The 2016 election and America's political system in a nutshell

Last post, I discussed my general political views. This post, I will be applying that to the 2016 election and America's political system in a fairly condensed post that really encapsulates much of what I discussed on my old blog.

The Republican Party

As I mentioned, I used to be a conservative until around, say, 2011-2012. A lot of this was basically because I was raised that way and took on the views of parents and other authority figures. However, just because you were raised a certain way, it's a horrible reason to continue thinking in this way. My experiences with college and life have taken me far away from my views on such things.

I'm not a fan of the republicans at all. I would be very happy if they just went away. It's not good for America to only have one party that has reasonable ideas, and the other party to be completely crazy, and this is what is happening this election. The republican party, as it stands, is extremely ignorant, and extremely insane. I also think that while most followers of the party likely mean well, and their main "crime" so to speak is mere ignorance, that the party ultimately exists to serve the rich and that they're largely being controlled by corporate interests who win people over by spinning things in ways to make them sound more palatable than they actually are.

Economically, the republicans don't care about the little people. They are extremely anti worker, anti poor, and extremely pro rich and powerful. Just take a look at trickle down economics, it's the idea that if we give the rich tax cuts and stuff, that it will trickle down in the form of jobs and paychecks. Except it doesn't. Income inequality has risen significantly since the 1970s, the poor are getting hung out to dry, and the rich are getting all the new wealth created. We are becoming an increasingly stratified society, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Eliminating unions, opposing the minimum wage, social programs, do nothing but hurt workers and hurt poor people and siphon more wealth to the top. The republicans also blame the poor for their plight, saying they're lazy, or unskilled, or stupid, and that it's their fault they're in their position. This is victim blaming, and their claims are completely untrue. I'll discuss how our economy is rigged in a few articles I port over, but generally speaking, we have serious structural problems with our economy that contribute to poverty, and the problem isn't the players, it's the game. The republicans get really ridiculous when they claim, in the middle of a recession, that if only we cut unemployment benefits and give tax cuts to billionaires that it would create jobs, and unemployed people are just being lazy. Yeah, no. That was just about the last straw with the GOP around 2011 for me.

Socially, the republicans base their views on religion. Religion is completely and utterly false to me, based on authoritarianism, and has no basis in rational governance. This is yet another area in which the republicans are out of touch.

Foreign policy, they're just as bad. They seem to think just bombing everyone and staying the course will fix all our problems. Nope, it's actually creating a lot of problems. If Bush did not invade Iraq, there would not be an ISIS to deal with. think about that.

All in all, I see the republicans as crazy, and out of touch. I don't even discuss them that much because I don't see much to discuss. The party, the ideology, is a complete and absolute joke, and it's scary roughly half the country supports these guys. I mean, I like to focus on substantive issues, and honestly, nothing the republicans say is really substantive. Even on issues I think they might have points on at times, like immigration and gun control, they get way too extreme and vitriolic and sabotage their own perspective. I just don't deal with them. As I said, I think our political system would be better off and we could have real discussions if they just disappeared.

Donald Trump

Ever see Dragonball Z? Are you familiar with Majin Buu? He's a super villain who goes through numerous transformations, each one worst than the last, until he reaches his rawest, most primal form that is just the pinnacle of evil. Donald Trump is basically the equivalent of that form with the republicans. This guy is completely and utterly ignorant and has no idea what he's talking about. The fact that half the republican base voted in this guy over 17 other candidates or so is a condemnation of the party as a whole (not that any of their candidates were good, and at least trump is more moderate on some things). Seriously, while not as ideologically extreme as other republicans, he really encapsulates the epitome of their voting base. Ignorant, angry, crass, and highly xenophobic. His supporters are understandably angry at the system and republican establishment, but due to their ignorance, their rage is totally misguided and seems to be based around getting rid of immigrants, Muslims, and somehow making America great again by yelling at other nations, putting tariffs on their goods, imploding our economy, and destroying our reputation abroad. While I dislike neoliberalism too, he approaches it in a very ignorant way, and doesn't seem to know or care what the consequences of his actions are. On other issues, he's totally out of his depth and is a total demagogue who will say anything he thinks people want to hear.

All in all, I won't be discussing Trump much either, because there's nothing to discuss. Trump is an idiot, plain and simple, and he represents a voting base of ignorant people who have no idea how the world works, and he has no idea how it works either. With Trump as the presidential nominee, we have a party in which the lunatics have taken control of the asylum. It's scary.

The Democratic Party 

After I left the republican party, I ultimately gave the democrats a chance. Going into my views post religious deconversion, I became extremely liberal and ultimately identified a lot with the democrats. I figured, after the republicans were basically screwing over their base in order to make the rich richer, the democrats seemed a lot more reputable, and a lot more to be for the little guy. Honestly, I align a lot with liberal ideology. I am liberal on social issues, relatively non interventionist on foreign policy, and I'm left wing on economics. The democratic party should be a shoe in for me, and I will admit, I agree with them on many levels. They are way better than the republicans. However, I'm growing increasingly alienated from them this election and am starting to see them as merely a lesser evil.

