Bernie Sanders Is Not Our Fucking Ally

I apologize in advance for the ridiculous amount of cursing in this post. Those who read this blog know I'm not adverse to dropping an F-bomb here and there, but when it comes to the shenanigans of the Bernie camp, I cope with my rage using good ol' fashioned sailor's talk.

Bernie needs to fucking resign as a Senator and take his shriveled old grandpa ass out to a desert fucking island with no wi-fi where he can't hurt anyone else.

The Democratic Party as we know it today has never been the party of the powerful. Black folk, Latinx, women, the disabled, LGBT folk, etc. have been the backbone of the party since the Dixiecrat revolt over the Civil Rights Movement (with the Dixiecrats becoming today's GOP). It has never been about throwing those people under the bus to win over the white working class.

But that's exactly what Bernie Fucking Sanders wants to turn it into.

Bernie Fucking Sanders has galvanized a "revolution" of freeloading angry white dudes to demonize the Democratic Party for demanding they actually do a fair share of the fucking work. Much like your stoned loser friend from college who couch-surfs through everyone he knows while eating their chips and puking on their carpets after a kegger, and then has the audacity to tell them their video game collection sucks. And just like that friend, they pitch a fit when you inform them they've grossly overstayed their welcome.

I put "revolution" in scarequotes up there because freeloading angry white dudes taking a giant steaming smelly dump on the already oppressed for their own benefit isn't a fucking revolution at fucking all; it's the status fucking quo. And Bernie Fucking Sanders is leading the charge.

That's right, kids. He's not a goddamned progressive and he never fucking has been. He doesn't want to go forward. He wants to go back. The only difference between him and Trump is how far back. Sanders wants to turn back the calendar to roughly 1960. Taxes were fairer, but life sucked enough for everyone but cishet able-bodied white males that it was still comfortable to look down on the rest of us. Trump wants to go back to 1860 so he can make slaves carry him around on a tacky golden sedan chair.

And because he's too goddamned lazy to start his own party and do the fucking work required to build it into something viable, he's decided to start a revolt within the Democratic Party.

This is a guy who literally takes a huge stinky shit on every principle he says he stands for. How many working-class people do you know who own three goddamn motherfucking houses? How is it standing up for the little guy to sponsor a bill that dumps nuclear waste from your rich white state on a dirt-poor Latinx community in Texas? How is he "new blood" in politics when he's been serving in Congress ten years longer than Hillary? Unless it's totally fine when he does it, in which case he's a fucking hypocritical bag of dicks who doesn't deserve your vote or your $27.

To make matters worse? This is a guy who, ten days after the election, says he can totally find common ground with Trump. On -- get this! -- "standing up to corporate America."

Let me repeat that: "standing up to corporate America."

Donald. Fucking. Trump.

Bernie Fucking Sanders is not our fucking ally. He's a goddamned motherfucking shit-eating collaborator. And has also probably been a Russian agent this whole time.

And I'll admit, I voted for him in my state's primary. I regret doing so. Because his antics prove every day that he does not give a single paltry constipated shit about anyone but himself. He's been on nobody's side but his own, gaming the system to get what he can out of it before moving on. He's as bad as Trump, if not worse; Trump at least makes no pretenses that he's a demented, narcissistic, self-serving son of a bitch. Sanders sells his followers his false self before he robs them fucking blind when they're not looking.

Therefore, if he wants to take all the freeloading angry white dudes with their heads so far up their own asses they could lick their own prostates out of the Democratic Party? Fucking let him. Let him lead them all into the river like the Pied Piper of Goddamn Hamelin for all I care, because these motherfuckers were never on our side, either.

If you're a "progressive" solely to improve your own station, to the detriment of other people, go join the fucking GOP, because that's where you belong. Get the fuck out of our way and the fuck out of our party, because we ain't got time for whiny, petulant, selfish children. We have fucking work to do.

The Shorter of Two Bullshit Mountains

You would think, by now, that there would be enough evidence of both Trump's corruption and unpopularity that any Republican worth their House seat would be drafting articles of impeachment the minute Comey's firing was announced. So why haven't they?

Here's the situation so far:

- Trump asked Comey to end the investigation into Michael Flynn's Russia ties.

- Trump fed classified intel to Russian diplomats.

- Trump's approval rating has dipped below 40%; his disapproval rating is close to 60% (as of this writing).

- Republican-controlled Congress' approval rating is 20% as of this writing. Down 4 entire points from March.

In a sane world, this would be a screaming neon sign for both impeachment and removal, and to push the Russia investigation full speed ahead, balls-to-the-wall, until the truth comes out. But it's not. Republican officials have either been silent, wishy-washy (saying it's "disturbing" but taking no real action; hi there, John McCain!), or outright defending Trump.

Despite his unpolularity. Despite their unpopularity. It makes no goddamned sense.

The working theory is the usual party-over-country mentality and the desperation to actually legislate now that they have control of everything, because for the last eight years they were too preoccupied with obstructing Obama to do anything else. But that doesn't hold up, either.

