In 2000 there was a man by the name of Ralph Nader running for President under the Green Party.
In total he earned roughly 2.8 million votes. This was the same year that Al Gore was running against George W. Bush. Al Gore earned roughly approximately 51 million votes. George W. Bush earned approximately 50.5 million votes.
Notice I used the word “earned” instead of “received”.
George W. Bush, even though he didn’t have the popular vote, won through an electoral college victory similarly to how Trump won the electoral college vote.
Immediately after the election, Democrats pointed blame at Ralph Nader and his voters because apparently his 2.8 million votes were wasted and Al Gore was entitled to them.
In reality, they had more of a case with the recount in Florida than they did by blaming Ralph Nader for going against the establishment status quo.
Today as we get closer to the midterms and the 2020 presidential elections I am seeing these same attacks. Today the narrative is that Russia interfered in the election and they helped Donald Trump, Jill Stein, and Bernie Sanders.
As far as the indictment is concerned, yes, it does mention that this particular troll-farm did indeed help boost Trump, Sanders, and Stein, but what impact did they really have? How much influence and reach did they have?
Let’s take a snippet from Vox, who I believed over sensationalized their article and didn’t really focus on the major takeaways.
“Twitter found more than 3,800 accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency and alerted about 1.4 million US users that they may have interacted with Kremlin propaganda. Those accounts, now shut down, posted 176,000 tweets in the 10 weeks before the election.”
So. 1.4 million US Twitter users interacted with the tweets and shares. In the 2016 election there were 135 million people who showed up to vote. I am to be told that less than 1% of US voters who interacted with a tweet or a share is the reason Hillary Clinton lost the election?
How do we even know that those 1.4 million US Twitter users were actual voters?
I am not buying it.
Apparently the one Facebook post that the Russians used to prop up Jill Stein’s campaign was enough to convince 135 million people to vote for who? Jill Stein? Jill Stein only earned about 1% of the total vote in 2016.
Jill Stein said it best when she said; “This doesn’t pass the laugh test, actually”.
Rod Rosenstein clearly stated; “There is no allegation in this indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election.”
So what’s the reason for all these attacks? Why is the establishment status quo using everything at their disposal to silence the left?
The true progressive left is a dire threat to the neoliberal Democratic establishment and their donors.
Folks. Hillary Clinton took money from Goldman Sachs, bigly. Barack Obama took bigly money from Goldman Sachs right after he left office. Trump placed numerous Goldman Sachs representatives in his cabinet and other positions within our government.
These are the same people who crashed our economy in 2008 and are going to crash our economy again in the future.
What a lot of people may not know is that donors typically put money into both Republican and Democratic candidates. Typically the healthcare industry and the financial industry will donate to both sides. That’s why we don’t get new prescription laws passed or anything better than the insurance-controlled unaffordable healthcare act.
That’s why Hillary Clinton said we will NEVER have Medicare for All.
The Democratic establishment and their donors were stunned last election cycle by Bernie Sanders.
They had never seen anyone raise that much money through individual donations. Donors want to buy an ear and when you get in the way of their money they will spend a little bit of money to get rid you of you in place of someone who will do their bidding.
Since Donald Trump was elected the Republicans have been losing a lot of seats and will probably continue to lose seats heading into the midterms.
Grassroots organizations like Working Families Party, Our Revolution, and Justice Democrats are picking up seats left and right and have dozens of incredible candidates that follow the Bernie-model of individual donations and his platform.
These candidates are polling very well, raising tons of cash, and many have already picked up seats.
Randy Bryce is a pretty solid Berniecrat and if he unseats the Speaker of the House Paul Ryan it is going to show progressives that they can win and win bigly.
I think the Democrats enjoy that the progressives are getting people out to vote and they may want to ride that supposed “blue wave” they keep talking about, but in reality, I don’t see it as a “blue wave”.
I see it as the progressive political revolution that Bernie Sanders was calling for and if you’re a big donor that cannot control the candidates you then must use everything at your disposal to smear and discredit them.
Don’t fall for the propaganda and mccarthyism folks. Look at a persons platform. If it’s not progressive enough, don’t vote for them. Make them earn your vote. Nobody is entitled to your vote.