22 Comments
Nov 12Liked by Bill Astore

A Facebook friend shared a post urging us to “please, please read.” It was a post-election reflection by Harvard Professor Christopher Robichaud, Senior Lecturer in Ethics and Public Policy. He assured his readers it had nothing to do with any flaw of Kamala or the Democracts wonderful view toward the world and the people of the US. The loss was down to simply this: cultural disintegration. It seems all of sudden America woke up racist, angry and stupid—not able to see a good thing when Kamala was put right in front of them.

Here was my response:

I dare say a little review of history would remind us that our founding documents considered Native Americans "savages" and considered slaves 3/5 of a person. A hundred years later, we would be killing each other by the 100's of thousands. By the "revolutionary" 1960's, advocates for peace would be assassinated one after another as we began our military assault on foreign lands under any pretext to support war--a bipartisan sin that continues to this day and exposing our hypocrisy to the world like never before.

Had Biden delivered peace rather than war and genocide and listened to the working poor and struggling middle class, any hardline Republican would have been easily defeated. Fewer celebrity endorsements and more understanding of the realities of daily life are still a course change needed by Team Blue. Yet there is this truth we cannot hide from: we are a militaristic people who bully, sanction and kill from a hubris perhaps never matched in history.

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I think that the Dems hating Republicans, and vice versa, is all fake. There are plenty of photos of the Clintons partying with the Trumps (and Jeffrey Epstein), and all the elite class hanging out together. The angry talk is just to get the voters believing that our votes matter, as though there are actually two sides. It is a big show to make us believe that the Democratic process still exists, and to keep us fighting amongst ourselves rather than identifying our true enemies -- the oligarchs.

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Nov 12Liked by Bill Astore

That's why carefully chosen cultural and social issues are the only things allowed to be discussed in the MSM. They hit emotional hot buttons that leave people wanting to scratch each other's eyes out - while the owners go the same Met galas and summers on the Vineyard. Who says the CIA has no purpose - this feels like an ongoing psy-war op.

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You nailed it Bill. The Dems know they offer nothing to most voters, they know they are focusing their campaigns on demonizing the Red Team, not on doing anything to help the American people. They just need to keep up the narrative fantasy that they are the good guys, and the Red Team is the bad guys. It may be directed more at the Blue denizens of DC who need pep talks to keep them going. Now that the election is over, they don't need to try and convince the angry voters of their phony good intentions. They hate their voting base, and just try and manipulate them each election cycle.

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Nov 12Liked by Bill Astore

"Are voters really to blame when you give them no choice, no say, and no real power?"

That's indeed the matter in a nutshell, Mr. Astore.

Now comes the tribe of pundits wondering how and why Kamala lost. This has to be represented as a mystery so that the pundits can go on blathering and the chattering classes can go on chattering in the hope that they'll be paid for it. But of course they haven't looked at the exit polls, which are unambiguous. The voting public did not reject Kamala because she supports war and genocide. Would that that had been so, but the voters were barely concerned with that. The price of gasoline trumps (you'll excuse the expression) any number of murdered babies, children, women, men, and aged grandparents; the latter are barely noticed by the American voter. What matters—and just about all that matters—to voters is whether they can survive between one paycheck and the next. While it's deplorable that they are not particularly concerned about genocide, day-to-day welfare is surely a legitimate concern. As Bernie Sanders is now yelping about, "ordinary working families" have not been making it during Biden's term in office, and the Democrats seem uninterested in doing anything about it. The voters are angry, and say so in no uncertain terms. This—they say explicitly—is their major concern, and a large number of them, to judge by the election results, believed (undoubtedly rightly) that Harris was not interested in doing anything to improve their lot, whereas they mused Trump MIGHT BE. Who knows, after all, what the Donald might or might not do? He MIGHT discontinue the Ukraine project. He MIGHT evict neocons from his administration. Etc. So they voted for Trump, and precisely NOT for Kamala. This is so simple obvious that the pundits are incapable of understanding it. Kamala did not lose because she's a woman, or a person "of color", or a neo-con, or supports abortion, or any complex identity-political, woke, issue, but because she presented no plausible program for, or interrest in, bringing down the price of gas or helping "folks" to make ends meet. The voting public did NOT, as it might have, generally connect the lack of support for "ordinary working families" with the payment of hundreds of billions for Zalensky's war "to harm Russia" and an unlimited supply of bombs and armaments to Israel for the purpose of "ethnic cleansing"—i.e. mass murder and mayhem. If that connection had been made (and it was no secret), then the public might have voted against anyone—such as, precisely, Kamala Harris—who was dedicated to those projects. But, as I say, the voting public was fixed on their day-to-day concerns and blinded to all other issues. That's always been true, and it will continue to be. Thus if the Donald wants the voters to be friendly to Republicans when his term in the White House is over (which is not clear), then he should keep that fact very much in mind.

