Tag Archives: Bernie Sanders

Dilemma

I find myself caught on the horns of a dilemma as I try to determine whether conservatives or liberals make most sense when they talk of human freedom. On the one hand, conservatives insist that increasing social programs will deprive humans of their freedom while on the other hand liberals insist that human beings cannot be said to be free if they have no food on the table or homes to live in. I find the latter position more appealing, but the former one is not without strength.

When I speak of conservatives I speak not of reactionary conservatives such as our fractious leader who takes great delight in spreading hatred among his mindless minions. Nor do I speak of the “dollar conservatives” whose only love is of filthy lucre and who think freedom is all about free enterprise. Rather, I speak of those intellectual conservatives such as Nietzsche and Dostoevsky who thought that socialism, for example, would deprive humans of any real freedom in the name of making them feel more safe and secure. Dostoevsky knew whereof he spoke as he had been condemned to a firing squad as a young man for having radical political ideas and then, after a reprieve, was sent to Siberia for five years to live among convicts in clothing that stank and crawled with lice while he picked cockroaches out of his thin soup. He was convinced that in order to be really free humans needed to suffer and he hated the Church because he was convinced that they took upon their own shoulders the burden of human freedom thereby reducing humans to “denizens of an ant heap.” Socialism, in his view, was nothing more than the stepchild of the Church.

How does one argue against a man who went through what Dostoevsky went through? How does one living in modern day America possibly understand how much we take the easy life for granted when so many in this crowded world struggle to survive? As Dostoevsky would see it, our freedom has been reduced to determining which loaf of bread we will select from the huge variety on the shelves at the grocery store or which car we will lease this year. We fear the risks and responsibilities of true freedom. And Heaven knows we don’t want to suffer in any way. (Where’s the aspirin?) At the same time, however, even in this wealthy country there are those who must scrounge in dumpsters for their meals and live on the streets, it is hard to agree that such people are free in any real sense of the term. There’s the dilemma.

Thus, one turns to politicians such as Bernie Sanders who embraces socialism in the name of human compassion and a genuine concern for others. I take him at his word; I believe he is sincere. He does want to help others. In wishing to do so, however, does he threaten to make us all “denizens of an ant heap”? I would prefer not to give up my freedom in order to dance to the tunes played by the corporations or in order not to have to make moral choices for myself. It is true as Nietzsche and Dostoevsky say that living in a state in which people are taken care of by a powerful political machine does not seem to allow room for any true human freedom.

But what about those who suffer? There’s the dilemma. And the care for others coupled with the compassion we ought surely to feel for our fellow human beings who do suffer — even though we do not do so ourselves (or, rather, because we do not do so ourselves!) would seem to be a demand we make of our moral selves. Must we trade genuine human freedom in order to make sure there are none who suffer to the extent that freedom becomes an empty word?  I think we must. I acknowledge the strength of the position taken by Dostoevsky who suffered immeasurably and grew in the process from a shallow human being with a few tattered radical ideas to a genius who knew that what really mattered in human lives was the love we have for once another and who cared about others while he was convinced that they must suffer, as he did perhaps, in order to become fully human.

But I finally come down on the side of those whose care for others would take some of their freedom away in the hope that in doing so they could live meaningful lives and achieve some semblance of meaningful freedom that is denied to them as they seek to keep body and soul together on the streets of our cities. We risk becoming “denizens of an ant heap” in opting for a political system that focuses on the needs of our fellow human beings. But the conservative view of freedom that was held by thinkers such as Dostoevsky has been reduced in our day, as I noted above, to a preoccupation with free enterprise in which the only thing that truly matters is the increase of creature comforts among the few at the cost of misery for so many others. In the end, the escape between the horns of the dilemma seems clear: err on the side of compassion for our fellow humans.

 

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The Real Villains

Bernie Sanders knew who the real enemy is — and it isn’t the Republican Party or our clown President. They are a mere diversion. The real villains in the political drama that is playing out before our eyes are the corporations. And because Sanders was becoming too loud he had to be silenced. The Democratic Party, which is funded by the corporations in large measure (as, of course, is the Republican Party) saw to it that his candidacy came to an end. He has been set aside and is now no more than a whimper, something the corporations can ignore because the rest of us can’t hear him, or refuse to listen.

