BloggeRhythms

Two items in today’s news provide insight into underlying factors that will likely have significant effect on the upcoming presidential election. 

James Pheby of AFP @yahoo.com via Drudge, writes about trends in the UK and Europe where voters face significant problems much like those here in the US, and are finally doing something about it. 

According to Mr. Pheby, political analysts say that Britain’s venerable Labour Party, founded in 1900, faces electoral oblivion despite Jeremy Corbyn’s victory last week over a centrist MP angry at his part in the shock Brexit vote. 

The party’s “dismal standing in the opinion polls is mirrored across Europe.

“As with Labour, Spain's Socialist Party is in the grip of a fratricidal war over the performance of its leader, Pedro Sanchez, at a time of national crisis. 

“In Germany, the Social Democratic Party has lost half its members since 1998. 

“In France, President Francois Hollande is the most unpopular president in his country's modern history and would be routed if he stands in next year's presidential elections, according to opinion polls. 

“Centre-left parties recently lost power in Denmark, a stronghold of social democracy, and registered their worst-ever results in Finland and Poland. In Greece, support for the once dominant Pasok has plunged to just six percent. 

"Social democracy is a shadow of itself," German political analyst Albrecht von Lucke said on NDR television channel. "We are dealing with decline of historic proportions." 

The major reasons for the huge decline in popularity stems from globalisation and immigration which “has become a lightning rod for anger, with older manual workers blaming an influx of foreign labour for job insecurity and lower wages. 

“Put together, these have savaged the credibility of the "third-way" politics championed by Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and other Social Democrats once ruling Europe whose models “embraced capitalism, globalisation and vast public spending programmes to vacuum up votes among both the comfortable middle classes and industrial heartlands during the booming 1990s and early 2000s.”

Mr. Pheby’s next point’s the one that compares almost precisely to the political atmosphere here in the US: “Right across Europe, you've had a trend for new parties to set up with an activist base," said Patrick Dunleavy of the London School of Economics (LSE), citing Podemos in Spain, Italy's Five-Star movement and Syriza in Greece.

"There's been a tendency for parties that were much more digitally organised, and much more aiming at recruiting a mass membership." Which is very much like the approach currently taken by Trump. 

One of the best analyses of the situation came from a reader, Neil, who wrote: “The globalist left has become arrogant and pushed too far, they forgot that their real agendas were realized through deceit, manipulation and propaganda. 

“You can sell most people on wild fantasies of a utopian future but when decade after decade when their standard of living doesn't rise and neither do the sea levels but their taxes astronomically do, (yes I mean the man made global warming myth) while the elites wealth skyrockets and they look down their uplifted noses at you and sneer, people start to see. 

“The final straw is of course the arrogant globalist left's all in push with the rapefugees , you can't flood people's homelands with millions of their natural enemies, let those enemies rob, rape, murder and generally brutalize the natives, while the elites who live in their protected enclaves along with their media/press allies, first ignore, downplay, even attempt to hide the crimes of the invaders from the victims...for long. In the globalist left's arrogance and frustration they call you xenophobes, fascists and for NOT embracing the madness. 

“Make no mistake this isn't only about economics, not by a long shot, this is about people's very survival and even most sheep eventually realize they are in the line for the slaughter.

“The only question is it too late for Europe, for the UK, for the US?” 

Though a bit long in the writing, Neil captured the subject quite well. 

And then, as if to underline Neil’s point, there’s another piece from AFP @yahoo.com via Drudge regarding globalization.

 

“The US government on Saturday ended its formal oversight role over the internet, handing over management of the online address system to a global non-profit entity. 

“The US Commerce Department announced that its contract had expired with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages the internet's so-called "root zone." 

“That leaves ICANN as a self-regulating organization that will be operated by the internet's "stakeholders" -- engineers, academics, businesses, non-government and government groups. 

“The move is part of a decades-old plan by the US to "privatize" the internet, and backers have said it would help maintain its integrity around the world. 

“US and ICANN officials have said the contract had given Washington a symbolic role as overseer or the internet's "root zone" where new online domains and addresses are created. 

“But critics, including some US lawmakers, argued that this was a "giveaway" by Washington that could allow authoritarian regimes to seize control.” 

In this case, while there may be very little real risk of “authoritarian regimes” seizing control of the Internet, there was no pressing need to let US contract lapse. Because, other than the appearance of being magnanimous toward the rest of the world, there was no rational purpose to cede authority to others. However, for this administration, “image” is all that’s ever mattered. Facts and substance very rarely, if ever, enter the picture.   

 

Bringing us to today’s update on Bill Clinton’s wife, this one concerning Bernie Sanders. 

Sanders defended Bill’s wife today as “the "superior" candidate for president, despite admitting that he was bothered by newly-leaked audio of her mocking his supporters.” 

In an audio recording released Friday, she “could be heard telling donors at a fundraiser in February that Sanders supporters were "children of the Great Recession" who "live in their parents' basement[s]." 

Asked during an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union" whether the audio bothered him, Sanders responded: "Well, look, of course it does." 

"But we were in the middle of a campaign and … in some of the statements that I made about Hillary Clinton, you can see real differences," he quickly added. "So we have differences. There's nothing to be surprised about. That's what a campaign is all about." 

In her defense Sanders said: "There are young people who went deeply into debt, worked very hard to get an education and yet they're getting out of school and can't find decent paying jobs," Sanders said, adding that "they are living in their parents' basement" and it will take a "political revolution" to fix that "major problem." 

And then, Sanders issued one of the most inane premises of the entire campaign to date, saying: “This is what the message would be: take a hard look not at Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump," Sanders responded. "Take a hard look at the needs of the American people … and after you take a hard look at their positions on the issues, you will find that Clinton is far and away the superior candidate." 

So, here we have Sanders in effect saying that Bill’s wife, who admittedly cannot and will not provide the additional benefits sought by her constituents although she’ll continue to lie about it, is still best for the “American people.” While on the other hand, It's Trump who's offered proven, economically sound, solutions.  

And if that doesn’t make Sanders and his candidate of choice two of the biggest frauds that ever ran for the Oval Office, it would be hard to find something else that does. But that’s been the Democrats problem for years whereas their party is composed primarily of self-serving, incompetent hacks. 

Which brings us back to the ongoing question. Because, although all these others are weasels themselves, they’re still half a step up from the current front-runner. Joe Biden, Jerry Brown, and Starbucks chairman and CEO, Howard Schultz; are you guys reading this?     

That's it for today folks.      

Adios