The Nightmare of Clinton versus Trump: Hillary is not a shoo in

Is a dream a lie if it don't come true, or is it something worse?   

"The River" - Bruce Springsteen 

The failure of the economy to deliver real progress to middle-class and working-class Americans over the past 15 years is the most fundamental source of public anger and disaffection in the US.  BBC News 

Forty years of hurt has driven some people to answer Springsteen's question, that the American dream is something worse than a lie, and from that bleak answer they are looking for a political leader who echoes their anger. So my answer to presenters' questions whether Trump can win, is now and was before the primaries started: "Yes."  Michael Goldfarb - BBC

As of Today

In this the strangest of presidential election years, a poorly flushed Donald Trump pops up out of the backed up drains of the American psyche and the only thing standing between him and the Republican nomination is Senator Ted Cruz, who could pass as Boris Karloff's baby brother. 

Republican debate has now moved from the size of Mr Trump's penis to whether the evangelical Mr Cruz sleeps around. And this, far from hurting Trump, is fattening his lead in the polls

Mr Trump has succeeded in breaking down the boundaries of political debate. He has drained all civility from politics and licensed a discourse that elides bigotry with patriotism, is derisive of women, scornful of minorities and permissive of racism. The Republican primaries have become a contest in which it is acceptable to throw a punch at those who happen to disagree, to threaten to muzzle the freedom of the press and to make jokes about those with disabilities. Mr Trump has tossed overboard any idea that politics and public service can serve a moral purpose. Philip Stephens - Financial Times

If The Donald wins the nomination, which as of today, seems probable, he will, unless a kind providence intervenes, end up facing the most soiled politician in America... except for her husband, of course: Hillary Clinton.

For no one, not even Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, has objectively done more to turn Bruce Springsteen's dream into a lie than the Clintons.

Here is how Thomas Frank lays it out:

Ukraine is considered the most corrupt nation in Europe

After the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000, the corporate scandals of the Enron period, and the collapse of the real estate racket, our view of the prosperous Nineties has changed quite a bit. Now we remember that it was Bill Clinton’s administration that deregulated derivatives, that deregulated telecom, and that put our country’s only strong banking laws in the grave. He’s the one who rammed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) through Congress and who taught the world that the way you respond to a recession is by paying off the federal deficit. Mass incarceration and the repeal of welfare, two of Clinton’s other major achievements, are the pillars of the disciplinary state that has made life so miserable for Americans in the lower reaches of society. He would have put a huge dent in Social Security, too, had the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal not stopped him. If we take inequality as our measure, the Clinton administration looks not heroic but odious. Thomas Frank - Salon

The Skinny

Assuming, as now appears most likely, that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination and that either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz becomes the Republican nominee, the general-election ballot is set to feature a choice between two candidates more negatively viewed than any major-party nominee in the history of polling. Ruth Marcus - Washington Post

The only thing standing between such a nightmare choice for American voters is Bernie Sanders.

No two human beings could be more different than Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump and the most fundamental difference between them is that Trump is a very bad man and Bernie is a very good man,

However what they both have in common is that their campaigns are both propelled by the passionate anger that so many Americans feel at the failure of the "American Dream" and their mounting distrust of the "Establishment", Wall Street, the media and of course the government itself.

Hillary Clinton's basic problem is that no one incarnates that Establishment so much as she does.

If it's Hillary versus Trump, America and a watching world will be treated to probably the dirtiest, most depressing campaign imaginable and with the probable, massive abstention of grossed out voters of both the left and traditional conservatives too and therefore with a result infinitely more unpredictable than anyone can now imagine.

However if Bernie Sanders manages to pull off an upset and the race is between him and Trump, the world will be treated to an all-American, Hollywood-esque spectacle of good versus evil, Batman pitted against The Joker, Saint George kicking the dragon's ass.

Not only would it change America and the world, it would be tremendous fun.