The corporations are the modern face of capitalism and many of the criticisms by people like Mark Fisher (author of Capitalist Realism) are more properly directed at the corporations than they are at capitalism, per se. The corporations were recently allowed to come from behind the political curtain and declare themselves openly when, in “Citizens United,” the Supreme Court determined that corporations are persons and entitled to make huge donations to the political parties without having to do so under the table. As a result their cover is blown, but they are now beyond our reach because we do not know who the hell they are! That’s the problem, and that’s precisely why they are NOT persons: they are insubstantial and they cannot be found responsible for their misdeeds because they are like a shadow that suddenly is no longer there. Assigning responsibility to the corporations is like nailing Jello to the wall:  it cannot be done. They will be bailed out when in financial difficulty by the government, which they own, and if they should be discovered doing the dirty they will throw one of their own under the bus — or cover over the mess like the Valdez oil spill, with clever P.R. They are insidious because they are essentially vaporous and operate in secret.

Mark Fisher paints a vivid picture the Kafkaesque world of the corporations which is now our world. And toward the end of his book he outlines for us the effects of capitalism on the family and education — two of the pillars of our civilization — and the sorry state to which each has been brought mainly because of corporate influence. I quote him at some length because his message is worth pondering:

“It is the parents’ following of the trajectory of the pleasure principle, the path of least resistance, that causes most of the miseries in the families. In a pattern that quickly becomes familiar, the parents’ pursuit of the easy life leads them to accede to their children’s every demand, which becomes increasingly tyrannical.. . .

“The problem is that late capitalism insists and relies upon the very equation of desire with interests that parenting used to be based on rejecting. In a culture in which the ‘paternal’ concept of duty has been replaced by the ‘maternal’ imperative to enjoy, it can seem that the parent is failing in their duty if they in any way impede their children’s absolute right to enjoyment. Partly this is an effect of the increasing requirement that both parents work; in these conditions, when the parent sees the child very little, the tendency will often be to refuse to occupy the ‘oppressive’ function of telling the child what to do. The parental disavowal of this role is doubled at the level of cultural production by the refusal of the [corporations] to do anything but give audiences what they already (appear) to want. The concrete question is: if a return to the paternal superego — the stern father in the home — is neither possible nor desirable, then how are we to move beyond the culture of monotonous moribund conformity that results in a refusal to challenge or educate?”

Corporations remain out of focus in our world of constant entertainment and diversion — provided, of course, by the corporations (who also see to it that both parents must work in order to “provide for their families”). Thus the corporations are able to determine not only political but cultural outcomes while remaining  anonymous. And those outcomes are always about the same thing: profits for their shareholders and C.E.O.s. The shareholders themselves feel they are benefitting because they enjoy a higher standard of living and are able to take advantage of the diversions provided for them by  — wait for it — the corporations! It is a circle, and it is a vicious circle. Bernie Sanders saw this clearly. But his voice has been silenced. Will anyone have the courage to speak up — say, Elizabeth Warren? Or will her voice also be silenced as well before she can shout “wolf” loud enough to be heard by those who really don’t want to listen.

In any event, the notion that we live in a “democracy” is no longer tenable. In fact, we live in a tyrannical bureaucracy run by numerous powerful corporations that are above the law because they determine what the laws will allow or disallow. The founders worried about the influence of money on the tenuous threads that hold a Republic together, but they never, in their worse nightmares, imagined the power that could be wielded by giant multinational corporations. The Republic they envisioned, resting as it  precariously did on the balance of powers, has been replaced by the all-powerful corporations and the unimaginably wealthy few who run the show.

 

 

 

The Test

Tomorrow the great American experiment will be tested as it has never been tested before. We will find out if popular democracy is good idea or a mistake of the first order. The test is fairly simple: do the American voters want a woman of proven experience and judgment or a vulgar man who has shown himself to be a bigoted, narcissistic megalomaniac? The latter likes to identify himself with the “common man,” whereas the former likes to present herself as a woman of the world who has the intelligence and experience to run the country — a woman who, while flawed like the rest of us, many regard as the most qualified candidate ever for this job. In a word, will the voters make informed choices or simply turn this race into a popularity contest?

