For that matter, will they mention the invasion of Iraq?
The 2016 primary elections in Maryland, by the time we actually got sort of a chance to vote, were a mixed bag. Full disclosure–I myself voted (early voting) for Bernie Sanders and Sanders delegates, a Democratic senate candidate who won, a House candidate who didn’t, and some local judgeship challengers as well as incumbents. Not everybody made it. We had an overflow of good candidates in Maryland’s 4th district. Maryland’s 8th had a similar problem.
We did not have an overflow of good candidates in the presidential race. I supported Sanders heartily, but the fact remains that the Clinton team worked for years behind the scenes to shut out better candidates including Vice President Joseph Biden. Indications are that Clintonistas have spent more time playing keep-away, over almost eight years, than on producing public benefit. Thus the Clinton gravy train continues, and its big-money appeal looks to be the Clintons’ pattern of shafting labor. Note the boost for “open trade and open borders” in Secretary Clinton’s Wall Street-friendly and Wall Street-compensated speeches, as in recently hacked emails. Cheap labor is the Clinton track record.
Will they mention U.S. labor?
The behind-the-scenes domination and the lack of open participation were not small-d democratic. I was and am disappointed in Clinton ‘super-delegates’, who stacked the deck before a single vote was cast. Ditto media commentators who often referred to Clinton’s ‘delegate total’ without clarifying that it was padded by super-delegates. Predictably, an undemocratic process produced an undemocratic candidate. But given the stakes, it is frightening that a bunch of Democratic insiders, dominated by mega-donors, joined beforehand to boost any one candidate. Going forward, we need to make the nominating process more democratic. It would help if we had more clarity about what happened in the run-up to this ‘election’–but we don’t seem to have many news reporters available, to tell the public about it. (What is the good of all that access to individuals of prominence, if you burn the access any time you actually report something?) I am still curious to know whether the Clinton inner circle green-lighted Mitch McConnell’s opposition to President Obama from day one.
Senator McConnell
Envy and jealousy do a lot of harm when people are willing to act on them, especially insiders. I still think that President Obama has not gotten enough credit. I wish Mrs. Clinton had strongly supported and defended him, wish she were the Sanders or the Elizabeth Warren she sometimes channeled in the campaign, wish she would actually ‘fight for us’, wish she were solid on economic justice. But that’s not who she is. One of the recent Clinton flaps is Bill Clinton’s trashing Obamacare. We can only hope it’s not a glimpse of the future, under another President Clinton–a Wall Street agenda come to life–of undoing everything the Obama White House has accomplished.
It may be noted that the Democratic Party ‘nominated’ someone who openly speculated about assassination, when Barack Obama was her opponent in 2008. She does not handle being behind in a campaign well. She does not handle being ahead well, either. Right now, Clinton is openly jubilant about Trump’s difficulties with GOP biggies following the leak of his repugnant tape-recorded remarks. But then, Clinton’s most consistent appeal is to big-time Republicans, whom she has been working hard to attract.
Neither major party has given us much good regarding the major crime of sexual assault. The GOP does not seem to have much problem with the might-makes-right outlook. The Democratic Party should be better, and often is, but anyone focused on Election Day 2016 is not going to bring up rape–given Hillary Clinton’s decades-long joint public career with her husband.
For the record: I listened very carefully to Juanita Broaddrick on national television in 1999, and I believe her. It would be wrong not to say so. Sexual assault is the least reported, the least prosecuted, and the least convicted of all the major crimes. (The Obama administration has begun moving on the issue of sexual assault, including Vice President Biden’s public statements; the Clintons do not mention it.) But when I raised questions on social media, immediate responses from Clinton supporters were the usual troll litany–calling me “bitch” (naturally), “scumbag,” and “psychotic”–none of which I am–ridicule, shaming over my alleged lowly status or lack thereof’, advice to quit, counterfactual claims about Bill Clinton, and dismissing the issue because ‘he was not convicted’.
Not that I am crushed. Unlike the Bush family, I actually am from Texas, and doing that stuff to me is like the old joke about Have you got the wrong vampire. For what it’s worth, I also have a doctorate in Renaissance literature, and in an invective contest, I wouldn’t necessarily lose. But I prefer that we educate the public better about sexual assault. These bullies, after all, may be summoned for jury duty some day.
Back to the present
We can probably look forward to a new release of some sort, weekly, about both Trump and Clinton, over the next few weeks.
In the most recent release about Trump, some vulgar language came out on tape–rather than behind closed doors or on the Internet, where it usually appears. If you listen to the tape recording, you will also hear the jollification supported by Billy Bush, cousin to our 43rd president, nephew to our 41st president, successful entertainment host on NBC, which for years was in the tank for the Bushes. (Lauren Bush has recently appeared evidently supporting Hillary Clinton.) No question, Trump’s language was garishly offensive. (No wonder Hillary Clinton is all smiles nowadays. It is rare for the Clintons to have even the faintest,most tenuous claim to the moral high ground on any topic, let alone that of sexualized grossness.) Billy Bush sounds pretty appreciative on the tape.
Trump’s language was rich-guy locker-room talk. It was crude machismo, partly boastful and partly not. It may even have been Clintonesque. But I am not going to pretend that I was shocked by it. I wish I were. In any case, Joe Biden is wrong to call it “sexual assault.” There are some words that should not be used as metaphors–rape or sexual assault, lynching, mob, riot. They should characterize only the deeds themselves, not be trivialized to characterize discourse, however offensive.
If commentators and candidates now shocked, shocked about Trump feel resistant to my statement, then I invite them to try a single test. Here it is:
When was the last time you, major candidates or media commentators, et al., figuratively called someone a ‘child molester’? How about you, ladies of the WaPo? When was the last time you called someone a ‘child molester’ metaphorically?
No? So that means you know that there are some terms that should not be used metaphorically.
Makes me wonder why you don’t know that about rape. Has sexual assault been trivialized so successfully that it now ranks as mere scurrility?