On Seeing Yet Another Article about How Now Is Not the Time to Fight for Real Change.

Dammit. This is not a game where you “score” if your team captures the flag, even if your situation gets worse no matter who wins an election. We have about 12 years before the Democratic establishment’s incrementalism sends the entire planet into an irreversible death spiral. Less if we get another 4 years of suicidal Twitlerian madness, but extinction is still extinction, even if it comes a few years later. We don’t have 4 more years to waste on corporate Dems who are bent on taking us to the same place as the monstrous Repugs, only a bit more slowly and in a bigger, more comfortable (for some) hand-basket.

But perhaps more importantly, we are being bombarded by a tsunami of corporatist spin designed to go directly to our amygdalas without passing through our frontal cortex. They’re the ones using t-Rumpian tactics, hammering on our fear and exhaustion so we don’t stop to assess how we got here or critically consider what our real options are. There is NO evidence or poll that shows it to be true that a progressive can’t beat Twitler or that repeating 2016 will lead to a different result.

Bernie Sanders, the most “left” of the candidates is also the most trusted and popular politician in the US. And he’s the only one who dares to tell us the truth, that no matter who gets elected, only a mass movement is going to bring about the change we need. We have an exponentially better chance of saving ourselves if that mass movement is led from the White House instead of resisted furiously at every turn — which it will be, even if a corporate Dem is elected and Dems manage to take the Senate.

The question is not whether Clinton or Obama made some incremental changes and then won second terms. What we need to look at is the obscene monstrosities were elected after them, due directly to the economic policies they pursued and the bitter betrayal so many of us felt when their campaign promises melted into more of the same corporatism that average Americans, left and right are justifiably furious about.

But sure, try telling those mythical Independent swing voter that everybody seems to be chasing that they are nuts for thinking that Clinton, Obama and the whole Blue establishment didn’t screw them when they know damn well that the banks got bailed out while their house went underwater, that they can’t make the payments on their college loans, even working three jobs, and that they are soon going to have to bury Dear Old Dad because he’s splitting his heart pills again to save money. Frankly, I’d rather have people blaming the Clintons than the immigrants. We could win that way.