"Clinton supporters want us to fear Donald Trump, the fascist. ... But this is all a smokescreen. In America, what’s really happening is they come for our vote in the dead of night"

Hank Edson wrote a thought-provoking, others would say provocative article. Decide for yourself.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/20/when-they-come-our-vote

His key hypothesis:

Clinton supporters want us to fear Donald Trump, the fascist. (...) But this is all a smokescreen. In America, what’s really happening is they come for our vote in the dead of night

How it began, according to Edson:

People supporting Hillary Clinton often compare the “Bernie or Bust” movement to Ralph Nader’s third party campaign in the 2000 election, angrily accusing Sanders supporters in advance of handing the election to the Republican Party’s worst candidate ever. But a progressive challenge to the Democratic Party’s weak nominee is not the aspect of the 2000 election that ought to be remembered in 2016.

What should be remembered is the failure of Al Gore to fight against the political corruption in Florida, the GOP, and the Supreme Court. Florida, the GOP, and the Supreme Court stole the presidency from Al Gore and he never should have conceded the election, not even when two corrupt Supreme Court justices, Scalia and Thomas, failed to properly recuse themselves from participating in the hearing of Bush v. Gore, and the Supreme Court mangled the law in order to put their political preference in the White House, the integrity of our democracy be damned.

Gore's decision to give up did not turn out to be, as he hoped, for the good of the country. We paid dearly for our failure and for Gore’s failure to keep fighting. We should have been out in the streets. We should have surrounded the Supreme Court with tens of thousands of protesters. We should have demanded impeachment hearings for Scalia and Thomas. We should have demanded executive branch action from Bill Clinton. Had we stopped what we were doing, filled the streets of our nation and refused to go about business as normal, more than a million people would not have been killed in the Iraq War. Just think of that. It sounds extreme, but where is the line when theft of the people's government requires the citizenry to stand together to stop it? What consequences must we face before we demand unambiguous integrity in our political process?

Instead, of taking a stand in 2000, we allowed a coup d’état, a forced takeover of the people’s democracy. We sat by and watched. And we know what ensued: Manufactured evidence to drive our nation into am imperialistic war of aggression littered with every kind of war crime, more than a million dead, and the funneling of trillions of dollars of our tax payers' wealth into the industrial-arms complex. We had a right to stop society still in its tracks for as long as it took for justice to prevail and our vote to be restored. We, and Gore, preferred not to fight and this is the mistake we must learn from.

What is, according to Edson, going on now:

In America, what’s really happening is they come for our vote in the dead of night. They do it in little pieces, chunk by chunk, so that we are inclined not to speak up, to let it pass, the way Gore let it pass in 2000.

They strip people from the voter rolls. They dramatically reduce the number of polling places. They change voters' party affiliations. They set registration deadlines months in advance of the primaries. They impose voter ID regulations. The political party that calls itself “Democratic” raises tens of millions of dollars and then funnels that money to one candidate instead of sharing it equally with both candidates.

Super delegates are deliberately misrepresented by CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post, as giving Clinton an unsurmountable lead before a single vote has even been cast when never once in the thirty-two years super delegates have existed have they been counted in the convention until after the winner of the pledged voter delegate contest was determined, and only twice have they helped push that pledged voter delegate contest winner over the line needed to win the nomination. The ongoing super delegate count fraud being committed by these corporate news outlets is a knowingly fraudulent strategy for getting us to kill our vote ourselves, by voting for who we are deceived into thinking is “inevitable” because the media has covered up the fact that the race is actually extremely close. (...)

They come for our vote by trying to stifle the public discourse, limiting the amount of presidential debates and scheduling the debates at times when no one will watch. They come for our vote in the voter machines, engineering them to break down or not to read votes correctly. They come for our vote in the ballots, making them ambiguous and misleading in such a way as to, for example, cause voters to vote for Clinton delegates when they don’t want to do so. They come for the vote by relentless asking the candidate who is only 6% behind in the middle of the nomination race and leading in the polls, “Will you support Clinton in the national election?”

