Trump Clinches Control of GOP While Sanders Continues To Fight Clinton For Democratic Nomination

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Who would have predicted that Donald Trump would clinch the Republican nomination while Hillary Clinton still has an opponent in the race after the Indiana primary, even if Bernie has a huge uphill battle to pull it out? Sanders’ only hope is that something major happens which erodes support for Clinton among the remaining primary voters and/or the superdelegates. While many Republicans continue to oppose Trump, it is hard to see any way to stop him now that both Cruz and Kassich have left the race.

While I do not want to give up all hope of an acceptable presidential candidate emerging from a major party, the pundits are concentrating on a Clinton versus Trump race, as horrible as those options are. Clinton certainly starts out with the advantage when you consider both the advantages for any Democrat in the electoral college, along with how Trump as alienated so many groups, including women and some minorities. On the other hand, the decline in Clinton’s support must raise the question of whether she can survive a general election campaign.

Some Republicans are even talking about voting for Clinton over Trump. Perhaps this will be like the PUMAs of 2008 with the majority ultimately voting for Obama despite initial threats to vote for McCain in protest over Clinton’s defeat. Trump is at a greater risk of a real defection this year. While he is wrong on many, many issues, Trump’s views are vastly different from the GOP mainstream. A neoconservative, DLC Democrat like Clinton is  not very far ideologically from the faction of Republicans which are not outright bat-shit crazy, and the old Goldwater Girl would actually be a sensible choice for many Republican voters. Neocons have already been talking about supporting Clinton for quite a while, and she has received the endorsement of Robert Kagan.

It certainly makes sense for Clinton to try to attract Republican votes, and such votes might make up votes Clinton will lose from those on the left who will not vote for her out of principle. A small percentage of Sanders supporters might even prefer Trump over Clinton. On paper Trump is preferable on foreign policy, showing far less interest than the ultra-hawkish Clinton in military interventionism and regime change, but I would also fear that he would blunder us into a war. Many Sanders supporters  prefer Trump over Clinton issues such as trade and legalization of drugs. Many other issues will make it unlikely for Sanders supporters to vote for Trump.

Sanders showed that his campaign is very much alive with his upset victory in Indiana. Many Clinton supporters are now calling on Sanders to leave the race, but they miss the point. Sanders has been facing an uphill battle from the start, but there is a need for a candidate to present an alternative viewpoint to those of Clinton and Trump. Hillary Clinton still has major negatives leaving a long shot chance of her campaign still being stopped, and even if she cannot be prevented from winning the nomination, voters in remaining primaries deserve an acceptable choice. This is also a campaign over principles and the future direction of the Democratic Party, regardless of whether Clinton wins the current nomination.

Donald Trump Returns Conspiracy Theories To The Campaign

Enquirer Cruz

Donald Trump’s long list of faults makes it easy for some to be overlooked. His belief in conspiracy theories has not been mentioned much during the campaign. Previously Trump had been a leading proponent of the Birther theories that Barack Obama is not an American citizen. Climate change denialism is also largely a conspiracy theory, with proponents believing that everyone promoting climate change, presumably including the vast majority of scientists, are using it as part of a plot to destroy capitalism. Now we have a new one from Donald Trump to add to the nomination battle–implicating Ted Cruz’s father in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Politico reports:

Donald Trump on Tuesday alleged that Ted Cruz’s father was with John F. Kennedy’s assassin shortly before he murdered the president, parroting a National Enquirer story claiming that Rafael Cruz was pictured with Lee Harvey Oswald handing out pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963.

A Cruz campaign spokesperson told the Miami Herald, which pointed out numerous flaws in the Enquirer story, that it was “another garbage story in a tabloid full of garbage.”

“His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald’s being — you know, shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous,” Trump said Tuesday during a phone interview with Fox News. “What is this, right prior to his being shot, and nobody even brings it up. They don’t even talk about that. That was reported, and nobody talks about it.”

The Cruz campaign has denied that it was Rafael Cruz in the picture which led to this story.

Trump has also been spotted shopping for more fiction to peddle in his campaign, having lunch with Edward Klein. Klein is one of the leaders in a cottage industry of writing anti-Clinton books. While there is a lot to criticize Clinton for, including her conservative political views, her long history of poor judgment on the major issues during her career, and her ethics, writers such as Klein concentrate on fiction as opposed to Clinton’s actual faults. I suspect that this is because the conservative readers his books are marketed to don’t care about the same matters which those on the left criticize Clinton for. Plus Clinton’s actual faults overlap tremendously with the fault of Republican politicians, and an honest criticism of Clinton would hit too close to home.

