The Establishment's Sanders' Hysteria, False Consciousness - And Political -Ideological Ignorance

One example of the batshit insane hysteria surrounding Sanders, which conflated his democratic socialism with communism.

"Because we are perpetually battling for self-preservation. Life has become a kind of brutal combat to the death. For jobs, for healthcare, for money, for the tiniest shreds of resources necessary to live. We wake up and fight one another for these things, over and over again. That is what our lives amount to now — gladiatorial combat. Meanwhile, elites and billionaires sit back and enjoy not just the spectacle — but the winnings.  People who are battling for self-preservation can’t take care of anyone else. If I ask the average American to consider paying for their society’s healthcare,education, elderly care, childcare, increasingly, the answer is: LOL.   

What does the average American aspire to be, do, have? To be rich, powerful, careless, selfish, and dumb, now, mostly. We don’t, as societies or cultures, value learning or knowledge or magnanimity or great and noble things, anymore. We shower millions on reality TV stars and billions on “investment bankers.” The average person has become a tiny microcosm of the aspirations and norms of elites — they’re not curious, empathetic, decent, humane, noble, kind, in pursuit of wisdom, truth, beauty, meaning, purpose. We’ve become cruel, indecent, obscene, comically shallow, and astonishingly foolish people. That’s not some kind of jeremiad. It’s an objective, easily observed truth. "  -  Umair Haque, essay, 'This Is How A Society Dies'

"I personally believe Bernie is as far left as you can go, but hey, it's for the greater good!"   Jessica Slovak, an RN who caucused for Bernie Sanders 4 years ago, as reported in Denver Post, Sunday,  Feb. 16th, p. 5A.


"Someone has to stop Bernie Sanders!"  "No one is doing enough to stop Sanders!"   "Republicans are salivating over a Sanders' nomination!"   "Bernie is going to burn the house down!"

It appears now that the  mind virus of Sanders hysteria is almost as prevalent as Co-VID 19, the coronavirus. The litany of anti-Sanders complaints from the pundits, last night post-debate and in the papers, has my head spinning. Like, WTF happened to the WILL OF THE PEOPLE?  Does that not count any more in a supposedly democratic process?  If the votes and will of the majority of primary voters are with Sanders then what the hell are all these gloomy Gusses and Nervous Nellies yelping about?

Oh it's the socialism thing!  Americans are terrified of socialism and will never vote for a socialist candidate!  Says who?   And if there are Americans that "think" that way, 75 percent according to Claire McCaskill and one debate moderator (Chuck Todd) then it shows their political education is wanting and they need to be more fully informed. I would add that IF indeed so many 'Muricans are averse to the democratic socialism advocated by Bernie Sanders then they are victims of false consciousness.   And only such victims could be swayed during a hard campaign when Dotard begins to call Sanders a "communist".

How did so many become victims of this mindrot? I suspect much of the malady derives from the victims'  own economic and political ignorance.  For example, as a first test, ask ten Americans off the street what economic  class they belong to. Nine of ten, or more likely all ten, will say "middle class" - even if unemployed for a year, on food stamps, and about to have a home foreclosed.

A more concrete study of class in relation to income level was a (2003) survey conducted by The Economic Policy Institute. It asked generally where people thought they were in the economic spectrum: upper 1% (earning $320,000 year or more); upper 5% (> $80,000) or where?

A full 19% in this random survey claimed they were in the privileged class of the top 1%. A virtual statistical impossibility in any random study.  If those pathetic stats don't show clearly how too many Americans aspire to be "rich and powerful" - like the elites (as pointed out in the essay This Is How A Society Dies'  by Umair Haque (see top quote) I don't know what does.  Our very materialist aspirations corrupt and undermine our rational, realistic assessments of our own station.  And paves the way for the brutal, incomprehensible way we distrust and seek to denigrate others - especially immigrants - who threaten (we believe) a piece of our pie.  By extension it shows also how so many could have voted for a plutocratic con man swine like Trump.

