The horror of Clinton winning vs the horror of Trump winning – voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil
The bizarre gladiatorial orgy of gross absurdity between Clinton and Trump will damage the American psyche in a way I don’t think it can return from. Either candidate will inherit a White House that is smeared with lies and bitter resentment.
Here’s how I see it.
TRUMP: The Orange Fascist
The one thing we can say about Donald Trump is that he’s almost as bad an abuser of women as Bill Clinton was (Donald has been accused of sexual assault, Bill has been accused of rape) . His ‘grab the pussy’ comment, his sexism, his racism, his anti-intellectualism – he’s the perfect assembly of every Republican lie and every worst element of capitalist pop culture you could think of.
And the wrestling fans and Nascar Dads love him for it.
Kruger argues that Trump supporters aren’t poor but are racist, while that type of elite snobbery is exactly why Brexit caught so many by surprise, Kruger has a point that poverty isn’t the driver, but he misses the point that those earning 70 000 a year are angry because they believe they should be earning far more. Trump feeds on their anger that they feel they deserve more, Kruger reads that as racism.
I think sexism is a bigger fuel for Trump than racism. The naked hatred of women is medieval and in the end is Trump’s only chance of success.
I loath Trump and everything for which he stands, but his brittle vanity and endless fury mimic the lost self esteem of millions of Americans whose aspirations have been bullied and lost by a political process more interested in representing their corporate masters than the voters. Trump and his rise are a symptom of a deeper rot at the heart of the American soul.
The New York Times put it succinctly…
Trump is in fact the logical extension of toxic masculinity and ambient misogyny. He is the logical extension of rampant racism. He is the logical extension of wealth worship. He is the logical extension of pervasive anti-intellectualism.
Trump is the logical extension of the worst of America.
…Trump terrifies us because he is the real face of the real America. It’s toxic masculinity, it’s narcissism, it’s misogyny, it’s wealth worship. Part of the disgust he generates is the recoil in horror at other American’s seeing their own nations traits in such obvious assembly.
He will blunder into a war within 6 months if he wins.
CLINTON: The War Hawk
Luckily for Clinton, Trump’s grotesque commentary has eclipsed much of the worst parts of Wikileaks…
It is fortunate for Saudi Arabia and Qatar that the furore over the sexual antics of Donald Trump is preventing much attention being given to the latest batch of leaked emails to and from Hillary Clinton. Most fascinating of these is what reads like a US State Department memo, dated 17 August 2014, on the appropriate US response to the rapid advance of Isis forces, which were then sweeping through northern Iraq and eastern Syria.
At the time, the US government was not admitting that Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies were supporting Isis and al-Qaeda-type movements. But in the leaked memo, which says that it draws on “western intelligence, US intelligence and sources in the region” there is no ambivalence about who is backing Isis, which at the time of writing was butchering and raping Yazidi villagers and slaughtering captured Iraqi and Syrian soldiers.
The memo says: “We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to Isis and other radical groups in the region.” This was evidently received wisdom in the upper ranks of the US government, but never openly admitted because to it was held that to antagonise Saudi Arabia, the Gulf monarchies, Turkey and Pakistan would fatally undermine US power in the Middle East and South Asia.
…Hillary Clinton is a paid up member of the Military Industrial Complex. She sings sweet songs of freedom and democracy, but she is a stooge to a much deeper, much more dangerous America than Trump stands for. Pilger makes the case…
The danger to the rest of us is not Trump, but Hillary Clinton. She is no maverick. She embodies the resilience and violence of a system whose vaunted “exceptionalism” is totalitarian with an occasional liberal face.
As presidential election day draws near, Clinton will be hailed as the first female president, regardless of her crimes and lies – just as Barack Obama was lauded as the first black president and liberals swallowed his nonsense about “hope”. And the drool goes on.
Described by the Guardian columnist Owen Jones as “funny, charming, with a coolness that eludes practically every other politician”, Obama the other day sent drones to slaughter 150 people in Somalia. He kills people usually on Tuesdays, according to the New York Times, when he is handed a list of candidates for death by drone. So cool.