While Terrible Choices Lead Nomination Battles, Bernie Sanders Is Nation’s Most Popular Senator

Clinton Trump Baked Potato

I’ve already noted that a Clinton versus Trump race would place us on the darkest timeline. While I it might not be the most accurate polling outfit, Rasmussen reports that 24 percent of voters would stay home or vote third party if left to this choice. Many liberal Democrats will never support Clinton, seeing conservative DLC style Democrats as being little better than Republicans, and many Republicans will similarly not accept Trump. Republican Senate candidates are considering  distancing themselves from Trump, and Republicans are saying they would not be his running mate. While some conservatives are reaching the acceptance stage, George Will still writes, If Trump is nominated, the GOP must keep him out of the White House.

As bad as this choice might be, having Ted Cruz be the GOP nominee would probably be even worse. Although his views appear to be more in line with conventional Republican thought, he is so hated by many Republicans that they would still take Trump, whom some Republicans irrationally see as a Northeastern liberal. John Boehner sees Cruz as Lucifer in the flesh. Don’t think this means that Satanists want anything to do with Cruz:

Prominent Satanists want to be clear: Ted Cruz need not apply.

After former House Speaker John Boehner on Wednesday called the current Republican presidential candidate “Lucifer in the flesh,” saying he found it difficult to work with him, staunch Satanists decried the comparison.

“Having a conservative Christian likened to Lucifer — one who opposes equal rights for same sex couples and promotes the ability to deny services to any with different values — we Satanists see as besmirching the positive, heroic aspects of that character as portrayed by Milton in his epic ‘Paradise Lost,'” Magus Peter Howard Gilmore, the high priest of The Church of Satan, said in a statement.

Lucien Greaves, a spokesman and co-founder for the Satanic Temple, told ABC News he thinks Cruz engages in “clearly deplorable behavior” and that Boehner’s comments were “thoughtless and ignorant.”

“Christians can’t just push Cruz off on Satanists,” Greaves said. “All he’s trying to say is that Ted Cruz is some type of embodiment of evil. I think that’s a rather destructive, backward mindset, because when you take clearly Christian individuals, clearly Christian activities, and things go sour, you pass them off as the influence of Satan.

“It really prevents you from thinking clearly,” he said.

I doubt Cruz will mind being rejected by Satanists, or by the KKK leader who endorsed Trump over Cruz.

Of course things could have been different if not for Democratic Party rules which rigged the system in Clinton’s favor. Bernie Sanders is the one candidate running who is well-liked, and would bring in independent and Republicans would happily vote for him as opposed to holding their nose to possibly vote for Clinton or Trump. In one of the latest examples of his support, Bernie Sanders was ranked the most popular Senator in America. Sanders has an 80 percent approval rating, while surprisingly Cruz is above water at 55 percent.

Quote of the Day: Jimmy Fallon & Conan O’Brien On Ted Cruz Choosing A Running Mate

This Feb. 21, 2013 photo released by NBC shows Jimmy Fallon, host of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon," on the set in New York. The program was nominated for an Emmy award for outstanding variety series, Thursday, July 18, 2013. (AP Photo/NBC, Lloyd Bishop)

Today, Carly Fiorina was announced as Ted Cruz’s running mate. Fiorina said it’s always been her lifelong dream to lose twice in the same election. –Jimmy Fallon

Bonus Quote:

Earlier today, despite losing five primaries, Ted Cruz stunned everybody by announcing his vice presidential candidate is Carly Fiorina. This means Fiorina is now just a heartbeat away from never being president. –Conan O’Brien

New York Times Magazine Looks At How Hillary Clinton Became A Warmonger

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The New York Times Magazine features an article on How Hillary Clinton became a warmonger, although they are a little gentler with her, just calling her a hawk. The article began by pointing out how Clinton supported more aggressive military intervention than Obama when she was Secretary of State. She often sided with Robert Gates where others in the Obama administration were less militaristic, surprising Gates as to how conservative she was on foreign policy:

The two quickly discovered that they shared a Midwestern upbringing, a taste for a stiff drink after a long day of work and a deep-seated skepticism about the intentions of America’s foes. Bruce Riedel, a former intelligence analyst who conducted Obama’s initial review on the Afghanistan war, says: “I think one of the surprises for Gates and the military was, here they come in expecting a very left-of-center administration, and they discover that they have a secretary of state who’s a little bit right of them on these issues — a little more eager than they are, to a certain extent.