Probably the most fascinating, indeed endearing thing about the USA is the "let it all hang out" transparency of such a huge beast. What is missing today, unfortunately, is someone like Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis or Norman Mailer to write about all of this. DS

Haitian cholera: opening soon in theaters near you... not

Haitian Venus

A Collier County woman is Florida's first documented case of cholera imported from Haiti. The woman, who lives in southwest Florida, had been visiting family in the region of the earthquake-devastated nation that is at the center of its cholera epidemic.(...)"We really don't anticipate that we will see any sustained transmission caused by Haiti in Florida or anywhere else in the United States," Torok said. "The risk is so low because our water and sanitation systems really minimize the risk to folks." The cholera outbreak in Haiti, officially reported in late October, has claimed more than 1,000 lives, according to the World Health Organization. St. Petersburg Times

David Seaton's News Links

What is most obscene about the cholera outbreak in Haiti is that the woman lying naked and close to death on the pavement in the photo above, is only a short distance from the USA and that the highly contagious disease, one that is killing her and hundreds more like her, is not considered a major health risk in the USA, where a case has already been reported, because, "our water and sanitation systems really minimize the danger to folks".

I invite my readers to roll all that around in their minds for a while and consider the implications.

And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?  And he [God] said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. -- Genesis 4: 9-10

Religion in the United States has a high adherence level, compared to other developed countries, and diversity in beliefs. Wikipedia

Go figure. DS

Immigration will break the right

"It's simply impossible for any political party to win if it has to choose between money and votes." Thomas F. Schaller - Salon

David Seaton's News Links

Any left wing analysis going way back into the 19th century would tell you that the top-hatted, cigar chomping, cartoon capitalist uses xenophobia to divide and manipulate the working class: playing on and encouraging their nativist sentiments in order to better exploit them. I imagine any little Cuban "young pioneer" in Havana learns that before he finishes third grade.

With globalization all that has been turned on its head. The money wants all the cheap immigrant labor it can get and all the outsourcing all over the world it needs to provide it with what Marx called the "huge reservoir of surplus workers"... and it doesn't want its political operators to turn off the supply. The natural tactic is to talk xenophobic, but continue to liberalize. This is what Sarkozy seems have done to win the Le Pen votes, but if he doesn't throw them some red meat soon, they will know they've been had and turn on him.

I think that the contradiction between the cosmopolitan money and the xenophobic base will inevitably split the right in Europe and lead to a growth of neo-fascist parties and in America the issue may very well hamstring the Republicans... Marx would probably say that they would have to start a war to resolve the contradiction. Iran anyone? Stay tuned. DS

Could immigration really be the issue that finally cracks the Republican base? - Salon
Abstract: For the past three decades, Republicans have carefully sidestepped the kinds of issues that could divide a party's followers from its Beltway elites -- and expertly deployed the same wedge issues against the Democrats. Now the party's 2008 front-runners are in trouble, one of Karl Rove's long-term strategic goals is in doubt, and the foot soldiers are close to open revolt, all thanks to one uniquely radioactive wedge issue. Could Limbaugh's warning about a great unraveling be true? "The Republican strategy on immigration has been one of the great failures of modern politics," says Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, which has organized a systematic outreach campaign to Hispanic voters. "What's going on in the Republican Party is a debate between the strategists who want to win and a part of their base that is extremely xenophobic." Immigration is especially perilous for the GOP because it is what might be called a "double-edged" wedge issue. It not only pits the party's base against a large and quickly growing pool of potential new Republicans -- 41 million Hispanics -- but also pits two key parts of the existing base against each other. The Wall Street wing of the GOP, which finances the party, wants to keep open the spigot of pliant and cheap Spanish-speaking labor. It finds itself opposed by much of the Main Street wing, which provides millions of crucial primary and general election votes and would like to build a fence along the Mexican border as high as Lou Dobbs' ratings or the pitch of Pat Buchanan's voice. And it's simply impossible for any political party to win if it has to choose between money and votes. READ IT ALL