And they come for our vote by blaming us voters. They broadcast as loudly as they can the message that the voters only support Sanders because they want to get the attention of the boys, that the voters don’t do their research, that the voters are only angry, sexist white men, that the voters are not a diverse, accurate reflection of the American people, that the voters are impractical and naïve dreamers, and that the voters’ numerous critiques of Clinton’s poor judgment, record, conflicts of interest, apparent corruption, lack of leadership, dishonesty, and corporate-favoring policies are all simply sexist attacks with no merit. (...)

These are all anti-voter slurs (...). Don’t try to justify these slurs by citing actual examples of individuals who fit the descriptions given. Such individuals are not a basis for attacking a people as a whole or a people’s movement. We see through such smears even if the people parroting this anti-voter rhetoric do not see how they are being manipulated into embracing prejudice against the voter over a focused critique on the politician.

How our reaction should be, according to Edson:

We see when someone is coming for our vote in the dead of night, as well as in the plain of day. We see the way good people are being programmed to embrace these anti-voter slurs and we now understand that we need to speak out against them. We will not be curbed by social pressures and conventions that censor our manners to cover up the crimes of others. Do not come for my sister’s vote, my brother’s vote, or any vote of my people. We understand that we have to fight against those who are coming for our vote (...).

It is hard to awaken to the need to fight, especially when the take-over of our democracy has been so sophisticated and so covered up with the massive cultural and political propaganda broadcast through the corporate media. It is hard to awaken to the need to fight, when our lives our simultaneously filled with so many inducements to stay asleep and so many risks that come with taking a stand. And most of all, it is hard to awaken to the need to fight, when the manner of fighting that is called for is not the instinctual, physical kind we feel in response to an imminent mortal threat, but the kind that must be non-violent, extremely informed and aware, sophisticated, multi-dimensional, and possessed of unyielding endurance because it involves resistance to powerful, orchestrated oppression of a nation and a planet to the will and benefit of just a very few.

But this is the case we find ourselves in. (...) We voters are going to have to fight for our vote and for our government if we really want it. We cannot acquiesce to what happened in the Arizona primary. We cannot tolerate a repetition of such a dead serious assault on our vote in New York and California. This is not a violent fight, but it may well be the fight of our lifetime, and in the context of climate change, the fight of our planet.

We have to prepare ourselves to go beyond the conventional, to become sophisticated, multi-dimensional, articulate and legion. We cannot, like Gore, concede when we discover the fix is in at the Supreme Court. We have to shut the Supreme Court down. We cannot allow a president to be sworn in when voter fraud and suppression issues have not been rectified and the integrity of the results of the election have not been established. We have to shut the swearing in down. We cannot vote for the Party nominee who is so obviously a member of the oligarchy whose interests are so dramatically in conflict with our own, whose corruption and misdeeds are so numerous, serious and unanswered. (...) This election we must make our stand at every stop, at every sign of corruption, at every state, at the convention and at the general election. We must confront the media, the Party, the government, the court, the criminal justice system, the candidates and even ourselves. Let us use our vote, defend our vote, and require the restoration of the vote in every instance without acquiescence. When they come for our vote, in short, let us be really ready to make a stand.

Edson's article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

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Comments

seefleur's picture

I know it's been posted elsewhere, as well as (sort of) here. But more eyes on this are definitely needed. Good post!

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Think off-center.
George Carlin

gulfgal98's picture

You were the one who posted this earlier right here. This is a very important article that everyone should read.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

... although it becomes incerasingly difficult to go there...

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The establishment is powerful. If we want to change this world, we have to unite first. El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido.

Just rec'd it at TOS. Don't think it's going to go very far there.
Really is an amazing article

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The establishment is powerful. If we want to change this world, we have to unite first. El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido.

riverlover's picture

basically, 'You lie!!'. Not worth the effort over there now. Although there are a few c99ers holding your back. Have a nice evening. Wink

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

... as , it seems, the democratic party is...

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The establishment is powerful. If we want to change this world, we have to unite first. El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido.

... they use against Bernie... just throw some bullshit at you (paranoia), to ridicule your argument without adressing it at all.
Are the hillbots at TOS really form the Clinton camapign and learned this tactic there or has this tactic become so widespread in the US?

