General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Silent thread: Admiration for Hillary Clinton, & sorrow/anger that we were robbed of her presidency [View all]stevepal
(109 posts)If all these people who are sad about this now had been even remotely interested in doing something about the use of totally unverifiable and clearly often rigged or maliciously programmed voting machines in most places in the country, if these people here on DU had been even one-onehundredth as interested in preserving our democracy from what was clearly happening to it because of the voting machines, we might have gotten some laws or inspired some influential politician or public figure to read about the studies that have been done and to start a movement to do something about it. Voter suppression and gerrymandering and other such dodges and tricks are also highly undemocratic of course, but the voting machines could be fixed very quickly if we had the will to do it.
Instead, what do we get from our supposedly democracy-loving reps? SILENCE. TOTAL SILENCE. What does this say about our so-called democracy (or what used to be our democracy)?
I supported Bernie but when HRC "won" the primaries, I supported her wholeheartedly. In fact, I began to think that she could have been one of our great presidents. Why so? First of all, she was willing to change her platform to fit what the electorate was looking for and what it is still looking for. Her ideas about achieving her platform objectives were very good ones too, maybe better than Bernie's because they were maybe more practical. FDR it may be remembered was not an all-out liberal when he was first elected. He became what he became because he was practical, interested in getting things done. He tried all kinds of things and kept the things that worked. HRC seemed to be potentially of that same mold.
I'm hopeful above all that we can somehow rescue our democracy or get it back. We definitely don't have a democracy now. If the Trump fiasco shows anything it shows that when you have an election that is rigged as we had in our last election, the president you end up with can be a nightmare.
If we don't get our act together and restore our democracy, the next election if we are actually able to have one could be even worse. It would be hard to imagine a worse president than the one we have, but when elections are decided in black boxes or by people in dark rooms even in other countries, the outcomes will always be the worst imaginable.