While Clinton has probably flip-flopped on more issues out of political expediency than any politician other than Mitt Romney, that is not the case with her foreign policy views: “Clinton’s foreign-policy instincts are bred in the bone.” The article ran through Clinton’s biography as related to military matters, including one embarrassing episode:

In March 1996, the first lady visited American troops stationed in Bosnia. The trip became notorious years later when she claimed, during the 2008 campaign, to have dodged sniper fire after her C-17 military plane landed at an American base in Tuzla. (Chris Hill, a diplomat who was onboard that day and later served as ambassador to Iraq under Clinton, didn’t remember snipers at all, and indeed recalled children handing her bouquets of spring flowers.)

The article makes it clear that in any discussion of foreign policy, Hillary Clinton is the most hawkish person in the room, and will be to the right of the GOP candidate should she win the Democratic nomination:

Clinton’s foreign-policy instincts are bred in the bone — grounded in cold realism about human nature and what one aide calls “a textbook view of American exceptionalism.” It set her apart from her rival-turned-boss, Barack Obama, who avoided military entanglements and tried to reconcile Americans to a world in which the United States was no longer the undisputed hegemon. And it will likely set her apart from the Republican candidate she meets in the general election. For all their bluster about bombing the Islamic State into oblivion, neither Donald J. Trump nor Senator Ted Cruz of Texas have demonstrated anywhere near the appetite for military engagement abroad that Clinton has.

While there are other issues where Clinton is preferable to Trump and Cruz, the president has far more direct control over whether we go to war than matters such as reproductive rights. Clinton’s foreign policy views, along with her corrupting ties to big money in politics, could be the deciding factor which keeps many Sanders supporters from turning out to vote for Clinton in the general election if she is the nominee.

Kevin Drum, who I have often found to ignore other major faults in Clinton, was disturbed by her foreign policy views:

And Landler doesn’t even mention Libya, perhaps because the Times already investigated her role at length a couple of months ago. It’s hardly necessary, though. Taken as a whole, this is a portrait of a would-be president who (a) fundamentally believes in displays of force, (b) is eager to give the military everything they ask for, and (c) doesn’t believe that military intervention is a last resort, no matter what she might say in public.

If anything worries me about Hillary Clinton, this is it. It’s not so much that she’s more hawkish than me, it’s the fact that events of the past 15 years don’t seem to have affected her views at all. How is that possible? And yet, our failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere apparently haven’t given her the slightest pause about the effectiveness of military force in the Middle East. Quite the opposite: the sense I get from Landler’s piece is that she continues to think all of these engagements would have turned out better if only we’d used more military power. I find it hard to understand how an intelligent, well-briefed person could continue to believe this, and that in turn makes me wonder just exactly what motivates Hillary’s worldview.

On the right, Daniel Larison, whose foreign policy views are far preferable to what is commonly accepted by conservatives, adds:

In virtually every foreign policy debate, Clinton can be counted on to endorse the more aggressive option available, and she is the least likely to favor making significant changes to the way the U.S. acts overseas. Her judgment has been reliably bad because she buys into conventional, wrong assumptions about the U.S. role in the world and the ability of the U.S. to “shape” events in other countries, and when Obama has come around to her view he has made some of the worst mistakes of his presidency. One would be hard-pressed to find a single instance from her time as Secretary of State when Clinton was on the winning side of a major internal policy debate that didn’t produce poor or disastrous results. If Obama had always sided against Clinton’s preferred course of action, he would have had fewer foreign policy failures and embarrassments.

The article also goes into some depth about her relationship with Gen. Jack Keane. Among other things, it was a briefing from Keane on establishing a “no-fly zone” in Syria that won Clinton over to that reckless position. This is one of Clinton’s main weaknesses: she typically assumes that military options are more efficacious and capable of “solving” problems in foreign conflicts than they are, and it doesn’t seem to take much persuading to get her to endorse an aggressive policy. Clinton normally errs on the side of using force or threatening to use it, and because of that she repeatedly takes the wrong side in debates over whether the U.S. should intervene in another country.