Here's the thing. If the democratic party is truly going to be the party that stands up for the people, the party that does the opposite of the republican party, it has to be bold, it has to be aggressive, and it has to be unapologetically liberal. It has to solve the problems of the time in a tangible way, and it has to be willing to stick its neck out.

Obama isn't a bad president, but the area in which he largely failed was that he never thought big enough, and he never took the republicans on. He didn't go for single payer healthcare, he went for Obamacare, which was originally Romneycare (yes, that Romney), and before that a republican plan from the 1990s. Since the republicans took over congress, they have opposed him on everything, and Obama has just kind of stood there and took it. He moderated his views a lot, he compromised with them, and they still ran him over. Again, I think, as a country, we would be better off if the republicans in this country no longer existed as they currently exists, and that means defeating them politically. Obama lacks the guts and the resolve to oppose them as tenaciously as the republicans oppose him. The republicans don't screw around, they play for keeps, and the democrats just kind of sit there and take it.

Going into this election, I believed we needed a strong liberal who would propose bigger, more comprehensive solutions to our issues. Someone who would take a deep look at the problems with this country and actually put forward a plan to solve them. Two names came up for people who could fit this bill as early as 2014. They were Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren. After looking at both, I believed Sanders was the stronger candidate and that he had better thought out ideas, as well as solutions that were palatable to me. Quite frankly, it's hard to ask for a better candidate unless he openly endorsed the concept of basic income.

But, the democrats spent the entire primary season shutting him down. The media didn't cover him often, and seemed intent on suppressing awareness of him relative to Hillary Clinton, who was a household name. We saw Debbie Wasserman Schultz originally plan 6 debates at off times that seemed intent on minimizing coverage. She eventually caved, but only after tons of constant complaining. The "liberal media" on corporate channels like CNN and MSNBC largely favored Clinton, and while yes, Clinton did get more negative media coverage, this has to do with the right wing propaganda machines and more online based sources favoring Sanders. However, the mainstream liberal media? They largely wanted Clinton. Then you have suspicious behavior in various key battleground states that look a lot like voter suppression, and yeah, it just does not feel like the democratic party gave Sanders a chance. The "invisible primary" favored Clinton, who represented the establishment, and this ultimately led to the full primary backing him.

Even the actual dialogue in the democratic party seemed toxic. Bloggers and supporters ran fear stories early on suggesting Sanders was too extreme to win, and before Scalia even died were running stories about how half the supreme court is at risk of dying and we need to vote for Clinton so she can nominate new justices. Instead of being a true dialogue about ideas, the primary became about "party unity" and "voting blue no matter who." The very idea of suggesting voting third party was met with hostile opposition from shrill critics who would talk about how you're blowing it for them and you better support Clinton no matter what (this was after dissatisfaction with Clinton became apparent). The dialogue focused on stuff like Bernie bros and the idea that Bernie supporters were racist and sexist. All in all, Sanders message seemed to get drowned out in a torrent of establishment propaganda and talking points trying to character assassinate Sanders and his ideas. When his actual ideas were discussed at all, they were dismissed as being too far left and unpractical. We were constantly lectured and told how we gotta settle for "pragmatic, incremental change." Honestly, in reality, to me, Clinton is a mediocre uninspiring candidate who has an inconsistent record and is known to say one thing and do another, and who has a history of taking donations from big money. She is a tool of the establishment, a tool of the elite, and this election, she's done a lot to shut Sanders down.

The worst part is after Sanders and his supporters basically get shut down and crapped on, we're told we have to support Clinton...OR ELSE. No positive message of what Clinton is going to do or how good of a candidate she's going to be (let's face it, she's horrible at spinning herself horribly when she tries since Sanders simply has a superior platform), the message is, look, we know you don't like Clinton, but you BETTER support her or you're going to get a republican. The republicans are awful, I have little to say about them, but the democrats quickly realized this, and used their de facto monopoly on being the only decent party in the country with a shot of winning to tell us to fall in line.

This election is not about us, it's about them. It's about putting a big crown on Hillary's head and recognizing that it's her turn after she lost to Obama in 2008. She acts like the presidency is owed to her and that we better support her or else. Quite frankly, the democrats could have been the hero in this story, but in backing Clinton over Sanders, they became merely a lesser evil.

I would discuss Clinton and Sanders in their own sections like Trump, but honestly, I think I summed it up. Sanders is exactly what this country needs, but was shot down, and Clinton is a mediocre uninspiring candidate who is simply a lesser of two evils. Quite frankly, in this two party system, the democrats recognize that the republicans are too extreme to support, so they browbeat and tell their alienated dissatisfied supporters to fall in line and take one for the team or else. Quite frankly, I have serious qualms with doing it because it will just support more of this behavior in the long term.

