What is Wrong with America that Trump Can Clinch the GOP Nomination?

With Ted Cruz dropping out, The Donald has essentially clinched the GOP nomination for the Presidency. Not bad for an on again and off again Republican. But what is wrong in America that some one like Trump can be a threat to taking the Presidency. Last year I wrote a piece that predicted Ted Cruz losing the GOP bid for the Presidency. As a total whack-job, theocrat, I knew Ted didn't stand a chance in a general election, and I sincerely thought he was encouraged to run to make ol' Jeb look more electable. But then the Donald happened. No one could have predicted Donald Trump.

I will not go into Trump's politics, nor his lack of public speaking skills (George Takei already pointed this out in the most perfect way). The reason I will refrain from this is because Trump's politics have nothing to do with his success. Yes. I just wrote that the politics of the GOP Presidential candidate's success is irrelevant. What has America come to? Well, it's a long story, one that began with the spouse of one other potential Presidential Candidate.

The Clinton Presidency was a soap opera. It was as entertaining since the first time Bill played his sax. Yes, there was scandal, but it was of a personal matter. It's not like he was selling illegal arms and getting away with it. However, the Clinton Presidency was the first neo-liberal Presidency whose economic guru was Alan Greenspan, who suckled at the tit of Ayn Rand and was a member of her cult, "the Collective." Thus began the purchase of America by corporate interests.  Furthermore, his policies opened the door for successor to rape the Middle Class in America, leading to the Great Recession.

When li'l Bush stole the Presidency in 2000 he began continuing Reagan-esque trickle down policies. He gave tax breaks for the rich, privatized (AKA segregated) schools along racial and class lines, and lied to the American people to start an illegal war. And that's not to mention the unethical, and un-American detention camp in Guantanamo Bay. The Bush Administration continued the purchase of the American government by the corporate elite as the GOP rose to even greater power. With the marriage of the religious right to the political right now old hat, the Bush presidency led the country into a scientific back-slide. At the national level, climate change was denied, stem cell research suppressed, and creationism, now renamed "intelligent design," was allowed to be taught in schools along side evolution. These things became business as usual. Fortunately, Presidents have term limits, unfortunately, the next one was another neo-lib.

In 2008, Obama upset the DNC by sweeping Hillary Clinton out of the race, thus ending her first bid for the Presidency. He promised hope and change, and while the country hoped, his changes weren't spectacular, when they did occur. His first major change was to implement mandatory health care that was similar to what Hillary Clinton advocated during her husband's Presidency. The ACA, or Obamacare, passed, but not before the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies gutted the bill to the point that it was a mockery of its former self. In fact, States that did not expand Medicaid like they were supposed to have seen rate hikes and poor coverage for the very people the ACA was designed to protect. Added to this debacle, Obama expanded US military interests in the middle east which further destabilized the region. Also under Obama's watch, a corporation's religious belief trumps family planning, and corporations are now people who are allowed to vote with their wallets. Neo-liberalism looks less like liberalism, and more like old-fashioned conservatism.

The funny (or sad, per your perspective) part, is that the Party of Lincoln was hijacked twice in our little story. The first time was when the Moral Majority took controlling influence back in the 80s. This married Gilded-Age economics with religion. From a political point of view, this is brilliant because socioeconomic status is often an indicator (and much more so in the 80s than today) of a person's education. Poorer people tend to be more religious. Less educated people are less likely to question authorities they respect. Like preachers, church elders, priests, what have you. How else do you get an entire demographic to consistently vote against their own interests?