In fact, internal survey cross-check questions on income category showed many of these working at a little above minimum wage, and even the highest were at barely $44,000/yr. Nowhere near the 1% threshold! Other commentators on this study (e.g. Froma Harrop, Ellen Goodman) pointed to this ignorance as a basis for supporting such crap as the Bush tax cuts, which overwhelmingly favored the rich elites. Thus:

A) They didn't know where they themselves fit, and indeed inflated their wealth and positions and

B) they actually believed they'd be millionaires one fine day and be able to partake of the tax cuts. (Or 'death tax' benefits).

In fact, they were deliriously out of touch with reality. As author Michael Parenti has noted ('The Dirty Truth') 94% of all wealth comes by way of inheritance, not paid work. So, they are fooling themselves. Unless they have a rich elder relative hidden away with a vast fortune, they'd be better off thinking they may have to work until they're 70 or 80 and even that may not be enough to stay in place.

But sadly, the Overclass and its minions (including the GOP Party, a basic "sub-division") consistently get working class folk to act against their own vested interests by distracting them with moralism ploys - raising "moral" issues like abortion, porn, gays and what not - just long enough so that many working class voters keep they're eyes off the ball when election day arrives. Then these workers wonder why they never get ahead. 

 Trump used the same ruse or con (in 2016)  in getting working class voters to believe he'd deliver millions of jobs for them, or let them keep old line,  retreating fare like coal mining.  They fell for this ploy hook, line and sinker and even appear in some states (e.g. Wisconsin)  prepared to fall for it again.  Guess they never heard of the old 'fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, shame on you' etc. routine.

 The  combination of economic ignorance and falling prey to moralism ploys  has paved the way for Overclass propagandizers to succeed in sowing false consciousness.  First we need to know what false consciousness is.

'False consciousness' is the term given to a false information system that's been absorbed in part or whole, either osmotically or via direct mental ingestion, by the majority of a population. It has specific uses in our Corporatocracy to mislead a population about how things actually work, and also on the basic economic and other data which are used to formulate policies. I touched on a number of the inherent economic lies and disinformation ploys in my earlier blog:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/09/economic-lies-distortions-and.html

But realize these distortions are just the tip of the iceberg.

For example, the effects of language and PR debasement of reality extend to the whole political system which can best be described as one of legally sanctioned, corporate-fuelled bribery. While citizens do get to vote every two or four years, in reality it's only to choose their next set of Overseers, errr....Overclass masters.

In the case of the current resistance to Sanders, it's clear a lot of it is led and promoted by cable news gasbags...errrr... anchors with nothing more edifying to do, e.g.

2020 Elections | Bernie Sanders | Media

The Resistance to Sanders Is Led by Cable News Anchors

Thus one reads from the above blog post:

"The real resistance by Democratic leaders, of course, is to its own base of anti-Establishment voters, candidates and office-holders, a resistance that's been too well documented to be repeated here. One of those candidates, Bernie Sanders, is right now making a credible threat to take over the Party in the name of that anti-Establishment base — an outcome that all donor-defending Democrats look upon with horror.

But what can they do, aside from the odd and opportune tilting of the balance? If they declare outright war — instead of the obvious but pretend-covert war they're now waging — they risk making a mockery of their own battle cries, Blue No Matter Who and Unity Unity Unity.

Enter the next line of defense, the Party-supporting mainstream press, including and especially cable news channels CNN and MSNBC. The real resistance for now against the Sanders-led revolt against the swamp in which they all swim has been handed off to Chuck Todd, Jake Tapper and all the colleagues and "analysts" who occupy million-dollar seats on TV's cable news stations."

Two other examples on display, this time from MSNBC,  of the anti-Sanders hysteria from the same piece:

"Chris Matthews waxed apoplectic about what electing a socialist could mean for America. “I have an attitude towards [Fidel] Castro,” he said. “I believe if Castro and the Reds had won the Cold War there would have been executions in Central Park, and I might have been one of the ones getting executed. And certain other people would be there cheering, OK?” Matthews’s colleagues pointed out that Sanders was more of a Danish type of socialist than a Castro type of socialist, but to little avail.

Two days later, James Carville, Bill Clinton’s former campaign guru, went on Morning Joe to rant about how a Sanders nomination would bring about the apocalypse. Literally. “The only thing between the United States and the abyss is the Democratic Party,” he said. “That’s it. If we go the way of the British Labour Party, if we nominate Jeremy Corbyn, it’s going to be the end of days.”

