Iowa and New Hampshire primaries are over. The many levels of the theater of the absurd performed masks other levels of reality.
That significant populations of persons can actively support the loony GOP candidates is more important that the candidates’ antics. Both candidates and supporters live in private reality worlds where their actions are most “appropriate” and “right”, for their worlds.
What is positive about each candidacy, whatever their position, is that many persons today are concerned, interested, and willing to give time and effort for change. However, there remain a great many Americans who have given up on politics. I personally don’t believe significant change can be gained via our political system; but each election does alter the local conditions for awhile.
What struck me most was what was NOT said by the Democratic candidates or their supportive commentators in the media.
Bernie would not object if what Hillary proposes were achieved. And Hillary would not object if what Bernie proposes were achieved. Barack would not object if what either Bernie or Hillary proposes were achieved. If so, they why isn’t Obama working now on those objectives? And how do Clinton or Sanders expect to achieve their objectives if they become POTUS?
Sanders hints to this issue when proposing a “political revolution”, by which he means massive organizing to eventually elect representatives at national, state, and local offices to support his proposals. In a recent online letter he cites changes to expect in 8 years. It is premature for him to go into details of how each project would be achieved. Sanders doesn’t dare admit explicitly that he won’t be able to do much on day one as POTUS. And neither could Clinton. Trump, Cruz, and many others could do much damage on day one by simply ending programs. Creating new programs takes more time.
Neither party can admit that we are in engaged in a political war. The GOP and their financial and corporate supporters are engaged in a soft coup to shift the USA from a weak democracy to a strong oligarchy. Either Sanders or Clinton would have to face strong opposition if elected, much the same as has Obama. Throughout our USA history, the electoral process has been attacked or manipulated in various degrees by different parties. Often it was primarily greed, one side wanting access to the spoils. Today, ideology may play a bigger role. “Conservatism” to the naive public may be a mask to enable global corporatism to dominate nationalism.
This coup is so determined to succeed that they may attempt to rig the 2016 election. There is strong evidence that George W. Bush became POTUS via electoral fraud in both 2000 and 2004. The primary means is to manipulate the software of the computers that do the final state count, not to alter or miscount ballots. The races are close so that only a few critical states need be manipulated. There is probably an electoral cyberwar continually being waged by both sides, both offensive and defensive. The efforts by the GOP to restrict voters is in place and may not be fixed by November. Neither side is willing to risk letting this political cyberwar go public, being unsure that it might not ignite a major popular uprising.
I don’t want to go deeper on this track, here. Although I still believe humankind needs UPLIFT and Societal Metamorphosis to successfully survive/thrive, if the goals of Obama, Clinton, and Sanders are actualized, it would make UPLIFT easier. I expect a Democrat to be elected POTUS in November (if not rigged), but I am not convinced they will be able to do better than Obama. If Sanders is POTUS, he will be kept so busy managing crises that he will not have time or energy to devote to the “political revolution”. If Clinton is POTUS, even though she has significantly learned and changed over the years, her ties to “established forces” (not an “establishment”) may block her being adequately “progressive”, and be more like Obama.
Before either of the primaries, I had an insight for TEAM POTUS. That Clinton, Sanders, and O’Malley agree to run as a team. The team must have an odd number of members. One would have to formally become president, but they could publically and fully legally agree to function as TEAM POTUS – to run as such during the election campaign and function as TEAM POTUS after the election. The current structure of our constitutional government is not adequate for managing a society of such great Magnitude/Scope/Complexity (MSC). Each of the three candidates have special strengths to compensate each other. Details could be worked out to make this happen!
The Internet could enable (seaf) such an organization to grow in a few months, and this would jump start Bernie’s “political revolution”. They might even select their expanded cabinet to campaign with them and a shadow congress to work on legislation to vote on once in office. A serious educational component should be added to the campaign, again an essential part of the “political revolution”.
I lack the requisite competencies to make this happen. I suggest those interested start making comments to this blog post, and quickly move the dialog to a secure/private site. I don’t recommend using any of the popular social media sites at the beginning.
An earlier and somewhat different version of this proposal can be found here.