Tuesday, November 15, 2016

The Age of Lies: Random Thoughts On Hearing That They're Floating Rudy Giuliani As Secretary of State

Watching the Trump gang assemble the crime family that is going to be called the executive branch for the next four years reminds me of nothing so much as the one and only honest scene in Frank Capra's movie, State of the Union, the one in which the various columnists and labor racketeers and others get together to talk about how they're going to dupe the United States into gaming their candidate to take over the country.  Only that was make believe,  Donald Trump isn't Spencer Tracy and Melania Trump isn't Katherine Hepburn and the cartoon figures representing the worst filth that our system operates under are all too real in reality.

I think the make believe of Hollywood has been a huge disservice to democracy, there is not going to be a daddy Spencer - a Republican daddy, if I recall just to show how fictitious the movie was - who is forced by the hurt glance of mommy Hepburn to repent his wrong doing and dramatically save the country at the last minute.  The identification of the danger was as much as they got right, the solution to it was sheer Hollywood ham.

The kind of thinking that looks for a savior with star power and charisma is what go us into this mess. That's what got us Barack Obama, those HOPE posters from his first campaign are some of the most bitterly ironic political ephemera in our history.

I favor Howard Dean going back to being the head of the Democratic National Committee. Congressman Keith Ellison is probably a good person, he's certainly smart enough for the job, but it isn't the kind of job that should be part-time.  We know Dean can do it.  He did it before only to be shoved aside by the Obama people who squandered what Dean had such a big hand in putting together, going from Democrats having control of none of the branches of government to having control of the executive and the legislative branches.

Hillary Clinton has my deepest respect and gratitude for her years of dedicated service to the country and to the Democratic Party but this election put a final end to her hopes of becoming president.  In my musing I wish she would do what John Quincy Adams did and go either back to the Senate or the Congress.   Edward Kennedy was never as good a politician as he was after he gave up the idea of being president,  I suspect Hillary Clinton could outdo him in that respect.  But I also wouldn't blame her if she left it all behind, most would have long ago, considering what she has had to endure.  I strongly suspect that people will still be regarding her with admiration when the last four or five presidents and the one we're about to get are considered as comprising an especially decadent period in our politics.  She will be the possibility, the enormous potential rejected in the Age of Lies.

Now it's time to look at what worked, what not only didn't work but was a disaster .  Debbie Wasserman Schultz as the head of the DNC definitely qualifies as that.  If there is any indication that a sitting politician should not have the job, Debbie Wasserman Schultz is exhibit A in that argument.  And we should listen the people who produced success and ignore those who opposed it.

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are the past, Hillary Clinton is the future we can't have, it's time for all of them to step aside.   I'm not even interested in defending Bill and Barack, anymore.  With his idiotic visit to Loretta Lynch, I'm so disgusted with Bill Clinton that it would suit me if I never heard his name again.

I will say that having Chuck Schumer as the Democratic leader in the Senate does not give me a good feeling.  He, like so many from New York City, is too chummy with the major sources of corruption, I doubt he would be enthusiastic for building the Democratic Party in Ohio or Michigan, he has a record of favoring the financial interests that are the embodiment of corruption.   I doubt he will prove me wrong on that.   Bernie Sanders has also endorsed Congressman Ellison.  As I recall there is bad blood between him and Howard Dean, I would take that possibility into account when thinking about his endorsement.   I think Bernie Sanders is most useful as a gadfly, not as a great strategist.  I hope he gives the Trump fascists as much trouble as he can manage to make but I still want Howard Dean as head of the Democratic National Committee.

1 comment:

  1. Republicans control the House, Senate, White House, and something like 32 states.

    Dean would shift the emphasis from D.C. to the rest of the country (remembering his "50 state strategy"). Can't have that. D.C. insiders still cling to the notion that, if Dems have the White House, they run the country.

    So they will go with Ellison. And the country will continue to get screwed, despite what Elizabeth Warren is saying (who is also still talking more about national politics than local politics. I'll believe the Democrats have truly changed when they start putting money into states like Texas to make them change, rather than waiting for those states to change so they can put money into them the local party no longer needs, having done all the heavy lifting alone at that point. The very opposite of Dean's goals, IOW. I'll retire to Bedlam....)

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