Enough is enough, the minutia of common place

Hillary Clinton or whoever else gains the democratic presidential nomination has only one opponent this coming presidential election: turn out. Surprisingly, whether Clinton’s campaign puts the majority of their effort into focusing on turn out remains to be seen but so far she seems content at merely testing the waters without a much needed clarity and vision beyond her inept commercialized rhetoric. No doubt Clinton will use what she has learned from her failed bid in 2008 to shape her image and messages; something she is already doing to a fault. It seems her wait and see approach to taking stances on issues like trade, the XL Pipeline and regulation broadly speaking is a waste of time considering how hard it is to galvanize a base of volunteers that get the vote out. Her recent admissions through surrogates admitted being against reinstating Glass Steagall and a 15 dollar federally mandated minimum wage. Clinton’s team seems bent on riding the waves that Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Martin O’Malley and the media promote while sitting back literally at tables with small business owners and “real people” helping her seem in touch with needs of Americans she will use as what defines her moving forward. It remains to be seen whether her dry toothless rhetoric and collection of “American stories” from the campaign trail will be enough to wake up the uninspired she desperately needs. Clinton is erroneously bent on carving out a center of moderates as her base confident they will carry the general election but recent polls show this is a miscalculation.

Although repeating his disdain for negative ads the senator from Vermont, questioning where she eats, has already went after Clinton saying she is out of touch because of the culture of elitism that motivates her to hold 5 star fundraisers or meetings with donors at the best restaurants. One worries that the distance Bernie Sanders publicizes, positioning himself away from corporate America and Wall Street, may do more at angering them to open up their wallets even further for Clinton with ads that champion big business and hedge funds as the answer for the middle class focusing more on retirement and less on income equality. If you unmask Hillary of all her posturing and how far she goes in tightening Wall Street regulation and its risk taking, you will see Clinton following the fed into the history books just like her husband and Obama who is no doubt pushing the TPP to pad his Dow Jones numbers. Clinton will tout investment and trade, even without committing to the secret TPP, as a tool and lifeline for the middle class while likely offering less than progressive stances for workers. They view the so called “moderate base” as a shareholders society in a world without manufacturing or even passive investing. This is a dangerous masochistic view, gambling trillions on fiat fake assess that can someday crash our 401 k’s invalidating their precious gage for political success. In fact it’s an easy way out to hope for insuring middle class retirement funds by adding fuel to a burning ship. Their belief is that the ship will never sink, the fire will never consume it, and the hog will continue to ride high as they chip at the fat to throw workers scraps. Theirs is a watered down trickle-down economics with tentacles feeding the middle class.  Despite this delusional belief system she will take her cues from Warren and Sanders albeit from a fixed filter while appearing cautious on the specific issues perhaps even making promises she won’t follow through on. Clinton’s team may in fact see some of Sander’s European type stances like paid leave, free university and single payer universal health coverage for all as a magnet for the coming Republican onslaught to draw on thereby distinguishing herself from Sanders. Clinton like Obama fear these radical reforms as crude medicine that will cause too many complications. They instead carry a bag of band aids and life rafts for the masses. How complacent Clinton is in carrying this load may in fact sink her ship. My “House of Cards” mentality tells me Clinton is urging O’Malley make her mistakes for her while at the same time taking votes from Sanders, not to necessarily grow her 30-50 percent lead against them but to continue to frame her message.

While Clinton fails to define herself or tout her moderate stances for strategic reasons Sanders and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul do so without the power and manipulation they will need. Clinton will ride this tiger unless she sees a real threat for the nomination. She is erroneously saving her push for turn out until after gaining the nomination so as not to alienate progressives. Bernie likewise seems disinclined to bang the drum against Hillary. Imagine if he did? Imagine if Bernie used his current media appeal to rail against Clinton’s pro Wall Street stances, saying it’s not enough, warning us of the dangers. Perhaps even while touting a public option for health care instead of single payer to reveal the rights hypocrisy.

