November Election Questions

Constantly pundits -- true: not all of them -- opine that Trump will not be the Republican Presidential nominee, and it seems more and more that they're simply unwilling to think that it's possible because the possibility appalls them, and not because they have crystal balls.

But if the GOP does nominate Trump, how many Republicans will vote for the Democratic nominee? And how many would vote for Hillary but not Bernie, or vice-versa?

There's been plenty of speculation about Trump running 3rd-party, but how about the other way around, if Trump is the GOP nominee and a more mainstream Republican runs 3rd party? Such a 3rd-party run would be a way for Republicans to stop Trump without explicitly admitting that they were handing the Presidency to Hillary or Bernie.

I don't like Bernie. I think the distance he is to the left of Hillary is greatly exaggerated for some reason. I think that distance is pretty much imaginary, as is Hillary's lack of liberal credentials. Who's done the most to extend health insurance coverage to more people in the US? No, not Barack -- Hillary. Who's been the most powerful advocate for women, minorities, the disabled? Hillary. All she does is actually get stuff done.

It seems to me that the only way a Republican can win the White House in November will be if Bernie turns out to be even more stupidly egotistical and destructive than he seems to me to be, and runs 3rd-party. The average voter doesn't see that a 3rd-party vote is in effect a vote for the candidate you like least. A 3rd-party vote for Bernie could be a vote for Trump. Such considerations are incredibly clear and simple to me, but, frustrating as it is, they apparently are beyond the average voter. Many of the people who voted for Nader in 2000 are both too stupid to do the math it takes to see that they cost Gore the Presidency, and too stupid to grasp how much better a Gore Presidency would've been than what we got with W, which is truly too fucking stupid to pour piss out of a boot, but what are you going to do, people are stupid.

It would be unforgivable if these considerations turn out to be beyond a US Senator who caucuses with Democrats like Bernie, or unimportant to him. I would never be able to forgive Bernie if his ego turns to be more important to him than stopping the damage that Trump would do as President. If Hillary gets the Democratic nomination, and I think she will, and a good damn thing too, then what Bernie does will be extremely important -- not just in terms of not doing what he has said he won't do, the nuclear option: a 3rd-party run -- but also how soon he drops out and how energetically he campaigns for Hillary. Now and very very energetically would be just fine with me, Bernie, you schmuck!

Let's USE This Vast Political Capital The Republicans Have Just Handed Us

Let's go after every single Republican office-holder -- unless you can think of a Republican currently holding public office who's stood up to the Tea Party since 2009. Yeah, I can't think of one either. Yes, some of them are critical of the Tea Party now, but look at the size of the clusterfuck it took for them to speak up. Look at what was acceptable to all of them until the writing was on the wall about the 2012 elections, and then to all but a tiny handful of them. The Tea Party belongs to the Republican Party. Let's make them own it. All of them. Let's not let this very recent turn toward bipartisanship make us forget the 5 years before the last 3 weeks.

And please, my fellow Democrats, let's stop this awful pathetic whining about how this or that Republican Senator or Representative or Governor or Councilman or judge or dog-catcher is untouchable. None of them are untouchable after this shutdown debacle. Let's not just win some seats in 2014 and 2016, let's crush the GOP as it now once and for all, so that what emerges is either a GOP as unrecognizably liberal by today's standards as today's is unrecognizably reactionary by the standards of several decades ago, or something like a political landscape where the Republican and Green Parties have swapped places in terms of relevance and clout, a US where it's Democrat against Green instead of Democrat against Republican. (Or better yet, of course, a change in the Constitution to base our government on proportional representation, but at this point the eradication of far-right political power looks like a nearer, more attainable goal.)

They're not untouchable. Let's find a brilliant, charismatic rainmaker in his or her early 20's and run him or her against John Boehner. That's a no-lose proposition for the Democrats because the whiz kid will either actually win, or win enough votes against the sitting Speaker of the House to brighten up any 25-year-old's resume.

Let's go after em all. You may say I'm a crazy wild-eyed dreamer. I say that the Republicans are in such a mess that it'd be crazy to consider any one of them to be invulnerable.