How not to win over your opposition

Yesterday, the AP, the New York Times, and other outlets declared Hillary Clinton the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president.  This presents something of a problem since that declaration was made before the final primaries took place and also before the pledged super-delegates had actually voted as well.  But mostly, this is just another example of why the mainstream media and establishment candidates like Hillary Clinton are losing their credibility in the eyes of more and more people.

For one thing, a prime narrative of the Sanders campaign for a long time now has been that the media has buoyed and promoted Clinton's campaign at the expense of his own.  The argument goes that by denying to cover his own campaign, the media has essentially played an active role in anointing Clinton as the nominee instead of standing by and letting the democratic process play out.  When two of the most influential papers in the country call the race settled and done with on the eve of the last primaries, effectively saying those votes don't matter, it only cements that narrative in the eyes of Sanders supporters and further legitimatizes the more mainstream news sources and establishment institutions overall. (As an aside, Chris Matthews gave the game away week ago, when he told Sanders' campaign manager what time the press would call the race for Hillary)

More damaging in the long run, though, is that these declarations ignore the blatant and near fatal weaknesses of Hillary's campaign.  Don't worry about the polls showing she's tied or losing to Drumpf, don't worry about the FBI investigation into her emails, and certainly, above all, don't mention that she's almost literally the most hated presidential candidate in history to make you think twice about her viability in the general election.  The flippancy and outright dismissive attitude from the Democratic party and the press regarding these issues just gives the impression that the Clinton campaign doesn't know how to handle these issues and would rather you just pay attention to whatever racist bullshit is coming out of Drumpf's mouth instead.  It's not a facade that will withstand any scrutiny, but hey, she has a vagina, so I'm sure that will completely erase the conversations over those issues or her possible indictment.

Last thing I want to touch on is how this whole business affects the race going forward.  Hillary has been out and about the last few weeks calling on Sanders follow her oh-so-noble example and drop out the race and support her campaign, like she did with Obama in '08.  That she pledged that support for a Cabinet position is a detail that seems to slip her mind when recounting her tale of political sportsmanship, which, I think, is not going to go well for her in the long run.  Hillary does not do well with independents, at all, so in order to win the election she is going to need to retain as many of Sanders supporters as she can. In order to do this, she is going to have to make concessions to the Sanders campaign and the general movement behind it.  In my mind, this doesn't mean making Bernie VP, it means forming a cabinet largely composed of progressives who will fight to alter the status quo.  In no way do I see that happening, let alone Hillary seeing the need to do so, given how condescending she's been to Sanders supporters in the past. So in all probability, Hillary will throw some token bone out which the Sanders supporters will see as a naked political sham and well, who knows what they'll do?

Depending on how the California primary goes, if it's subject to the 6-hour wait times or voters being mysteriously purged (sorry, dropped) from the registration logs like they were in Arizona, Nevada, and New York, or if there's another "too close to call" vote that Hillary suddenly wins like in Iowa or Kentucky, then those early pronouncements that she's the winner are going to leave a bitter taste in a lot of people's mouths.  The Democratic party is much more fractured and contentious than a lot of people are realizing.  If the only step Hillary takes to bind those fractures together is "bow down and kiss the fucking ring already", then, well, America swearing in its first orange President becomes much, much more likely.

RT

The Devils You Know

 I've had this quote from a Washington Post story rattling around my head all day. It goes:

 "When the true Hillary Clinton and the real Donald Trump are revealed to Americans, there is no way the American people are going to pick the petulant 12-year-old,” said Bill Burton, a former senior Obama strategist."

And that, to me, reveals a fundamental flaw in how the Democratic Party is approaching this election. Clinton and Trump have both been in the public eye and pop culture symbols for decades, there is nothing about either of them to "reintroduce" the public to. That statement, and the ad of Donald Trump talking about women, shows that the Democratic strategy here will be to bring up all the shit of Trump's past to show him as an unserious, ill-prepared, living calamity waiting to be inflicted on the American people. If that sounds vaguely familiar, it's because that is exactly what the 16 other Republican candidates tried once they realized Trump's campaign wasn't a promotional tour for whatever cockimaney thing Trump was hawking at the moment. Obviously, it was a resounding success, so Clinton and the Democrats making use of the exact same playbook will of course be seen as evidence of their keen political acumen.

A campaign between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton is going to swing on how each of them can use their past to project a brighter future for the country and how deeply people buy that projection. This isn't unusual in a Presidential election, obviously, but it has added significance this time around given that you know, the general feeling that the country is going to absolute shit is pretty pervasive on all sides.  

For the campaigns to sell their story they'll need a pretty intimate knowledge of how the spin cycle works, and how to manipulate it to their narrative's advantage; especially since both of the major players here have decades of history and everyone who knows their name will already have concrete beliefs about who they are, what they represent, and how they'll perceive the spin work done for their narratives. On one side, we have a guy who just got people to speculate over whether he pretended to be his own publicist (and, consequently, get people to speculate about how this will be the thing to kill Trump's campaign.  Which reminds people of all the other things that were supposed to do that before, but haven't.)  On the other, you have someone who has to get one of their super PACs to spend $1 million to hire professional internet trolls.

Yeah, this all bodes well.

Democrats work to win election, lose country

The Democratic party has been in something of a celebratory mood since Trump locked up the Republican nomination. The general idea is that since Trump is literally the most hated candidate in political history Hillary Clinton can then ride that resentment of minorities (and Republican donors) to the White House. What the Democrats seem wholly uninterested in answering is what becomes of the country once Clinton tries to govern it.

The Pall Settles In

Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee for President of the United States.  Republican voters looked and listened to the man who is pretty much the exact Republican stereotype (racist, sexist, completely ignorant of the rest of the world and can't pronounce correctly any country that's not America) and thought to themselves "Yes! Our Great Orange Hope as finally arrived!"  Then, 10.6 million people cast their vote for him, making him the second most successful primary candidate in the party's history.  So remember, Republicans wanted this.  Trump isn't a fluke and he's not a prank, he is the man voters have chosen to embody all they stand for and hope to be.  So if you have any sense that something really important about who we are and what kind of people we can be just died a sad, lonely death, you're right.  And that's the problem.


RT

The Lightbringer gets a lampshade

There are some things that are just doomed to fail.  In one aspect, you feel bad for those things, but in another, more deeply felt way, you pretty much wish you could say to higher ups "Why the fuck did you think this was a good idea?"

Remix, not Remaster

It is my deep, deep, hope that when BioWare does the inevitable re-release of the original Mass Effect trilogy for the X-Box One and PS4 that they take to the opportunity to fix some issues with the original games that I think would open things up and make for a better experience.

Why Bernie Should Stay in the Race

At this point, it looks like a bleak and unlikely road to the nomination for Bernie Sanders. Hillary Clinton's delegate lead isn't insurmountable per se, but the amount of things that he needs to go right to get the delegate lead make it highly unlikely for him. Naturally, the mainstream media is calling for him to quit the race so Hillary can better focus on the national election. But, I say he should stay in precisely because it makes things more difficult for Hillary. Since the primary season started, Hillary's negatives have climbed higher and higher, to the point where her only saving graces are that people hate Drumpf and Cruz even more than they hate her. Now, being hated less than a pseudo-fascist and the Zodiac Killer (page 32 is the relevant page, fyi) isn't really a strong foundation to launch a national campaign for the hearts and minds of voters, and it's exactly this advantage that Bernie should press as the July convention draws closer.