Hypocrisy is in all places, it
surrounds us everywhere we look, often even in the mirror. At best it is a
matter of relativity. Evangelical “Christians” who support Trump, like Paula White
and her “all satanic pregnancies should miscarry” prayer, are about as big as
hypocrites can get. Republicans who refuse to see that Trump has shredded their
“principles” into nothing are hypocrites. Bill Maher who claims to be
anti-Trump yet appears to embrace Trump’s racism is a hypocrite. His recent
guest Megyn Kelly, who denied that she and her former colleagues at Fox News
are blatantly biased and bigoted, is a hypocrite; the fact that she is now a “feminist”
icon only proves my point that white feminism and racism go fist-in-glove.
While Hillary Clinton claims on her blatantly self-serving and
suspiciously-timed “documentary” that “nobody” likes Bernie Sanders, she seems
to be blissfully unaware that in this very same documentary, her critics admit
that they “just don’t like her.” That’s what a hypocrite does: attack the
person who never said he didn’t like her, and campaigned for her in 17 states
in the last 11 days before the 2016 election—and still “blames” him for her
defeat.
Meanwhile, Politico has just
taken hypocrisy to a whole new level with a new story entitled “’They let him
get away with murder’: Dems tormented on how to stop Bernie,” written predictably
by an Elizabeth Warren apologist, Natasha Korecki. The “murder” comment was
from some political hack named Matt Bennett who has been attempting to organize
a “stop Sanders” movement, and blames the media for not “exposing” him. Former
Chicago mayor and Barack Obama’s first term chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel claims
that Sanders can’t win “swing states.” Just about every “establishment” Democrat
quoted in the piece is wringing their hands about a possible Sanders
nomination, even suggesting that they can “live” with a fellow “socialist” Elizabeth
Warren nomination because, well, we know why.
Attacks on Sanders is nothing
new, and neither are attempts to put up barriers to “stop” him. The Democratic
“establishment” did everything it could to derail a Sanders insurgency in 2016,
feeling that Clinton was “entitled” to the nomination after her disappointment
in 2008. Nearly all super delegates lined-up behind Clinton even before the
first primary, and we would learn subsequently that the DNC had made a “deal”
with Clinton in which in exchange for financial “help” it would do everything
it could to marginalize Sanders. CNN and MSNBC gave little air time to Sanders’
surrogates, let alone gave any credence to his chances at the nomination. This
is in opposition to 2008, when the media was confronted with the reality that
Obama excited voters more than Hillary, the majority of her own support who
felt that it was their expected “duty” to back her since the media made the
assumption early on that she would be the eventual nominee. Save for CNN, the
media was forced to back off because on their assumptions because there would
be a backlash by liberal and especially black voters if it swung too obviously
favorably toward Clinton.
One suspects that if Sanders was
a younger, more physically “attractive” candidate, there would be greater
enthusiasm for his candidacy among his current detractors. On the other hand,
Sanders’ age and experience has left a record to ponder. Not only was he a
civil rights organizer in the Sixties, but as mayor of Burlington, Vermont he
put words into action—unlike, say, the big-talking “liberal” city government officials
of Seattle, who have done nothing that means anything to promote affordable
housing and rental units within the city limits. As mayor, Sanders refused to
allow the landlords of the public housing Northgate Apartments to tear them
down and replace them with luxury condos; according to a story in The Nation, Sanders declared “Over my
dead body are you going to displace 336 working families. You are not
going to convert Northgate into luxury housing,’” And he did just as he said,
working with state and local officials to provide funding to “rehabilitate”
public housing in the city, and forced landlords building condos to replace all
the affordable housing units they tore down in the process. “Today” according
to The Nation, “Northgate Apartments
is owned by the tenants and has long-term restrictions to keep the buildings affordable
for working families,” thanks to Sanders’ efforts on behalf of those “working
families.” This is real action, and it is something that Sanders should be
educating voters on, as it seems the media and Sanders’ detractors seem to
prefer to believe is a record that does not exist.
Sanders’ detractors’ claim that
he has no chance with white working class voters in “swing states” like Wisconsin
and Michigan is absurd on its face. They
seem to forget that Sanders won those states’ primaries in 2016. Actually, Wisconsin and Michigan were not
expected to be “swing states,” but solidly “blue,” but the Clinton camp’s
arrogant assumptions ignored the warning signs, and now they are in question.
Working class voters opted for Sanders, and a poll taken shortly after the 2016
election showed that voters nationally preferred Sanders over Trump by a 55-45 margin,
suggesting that Sanders would have easily beaten Trump. Why? Because voters
were looking for “change,” and gender wasn’t “it,” a reality completely blown by the media. Further,
if given the choice, more voters who opted for Trump would have been more comfortable
voting for Sanders, whose moral and ethical standing was clearly more elevated
than that of Trump (let alone Clinton’s). That same dynamic is not necessarily
not still in play in 2020.
Unlike other candidates, Sanders
has never wavered from or lied about what he believes in, or tried to invent a
past that never existed. Yes, unlike Clinton and Warren he did participate in
civil rights protests in the 1960s, and on one occasion was arrested because of
his participation. Clinton was a “Goldwater Girl” and Warren was passing
herself off as a “Native American” to get jobs as a “minority hire.” Warren
supporters claim that her stance on health care, which has flipped and flopped,
is what has “hurt” her. That is not true. What is true is that what the New York Times called her “story telling”—or
rather, her habit of telling falsehoods that can be easily found out, yet she
keeps telling them; as mentioned before that is part of the definition of a
“pathological liar,” and like with Clinton we are not talking about someone
like Trump whose lies generally come from his deranged worldview, but lies that are instinctual and self-serving efforts to avoid the exposure of uncomfortable facts about themselves and
their own fitness to be president.
However, I want to be upfront
about this: I am not particularly happy about the current crop of Democratic
candidates; to me, it is a matter of who is less distasteful than the other. Initially
Beto O’Rourke fascinated me, but his campaign was quickly extinguished as if a
camp fire consumed by a tsunami. But if there is one truth in that Politico
piece, it is that the attacks on Sanders hardens his support. I have admitted
that I am leaning toward Sanders, and these hypocritical attacks on him by
hypocrites has not changed that, not in the least. Who knows how things are going to shake up when all is said and done; Joe Biden as the "safe bet" may yet win the nomination. But make no mistake: Sanders can beat Trump, even
if his detractors are too stupid--or vindictive--to realize it, as they were in 2016.
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