668 days

It will be wild to watch the Democratic primary process heading to the nomination for the candidate for President, with the actual general election 668 days away. One thing I hope Democratic Party voters remember is that information is available on incumbents. If you are smitten by someone like Tulsi Gabbard or Beto O'Rourke, be sure to dig-- you sometimes don't even have to dig very deeply to get some solid info that will probably unsmitten you. Perfect is not coming along anytime soon, however, so also weigh everything in one picture. The cannibalistic tendency to take that one glaring flaw and make it the one reason why "NEVER SO AND SO" is stupid, usually. Also, although this seems like too much to hope for, I hope the Democratic Party is not a completely shredded, divided, resentful, angry and totally disillusioned mess by the time the primary is over, and, even more importantly, I hope the Left is not these things. The simple fact is that Russia will be involved again. I wouldn't be surprised if China were involved this time also.

The Right realized a long time ago-- like 1977 or so at least-- that the way to bollix a representative Republic with checks and balances is to gradually increase the power of the executive and focus intensively on the presidential election process. The lower echelons would follow. The national consciousness would be emphasized in racism, xenophobia, fear, delusion. The only way the rich can get the poor to vote for them is via fear. The spectacle of poor as shit Americans who have had a lot of their benefits taken away and who have to run GoFundMe campaigns to treat their cancer or whatever getting riled up about $5 billion for a wall to keep Latinx people out is a great example. The Southern Strategy gradually morphed into the National Stupid Racist Strategy, and it has worked. The only way this concentration of power in the executive and the domino effect it has downstream can be turned to the Left's advantage is with a not-too-scary centrist but Left leaning President. That's it. This person is going to have to carry some positions that are hated by the Left. I sympathize, but let's get real.

I think it's hilarious that one of the reservations about Warren that I saw was "she would lose in a debate with Trump." This is so surreal to me. I have known 14 year olds who could handily destroy Trump in a debate. His confrontational bullying and dumb lines of so-called reasoning ought to be fat targets. This weird passive cowering at his idiocy will have to stop. Democrats need to recall that Clinton won the popular vote, and build that confidence up. He is among the most vulnerable failures I have ever seen in American politics and this has to be exploited handily. Not necessarily by pointing out the facts and what a liar he is, because that does nothing to stop him, obviously. The way to destroy him is to fight fire with fire. Smear and smear again, Make fun of his mushroom dick and his yeti pubes. Porn star porn star porn star. Get him to talk about Jesus and show how stupid he is. Russia Russia Russia. Get his supporters as afraid of Russia as possible. Find two or three glaring flaws and hammer away every single time. Get ugly and stay ugly and get even uglier. This is the only way to defeat a bully. The Republican Party in general is extremely weak right now. It is time for the Democratic Party to come in swinging, and swinging very, very hard. If this vicious attack is coupled with generating fears about the economy, we'll be golden. The Republican Party has shown a great many of its extreme vulnerabilities. In order not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, Dems are going to have to be vicious and even more vicious. It is time to search and destroy. I hope to see it.

The deception, lies, smear campaigns, trolling and whatever else is able to fan the flames of division will be at a very, very high level, sadly, mostly from the Right. Ocasio Cortez floating the balloon of a 70% tax rate on the 1% is an example of the kind of thing that the opposition will pull out all the stops to prevent, and it will definitely get ugly. Third party troll candidates like Jill Stein are bound to rebound, probably with dark money financing. The culture of armchair slacktivism and consumer voting will be exploited to the max, including here on FB. What is the most strategic way to cordon off socialist values? Put them all into a hopeless third party troll with no leadership experience and pull as many regular Democratic voters that direction as possible. I hope not too many are deceived by this strategy. But I bet it will work, yet again. I just wonder, for folks who feel drawn to vote for a candidate like Stein because "she represents my values," does it also represent your values in leadership to vote for an opportunist who only emerges every four years and does jack shit the rest of her life to actually effect change? I won't even get into the Bernie Bro thing which clearly is going to be a factor again, at least early on, until it becomes clear that Bernie is going nowhere in 2020

Another hope is that a majority of Democrats remember that *Presidential politics is not an effective arena for activism* for Left causes at this time. Unfairly, it *is* an effective arena for far right activism. The executive has far too much power at this time to engage in protest voting and participating in smear campaigns fueled by the Right and by Russia that only serves to elect the opposition. There are so many areas to engage in boots on the ground real activism, resistance and protest. Using the presidential election as an arena for protest is like 20 people standing outside the offices of Exxon, protesting fossil fuels. In the election for the executive, what we want is someone who will start to undo the damage Trump has been able to do and not stand in the way of lower echelon progressives and create a culture where movement toward a true Left is possible in America again. We can't hope for a true Left President at this time in history. Thinking it is noble, principled or revolutionary or whatever to sulk and throw unfounded accusations around about stolen votes or whatever, when the nomination inevitably goes to a flawed politician, is unskilled. But we can strategize toward one that does what Trump has done for the far right-- normalize the Left. Familiarize Americans with the benefits of democratic socialism for the greatest number, one step at a time. Get perfectly normal ideas that have been widely adopted by other first world countries into the forefront of American minds.

If you think I sound like a sell out, or like I support blue dog Dems or whatever, consider that my hopes and values are to the Left of any politician anywhere on the scene right now. You can ask me specifically what I mean, but suffice it to say that if I were to list the things I would like to see, even most of my friends who think of themselves as progressive would balk.

Incrementalism sucks, especially when it is just a sleight of hand concession meant to placate people while business as usual goes on uninterrupted. There is a kind of incredibly powerful incrementalism, however, which we can see unfolding in regard to the Far Right. Ideas that have been normalized for the Right were, 20 years ago, alarming or laughed out of the room. Twenty years ago, ideas that were alarming 20 years before that were normalized. The Right has had a long game in place since 1945, at least. The Left has tried, but assassination is a bitch. If you want to know what happened to a radical Left in the US, look at the early 60's through the 70's. A lot of people were killed, imprisoned, framed, smeared, had their lives destroyed, in a concerted campaign to eradicate socialist ideas from the national mind. But this is the kind of long campaign the Left has to wage. My list above is already the direction that many developed nations are going. The ideas only seem alarming in the US because they have not yet been normalized, and because there have been highly effective propaganda campaigns against them.

Sadly, instead of some of these things, what I expect to see is a flaming shit show of horrifying insanity, perfectionism, spoiled brat consumer voting, susceptibility to the most idiotic trolls and a re-election of Trump. (side note: those of you fantasizing about prison or impeachment or resignation, it's not going to happen, imo. it's just not). I want the next 668 to change my mind,

but I am not expecting it to.