running Man standards yet, but they’re just getting started.
Reasoning against what feels right, familiar and good in order to accept the logical truth of what feels wrong, unfamiliar and bad, is a prerequisite of adult agency and autonomy. As long as Joe Biden feels right, familiar and good, he is logically destined to achieve the one overarching imperative that is blasted non-stop across all media and the reason Bernie Sanders cannot be the nominee: Dangerous and incompetent Trump must be defeated and replaced. We cannot take any risks and need to make the safest bet.
The logical truth is the Democratic Party and corporate media hate and fear Bernie Sanders, his supporters, democratic socialism, and the entire working class, so completely and with such universal contempt they would rather annihilate the entire biosphere with nuclear war powered global warming than give up one vertical inch of their socioeconomic status or vision of how the world should work.
Brilliant post, Bret. I completely concur.
Do we want to hear the rest of the world and the cynics from the other parties consider us idiots for electing Biden/Trump? Or the news media enjoying the mockery and making money off the entertainment value? Or for Biden being a buffoon long after it’s funny and it’s just sad?
Did we do all this just for a food fight in the school cafeteria, or do we want an education?
And naturally, when Biden loses to Trump, it will be 100% the fault of only one individual.
Bernie Sanders.
Isn’t everything always his fault?
And please don’t forget the Russians ,surely they must hold some guilt for what is about to happen .
Just kidding of course but isn’t it how the story goes.
Good God ,the US is going to the dogs .I don’t know if I should laugh or cry .
If there was any time in history when the USA needed some Russian interference it is now. Most countries have psychiatric hospitals or at least psychiatric wards in hospitals. The USA has become one huge psychiatric hospital. The plethora of zombification medications and strategies being dispensed to quell intelligent thought are very effective.
They are nuclear armed yet they are acting like a toddler who has climbed up onto a chair and discovered the sharp knife drawer.
I feel very sad for the sane people in America who feel powerless to stop the march to the cliff edge.
Thank you Step, for your sympathies. It is tough indeed. We like-minded Americans should request asylum in masse from this $hithole country. But no one wants us. Can’t really blame them either.
Step— Your post made me think of how sane Germans must’ve felt in witnessing Hitler’s climb to power in the 30s and the aftermath of his ascendance. With what all of us are seeing in the current political scene, I empathize and sympathize with those Germans who truly hated Hitler, but were forced to remain quiet for obvious reasons. Yes, we have the freedom to complain openly here…. for now.
“Butbutbut!….. The RUSSIANS! C’mon man!”
Biden & Bernie are both expendable, octogenarian Trojan horse candidates, awaiting their immediate inauguration replacement, a deep state VP player. Meanwhile, a bioweapon pandemic, accompanied with a sinister “magic medicine” vaccine mandate are the pre-election Apocalypse event. Review “Lethal Bioweapon and GSK Golden Vaccine Ring” at VeteransToday(.)com
Then review Dr Chris Martenson, PhD Toxicology at Peak Prosperity on CDC treason
“Why US is in Deep Trouble”
https://youtu.be/3etuaYTDwFI
Me? I want the Democratic Party to self-destruct. Last time (2016) they actually promised WWIII and Hillary didn’t even suffer from dementia – as commonly understood. She has something that must be more akin to old fashioned demonic possession.
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After…Hallelujah!!! Hallelujah!! Hallelujah !!…the world avoided, once again, WWIII (hey! do I have to remind you here that Hillary said she was going to shoot down Russian planes over Syria?) the Democrats demonstrated that they are just so out-to-lunch. They then proceeded to rehabilitate the CIA for gads sake and bought every flavor of nonsense from them up to and including that the President is a Russian agent!!
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These are the people that we want to empower?
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You think I might be getting carried away?
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Ha!
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What is the article itself about – Democrats pinning their hopes on a person that is a candidate for dementia care.
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ps.
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This cued me to remember the Mueller testimony post-Mueller-final-report. Democrats were pinning their hopes on their McCarthyist hysteria becoming grounded in reality with the long awaited Mueller report.
And then their knight in shining armor testified before Congress and he was seen to be, mentally, just another Joe Biden (one short year from now).
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This is the Democratic Party – WWIII Hillary, Knight-in-shining-armor Mueller, Joe Dementia Biden.
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(I am a Green Party voter.)
If you are a Green Party voter, then you live in a Safe State, because the Greens and the Democrats have had a deal ever since Nader that the Greens only run in Safe States where they cannot possibly win.
Its a strange sort of deal, because it effectively means the Green Party has promised to remain powerless and to never try to grow. The places where the Green Party might actually grab some power is in the UnSafe States. This is where a minority party can become the key margin of victory for the big parties and thus where a minority party can grab some real power.
This Safe States strategy is also why the Green Party never grows. Not only do they run useless campaigns that are designed to never have a chance to win, but those UnSafe States that the Green Party stays out of are the very places with a strong lefty population where the Green Party could grow if it really wanted to. But those UnSafe States with strong lefty populations are the very place where the Democrats don’t want a Green Party, and the Green Party has agreed for the last two decades to stay clear.
Why do you think that? I agree the Safe States strategy is very bad, but I’ve heard no evidence of any deal.
Greens are currently working their asses off gathering signatures to try and get on the ballot in all 50 states.
