Finally, isn't it time to recognize that the Trump campaign is toast? The numbers are devastating.
2016 was a very successful year for the "anti-imperialist" Left. In 2016, more Left energy was focused on denying Hillary Clinton the presidency than any other issue, and they had a big win!
Of course, that didn't work out so well for the Stand Rock Sioux tribe, Muslim refugees, undocumented immigrants, and the world as a whole, because it meant Donald Trump became president.
These Leftists did this by giving vent to their hatred of Hillary. They eagerly promoted every Russian hacked, Wiki-leak of DNC embarrassment and wrong doing, while deferring any investigation or exposure of Trump's Alt-Right white supremacist ties until after the election.
Sometime Trump says gems of wisdom, like #NATO is obsolete. #cnntownhall— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) March 30, 2016
This data is from Politico [updated 22 Nov. 2016 - PA updated 2 Dec from http://www.electionreturns.pa.gov/ ] :
| Candidate | Count | % | Michigan [16] | Wisconsin [10] | Pennsylvania [20] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Donald Trump | 61,201,031 | 47% | 2,279,805 | 1,409,467 | 2,955,671 |
| Hillary Clinton | 62,523,126 | 48% | 2,268,193 | 1,382,210 | 2,906,128 |
| Difference | 11,612 | 27,257 | 49,543 | ||
| Jill Stein | 802,119 | 0.7% | 50,700 | 30,980 | 49,678 |
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| cartoon by Pia Guerra |
Many on the Left argued that what really mattered in 2016 was building the Green Party into a truly progressive party with a mass base that could seriously contend for the presidency in the future. They counseled that we keep our eye on that prize and not fret about who would ultimately be sworn in on 20 January 2017.
The Green Party knew it had absolutely no chance of putting its own candidates, Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka into the White House. It told anyone who would listen that it really didn't matter whether it was Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton that would be closely followed by the nuclear football after January. To make their case, they downplayed the significance of white supremacy in this election, ignored the pleas of minorities to make this election a fight against it, and even went so far as to claim Donald Trump might be the lesser of the two evils.
They were so focused on defeating Hillary Clinton that even Sean Spicer, Trump's Press Secretary, could be found campaigning for Jill Stein:
Hey @smerconish how about a little love for Jill Stein— Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) September 10, 2016
what they were doing? Think the Jill Stein didn't know what she was doing?
.@smerconish since you are such an advocate of 3rd parties when was the last time you or @cnn had @DrJillStein on?— Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) October 1, 2016
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| Mirri Maz Duur |
Now it is clear to most, if not Jill, that not only is Donald Trump the greater of the two evils, he is far and away the most dangerous US president in living memory. His election is undoubtably a great tragedy but what heartens the soul is the way people in the United States and around the world have turned out in massive numbers to oppose his assault on democracy. Starting with the unprecedented numbers at the massive women's marches the day after the inauguration, on to protests against his Muslim ban so massive that they shut down the nations biggest airports, and now in the fight against this new wave of Trump initiated deportations, the progressive mass movement has shown a scope, spirit and vitality not seen since the sixties.
So where is the Green Party in all of this?
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Green Party of Atlantic County |
If Ohio is an indication, they haven't had great success in turning their election "victory" into the massive invigorated Green Party that was promised. Although 44,310 Ohioans voted for Jill Stein on 8 Nov 2016, they only had about 40 Ohio Greens at the first full statewide meeting of 2017 on 21 Jan 2017, where "Another high point was the very few criticisms of Donald Trump..." [???] according to the State Committee.
What I found on US Green Party website is even more depressing. Very little has been updated since before the election. The Election Day and Beyond page still says:
It's GOTV time! Make sure all your friends, family, neighbors, and others who've expressed support for Green candidates get to the polls and vote Green. Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka won't get 5% or more without that last-minute push.They should be embarrassed by that page enough to have removed it by now. Jill Stein never stood a chance of getting even 5% of the vote. She got less than 1%, all that "last-minute push" did was put Trump in the Oval Office.
I felt like I was revisiting the now empty warehouse in which I had been previously "big store" scammed.
The reason I feel scammed is because the whole lot of "anti-imperialist" Left representatives, the Green Party, Democracy Now, Code Pink, Veterans for Peace, etc., etc, all those who made it their mission in 2016 to defeat neo-liberalism and Hillary Clinton "by any means necessary," even if that meant putting a white supremacist regime in power and moving from neoliberalism to fascism. Now that The Sting has gone down, their mood is "Don't Look Back." They have no criticisms of their pre-election positions. Instead they quickly orphaned them. Pretended not to know them. Act like they had been fighting Trump all along when really they were very sure Clinton would still win no matter how much they railed against her. That is why the Standing Rock movement had no trouble with calling out Hillary Clinton's silence on their cause even if it would cost votes. That is why they said little about Donald Trump's DAPL investments. Now they face a regime that will show no hesitation and no consideration in crushing all opposition and moving forward with dangerous pipeline construction.
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| Dakota Access pipeline protesters ceremoniously burn structures in their main camp in southern North Dakota near Cannon Ball, N.D., on Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017, as authorities prepare to shut down the camp. (AP/James MacPherson) |
******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. ***************************************************************** Now Paul Manafort is out and the new leadership of the Trump campaign comes from the Atl Right white supremacist gang, backed not only by Trump's money but now also the much richer Robert Mercer. This now represents an attempt by open fascists and white supremacists to take power in the US. The main task of all progressive people in the United States has to be denying the White House to this criminal gang. What will the Green's do? Will they win votes from Trump? Will they try? If they win progressive votes for Jill Stein, which is clearly their focus, they effectively become a part of their racist "Defeat Crooked Hillary" campaign. All the Greens really have to do to support white supremacists taking the White House in 2016 is to essentially repeat their 2012 campaign and act as if Donald Trump is really no different than Mitt Romney. Will the white Left's treachery with regards the people of Libya and Syria, be repeated with regards to colored peoples in the United States? I fear it is already happening! Clay http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/17/alt-right- rejoices-at-trump-s-steve-bannon-hire.html |
By the time I posted that, I had been fighting to keep Trump out of power for many months. I first warned Bourgeois media resorting to sleight-of-hand to put Trump in the White House in December 2015. I ended that post with this:
If this is an example of the presidential election year that is coming, we have a big problem. As ridiculous as it seems, it looks like a rather large section of the US bourgeois wants Donald Trump to be our next president.Now there will be plenty of time to do what the Left failed to do in 2016, namely fight Donald Trump. Of course, it going to be just a little bit harder now that he holds state power.
Full disclosure: I have opposed Donald Trump for a long time. I'm from Atlantic City
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| Vladimir Putin, Michael Flynn and Dr. Jill Stein back in the day |
Syria is the Paris Commune of the 21st Century!
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