So when I hear comments like that offered by Real Clear Politics' pundit A.B. Stoddard last night, that "no one tried to stop Bernie", it tells me she has zero comprehension of the democratic process.  Also, that she is more an overclass tool than an objective observer. IF a majority of primary voters opt for Bernie then, why the fuss? That is the will of the plurality of voters at least for now,  so deal with it.

The hair on fire screeching by the cable gasbags is also egregious because it doesn't recognize that socialism isn't the problem - but rather the 'dog eat dog' form of capitalism that is holding away.  The one so many in our land now embrace, and described to a tee by Umair Haque in the top most quote.  The Democrats, supposedly the party of the little guy and greater social justice, had better grasp this and pull their heads out of their collective,  residual "overclass' asses before Super Tuesday.  By which I mean finally acknowledging Sen. Sanders has every right to be the front runner and without being vilified, i.e. being accused of "burning down the house", demolishing any chance to remove the human excrement from the WH -  or any other bullshit. Especially if he has a plurality of primary voters backing him.

Ezra Klein on Real Time a week ago put it best when he noted the best way to get the Trumpists and Repukes "on their back feet " in defensive mode.  That is, for the Dems to make their campaign about Medicare, Social Security and Trump's record in attempting to destroy them. This, coincidentally, is also Bernie Sanders forte given he is the best fighter for these already established and accepted forms of socialism.  Klein also agrees this motif- and Sanders' consistent associated refrains to do with it -  may be the best way to render Doturd a one term wonder.

Get the hell behind him, Dems, or get the hell out of the way!


See also:

2020 Elections | Bernie Sanders | Democrats

Sanders Gives the Democrats Legitimacy

And:

Bernie Sanders

Paul Krugman on This Bernie Sanders and Socialism Thing

And:

2020 Elections | Democrats

Here Are 3 Winners and 3 Losers from the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary Debate

The Clueless Media Are Not Our Friends As House Judiciary Meets To Write Articles of Impeachment For Trump The Demagogue

"Trump the demagogue can bully his party into being an instrument of his will, silencing or driving out dissenters. Republican officeholders know that Mr. Trump can take to Twitter or to Fox News or to the podium at rallies — or all of the above — to excoriate them for a weak will or disloyalty.

This is how the Republican Party has become Mr. Trump’s party. It is also why that party will not conceive of its role in impeachment as entailing a constitutional responsibility independent of the president’s political and personal interests.." -  Bob Bauer, 'Trump Is The Founders' Worst Nightmare',     NY Times editorial, Monday

"The two things the founders feared most were a lawless president operating with impunity (a de facto King) and interference from a foreign government."  Frank Tapy, Denver Post letters, p. 3K, Dec.. 1)

"Since the Bill Clinton days, the Republican Party has increasingly resorted to using false narratives, misinformation and outright lies to advance its political agendas....What has been revealed is a president surrounded by characters who, themselves, have been suspected of criminal activity. or convicted of the same.

What is it that the Republican Party doesn't get about Donald J. Trump? Make America Great Again? I don't think so".  Gary E. Goms, Denver Post letters, P. 3K, Dec. 1)


Blogger and media specialist Eric Boehlert is spot on when he observed in a recent post, e.g.

Impeachment Hearings Confirm Republican Party Is Detached from Reality. What Does the Press Do Now?

" How does the Beltway media cover a party that has aggressively removed itself from reality? How does the news business describe and treat a political party that routinely echoes the most unbelievable claims from Fox News and the darkest corners of the right-wing media?

The truth is, this is a decades long game of dare that Republicans have been playing with the press, as members of the party uniformly become more radical and more antidemocratic, and basically challenge the press to call them out, knowing full well it won't happen. That's because the Beltway press basically revolves around the central idea that there are two major competing parties in this country and that they are mirror opposites of each other. Republicans are just as conservative as Democrats are liberal. 