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The establishment is powerful. If we want to change this world, we have to unite first. El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido.

Deja's picture

It's so awesome!!!

If you're allowed total usage, you might want to include that, because fair use is usually just a few pargraphs. But certainly expect to be attacked, even if you have permission, because they're like the giant alien who goes berserk as Ripley starts flame throwing the alien pods.

It gave me goosebumps, because it's so spot on! Excellent!!!

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The work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
So I thought I can copy more than a few paras. Did I get it right?

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The establishment is powerful. If we want to change this world, we have to unite first. El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido.

Deja's picture

I've just seen them get things yanked for copyright infringement.

I'll look it up after I clean up mess from 3-way animal meltdown. I'm still shaking. Wow!

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The establishment is powerful. If we want to change this world, we have to unite first. El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido.

Deja's picture

and haven't the slightest clue. Don't understand it.

I left 2 comments over @ GOS, one directly to you, but I guess it either came across the wrong way or wasn't liked. Oh well.

Still a great article!

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riverlover's picture

When Animals Attack in one's dwelling, that's a two cig-three-drink session just to get the heartrate down. And then consider the animals and their hurts.

I hope today goes better. If you can escape, it is probably good for you. I have a scar on one breast from a cat attack due to dog exposure. 40 years ago. I understand.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Haikukitty's picture

Poor thing was terrified by a dog, but using my face as a climbing post was less than pleasant.

I had a huge slash down my cheek, which luckily really didn't scar, at least not enough to show and next to my eye - which luckily he managed to just miss.

Its amazing how such a small being can be so unmanageable when terrified. And you can't be mad at them, they don't mean it.

My childhood friend had her lip torn open by a dog bite, and another had her pupil slashed by a cat claw - that one still makes me cringe just to think about it!

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Looks similar to some open source software licenses. I think you can reproduce it freely as long as you provide attribution to the original author and in the form that he specifies.

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Bollox Ref's picture

That place is now firmly part of the problem. Busily manufacturing consent.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

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The establishment is powerful. If we want to change this world, we have to unite first. El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido.

mhagle's picture

that says it all . . .

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Bollox Ref's picture

his points might get an initial higher readership.

DKos readers aren't up for much more than a paragraph or two.

And then back to the Daily Hate..........Daily Hillary.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Thaumlord-Exelbirth's picture

With coincidentally good reason. I was looking up dwarven languages, and came across some delightfully coincidental translations on this website.http://www.stormnexus.org/Dwarven_Language

ugly - kos
big - mar

So now whenever I read "kos," I think "ugly," which happens to described that site rather well now, and when I see Markos, I think "big ugly," which happens to describe his behaviour quite well.

There's also a thing about adding "ak" to a word, making the word abstract.

Just sharing something that takes the edge off of the bitterness.

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Haikukitty's picture

Sounds like something I would do, although I tend to lean towards looking up alternate scripts and alphabets. Biggrin

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Bisbonian's picture

A linguistics professor.

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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

Thaumlord-Exelbirth's picture

and while I'm not fluent at any second language in the slightest, I do find language to be quite fun to play with. When I was in junior high, I was a fan of the Artemis Fowl books. The first one had a message written in a made up language of the fairies along the bottom of each page through the entire book, and there was one part of the book that had a paragraph that translated some of the symbols. I ended up spending a few days filling in the missing translations and deciphering the message. A far better use of my social studies hour than "learning" for the 4th year in a row about the american revolution, in my opinion.

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Personally I am not going to be blackmailed any more. The various attacks will flow in, first they will tell you to GTFO they don't need you to win, then they will blame you come election day (Nader-haters), they will accuse you of the privilege of not having to live with the consequences of your decision, etc. The irony that they expect young, disaffected, and independent voters to not participate in the primary but expect them to turn around and support in the general is not lost on me.

I refuse to let this get to me. This election cycle is so unusual that I don't think anyone can honestly say how or who will ultimately be running come general election time. If both parties fractured, it could lead to viable 3rd party runs. With Bernie's established fundraising prowess, it is possible he could even form his own party, or join up Green (although I am not certain all his current support would follow him this far).

