With permission: Caitlin's on a run.

From down under, comes somebody that has a modestly full understanding of the current political atmosphere up here in benevolent land.
I know some here may not like the leangth of this but quoting will not do.
Go to her site for the full monty.

The Belief That Everything Will Be Fine Once Trump’s Gone Is More Dangerous Than Trump

The New Hampshire primary election, much like the Iowa caucuses, saw Bernie Sanders doing worse than polls anticipated and establishment favorite Pete Buttigieg doing much better than polls anticipated.

Buttigieg closed at a tight second place behind Sanders and both were awarded the same number of delegates, which with the bizarre Iowa shenanigans means the former South Bend mayor is now leading the pack in total delegates despite receiving fewer votes than Sanders in both states.

So of course “Buttigieg leads” is the information that the mainstream media is placing special emphasis on today.

It is entirely possible that we’ll continue seeing strange electoral results combined with mass media manipulation result in Buttigieg riding a contested convention into a superdelegate-boosted nomination, even if Sanders has more votes overall. We have at this point in time seen no reason to believe that Sanders will be able to secure the number of delegates needed to prevent such an occurrence.

Then you’ve got racist Republican oligarch Mike Bloomberg jumping on the ballot come Super Tuesday, with his $300 million+ ad campaign throwing more chaos into the mix. Billionaire Bloomberg’s unprecedented campaign spending power has enabled him to push up just shy of second place in a recent Quinnipiac national poll despite having no redeeming characteristics and no real goal agenda apart from stopping Sanders, which is as clear an illustration as you’ll ever see of the power of money in US politics.

Whether it winds up being Buttigieg, Bloomberg, or one of their ideological alt-centrist clones like Amy Klobuchar or the floundering Joe Biden, the mainstream narrative will soon converge around one candidate in a very positive way, with the only important qualification being that they aren’t Bernie Sanders. Many powerful people will do everything they can to prevent a Sanders nomination, whose presidency they oppose more than Trump’s. As journalist Matt Taibbi recently pointed out, the Democratic establishment has “every incentive to play every conceivable card. Trillions at stake.”

The primary argument used will be that defeating Trump is all that matters, even if it’s with another racist Republican plutocrat. If they succeed in sabotaging Sanders’ candidacy, he will help advance the same argument, as will a majority of his supporters. This argument will click perfectly in to a foundational assumption that establishment narrative managers have spent the last three plus years reinforcing, namely that once Trump is out of office, everything will be okay.

The premise that everything will be fine once Trump is gone isn’t one people generally say out loud. They don’t even usually think it. But the fact that so many Democrats who were fine with the way their nation was being run on January 19 2017 suddenly became furiously critical of it on January 20th tells you that this assumption is at play. And the relentlessly Trump-centric liberal news media has only reinforced this unexamined assumption.

Things are not going to be okay once Trump is out of office. Do you know how I know this? Because things weren’t okay before Trump got into office. America was a murderous imperialist force whose citizenry were suffering under crushing austerity and steadily mounting authoritarianism on January 19 2017, and it remains so today. Certainly the current administration has added its own levels of nefariousness to this dynamic, but the same is true of its predecessors.

By this stage in his administration Bush had launched two full-scale ground invasions and implemented unprecedented levels of global militarism and Orwellian surveillance, while at the same stage Obama had already overtly destroyed Libya and was working on covertly doing the same to Syria. Trump has continued and expanded all of the most evil agendas of those two administrations and added immensely depraved warmongering elements of his own, but you can’t even rightly argue that he’s done anything quite so evil as what Bush did to Iraq or what Obama did to Libya and Syria. Trump is not the unprecedented presidential horror that the Democratic Party-aligned media spin him as.

Imperialist elites dislike Trump not because he’s a uniquely dangerous president, but because he puts an ugly face on the things they were already doing before he took office and plan to continue doing once he leaves. The reason many rank-and-file Democrats dislike him is similar: he forces them to think about the evil things their nation does.

They don’t actually want to fix any of these problems, they just want to stop thinking about them. They’re not interested in waking up, they just want to get an uncomfortable wrinkle out of their bedsheets so that they can go back to sleep.

