On today’s BradCast, just as we warned you on the day he entered the race back in June of 2015 (when everyone else told you his candidacy was a joke), Donald Trump will now be the 2016 GOP nominee for President of these United States. No joke. And, yes, Bernie Sanders is still both running and winning against the front-runner on the Democratic side.
We cover the reported results from Indiana yesterday, including the GOP dead-enders Ted Cruz and John Kasich who have seen the writing on the wall and both finally dropped out of the race. We also cover the upset victory of Sanders over the corporate media’s presumptive Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, how he is likely to have more such victories in the weeks ahead, and how the MSM does an amazing job of not noticing.
Then, we’re joined by our old friend Heather Digby Parton of Salon and Digby’s Hullabaloo. She was with us this year for a ton of our debate coverage, but was also with me on the show last year on Day 1 of the Trump campaign. At the time she joined me in my belief that Trump was going to receive huge support among the thoroughly brainwashed and fact-addled Rightwingers that now make up the Republican Party following years of fact-free propaganda passed on to them by wingnut talk radio and corporate “news” outlets.
Now that we know Trump will, barring “an act of God”, as Parton says, be the GOP nominee, it seemed a perfect time to talk about what it all means and how the mainstream corporate media was so wrong for so long about Trump (and even about Sanders). As Parton notes: “He is the sort of zenith…He is the id of that conservative ‘essence’ over the course of the last thirty years. And without the media having prepared people for believing that this was normal, that this represented America, I’m not sure [he would have done this well].”
“Let’s not forget,” she adds, “this was supposed to be the deepest bench, the most awesomely prepared group of Presidential candidates in American history…and it came down to Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Out of that entire group, that’s what we were left with. And that is a legitimate reflection of the Republican Party.”
But does Parton share my concern that Trump could do a helluva lot better in the general election than many gleeful Democrats currently believe? And will the Democratic electorate think twice about selecting Clinton as their nominee, now that Trump will almost certainly be the GOP’s? For all of that, you’ll have to tune in.
We close out the hour with a few more reminders of how the mainstream corporate media completely misinformed the American electorate about both Trump’s rise and his likelihood of securing the Republican nomination. (They told you over and over he’d never win. We warned you over and over otherwise.) And then, finally, we end today’s show with a fantastic story about some ballots and a boat and some folks in Rhode Island who helped make democracy possible for a few lucky voters last week…
I feel like I’ve slipped the surly bonds, for Christ’s sake. I was there when Brad Friedman (and a few others) said Trump was going to go all the way and be unstoppable, because (duh!) the mood of the Republican base that’s been brainwashed to receive their bilious billionaire Frankenstein with open arms. The corporate media power elite bobble heads are such self-absorbed douche bags. Aarrgh!
Aaarrrrrgh, me hearties, a fine kettle’o’fish indeed….Cut the riggings!, pull the blocks, and let’s give the blaggards a taste of some hot galley broadside they can chew on!!
Where was i??….oh yeah…
Sadly (for all of us) Brad foresaw the steady course of HMS Trump across the high seas from the moment of christening and launch….but on a more uplifting note, who could’ve possibly imagined a renegade Sanders galleon STILL very much in the battle, unloading fearsome volleys port and starboard against the daunting armadas of both King and Queen?….what drunken sailor, what poor salty dog delirious from privation and sunstroke, would have been daft enough one year ago to even consider mumbling the senseless words
GO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BERNIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The media has failed on the greatest issue facing civilization too:
(The Peak of Sanity – 11, quoting Yale poll).
For all you sane people left out there, the conventional wisdom has been wrong all along where DT is concerned. Now they’re saying he can’t beat Clinton. We should all be very worried.
What, me worry?
Nevaaaaaaaah!!!
OF COURSE the Donald trounces Hillary into flotsam and jetsam, she’s a hopelessly bogus candidate propped up like a High Street mannequin BY THE VERY SAME DEBAUCHED MEDIA that’s been wrong or worse about everything else this ENTIRE campaign season!!….how can the result be nothing less than wonderful(ly fucked up beyond all reason)???….or fubar, as my great-grandmother used to say….now can you say, “President Trump?”….i knew you could….it’s a lovely day in the neighborhood…
Bernie on the other hand will keelhaul that lardass protofascist and feed him to the sharks….can you say, “President Sanders?”….then get to fucking work RIGHT NOW, swabbies, THIS VERY MINUTE on that good good man’s behalf….because there will never be another President Clinton, got it?….GOT IT????!!!…
President Sanders, period
Now all hands on deck!
The Big Lie is effective if not challenged relentlessly, which is why the fairness doctrine was done away with, and why name calling or some other diversion is in play continuously. Thus, though tedious, it is necessary to refer to the practitioners as self-styled or so-called or supposed “conservatives” because they are anything but. After all, a true conservative would know that the Second Amendment concerns national security. All one has to do is read the report President Washington had Secretary of War Henry Knox sent to Congress in support of Universal National Service, which had been foreshadowed by Alexander Hamilton in No. 29 of The Federalist Papers. A true conservative would know that the Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 requirement “to pay the debts…of the United States” is reinforced by Article VI, Clause 1 and Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment; and furthermore, in what should serve as precedent, default is not an option because of a report President Washington had Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton send to the House of Representatives regarding the same. A true conservative would not speak of the Confederate flag as a symbol of “heritage, not hate” but as the emblem of treason, the only crime defined in the text of the Constitution because it is a threat to the life of the Republic. A true conservative would know that Obamacare grew out of a proposal made by the Heritage Foundation, one which the GOP originally favored. A true conservative would rejoice that the deficit has steadily decreased under the present Administration instead of insisting otherwise. And a true conservative would know that Photo ID suffers from the Ivory Soap Problem–thirty-one POSSIBLE cases of voter fraud out of one billion votes comes down to 0.00000003 of 1%. But, without those counters, fighting on the enemy’s terms invites disaster.
And that’s precisely why the single most defining schism between Bernie and Hillary supporters is not along gender lines, or racial, or income level….it’s access to INFORMATION….the under-Fifties versus the over-Fifties, in other words….but wait, what does age have to do with it??….becuz under-Fifties are internet and social media savvy, doing their own research, finding answers, and communicating….older Americans unfortunately are often found still plopped in front of TV news or talk radio or the shitty NYTimes in disarray across the bed every Sunday morning, like religion….they never got the memo that all MSM died decades ago as sources of actual information, to be quietly retooled into very entertaining bullhorns of marketing and propaganda….Ignorance might be bliss, but only until you have to get outta bed and start putting the wrong shoes on the wrong feet…