The second time the GOP was hijacked came not from the 1%, but from the product of their political tampering. A grassroots movement sprang up in Red State areas calling for a return to more Constitutional times. The Tea Party: poor conservatives convinced that it was the liberals that were destroying the country. You remember them, they were the ones chanting "Keep the Government out of my Medicare!" The Tea Party exists not to keep the GOP conservative, but to oppose Obama specifically.  Once the Republicans took control of the House and Senate they have stonewalled any left-leaning legislation introduced. This includes shutting down the Federal Government for not getting the 1% friendly tax breaks into the budget. Their obstructionism is so rampant, that the GOP controlled Senate is refusing to hold hearings on a Supreme Court vacancy.  They want to fill the seat, they just don't want Obama to do it. Before the 2016 election, this had become the state of US politics, the party in the Majority, refusing to work at the job they were hired for out of simple hatred for the other aisle, and the brown man in the White House. The only person Tea Partyers hate more than Obama is Hillary Clinton.

Enter the 2016 Presidential Election. When candidates announced their running in 2015, there were two political dynasties in the running. On the right you had Jeb Bush, son of Big Bush, and older brother to li'l Bush. Not even the GOP was having him. A dim-witted theocrat, Ted Cruz polled better than Jebbie. That's saying something. On the Left, you has Hillary Clinton, former First Lady and Secretary of State. Billing herself as the first woman President she stole the hearts of DNC hardliners. Of course, it helped that the DNC chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz was helping Clinton by making it hard for other candidates to be heard (I'm being nice, she flat out tried to rig the election). Add in that in many of the states Clinton won, there have been severe election issues that smell like purposeful election fraud (funny how it always benefits Hillary). Unfortunately, due to half the states barring independents from voting, hard-line neo-libs in the DNC are giving Clinton a lead over her competition in the polls. But it is her competition, and The Donald, that are defining the Presidential race.

Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are outsiders to the status quo. Clinton has many of the same employers donors as Republican candidates. Just like Bush, Kaish and Cruz, she is a whore to Wall Street too afraid to release her $200K-$400K speeches lest they be used against her during the campaign. The reason why those speeches are so important is because shucking Wall Street is so important. You see, the people are tired of business as usual. We know the game is rigged and we have two candidates that are not beholden to Wall Street. Sanders, like Clinton also works for his employers: the thousands of small donors, formally known as The People, who have financed over 99% of his campaign. Trump, on the other hand, is a Wall Street insider that may belong to the 1%, but he doesn't work for the 1%.  We have Sanders, who is grumpy, and Trump, who is crude. Trump the racist, and Sanders the activist. Two very different candidates, two very different people, two very different visions, but the most important thing is what they both share: Neither are under the thumb of the plutocracy. And THAT is why Trump is able to not only win the GOP nomination, but should Clinton win the DNC, have a good chance of becoming POTUS 45.

Either way, the next President will not be one of the usual crowd. It will be either a Social Democrat from the Bronx, or a sometimes Republican, sometimes Democrat from Queens. But the Witch from Chicago is out. The people are tired of the moneyed ruling elite ruining what was the most prosperous country in the world. The lives of the people are being sold to fatten the fat cats, and we are not going to take it any more.  The election of 2016 is a quiet revolution as The People are trying to use the system to get out Republic back. This is a test to see whether the American Experiment can survive our brush with the nouveau-Aristocracy that has arisen in America today. If not then in a generation or two the revolution may not be so quiet.

I think a little ditty from the 80s can sum up the attitudes of the oft ignored independent voters this election cycle:

Why Bernie Sanders can Save the GOP

The history of political parties in the US is a sordid one.  In George Washington's farewell address, he warned against political parties which had begun under his Presidency.  By the time John Adams became President, two prominent parties had formed: the Federalists and the Republican-Democrats. Eventually, the Federalists went by the way-side, and the Republican-Democrats dropped the Republican part.  A later party, formed in 1854, claimed the Republican moniker, and 6 years later elected their first Presidential Candidate, Abraham Lincoln.

It was the Radical Republicans that called for full equalization of rights and protections under the law for blacks before the Civil War, and during Reconstruction.  While the GOP has always had business interests in mind, there was still a progressive side that wanted to curtail rampant and destructive business practices.  After all, the "Great Trust Buster", Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican.  That goes to show that, historically, the Republican party was a dynamic party, one that covered a spectrum of political ideas.