The Founders, in their wisdom, did not trust the common man. They adopted the Roman model of a republic on purpose: representative democracy. They wrote a Constitution that required minimal property requirements of (male) voters who were only allowed to select their representatives to the House for two-year terms while requiring that legislators of the various states elect the Senate and the President.  The electoral college was devised to assure that the important offices would be reserved for those well qualified and the determination of those who were well qualified was reserved for those who presumably had the breadth of judgment to select the best qualified candidates. In a word, intelligence was considered a prerequisite for all the important votes. Jefferson founded the University of Virginia to educate citizens of the young republic.

I confess, I am not a populist. While I do not think that ownership of property should be a requirement to vote, I do think that the voters of this republic should know that the number of Senators in Delaware is the same as the number in Texas and that there are nine Supreme Court judges (as a rule). The evidence reveals that many college graduates today do not know these simple facts!  In a word, I think the voters should have had a course in civics and know at least as much as those born elsewhere must demonstrate they know in becoming American citizens. The Founders did not envision a country in which the average Joe or Jean, with virtually no education whatever, should be allowed to decide who is best qualified to run this country.

I do realize that much has changed since 1776. I do also realize that in the spirit of egalitarianism we hesitate any longer to judge any one person better or worse in any sense of those words than anyone else. But the fact is that some people are brighter and better able to make informed judgment than others. Some, at least, have taken the time and trouble to vet the candidates carefully. We have taken the egalitarian ideal to its extreme and the result is that we now have a baboon running for the highest office in the land and he has garnered a blind following that numbers in the thousands. This is not how it was supposed to be.

In any event, in November we shall see if enough people in this country have the intelligence (or is it simply common sense?) not to elect a man demonstrably unqualified for the job and reject a woman demonstrably well qualified. We shall see whether the American experiment is a success or a failure. As Bernie Sanders has noted, this is the most important election in our lifetime — perhaps ever.

Top Ten Reasons

In a recent post on Facebook one of the contributors noted that she didn’t like Hillary Clinton at all but since Hillary was friends with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders she thought that together they could accomplish a great deal in the next four years. In addition, she was vehemently against the thought of Trump as our next president and was therefore determined to vote for Hillary despite her misgivings. I tend to agree with her take on Hillary as a person, but as I have noted in past blogs, this election is not about her personality — or Trump’s — and when it comes to policies and experience Hillary, as has been said, may be the best qualified candidate ever to run for president.

Thus I regard this writer’s reasoning as weak even though I agree with her. It focuses too much on personalities to be considered strong reasoning in a political race of this magnitude. I tend to agree that Hillary’s public persona is a bit off-putting: she seems to be a very private person not given to opening up in public, not warm and cuddly like her husband. I have no problem with that however, and while I also disagree with some of the decisions she has made in the past, this race is too important to overlook her exceptional qualifications for the job at hand.

Since this election is a reality show in the mind of one of the candidates, I have chosen to take a page from David Letterman’s book and list my “top ten” reasons for voting for Hillary Clinton,in reverse order.

10. She was two-term Senator for New York State.

9. She was First Lady for eight years and learned from the best how to govern.

8. She was Secretary of State and worked closely with Barack Obama.

7. She has always been willing to disclose her tax records.

6. She has never filed for bankruptcy.

5. She has no debts in foreign banks.

4. She has never been fined for racial discrimination.

3. She has fought for years for women’s rights and the rights of the disadvantaged.

2. She has openly declared her political agenda, including what the Sierra Club regards as the “strongest” stand on the environment of any political candidate for president in recent memory.

1. She understands the nuclear weapons are deterrents, not weapons of war.

Now these may not be the strongest reasons possible and it always pays to take a look at the reasons given for voting for her opponent. But hard as I try I cannot find any reasons — aside from the millennials in his political ad shouting that he “tells it like it is,” which is about as false as can be. But there does seem to be one outstanding reason that ought to be addressed.

