Thoughts on potential Democratic presidential candidates [View all]
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/chris-floyd/89287/blowing-in-the-whirlwind-as-ye-sow-joe-shall-ye-reap
Chris Floyd in "The Smirking Chimp"
"There seems to be the feeling that we cant really do anything at all about the problems that are bearing down on us like a runaway train climate disruption and all its ever-rippling repercussions; the rise of hyper-powerful rich elites manipulating our increasingly hollowed-out institutions for their own benefit; the economic demise of industry after industry, region after region, community after community; the endless wars, covert and overt, with their gargantuan corruption and pointless cycles of violence; the healthcare atrocities that leave millions of people literally begging on the internet to obtain even the barest minimum of medical help, and so on. In the face of all this, many people long to embrace some figure or another who promises us a return to the status quo: either some mythologized post-war era when America was great, or just back to the Obama years, when things were normal.
Overwhelmed, battered, beset, anxiety-ridden, suffering, confused, many people dont want to hear that hard work and big changes will be necessary if we are to have a chance for things to get better. They just want to latch on to something that will let them feel if only for a moment that the anxiety can go away, that someone up there in the circles of power will take care of it for us.
This is not the wisest course when faced with overwhelming crises but it is an entirely natural and understandable one. When you couple this natural reaction to extremity with the aforementioned systematic effort to undermine and thwart the Sanders campaign, then its not surprising you end up with a blank screen like Joe Biden as your candidate.
And consider this: the blank screen of Donald Trump has now had four years in power, yet still those overwhelming, battering, confusing anxieties have not gone away indeed, theyve only multiplied. In this situation, its entirely possible, perhaps even likely, that enough people will turn away from the torn screen of Trump and try a new cure for their anxiety."