The Fix. (Or how fraud or election tampering laws don't apply to political parties, apparently.)

So… I was right.

I had bitter arguments with my peers and my wife over this.  I agonized about it because I knew the kind of beast Donald Trump was, and what he might do (and has done) to our country.  And when I voted, I abstained from the presidential election in protest at my disenfranchisement in the democratic primary.  I’d followed the news, done my research and was positive that Hillary Clinton had bought and paid for the DNC Primary, and had colluded with them to fix the primary election.  And I would not vote for a beast that was just as bad, if not more so.  Because like the beast that actually won, she does not believe that laws apply to her.  I agonized about this.  The subject of Hillary Clinton is still a sore spot in my house that my wife and I are bitterly divided upon.  Especially in the light of everything the criminal in the oval office has done since.

And I eventually started to doubt.  What if I’d been wrong?  Did I get trolled into helping hand the Beast the presidency?  Had I fallen victim to conspiracy theories posing as overwhelming evidence?  I thought I’d been so careful, vetting my sources and making sure to read the articles I’d shared.  The petitions I’d signed…  Had I been fooled on that massive a scale?  I felt ashamed.  I felt as though I’d sold my friends, loved ones and family into a fascist regime run by Neo-Nazis and oligarchs for nothing.  It was a creeping and nagging doubt.  And it festered.

And then this week, the replacement DNC Chair, Donna Brazile, who’d stepped in after former DNC Chair and Former Clinton Campaign Manager (2008), Debbie Wasserman-Schultz had stepped down in disgrace and scandal…  DNC Chair Donna Brazile breaks in a book one year later that I was right the whole time.  I wasn’t some misinformed ‘Bernie-Bro’ or conspriacy nut.  The Democratic primary had been fixed.  The Democratic National Committee had pretty much been bought by Hillary Clinton more than a year before the primary ever happened.  As far as the 2016 primary was concerned, the candidate had been coronated before Sen. Bernie Sanders ever announced his candidacy as a Democrat.  I suppose the plan was that they’d expected him to run as an independent; not split the party with a platform that was actually worth a damn to anyone but the 1%.

Ironically, the whole reason Sanders had run as a Dem was because he’d wanted to play it straight and fair.  He knew an independent wouldn’t be treated fairly in the press, or would be treated dismissively in that whole Kang and Kodos kind of way.  You know…  “GO AHEAD.  THROOOOWWW YOUR VOTE AWAAAY!”  Senator Sanders, like the rest of us, would seem to have fallen victim to the good faith idea that the Democratic party was as good as its word that all candidates would be treated impartially.  You know.  The recently proven doofy idea that the DNC had any intention of running its primary fairly.  Silly us, right?  What the actual fuck could we have been thinking, right?

That’s what the DNC seems to think.  Not half a year after the debacle that was the 2016 election, suit was brought against the DNC for running what seemed like a fixed primary.  The case was dismissed.  The DNC essentially strolled into court and said, “Yeah.  Even if we did fix things, and that’s not saying we did, but if we DID fix the election for Secretary Clinton, then it’s our right to do so.  We’re a private organization, and there’s no reason we can’t change rules on the fly or favor a candidate if we want to.  Even if we gave the good faith impression that we were running an impartial election.”  This was news to the millions of people who’d sent donations to the Sanders campaign.  You know.  Instead of buying food.   Or paying bills.  They’d felt this was pretty important, after all.  So you can understand their feeling a bit peeved at having been cheated of their money.  Or the rightful nominee.  You know.  One that polled as defeating Herr Drumpf by a margin of 10%.

Or better.

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 Had this been a casino working with a rigged roulette board when people came in with the reasonable expectation of the game operating fairly, someone would still be sitting in prison afterward.  Apparently primary elections for the office of the President of the United States aren’t held to such a stringent standard.

So fuck me, right?  Fuck all of us.  Their clever little master-plan failed.  And aww shucks.  We’ve installed an incompetent robber-baron dictator, rapist and Nazi sympathizer in the oval office who’s treating the country like the unwilling victim of a hostile takeover by a corporate raider.  And just to rub a little salt in, Hills got defeated with a majority of the popular vote, but was cheated of the center seat by the same electoral foolishness she cheated Bernie with using the Democratic Superdelegates.  I know this because in December, there was still the opportunity for the superdelegates in the electoral college to award the presidency to Mrs. Clinton instead of the Beast.  To determine the outcome of the election by popular vote by expressing the will of the people instead of partisanship.  I wrote to several of them, who seemed scandalized that they’d be contacted in this fashion.

One from Texas said she’d pray for me.  That and 50 cents won’t buy me a cup of the fucks I give.

The blood of the resultant dead people is on their hands.  THEIR votes mattered.

