Hillary Clinton Did NOT Lose Because Democrats/Progressives Did Not Turn Out To Vote - Rev. J.T. Smith

First, full disclosure: I am not a registered Democrat.  Except for during the Primaries leading up to the 2016 Presidential Election when I officially changed parties to vote for Bernie Sanders, I am not now nor have I ever been a Democrat.  I am registered as independent.  I grant that I lean far more Democrat in general, but that's not the same thing.

And after the way the DNC treated Sanders from the beginning, from trying too keep him from getting any real press coverage even after he was clearly polling higher than she was against Trump to trying to claim he wasn't vetted against Trump even though Sanders withstood more directed attacks than Clinton and still managed to stay on the actual issues while calmly and cogently explaining things like socialism, I never will be a Democrat.

I do not hate Hillary Clinton nor do I think she's an idiot nor some version of the Antichrist.  I never have.  As noted in a prior posting, I simply cannot vote for her.  That doesn't change the number of people that did vote for her.  And if you buy into the (erroneous) notion that there's only two viable political parties, then Hillary Clinton makes a FAR saner choice than Trump.  And the fact is that nearly 3 Million more people agree that Clinton was the better choice than those who supported Trump.

Now, I don't know if it's the actual upper echelons of the Democratic party or simply the supporting arms like the National Democratic Training Committee and PACs like the Progressive Turnout Project and Democracy for America that honestly believe the entire problem was that not enough Democrats voted in the 2016 election and that was why Clinton lost.  What I do know is that if any of them or even any of the common Democrats honestly believe that then they're blind and stupid.  Again, the fact is that nearly 3 Million more people agree that Clinton was the better choice than those who supported Trump.

But I keep getting emails with petitions (for causes that I support from things like the environment to getting Representatives and Senators to block Trump's appalling nominations to offices with real political power) that when you sign the petitions you're asked (pestered more like) to fill out a survey.  Not only are the surveys realistically useless due to the questions having thoroughly leading answer choices, for example from the Progressive Turnout Project:

Official Research Poll

Did you vote for Donald J. Trump?

NO! Absolutely not. Yes, I did vote for Trump. I did not vote. 

They then follow up with another survey that both contains (usually though not always at the beginning) and reinforces the assertion of the erroneous assumption that turnout was the whole problem.

When 2.8 million more people vote for the candidate and that candidate still loses to Hitler mk II . . . er, a pathetic windbag like Trump, turnout is not so much the problem.  Or at least, it's only a small part of the much larger problem.

Then there's the media, like this article from the National Memo, that also completely misses the problem that allowed Trump to "win."

When you look back at the lead up to the election, the lion's share of the television adverts were for Hillary Clinton.  Trump aired almost no adverts until the weekend before election day, just as he had done during the primaries.  Considering the relative saturation levels, people would have been jaded on Clinton's adverts (including their overall lack of talk of the issues like the economy and her strengths in relation to those issues and focusing solely on Trump's numerous personal failings while ignoring all of his business failings or demonstrating clearly just how he's a con artist), which only allowed Trump's message of misinformation to resonate even louder.  For all the harm the Citizen's United decision caused, it was Hillary's massive fundraising compared to Trump's stingy spending that hurt her.  Still, while a facet of the problem, it's not the problem when you remember that Hillary dominated the popular vote by 2.8 Million more votes than the Great Pumpkin . . ., er, Trump.

Considering that she got that many more votes overall, getting the people out to vote wasn't quite the problem.  Though if you want to get more people out to vote, how about we end gerrymandering entirely as well as things like voter ID laws and other related barriers to voting.  It's also rather telling how the GOP relies so much on those barriers instead of actually trying to win elections on the merits of their ideas.

No, there are two basic general reasons Hillary lost.  The first is that within the Electoral College, Hillary lacked the votes of the whites in the Rust Belt.  She forgot in her wealth that the economy matters, and the con man focused on the economy.  That he did so with lies and misinformation is irrelevant when she ignores the economy so thoroughly.  That's only if you think the Electoral College does anything remotely useful.