Republicans are just as serious as Democrats are. Republicans are just as fact-based and honorable as Democrats are. That false equivalency drives political coverage in this country, and has for decades. "

In a previous post (Nov. 25th) , I had pointed out that if the Senate Republicans make use of  false conspiracy narratives spread by the GRU and ancillary assets- i.e.   in any impeachment trial-   then they are doing Russia's work for them to destroy our own nation. They are  then all traitors and need to be treated as such, no exceptions.    Sadly, the corporate media continue to act as enablers and accessories after the fact by giving credence to the GOP's claims almost every time they air any impeachment report, or the specious "defenses" of Trump.  Including the latest iteration that his blatant quid pro quo was purely apolitical and valid.  Yet, despite knowing the game being played on them, the media willingly play along not only giving this endless rubbish air time, but Trump's further lies and distractions as well.

My beef?  The mainstream corporate media basically treats him - and his GOP enablers and defenders-  way too seriously.  This despite the fact, as Boehlert notes, the Repukes are just playing with the press, having them on - turning them into a de facto  propaganda arm of their morally bankrupt party.    The latest stunt by these trolls is producing a farcical 123-page "prebuttal" - which is basically a farrago of strawmen and red herrings -   insisting the  orange ape fouling the White House "did nothing wrong", absolutely nothing improper.  The House Dems were involved in a "sham" and "witch hunt" to persecute little Donnie Dotard.  They expect 20 million morons (or more) will believe attempted extortion, i.e if you got nothing from it, is just fine and dandy.

Here's the rub.  The "people" (media, the press) who should be condemning his vile behavior,  marginalizing his tweets or at least checking him when he grants them interviews and lies through his teeth, aren't .   You doubt that? Then you missed  former RNC chief Reince Priebus as the guest on CBS' Morning show on November 22nd.   Priebus, as expected, spun the trope there was "no direct evidence" given Trump never said the specific "magic" words ('I hereby order you to do a quid pro quo' for me!') to any of the witnesses. The questions then asked by the 3 CBS hosts were all softball types, so Reince could laugh his way out of it, leaving the CBS trio sucking air.  Given Priebus was never seriously challenged his claims hung in the media 'air' like memetic hobgoblins ready to be imbibed by any viewer not trained to parse political spin or B.S.  

One sole exception I saw on  'Meet the Press' was anchor Chuck Todd finally exposing Sen. John Kennedy (R, LA)  for the asswipe conspiracy monger he really is.  He told the yahoo "You understand the only other person selling this argument outside the U.S. is this man, Vladimir Putin" - showing the image of him on a screen.)

Sadly, such contamination as pushed by Kennedy is piling up even as we approach the end of formal impeachment hearings, with the House Judiciary Committee meeting to begin tomorrow.  But the media landscape has already been polluted by so many GOP lies, diversions, character assassinations, red herrings and misinformation one can barely keep track of it.  It seems every other day the Reeptards change their Trump defense to a new, hitherto unseen cobbling of codswallop.  As Michael Steele, former RNC head put it last night on 'All In':  "Kennedy is simply trying to gum it all up, mix up so much stuff no one will understand anything."  

Maybe. But that's also where the press must come in to fulfill its responsibility to highlight what's valid, and ignore what's not, i.e. the carny barker shouting in the rear to take note of that 2-headed fat lady with the beard, fish scales and flippers.

A first start is to  robustly defend the House Intelligence Committee's report (based on  two months of public and private testimony )    while also  skewering the Reeptards' sham counter report as the laughable bollocks it really is. In other words, refuse to report the latter as serious or remotely justified.

Eric Boehlert in his latest blog post,

Donald Trump | Impeachment

Half of America Wants Trump Removed from Office. Why Does the Press Keep Shrugging That Off?

Writes:

"With the House Judiciary Committee poised to take up the impeachment baton and hold a new round of public hearings this month, the Beltway press continues to absorb and echo Republican talking points that claim the inquiry isn't resonating with Americans. Because impeachments aren’t legal proceedings, the messaging wars that surround them take on added importance. And right now, by treating as no big deal the fact that basically half the country supports removing the president of the United States from office, the media is greatly helping Republicans spread their preferred impeachment message: The inquiry isn't resonating." 