Many voters are fed up with “politics as usual” and want change. Trump promises change and he is assuredly not a politician in any strict sense of that term. He has never been elected to any political office whatever, which many regard as a strength; I regard it as a weakness. But, moreover, I would urge caution to those who simply want change. Change in itself may not be a good thing. My temperature may change and symptoms appear that lead to a shorter life. The weather might change as it has radically in the Southeast and this change is assuredly not for the better. Indeed, much change can result in drastic results and the change that Trump promises would certainly appear to be change of that order. If president he may well bring this country tumbling down about his shoulders because he is simply in over his head and has no idea whatever how to work with others and benefit from their experience and insight. And his close relationship with Putin must give us all pause when thinking about this country’s relationships with the rest of the world.

If there are other reasons for voting for Donald Trump, I am not aware of them. And while I realize that one should keep his or her mind open to new information, I am at this point determined to vote for Hillary Clinton for the reasons given above. And, despite my reservations about her public persona, I do realize that she is a woman of immense political experience and knowledge who is bright and capable. These reasons count for something, though, as I have said, this election is not about personalities.

 

 

The Lesser of Evils

Hannah Arendt tells us that the lesser of two evils is still evil. She’s right. And the rumor is going around (especially among those who incline toward a third party candidate in the presidential race) that Hillary is evil even though the lesser of evils. This is a libel and should be rejected as such.

In fact, this woman is extremely well prepared to take the highest office in this land. Not only was she a Senator and the Secretary of State, but she was also married to a two-term president and knows how the ugly game of politics is played. And there’s the rub! She is a politician in a day when politicians are all painted with the same tar brush. But in doing this we ignore folks like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders who have shown that it is possible to swim in the putrid waters of Washington politics and not get dirty. Moreover, the former editor of the Wall Street Journal (that “most conservative” of newspapers) stated in print that while doing research on Hillary Clinton for an article she was writing she discovered that Hillary is one of the most honest people in Washington. Now, that may be condemning with faint praise, but it is praise indeed — coming from that source.

Additionally, as noted in a recent blog by my favorite blogger who was comparing Hillary’s agenda with that of Donald Trump, she was

Unable to find anything more than the above regarding Trump’s platform on mental health, I did the unthinkable and went to his campaign website in search of. Remember Hillary’s 38-point platform? Trump has a 7-point platform. No, mental health is not one of the seven. So, I cannot make a comparison between his platform and Hillary’s. Suffice it to say that Ms. Clinton has a comprehensive platform and a plan to improve mental health care, while her opponent has nothing beyond mockery and scorn.

In a word, Hillary stands for important principles — dealing with the economy, education, the environment, health, national security, and social equality, including gay rights — while her opponent can only stand by and call her nasty names. He has no platform on which to stand and his perspective is warped by his hatred and fear of those who differ from himself. But the important point is that, despite her lack of popularity, Hillary Clinton is well prepared for the office of president whereas her opponent(s) — all of them — are not.

This should be kept in mind in November though one will almost certainly not see it written in large letters in the newspapers across this great land of ours, because Hillary is dull compared with Donald Trump who is a circus clown primed to entertain and confuse us all into taking him seriously (and sell newspapers and air time!). The media have always preferred clowns, because that’s what folks seem to want. But for those of us who can see beyond the printed page or the sound-bite on television, it is clear who is and who is not best prepared to be our next president. Dull perhaps, but also very bright and fully aware of what lies ahead for the next president. By no means the lesser of evils.

Suckahs!

These are the folks who reach for their phones half-way through the Infomercial to order crap from the TV (with free shipping (plus $8.50 in “handling ” charges)); they are the ones who can be fooled all the time; who are born every minute; who wouldn’t know a half-truth from an outright lie; who buy the “previously owned” car from the crooked salesman; who worry about what will happen to the hero on their favorite daytime soap opera, because they cannot differentiate reality from make-believe. They are, as Strother Martin would have it, “morons on our team.” They are bona fide U. S. citizens who have decided that the man standing before them with strange hair and small hands selling his own peculiar brand of snake oil will take them to the promised land. He is their deliverer! They don’t care that he is a chronic liar and filled with hate. They will not be confused by the facts because their tiny minds are made up. They are suckahs!

