The cat is out of the bag! Nearly all of us now see that in this our most democratic process, our primaries, we are really only allowed to just rubber-stamp the choices that a nameless group, at the moment being called “the Republican establishment,” wants.
Usually they can control the process, but it finally got away from them this year! Of course, it’s more than the Republican establishment — it’s the shadow government, the insiders — choose your own name for it — who bring us a crumbling economy and war when they feel like it, but they panic if a candidate talks about our grotesquely skewed income distribution, or the evils of their free-trade-in-labor schemes. Jeb Bush was put in the traditional Bush role as their standard bearer this year, but even he couldn’t take it!
On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders is merely saying what everyone knows is true: that the government is controlled by a clan of the super-powerful and super-rich; that a decent education today is not affordable, unlike less than a century ago when it was actually free (through high school); and that everyone needs health coverage unless they have tens of thousands of dollars in the bank reserved for emergencies.
On the Republican side, Trump is carrying on what Ross Perot couldn’t say except as an Independent, over 20 years ago: that the “big sucking sound,” now coming from China, has sucked away the lifeblood of our country, and it has to be reversed.
Almost 60 years ago, President Eisenhower first spoke eloquently of the danger of “the military-industrial complex.” A more informative term would be “the military-industrial-media complex”: All the national media — TV and print — blackballed Sanders for years, giving him almost no coverage, until the Iowa caucus when he virtually tied with Hillary Clinton. They did it again, with not a word about the race in Missouri when they were virtually tied again. Don’t say that they don’t know what they are doing: many are dumb, but they are not that dumb.
Meanwhile, they continue to savage Trump, although to almost no effect. Many people are worried about Trump, feeling that he is too impulsive and emotional, but that is not the reason that the “establishment” has gone ballistic: It’s that they can’t control or “guide” him. After all their attacks have failed, they now are trying to get a “brokered convention.” In other words, block the democratic process — again. They were ecstatic that Kasich won one state, his own; they desperately hope to broker him — How crazy (and sinister) is that? Trump is further ahead of Cruz than Hillary is of Bernie, but the media theme is “How can Trump be stopped?” It’s blatantly clear whose side they have chosen. Hillary has been presumed all along to have already won, which she has not. They keep adding in the unelected “Super-delegates,” which, like Superpacs, destroy the democratic process and aren’t legally committed to either candidate. It would be factual to say that Trump has surely won, and Hillary is still running. But they are still shameless. Trump was so right recently to point and say that “there are terrible people over there,” referring to many of the major news reporters.
I’m pleased to notice, though, that some pundits have finally got Donald’s point. The other day one journalist on TV delivered a rehearsed, totally demeaning statement about Trump, and I think another reporter teased him: “So what do you really think?” Also, the news anchor asked another reporter “So who does the Republican Establishment represent,” and he replied “Well, nobody.”
Accusing the Donald of racism is mostly false. Trump shouldn’t say, “All Muslims hate us,” because it is not true, whether or not it seems “racist” to a few. He is more international than the other candidates: he has had two Slavic wives! Desperate claims that he is encouraging violence are also false: the protesters are the ones rudely interrupting him; and he can’t monitor every one of his supporters. And he is not dividing the country: primary season is more than halfway over, and now he wants to bring Republicans together again, but his opponents don’t. They’re doing the very things that they accused him of. What they do know is that their gridlock scheme against the Democrats under Obama has backfired, and now Republicans are likely to lose the presidency and Congress after all, and it’s their fault. They have got to cool it, or else they will really go off the deep end by summer.
Just let the process play out democratically, as it should. We have exceptionally intelligent candidates who know what they are doing, including Trump. If he is elected and worse comes to worst, he can be impeached under the Constitution — not by a palace coup. Both he and Sanders have brought fresh issues before the voters, and more new voters too, but there are too many hidebound greedy old fogies hidden in power who would rather see this country get more corrupted and alienated than move forward to a better day, as it should. It is they who need to be defeated, whether by Bernie or by Donald.
Hugh Field lives in New Salem.