By effectively diminishing the import of the Repukes' claims, and minimizing the need for impeachment, the press-media plays directly into the demagogue's hands.    Bob Bauer in his NY Times editorial piece yesterday fired a shot over the bow of every sleepwalking citizen who is blithely ignoring this critical moment in our history.  One in which history will later ask, 'Why didn't these people do something? Why didn't they more aggressively push for Trump's impeachment?'

As Bauer wrote:

"The founders feared the demagogue, who figures prominently in the Federalist Papers as the politician who, possessing “perverted ambition,” pursues relentless self-aggrandizement “by the confusions of their country.” The last of the papers, Federalist No. 85, linked demagogy to its threat to the constitutional order — to the “despotism” that may be expected from the “victorious demagogue.” 

This “despotism” is achieved through systematic lying to the public, vilification of the opposition and, as James Fenimore Cooper wrote in an essay on demagogues, a claimed right to disregard “the Constitution and the laws” in pursuing what the demagogue judges to be the “interests of the people.”

Should the demagogue succeed in winning the presidency, impeachment in theory provides the fail-safe protection. And yet the demagogue’s political tool kit, it turns out, may be his most effective defense. It is a constitutional paradox: The very behaviors that necessitate impeachment supply the means for the demagogue to escape it.

As the self-proclaimed embodiment of the American popular will, the demagogue portrays impeachment deliberations as necessarily a threat to democracy, a facade for powerful interests arrayed against the people that only he represents. Critics and congressional opponents are traitors. Norms and standing institutional interests are fraudulent. President Trump has made full use of the demagogic playbook. He has refused all cooperation with the House. He lies repeatedly about the facts, holds public rallies to spread these falsehoods and attacks the credibility, motives and even patriotism of witnesses. His mode of “argument” is purely assaultive. This is the crux of the Trump defense, and not an argument built on facts in support of a constitutional theory of the case.."

The preceding section of the editorial ought to be read and re-read by all sentient Americans, and processed as to how and why we have reached such a perilous moment in the Republic.  Also, the severe consequences - the unthinkable ones - if this moment for reckoning passes with barely a shrug. Again, also owing to the lackadaisical efforts of much of the media.  

To quote WaPo columnist Margaret Sullivan (Nov. 10):

"The national media’s shortcomings have been all too obvious in recent years as Donald Trump has gleefully thrown the norms of traditional journalism into a tizzy.  They’ve trafficked in false equivalence. Allowed President Trump to play assignment editor. Gotten mired in pointless punditry."

The two other malignant aspects of our time, referenced by Bauer, include:

1)  That we have a fractured media environment in which "it is possible to construct alternative pictures of social realities."

2) We have a weak political party (Republicans) who now fall quickly into line with a demagogue able to bring intense pressure on them if they diverge from his orders.  In the words of Bauer:

"As we have seen with Mr. Trump, the demagogue can bully his party into being an instrument of his will, silencing or driving out dissenters. Republican officeholders know that Mr. Trump can take to Twitter or to Fox News or to the podium at rallies — or all of the above — to excoriate them for a weak will or disloyalty.  This is how the Republican Party has become Mr. Trump’s party. It is also why that party will not conceive of its role in impeachment as entailing a constitutional responsibility independent of the president’s political and personal interests."

This is exactly why  the media  ought to be treating the GOP as a rolling clown car full of trolls, not  a political option.   Their words, claims ought to be relentlessly dismissed, eschewed as opposed to given so much air time.  Ditto with the maggot they seek to protect to try to advance their odious agenda.  On the positive front, we learn from Boelhert:

"Since Democrats announced their intention to hold impeachment hearings, public support for the inquiry has jumped 16 points, according to the tabulation at FiveThirtyEight, with public support for Trump's removal from office increasing by 7 points. That's solid confirmation that Americans are engaged on the issue and support the historic Democratic push to hold Trump accountable."

This is what ought to be emphasized by the media but hasn't been.  In a serious, responsible media environment it would be.  In so doing, the press would be serving the interests of the people as opposed to trying to spike its own profits. But we know today, unlike 40 years ago, too many newspapers  - for example- are owned by hedge funds.  So public service is not at the forefront.