John Mulaney does an under-appreciated bit at the end of his famous “There’s a horse in the hospital” routine comparing Trump to a horse running rampant in a medical facility, where he admits he just wasn’t paying attention to what was going on during the previous administration:

Or sometimes they go, “If you’re so mad at the horse, how come you weren’t mad when the last guy did this three and a half years ago? You’re beating up on the horse when the last guy essentially did the same thing five years ago.” First off, get out of here with your facts. You’re like the kid at the sleepover who, after midnight, is like, “It’s tomorrow now!” Get the fuck out of here with your technicalities. Just ’cause you’re accurate does not mean you’re interesting…

But when people say, “How come you were never mad at the last guy?” I say, “Because I wasn’t paying attention.” I used to pay less attention before it was a horse. Also, I thought the last guy was pretty smart, and he seemed good at his job, and I’m lazy by nature. I’m lazy by nature too. So I don’t check up on people when they seem okay at their job. You may think that’s an ignorant answer but it’s not, it’s a great answer. If you left your baby with your mother tonight, you’re not going to race home and check the nanny cam. But if you leave your baby with Gary Busey…

I think this is how most mainstream liberals feel, if they’re honest with themselves. They felt like they didn’t have to pay attention to the things Obama was doing, and they want to go back to that. Even though the distance between a truly healthy society and what America was like under Obama is many orders of magnitude greater than the distance between what America was like under Obama and what America is like under Trump.

Wanting things to go back to how they were before Trump is wanting things to go back to the conditions which gave rise to Trump. The belief that everything will be peachy keen once Trump is out of office is therefore more dangerous than Trump himself, because it guarantees more Trumps, and it guarantees that the underlying disease of which Trump is a symptom will remain uncured.

Treating a symptom doesn’t cure the disease. Believing that getting rid of Trump will fix America’s problems is like believing cough syrup cures tuberculosis.

The disease is the oligarchic imperialist dystopia which is tormenting millions and controlling billions all around the world. A movement toward health doesn’t look like not having to pay attention anymore, it looks like the exact opposite: becoming fully conscious of all the ugliest and most unpleasant to look at aspects of the thing that America has become. It looks like turning and facing all the bloodshed, genocide, white supremacy, oppression, exploitation, corruption and degradation which form the fibers from which that nation has been woven, deeply ingesting and grokking into their reality, and then healing them completely.

If the narrative managers succeed in installing Pete Buttigieg or one of his ideological clones, the temptation for millions of Americans will be to go back to sleep. But America won’t be any healthier. The coughing will have stopped, but the tuberculosis will remain. The sociopathic imperialist oligarchy will continue along the exact same trajectory, but the symptom of an oafish, incompetent and ham-fisted president will have been eliminated.

And that’s all any narrative manager ever wants. Their job is to normalize the empire’s depravity and keep its highly profitable murder and exploitation from awakening the masses. That’s why propaganda is so toxic.

I’m not interested in telling Americans whether they should have Trump or some centrist Democrat in office; the odds of four more years of Trump being more disastrous than under President Pete are a toss-up as far as I can tell. But I do wish the malignant belief that eliminating Trump will solve America’s main problems could be expunged from human consciousness forever.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/13/the-belief-that-everything-will-...

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Bisbonian's picture

"Wanting things to go back to how they were before Trump is wanting things to go back to the conditions which gave rise to Trump."

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

Pricknick's picture

@Bisbonian
against the ptb.

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12 users have voted.

Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

PriceRip's picture

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chuck utzman

TULSI 2020

It seems that only Bernie gets repeatedly asked if he will support the winner of the primary. Vote blue no matter who. Yet we have this happening right before our eyes.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/12/biden-allies-eye-alternative-bl...

Moderate Democrats on Capitol Hill have begun to confront a future without Joe Biden — and are scrambling to find a centrist alternative who can topple both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.

And a growing number of Capitol Hill Democrats say they’re turning to billionaire Mike Bloomberg, a former New York mayor who became a trusted ally after his personal fortune helped Democrats recapture the House in 2018.

Publicly, moderate Democrats insist there’s plenty of time until Super Tuesday, when Biden or Bloomberg could emerge as the frontrunner. But anxiety is rising on both sides of the Capitol that a Sanders ticket could cost the party not just the race for the White House but also of control of Congress — while exposing raw ideological tensions within the party ahead of November.

“If Bernie ends up being one of these frontrunners, he’ll have to moderate. I’m not going socialist. Never been a socialist,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said. “If he doesn’t change, I’ve got a dilemma there. We’ll see. But we’re talking about hypotheticals. I think there’s going to be a lot happening between now and then.”

The soul-searching within the establishment wing of the Democratic Party comes after Sanders solidified his frontrunner status in Iowa and New Hampshire, which produced a pair of cringeworthy finishes for Biden. The former vice president did so poorly in New Hampshire that he ditched his own election night watch party to head to South Carolina, possibly giving an opening to Bloomberg, who skipped the first four contests.

