2/5/2017
Editor Note:
To those who don't want to look back and learn from past mistakes, the below video clips represent uncomfortable, inconvenient truths. Why make people uncomfortable? What is gained by that?
The election is over and Swamp Thing is president. His first two weeks were one chaotic disaster after another. There is obviously a need for resistence to Trump, and for support of real American values. There is obviously a need for unity.
But what does "unity" mean?
Unfortunately, for the Establishment Dems who got us into this mess, "unity" means "fall in line" behind the Establishment Dems. Never mind that it was their mistake to pre-annoint HRC and thwart the will of the people. Never mind that it was their mistake to rig the system, to lie and cheat to insure their Establishment No-Change Candidate won the Democratic Nomination -- the worst possible candidate to run during 2016: The Year People Demanded CHANGE.
Poll after poll for two straight years showed that MOST Americans wanted change -- REAL change (we wanted real change in 2008, too, and did not realize until too late that we'd elected yet another Corporatist Centrist). American voters were not in the mood to be fooled again. Change means CHANGE, dammit. Voters -- as in, ALL voters, from every political party and persuasion -- wanted nothing less than to throw a brick through the Corporate Establishment's window.
Yet the Democratic elites, in their infinite wisdom, thought that running a no-change candidate was the way to go. (Who is foolish enough to want to leave these geniuses in charge?)
They knew how unpopular Hillary is, that she is the most unpopular candidate among Democrats in 50 years, but in their hubris they thought they had a solution. They deliberately used their influence with the corporate media to beef up Trump and help make him the GOP nominee, in the belief that the mere fact that he is awful would give Hillary a gauranteed win.
Before it can win again, the Democratic Party needs to acknowledge the role that Bill and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Leadership Conference, 30 years of right-ward drift by the Democratic Party, Neoliberal Economics, Warmongering and Regime-change attempts Abroad, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC, the White House and the corporate media played, in making President Donald Joffrey Trump inevitable.
Of course Donald Trump is not the answer, and will not help everyday people. But the Democratic Party needs to own up to the fact that for the past 30 years, it too has been a big part of the problem, and shares the blame for the dismal state which MOST Americans live in, today. Yes, the stock market did great under Obama. Guess what -- that's not OUR stock market, it belongs to the 1%. Its gains made the 1% richer.
Meanwhile, 84% of all Americans are poorer (when cost-of-living rises are factored in) and earning less today than they were ten years ago. 100% of economic gains under Obama's "recovery" went to the top 1%. The rest of us are sliding deeper into debt and poverty. The middle class disappeared as much due to Democratic Party policies as Republican ones.
In other words, voters who wanted change from BOTH party establishments had only ONE choice on November 8 -- Donald Trump.
(Two straight years of polls including Exit Polls on November 8 prove beyond argument that most voters -- including many Republicans -- would have chosen the positive change offered by Bernie Sanders over the negativity of Donald Trump, but again... the Democratic Establishment did not want change, so The People were not allowed to have a good choice. There was only one "change candidate" on the ballot, and his name was Trump.)
Progressives understand the strength of unity. But "unity" is useless if we do not learn from past mistakes, and avoid making those same mistakes in the future. If the Dems try to run another Corporatist Centrist Candidate in 2020, we will lose again.
Furthermore, we will deserve to lose. If the Dems cannot once again start representing The People instead of the Corporate Oligarchy, our party has no good reason to exist.
Polls showed that most people who supported Hillary during the primaries are people who rely upon the corporate media for their news. The corporate media was entirely in the tank for Hillary, because she represents the interests of the 1% and so does the corporate media. Rachel Maddow may be very good at revealing flaws, mistakes and lies on the Republican side... but she SUCKS at telling you about the flaws, mistakes and lies on the Democratic side. She will not tell you the truth about Democrats, to this day. During the primaries, TRMS became just another arm of the Clinton Dirty Tricks Operations, attacking and sabotaging Bernie Sanders with lies and inuendo. This may be good for the Establishment Dem's idea of "unity" but it was a terrible dis-service to real unity and to the American People.
If the Democratic Party is to thrive again, it needs to stop being "Republican lite" -- stop being beholden to the Corporate Oligarchy and Wall Street, and return to The People. The corporate media is a member of the 1% Club, and therefore on the side of the Corporate Oligarchy and Wall Street. Ergo, the corporate media will not tell you the truth about establishment Democratic elites, and it will lie about Progressives.
If you relied upon the mainstream corporate media for your news in 2016, you were misled every day.
The reason we are keeping this "old" page of The Best of TYT Election Coverage is because it provides a Time Capsule of real-time day-to-day election coverage in 2016 from non-corporate point of view. If you only saw the election through the filter of corporate media, please take this opportunity to look back, to see what really went wrong with the election. HRC did not lose because of Comey, the FBI, the emails, sexism or racism.
Watch below videos to understand the real reasons Hillary lost, and why she was the worst possible candidate to run against Donald Trump. (Also, check out election posts from The Progressive Cowgirl here).
Then we can talk about the unity which the Democratic Party actually needs -- unity behind Progressivism and The People.
|