If we fail in this moment then Bauer's other forecast may well be upon us:

"The Trump impeachment is headed toward a very different summation. A demagogue can claim that Congress has forfeited the right to recognition of its impeachment power, then proceed to unleash a barrage of falsehoods and personal attacks to confuse the public, cow legislators and intimidate witnesses. So long as the demagogue’s party controls one of the two chambers of Congress, this strategy seems a sure bet."

This is  all the more reason the 4th estate needs to begin doing its damned job of seeing the REPUKE PARTY for what it is: a personality cult and impediment to the survival of this nation.  A cult of traitors, cowards and despicable demagogue enablers who need to be marginalized. This as opposed to being given immense public 'loudspeakers' and forums- especially which dignify and propagate their batshit crazy conspiracy claims.

See also:

Cody Fenwick

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Donald Trump

My Darkest Nightmare about Trump from 2016 Is Coming True. It’s Worse than I Feared

And:

Donald Trump | Impeachment | Republicans

Impeachment: We're Drawing near the Endgame — and, Man, Is It Gonna Get Ugly

And:

The Past 10 Days Shows Corporo Media Remains As Cl...

Other Voices On The Two Democratic Debates

In the case of the recent Democratic debates -  as much of the media heats up on opinions of winners, losers -  I remain in a 'meh" disposition.  While I watched both debates with wifey, we both agreed there was simply too little to learn given: a) too many candidates so not enough time to focus, and b) a  counterproductive debate format that often squashed emergent discussions on a topic between two or more candidates.   Thus, in the midst of what could have been an informative natural debate (as opposed to merely answering moderators' questions) the discussion was halted and on to the next topic.  

Anyway, below are other voices on the two debates, given I am withholding any inputs until the field vastly narrows and the debates mean 3-4 debating as opposed to ten each time.

2020 Elections | Democrats

The First Democratic Debate Was Speed-Dating With Some Substance

Excerpt:

"Even in the milled perfection of a machine world, 10 robot candidates in a two-hour debate would only have 12 minutes each to explain why they should be president of these wildly complex and dangerous United States. As we are flesh, however, viewers were required to endure several commercial breaks, candidates talking beyond their 45-second time allotments, moderator Chuck Todd being a clown, and an elongated microphone malfunction that ate 10 percent of the event.

At best, candidates each averaged maybe eight minutes of combined time to make their points and try to stand out. They were required in this scant window to race through answers on health care, the gender pay gap, economic inequality, the ongoing immigration crisis, Iran, reproductive freedom, gun violence, the Supreme Court, LGBTQ rights, racial justice, military interventions to end atrocities, the eternal war in Afghanistan, the merits of impeaching Donald Trump, and more.

Unless a candidate pulled a live duck out of their pants in the middle of a rushed discourse on raising the minimum wage after a different candidate spent their 45 seconds quick-splaining the Iran crisis, they were all going to be subsumed to one degree or another by the very nature of the affair. It was speed dating writ large, and a comprehensive disservice to the country given what is at stake"

2020 Elections | Democrats

These Are the 3 Winners and 4 Losers from the Second 2020 Democratic Primary Debate

Excerpt:

"On the second night of the Democratic primary debates on Thursday, most of the highest-polling candidates appeared at the center of the stage. The top two at the center were Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, flanked by California Sen. Kamala Harris and Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Ten other candidates, including the other top tier candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, participated in a separate debate the previous night.

While it can be hard to say how an evening really affected voters — and the most likely outcome for any individual candidate is that nothing much will change — some contenders on the stage show clear strengths and weaknesses.

Here’s the — necessarily subjective — ranking of winners and losers for the night. Not everyone is listed because many people didn’t seem to do much to hurt or help themselves; they were just treading water."

Rep. John Lewis - A True Hero For MLK Day- Trump, Not So Much

A Civil Rights icon vs. a Twitter Troll and likely traitor - not even close to an even match, despite the traitor getting shoehorned into the White House..