“I’m feeling a momentum shift to Bloomberg right now,” said Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.), who endorsed Biden in the summer and plans to stick with him.

There is more at the provided link but you get the idea that having a corporate candidate will make things return to normal.

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Shahryar's picture

@humphrey

and insincere. It is hard for me to get into the heads of these people. They lie so blatantly. Are they stupid? Do they not know that we can tell they're lying?

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Pricknick's picture

@Shahryar
can not.

Do they not know that we can tell they're lying?

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10 users have voted.

Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

snoopydawg's picture

Trump is ObamaBushClintonBushReagan 2.0 and he is not really doing anything that they didn't do. The only thing that is different is how he goes about doing them. Democrats gave the game away when they impeached Trump only for the phone call and not for his real crimes. Of course they couldn't go after him for them because they are complicit in them theirselves. Just like Nancy wouldn't impeach Bush for torture and crimes against humanity.

IMG_3400_0.JPG

Saw this on Moon of Alabama and it echoes what I have thought since Trump beat Hillary.

I personally don't think we should take seriously the Establishment vs Trump dramatics. I think all the investigations of Trump, etc, are merely to distract us from the actual happenings in international law and war. That is, I think the entire Trump campaign & presidency is just an intelligence op against the American people. You can see that he's highly successful at polarizing left & right even further, and thus blinding people to the elites above pulling the strings.

If Trump is the real deal then why hasn't he gone after Hillary for using her private email server like he said he would? Why wait 3 years to unleash his justice department to go after the people who tried to prevent his presidency? Why were Obama holdovers still in position to try to bring him down? I could go on all night with this type of wondering. Bottom line is Trump is furthering the donor's agendas better than Hillary would have or Obama did.

Democrats are blatantly rigging the primary in front of us and asking us what we will do about it? CIA Pete or republican Bloomberg? Both will deliver what they are supposed to. Either way the donors win and we lose.

The sociopathic imperialist oligarchy will continue along the exact same trajectory, but the symptom of an oafish, incompetent and ham-fisted president will have been eliminated.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

It is kind of important.

Click on the tweet to see more of the statement.

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Pricknick's picture

@humphrey
can help me before I ask JTC.
Why can't I see tweets anymore?
Thanks in advance.

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6 users have voted.

Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

@Pricknick I wish I could help but it appears OK to me. Perhaps someone else might have a suggestion.

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@humphrey
Now I have to go donate to Bernie, and I don't think that's what this mysterious "grassroots" organization intended.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

This is like what I've been trying to tell people: If you hate Trump, but not his predecessors, you hate him for the wrong reasons, because the only significant difference is that he preaches what he practices.

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11 users have voted.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

@The Liberal Moonbat

The problem is that Carter through Obama, with the exception of Clinton, weren't impeached when there were plenty of right reasons for doing so. Clinton's impeachment was on the order of Trump's; both enraging their public supporters and energizing their public opponents. . LBJ stepped down before his impeachable offenses caught up with him (but on domestic policy he was top drawer). Nixon was almost impeached for right reasons but for a mere fraction of his impeachable offenses, (but a mixed bag on DP, some of it wasn't at all shabby).

While it didn't work for him, it appears that Nixon was right, "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal."

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@Marie NOT acceptable; we must make proving him wrong A TOP PRIORITY.

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0 users have voted.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

@The Liberal Moonbat

Three-quarters (at least) of those in Congress endorse presidential lawlessness for the simple reason that they themselves desire such power should they somehow make it to the Oval Office, and if not them, at least their political party in charge. Congress made this the unwritten rule; only little people must be held accountable for their unacceptable deeds and not cut any slack.

Reality is often very unpleasant, but denial of what is is the stuff of mental illness.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@Marie Reality in politics is determined entirely by fiat.

It's the dead opposite of science (which might be why religious crackpots are so good at it, and politicians are so bad at science). In such a milieu, the cruel joke is on anybody who "accepts reality" - they're just ceding victory to whoever was less reasonable than they were.

Take it from somebody with a hard-earned social studies degree who has also spent his whole life orbiting the scientific community proper: The left has spent the last several decades needlessly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by slavishly sacrificing its free will and imagination upon the trap altar of "social science".

I know a thing or two about mental illness, too, and I've reached the conclusion that everybody must inevitably choose between being crazy...or being stupid.

"Screw normal. You know why? 'Cause if you're normal, the crowd will accept you. But if you're deranged, the crowd will make you their leader."
- Christopher Titus

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0 users have voted.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!