Clearly, there’s no point in trying to reach such people, and especially in this format — a blog post with a couple of dozen readers (on a good day). But one always hopes that somehow those still sitting on the fence will get the idea and wake up. We really need to continue to nudge them.

The University of Virginia recently had a poll and predicted that Hillary Clinton will win the election. They have never been wrong — they even predicted that Sanders would not get the nomination. Clearly these people are astute political animals who are able to read the tea leaves and see the future. I worry only that many people will take them seriously and think it’s “in the bag.” However, it’s not over, as they say, until the fat lady sings. And she won’t have sung until we all get out and vote for the one person in this strange, even ugly, political race who has the experience and know-how to run this country.

It’s hard not to get worked up about this race. Neither candidate will ever earn a popularity contest; they are both flawed in their way. But only one of them has made it absolutely clear that he doesn’t have the knowledge or experience — or even the concern — to be president of these United States. Only one has made it clear that he doesn’t understand the risks of a nuclear war. Only one has made it crystal clear that he is blinded by his own ambition and his hatred for those who are different from him and his determination to bring down those who oppose him. Only one has shown a complete lack of awareness of the role this country must play on the international stage.

To be sure, I am biased. But this bias is based on considerable reading and listening to what is being said. I do wonder why others are not doing the same. I would love to see a president who embodies all the principles I regard as essential to running this country and getting it back on the straight and narrow; somewhere along the line it fell off and desperately needs straightening out. But no one person can do this and we must choose the one out of these two (who are the only serious candidates) who can work with a crippled system and who has the political savvy to make the best of a bad situation. Until real change comes about this country will continue to be run by the special interests and money will be the determinant of political policy. In the meantime, we must vote for the only sane candidate out there — the other one is only for suckahs.

The Grand Delusion

In a most interesting editorial from Der Spiegel passed along by that consummate blogger, Jill Dennison, we read how some of the folks across the pond view this political race — and especially Donald Trump. The editorial is unsettling to say the least. After talking about the man, it mentions the grave danger to the world if Donald Trump were to hold the nuclear codes; then the writer goes on to attempt to understand why Trump has garnered such a loud and large following:

But Trump’s supporters hardly misunderstand: Crushed by generational, technological and demographic changes and abandoned by a broken political system, they’ve been boiling from suppressed, not-so-secretly yearned-for violence for a while. They were just waiting for their leader.

They aren’t bothered by the fact that he lies pathologically and has no clue about world politics, domestic and economic policy or the intricacies of diplomacy. For too long, they’ve been living in an alternate universe where reality and delusion blur, where truth and lies are inverted. Trump has legitimized them and their worldview.

This is well put. The author measures the frustration experienced by those people who feel disconnected from a political process that has clearly broken down. They see Trump as a knight on a white charger, coming to the rescue. What the editorial does not mention is how deluded this view is. Trump is anything but a knight and there is simply no way he can fix the broken political machine — as he avows. That’s not how it works (when it does work).

We have seen how ineffective a president can be when he has to deal with a majority in the Congress from the other party (who have vowed not to cooperate with the man whatever he might want to do). If Donald Trump were to become president (God forbid) he would be totally ineffective, because he has zero credibility among the professional politicians whom he wants to coerce. Even a well-meaning man like Bernie Sanders would be ineffective in a system that ties the hands of the executive. It’s that way by design. The founders did not trust power and they wanted no part of a powerful president that would be king.

But that is precisely what Trump does want — to be king. He talks as though when he becomes president he will simply snap his fingers and there will be instant change. We know he is stupid, but the extent of the stupidity among his mindless minions who believe this nonsense beggars belief. They simply do not know anything about the political system they are a part of, except that has broken down and they cannot get whatever it is they want. Even under the best of circumstances — a bright and civic-minded president working hand-in-hand with a cooperative Congress — the president can only do so much. And given the fact that the corporations and special interest groups hold the strings that direct the actions of so many in Congress, even under the best of circumstances it is doubtful that much would get done to repair the broken machinery. Just imagine, for example, such a harmonious political executive and legislative body attempting to institute measures that would control the sale of weapons in this country. Is anyone naive enough to think that a president, any president, could take on such a powerful group as the N.R.A. and win the day? Surely not.