"High from his gilded throne room in midtown Manhattan — like Zeus from Mt. Olympus — Donald Trump has been hurling tweeted spitballs at Rep. John Lewis of Georgia. He’s a man of “no action,” typed Trump with his tiny (manicured) fingers, of one of America’s true heroes of the modern age — a man so brutally assaulted by state troopers during the l965 march from Selma to Montgomery that he nearly died from a fractured skull.

Time and again Lewis was on the front line of the fight for civil rights, spat upon, insulted and vilified, while far to the north, Donald Trump was using the fortune handed him by his father to launch a real estate empire without ever getting his fingernails dirty."   Bill Moyers, 'John Lewis Is A True American Profile In Courage' on smirkingchimp.com

Let us agree to the proposition that if one is a compulsive, unapologetic liar - who lies about everything (including whether he mocked a disabled reporter when a video clearly shows it), even knowing people can check his claims - then he cannot be a legitimate leader or leader -elect. In this case "President - elect " Donald Trump. The reason is that a nation's citizens must be able to trust a would- be leader especially if he calls on them to make sacrifices. In the case of Trump, we can't trust anything he's said, and the additional fact he was helped into power by a  foreign entity confirms he cannot be legitimate.

I previously noted Trump's bare faced lie that James Clapper "denounced" the recent explosive dossier (on Trump's alleged salacious activities in a Moscow hotel)  when Clapper's own statement refuted the claim. In a statement released after their conversation the director of national intelligence actually said: “The IC [intelligence community] has not made any judgement that the information in this document is reliable, and we did not rely upon it in any way for our conclusions.”

In other words, Trump blurted out his lie  knowing full well people could check the statements of the DNI  for themselves, already in the public record, In other words, the bastard Trump didn't care that citizens could learn he was outright LYING. Worse, he believed most sane citizens worthy of the name wouldn't care.  Such a person is by definition untrustworthy and cannot be a legitimate leader if he despises citizens to this extent.  The People must be able to depend upon a leader's words, for example, if and when he insists there is cause for war - including a nuclear war. If they can't trust his words they can't trust the legitimacy of the leadership. This ought not be rocket science.

Thus, Rep. John Lewis didn't mince words on Friday when he told Chuck Todd of NBC that he couldn't support a president-elect he regarded as illegitimate. This based on the accumulated facts exposing a conspiracy involving the Russians to catapult Trump and his bunch into the seat of power. Of course, the Trumpies took to using the N-word on Lewis, as well as invoking the hackneyed "sour grapes" BS which no longer holds traction given the dossier compiled by MI6 spy Christopher Steele.

What Steele uncovered was a conspired plot to torpedo the 2016 general election using dsinformation as well as outright hacking of both parties' computers, although only using the gathered material against one. In addition, an annex to the released intelligence report disclosed high level conspiratorial shenanigans involving the Trump team and Russian counterparts as well as compromising material collected on Trump when he was in Moscow in 2013 for a "Miss Universe" beauty pageant.

As revealed by Mr. Steele in his last interview (with David Corn, published in 'Mother Jones') before going underground, the material gathered in memos was considered so explosive that he turned it over to contacts he had in the FBI last summer. This was without informing the opposition research group for which he'd initially begun his project. The FBI, despite this explosive stuff sitting on its shelves, chose instead to go after Hillary Clinton with damning insinuations of guilt over her email server, as opposed to parsing and exposing the Steele material.

This is important to note, given that over the weekend CIA chief John Brennan openly declared to Twitter fiend Trump that his accusations against the agency were misplaced. He said Trump  ought to really be taking up matters with the FBI who remain sitting on the Steele dossier. Brennan (on FOX News Sunday) warned Trump about flights of temper on his Twitter as well as snap judgments, noting:

"Spontaneity is not something that protects national security interests. Therefore when he speaks or when he reacts he has to make sure he understands the implications which impact the United States could be profound".

But, if a person is a consummate liar, only concerned with spinning his version of reality to his 46 million equally deluded Twitter followers, this wouldn't matter. He would be more occupied with blasting out tweets - lying tweets - than protecting national security Just as his campaign was more obsessed with colluding with the Russians to get him elected than national interest. Traitors all, but now about to take power - unless some forthright FBI whistle blower comes out with the truth of what that Steele dossier on the Trumpistas  revealed.