In the 2008 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton threatened to “totally obliterate” Iran with nuclear weapons. As Secretary of State under Obama, she participated in the overthrow of the democratic government of Honduras. Her contribution to the destruction of Libya in 2011 was almost gleeful. When the Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi, was publicly sodomised with a knife – a murder made possible by American logistics – Clinton gloated over his death: “We came, we saw, he died.”
One of Clinton’s closest allies is Madeleine Albright, the former Secretary of State, who has attacked young women for not supporting “Hillary”. This is the same Madeleine Albright who infamously celebrated on TV the death of half a million Iraqi children as “worth it”.
Among Clinton’s biggest backers are the Israel lobby and the arms companies that fuel the violence in the Middle East. She and her husband have received a fortune from Wall Street. And yet, she is about to be ordained the women’s candidate, to see off the evil Trump, the official demon. Her supporters include distinguished feminists: the likes of Gloria Steinem in the US and Anne Summers in Australia.
…beyond all the sisterhood and the standing up for the self-esteem of little girls is a war monger who will escalate Obama’s wars. The self esteem of middle class women doesn’t really compare when you are blowing up families.
The latests twist of how the Democrats secretly staged violence at Trump rallies is an eye opener…
Agents working for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign paid professional agitators to incite violence at Donald Trump rallies, an explosive investigation has revealed.
In a new hidden-camera sting by conservative activist group Project Veritas, undercover journalists infiltrated two political consulting companies with ties to the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.
In the 16-minute video, Democratic operatives are caught out describing how paid agents “infiltrate” to stage fake grassroots protests to create a sense of “anarchy” at Donald Trump events.
The agents notably lay claim to the violent Chicago protests in March, which forced Trump to cancel his rally and left two police officers seriously injured.
…if the Republicans had been caught staging violence at Democrat rallies it would lead every news item for a week, Trump says something distasteful and that becomes more important than political corruption.
If Hillary wins, she’s already planned which countries she will be going to war with.
Trump has unleashed the deepest conspiracy theories of the Right while Clinton has choked off any real reform from the Left. Both are terrible candidates, both don’t deserve to lead America.
In this election, everyone loses. Voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil
The same white working classes who are supporting Trump have been supporting Republicans who don’t work in their interest since Ronald Reagan. They vote based on their prejudices, not their best interests. So it is hard to feel any sympathy for the fact that they have been done over by the people they vote for who pander to their prejudices.
In a lifetime of political involvement, all sorts of things get said. By everyone
In a polarized political environment people say and sometimes do intemperate things, big deal.
Low expectations and the kind of demonisation you are indulging in here, on the other hand, if it emanated from anyone with any actual credibility in the US, would make it way harder to heal or manage the divisions after the election.
I have no expectation that Hillary will be off starting any wars, will be in the tank for the military-industrial complex, will be conspiring with her hedge fund donors to gouge the US workers. Nor should you until you have evidence to the contrary.
You must know that your desire to be an equal opportunity contrarian has led you to make some disingenuous accusations (an example being the suggestion that Trump supporters are accused of being racist because of their income, or some such straw man. They are described as such because poll result show that in overwhelming numbers they hold dog-whistle racist views like Birtherism etc.)
False equivalency is the last refuge of the desperate and, in my view, does you and others on this site little credit.
It is entirely possible that Hillary will be an awful president, but I for one am entirely prepared, on the basis of her Presidential platforms, to give her the opportunity to convince me that she may prove to be one of the best.
Why do I get the feeling this is going to be the American version of Brexit. The democrats choose from the start, to back the wrong horse, for all the wrong reasons $$$$.
+100 Kim Dandy
Nah, the election is over. Check the polls. Nothing close to Brexit. Will be one of the biggest wins in recent decades for Hilary.
Yes, the Dems chose the wrong candidate, but they weren’t as wrong as the GOP voters.
It’s good to see a proper assessment of Killary presented on TDB.
Some say her sociopathic tendencies started to emerge when she was a teenager, and by the time she got to the White House as wife of the president her temper tantrums were notorious, and apparently extremely embarrassing for White House staff: all façade and no substance, as per the standard corporate model that now prevails throughout the western world.
