thejoker123
thejoker123's JournalMy horror story is your good news DU'ers!
So I live just outside of Philly. I REALLY wanted to go to the rally tonight, but my wife had a rare evening appointment and I was on kid duty. I could have asked my parents to watch the kids, only problem is Monday's are the day my parents already watch the kids all day for us (saves us $500 a month on daycare!). Since my parents aren't spring chickens any more, and my kids are total handfuls, I decided I couldn't ask them.
But then around 2:30PM, I had a sudden case of the fuck-its. I called my mom, asked for the favor, and she obliged.
So I finished up some work, packed a backpack, jumped on the train and was down at Independence Hall by 4:30 or so.
I walked up to the security entrance, and saw a line. The line stretched down the street and truned the corner.
"Ok" I thought. I got plenty of time to stand in a line.
So I, as well as hundreds of others in front and behind me, followed the line down the street and turned the corner. The line went on.
So we walked. And we walked. And we walked. We got to South Street and thought, surely the end in near. It was not.
Several blocks later, we got to Washington Ave, now some 1.2 miles from the gate, and thought, surely this is the end! It was not. And keep in mind, this was not a single file line, this was a line that was 3-6 people WIDE the entire way. It was amazing.
So we turned town Washington, and started making our way through the Italian Market (where Rocky ran for reference) and I thought, this is fucking insane. I've been to crazy rallies and epic concerts, and I had never seen anything like this. It was now nearly 6PM, and I realized there was no way in hell any of us were getting anywhere near the rally. Security alone would take hours and hours to process these tens of thousands of people.
Suddenly it dawned on me that I now risked not only not getting into the rally, but not even being able to watch it on TV. So after a moment of evaluating the options, I started hauling ass back to the train station. The whole time I passed a steady stream of hundreds and hundreds of people, probably numbering in the thousands, all walking the other way, looking for the alleged end of the line. The poor things, they had no idea how futile their mission was.
When I got to Jefferson Station, still more and more Hillary supporters were piling off the train at 6:30. Friends. Moms with their daughters. Whole families. All audibly excited about "heading to the rally".
"You FOOLS!" I wanted to yell, but why rain on their parade.
Suffice to say, I caught the express and was back at my car, a mere 10 minutes from my house, within 30 minutes.
Minus a quick stop off at ye old wine shoppe, I arrived home a half hour ago. Just enough time to feed and walk the dog, kiss my kids goodnight, sit my ass down in front of my TV, and quickly let everyone at Democratic Underground know....
Hillary is going to fucking roll Trump in Philly!
Cheers!!!!!
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[/IMG]Drink and be merry tonight DU'ers, here's why
Trump will lose and lose badly on Tuesday, and the overriding factor will be thanks to the "Democratic machine".
That's what conservatives like my brother call the powerful Democratic voter registration and get-out-the-vote ground game.
It's meant to have a negative connotation, of course, as if such activism is somehow nefarious in nature. The reality is that when viewed through a historical lens, the superior Democratic ground game is actually the natural culmination of a well functioning democracy.
Over the last century, liberals have always fought against the ruling establishment for the oppressed and the powerless. Whether it was women, workers, minorities or gays, liberals have always needed to furiously organize and mobilize at a local level to effect change - be it union strikes, bus boycotts, equal rights, and yes, elections. And the foundation of all of those efforts still exists.
They've in fact, coalesced, and come together over the years. And that is the aforementioned "Democratic Machine" so feared and hated by the right. This is why states like Pennsylvania, with its' strongholds in blue collar Philly and Pittsburgh, are unobtainable for Republicans, no matter how much they dream.
Meanwhile, through most of our history, the white ruling class has had no need for any such ground operation. Well, until now.
Now America has become a little more brown. Now America has become a little more tolerant. Now suddenly, the majority of the voters are not lock step behind them simply because of their color and religion.
And so they have found themselves basically fucked.