The first bill to actually pass the House was the American Health Care Act (AHCA). A bill that almost nobody in the country actually wants (17% approval; that's it). A bill that was so shitty Ryan had to pull it from the floor the first time, and only got it past the House by a hair because somebody made it even worse.

Why? Why, when you're a deeply unpopular Congress, would you stand by a deeply unpopular president just to pass a deeply unpopular bill?

Simple: the Republican Party knows that if the investigation is completed and Trump goes down? They go right down with him.

Let's back up a week.

On May 11, 2017 -- right on the heels of James Comey's firing on May 9 -- the FBI executed a search warrant on the Annapolis office of Strategic Campaign Group, a Republican PAC that failed gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli sued back in 2014 for scamming donors. The raid was directly related to Cuccinelli's lawsuit, but further research brings up some very interesting and very familiar names.

Strategic Campaign Group's senior adviser is Dennis Whitfield, who as it turns out also worked for a firm called BKSH & Associates. A firm founded by...Paul Manafort and Roger Stone. Remember those guys?

They were gone before Whitfield came on board, but considering Paul Manafort and Roger Stone's history of shady shit going back several decades, and BKSH & Associates' history of even shadier shit going back to roughly 2002, the dots and the line are still there.

So we have a consulting firm raided for scamming donors, whose senior adviser used to work for a consulting firm that specialized in influencing foreign elections and whose founder with Russian ties went on to be Trump's campaign manager.

As the saying goes, where there's smoke there's fire. This? This is a tiny crack in the ground over Centralia, PA.

 And Republicans are scared shitless of the still-smoldering coal fire the full investigation will find. Because another interesting thing about BKSH & Associates? One of its founders, Charlie Black, Jr., was a top aide on the failed presidential campaign of none other than everyone's favorite spineless "maverick," John McCain.

This is why Republicans keep standing by Trump, and why they want the Russia scandal to go away. For the same reason Trump hasn't yet released his tax returns: whatever PR nightmare they're facing now is nothing compared to what will happen when the full truth comes out.

Republicans in 1973 turned on Nixon because at the time, they had more to gain by hanging him out to dry. Republicans in 2017 are protecting Trump because they have more to lose if the investigation keeps going.

They'll survive the stench of Trump. They won't survive Russia. And they know it.

Social Issues Are Economic Issues

If there is one thing I'm getting fucking sick of really fucking fast, it's the Straight White Guy lament in defense of Bernie Sanders that the Democratic Party focused too much on "social issues" instead of "economic issues" in the 2016 campaign. And the reason I'm sick of it is because that argument comes from a place of ridiculous tone-deaf privilege.

Issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/presentation, disability/illness, and everything else that straight white men consider "social" and therefore unimportant are directly tied to the economy in a number of ways.

Black and Latinx people incarcerated at disproportionately higher rates, more harshly disciplined in school (suspension, expulsion, etc.), and reprimanded for everything from accent to hairstyle all contribute to these populations earning substantially less than white people. It's hard to get a decent job when you were raised by a single mom because your dad pled guilty to something he didn't even do because public defenders are awful and your family's too poor to afford their own lawyer, and nobody will hire your mom for anything other than fast food service because her name is too "ethnic" and she can't afford a hair relaxer treatment every week. This gets even harder when "pled guilty" means "your dad was gunned down in his car by police because he reached for his wallet while black."

Native Americans are also affected by extreme poverty, and not just on reservations. Native descendants face high rates of alcoholism and diabetes, both of which contribute to higher costs of medical care and future disabilities. Native peoples also face the same kind of racism and police brutality that black and Latinx populations do.

Being trans and too terrified to use your preferred bathroom at work means you're more likely to suffer a bladder infection, which means you miss work or get ironically reprimanded for using the bathroom too much on the clock. Trans youth account for nearly half of the homeless youth population, due to being kicked out by parents and guardians. Trans people also face rampant housing and employment discrimination, which is perfectly legal in many states. Trans people also face extremely high rates of sexual assault and murder, particularly trans people of color.

Women not having access to reproductive services are more likely to forego college not just because of pregnancy, but also other medical issues (hormonal birth control treats a wide variety of reproductive disorders like endometriosis and PCOS, which can be physically debilitating). Women unable to access abortion services are more likely to live at or below the poverty line. Women are more likely to quit a job than report sexual assault or harassment, and if they do report it, they're more likely to be fired in retaliation than aided.

It is still legal in 28 states to fire and deny housing to someone for being LGBT, which makes LGBT people a disproportionate share of the homeless population. As a result, a significant number of sex workers are LGBT, and it's not uncommon for LGBT people who aren't sex workers to be suspected of such and harassed by police. Even legally married gay and lesbian couples can have a hard time finding things like joint health insurance. LGBT people with HIV and AIDS also face extremely high costs of healthcare and job discrimination. And LGBT youth face much higher rates of suicide, assault, and murder.

This is why we get so fucking angry when straight white men dismiss our issues as "social" rather than economic. They are economic. They just affect our lives financially instead of theirs. It's us who need to shoulder the higher costs of rent, medical care, incarceration, fines, and everything else because we live in a society that hates the fact we exist.

Social issues and economic issues are forever intertwined. If you think they aren't, it's only because you've never really faced them.