Here We Go Again With Not Voting For X Is A Vote For Y - Rev. J.T. Smith

 

Every four years America is treated to the Presidential election when Americans are directed to vote for one of two wealthy (anymore it's more like obscenely wealthy) candidates to run the country.  And for many decades now, American politics has been subsumed by a corporate duopoly divided between the Democrats and Republicans.  That duopoly has literally become its own industry that claims to cares about its customers (you guessed it: us) but in practice only serves to enrich itself.  And for free advertising, bring in major media outlets that drown out every other potential candidate.  Just look what happened to Bernie Sanders in 2016.

I've been hearing the trope about voting for a third party for decades now, about how it's a thrown away vote, or it's a vote for such-and-such candidate, etc.  I am NOT a fan of Trump by any means, so I will not vote for him.

The reality is that America desperately needs to break free of the corporate duopoly of the two-party system; but, as long as people continue to buy into the fallacy that it is the only viable system, which is a lie that you've been spoon-fed since you were in grade school and fed to you by the corporate "elites" who effectively control both parties with their extremely deep pockets, as long as Americans buy that lie, and as long as the Electoral College is allowed to remain in place, then America is screwed by it.

The only ways that I'm aware of to break that cycle is: 1) Permanently end the Electoral College; and 2) to finally vote for someone else, someone who is not so beholden to American corporatocracy, for enough people to both be registered to vote (finally starting to see some small movement on that, albeit infinitesimal) and for them to stop automatically simply voting for only either Democrats or Republicans.  That Senator Bernie Sanders held that office as an Independent for as long as he has is an indicator it can be done.

Eliminating the Electoral College is not impossible.  For things to do to achieve this, there are many avenues.  There are a plethora of petitions dedicated to this.  Sign all of them.  You can even start your own if you're so inclined.  You can also contact your government representatives, both state and federal.  You have the right, utilize it.  Write to and call your Representative and Senators.  And not just once and done, but repeatedly.  Don't let them ignore you.  To magnify your voice, also join or start a local group for this purpose.  For perspective, "gun rights" adherents and groups are calling in nearly daily.  It's one of the reasons Congress has failed so miserably to actually do anything particularly to curb gun violence  in America.  You can do the same.  As always, be polite or you'll be working against yourself.

Frankly I still think that if he had run as an independent in 2016 rather than falling into the trap of running as a Democrat against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, then we might finally have seen a solid crack in the system.  Especially considering Sanders was bringing in more small money donations and larger turnouts at his campaign rallies than Clinton and Trump combined.  But he was a clear and present danger to the established order which is why, since he was running as a Democrat, the Democratic Party was able to quash him and hand the nomination to Clinton.  Frankly, I could never vote for her as she never met a war she didn't like.

Until that break from the corporate duopoly happens, every cycle there will be people screaming that a vote for someone other than the corporate chosen candidate is a vote for the other corporate chosen candidate.

Want to keep Trump out of office?  Then do everything you can to make certain that the protections of the 14th Amendment are enforced, and throw his arse in prison where it likely belongs. 

Impossible is for the lazy.  Nothing is impossible if people start thinking rather than merely reacting.  It takes a lot of hard work and time invested.  As a hemorrhagic stroke survivor who's ambulatory again (after being completely paralyzed from the neck down on my dominant side, I'm not fully recovered YET), I am here to tell you impossible is for the lazy.   According to the laws of aerodynamics it's impossible for a bumblebee to fly.  Screw impossible and just DO it.

- Rev. J.T. Smith

 

Trump really can #MAGA

To All Republicans Who Insist On Banning Abortion . . .

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

#normalizebreastfeeding