Transcript for 9/10/24: THE CHOICE FOR A NEGATIVE GENERATION

I think I have come to a conclusion as to why I am so annoyed with the 2024 election -- It’s a matter of substance over branding a product. The democratic party and the media that supports it have turned the whole mess into an advertising of a product more than pushing the virtues of why we should be buying the product in the first place. 

Trump has decided to have a traditional campaign while Harris has turned this into an advertising campaign and the mainstream media has become an infomercial where good news reporting is cast aside and that Brian Stelter gets his gig back at CNN selling like hell --with his raised eyebrows, smirk and potato head.

The candidates on this year’s ballot do not represent a substantive choice between freedom and tyranny so much as they constitute a cosmetic choice: the packaging may vary widely, but the contents remain the same.

While both Harris and Trump seem to view the First Amendment’s assurance of the right to free speech, political expression and protest is dangerous when used to challenge the government’s power.

This flies in the face of everything America’s founders fought to safeguard.

Those who gave us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights believed that the government exists at the behest of its citizens. It is there to protect, defend and even enhance our freedoms, not violate them.

Unfortunately, although the Bill of Rights was adopted as a means of protecting the people against government tyranny, in America today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.

The pageantry and the fluff and glitter are all that matters as we watch our two most unwanted candidates duke it out -- shove match in a political playground.

Tonight I think that you are about to hear my resentment as an American, who is fed up with the selling and propaganda of an election that basically is pushing two candidates that both sides will say are repugnant.

I don’t think I have ever seen an election where one side will say that the other is a minion of Satan. Today I saw a headline that just angered me, because it reminded me of where we are --and how cynical this election has become.

The headline read: 

Prosecutor vs felon: US prepares for presidential debate between Harris and Trump.

The headline was in a foreign newspaper which of course does not have a dog in the hunt over who wins or loses this November.

So this is how the foreign press gets their jollies, by trolling our election -- at first I was offended a bit -- but then I thought well of course this is that kind of debate. 

Our Media has exploited the felon vs the prosecutor --- but of course they ignore that the prosecutor is inept and that she is doing everything she can to make it a Coke vs. Pepsi campaign where she has allegedly spoke out about some of her previously radical views-- putting her left of center, but I really don’t think anyone is fooled by these new set of standards she claims to uphold.

Well, i could be wrong as the media continues their placating of Kamala Harris and the unperson tactics they are using on Trump. 

A year ago a poll found that 78% of those polled responded that “the country is going in the wrong direction.”

A recent Harvard Kennedy school poll says that less than 10 % of youth 18 to 29 believe that the US is “generally headed in the right direction” and so on with NBC, ABC, Pew, etc. polls. We could quarrel over the exact numbers expressing dissatisfaction, but all polls point to a nation decidedly unhappy with our direction.

Of course, there is room to debate exactly what people mean by the “wrong direction.” They may mean in regard to their own current situation or that of their family or friends; they may mean their sense of security; they may mean their own or others’ prospects. Or they may mean that “society” is heading the wrong way culturally, politically, or economically. No doubt respondents to the various polls have complex, even contradictory reasons for losing confidence in the US trajectory. Moreover, one cannot discount the influence of monopoly media reportage and commentary in constructing the sense of dissatisfaction.

It is fair to say, however, that most people believe that our future will be determined by political outcomes. Whether or not they have confidence in the political system — polls say they don’t — they do, in fact, rely on campaigning and elections to determine the future course of the country. Most US citizens have not yet chosen or do not know of other political courses of action beyond voting or indifference.

It is the indifference that I worry about -- because it is with this indifference I proposed that we could see a contingent election where both the candidates don’t get the 270 electoral votes needed for the presidency, 

Although contingent election has been implemented only once each for President and Vice President since the 12th Amendment was ratified, the failure to win an electoral college majority is a potential outcome in any presidential election.

The 12th Amendment to the Constitution requires that presidential and vice presidential candidates gain “a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed” in order to win election. With a total of 538 electors representing the 50 states and the District of Columbia, 270 electoral votes is the “magic number,” the arithmetic majority necessary to win the presidency. 

What would happen if no candidate won a majority of electoral votes? In these circumstances, the 12th Amendment also provides that the House of Representatives would elect the President, and the Senate would elect the Vice President, in a procedure known as “contingent election.” Contingent election has been implemented twice in the nation’s history under the 12th

Amendment: first, to elect the President in 1825, and second, the Vice President in 1837. In a contingent election, the House would choose among the three candidates who received the most electoral votes. Each state, regardless of population, casts a single vote for President in a contingent election. 

Representatives of states with two or more Representatives would therefore need to conduct an internal poll within their state delegation to decide which candidate would receive the state’s single vote. A majority of state votes, 26 or more, is required to elect, and the House must vote “immediately” and “by ballot.”

I believe that an election such as this would serve America in a way that would remind them that when one party decides to bend the rules of the election process the dissatisfaction can lead to yet another selection of a political candidate and not an election.

it has already happened with one party and it can happen again which would certainly spark a deeper mistrust in the election process.

A fixture of our political system is the two-party monopoly. While it is not unlawful or completely uncommon that there be other parties, tradition, entry-demands, financing, chicanery, and even violence have worked to deny third-party movements access or ensure their lack of success. Popular sentiment is denied by Republican and Democratic leaders and functionaries and those others invested in the two-party system who control the rules of the game. A fall, 2023 Gallup poll finds that “Sixty-three percent of U.S. adults currently agree with the statement that the Republican and Democratic parties do ‘such a poor job’ of representing the American people that ‘a third major party is needed.

And yet the third Party candidate often has to resign and in this case the third Party candidate RFK jr. has decided to hop on to the Donald Trump crazy train.

