Tuesday Night Massacre: The Looming Trump v. Clinton Debacle
Wednesday, 27 April 2016 00:00 By William Rivers Pitt, Truthout | Op-Ed
Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton speaks to reporters outside
Douglas G. Grafflin Elementary School, where she cast her ballot, in
Chappaqua, New York, April 19, 2016. (Photo: Eric Thayer / The New York
Times)
The surrealist painting that is this election season came into grim focus
last night as the two big-money front-runners blew the doors off their
respective rivals and came many steps closer to giving the "news" media the
general election race they've been craving. Donald Trump won everything by
margins so wide you could sail an aircraft carrier through them. Hillary
Clinton took four out of five contests, with Bernie Sanders picking up Rhode
Island. It was near-comprehensive domination, and unless Trump bursts into
flames or Clinton starts eating live wombats during a press conference,
we're all staring the general election contest dead in the face.
Last night for Donald Trump: 58 percent in Connecticut, 61 percent in
Delaware, 54 percent in Maryland, 56 percent in Pennsylvania and a whopping
64 percent in Rhode Island. Last night for Clinton: 52 percent in
Connecticut, 60 percent in Delaware, 63 percent in Maryland and 56 percent
in Pennsylvania. It wasn't close.
This endgame is not surprising if you take the long view. The two parties
have been devolving into one fixed entity for a long while now, and the two
leading candidates are perfect avatars of that phenomenon. Add to that the
fact that the media lust after this match-up. You have the rich braggart
with an inferiority complex so large it dwarfs Saturn using racism, sexism,
nationalism and a generalized fear of The Other to elbow his way toward the
nomination. You have the rich political aristocrat who votes for war, total
surveillance and thinks fracking is the greatest thing since glazed donuts
trying to pass herself off as some sort of transformative populist while
cashing Wall Street checks by the fistful.
For more original Truthout election coverage, check out our election
section, "Beyond the Sound Bites: Election 2016."
It is madness, but it is madness by design. The Republican Party and its
media allies have spent several decades fomenting a sense of terror within
their voting ranks -- fear of the immigrant, fear of the Black man, fear of
a woman's power to choose, fear of the terrorist hiding under the bed. They
have diligently trashed the basic functions of government so they can go on
the Sunday talk shows and blather about how government doesn't work. The
Democrats, for their part, have been in full moral retreat over those same
decades, fleeing the legacy of FDR and their own alleged principles to such
a vast degree that a candidate who voted like a conservative every time the
chips were down is about to grab the brass ring.
It was a hard night for the Bernie Sanders campaign, and for Ted Cruz and
John Kasich. Supporters of all three are likely staring at the wall right
now, wondering what in the world went wrong. It's not over, of course --
suggesting it is to their supporters will elicit howls of rage -- but
really, yeah, it's over. Marco Rubio has been out of the race for weeks and
still has more delegates than John Kasich. While Cruz is faring better,
name-dropping Carly Fiorina is not going to save his campaign.
As far as I am concerned, Bernie Sanders has done the nation a huge service.
It is, in a way, as if the distilled essence of the Occupy movement took
corporeal form in Vermont and ran for president. He put economic injustice
and climate change on the dashboard of his campaign bus and stomped on the
gas. He showed us what we can be instead of what we are, but unless the
aforementioned wombat massacre happens, he will not be the Democratic
nominee. Tuesday all but nailed that door shut.
Indiana is next, followed by Nebraska, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon,
Washington State, California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota,
South Dakota and the District of Colombia. Put another way, we're in the
home stretch and this strange thing is almost over. As a political writer, I
find the thought of reaching the finish line refreshing: no more sleepless
Tuesdays and exhausted Wednesdays until November.
As a human being and a father, however, I find the whole exercise appalling
and terrifying. This is the best we can do, really? This is what we have
become. The only reason people will vote for Trump in the general election
is because they have been trained to be afraid. The only reason people will
vote for Clinton in the general election is to thwart Comb-Over Mussolini
and his dreams of glory; once again, people will be voting against instead
of voting for, because "she can win," allegedly.
The whole thing has been bizarre and gruesome from the jump, and the only
good I can see coming out of it is the slim possibility that the nation
looks long and hard in the mirror once the smoke has cleared and decides
that enough is enough.
What a pluperfect mess.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
WILLIAM RIVERS PITT
William Rivers Pitt is Truthout's senior editor and lead columnist. He is
also a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of three books:
War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know, The Greatest Sedition
Is Silence and House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's
Ravaged Reputation. His fourth book, The Mass Destruction of Iraq: Why It Is
Happening, and Who Is Responsible, co-written with Dahr Jamail, is available
now on Amazon. He lives and works in New Hampshire.
