Make America Great Again. This is the slogan of Donald Trumps campaign that I have to keep hearing again and again as the 2016 election looms over our heads.
The 2016 election cycle is shaping up to be just like 2012 and 2008 with fewer options and far worse choices across the board.
In 2008 I was working on the Ron Paul Campaign. I got behind Dr. Paul because he was the only candidate that stood out to me who in the very least was telling the truth and had 8-term congressional voting record to back it up. His ideas resonated with me. Talk of limited government, conservative economics and internet neutrality seemed were important matters to me and a lot of other Americans.
Unfortunately, in both those elections, Dr. Paul lost. In fact he didn’t even come close. People would ask me why I was working on a losing campaign, and told me I was throwing my vote away. I simply replied that I was going to get behind and vote for the person I believed was best for the presidency and that I didn’t care about what the news was saying or any of the bullshit you hear from people who only talk politics every 4 years when it’s on the T.V. everyday.
I remember all of the blatant tactics the media used to skew the polls for Dr. Paul, and the last minute changes by the RNC to keep him off the debate stages. I remember Dr. Paul barley won the Ames straw, then won the CPAC straw poll and then when he poled higher in the preliminary debates, FOX News decided just skirt the issue. Below is just one of many videos that outline just a couple of the events that took place.
After watching the Republicans tear themselves apart in the months following and ultimately losing the presidency to Obama for another 4 years, I was convinced that there was no place left in American Politics for anyone that was going to attempt to defy the establishment.
Now without getting all conspiracy theorist on you, I think when we look back at the case of Dr. Paul, most people would agree that the media snuffed him and that his attempts to bring subjects to the light like blowback, foreign intervention, auditing of the FED and the out of control budget deficit were not met with kind regard by the RNC, media and virtually the “establishment” as we know it.
What I learned during this time was that if the establishment (AKA media, RNC, Democrats super PACs etc.) could simply get the message across to the American Public that Ron Paul couldn’t win, then it would come true and it most certainly did.
The most common thing I would hear back in 08 and 12 when speaking and or advocating about Ron Paul was the logic behind the idea that Paul didn’t have a chance to win, therefore I would be throwing my vote away, and hence I am voting for someone else.
Well Clinton and Trump are among the most disliked Candidates to ever run for President according to this poll.
History is repeating itself once again and we are seeing it play out right in front of us with Gary Johnson. In the next couple of weeks I am going to release a series of blogs as these event unfold, and it should get pretty interesting.
Keep this in mind when you are reading these…..
I have voted both republican and democrat evenly since I could vote
I am registered as a democrat currently, but have been registered as a republican, democrat, independent and libertarian in the past.
I usually follow the money and that leads me to the real answers.
Do you remember a time when a 3rd party was included in the debates or even a part of the mainstream political media in our life times? I don’t, I have been able to vote now for 24 years and there has not been one presidential election cycle that has included a 3rd party candidate.
Is this a good thing? Is having less choices better? Fuck no!
In a world where we have virtually any information readily available to us and literally have the choice to buy anything we want and have it delivered to us in 2 days thanks to Amazon.com, the highest office in the greatest country in the free world is boiled down to just 2 people every 4 years.
I mean come on, sure there were some preliminary debates on the blue and red side, but still we are talking like a group of 10 people where only 2 of them are going to make it to the final round.
The process has gotten way past the point of ridiculousness and headed well in to the realm of idiocracy to the degree where committing any amount of brain space and or time to follow the random bullshit that the media churns out or Donald Trumps Twitter feed is about as interesting as watching WWF pro wrestling.
I find that when I am speaking with people one on one about Politics, they really have no idea about what is really going on. For a perfect example of this, check out my buddy Mark Dice (Video Below). Mark does a great job at outlining just how uninformed people are.
Now just to make this fair, Mark Dice and don’t agree on everything but we do agree one thing for sure: Peoeple seem to have become more and more impressionable and susceptible to not only what the main stream media is selling, but the accumulation of and consolidation of false truths, mislead ideas compounding on one another and spreading of wrong information throughout the masses to an even less informed public sphere.
This is a phenomenon is known as Repressive Desublimation first coined by philosopher and sociologist Herbert Marcuse in his 1964 work One-Dimensional Man. It’s the idea the Pop-culture eclipses real culture and can be seen day in and day out in the political area.
Take the case of Trump and Clinton. Two Larger than Life figures who at the end of the day don’t really give a shit or could even begin to understand the daily struggles of your everyday American. I’m pretty sure Donald Trump has never had to suffer the pain of seeing medi-cal doctors or pay off school loans and I’m pretty sure Hillary Clinton who is a career politician is so far disconnected from what an average life looks like that her ability to identify with everyday people is merely an act that is being performed with the intention to sway someone to like her and ultimately vote for her.
Can you Imagine the last time Trump or Clinton did something like: Take the garbage out, fix a toilet, clip coupons to go grocery shopping or being faced with something like having to make a choice between spending money on repairing a broken car or making a school loan payment? I think it’s safe to say it’s been a long time.
So if you could get past the fact that Hillary should arguably be in jail for treason, and Donald Trump has legitimately defrauded several people, businesses and cities then the only redeeming quality should be that in the very least they are relatable to us and could serve the country well in the capacity of President. Not.
In the next blog I am going to dive deeper in to 3rd Party Candidates, the real underdogs, and try to make some sense on why the best and brightest people never seem to make it to the Whitehouse.