Either way, I will not be supporting Hillary in any form, and I see every dollar I spend on Bernie and Berniecrats as an investment, whether he gets the Democratic nomination or not. Bernie has shown what we can do simply by way of the internet, social media, and other forms of collaboration.

Party loyalty taken to an extreme is just another form of authoritarianism. They viciously suppress any challenge to the status quo even as they may tell you to go form your own association.

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Steven D's picture

and get on the ballot in every state at this point.

Sanders made his decision to run as a Democrat and I don't expect him to change that at this point in the game.

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

Raggedy Ann's picture

So true. Will the people rise up?

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

polkageist's picture

We, you and me and lots of others, already are rising up. This is just the beginning.

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-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962

Raggedy Ann's picture

Thank you for reminding me of that. I need to recognize my own activism and the effect I have on others.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

The US isn't far away from a corporatist coup. Corporatists like the Koch Brothers and Donald Drumpf have no interest in allowing mere humans with a minuscule amount of the wealth they hold to interfere with their plans to acquire ever more. They can buy plenty of muscle when the time comes, but for now they ensure that we are divided and take each other down while they run off with the gold.

Americans don't impress anyone with their mental acuity, so foreign friends watch in horror as we stumble into the kind of fascism that still makes Europe shudder. They know what total war does to nations. We have no clue. They rightly fear the rise of neo-fascist morons while we think they are harmless entertaining clowns. We don't know American history, much less European history, so what hasn't happened in the US we feel never will. We ignore the warnings from those who do know, for we're Americans and no one is better than we! USA! USA!

The laws are already enacted to allow corporatism to completely take over when they feel they no longer can pretend the US is still a democratic republic. A few phone calls, and they will have openly taken power over this nation. You can bet that your voting rights will only make them laugh uproariously should you attempt to exercise them.

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Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.

mhagle's picture

That's about as frightening as abrupt climate change.

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

And you are so right, the laws for them to complete their takeover are already on the books. It hit me this morning, may be just a whack morning thought - are they hoping to drive the US so far into debt that they can then ask the IMF to come in with austerity formally for this country? Makes me wonder....

They want it all. They got people's homes, got most of their savings after they took their jobs, they're coming after Social Security again, and Billary will be the one who helps them implement it, all this while the climate goes to hell. This election is shaping up to be an openly Corporate coup - they don't even hide it anymore.

That article is one I will save and read again. He puts it all out there, bluntly, clearly and accurately. It is scary shit.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

hecate's picture

called for street protests over the 2000 election results. Then came "news" that Jackson had placed his penis into someone other than his wife, and he was forced into the ritual "retreat."

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus sought to block certification of the Florida results. No Senator would join them.

Black people were ready. White people weren't.

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seefleur's picture

in the political sphere than actions that might have genuine positive effects for the majority of the populace. Hmmm.... am I missing something?

I do NOT give a fuck what consenting adults do - I do however have an issue with threats/blackmail being used to influence the actions of people who might actually be looking out for the 99%.

Call me naive... but the 'greater good for the greater number' seems like something that is a positive progressive stance.

(pardon the liberal application of a very nice bottle of wine prior to posting this... It was a stressful day... Mosking

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Think off-center.
George Carlin

MsGrin's picture

I stopped reading to comment when I came upon this error which I have italicized:

The oligarchs also come for our vote by engineering elaborate schemes for laundering campaign donations and evading campaign finance laws: the establishment candidate’s lieutenants organizing large donors to make maximum donations to a large number of state Democratic Parties, funneling the capped $2,700.00 amount to Clinton’s campaign, and returning the rest to the state parties in exchange for super delegate commitments to vote for Clinton.

Margot Kidder discussed this with respect to Montana in her Counterpunch article, How Hillary Clinton Bought the Loyalty of 33 State Democratic Parties She looked up the FEC filings for her state and I've since looked up Texas and found the same, that the money does NOT stay in the state or return to it (and although I've found some reference that Virginia and Ohio claim there was some benefit to their parties, again the FEC filings do not show this to be true). The only thing the state parties appear to be getting is some vague promise they may get funds somehow and at some future point. The SuperD's are tied into this vague promise somehow, but haven't seen exactly how yet.

