Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump because of a cult following surrounding the former Secretary of State, created by sycophants, pundits, and journalists beholden to Clinton’s stature as an icon. This blind devotion overshadowed two FBI criminal investigations, Clinton’s use of the phrase “superpredators,” and Trump-level favorability ratings. Interestingly, Clinton’s numerous negatives didn’t sound alarm bells among America’s “Intelligentsia.” There were people who saw the writing on the wall, but Democratic faithful couldn’t imagine President-elect Trump. Only Madam President was a realistic possibility, despite endless scandal and decades of dishonesty. I warned of Clinton’s horribly low favorability ratings on October 26, 2015 in a Huffington Post piece titled Favorability Ratings Show Hillary Clinton Is Unelectable and Bernie Sanders Wins a General Election.
In fact, the smartest people in the room justified Bernie Sanders being cheated by the DNC, and WikiLeaks emails even showed DNC officials discussing how to use Bernie’s Jewish faith as a political weakness. Ultimately, Democrats deserve four years of President-elect Donald Trump because Hillary’s cult following did everything possible to ensure the billionaire’s victory. From the Bernie Bro euphemism to blaming Russia for WikiLeaks revelations, Democrats behaved like frantic ideologues; petrified that their Dear Leader might experience rational critique from concerned progressives.
Nothing epitomizes the Jonestown-esque fervor of loyal Hillary supporters than Kurt Eichenwald’s Newsweek article titled GET CONTROL, SENATOR SANDERS, OR GET OUT:
Violence. Death threats. Vile, misogynistic names screamed at women. Rage. Hatred. Menacing, anonymous phone calls to homes and offices. Public officials whisked offstage by security agents frightened of the growing mob. None of this has any place in a political campaign. And the candidate who has been tolerating this obscene behavior among his supporters is showing himself to be unfit for office.
So, Senator Sanders, either get control of what is becoming your increasingly unhinged cult or get out of the race. Whatever respect sane liberals had for you is rapidly dwindling, and the damage being inflicted on your reputation may be unfixable. If you can’t even manage the vicious thugs who act in your name, you can’t be trusted to run a convenience store, much less the country.
When Bernie Sanders launched his presidential campaign, he seemed to be the kind of candidate who would inspire voters from the liberal blocs of the Democratic Party, push the party leftward and influence the future direction of politics—either as the nominee or as a force for change. But Sanders has increasingly signaled that he is in this race for Sanders, and day after day shows himself to be a whining crybaby with little interest in a broader movement. His vicious—and often ridiculous—attacks on the party whenever he doesn’t win a contest have inspired a level of ignorant fanaticism among a large swath of his supporters that is becoming more akin to what might be seen at an out-of-control rally for Donald Trump. Signs are emerging that the Sanders campaign is transmogrifying into the type of movement through which tyrants are born.
Yes, Kurt Eichenwald stated Bernie’s political revolution was morphing into “the type of movement through which tyrants are born.”
As for rampant violence, Mr. Eichenwald’s creative writing professor would be proud—there was no violence. There wasn’t a chair thrown and an iconic photo of law enforcement officials standing in front of a podium proves the DNC simply made false accusations against Bernie supporters. The most important reason to remember Eichenwald’s Newsweek piece is that almost identical themes were leveled against Trump’s campaign, proving it was never about left or right, and only about protecting Hillary Clinton.
To the cult followers of Madam Cyber Attack, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were two sides of the same coin. The goal of journalists, media and the DNC was to destroy Bernie’s movement, then demand unwavering obedience (regardless of any duplicity or rampant corruption) and expect an easy victory over Trump’s alt-Right legions. Now we’re forced to watch Obama give Trump the keys to the White House.
The problem, however, is that Hillary Clinton also has a past linked to overt racism. This minor detail to the neoliberal cult surrounding Clinton was overshadowed by Trump being worse, or by the green frog that many Democrats believed more nefarious than Clinton’s prison lobbyist donations in 2015. Trump’s victory highlighted the flawed prognostications, punditry, and assumptions of Clinton’s followers.