The biggest problem, even if all those other barriers are legally and constitutionally eliminated, is the Electoral College.  The Electoral College has allowed the election to be stripped and flipped six times (in 1800, 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016) relieving the public will of their choice of leader.

That is the main problem, the reason Hillary Clinton lost the election.  Science matters, but so does history.  “'History,' it has been said, 'does not repeat itself. The historians repeat one another.'” - Max Beerbohm.

Now if we can just wake the corporate media up to these facts and shine a light on them.  Then we need to break the notion that there are only two viable political parties.

First, we need to find a way to get corporate media's collective lips off of and their collective heads out of Trump's ass, though that may prove far more difficult than getting them to wake up and actually do their jobs of keeping the entirety of government honest.

by Rev. J.T. Smith

It's Neither A Spoiler Nor A Protest Vote! - Rev. J.T. Smith

For a long time now, the Democratic and Republican parties have effectively controlled American politics between them while blocking out any other parties from truly participating.  And thanks to the cozy nature of the relationships between those two parties and the media, the American public has been told ad nauseum that a vote for any other party's candidate would be waste of a vote.  As a result, people accept this blindly without realizing that the status quo can and will change if enough people say: ''No more!''

Let me be clear, the only way I could vote for Trump is following my lobotomy from the neck up.  And while Clinton is clearly and obviously a better choice, I still cannot in good conscience vote for her.  It's not because of her gender as I am a feminist, nor is it for any of the ridiculous reasons the GOP have been throwing out ever since she was the First Lady.

I have three major problems with Clinton.  First, environmental: She still supports fracking even though it's destroying our potable water and further exacerbating climate change.  Second, financial: Her past and present ties with Wall St., between all those speaking fees and that so much of her campaign contributions come from Wall St., she's not likely to truly bite the hand that's fed her so well and for so long; not to the extent that she needs to for real reforms to start happening.  Third, war: As with her vote to invade Iraq, so it is with her approach to Syria.  Her pushing for military intervention has helped to create the Syrian refugee crisis.  More war does not end nor prevent a war!

For those reasons, and since the Democratic Party conspired to block Bernie Sanders at every turn and make certain he wasn't on the ballot, I voted for Jill Stein.  Regardless, we all need to stop buying into the notion that there are only two parties and maybe we can finally get the change we called so loudly for during the Primaries.  The Founding Fathers were in fact against the concept of political parties. 

Let me clarify one more thing, my reference to the media is about far more than Hillary Clinton.  My reference to the media is in regards to how we've been hearing for decades that voting for a third-party candidate is a wasted vote.  Let's face it, the media is owned by the elites, and the elites are the ones who try to give us only two candidates between two parties every election cycle.  The media has been burying all the various third-parties, and the media has control of the vetted information.  Examples: "Mainstream media ignore third-party Senate challengers", "These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America", "Media Deception: You Are Not Getting The Truth", and "10 Brilliant Quotes by Noam Chomsky on How Media Really Operates in America".  The dual party system as a whole has been sold to you.  Frankly, you do better to stay well clear of American corporate media for your important information.

- Rev. J.T. Smith

Donald Trump Must Never Become President! (Here's why) - Rev. J.T. Smith

 

 

Ever since November 8, we are left with a man the media keep incorrectly calling Trump the “President-Elect” (there will be no President-Elect until and unless a majority of the Electors select one when they meet on December 19), a man who lost the election by well over two million votes (a fact that is only very infrequently even mentioned in the media).  Please read these articles: "Hamilton v. Trump: The Case That Could Save America" and "32 Nonpartisan, Non-Ideological Reasons The Electoral College Must Reject Trump (And these are only based on what has happened since November 8th)", and share them far and wide.

Trump must be stopped before he does become President-elect, let alone President!

Rev. J.T. Smith