Wednesday, May 18, 2016

The good

It’s time somebody called the 2016 American election cycle exactly what it is-- the healthiest one in our lifetime. Pretenses are now shattered. The Washington news media is bleeding out. Political consulting firms are scrambling to justify their continued existence. The Bushes are pouting on the sidelines. Progressives are in open revolt against Hillary and Bill Clinton. The Democratic and Republican Central Committees have been exposed as dishonest brokers. Just think of the vast number of reprehensible media and political figures that have been figuratively dismembered during the last 12 months. Think of how much worse things would be if we were still being sold a narrative in which Hillary Clinton was a “liberal.”

Rhetoric is being replaced by an actual examination of the public record. The mushy middle is dying a slow death. Progressive special interest groups have been unmasked for all to see as either genuinely representative of the aims of their rank and file members or nothing at all of the kind. The economic victims of neo-liberal globalization are finally the nation’s most powerful collective voice. Only one cycle ago they were lining up in support of candidates that sneered at their poverty. The activists of the Occupy and Black Lives Matter movements are empowered and energetic, writing their names in the history books. Most importantly, thanks to the bold Mr. Sanders from Vermont, no right-wing troll will ever again be able to effectively misrepresent Hillary Clinton, a center-right Republican, if ever one existed, as a Socialist without being laughed at.

Civility may have caught the last train for the coast, but it's a cudgel wielded by the establishment to squash dissent. It is democracy’s most overrated virtue.

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