This insanity culminated with Democrats working to ensure a future Trump presidency. WikiLeaks should be thanked by progressives, independents, conservatives, and anyone interested in learning about the rampant corruption within Clinton’s campaign, including its collusion with American media. The following Salon piece by Ben Norton describes a WikiLeaks email illustrating Clinton’s “pied piper” strategy:
How the Hillary Clinton campaign deliberately “elevated” Donald Trump with its “pied piper” strategy
An email released by WikiLeaks shows how the Democratic Party purposefully “elevated” Trump to “leader of the pack”
Republican Donald Trump, a far-right demagogue who campaigned on a slew of bigoted, xenophobic policies, has won the 2016 presidential election in a shocking victory few people predicted.
What was not often acknowledged in Trump’s heated race against Democrat Hillary Clinton, however, was how her campaign fueled his rise to power.
An email recently released by the whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks shows how the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party bear direct responsibility for propelling the bigoted billionaire to the White House.
In its self-described “pied piper” strategy, the Clinton campaign proposed intentionally cultivating extreme right-wing presidential candidates, hoping to turn them into the new “mainstream of the Republican Party” in order to try to increase Clinton’s chances of winning.
The Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee called for using far-right candidates “as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right.” Clinton’s camp insisted that Trump and other extremists should be “elevated” to “leaders of the pack” and media outlets should be told to “take them seriously.”
The strategy backfired — royally.
On April 23, 2015, two weeks after Hillary Clinton officially declared her presidential campaign, her staff sent out a group message with information for a “strategy call.” The email included as an attachment a “memo for the DNC discussion.”
Therefore, not only did Hillary Clinton’s plan backfire, but it also failed to explain why states in the Midwest voted for Trump and not Clinton.
Finally, in addition to political suicide, Clinton’s unwavering cult of media sycophants and unethical journalists (who gave Podesta articles to edit, etc.) did everything possible to alienate Bernie supporters. The Daily Beast is a publication that literally hired a “journalist” to write a hit piece on me, simply because I wrote pro-Bernie articles. Now The Daily Beast and others should reexamine the many articles they’ve published mocking Bernie Bros, or protecting Clinton from valid critique.
In addition to targeting pro-Bernie writers, the following Daily Beast article by Joy-Ann Reid highlights the publication’s attitude towards Bernie supporters:
Come on, Bernie, Time to Level With Your Dreamers
He must stop indulging his people’s fantasies, tell them the truth about the math—and get them to stop with all the nasty about Clinton.
Soon and very soon, Bernie Sanders is going to have to help his most ardent fans confront the fact of his defeat. How he does so will help to determine his legacy…
If Sanders does hope to have a future in Democratic Party politics, he will eventually have to tell his supporters the truth: that he simply lost the primary contest, despite a hard-fought race. He’ll have to walk back some of his sharpest anti-Clinton rhetoric, and find some way to become a bridge to the voters who have become so fervently devoted to him…
Of course, Sanders could refuse to do that, perhaps concluding that he would lose too much credibility with the rather angry movement he’s built, and go right on hitting Hillary Clinton instead. But he risks winding up an isolated figure in Philadelphia, surrounded by his diehards but scorned by Democrats who blame him for weakening the nominee, tolerated by Camp Clinton only because they have to, and unable to win meaningful platform concessions from a party that could well view him as an enemy invader, rather than a bluntly critical, but ultimately valuable friend.
Only time will tell how Sanders chooses to play out the end of his campaign.
Ms. Reid’s article is enjoyable to read after Clinton’s monumental collapse on Tuesday, especially since it was always “time to level” with Clinton’s unrealistic dreamers. Ironically, it’s Bernie Sanders with the future in politics after Tuesday, with Hillary Clinton forced to accept Trump’s victory.
Early signs point to Democrats refusing to grasp the enormity of Clinton’s crash and burn this election. The cult following around Hillary, headed by publications like The Daily Beast and Washington Post, is now looking towards Howard Dean as DNC chairman. The reality is that anyone other than Rep. Keith Ellison will lead to a Trump reelection, especially since Keith Ellison correctly predicted Trump could win, while people laughed at the possibility on television. I’ve also warned establishment Democrats for over one year, and despite insults from Correct the Record trolls, I’ve been correct from day one. It’s now time to see if President Donald Trump is enough to bring Clinton’s loyal followers to their senses, and towards backing a Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential run.