But if Trump were president (again, God forbid) there would be no harmony and the machine would work even less effectively than it does at present. He would get nothing accomplished and piss off a great many people in the process. Imagine how his frustration would mount and how that frustration might express itself! There is simply no reason whatever to vote for this man — and a great many reasons not to do so.

The Real Victim

We have already heard the claim that this election is “rigged” and that Donald Trump may lose as a result. What this translates into it: My name is Donald The Trumpet and IF I lose it will not be as a result of my own failings as a person and a potential president, it will be because the Democrats have rigged the election.” In a word, it’s an escape clause that Trump has built into his ridiculous candidacy, because in his mind he cannot lose fair and square. The facts, of course, do not matter — though his claim is, indeed, based on the fact that the DNC managed to guarantee that Hillary would be their candidate and Bernie Sanders would not be. There is certainly some truth in that (if truth matters any more).

But it is a huge jump from that particular unpleasant fact to the outrageous claim that the entire election will be rigged to guarantee that Donald Trump will not be our next president. Why, we might well ask, should the Democrats bother to rig the election when the Trumpet is managing to undermine his own candidacy by continuing to shoot himself in the foot? If only he wouldn’t open his mouth, he might have a chance. But whenever he opens it another outrageous claim comes gushing forth and another doubter is born (we would hope).

To be sure, things have been done in the past to promote the interest of one particular candidate — Mayor Daily in Chicago practically delivered the election to John Kennedy back in the day. But there have been numerous other attempts, such as Jim Crow laws designed to disenfranchise certain voters (usually Democrats) and help the candidate of choice. And it would appear that Florida was pretty much delivered to George W. Bush by his brother not long ago. But to “rig” the entire election in favor of one candidate over another would appear to be practically impossible.

But that doesn’t matter, as we have learned. It’s not what is the case, in fact, that matters. It’s all about perception and the Trumpet is a master at deception — making the “truth” out to be whatever he says. He will say the word “rigged” enough to convince his mindless minions that it is a fact. And when he goes down in defeat in November (if he is not forced to resign sooner) he will shout “foul,” and his minions will rise up in protest. Let’s hope and pray that they not do so in violent protest — though I would certainly not bet against it.

The real victim in this race is not Donald Trump. If the real victim is not the Republican Party (which may well be the case) it is the truth. It is facts. It is what happens to be the case and not what people perceive to be the case. Truth is the real victim because the consequences of this transformation of lies into The Truth From On High are incalculable. The Donald will, as he says, take a long vacation and then probably work for Fox News and do the lecture circuit to help reimburse himself for the expenses he has incurred in this contest — and keep his face in the public eye. But what his mindless minions will do is anyone’s guess and those consequences follow directly from the rocks this man has turned over and the rage he has ignited in the hearts of so many people who might otherwise have simply remained mute. And, again, the truth will lie in tatters around our feet, unrecognizable and incapable of resuscitation. There’s the real victim.

Planting The Seed

The man really is a piece of work! Donald Trump is preparing his mindless minions for his loss — which, in his world, can only happen if the other side cheats, if the election is “rigged.” He honestly believes, I do think, that he cannot lose unless the Clinton forces cheat — and this from a man who uses WikiLeaks to undermine the Democratic effort. He knows that the DNC cheated in making sure that Hillary won the nomination (which appears to be true) and he now reads the tea leaves and sees his eventual loss, which can only happen if the same machine works to bring him down. Consider this brief excerpt from a Yahoo News report on-line:

Donald Trump suggested on Monday that the November election may be “rigged” against him.

“I’m afraid the election is going be rigged, I have to be honest,” Trump said at a town hall in Columbus, Ohio.