Now, to discuss third parties.

Libertarians and Gary Johnson

I don't like right libertarianism. I think the ideology is small government conservatism being taken to ridiculous extremes.having debated libertarians on reddit and facebook and elsewhere, I can't help to think that the movement is a bit crazy. They are ideologically against government. That's their whole idea. That government suppresses liberty and has a monopoly on violence and we should shrink it as much as possible. This, in its extremes, which many followers accept, leads to things like selling heroin to 5 year olds (Austin Petersen was booed for suggesting this was a bad idea), that driver licenses are a bad thing (Johnson was booed for saying something to the contrary), that child labor is good, etc. These guys basically want to take us back to the gilded age economically by getting rid of all government regulations, and turn us into some anarchistic hellhole on other issues. They're crazy, I can't support them. They're basically more extreme than republicans on economics and can have some scary social ideas too.

To be fair though, not all libertarians are that extreme. And Johnson is pretty mild as far as they go. He says some cringeworthy things on economics, but his social and foreign policy issues are pretty spot on. I'd support him if he didn't oppose everything I stand for on economic issues.

Jill Stein and the Greens

The green party is a bit weird at times, since they're more of an environmentalist party than a left wing progressive party, but they seem to be trying hard to win over disaffected democratic voters like me. Stein has been trying to channel Bernie's rhetoric and ideals and appeal to democratic voters with things like student debt forgiveness, guaranteed income, universal healthcare, etc. All the ideas the democrats have rejected and told us are unfeasible for political reasons or otherwise, the greens are adopting.

However, the greens can be fairly cringeworthy sometimes. Whereas Sanders likely had the ability to follow through on his ideas on a practical level, I question if Stein could do the same. She has a lot of good sounding ideas, but no real plans for implementation in a feasible way. She sounds great on paper, but she likely would not be a good president in practice.

The greens also seem to appeal to a lot of left wing nuttery like anti GMO, anti nuclear, pro homeopathy nonsense. They're making improvements on these things, and even Sanders is guilty of also supporting some of these things to an extent, but still, it is a negative. Stein is also way more anti interventionist than me and supports cutting the military in half, which I think could destabilize the world order in a lot of negative ways.

Still, despite these drawbacks, I'm seriously considering voting for her anyway. Between Clinton and Stein, Clinton has the pragmatism, but not the ideas. She's boring, uninspiring, and I resent being told to fall in line or else. On the other hand, Stein has a lot of good ideas with no real plan to implement them. Still, considering how Stein has little chance to win, and that a vote for her is a protest vote against the democrats, the temptation is high to support her, and seeing how Sanders is unlikely to get it, I probably will support her.

Conclusion

All in all, I'm not very happy with the two major parties as they exist. The republicans are just off the wall nuts and being controlled by a bunch of rich people looking to maximize their own interests at the expense of everyone else, and the democrats are a combination of mediocre, uninspiring, timid, and bought and paid for by elites too. Between Trump and Clinton, Clinton is by far the lesser evil, but considering how the Clinton campaign seems to be centering around being a lesser evil and maybe making surface concessions to progressives, they're not great either. I totally would have supported Sanders, but Clinton rubs me the wrong way. As far as third party candidates go, I like Stein and the greens to an extent, but not the libertarians.

My choice this election, ignoring Sanders, is essentially one between Clinton and Stein. Right now I'm leaning toward Stein because I have a strong distaste for the democrats right now, and dislike their fear mongering and attempt to push Sanders supporters to "take one for the team." As Stein would say, Sanders' problem was trying to run a revolutionary campaign in a counter revolutionary party. I tend to agree with that. Sanders has the ideas to fix this country, but he got shot down by a party hostile toward him and his goals, and we're being told to settle for a mediocre version instead. Honestly, without pressure from the left, the democratic party will never have any incentive to be anything but a lesser evil, and they will always scare them into submission by threatening us with the republicans if we don't comply. It's almost like the elites who donate to these parties and run the country from behind the scenes are playing a good cop bad cop act with us. We're told to cooperate with the good cop (Clinton) or we get the bad cop (Trump). Honestly, I think we need to send a message to the democrats that progressives don't owe them a vote and that we won't just support them for fear of the other side. We can do better than this. We need to do better than this.

Anyway, this actually should reduce the number of articles I'll port over from my old blog, because this covers a lot of what I discussed on there. I rarely talked about the republicans, because there's not much to discuss. I largely discussed the democratic primary and the infighting going on there, because to me, that's where the real issues are. The democrats are the only major party who really have real ideas at all, and as such, they hold a monopoly on said ideas. As such, for me, it is them who must be criticized and engaged if we are going to change the country.