At last, friends, the Angry Fringe has reared its beautiful head, and is making its voice heard.
And wow, doesn’t it feel good to have a candidate who articulates the things we’ve been thinking for years? Yes, it does.
Who do you think is going to be leading this political movement about which Bernie Sanders speaks? Do you think it’s all the politicians who accept dark money for their campaigns from Wall Street and other big money donors? Are they going to lead this new movement?
No. We are.
And who are we you might ask? The Angry Fringe. That’s right. All the piece-meal pragmatics who are happy with “realistic” and incremental change can eat the Angry Fringe’s dust. Because I am here to tell you that this movement has already started and while people were looking at polls and watching MSNBC, the new movement has been making inroads into the consciousness of America.
Recall, if you will, this quote:
But in any case, the question is about her being the nominee. You can either be enthusiastic about that, non-enthusiastic about that but still supportive, or a hater. And every comment in this thread expressing a more "nuanced" explanation fits into the "not crazy about it, but will still support her" category.
Seems to me the anger comes from haters realizing they are pretty fringy.
Be a cheerleader, embrace the suck, or be a hater out on the fringe.
Okay. Does this mean that those of us who support, for example, Bernie Sanders, are haters?
If you are thinking “Yes, yes you are, if you don’t support Hillary Clinton, you’re a hater!” then you are correct in your thinking.
I AM A HATER AND HERE’S WHAT I HATE
Income Inequality
From Bernie’s Issues page:
The good news is that the economy today is much better than when President George W. Bush left office. The bad news is that despite improvements the 40-year decline of the American middle class continues. Real unemployment is much too high, tens of millions of Americans still lack health insurance, and more of our friends and neighbors are living in poverty than at almost any time in the modern history of our country.
Meanwhile, as the rich become much richer, the level of income and wealth inequality has reached obscene and astronomical levels. In the United States, we have one of the most unequal wealth and income distributions of any major country on earth. Our inequality is worse now than at any other time in American history since the 1920s. Today, the top one-tenth of 1 percent of our nation owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent combined. One family, the Walton family of Walmart, owns more wealth than the bottom 42 percent combined. In terms of income, nearly all of the new growth since the recession has gone to the top 1 percent.
At a time when millions of American workers have seen declines in their incomes and are working longer hours for lower wages, the wealth of the billionaire class is soaring in a way that few can imagine. If you can believe it, between 2013 and 2015, the 14 wealthiest individuals in the country saw their net worth increase by over $157 billion dollars. We live in the one of the wealthiest countries on earth, yet children go hungry, veterans sleep out on the streets and senior citizens cannot afford their prescription drugs. This is what a rigged economic system looks like.
A visit to Ms. Clinton’s official page for her stance on the issue of income inequality:
”Everyday Americans need a champion.
I want to be that champion.”
(Okay, fair enough, she has not yet formulated an official stance on income equality yet, that’s okay, when I learn what it is, I will revise this diary to reflect her position(s).)
Back over to Mr. Sanders’ issues page, here’s his stance on getting big money out of politics:
Freedom of speech does not mean the freedom to buy the United States government. Oil companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, Wall Street bankers and other powerful special interests have poured money into our political system for years. In 2010, a bad situation turned worse. In a 5-4 decision in the Citizens United case, the Supreme Court opened the floodgates for corporations and the wealthy to spend unlimited and undisclosed money to buy our elected officials. The Supreme Court essentially declared that corporations have the same rights as natural-born human beings.
Our democracy is under fierce attack. Billionaire families are now able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the candidates of their choice. These people own most of the economy. Now they want to own our government as well. The Koch brothers, the second wealthiest family in America, plan to spend some $900 million in the coming 2016 election — more money than either of our major parties spent in the last election. That is not democracy. That is oligarchy. To restore our one person-one vote democracy, Congress must pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and move toward public funding of elections.
KEY ACTIONS
• Introduced the Democracy Is for People amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.
• Voted for the DISCLOSE Act to shine a light on the exorbitant amounts of dark money in our politics.
• Promised that any Sanders Administration Supreme Court nominee must commit to overturning the disastrous Citizens United decision.
What does Ms. Clinton’s official website say about getting big money out of politics?
”Everyday Americans need a champion.
I want to be that champion.”
(Okay, fair enough, she has not yet formulated an official response getting big money out of politics yet, that’s okay, when I learn what it is, I will revise this diary to reflect her position(s).)
I hate the TPP. So does Bernie Sanders. In fact, here’s an excerpt from SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: THE TRANS-PACIFIC TRADE (TPP) AGREEMENT MUST BE DEFEATED:
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a disastrous trade agreement designed to protect the interests of the largest multi-national corporations at the expense of workers, consumers, the environment and the foundations of American democracy. It will also negatively impact some of the poorest people in the world. The TPP is a treaty that has been written behind closed doors by the corporate world. Incredibly, while Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry and major media companies have full knowledge as to what is in this treaty, the American people and members of Congress do not. They have been locked out of the process. Further, all Americans, regardless of political ideology, should be opposed to the “fast track” process which would deny Congress the right to amend the treaty and represent their constituents’ interests. The TPP follows in the footsteps of other unfettered free trade agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA and the Permanent Normalized Trade Agreement with China (PNTR). These treaties have forced American workers to compete against desperate and low-wage labor around the world. The result has been massive job losses in the United States and the shutting down of tens of thousands of factories. These corporately backed trade agreements have significantly contributed to the race to the bottom, the collapse of the American middle class and increased wealth and income inequality. The TPP is more of the same, but even worse.
Here is what I know about Ms. Clinton’s stance on the TPP:
”Everyday Americans need a champion.
I want to be that champion.”
(Okay, fair enough, she has not yet formulated an official stance on the TPP, that’s okay, when I learn what it is, I will revise this diary to reflect her position(s).)
When it comes to wars of choice, well, we know both contenders’ stances on that as well. The candidate I have angrily and fringily decided to support was against the Iraq war all along. Yours?
For the first time since I don’t know when (although briefly I thought it would be President Obama), we actually have a candidate who is willing to fight for the people, and fight for what’s good and right for our country. His support is growing exponentially, and his messages are resonating solidly with a huge portion of the population.
Full disclosure: I don’t watch TV anymore so I am not bombarded with as much propaganda as I could be. What I hear normal citizens talking about in line at Starbuck’s: Bernie Sanders. When I talk to friends at a cookout, who are they excited about? Bernie Sanders. Maybe I live in a bubble, but to be honest, outside of DailyKos, I might know two people who support Ms. Clinton. Really. And even they accept the fact that when someone like Bernie Sanders comes along and says the kinds of things they wish Hillary Clinton was saying, she doesn’t looks so inevitable after all.
There are still some among us who believe that Bernie Sanders is unelectable. I am here to tell you that he is imminently electable. He’s more than just electable, he can really win this. One thing I am certainly picking up on, the new zeitgeist, is:
THE INEVITABILITY OF BERNIE SANDERS