Will this help or hurt him?

he Michigan Supreme Court ruled Monday that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will remain on the state’s November presidential ballot, ending Kennedy’s efforts to withdraw his name to help support former President Donald Trump.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will not appear on the ballot in Massachusetts for the Nov. 2024 presidential election. 

He has attempted to be removed form battleground State ballots in order for a spoiler not to happen... but is it too late?

So ahead of a November election, we face two poles: one represented by a self-styled nationalist-populist promising to “Make America Great Again,” and a Woman who uses her Color and gender as a point of prestige, and does not necessarily have any real plans for the country except to change abortion laws and support gender affirming care. Her campaign has been based on flattering moments of joy that have turned her appearances to variety shows with pop bands, rappers, and all sorts of other Hollywood elite support.

Americans have always been suckers for glitz and breads and circuses -- but there are others who are taking the world seriously and find her so called infectious laugh and actions annoying and disingenuous.

Trump and others have attracted angry voters with their vocal disdain for the “establishment,” elite arrogance, East Coast condescension, and US leaders’ general ineptness and world government ties. While “draining the swamp” is a worthy goal, four years of the Trump administration provided no relief from elitism.

While the Republicans do not want to identify with racism, misogyny and the many other know-nothing-isms, the media has succeeded in pointing out that a lot of that scum happen to be that way -- but they fail to point out the curious dalliances the Democrats have with the Chinese, and other alleged Marxist counterparts.

Today’s Democratic Party is neither democratic nor a party, but a brand name like Coca-Cola or Pepsi. It lives and breathes on money from corporate sponsors. Its contact with its supporters is through advertising, television talking heads, the punditry, and indirectly through various media; the idea of human contact with potential voters is only useful if it can be filmed and included in a television commercial.

Like the Republicans, the Democrats have an activist wing that provides a social democratic veneer to the party’s image. Unlike the Republican counterpart wing, the “progressive” Democratic wing never dares to attempt to impose its views on the party. Without exercising “leverage,” the Democratic Party left wing simply serves as a cover, a safe space for “progressives” to welcome other progressives into the party’s arms.

The truth is the Democratic Party is a corporate party, but a party that has occasionally been forced by social pressure, circumstances, or crises to play a people-friendly role. This type of fluffy presentation worked for Biden -- but will it work of Kamala?

Democratic leaders celebrate achievers — those who have broken through glass ceilings — but have contempt for those fallen or stuck in the basement. Both Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama have arrogantly, and with little forethought for appearances, relegated the heartland of the US to a land of gun-loving, Bible-thumpers — in Clinton’s unforgettable words, “the deplorables.”

We are so grateful to God that she was not at all considered a candidate to replace Biden -- she is one of the most horrific and loathsome individuals in Washington DC.

She along with he bigoted and narrow-minded cohorts depict small town USA as backward and infected with racism. There is no love nor jiy for flyover America -- all that we hear about is how much they love L.A. --or cavort with world Leaders in New York.

For the forthcoming election, the Democrats will once again hope to corral those left-of-center with Trump’s alleged threat to “our” democracy. They will go so far as to raise the specter of fascism.

When Kamala Harris was asked about her feelings about tonight’s debate she immediately blurted out "I'll bet he will lie." Planted that seed real good -- so that fact checkers and those who wish to embellish Trump's words out of context will have a hey day selling that Democrat brand -- Buy the T-shirt, Buy the Hat, put the political signs on your neighbors lawns.. you know joyful stuff.

Ironically, the closest move against democracy that resembles the realities of life under fascism is the recent bipartisan passage of an expanded section 702 of the infamous FISA, an act that permits warrantless spying on US citizens. The ACLU comments that it is a “bill that gives the government more ways to secretly surveil us.” Even more ironically, Trump — the alleged enemy of democracy — denounced the entire FISA act.

The Democrats face an enormous problem with poor management of the economy and support for unpopular wars. Some say the Democrats are the war party. Both Parties have their share of wars -- Trump managed to dodge major wars when he was in office -- but if he becomes president he inherits a dumpster fire.

The Democrats will pay a price for enabling the bloodletting in Ukraine and, especially, whether you like it or not the complicity in the massacres in Gaza.

At least these are the issues I see where protesters have been very active in sending the message that they are fed up with the continued blood shed of the Warhawks -- who don’t care to even negotiate a cease fire.

The propagandists have normalized corruption .

It seems to be nearly impossible for average folks to entertain this possibility, let alone see it for what it is, an indisputable fact. How do “they” continually pull this off? 

Considering that this sort of inhuman intention has existed in smaller quantities for eons in the “human cosmology” of planet Earth, it really doesn’t take much brain power to see it forming on this massive global scale.

Does anyone have an explanation as to why we tolerate this? Why several radio stations tonight may have pre-empted my show so that we can watch the political boxing match and walk away satisfied that our candidate won?

But of course the canned explanation is that 

There has always been corruption, people high up who want power and money, and do bad things. There are the world’s Hitlers, Mao's and Stalin's. There are people like this out there now, and there always has been. The world isn’t perfect, but it is self-regulating, and these “bad” people eventually get their comeuppance and fall from power and the world settles back into relatively benevolent homeostasis.”

Not always-- we can only wish.

The “bad” factions have always been relatively small, and the powers that eventually subdue them have been relatively large and more powerful. And we can’t ignore the fact that maybe what we have always perceived as the “good guys” were actually the opposite—bad guys masquerading as good guys. Maybe in a more passive-aggressive way back then, but still “bad.”

If you take the time and look with detail at the atrocities the world experienced during the Second World War you can accurately say, “Well, what we are experiencing now is nothing like that.” This may be true in appearance. But that assessment does not mean it can’t eventually get that bad.

Regardless of which of the two parties wins in November, we are in for a rough patch. While the candidates are different, they are different in equally despicable ways.