Since I jumped into the waters of Kos diarists on March 23rd (with a tongue in cheek diary about nominating Arnold Schwarzenegger) I discovered quite quickly there were a few sharks ready to chomp onto me if only because I was a newbie who dared to have an opinion. I also discovered that if I wrote something the slightest bit critical about Bernie, or a smidgen positive about Hillary, I would get lots of, to put it mildly, spirited comments. My writing was roundly ignored until I wrote “I changed my mind: Why I’m not voting for Bernie in the Oregon primary.” It ended up with 783 comments. The next day I wrote that my reaction to the previous diary gobsmacked me, and I got 266 comments about that.
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Down the list of my 35 or so diaries it went the same way. Hardly anybody read my diaries about Trump, even when I endeavored to make them worthy of at least a quick look. I am most interested in assuring that the Democrats come together and defeat Trump and win as many down-ticket elections as possible. I can’t wait until Kos front-pagers and diarists take the cauldron off the fire and turn their witchcraft on Trump… If you remember your MacBeth you know how crucial the three witches are to the plot. Their prophesies become a compelling call to action for MacBeth.
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At this point in the election with Hillary’s nomination all but a sure thing, we are far beyond what Rebecca Traitor wrote in New York Magazine back in November (The Bernie Bros vs. the Hillarybots):
Officially, the debate about whether to support Clinton or Sanders is not so different from debates Democrats have during many presidential cycles. It hinges on the relative merits of taking a big risk on a more radical candidate in the hope of revitalizing the left, or taking a safer path in hopes of protecting (and perhaps modestly expanding) what meager progressive infrastructure we have in place. This is a serious debate; none of us really knows which path is smarter or will benefit or harm more Americans, but many of us have strong opinions about it, and have participated in versions of it before, when we’ve tussled over other candidates.
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Democrats who disparaged Hillary Clinton would agree with Doug Henwood, in the following from “Stop Hillary” in Harpers:
What is the case for Hillary (whose quasi-official website identifies her, in bold blue letters, by her first name only, as do millions upon millions of voters)? It boils down to this: She has experience, she’s a woman, and it’s her turn. It’s hard to find any substantive political argument in her favor. She has, in the past, been associated with women’s issues, with children’s issues — but she also encouraged her husband to sign the 1996 bill that put an end to the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program (AFDC), which had been in effect since 1935. Indeed, longtime Clinton adviser Dick Morris, who has now morphed into a right-wing pundit, credits Hillary for backing both of Bill’s most important moves to the center: the balanced budget and welfare reform. And during her subsequent career as New York’s junior senator and as secretary of state, she has scarcely budged from the centrist sweet spot, and has become increasingly hawkish on foreign policy.
Trump echoed this in his own obnoxious way. So this is the nature of the primaries. Democrats always give ammunition to the Republicans and vice versa.
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Now, the time for the sniping and the acrimony is over. Bernie does nobody any good by throwing fuel on the fire under the cauldron boiling noxious fumes against Hillary. Neither do his supporters.
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Democrats have to defeat Trump’s evil necromancy using iyooooj sorcery of their own. If they need an occult cauldron it should be the biggest, the best, a downright mean hell broth boiling machine. Shakespeare can tell them the ingredients for the noxious brew to send Trump’s way — though I’d omit the liver of the blaspheming Jew since that hits me personally.
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Whatever you call those single-minded supporters of our two candidates, Bernie Bros, Hillarybots, or whatever, they need to put a cork in it! It’s time to stop trying to put the evil eye on each other and hex the hell out of Trump.
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To quote The Bard,
from Macbeth – not that any of us come close to turning a phrase like this:
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A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron boiling. Thunder.
Enter the three Witches.
1 WITCH. Thrice the brinded* cat hath mew'd.
2 WITCH. Thrice and once, the hedge-pig whin'd.
3 WITCH. Harpier cries:—'tis time! 'tis time!
1 WITCH. Round about the caldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.—
Toad, that under cold stone,
Days and nights has thirty-one;
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot!
ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
2 WITCH. Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
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3 WITCH. Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf;
Witches' mummy; maw and gulf*
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark;
Root of hemlock digg'd i the dark;
Liver of blaspheming Jew;
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse;
Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips;
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,*—
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron*,
For the ingrediants of our caldron.
ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
2 WITCH. Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.
*
brinded - having obscure dark streaks or flecks on gray
gulf - the throat
drab - prostitute
chaudron - entrails
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