“If nominated I would support Hillary Clinton, I would campaign for her to win the presidency, because any Republican alternative would be disastrous adding to the enormous inequality in this nation. I would support Clinton because the alternative would put universal health care and the economy in danger but Hillary Clinton to a lesser extent would also pose a threat to the economy. A Hillary Clinton presidency would pose a threat to your 401 k or your retirement savings because financial instruments are running amok in this nation at the hands of banks that are too big to fail and in my view too big to exist. Why are we playing with fire, allowing these banks to place your savings in jeopardy? We are eating our own guts feeding off the scraps. A stock market based on real assets and safely insured risk would grow investment that creates jobs. What we have today ignores the importance of domestic trade. Hillary Clinton wants a market based shareholder economy I want a real growth economy. The president and Senator Clinton believe manufacturing in this country is a thing of the past. This is the type of mentality that fuels the TPP and corporate flight. I am all for free trade if is it fair. If Americans don’t have to compete against extremely low wages in a race to the bottom; I am all for free trade. If corporations and Wall Street don’t get to write the rules or write their own checks coming out of your pockets, I’m all for free and fair trade. If we can do business with nations committed to mandating better wages for all, then I am for free trade with them. If we can do business with nations committed to using 100% renewable energy, then I am for free trade with them. This is the type of American exceptionalism I am for. I do not believe Hillary Clinton is. So you have a choice. Vote for your 401 k to continue to grow with the added risk it could be wiped out in another recession or worse a depression or, vote for your 401 k to be more measured and safe. Will the stock market lose some steam in a Bernie Sanders presidency? Yes! There is no free ride to the American Dream, folks. It’s based on hard work and determination. Let Wall Street invest in people, in American workers, not in Asian workers making two dollars a day. What this nation needs to insure and grow the American dream is structural reform on Wall Street and in energy. A vote for Bernie Sanders is a vote for structural change; a vote for Hillary Clinton is for incremental regulation. I would stand by her and help in that effort, but it’s not enough. It’s simply not enough to insure our way of life. The right will call me a Marxist socialist threatening free market capitalism, well I say our free market capitalism has been stolen and we need to restore it as they did after the last depression. I say it was the deregulation that has imprisoned our free markets. Clinton will not restore our capitalism, she will continue to let the 1 % of this nation squander and place it at risk. Siphoning off investment in a bucket shop through derivatives and hedging is no way to run an economy. We cannot depend on such manipulation of the world economy, we must return it back to fairness, putting out the fire and righting the ship.”

How do you popularize this message, to get through to blacks, blue collar workers, and Hispanics, groups that must be galvanized in droves in order to win the primaries? Bernie has to place himself on a white horse in a suit of bloodied amour shouting how he will fight against not just the excesses of Wall Street but its malfunction. Anchors on MSNBC agreeing with him on issues that Clinton agrees with as only what seems minor differences are not enough to galvanize. For all those hoping that at the very least Bernie will move Clinton significantly to the left, the stronger he pushes, the more stained she comes out of the primary process the better. It’s not enough to simply vocalize and embrace this direction toward more structural reforms on Wall Street, it must be shouted through a bull horn, championing these new reforms with rapturous passion. Where is the rage?

Where was the directed rage during the "netroot" event? Sanders went on the defensive, asking the audience if they wanted him to leave, after stating his stances on how the economy effects the inner cities. No. He needed to demand body cams and mandated sensitivity training for police officers nationwide, he needed to rage; rage against the dying of the light.  It’s not enough to state your position or lack thereof as in Clinton’s case; in order to win the presidency the candidate must reach into the hearts and souls of the populace to get their lazy uninformed asses to the polls. The rage, the platform, the message, the policies all must be easy to understand in a platter dripping with fear and contempt. Contempt for corruption in politics, big business and the banks. Contempt for big oil and coal. Contempt for the crimes of greed which poison us or leave us dry. The boogeyman has been unmasked thanks to the constant drumming from progressives since 2008 but the demands have still not been made and sadly the only place these can be made is from a presidential bully pulpit. We are a people so divided conflicted and lazy that only a strong leader with a concise conviction targeting our biggest problems first can save us. Any deviation will become dangerous as the global economy and our environment both continue to heat up beyond repair.  The good news is, our solutions are simple, the bad news is, our politicians don’t see it that way, marred in the minutia of common place. They should look to Donald Trump who has succeeded in mastering and popularizing this contempt, albeit with the wrong message and his disastrous ideas.