There is no question that, as a longstanding member of the group of covert fascists who have ruled America for decades, she poses an extreme danger to most Americans and even greater danger to rest of the world: that is why the mainstream media and those who control the MSM wholeheartedly support her and are determined to see her installed as POTUS: may the looting, polluting, the manipulation and lies, and the war games continue. Fortunately for the controllers, most Americans are now so dumbed-down and ignorant they will vote for their own demise (rather like New Zealanders).
Trump: a self-serving exploiter and opportunist. But apparently not quite as corrupt and ruthless as Killary.
Whichever of the tiddlywinks players makes it to the White House, he/she will be up against grandmaster chess players (one in particular), and will lose.
Longer term it won’t matter who becomes POTUS because America – through its promotion of consumerism, squandering, and overconsumption that commenced immediately after World War Two, together with its refusal to take environmental issues seriously towards the end of the 20th century- has already destroyed the world. It’s just that most people still have not realized.
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/co2_800k_zoom.png
100% nonsense, afktt.
Not entirely out of character.
About 45 years ago I met some Youth for Christ enthusiasts on a late night Wellington bus, who were busy buying cans of food in preparation for moving to the Wairarapa. You see Comet Kahutek was about to arrive, heralding the end of the world.
I suggested to them that if the world didn’t actually end, they should claim it actually had and insist that we were now living in Shadowland.
I respectfully suggest to you that when Hillary wins, you should claim that, whatever happens, whatever she does, Killary is acting just as you predicted.
Never let those pesky facts get in the way of a bit of self-righteous rage.
+100 voting for which evil to vote for.
Thanks Martyn – great piece and so true. Either way both candidates are psychopaths and not what any sane person would want to vote for. War mongering liars and hate promoters and not much talk of peace and prosperity for all in their insane rhetoric.
I do believe though that Putin is not the horrific figure that the west wants to portray. He has done pretty well by his country and his military spends in one year what the US spends in three weeks and their organic farming and alternative energy policies are ahead of most.
Have you read about the most recent banking problems that RT.COM is under now and just why Hillary and John Kerry lie about RT and are feeling threatened by their gaining popularity and exposing truths that most media do not ? May warrant a piece written about that. George Galloway was interviewed about this and it is very interesting what he says.
https://www.rt.com/uk/363068-galloway-rt-nat-west/
one real difference between the two is the number of policy-gains bernie sanders was able to negotiate as the price for his quiet withdrawal..
with a headliner being the large jump in the minimum wage..+ the other policy gains + the internal reforms in dem party he has kicked off..
..whereas on min-wage..trump is promising to do away with it – and to allow the states to set their own rates..
..so..if only on that most important of issues – there most definitely is a ‘lesser evil’..
my archives show i have been railing against the clintons since 2005 – and could possibly take that litany as a quizz subject speciality…
..but we are not just looking at trump vs clinton…behind clinton there are those policy/green gains/reforms..glimmers of light on the horizon..
..behind trump there is the tea party and the kkk…and darkness..
..so yes..there is a lesser of two evils…
Yes I do agree with that. There is some hope that Bernie will moderate Clinton. There is no one to moderate Trump only those who would inflame his craziness.
There’s an interesting interview of Bernie here
https://newrepublic.com/article/137103/bernie-looks-ahead
After this so called election Bernie will be the junior United States Senator from Vermont.
I’m guessing Hillary will be too busy for his phone calls.
She won’t need to even pretend to care about the ‘basement dwelling’ Bernie Crew once she has the keys to the White House.
She will have Tim Kaine to advise her.
Hillarys ‘moderation’ is all down to tastefully orchestrated smoke and mirrors, a compliant media, and a bunch of voters who are stuck between a rock and a hard place. (yikes…no Hard Place – aroused Trump pun intended)
No.
Hillary needs to be re-elected in 4 years. If you think the Bernie supporters are going to give her a blank check of support over the next 4 years and in 2020, then you need to do some more research on the Bernie campaign and its supporters.