The purpose of involving the state parties appears to be exclusively to exploit the loophole created by McCutcheon v. FEC so that folks can get around the donation limit to the DNC. The new way to play the game is to donate to the state parties which then donate it on. Folks with megabux can now donate three quarter of a mil. as opposed to $20K.

Nothing to see here, it's all perfectly legal. Move along.

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'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member

... that is why I left it out of my essay

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The establishment is powerful. If we want to change this world, we have to unite first. El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido.

lotlizard's picture

because I was not a Trump supporter.

Then they stole the nomination from Bernie, . . .

Trump even expressed sympathy for Bernie Sanders. Despite winning all the most recent dates, the Democrats’ “superdelegate” system let insider favorite Hillary Clinton start this marathon at mile 16. “Bernie wins, Bernie wins, Bernie wins,” Trump said. “And yet he’s not winning. I mean, it’s a rigged system.”

He’s right. It’s also convoluted, arcane and corrupt.

http://rall.com/2016/04/14/republican-primaries-stolen-from-donald-trump

If you’re like me — on the left and generally unsympathetic to billionaires — you may be tempted to join the media when they dismiss Trump as a whiner. But this is different. In business, Trump is the consummate insider. But he’s a political naïf. When someone as sleazy and unprincipled as Donald Trump is shocked by how dirty politics are, you have to take note.

And if they can steal elections from someone as rich as Donald Trump, there is nothing left of American democracy.

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riverlover's picture

I suspect that it would be completely misinterpreted (typing one finger due to lap-napping puppy). Rejoice at Trump's dump by the R team, and miss the irony. hehehe, but not very funny.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Cassiodorus's picture

The Nader-hating thing, the mythology about Gore ( no, life with President Gore wouldn't have been any better than life with President Bush in fact was), the fantastic representation of the past forty years of history as a contest between good (D) politicians and bad (R) ones, all of it conceals a deeply reactionary agenda. Here's a starter-question: so if Clinton and Obama were such great (D) Presidents, why did they both lose Congress two years into their terms? And a hint: people weren't in the streets defending Gore because Gore wasn't defending himself. Gore spent the post-2000-election chaos time asking his elite buddies in DC what he should do, while the Republicans were organizing public protests in Florida.

What the true believers in the reactionary agenda really don't want to reveal, more than anything, is the vast triumph of Republican forces and the vast shift toward a reactionary agenda which accompanied the ascension to the Presidency of Barack Obama, far to the right of anything dreamed previously. Somehow Federalized Romneycare is supposed to compensate for stuff like the sequester, which by itself puts Barack Obama to the right of Dick Cheney. Add atop the sequester the trade deals, the mass deportations, the cuts in food stamps, the coerced purchase of crap health insurance, the continuation of Dick Cheney's war on the world, the education policy to the right of Bush's, the vast disappearance of working-class wealth accompanied by bailouts for the banksters, and so on.

All this despite a significant shrinkage of the Republican base. Early in 2009 Markos Moulitsas was posting big front-page editorials on Daily Kos, crowing about how the only places in America where the Republicans gained were in Appalachia. His argument was backed by a fair number of impressive-looking statistics. West Virginia today, however, is one of the most Bernie-voting states in the Union, so in reality they don't have that, either. So what happened? What accounts for the vast Republican victories of 2010 and 2014? Simply put, the Democratic Party has given America to the Republicans, in much the same way in which Al Gore gave the Presidency to George W. Bush. Why didn't they win in 2012? They didn't want to. Barack Obama gives their racist base someone to hate, while insuring the quietism of the other party's base and the continuation of a significant array of right-wing policies.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

mjsmeme's picture

Just sent my weekly email to my kissass rep Hakeen Jeffries:
YOUR ESTABLISHMENT BUDDIES STOLE MY KIDS VOTE - she was disenfranchised after living in the same place in Clinton Hill for 7 years and voting in the last election - she was purged from the roles! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? I know what I'm going to do and its campaign so hard against you getting any closer to your goal of screwing your constituents for your own personal gain. You're the loser - that's what happens when you sell your soul for a piece of silver.

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