Both assessments above are accurate. Another recent article provides an even scarier insight into how Hillary Clinton thinks about foreign policy. Although it was not Obama’s intention, his discussion of Clinton in an interview  in The Atlantic definitely shows that Clinton is unfit to be president and certainly does not consider war to be a last resort. While many thought it was a good thing when Obama was able to negotiate a way to avoid military intervention in Syria, Clinton was one of those who disagreed:

For some foreign-policy experts, even within his own administration, Obama’s about-face on enforcing the red line was a dispiriting moment in which he displayed irresolution and naïveté, and did lasting damage to America’s standing in the world. “Once the commander in chief draws that red line,” Leon Panetta, who served as CIA director and then as secretary of defense in Obama’s first term, told me recently, “then I think the credibility of the commander in chief and this nation is at stake if he doesn’t enforce it.” Right after Obama’s reversal, Hillary Clinton said privately, “If you say you’re going to strike, you have to strike. There’s no choice.”

No Hillary, if you have a way to accomplish your goals without going to war, you should not go to war. And if you cannot accomplish your goals without going to war, it might be time to reexamine your goals.

Clinton Repeats Old Lies In CNN Debate, Including On Guns And Libya

Last night’s Democratic debate included some of the topics I predicted yesterday, but there were no big new fabrications from Clinton. Instead she once again showed that she does not understand that fact-checkers exist, repeating some of her old lies which have already been debunked. Plus Clinton also showed that she does not understand that there is a permanent record of what she has said in the past as she pretended she has always supported a $15 minimum wage.I can just imagine her as president, going to war with Orwellian claims that We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.

Guns came up once again despite fact-checkers having already debunked her distortions of Sanders’ position. As I pointed out on Wednesday, at least three  major fact-checkers showed that she was playing games with the math to blame guns violence in New York on guns purchased in Vermont.  The Washington Post Fact Checker gave her Three Pinocchios for this lie. Factcheck.org and PolitiFact also criticized her for her distortion with selected statistics, especially as guns from Vermont represent less than two percent of guns recovered and traced in New York. Clinton looks further dishonest when attacking Sanders on guns should voters recall that in 2008 Clinton ran as a self-described pro-gun chruchgoer.

PolitiFact also looked at Clinton’s claim that “Bernie Sanders ‘has been largely a very reliable supporter of the NRA'” yesterday and found it to be Mostly False. They even listed his grades from the NRA:

Year Grade
1992 D
1994 F
1996 F
1998 F
2000 F
2002 F
2004 D+
2006 C-
2012 D-

This hardly looks like a reliable supporter of the NRA.

Clinton also repeated her past distortions of Sanders’ position on Libya. This can turn into a major embarrassment or Clinton should more Democrats look at this issue. While Obama has often disagreed with Clinton on policy and ignored her recommendations, he did make the mistake of going along with her policy on Libya. Foreign Policy looked at how she continues to defend a failed policy in an article this week, also pointing out how she is more interventionist than Donald Trump and Ted Kruz. Making matters worse for Clinton, Obama has acknowledged how much a failure the actions were in an interview in The Atlantic, and called the failure to plan for after the intervention to be the worst mistake of his presidency in an interview with Fox.

Clinton’s strategy to reduce the harm from her mistakes in Libya is to falsely claim that Sanders voted for the policy. FactCheck.org debunked this:

The exchange was initiated by Sanders, who cited a New York Times story that identified Clinton as a key voice in convincing President Obama to topple Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. In an interview on Fox News on April 11, Obama said one of the biggest mistakes of his presidency was “probably failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya.”

During the debate, Sanders said, “Regime change often has unintended consequences in Iraq and in Libya right now, where ISIS has a very dangerous foothold. And I think if you studied the whole history of American involvement in regime change, you see that quite often.”

We took a look at this when the exact same claims were made by both candidates during the sixth Democratic debate. Here are the facts: On March 1, 2011, Sanders cosponsored and voted in favor of Senate Resolution 85. The resolution, which was nonbinding and passed by unanimous consent, called on Gadhafi “to desist from further violence, recognize the Libyan people’s demand for democratic change, resign his position and permit a peaceful transition to democracy. …” So Sanders is correct that the resolution did not explicitly authorize or advocate for military action, though it did call for Gadhafi to resign his position.