Mine would not have.  Not in the election.  And certainly not in the democratic primary.  QED

 Make no mistake, I believe that this was planned well in advance of 2016 or 2015.  Hills’ running mate, Tim Kaine was once chair of the DNC.  After her loss to Mr. Obama in 2008, she caused her former campaign manager Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to be installed as DNC chair, which I believe Hill bought with the Kaine’s VP nomination in 2016.  Of course nowadays, The Debster is still gerrymandered into office down in Florida, and the subject of investigations dealing with her IT people exposing the entire information network of half of congress.  You know.  Her IT guy that tried to flee the country and got caught?  And let's not forget trying to interfere with the FBI investigations into that by demanding confiscated evidence and throwing her weight around.  Nice to see she’s keeping in skullduggerous fighting trim for 2018 I suppose.  It’s another thing to remember down the line when she’s next defending her incumbency. 

Meanwhile…

New York City admits to illegally purging 200,000 voters prior to the primary.  Which would have given the state to Bernie Sanders, and its resultant delegates. 

The class action case against the DNC by the voters who felt the primary was fixed was dismissed.  Though the judge welcomed them to try again should new evidence be brought to light.  In the wake of DNC Chair Donna Brazile’s revelation of the victory fund paperwork that showed her how drastically the primary was fixed for Hills, I expect a new lawsuit in 3… 2…  1… 

Senator Sanders recently chose instead to see to relief efforts in Puerto Rico instead of choosing to get lambasted by bitter Clintonistas at a women’s rally who don’t seem to think he has women’s best interests in mind. 

The DNC has gone on a purge of progressives in their ranks, driving out people who favored Sanders-esque policies or political planks.  Essentially, they’re doubling down on the strategy that lost them the white house to one of the most odious and hated individuals in US History.  And that takes some doing, let me tell you. 

The DNC is hemorrhaging membership, and there is talk of trying to build a new party to replace it that’s actually representative of their interests.  In 2015, before our darkest nightmares were even seriously considered as being able to achieve office, the GOP was pretty much perceived as being in disarray.  The GOP was supposed to be on the verge of cannibalizing itself in a civil war between its more sensible conservative base, and the tea party monster they created by pandering to the fundamentalist and radicalized portion of its base over the last 30 years.  What a difference a year makes, eh?  Now the DNC is in full-on civil war between the neo-liberals and the progressives they still must court if they have a prayer of any future success.  Somehow after the revelation of their duplicitous deceit, I think it’s going to be a lot harder than it ever was in the past to dupe us again.  All they can do is hold the current monster in office to our heads like a gun in a hostage situation like they did in 2016.  All the while whispering glibly… menacingly… “Have you seen the other guy?”

Yeah, we have.  And I hold you responsible.  You miserable oligarch motherfuckers.

The DNC is still in bad financial trouble with their war chest.  Oddly, no one seems to want to donate to them lately.  Heaven knows why.  Could it be that they’re perceived as untrustworthy or uncaring about their base?  Whatever could have given them that idea?  Somehow I don’t see this problem getting better.  I suppose if they’re still getting their marching orders from the Clintons after the loans they gave the DNC, they expect help from Wall Street.  Yeah.  Sure.  Wall Street’s loyalty to a party that on the surface is supposed to be against Wall Street is pretty solid, right?  I’m sure they’ll step right up out of patriotism and expect nothing in return.  Just like the Clintons fronted the loans to the DNC without any collateral or expectation of return.

Well… I suppose the expectation of return hinged on a win, didn’t it?

So in the end…  I was right.  The primary was fixed.  This feeling of dread that I was trolled wasn’t necessary.  The coronated CEO of the DNC tried to buy the election.  But hadn’t counted upon repulsing her base as badly as she did.  You know.  Those of us who might’ve had a problem with the subversion of the electoral process our government is based upon.  Those of us who didn’t want to see the continuance of milquetoast incrementalism into corporate feudalism.  The continued selling of our population into the prison industrial complex as a 21st century slave class.  The continued selling of our economy to the military industrial complex by fighting a never-ending war in the middle east like her mentor Dr. Kissinger might’ve.

Because she had to have it.  It was hers by right.  By hook or by crook, the presidency would be hers.  Damn the consequences.  Damn the possibility of what would happen if she failed.  In the game of thrones, you play to win, right?  She’d been denied her due once before.  She would not let it happen again.

Except we’re not theirs to buy.  We’re theirs to serve.  They serve at our pleasure.  Remember that.  And vote for those who will fix the atrocities to come.  Who will have your best interests at heart.  And be ready should they try to take it from you again.  They’ve cheated us badly this time.  They should count their lucky stars, as Lewis Black once said, that we haven’t risen up as one and slain them for it.  Instead they blame anyone but themselves, and purge us from their ranks, and cough up more press-friendly versions of the crap they tried to push on us in 2016.

Don’t let them.

Remember what they’ve done.

Don’t forget.

Remember remember the 5th of November.

Specifically, November 2018.  If we can break the back of the GOP in Congress AND the Red Dog Turncoats as well as the oligarchs in the DNC, we can turn President Fuckface Von Clownstick into a lame duck until we can oust or impeach him and his henchmen properly.

Our country isn’t dead yet.  We still have a chance to mitigate and reverse the damage done.

But we need to seize it.  And not be bullied into just as bad a decision on the other hand.

Don’t forget.

Remember.