Clinton has won this election, but her quest for support has only just begun. If she continues along the path of her last 30 years then she won’t be re-elected in 2020 – and she knows it. I’d vote Clinton because then the left has more leverage.
If Clinton panders to the wealthy then she’ll fall spectacularly in 2020
Bernie couldn’t even save himself ….so I don’think there is much hope of any significant influence…pie in the sky
i think you are wrong there chooky..i did say that minimum wage was only one of the promises wrought by sanders and his supporters..
plus there is the most important matter of liberalising the supreme court with the new justices clinton will appoint..
and fatty is right..if clinton breaks all those promises she will face that most ignominious fate for presidents..being kicked out after only one term..
i actually think that when the clusterfuck/landslide victory is over..we will have trump to thank for clearing the way for a raft of progressive victories/policies..
..and remember we went into the obama yrs with sky-high optimism..
..we are/will be going into the clinton yrs part 2 with much much lower expectations..
..clinton has plenty of room to surprise/over-deliver..
..it’s actually looking as tho’ it could all be a bit better than it could have been/was expected..
Oh, Bernie! Where are thou, Bernie, when we need you the most!
sshh!!..he’s resting..he’ll be back soon..
Hillary Clinton has form as a warmonger in so many ways
briefly:
‘Hillary Clinton Turned a Stable, Developed Nation Into an ISIS Safe Haven. That’s the Real Benghazi Scandal’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/riley-waggaman/hillary-clinton-turned-nation-into-isis-safe-haven_b_9571956.html
‘Seymour Hersh Says Hillary Approved Sending Libya’s Sarin to Syrian Rebels’
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/04/28/seymour-hersh-hillary-approved-sending-libya-sarin-syrian-rebels.html
‘WikiLeaks: The two faces of Hillary Clinton on Syria’
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/362819-clinton-emails-syria-wikileaks/
She is a friend of war criminal Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger is her mentor…say no more!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/06/madeleine-albright-campaigns-for-hillary-clinton
https://www.salon.com/2016/05/11/college_protests_revive_accusations_against_war_criminal_madeleine_albright_who_defended_deaths_of_500000_iraqi_kids/
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-henry-clintons-relationship-kissinger/story?id=39195203
( at least Trump is not BOUGHT/ or supported by the same compromised crowd nor does he want war with Russia or in the Middle East )
determined to go down with the ship..eh..?..with yr relentless trump-boosting..
Bloody hell – if the following is ture… According to FBI interview summaries set to be released in the coming days. Patrick Kennedy, the undersecretary of state for management, discussed providing additional overseas slots for the FBI in exchange for revisions to classifications of the sensitive emails.
Agree with you Martyn but disagree about Putin playing any part in the the US elections. Unless there is some proof that Russia has anything to do with the hacked emails, and there is none to date, and that he is promoting Trump then I prefer to believe the information I get from alternative news media.
Putin has only ever said of Trump that he has some interesting ideas. All the Putin bashing is tiresome and totally unwarranted. Trump says some things that make sense and surprises such as why do we need to be in Syria when the Russians have done a good job so far. He has also suggested that it is best to sit down with Russia and negotiate. He says that they (US) should get out of the Middle East as this has been the cause of terrorists such as Isis. I agree. That doesn’t mean to say that Trump isn’t barking mad at times but I’d rather not have a war mongerer like Clinton who is keen to take on Russia even if that means WW3.
I agree that the Putin bashing is unwarranted and getting very boring. It is just more scare mongering and war mongering pushed mostly by John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. Those two psychopaths are so worried about RT.COM and the honesty and quality and truthful shows they offer that they are trying to stop RT right now. The US govt. and the British govt. and BBC and likely CNN are involved in the smear campaign and are just foaming at how much people are flocking to RT to get the truth and no BS and no slimy journalism. People want honest and true coverage. The screws are being put onto RT right now and listen to what George Galloway says about this recent RT banking scandal.