In an interview with Fox News in March 2011, Sanders made clear that he was wary of military intervention. “Look, everybody understands Qaddafi is a thug and murderer,” Sanders said. “We want to see him go, but I think in the midst of two wars, I’m not quite sure we need a third war, and I hope the president tells us that our troops will be leaving there, that our military action in Libya will be ending very, very shortly.”

However, as Clinton said, the resolution Sanders cosponsored also urged the United Nations Security Council “to take such further action as may be necessary to protect civilians in Libya from attack, including the possible imposition of a no-fly zone over Libyan territory.” Indeed, a couple weeks later, the Security Council did approve a resolution calling for a no-fly zone and calling on members “to take all necessary measures to protect civilians under threat of attack in the country.”

This is hardly the same as supporting the type of overthrow of a government by force and regime change which was supported by Clinton. Like with Clinton’s support for the war in Iraq and increased US intervention in Syria, Clinton’s policy in Libya was quite different from Sanders’ foreign policy views. Clinton should defend her own views and record, not pretend that Sanders either had the same position (as in Libya) or distort Sanders’ position (as on guns).

Elizabeth Warren Cheers Bernie Sanders On As He Ties Clinton In Latest Poll

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Elizabeth Warren is not willing to make an endorsement yet in the Democratic primary battle, but she is “cheering Bernie on” as she attacks Donald Trump. AP reports:

On Thursday, when asked if Bernie Sanders should drop out of the race, Warren praised the Democratic senator from Vermont.

Sanders has echoed Warren’s criticism of Wall Street and rising student load debt more than any other candidate.

‘‘He’s out there. He fights from the heart. This is who Bernie is,’’ Warren said. ‘‘He has put the right issues on the table both for the Democratic Party and for the country in general so I’m still cheering Bernie on.’’

Warren declined to say which candidate she voted for in the Massachusetts primary. She said she plans to make an endorsement, but not yet.

Perhaps the cheering is helping. Bloomberg has a new poll out showing Sanders tied with Clinton, and Sanders continues to be the stronger general election candidate in match-ups against Republicans:

Even after more than two dozen primaries and caucuses in which Clinton’s amassed a commanding lead in votes and in delegates needed to win the nomination, a Bloomberg Politics national poll found that Sanders is the first choice of 49 percent of those who have voted or plan to vote in this year’s Democratic contests, while the former secretary of state is preferred by 48 percent…

The survey also signaled some trouble for Clinton in holding on to Sanders supporters in November. In general-election match-ups, Sanders holds a 24-point edge over Donald Trump, a 12-point lead over Ted Cruz, and a 4-point advantage over John Kasich among likely general-election voters. Clinton, by contrast, trails Kasich by 4 percentage points. She would carry a sizable lead into a contest against Cruz, where she holds a 9-point advantage, and Trump, whom she beats by 18 points.

There are additional media reports which question if Sanders supporters will back Clinton. With Sanders campaigning out west, the Times of San Diego has run a story under the headline, San Diegans Rally for Bernie, Warn Hillary: Don’t Count on Us. It is also looking like topless women might be a new feature of Sanders rallies.

Sanders also made an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. He discussed the terrorist attack in Brussels. He once again distinguished himself from Clinton, Trump, and Cruz in stressing the importance of respecting the  Constitution. He had this to say about Donald Trump:

At the end of the day, we cannot allow the Trumps of the world to use these incidents to attack all of the Muslim people in the world. It is unfair. To imply that because somebody is a Muslim, they are a terrorist, that is an outrageous statement. Equally so when he talks about Mexicans coming over the border as rapists and criminals. That is not what this country is about, and we don’t need, in my view, a candidate for president hurling these types of insults.

Sanders also talked more about Donald Trump, legalization of marijuana, Flint, and campaign finance reform in the segment above. Regarding climate change, Sanders said:

If you’re going to run for president, you need many, many hundreds of millions of dollars. I’m on the Senate environmental committee. I’ve talked to scientists all over the world. Climate change is real; it’s caused by human activity. And yet you don’t have one Republican candidate prepared to say that. The reason for it is that the day they say it, their campaign funding is cut by the Koch brothers and the fossil fuel industry.

