OPINION: No-Man’s-Land, No Man’s Hope

Trump 2020 … not so far fetched, ‘eh?

Doom lies in yourself, not in your name.

~ J.R.R. Tolkien, from “The Children of Hurin”

I try not to check my phone for notifications after 10 in the evening because those are the witching hours. Shady moves happen underneath dark skies, especially in Washington. The 2020 Democratic Primaries are no different, as the night before Super Tuesday was an absolute tailspin of unfortunate events; a train wreck that no journalist could avoid rubber-necking to.

Elizabeth Warren dropped the ball for every progressive that evening by refusing to drop out and endorse the only candidate with a chance now and in November. Meanwhile, the DNC began digging a grave for Bernie Sanders through countless ironic endorsements. Now, Warren has concluded her campaign but is continuing her pity parade by trying to guilt trip Americans into thinking two absurd theories: (1) they’re more sexist than they actually think they are, and (2) elected officials have feelings too. In the words of John Bolton referring to Rudy Giuliani, she’s “a hand grenade” in this whole election, a faux pas, as it were.

But far … far worse yet, the moderate endorsements prevailed. Pete Buttigieg endorsed Joe Biden in the eleventh hour. Then Amy Klobuchar hopped on the Biden bandwagon and gave way for a wash in Minnesota to the moderates. After Bloomberg floundered like we all knew he would, he did the only thing he knows best by crawling over to the Italian leather loafers on Biden’s feet, and the former vice president didn’t struggle one bit to accept his endorsement. And in case all that wasn’t enough, Texas representative Beto O’Rourke backed away from his image as an aggressive progressive and opted instead for a position in a cabinet that will never exist under Biden in exchange for a simple endorsement.

Now, Kamala has joined the ranks and history continues to take a dramatic shift long after that superist of Tuesday’s. My own foresight on how everything will play out going forward is not uplifting; the only silver lining I can find is that Bloomberg proved to be a non-viable candidate. I truly cannot picture a 2020 Presidential Election between sitting Pres. Donald Trump and incumbent former Vice President Joe Biden that doesn’t end in four more years of this current political hellscape. Surely the leatherfaced bully that tormented and publicly lambasted Hillary Clinton for a relatively-inoffensive personal history, compared to 2020’s likely nominee, is a recipe for humiliation at the expense of all registered Democrats.

Allow me to address the elephant in the room; Biden’s mental fortitude is plummeting. Every day I log onto Twitter, there’s a new clip of his buttery lips fumbling the ball at the fifty-five-yard-line. Many of these criticisms take a clear bias; I’ll be candid in saying that a handful of these clips truly do appear to be taken out of context, at least to one with a critical mind. But the lion’s share are not, and even if they are, their significance should not be discredited.

Are we really this confident in thrusting a man with obvious mental decay and a beyond-questionable voting record onto a debate stage against Trump? Remember when Clinton caught a case of pneumonia on the campaign trail in 2016 and everybody speculated whether or not her days were numbered? What makes Biden any different?

I’m not making light of Biden’s mental state; I lived with a grandmother for six years who suffered from Multiple Sclerosis, so my frustration comes from genuine concern and not an ounce of cynicism. I watched her body and mind crumble like an overcooked scone since she was diagnosed before I was born. I watched her slowly take on more and more repeated lapses in her cognitive abilities; confusing the face of one relative for another who died ten years prior, believing firmly that the year is still 1975, asking questions about the same topic … over and over and over again.

There’s a classic dichotomy of proof versus action … how much proof do you need before you take action? The connection between Lung Cancer and tobacco could have saved the breath of millions of children subjected to secondhand smoke; CTE could be a thing of the past if Penn State took action once Owen Thomas hung himself; residents of Flint, Michigan might not have to still buy bottled water if their government took action after the first townie reported an odd taste from the tap. And yet, these plagues still shape our country in demonstrative ways, even in a new decade.

So, how much proof do we need that Joe Biden will lose to the Don in November? How much proof do we need that Biden’s mind is slipping? How much proof do we need to expose establishment Democrats and news outlets as the sickeningly agenda-laden organizations they are? Exactly this much, though, I doubt it will make a difference.

The former-candidates that endorsed Biden in the eleventh hour are now backing away from their progressive facades, excluding Klobuchar because unlike the rest she stayed true to her voting record. They will likely form his prospective, naively hopeful cabinet with an astounding diversity of pointless objectives. None of them align with one another; it’s going to be a fucked up hodgepodge of hollow promises that use the woeful hopes of the working class to push an agenda that only benefits the powerful.

Take a closer look…

During her time as the District Attorney for San Francisco, Kamala Harris criminalized truancy, which disproportionately affected low-income African Americans. She also refused to investigate the predatory payday lender turned current Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, Steve Mnuchin, despite the mountain of evidence against him. But during her run for the presidency in 2019, she harked on memories of her Civil Rights leading parents. She’s a shoe-in for the position of Attorney General underneath a moderate Democrat president.