Just saw the writing below and no name was acknowledged so do not know who wrote it – anonymous ? If anyone knows who wrote it, I would be interested.
file:///var/folders/lM/lMjrKahMHUCH5M29oCvcgk+++TI/-Tmp-/com.apple.mail.drag/14642459_1703614029957926_1760439220505699737_n.jpg
More recent honest writing about the Putin and Russia bashing :
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/362945-american-anti-russia-cyber-attacks/
I wouldn’t go to RT for honest writing about Putin and Russia!
Great channel, and some interesting stuff, but come on, it’s not reliable for anything to do with Russia and Putin.
More Clinton stories …believe it or not:
‘Haitian President EXPOSES the Clinton Foundation: “Hillary Clinton tried to bribe me!” ‘
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phKO2T2pMjM
‘Former Bill Clinton Girlfriend Tells All’ ( this is one smart woman)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ5FytrS3qo
…and more ‘true life’ stories on Clinton (s)…believe it or not
‘Hillary is used to beating, kicking and abusing her own husband – former Nixon adviser’
https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/332460-hillary-husband-nixon-adviser/
…and for the feminists for Clinton:
‘This Video Is Very Disturbing! Roger Stone Annihilates Hillary “Your Only Way To Beat Her”!’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hbbJ4xIcpc
‘ROGER STONE BREAKS DOWN HILLARY’S KILL COUNT’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L-k897lV_I
roger stone..?…roger stone..?..you are quoting roger stone..?
i hope you wore trout-fishing waders and llong rubber gloves when you dug that out of the fetid rightwing swamp..
did you get yr shots first..?
Considering USA’s context and history, in relation to NZ…
Clinton is further to the left than Andrew Little
dunno about that fatty – one of the takeways from my uni studies on such matters was being surprised by an international ideological spectrum that showed our tories being further left than u.s. democrats..
but that may change/have changed..after nine yrs of asset-selling etc..and labour not offering much more..
as just one example..andrew little sure as hell isn’t talking about raising the minimum wage here (at all?) is he..?
what clinton has promised (at the behest/insistance of bernie) will lift lots of workers out of poverty..
and really..for the likes of chooky to continue to support that incoherent ‘short-fingered vulgarian’..that duterte..just makes them also look like fucken idiots..in my ‘umble opinion..
“as just one example..andrew little sure as hell isn’t talking about raising the minimum wage here (at all?) is he..?”
Yeah, that’s my point. Not sure why the left in NZ think Labour’s policies will address our issues. Little is a conservative and I don’t see him offering us much
US foreign policy under Hillary…a “basket of deplorables”
‘We came, we saw, he died’: How Gaddafi was hunted and brutally killed (TIMELINE)
https://www.rt.com/news/363454-timeline-gaddafi-death-anniversary/
‘Hillary Emails Reveal True Motive for Libya Intervention’
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2016/01/06/new-hillary-emails-reveal-true-motive-for-libya-intervention/
….”Not only did Defense Secretary Robert Gates promote his bizarre “staged bodies” theory on CBS News’ “Face The Nation,” but the even stranger Viagra rape fiction made international headlines as U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice made a formal charge against Libya in front of the UN Security Council.
What this new email confirms is that not only was the State Department aware of the spurious nature of what Blumenthal calls “rumors” originating solely with the rebels, but did nothing to stop false information from rising to top officials who then gave them “credence.”
It appears, furthermore, that the Viagra mass rape hoax likely originated with Sidney Blumenthal himself.”
The real racism of the United States …but Nelson Mandela was not fooled
‘From ‘mad dog’ to ‘model’ and back: How West changed its mind on Libya’s Gaddafi’
https://www.rt.com/news/363525-western-leaders-gaddafi-libya/
…”Among the world leaders saddened by Gaddafi’s death was Nelson Mandela, the first black president of South Africa. “In the darkest moments of our struggle, when our backs were to the wall, Muammar Gaddafi stood with us,” he said.
…”In 1997, Mandela defied the UN embargo to visit Gaddafi and thank him for his support during the anti-apartheid struggle. US President Bill Clinton called the visit “unwelcome.”
“No country can claim to be the policeman of the world and no state can dictate to another what it should do,” replied the former political prisoner.