A Tale of Two Parties

The GOP establishment is frantically trying to thwart the choice of its voters by finding some way to “stop Trump” and nominate someone who is more acceptable to the establishment, but who would demonstrably be less acceptable to the voters because… Well, because whoever the establishment might choose, the voters have not been voting for him. This is not rocket science, really.

And not only are Republicans voting for the candidate that the GOP establishment does not want, they are doing so in record numbers. Turnout is unprecedented in every Republican primary so far.

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, the establishment is firmly behind a candidate who is winning by somewhat less of a margin than they would have you believe, and who is thought to be “dishonest and untrustworthy” by 53% of those who voted in Democratic primary elections so far. Apparently a significant number of Democratic voters are willing to vote for someone who is “dishonest and untrustworthy,”  which I think does not speak well for party principles, but that’s a different issue.

The “superdelegates,” who do not answer to voters and which have no equivalent in the Republican Party, are almost 100% pledged to this establishment candidate. The Democratic National Committee scheduled the debates for the convenience of the establishment candidate, and the establishment is actively trashing both the person and the policies of the rebel candidate.

Meanwhile, turnout in Democratic primary elections is something close to a disaster, down anywhere from 35% to as much as 50% in every primary election to date from the last contested primary in 2008.

The media is trumpeting about how the establishment candidate currently has a lead that is larger by percentage than the lead Obama enjoyed at any time in the 2008 campaign, but that may be caused by the fact that most of the voters cannot stand the establishment candidate and have been convinced by the media and the establishment that the rebel candidate cannot win, and are staying home in disgust.

What the parties have in common is that neither of them is paying the slightest bit of attention to the voters and are, in fact, openly rejecting what the voters are saying to them. How this will play out remains to be seen, but this nation’s transformation to oligarchy is now complete.