But it's not clear that he can keep very much in mind. He's not being smart in his picks for the coming administration (Rubio as Secretary of State? Give me a break!), and he'll pay for that, as will the rest of us.

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People like to say that the voters had no choice. That's a cop out. At the end, the voters had at least 5 choices and some had more. They had the two major parties and two minor parties. Some had an independent and all had the choice of not voting. One third of all voters chose to not vote. In some states, some voters voted for "None of the above candidates". The largest number of voters chose Trump, the second largest chose Harris and only a few chose one of the minor party candidates. But every one of those voters made a conscious decision on one of those choices.

The voters have always had, and still have, the power to change the system. The system is shaped by people chosen by the voters. If the system isn't working the way the people want, the voters need only change the people who shape it. If they choose not to change those people, then they have only themselves to blame.

A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. In a democracy, insanity is voting for the same sorry party over and over and expecting different results.

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Nov 12Liked by Bill Astore

In principle, you are right, of course. But much conspires to make the kind of change you describe a practical impossibility. When you say, "If the system isn't working the way the people want, the voters need only change the people who shape it. If they choose not to change those people, then they have only themselves to blame" you are assuming that this could be easily done, if only people would make up their minds to do it; but it couldn't possibly work that way. The effort would have to be highly organized and would require seamless cooperation among a large number of diverse people with many conflicting objectives; and such a movement would be strongly (and perhaps violently) resisted by the political establishment, incuding the media and a goodly part of the public. Consider the American anti-war movements of yore (now nowhere to be found); or—which comes even closer to the matter under discussion—Occupy, that moved a very heterogenous mass of people to act in concert in order to "beat the system". It's also nowhere to be seen. "The system" is in command of a huge bag of tricks that enables it to easily break up the cooperative effort that would be needed to make the kind of change that you have in mind. The principal strategy is that of "divide and conquor": of polarizing people around simple dichotomies and making them fear and hate one another, which makes them meat for easy manipulation. The entrechment of strategic voting governed by the "lesser of two evils" principle is the main device. As long as the voters can be harnessed to that, you can offer them a "choice" of really evil people between whom there is really no important distinction. A person can break out of this once in a while. Consider Mr. Astore, who decided to vote for Jill Stein—who could, of course, "never be elected". His so-called "friends", who must be people of at least some note and competence, would have none of it. If he voted for Jill Stein, he would be voting (perhaps twice, in their muddled minds!) for Donald Trump, the supposed evilist of the evils. Given that context, individuals like Mr. Astore breaking out of the impasse will be doing the right, and the rational, thing, but they will not advance the defeat of "the system". However, if you find a plausible way to bring about the kind of change that would be needed in order to effect a free, democratic, and descent society, I've got your back.

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Politicians are all alike. They know everything. They never make mistakes. They are blameless. Everyone else is stupid. When anything good happens it's because of their enlightened and superb "leadership" and when anything bad happens, it's because someone else f'kd up.

The democrats are no different than the republicans.

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author

The corporate Democrats seem to hate their own base; the corporate Republicans play to theirs.

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You do not know where a Harris presidency would have gone once Biden was shed. You do know where a Trump presidency will go.

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There were Trump $Billionaires and Harris $Billionaires. $Billionaires rule!

As I've stated often here and elsewhere, I believe the existence of $BILLIONAIRES is a CRIME against HUMANITY in a MONEY DRIVEN WORLD.

Take the US as an EXAMPLE. Google says there are 750 US $BILLIONAIRES, and 50% of those are Jewish.

If those Stats are TRUE, why is the US Dream at the Cusp of becoming a NIGHTMARE? Did Jesus Christ have insights the US Christian Religious Establishment never expounds upon, preoccupied with Israel?

'Jesus said unto his disciples, Verily I say to you, It is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.'

NOTE: Christ doesn't say NEVER in the Scripture. He knows the rich love and serve MONEY much more than they Love and Serve God. Repent simply means having a change of Heart and Mind!

I respect the analysis of Scott Ritter. He is smart, incisive and politically astute without an agenda except for Truth and Reality, Justice and Judgment.

He thinks Trump is building a WAR Cabinet so far, especially his 1st Appointment to his Cabinet is the United Nations Ambassador who is 120% Pro-Israel who can do nothing wrong!