Former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, is a phony, opportunistic Obama-era copycat with the capable experience to lead not much more than the Department of the Interior, let alone a whole fucking country. He wanted hope and unity to prevail, not action and intent. In 1996, Biden voted in favor of DOMA while Sanders verily denounced it. Biden voted in ’02 to send troops to Iraq while Sanders saw through Bush’s and Cheney’s bullshit. But, Buttigieg saw no problem endorsing Biden, even after criticizing Biden on those same issues for months on the campaign trail. While he held office as South Bend’s mayor, Buttigieg proved to be a minority with more distaste for minorities than Harris by refusing to investigate proven-rumors of racism in the South Bend police department. The African American officer who called out the racism was subsequently fired … and that case is just the tip of Buttigieg’s racist iceberg.

Klobuchar is a not-so far-fetched candidate for the Secretary of State and maybe even VP under Biden. Even though Biden’s signature can be found in-favor of NAFTA while a senator and TPP as VP, Klobuchar saw it pertinent that the former senator get her endorsement … but, let’s not forget where all the effects of those trade deals took place. Hilariously, the possibility of a VP position for Klobuchar is contingent on if she can find even an ounce of inspiration to inject into her dull, centrist veins. Then again, Biden also wasn’t much of an icon when he received the nomination for VP in 2008; the Democrats only put him on the ticket to assuage southern, racist dems into voting for a black man instead of republican challenger John McCain … that’s why winning South Carolina was so important for Biden’s 2020 campaign.

And then there’s Bloomberg … oh, Bloomberg … “Stop and Frisk”, tried to change his own term limits, spent more of his own money on advertising than any other candidate because he’s a billionaire … endorsed Biden and he accepted … need I even say more?

Finally, ole Bet-on-my-stork O’Rourke, a far-cry for Secretary of Homeland Security, given his experience as a House representative for Texas (a state noteworthy for its immigration measures) and absolutely nothing higher. Biden’s plan for regulating firearms is nothing but a return to 2016, while Sanders’ is forward-looking and actually feasible … so “hell yes,” O’Rourke should have endorsed Bernie if he wants his career to keep moving forward. But, not only that, O’Rourke represents Texas, a state with one of the highest populations of Hispanic people in America. Hispanic voters overwhelmingly support Sanders, also made evident by his sweeping victory in Nevada. Yet, he turned his back on that group of people, seeming to discredit Hispanic voters like the DNC has done for all of its existence.

What I’m trying to say by tearing apart these spineless cretins is this: I’m sure everybody had greatly personal reasons to vote the way they did on Super Tuesday and nobody should feel ashamed for that, but even so, it was a train wreck all across the board and only furthered my belief that a former-candidate should not be allowed to endorse a current candidate; things are very bad. We absolutely cannot put Trump against Biden on a debate stage because he is going to do exactly what he did to Clinton in 2016: call-out her questionable voting record and mock her health, wealth and lack of populism.

The fact of the matter is this: Donald Trump won in 2016 because he was a populist going up against a centrist, which is a recipe for a long-standing and slow-burning disaster … if you don’t believe me, then take a look at the character arc and historical context of Ronald Reagan. The Don echoes Reagan in a lot of frighteningly similar ways.

Just to name a few:

• Tax cuts for the rich
• Reduced-funding for social security
• Reduced funding for Planned Parenthood
• Public dismay for the existence of the IRS
• Expanding the U.S.’ nuclear arsenal
• Populist

Reagan is the very reason many voters aged 30 and up don’t believe socialism is a viable option for making progress happen once again in America. He duped all the protestors at Kent State and UC Berkeley into believing that Trickled Down Economics isn’t a conspicuously agenda laden principle. The financial effects of Reaganomics even looked good in their first few years, but that’s because history is always written by the winners. None of those privileged, young, white voters stopped for even a second to think about how lucky they were to have the nest egg mommy and daddy left for them, nor did they realize they would have been starving without it, nor did they realize that their black and Hispanic friends in school were starving without it. They just put it in the stock market, watched their numbers explode, then went out and registered themselves as republicans.

Ever since the Great Depression, the U.S. has not seen a year of negative GDP growth except in 2009, following the Housing Crisis. Inflation has remained around a stable 2% for almost all of that time. From the Great Depression through to Reaganomics’ genesis, the U.S. was growing and improving under constant socialist values … even under Nixon, who established the Environmental Protection Agency and supported a federal universal basic income system.

So, if you think the blanket statement of “socialism” is a good fit for a bad idea, then you also have to agree to give up the following pre-established U.S. government programs:

• Subsidized housing
• Subsidized farming
• Subsidized hospitals
• Subsidies in-general
• Taxes
• Tax breaks for non-profits
• Tax breaks for religious institutions
• The IRS
• The FDIC
• NPR
• PBS
• Welfare
• Food stamps/EBT
• Public schools
• Police
• Fire departments
• Library’s
• Non-tolled roads/highways
• Social security
• Medicare
• Medicaid

But if you still hear that whole list and look at the numbers that speak for themselves … numbers that coincide with Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Vietnam, Korea and World War 2, the 1970s Gasoline Crisis, the 1981-1982 Recession, the Civil Rights Movement, Freddie Mac and all of the Cold War … and STILL BELIEVE that we are in a bad spot to continue enacting and growing social programs, then your head is in the sand.

Sanders may have had a heart attack, but even if he died in office, at least he would be able to put together a cabinet of strong, principled progressives that would truly carry-on his vision to serve the needs of so many minorities and disenfranchised voters in the U.S.

That’s the tea; a very hot one, at that.