The Republican nominee pointed to Bernie Sanders’ unsuccessful Democratic primary campaign as an example of elections being rigged. Trump has frequently claimed that Hillary Clinton only won the primary because national Democrats intervened on her behalf.

At his Monday campaign rally, Trump added that the Republican Party could not stop him in the GOP primary because of the margin of victory he racked up.

“Poor Bernie. He looks so upset. You know what, he shouldn’t have made a deal,” Trump said, referring to Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton. “I think my side was rigged if I didn’t win by massive landslides.”

He even pretends to be sympathetic with Bernie Sanders! But note the final remark: “. . .my side was rigged if I didn’t win by massive landslides.” Now there’s delusion for you. The man is not only a megalomaniac he is a deluded megalomaniac! And he may be just a touch paranoid. As I say, he honestly believes what he says.  In fact, I believe he is convinced that what he says is true because he says it. He is that convinced of his own greatness and superiority to the rest of us. He lives on an island that consists only of himself and he allows others to visit him from time to time, but only if they adore him, and pay him the homage he thinks he deserves. My goodness!

In any event, the tea leaves do appear to be right. Hillary had the expected bump after the convention, but her poll numbers fail to reflect the fact that growing numbers of disenfranchised voters are registering to vote to see to it that Trump fails in November. She appears to be extending her lead.

But we can be certain that Trump will prepare his followers to be braced for the loss and I will go out on a limb and predict that there will be a violent reaction in the Trump camp and among his followers after the loss which the man cannot possibly accept honorably: he doesn’t know what the word means.

The Nader Effect

There was considerable controversy surrounding Ralph Nader’s various attempts to become president of the United States. The most controversial election was almost certainly when he ran against George W. Bush and, according to some, ruined Al Gore’s chances of becoming President. In Florida, as we know, Bush defeated Gore by only 537 votes while Ralph Nader was garnering 97,421 votes as an Independent candidate. Many would conclude, despite Nader’s denial, that this cost Gore Florida, a pivotal swing state.

But we are dealing here in what logicians call “counter-to-fact conditionals. We are saying, in effect, what if….? Anyone can play that game and there never really is a winner. Let’s agree that, given all the election “irregularities,” George W. Bush would have won in any event — whether or not Nader had run independently, though I have my doubts.

In the present election there is a very attractive Green Party candidate in Jill Stein. She is very bright and has impressive credentials; she is much more qualified for high office than at least one of the two major candidates currently running. One worries that the votes that go her way might otherwise go to Hillary Clinton and in losing those votes Hillary will lose the presidency to Donald Trump (perish the thought). It is quite possible, given the Nader effect as I would call it. Even if we allow that Bush would have beaten Gore without Nader running, there is always a shadow of a doubt.

In many ways Jill Stein is for me the most attractive alternative in this race. Ideologically speaking, I am closer to her than I am to either of the other two. But I will vote for Clinton because I don’t want to throw away my vote (Stein can no more win than Sanders could get the Democratic nomination. I just won’t happen.) And I don’t want to see Trump elected and spend the next four years (undergoing therapy) worrying that my vote helped put him into office.

Hillary is not perfect. Disturbingly, she is a favorite of the corporations like so many of her political friends. The appealing thing about Sander’s run was that he knew the real battle is with the giant corporations. Sanders understood that if we are to hope to reestablish this democracy as a government of the people, the corporations must be put in their place. Well, we saw how that went. The monied interests on the left (and the right?) took control of the Democratic machine and saw to it that Hillary Clinton was nominated. Not that socialist, Sanders.

But Sanders — who is also ideologically closer to Jill Stein than he is to Hillary Clinton — endorsed Clinton because he is a political realist and he knows she is the only one in the group (and there are more) who can beat Donald Trump. And beating Donald Trump is and must remain the main objective of any voter with a grain of sense who cares about this country and the values (cloudy though they are at times) that this country stands for. Trump is simply not an acceptable candidate for the highest office in this land. Period. Moreover, Hillary is a gifted and intelligent political animal who would do a commendable job as president. She knows where the skeletons are buried and she knows how to play the power game. Despite her flaws, many of which have been created by the opposition, she is the only reasonable alternative.