Politics Is Depressing

Because it reminds you how much stupid there is in the world. Take the Republican Party. First they were stupid enough to let Donald Trump become their Presidential candidate, now more and more of their leaders are stupid enough to endorse him.

But even Republicans did the delegate math so much better than Bernie and his supporters. When the other Republican candidates had all dropped out of the race, Trump was much, much farther from being nominated than Hillary is now. There are 913 delegates still up for grabs in the Democratic race. Hillary needs 73 of them to clinch the nomination. Bernie needs 841. That means he needs over 92% of the remaining delegates.

There was a way in which the Republicans could've prevented Trump from getting the nomination, and it was hardly brain surgery: more of them just needed to remain in the race as candidates for the nomination against him. When there were still a dozen or so candidates in the Republican contest, Trump often led the results for a particular state's primary or caucus, but he would lead with far less than 50%. He never got close to a majority of the vote until he was close to the only candidate left. Kasich, Cruz, Rubio, Christie & Co wouldn't even have had to keep spending any money or time on their campaigns, wouldn't have had to keep buying ads or making speeches: just don't say they were withdrawing from the race, and a big majority of Republicans would've kept voting for someone other than Trump, and the #1 choice of all Republicans would have still been -- as I suspect it would still be in a make-believe what-if world -- anybody but Trump. Then all that would be left for the big shots to do is negotiate who would win at the convention on the 2nd ballot.

IS that brain surgery? AM I really that much smarter than everyone else? I really don't think so... Still, somehow, things go horribly, stupidly wrong.

As I have mentioned already several times in this blog, Hillary clinched the nomination quite a long time ago. The assertions that Bernie could still be the nominee are, just like the accusations against Hillary that she did something wrong in the case of Vince Foster or Whitewater or Monica Lewinski or Ben Ghazi or Lehman Brothers, straight-up bullshit. And the same way that you have to be really stupid to believe that Hillary did anything wrong in any of those cases, you have to be really stupid to believe that Bernie could be the nominee.

I wish journalists would say more often that great swaths of the public are being stupid when it's true.

I wonder how often they say it when they're not on the air or writing for public consumption.

Imagine a world in which journalists told the truth, instead of adhering to that bullshit they erroneously refer to as "objective journalism."

Then again, I'm assuming that most political journalists actually do know their asses from holes in the ground. Many times in my life I've been overly optimistic.

Dream Log: Nobel Acceptance Comments In Leftist Solidarity

Last night I dreamed I had been awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize IN Literature (just a couple of days away -- fingers crossed!!!), and that I was speaking on camera and into microphones all over the place, making comments that went over very well, extremely eloquent and stirring statements of solidarity with various Leftist figures of the past. Embarrassingly, I can't remember who any of those Leftist individuals were. Over and over, a picture of a group of Leftists would appear, and I would extemporaneously praise them, and the applause and excitement grew and grew from one interview to the next. I don't know exactly who it was I was praising, and I don't know know exactly where the photos of them came from -- it seemed to be mostly photos -- or how they were shown, whether it was on big video monitors or what.

In every one of those pictures, at least one of the famous, but now in my memory nameless Leftists looked somewhat like me: a little overweight, a little too heavy in the face, but very very wide and strong in the shoulders and arms and back. You needed a tractor pulled out of ditch pronto and had no livestock handy, Comrade, any one of us was your guy.

Just as I can't remember any of the names of the people I was praising -- except that I think Diego Rivera was among them. He fit the physical description. He was a big strong tractor-from-ditch-pulling character like me -- so I can't remember any of the details of what I said about them. But whatever it was I was saying, it was so brilliant and bringing down the house in such a complete way over and over, that I started to consider whether I should break my promise of giving a Nobel Lecture consisting of

"thnk yu verr mutch pleez"

and instead incorporate some of these rousing remarks into a somewhat longer Lecture.

I know that what I was saying in a general way was that all of these guys -- sorry, ladies, for the sexism, but it was guys -- were brave and principled, and that that inspired others around them also to be brave and principled, so that excellent and productive behavior spread like fire wherever they went. I compared them to the dog-eat-dog everyday life on the Right. Well, look at that: it seems I can remember a little bit of what I said.

Don't Split The Left

Well la-dee-freakin-da!

You know what? I just called for guaranteed housing, health care and living expenses for everyone on the planet. Unfortunately, calling for something and accomplishing it are 2 different things. Bernie can call for whatever he wants to call for, it doesn't matter, because he's never going to be POTUS, any more than I am. The difference seems to be that I realize it.

One thing Bernie could accomplish is to run 3rd-party, split the Left and give us a Republican President. Ralph Nader could tell Bernie exactly how that's done. Maybe Elizabeth Warren can explain something else to Bernie: how if they campaign for Hillary and then use their positions of power in Congress to pull her to the Left, they'll actually be accomplishing something.

Calling for something / accomplishing something. Dream / reality. Good for something / worse than nothing. Say Amen, somebody!

If you can tell the difference between Hillary and a Republican, and if you have figured out that the next President is going to be either Hillary or a Republican -- good, you're not a complete moron. Please help save us from those morons that can't figure out such remedial-kindergarten-level stuff, that's right I said REMEDIAL-KINDERGARTEN-LEVEL. There's one thing I can see right now that looks like it might have a slight chance of preventing Hillary from becoming the next POTUS. That one thing is Bernie.