It's true that someone like Howard Schultz (of "El Americano Grande with Foam" fame) has less than a snowball in hell's chance of winning the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.
Can that really mean the only alternative for "some people" is trimp?
Aside from the fact that trimp's main motivation for seeking four more years will be to postpone jail time, . . . the answer (for some people) obviously is . . . YES!
For "some" people would actually rather have a racist, lying, emolument sucking bully with an infant's emotional bearing (and a serpent's deadly cunning) keep his shaky stubby finger on the nuclear button.
They'd rather have that than the just alternative.
And JUST what is the "Just" alternative?
For most people, the JUST alternative is actually ANYBODY who, along with noted socialist Franklin Delano Roosevelt, believes food, shelter, rewarding work, dignified leisure, healthcare, and a good education are RIGHTS, not "privileges".
But "certain people" think that's all just "fairy dust".
It turns out, the kids who huddled in the back row during Civics class, slapping each other's dicks, whipping spitballs, and competing to stab the most pencils into the ceiling tiles are not the only hardcore component of the "Ever trimpers". We should never forget about the pious legions of god fearing, church going upstanders who care enough about the personhood of the unborn to line raucously behind a hate spewing oaf who thinks a free press is the enemy of "his" people. But I'm talking about the DAVOS elite, represented by Howard Schultz, Michael Bloomberg, and the best scribblers and think tanks their dirty money can buy.
They know the value of money, and they don't wanna pay taxes!
Apparently, they love the old party system we've had for such a long time now. After all, it's resulted in gridlock and stagnation for everyone except them, a tiny (0.1%) idiot elite. They love it so much they are willing to reconfigure the party labels if that will maintain the status quo which has raped them so many luxurious benefits.
Howard Schultz, after all, is a life long corporate Democrat who is willing to run as an independent in order to succor the exhausted majority of low information, disaffected, sometime voters who (he thinks) just want more of the 90s (with sprinkles).
The crafty elite (with their crafty scribblers and think tanks) think they can ride out this populist wave. They know that neither anger nor idealism can keep people mobilized for very long.
This is why the Green New Deal is so important.
Idealism can shrivel into bitter resigned cynicism - or twee escapist fantasism. Anger can metastasize into soul consuming self-hatred, - or it can explode like a sugar-dusted raisin under a broiling sun. It can also be enlisted into simplistic spasms of controlled fury orchestrated by some competent magus still lurking somewhere in the shadowy part of public life. (So far we've been lucky that the manchild in the White House remains unmanageable by anyone - except maybe Vladimir Putin.)
People need to be invested in justice so that they stay mobilized for decades and generations.
It has been done before.
Here in America.
It was the "old" New Deal.
(Original flavor... )
Revamping our energy and transportation industries will create all kinds of jobs that people will fight to protect the way people always rally to defend Social Security no matter how dazed they are by the bullshit sleaze machines.
FDR just cackles in his grave every time the Republicans try again - and fail . . .
The same goes for single payer healthcare and lifelong education.
The original New Deal is the living model. (Even though it now seems to be on life support, the Republicans will never eliminate Social Security, the basics of the 40 hour week, unemployment insurance, and Medicaid, the last spasm of the New Deal generation of politicians).
Maybe we can save the planet and build new structures of justice and democracy that ratchet us a few nachos closer to a working liberal democracy where everyone's rights are respected - and protected.
Maybe it will be seen (someday) as both patriotic and humanitarian to PAY TAXES!
What's the alternative to that?
Joe Panzica (Author of Democracy STRUGGLES! and Saint Gredible and Her Fat Dad's Mass for which he is seeking an agent . . .)
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