It was Trump who withdrew from the Iran Nuclear Deal that was working effectively. It was Trump who effectively Declared WAR on Iran ordering the Assassination of such a high ranking Iranian Official as General Solemani in Iraq, who was on a Peace Mission in transit to Saudi Arabia to repair Iranian-Saudi Relations, anathema to US POWER.

That was the General's new Job after defeating ISIS in Syria. Trump claims TRUMP beat ISIS.

American Voters knew Trump was an EGO-CENTRED Megalomaniac and a serial LIAR. He was a KNOWN FACTOR in the US. It's an Old Adage, 'THE PEOPLE get the government they deserve.'

So in a way, Bill, this line may be the Truth after all, "It’s not her fault—it’s your fault. She didn’t deserve to be repudiated by voters—and you’re going to deserve your fate under Trump since you rejected her."

I'm hoping and praying ALL THE TRUTH is revealed BEFORE January 20!

https://www.ryandawson.org/p/scott-ritter-on-trumps-cabinet

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The Democratic Party has rejected or driven out many of their best candidates. Without getting into RFK Jr's abysmal myopia on Israel, it is arguable that had he been allowed to compete in the primaries and won the nomination, he would have TROUNCED Trump. The Kennedy name brand alone would have garnered enormous support. Bernie would have similarly TROUNCED Trump in 2016. But as Mr. Astore brilliantly points out, the DNC expects you, the dumb-down and obedient voter to vote for their neoliberal warmongering selection. Does it ever occur to the Democratic elite that it's their total betrayal of their traditional base of working and middle class people that's destroying the Democratic Party? Are they that THICK?

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The DNC failed to get out the laserjets (GOTL)....

7 million missing late night delivered ballots!

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Obviously there was a problem with the EV delivery vehicles.

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*The chicken or the egg*

Is it the system that's fuc#ed and to be blamed or the (zombie) voters that chose Trump over Harris that should be blamed? Did the system make us zombies or did us zombies being zombies caused the present system to evolve into its present form? Should we blame right wing citizens united/SCOTUS for where we're at predently? We elect Congress and Congress and the Executive then do what they do and we as zombies comply. So I blame the zommbies I blame us. We the people are zombies to the system we created. And that folks is our current system. **enjoy**

Or wake tfu.

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I think in many regards as you state, Pogo was right ' we have met the enemy and he is us.' The choices, at the margins, are ours to make.

But there's something else going on and has been for at least three decades - increasing despair. People are desperate in a system that failed them a long time ago - rising levels of suicide in middle-aged white men; the Fentanyl epidemic in many areas; the loss of a sense of community; hostility to the 'other'; the emphasis on spectacle everywhere, including military 'supremacy' - all seem to me to be symptoms of a late stage culture in collapse.

There is no solution coming from the corporate uni-party. Any hope of working with the Democrats to do better or finding the next 'best candidate' (which is what the DNC will do) strikes me as a waste of time. The Republicans have already been talking about Trump's reelection being like the "Reagan Revolution". They are fools too.

Tump is a cult leader who found support among many of our desperate citizens. As Chris Hedges noted - as he saw in Yugoslavia - cults tend not to survive the passing of the cult leader. What follows Trump (in either party) is quite uncertain.

But the despair is real and will grow worse as the realities of the US financial condition, including the unpayable debt, cannot be avoided for much longer. What I fear then is the only organized group that has been quietly watching and waiting - the Christian nationalists who will bring real fascism.

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founding

As it stands right now, Trump has won 50.3 % of the Total Popular Vote.

That means that 49.7% of Voters voted against him.

Given that Voter Turnout was at about 65%, that means that only 32.7% of all Registered, Eligible-to-Vote Americans chose Trump to be their next President. [Only 31.3% wanted Harris.]

On what basis is that to be considered a “landslide” or “massive” or “overwhelming” victory, as the MSM/CON is dutifully proclaiming? Or any kind of a “Mandate” to do Anything about Anything, as Trump, his Church, and that same MSM/CON are declaring?

In any event, more Registered, Eligible-to-Vote Americans apparently wanted NEITHER of them to be the next President than wanted EITHER of them. Exactly what happened in 2020 and 2016.

For details: See https://brilliantmaps.com/did-not-vote/ for 2016 and https://brilliantmaps.com/?s=Did+Not+Vote for 2020 .

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founding

When was the last time voters had Actual, Real Choices about who would be their "leaders"?

When was the last time voters had an Actual, Real Say about how those "leaders" led this country?

When was the last time voters had any Actual, Real Power to change either those "leaders," or to direct and control them, and what they inflict on this Nation and Planet?

Any time in recent history?

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Not to worry, say the Dems. We will bring in new people from Central America and give them citizenship in exchange for their votes.

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