Today, however, the GOP has been hijacked; first it was the Moral Majority, and lately the Tea Party. Today, the "radical" Republicans are the Libertarians, or at least those who buy into their objectivist ideology.  The GOP has gotten so extreme in it's platforms that the most liberal of Republicans are heavily conservative by the standards of just 40 years ago.  This is spelling the undoing of the Republican Party.  And it must not happen. Crack a history book to see the effects of a one party system.

Enter Bernie Sanders, the Independent Senator from Vermont. Sanders (his supporters just call him Bernie), has a large Republican following in Vermont, and there is even a Facebook page for his GOP supporters. While Sanders is often criticized for being a socialist (he's actually a Democratic Socialist which is still a capitalist), his policy ideas are middle ground for most of the advanced nations of the world. American politics have gotten so far to the right, thanks to the 1% and the religious fanatics hijacking of the GOP, that the middle ground is considered "extremist."  Sanders is not of the 1%, in fact he's their political nemesis, and he's not all that religious.  He's a progressive throwback and one that Republicans of when the party was truly Grand, would embrace.

The fact that someone like Sanders is able to gain such support despite not taking any Super PAC money, shows that the people are behind him.  Some of those people are Republicans.  This is important because the bulk of America is tired of Republican party shenanigans, and the corporate shills they choose for candidates. As an American, and fully aware that our political system is watched around the world, I was embarrassed after watching the first Republican debate. Trump turned the debate into a circus, and he's the GOP front runner. What scared me is that Trump is not really a product of the GOP as he is a reflection of current Republican Party.  He's misogynistic, racist, and cares more about his own wealth than the well-being of his fellow Americans.

No, not all Republicans are that way.  In fact most are not, at least most of the one's I know.  I understand that that was an anecdotal statement on my part, but I live in the Bible Belt, I live in GOP territory, I am surrounded by members of the Republican party.  One of the primary virtues of Republicans is loyalty.  That is why the sane, and good people I know that are Republican are not misogynistic or racist, or pro-1%.  They identify as Republican, mostly because their parent's did, and they are loyal to their party; to attack the party is to attack them.  But loyalty goes both ways.  If not, then it is not loyalty but servitude.  With the exception of the most radical of modern Republicans, the religious extremists, and Tea Partiers, many Republicans are waking up and realizing that the Party they are loyal too, is not loyal to them.

If Clinton gets elected... well, she is a Democrat in Name Only. If this was the 1960s, she would have been a Centrist Republican, not a Democrat. Never mind that she is flip-flopping on nearly everything now and mimicking Sanders, with the exception of her most fanatical supporters, even Democrats take for granted that she is only flip-flopping until after she would take office; she is only changing her views to get elected. Even if she gets protest votes over Trump, nothing would change.  It would be party politics as usual.

If Sander's wins, however, it is a game changer.  Part of his appeal is that he is not just a political leader, he is the leader of a movement.  A grassroots movement of the young and old alike.  The GOP is a repulsive force to to the Millennial Generation.  Even Millennial Republicans can see the writing on the wall if the GOP keeps to the path it is on.  That is IF you can find a Millennial Republican, most pay no attention to the GOP what so ever. In a more diverse-sensitive America, surviving parties must embrace the diversity of our nation. So far Republicans mostly alienate it.

If Sanders takes office, the GOP party leaders will have to wake up or lose their party.  To keep GOP obstructionists from stonewalling the White HOuse and Congressional Dems, GOP candidates will have to be more moderate, more willing to compromise, and more in touch with the needs of their constituents.  Too long have the 1% run politics to the chagrin of voters.  When Sanders takes office in 2017, it will show the 1%, and more importantly the American voter, that money is done.  Politics belong to all of us, not just the 1%.  The GOP will have to listen to their more moderate voters and politicians, and balance will return to American Politics. It is time for the GOP to return to its Lincoln roots, to regain its true fiscal responsibility like what Teddy Roosevelt exhibited, to work for the American People like Ike Eisenhower and not Big Business.