Check on the status of your state here:
https://www.gp.org/ballot_access
Green presidential candidate Howie Hawkins responded forcefully to the odious open letter that told Greens to stop campaigning in some states.
https://howiehawkins.us/every-state-is-a-battleground-howie-hawkins-response-to-an-open-letter-to-the-green-party-about-2020-election-strategy/
Ok, Rainbow, so you made all that up. That makes you either a troll or a willing purveyor of some other troll’s nonsense.
Confused Biden Calls Himself “Obiden Bama” & Says “We Can Only Re-Elect Donald Trump”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/confused-biden-calls-himself-obiden-bama-says-we-can-only-re-elect-donald-trump
Nice!!!
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Before I read this, I was reading an article about the 1988 race. And what is fascinating is how different the Democratic Party was then. The “presumptive nominee” who has a real chance to win was Gov. Dukakis, a Harvard Square liberal in the Kennedy tradition. The field narrowed down to two opponents, one was Rep. Gephardt who war running with strong Labor backing. The other was Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition (of which I was a young member).
Joe Biden, then known as The Senator from MasterCard, had tried to run for President, and had been soundly defeated never getting support that got much above the margin of error in the polls. The “Reagan Democrats” were then a force in the party, but they had tried to run their own candidate, Al Gore of Tennessee, and had even created Super Tuesday to give the conservative, white, pro-military, anti-music candidate a better chance. But the southern Super Tuesday primaries which were supposed to boost the Son of the South were instead swept by the Rainbow Coalition.
Bernie was an Independent Mayor of Burlington Vermont, who publicly supported Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition and went into the scorn of the Democratic caucuses to support the Rainbow Coalition movement.
That was a completely different Democratic Party from the one of today where the Senator from MasterCard is being forced onto everyone despite the fact that nobody really likes him anymore now than then.
https://theintercept.com/2020/03/08/rainbow-coalition-comes-full-circle-as-jesse-jackson-endorses-bernie-sanders/
“What’s wrong with that other fellow running for president? The old guy who’s just trying to give you the same social safety nets we’ve all been enjoying for generations?”
The old mountebank is not repeat not running for president, dammit. He’s there just to make things interesting enough for those disgusted with the Democrat scam to induce them to vote — just this once more before they quit the habit. And then of course they don’t quit because they are so badly addicted to Hopium. Sometimes the owners of the country will trot out an especially slimy bastard who’s good enough both to gather to the fold the disgruntled AND to screw them back and front, like Obama.
You forgot to check the old horse’s record: even if the Owners gave up on their current choice and he were handed the presidency, he won’t do anything different than Obama.
Remember, Rest of the World: whether Americans get some marginally better social security or a couple more sugar lumps from the war profits table handed to them, that is totally, absolutely irrelevant to anything. The only thing we care about is war. War of aggression, imperialist war.
And grampa Bernie, almost older than even me, is the worst ever warmonger. Check his freakin record. Check his latest declarations. And don’t let yourself get lured by his siren’s song about Palestine: he is a liberal Zionist and his is the Labor policy: put a smiley on the robbery and genocide and continue the robbery and genocide undisturbed. Again, check his record.
At this point, opposition to Sen. Sander is really support for Biden and Trump. Ok, its easy to cite propaganda from the internet where everyone hates the left, including the lefties who only attack the left, but do you really feel that Sanders is worse than Biden or Trump?
Tulsi
Tulsi is bright, appears to be inordinately honest for a politician, and has the right foreign policy (or very close to it.)
P.S. “They” won’t let her within a cannon shot of the oval office.
Here’s my problem. Yes, the corporate Dems and the MSM engaged in an all-out effort to erase Tulsi and destroy Bernie. BUT, the American voters were the ones who allowed themselves to be manipulated and did the actual dirty work. Those of us on the left hate to hear it, hate to even think it, but the buck stops with the American PEOPLE, those who don’t vote for whatever reason and those who vote as they’re told by their elite overlords. Can anyone credibly argue that the American people, as a whole, do not fully deserve to be “led” by the likes of Trump or Biden? Caitlin over there in Australia, along with the rest of the world beyond U.S. borders, have the only standing to complain.
You are absolutely right. There’s no getting around that fact.
I have supported Tulsi since the beginning. But this contest has reached a point where voting or contributing to Tulsi instead of Sanders only has the real effect of electing a big warmonger. My Super-Duper Tuesday/Thursday vote went for Sanders. Votes for Tulsi don’t really count at this point, but votes for Sanders are critical for trying to give the oligarchs at least a punch in the nose.
It would serve the Democratic Party right if Bernie Sanders wins the nomination outright and he chooses Ms Tulsi Gabbard as his VP; now that is a ticket I could vote for with enthusiasm.
Except that in the unlikely event this comes to pass, Sanders would likely kiss and make up with Lizzie-Pow-Wow Warren and leave his strongest, most loyal supporter Tulsi in the dust, even though she stuck her neck out for him in 2016.
Ms Warren will only put more knives in Bernies back; that is what she does. She lies, she cheats, she steals, her ethics are all fantasies mode up for the moment. She and Hillary come from the same rotten mold.
Yes…. Tulsi. Who I voted for in the N.C. primary.