While the intelligence community and FBI has been playing it coy saying they can't substantiate what's in the dossier. or that it is "raw intelligence" and doesn't "prove" anything, others have recognized that where there's smoke there's fire. In particularl, contrary to a dopey Trump tweet that Steele is a "failed spy" he was actually one of the UK's best on Russian matters. A highly regarded and respective intelligence operative who doesn't make shit up like Trump, or pull it out of his ass.

According to an AP report yesterday in the Denver Post (p. 12A, 'Ex Spy Regarded as Dependable') :

"Three British intelligence agents interviewed by the Associated Press described Steele as well regarded in the intelligence community, with excellent Russian skills and high level sources."

According to one Financial Times account, Steele was the "UK intelligence expert on Russia".

James Nixey, the head of Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia program, informed the AP that sections of the dossier document created by Steele "read exactly as reports from the secret services"

In other words, professional through and through, no exaggerations and no fillers that hadn't been  sourced.  While many critics in the West have complained the "sources haven't been vetted or questioned" they seem to forget that's because they likely went underground running for their lives, like Steele currently is.  As Exhibit A for what happens to whistle blowers in Russia they need only pull up the file released (only a year ago) on the Alexander Litvinenko Inquiry which showed that ex-KGB officer who defected to the UK was assassinated in 2006 using Polonium 206 dropped into his tea.

Look, if what's in that dosser is even partially true, the risk to Trump (and Putin) must be terrifying. Think about it. If any of that material is true, i.e. Steele was able to get real information from the Russian government about what they have on Donald Trump, how they got it, and how they were planning on using it, then the Russians right now would be going all out to root out Steele's sources. This would include who inside the Russian government had access to that true information and gave it lock, stock and barrel to Christopher Steele. From the FSB perspective, they're now working overtime to figure out who are the traitors, who are the leakers.

What about Russian denials? As Nixey also noted (ibid.) the Russian denials were "part of a Cold war pattern in which the Kremlin 'would deny something which is quite plainly true'"

Hence, those more in the know concerning the integrity of sources and what the intel really shows, acknowledge that what Steele compiled is very likely true, at least in part.  In addition to which the whole shtick fits the modus operandi of videoing any one who comes to Moscow and stays at a hotel- perhaps to engage in illicit sexual activities.  More worrying even than a possibly Trump tryst with a Russkie "honey pot" is that his campaign had continuous contact with the Russians all during the campaign to bring down Hillary Clinton.

All the preceding is important to process in order to show that Rep. John Lewis has good reason to suspect a conspiracy involving Trump, his surrogates and the Russian branch that wanted him in power and not Hillary. Rep. Lewis therefore had absolute justification for calling out Trump as illegitimate, and it is passing strange more elected officials don't. But then there has never been an abundance of courage amongst Washington's poltroons.

What else could- besides illegitimate- could Trump  be given that he lies compulsively, and even puts national security at risk by his impulsive, hare brained tweets, not to mention the explosive material the FBI is still keeping under wraps from the Steele dossier. Material that, if ever delivered to daylight,  would show Trump is a turned asset for a foreign power.

Trump, impulsive asshole that he is, couldn't resist Twitter push back to Lewis' comment, grabbing his dumb phone and tweeting on Saturday: "Congressman Lewis should spend more time on fixing his district rather than falsely complaining about the election results...all talk, talk, talk and no action. Sad" when Lewis actually had his skull fractured during a civil rights march, something a pussy like Trump would never have ventured forth to engage in. (Also, as reported on CBS News Sunday, Lewis' district is among the most crime- free in Georgia, and includes the CDC and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Again, the lying fuck Trump doesn't know what he's yapping about nor does he care other citizens can find out his lies).

Imagine then, the sheer folly of this abject, arrogant pretender and likely traitor calling out a civil rights icon for his principled stance - when Trump doesn't even know the meaning of principle.

The entire nation, as opposed to partaking in any celebration  Friday, ought to declare a national day of mourning when this misfit and illegitimate clown- traitor assumes office. No one with a grain of principle or integrity ought to attend his fiasco, or even remotely try to dignify it in any way. It is a fucking national tragedy!