Tag Archive: Ralph Nader

The best way to protest is to vote smart

Anti-Trump protest, January 2017

Anti-Trump protest, January 2017

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

–George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905

Massive protests are planned in Washington, D.C. and around the country against tomorrow’s inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the United States. Most of the people who will be protesting are on the political left. How many of these people voted against or publicly attacked Hillary Clinton when she was the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee? How many of them didn’t vote at all? If they did those things, they helped elect Trump. Protesting now is certainly in the American tradition, but voting smarter in the first place would have greatly reduced the number of things against which to protest, or even eliminated the need to protest at all.

Hillary Clinton moves into general election mode

Hillary Clinton speaking in Durham, NC

Hillary Clinton speaking in Durham, NC

Hillary Clinton gave a speech in Madison, Wisconsin on Monday, in which she blasted Republicans for refusing to consider President Barack Obama‘s U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. Likewise, Clinton has released a new ad focusing on New Yorkers, and specifically attacking Donald Trump. Clinton’s new focus on Trump, the Republicans and Supreme Court nominations — one of a president’s most important Constitutional powers — seems to represent a shift from the presidential primaries to the general election.

Reasons 1-5 why Bernie Sanders is losing the Democratic presidential nomination

Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders

The term the pundits are using now to describe Bernie Sanders‘ chances of winning the Democratic Party presidential nomination is “nearly impossible.” Looking at the cold hard math of the Democratic Party nomination process, especially the proportional rather than winner-take-all awarding of state “pledged” delegates, we agree. If Hillary Clinton does capture the requisite majority of delegates as expected, the blame game will begin as to why Sanders lost. Here, in no particular order, are the first five reasons for Sanders’ failure: