Last week in Cleveland the Republican Party gathered in Cleveland to begin the arduous task of wresting the White House away from eight years of Democratic Party control and Make America Great Again.
Or to unleash one or more the Four Horsemen (horsepersons?) on a worried nation desperate for simpler times and simple solutions. Actually, what you saw depended a lot on which network you were watching because here in the 21st Century our mass media doesn’t just report events it shapes and contours how you will perceive them.
Glass half-full or half empty can be a triumph or a tragedy unless you’re in the business of selling paper cups. How you feel about matadors and red capes may have more to do with the price of beef than on whether it’s your bull being gored.
The events this week in Philadelphia, as the Democratic Party holds its celebration of self, has many of the same perils and pitfalls as the GOP’s last week, with email about campaign season skullduggery shifting our focus from what organizers hoped would be a coronation yesterday for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Instead, there’s mutterings and open mutiny as the Democrats struggle to corral Sanders’ supporters before they defect to third party candidates with the specter of a Trump presidency.
I think we (I have a Feel the Bern sticker on my car window) knew/suspected the game was afoot from the beginning. This past weekend’s emails confirm that suspicion but also brings with them an obligation in some fashion that Democrat voters react and then decide.
As long as the DNC and Hillary Clinton can continue to convince party regulars Trump is the boogeyman under the bed and anyone opposing him should be supported (the enemy of my enemy is now my friend), the top of the ticket may triumph in November but that doesn't mean good news for HRC and the DNC regulars afterwards.
Bernie Sanders brought millions of people into the Democratic Party, people who had never voted, perhaps never registered because they had convinced themselves or been convinced they were marginalized and their votes were worth nothing.
They/we now know better and are working to support candidates who reflect their thinking. Much is made of the Presidential election but let's not forget 33% of the Senate is up for re-election and 100% of the House of Representatives.
We can very easily create a new legislative branch NOT beholden to anyone else but to ourselves. That elected bloc could prove to be very difficult for either a President Clinton or a President Trump to deliver to the Big Money interests on their road to unlimited profitability for a very limited number of participants.
An era and error of Profits before People with both national parties going to the highest bidder could end if the energies the Sanders' campaign released in Democratic primaries all across the country can be harnessed and channeled to better reflect the desire and ability for and of each us to create a more perfect union.
-bill kenny
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