WE Are NOT the Problem

[Dustlawyer]

69. You hear, but don't listen. Objectivity is something you should strive for.

I agreed that Hillary would have won but for the dirty tricks, i.e. voter suppression which was the single biggest factor in my opinion. Democratic politicians did very little to address Cross Check. This was not the first election it was used. Democrats have known about Cross Check and electronic voter fraud for some time but said very little and did nothing. At the very least they should be making a big stink about it until it is addressed. Democratic AG's should be investigating and filing charges over Cross Check and fighting to protect the security of our votes. The DNC should be leading the charge. Maybe with new leadership coming in they will.

As for the media, Democrats should be introducing bills to break up the media oligarchy and requiring the News to report the truth. Sure they will not pass, but the conversation must start somewhere. Fox News won an appeal overturning a judgment in Florida several years ago. The Court of Appeals said it was ok for Fox News to knowingly lie because they are not "News" but "Entertainment." The 4th Estate is now a wholly owned subsidiary (literally) of the Plutocrats. Democrats need to ignore Trump's tweets and in lock step start talking about these issues non-stop.

"Good Christian voters", what an oxymoron. In my experience, most Christians are not really believers. They use religion as a tool to manipulate people. Religious people are some of the most gullible of all. The Christians who actually believe abandoned Trump early if they supported him at all. They fall for the likes of Ted Cruz and the fat preacher from Arkansas who's name escapes me at the moment. If they are real Christians they would not be supporting a Republican agenda in the first place.

My actual point was that the Democratic Party broke away from their blue collar roots when the union money started to dry up during the Clinton years. Instead of fighting harder to help unions grow, they took them for granted and paid them lip service. They chose a new direction in taking corporate money. The problem there is that there are always strings attached, a quid Pro Quo to be given. In many cases it was to put up token resistance to things they should have fought tooth and nail against. They take money from the same donors as the Republicans in many cases. These corporations expect something for the money, and they have been getting it. It was not lost on most Americans that the Democrats and Obama did nothing to Wall Street for all of the fraud committed in causing the 08 crash except to bail them out and leave Main Street to fend for itself. Republican light has been a dismal failure except to keep the Democratic incumbents in office.

True or not, Hillary is associated with this. She accepted massive amounts of corporate money which gave the appearance that she had been co-opted by the big Donors. She did too many private fundraisers at wealthy Donor's houses, like the one in the Black Lives Matter video of the brave young woman holding the sign in the entry hall where Hillary was speaking. The young lady paid her money and was hissed at and told, "You don't belong here!" before she was escorted out without speaking to Hillary. Obama criticized Hillary for not attending enough of the kinds of events, such as fish fry's and county fairs where the majority of Democratic working class people would be. Money was more important than meeting large numbers of Democratic voters. When voters take the trouble to come see you at a large campaign rally, they tend to stick with you to the voting booth. Seeing your slick ad 20 times doesn't guarantee the same type of loyalty. The Democrats need to go populist and give up corporate money altogether. At this point there are a lot of us willing to donate all we can to get us out of the mess we are in! In one respect Trump/Pense will help a lot in that regard because things will be so bad a lot more people will come to realize they have been duped.

YOU, not WE, may be "all ears", but you will need a brain and objectivity if you wish to improve over what we just experienced. I don't have all of the answers as I am sure you will agree, but these are my opinions. I think we both want the same things, but we cannot keep doing what we have been doing because it is not working for many Democrats. Too many have seen through the curtain and realized that the corruption of our system from all of the cash swirling around Washington to both Parties. Trump was a weak candidate, albeit a unique attention grabbing (among other things) one at that. Had the Democratic Party not taken their base for granted it would not have been close despite all of the dirty tricks.