Bernie Sanders Is The Only Candidate To Consider Defending Civil Liberties Following Terrorist Attack

Sanders Passion Civil Liberties

There’s nothing like a terrorist attack to bring out the craziness in Republicans. The terrorist attacks in Brussels resulted in some rather absurd recommendations from the two leading Republican candidates.  Donald Trump called for more torture and closing the borders.

Ted Cruz, who sometimes pretends to be somewhat libertarian, called for a police state, complete with police patrols of Muslim neighborhoods. He also calls for securing the border, despite the Department of Homeland Security having frequently debunked Republican claims of ISIS infiltrating the United States by crossing the border.

The Democratic candidates showed greater sanity. Clinton called closing the borders unrealistic.  Sanders, as usual, took this further than Clinton, seeing the big issue beyond whether matters are realistic. He responding to Cruz by saying, “That would be unconstitutional, it would be wrong.” While I am glad to see that Clinton does not believe that it is realistic to close the borders, she has also sounded alarmingly close to Donald Trump when it comes to the civil liberties issues involved in responding to terrorism, as in this recnt statement:

You’re going to hear all of the usual complaints, you know, freedom of speech, et cetera. But if we truly are in a war against terrorism and we are truly looking for ways to shut off their funding, shut off the flow of foreign fighters, then we’ve got to shut off their means of communicating. It’s more complicated with some of what they do on encrypted apps, and I’m well aware of that, and that requires even more thinking about how to do it.

While Clinton remains the lesser evil in comparison to the Republican candidates, Bernie Sanders is the only candidate to stress civil liberties issues. This is crucial considering the degree to which conservatives (including Clinton) have been quick to abandon civil liberties in response to terrorist threats.

Update: CNN reports, Clinton calls for more surveillance, police after Brussels attacks

After Super Tuesday We Might Be In The Darkest Timeline: Clinton v. Trump

Trump Clinton Celebrity Death Match

Fans of Community are familiar with the concept of the darkest timeline. While nobody has clinched the nomination and there is still time for unexpected events to change the trajectory after Super Tuesday, the most likely outcome of the nomination battles is that we will have a habitual liar and warmonger running for president, and the other candidate will be Donald Trump. The two worst candidates imaginable. We might now be living in the darkest timeline.

Again, nothing is final. Super Tuesday was set up to benefit moderate Democratic candidates who would appeal to the southern states, with party rules set up to hinder liberal nominees even before the games played this election year. Clinton did very well in states she probably has no chance to win in a general election, but it was also disappointing to see both Clinton and Trump win in Massachusetts.

Clinton has more than enough baggage to normally derail any politician but, like Donald Trump, her supporters don’t seem to care what she has done. There is also a remote chance that the Republican race will turn into a two way battle with the survivor being to win enough winner take all states to overcome Trump’s advantage.

One hopeful sign is the amount of donations Sanders has been receiving, receiving over forty million dollars in February alone. Generally, when a candidate loses primaries, they are forced from the race as their money dries up. Sanders has the resources and will be continuing to take on Clinton.

If it is a general election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, one question will be how the nomination process led to the two candidates with the highest negatives for a general election winning each party’s nomination. While the outcome is analogous, the process was completely different. Clinton has benefited from being the establishment candidate in a battle rigged in her favor, without regard to the consequences. Trump has defied the Republican leadership, which has so far been  powerless to get in the way of voters rejecting the establishment.

In other words, the Democratic race has been totally undemocratic, while the Republicans have had a much fairer process. As David Atkins wrote about the Democratic process at Washington Monthly, “The Democratic Party should be true to its name and trust in democracy.”Republican voters have been right in rejecting the establishment, but unfortunately the wrong person has benefited from this.

An election between Clinton versus Trump will very likely break modern records for dishonesty and smears. With each candidate being so disliked on a national level, each will probably try to win by making voters hate the other even more.

We might see a breakdown in the red/blue state divide which has dominated recent elections. It is not unimaginable to see Donald Trump taking New York and the blue portions of the midwest in a battle with Clinton, who already is having problems in the traditional battleground states. On the other hand, Democrats might be lucky if Trump is the nominee as Clinton would have a much harder time beating Cruz or Rubio. The latest CNN poll , along with multiple other recent polls, agrees with this, showing both Sanders and Clinton beating Trump, with Sanders winning by a larger margin, but only Sanders being able to beat Rubio and Cruz.