So they went after ACCORN. They've instituted various voter ID laws to try to keep the black and minority vote down. They've cut back on early voting, they've purged the voter registration roles.
But none of it will work my friends.
The "Democratic Machine" will deliver a swift, massive victory for Hillary Clinton because of the brilliancy of our democracy.
Cheers.
The ugly, unspoken truth about this election.
While much of Donald Trump's support can be squarely pegged on decades of Republican racist rhetoric and xenophobic fear mongering, as well as our furiously partisan electorate, it doesn't entirely explain why the polls are tightening in a race between Hillary Clinton and a man so utterly deplorable that he would be over the top for a Saturday morning cartoon villain.
In my opinion, the silent driver responsible for this being a 3-5 point race instead of 20 point blowout, which few in the media have dared to touch on, is sexism, plain and simple. Some of it overt, some of it in the collective subconscious of the electorate.
As it was/is with President Obama and is now with Hillary, at the end of the day a significant number of Americans consider a white man, no matter how flawed, as superior to either a black man or a woman.
Not surprisingly, our voting electorate is simply mirroring life, where both people of color and women have to perform at significantly higher levels, if not at near perfection, to get the same respect that white men are handed as a birthright.
So while scores of voters are willing to forgive or justify or look the other way on Trump's most disturbing and egregious behaviors and actions, Hillary is ceremoniously crucified for even the smallest mistake or misstep.
In my opinion, this is also why the polls keep swinging so wildly. Why a decent number of people keep coming back to Trump after temporarily being offended by him, especially after any negative story about Hillary, regardless of how comically frivolous that story may be.
They want to want Trump over Hillary. They have begged him to please just shut up for a few weeks so they don't have to deal with their conscience or their spouse or their friends or their children reminding them of just how vile and unfit for office Trump really is.
At the same time, they desperately look for a reason, any reason, to justify in their minds that Hillary is actually worse, thus allowing them to escape the unavoidable, ugly truth about what is really driving them to such an indefendable, illogical, immoral position.
Here is an excellent piece from Salon today that discusses the infuriating double standard being displayed this election. It begins to touch on the sexism piece, but unfortunately doesn't go nearly far enough.
http://www.salon.com/2016/11/01/its-different-for-the-donald-the-old-rules-only-apply-to-hillary-clinton-the-tbt-time-before-trump-candidate/
Quiz for the Ignorant American
How I wish I could make every American take this.
Which former Secretary of State not only used a personal email account on a non-secure server to conduct day to day business, but actually deleted all of them at the end of their term, never turning in a single one?
1) Colin Powell (Republican)
2) John Kerry (Democrat)
3) Condoleezza Rice (Republican)
4) Hillary Clinton (Democrat)
Answer: Colin Powell, Republican Secretary of State, during the run up to Iraq War
http://www.newsweek.com/…/colin-powell-emails-hillary-clint…
http://www.politico.com/…/colin-powell-personal-email-secre…
Which former Secretary of State gave instructions to their newly appointed predecessor on how to set up private email?
1) Colin Powell (Republican)
2) John Kerry (Democrat)
3) Condoleezza Rice (Republican)
4) Hillary Clinton (Democrat)
Answer: Colin Powell, Republican Secretary of State,
http://www.cnn.com/…/p…/hillary-clinton-colin-powell-emails/
Which White House secretly utilized a private server, and when subpoenaed by Congress to submit those emails during an investigation deleted tens of millions of them?
1) George W Bush
2) Barack Obama
3) Bill Clinton
Answer: George Bush’s White House
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…/…/04/11/AR2007041102167.html
Which modern era former presidents initiated a global initiative/charity which worked with foreign governments and business leaders to effect change in poverty stricken nations?
1) Jimmy Carter
2) Bill Clinton
3) George H Bush Sr
4) Ronald Reagan
Answer: All of the above
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Member since: Tue Nov 5, 2013, 09:34 PMNumber of posts: 279