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Tuesday Night Massacre: The Looming Trump v. Clinton Debacle
Wednesday, 27 April 2016 00:00 By William Rivers Pitt, Truthout | Op-Ed
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. Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton speaks to reporters
outside Douglas G. Grafflin Elementary School, where she cast her ballot, in
Chappaqua, New York, April 19, 2016. (Photo: Eric Thayer / The New York
Times)
. The surrealist painting that is this election season came into grim
focus last night as the two big-money front-runners blew the doors off their
respective rivals and came many steps closer to giving the "news" media the
general election race they've been craving. Donald Trump won everything by
margins so wide you could sail an aircraft carrier through them. Hillary
Clinton took four out of five contests, with Bernie Sanders picking up Rhode
Island. It was near-comprehensive domination, and unless Trump bursts into
flames or Clinton starts eating live wombats during a press conference,
we're all staring the general election contest dead in the face.
Last night for Donald Trump: 58 percent in Connecticut, 61 percent in
Delaware, 54 percent in Maryland, 56 percent in Pennsylvania and a whopping
64 percent in Rhode Island. Last night for Clinton: 52 percent in
Connecticut, 60 percent in Delaware, 63 percent in Maryland and 56 percent
in Pennsylvania. It wasn't close.
This endgame is not surprising if you take the long view. The two parties
have been devolving into one fixed entity for a long while now, and the two
leading candidates are perfect avatars of that phenomenon. Add to that the
fact that the media lust after this match-up. You have the rich braggart
with an inferiority complex so large it dwarfs Saturn using racism, sexism,
nationalism and a generalized fear of The Other to elbow his way toward the
nomination. You have the rich political aristocrat who votes for war, total
surveillance and thinks fracking is the greatest thing since glazed donuts
trying to pass herself off as some sort of transformative populist while
cashing Wall Street checks by the fistful.
For more original Truthout election coverage, check out our election
section, "Beyond the Sound Bites: Election 2016."
It is madness, but it is madness by design. The Republican Party and its
media allies have spent several decades fomenting a sense of terror within
their voting ranks -- fear of the immigrant, fear of the Black man, fear of
a woman's power to choose, fear of the terrorist hiding under the bed. They
have diligently trashed the basic functions of government so they can go on
the Sunday talk shows and blather about how government doesn't work. The
Democrats, for their part, have been in full moral retreat over those same
decades, fleeing the legacy of FDR and their own alleged principles to such
a vast degree that a candidate who voted like a conservative every time the
chips were down is about to grab the brass ring.
It was a hard night for the Bernie Sanders campaign, and for Ted Cruz and
John Kasich. Supporters of all three are likely staring at the wall right
now, wondering what in the world went wrong. It's not over, of course --
suggesting it is to their supporters will elicit howls of rage -- but
really, yeah, it's over. Marco Rubio has been out of the race for weeks and
still has more delegates than John Kasich. While Cruz is faring better,
name-dropping Carly Fiorina is not going to save his campaign.
As far as I am concerned, Bernie Sanders has done the nation a huge service.
It is, in a way, as if the distilled essence of the Occupy movement took
corporeal form in Vermont and ran for president. He put economic injustice
and climate change on the dashboard of his campaign bus and stomped on the
gas. He showed us what we can be instead of what we are, but unless the
aforementioned wombat massacre happens, he will not be the Democratic
nominee. Tuesday all but nailed that door shut.
Indiana is next, followed by Nebraska, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon,
Washington State, California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota,
South Dakota and the District of Colombia. Put another way, we're in the
home stretch and this strange thing is almost over. As a political writer, I
find the thought of reaching the finish line refreshing: no more sleepless
Tuesdays and exhausted Wednesdays until November.
As a human being and a father, however, I find the whole exercise appalling
and terrifying. This is the best we can do, really? This is what we have
become. The only reason people will vote for Trump in the general election
is because they have been trained to be afraid. The only reason people will
vote for Clinton in the general election is to thwart Comb-Over Mussolini
and his dreams of glory; once again, people will be voting against instead
of voting for, because "she can win," allegedly.
The whole thing has been bizarre and gruesome from the jump, and the only
good I can see coming out of it is the slim possibility that the nation
looks long and hard in the mirror once the smoke has cleared and decides
that enough is enough.
What a pluperfect mess.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
William Rivers Pitt
William Rivers Pitt is Truthout's senior editor and lead columnist. He is
also a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of three books:
War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know, The Greatest Sedition
Is Silence and House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's
Ravaged Reputation. His fourth book, The Mass Destruction of Iraq: Why It Is
Happening, and Who Is Responsible, co-written with Dahr Jamail, is available
now on Amazon. He lives and works in New Hampshire.
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