In a recent NY Times
column, Nicholas Kristoff's while not breaking ranks with the rest of
the pro Hillary columnists at the Times, discussed the perception
that HRC is dishonest (56% now think she is). The problem is not that HRC
is dishonest in any indictable sense, the problem is perception.
Crazed GOP voters (except for a few) will irrationally considered
her dishonest in the fullest sense of the word and will vote against
her in mass. On the other hand, many within her own party (and many
independents) believe she is dishonest in terms of what she purports
to represent. On the campaign trail HRC is probably no worse than most politicians in
bending the truth. As Politifax, a website that Kristoff cites that checks the factual accuracy of politician's statements, Bernie
Sanders actually gets a 1% lower rating than HRC in terms of his
statements being 'true or mostly true'. The trouble is not that she
is a bona fide liar but with her political credibility. There is a
huge perceived gap between what her position is on a given issue and
where she probably really stands - or will stand as President.
So at this point HRC
faces two adversaries: the left within her own party (strong. sizable
and not reflected in most of the Democrats currently holding office - which is another problem)
and the nutcase GOP. The Democratic Party stalwarts and HRC
supporters in the media see them as inadvertent allies and are
becoming increasingly shrill and hostile toward the Sanders campaign. Sanders, knowing HRC is getting an unfair
boost from the powerful party apparatus, has ignored the tilted playing field and simply tried to focus on the issues. The left in the Demo Party sees through
HRC's shape shifting and political wind surfing. She is a solid
corporate Democrat through and through and everyone knows it.
The problem HRC has is that the Clintons' as a team
symbolically represent the Democratic Party's 1990's unholy embrace
of
'neoliberalism', now acknowledged as toxic by most Americans with
its deregulation of banking, offshoring of jobs through
corporate-friendly trade pacts and downsizing of government by
outsourcing services and jobs.
The perception of her
dishonesty by the right is of course due to GOP fabricated propaganda which is
typical of their own never ending intellectually dishonest machinations. On the other hand the dishonesty perception by the left is based on the
suspicion that her Bernie-lite positions are simply short
lived tactical maneuvers designed for winning primaries. But her ace in
the hole is the utter absurdity of the Repubs as their out of control
post-tea party, low-info base goes bonkers over Trump.
The Democratic Party is
more the problem than HRC. Was HRC the best they could come up with? It must be, since they held a coronation and anointed her queen way
back when Bernie Sanders appeared to be just some crank left wing
socialist from a hippie state who threw his hat in the ring as the
perennial protest candidate. But this time people are
more angry and despairing than ever. Huge swaths of Democratic voters and
independent (an increasing subset) resent having a Clinton redux
thrust downs their throats. Also in many ways Obama (as hard as he
tried) has been a disappointment. Only in his last years in office
has he begun to robustly challenge the whacked out theocratic, hard
core reactionary, uncompromising, take-no-prisoners gang that is
today's GOP.
People are falling from
the middle class in droves, suicide and opiate addiction are rampant
in its lower rungs, wealth continues to funnel upwards to people who
shamelessly flout their obscene levels of avarice for all to see.
This while pot holes and rickety bridges and road rage causing
traffic jams are a daily experiences everywhere. Yet we continue to
funnel hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars and more into lost causes like Afghanistan where billions are siphoned off into Dubai bank accounts, and pump ever more dollars
into the military-industrial complex (along with several new 'industrial complexes'). College
now means home mortgage level debts for many even as many grads can't
find good jobs. And most alarmingly of all, seldom a day goes by
without another dire data driven prediction by the scientific
community of the coming environmental and geopolitical catastrophes
that will be caused by overheating our planet. We need to redesign our entire economy. Will HRC tackle that?
Sanders not Clinton
represents a departure from business as usual, a much needed one. Yet the institutions in
place , the two moribund and corrupt centrist parties want to
continue to futilely struggle with their horns inextricably entangled like two
doomed male elks on the frozen tundra. Huge swaths of voters want a
new game. Conservative inclined types, indoctrinated by years of
simplistic Reaganian anti-government propaganda as the sole
explanation as to why their incomes have plateaued or fallen
combined with their own inherent racist and nativist inclinations, have fallen for the siren call of a cheap huckster. Like
the 'Sandernistas' on the left, the 'Trumpites' have parted company
with their party bosses and their approved choices – Jeb, Rubio
and the rest. Only Kasich and the (much hated) Ted Cruz struggle on
hoping for some kind of convention coup dete. But most Repub voters
prefer The Donald.
As the candidates fight
it out state by state in trench warfare for their respective bases,
most presidential elections turn on independent voters in
swing states. These voters are often low-info, late comers to the
fray and likely as not to be swayed by well designed TV spots possibly featuring a shiny new 'presidential' Donald Trump or a 'reasonable personable' Ted Cruz or worse (for Demos) Kasich as a slightly more conservative version of HRC. The
questions the Demo Party bosses should be asking themselves is who is
best to attract these voters – HRC or Sanders? The Repub Party
bosses (the plutocracy) has already answered on their side – anybody but Trump even
as they may be stuck with him.