The real reason that this is the darkest timeline is not the general election, but who we will have to live with as president for at least four years. A Clinton victory means a return to the neoconservative foreign policy view which has resulted in disaster. She will keep us on a path of perpetual warfare and strengthening of the surveillance state. She even received a major neocon endorsement last week. While Donald Trump is less hawkish on paper, I could still see him as being at considerable risk of blundering us into more wars. Both show little regard for First Amendments rights.

We would have a Democratic nominee who has proposed legislation making it a crime to burn flags in protest and a Republican nominee who has proposed limiting entry to the country based upon their religion. Neither is tolerable. I imagine that in the case of Trump we are dealing with what might be campaign hyperbole, versus an actual record on Clinton’s part of proposing restrictions on civil liberties and pushing for greater military intervention, but it is risky to trust that Trump will be more rational if in office. Just like it is risky to believe it when Clinton takes more progressive positions, on limited and selective issues. At least Trump has exposed the problems of big money in politics–not that I would count on him really reforming a system he has benefited from. It is no wonder that I am seeing so much talk about voting for the Green Party recently.

Comparing The Candidates On Military Interventionism & Civil Liberties

Cruz Clinton

Democrats who ignore principle and support Hillary Clinton, despite her authoritarian right views, which are not far from those of the Republican candidates, generally ignore how far right she is on military intervention and civil liberties. If Clinton wins the nomination, she very likely will be as conservative as the Republican candidate on these issues, and possibly more conservative, which is rather disappointing for those of us who hoped to see the Democratic Party present a clear contrast with the Bush/Cheney era.

I recently looked at Clinton’s conservative record on civil liberties, including her being the only Democrat who refused to sign a pledge to restore Constitutional liberties in the 2008 election, her introduction of legislation to criminalize burning the flag in protest, and  how she falls significantly to the right of Antonin Scalia on civil liberties issues, and sounds shockingly like Donald Trump, the candidate of intolerance and authoritarianism,  in her disregard for freedom of speech. (Reason has a comparison of the views of Clinton and Trump posted today. Neither is acceptable.)

Ted Cruz has been seeking the libertarian vote since Rand Paul left the race. Cruz is mocked by libertarians for sometimes claiming to be a libertarian in the same manner which progressives mock Hillary Clinton for her claims to be a progressive. Both are conservatives, and both are far more authoritarian than libertarian.

Justin Amash, a libertarian-leaning Republican, is supporting Ted Cruz now that Rand Paul is out of the race. While he will never sell libertarians in believing Cruz is one of them, his discussion did suggest areas where Clinton is to the right of Ted Cruz on military interventionism and no better on civil liberties:

On civil liberties and foreign policy, Ted and I don’t always agree. But he was one of only ten Republican senators to stand up for our rights by supporting Rand Paul’s amendment to kill the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015—also known as CISA—a cyberspying bill that violates the privacy of all Americans. And Ted has been a stalwart defender of our Fifth Amendment right to due process, strongly opposing the government’s asserted power to indefinitely detain Americans without charge or trial.

Like me, Ted believes that the United States must be well defended and respected around the globe. He stands with our troops and will not put them in harm’s way unless necessary to protect our country. Unlike some other Republican candidates, Ted opposed intervening in Libya and voted against arming Syrian rebels, and he will not use our Armed Forces to engage in nation building.

The failed intervention in Libya was the low point of Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State and her position on Syria was a key issue where she differed from both Obama and Sanders. As for CISA, Bernie Sanders was strongly opposed, as he has opposed other legislation which would expand the surveillance state. Hillary Clinton, who is generally quite conservative on matters of government surveillance and censorship, repeatedly refused to answer questions as to her position while the Republican candidates, other than Rand Paul, all supported it. Amash was also overly kind to Cruz. While he might have voted for Rand Paul’s amendment, in the end Cruz voted for the act despite admitting he did not read it. Neither Clinton nor Cruz can be trusted on matters of civil liberties.

With the libertarian case of Cruz falling apart, this leaves us with Bernie Sanders as the only candidate now running who has been consistently opposed to both military interventionism and the surveillance state. While there is a strong case to be made that the risk of perpetual warfare is greater by electing Clinton, Sanders is the only candidate from either party who will prevent the expansion of the surveillance state.