Two very unpopular candidates made the 2016 presidential campaign an embarrassment for American democracy. Now, the outcome could become one more tragedy for U.S. politics, observes David Marks.
By David Marks
Mourning seems a strange response to election results; as I consider my feelings after the presidential election, I’ve realized it’s another chapter in a sequence of tragedies throughout my life.
I was eleven when the news of President Kennedy’s assassination came over the loudspeaker in our sixth-grade classroom. Our tough, yet inspirational teacher wept at her desk in front of us. Her tears taught me more than any explanation of those events could ever reveal.
Not many years later, I suffered the shock of the killings of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and wondered at how these horrific events would shape the future.
I had wanted to be an astronaut, but soon realized that going to the moon as a U.S. Air Force pilot might have the prerequisite of bombing Vietnam. I began understanding the damage the U.S. was doing with its military interventions, and made a conscious decision to stay away from space and politics. It seemed you could only improve yourself to make a better world. Politics was not for the peaceful.
By 1973, the stench of Watergate drifted across the country. I was fascinated; a “smoking gun” is not needed in a murder prosecution, but somehow had become a necessity in political crime. But Nixon’s defenders could not counter undeniable evidence of illegal activity by both the President and his aides that was found in White House audiotapes. Most of the political “nobility” escaped the consequences while Nixon and a few accomplices took the fall.
We knew Nixon was a war criminal years before, but Watergate set a precedent that our leaders must be caught in the act of some far narrower and less consequential crime to prove they are scoundrels. We do know that Nixon feared and obsessed on the revelations of worse crimes in his past. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Heinous Crime Behind Watergate.”]
Retreating from Politics
Ever more convinced of the darkness in U.S. politics, I retreated further, convinced that only personal actions and relationships could shape the world.
Ronald Reagan and his 1980 vice-presidential running mate George H.W. Bush.
There was a glimmer of hope during Jimmy Carter’s presidency; he was a seemingly honest leader, supporting alternative energy and a cleaner environment, and allowing investigations into foreign and domestic assassinations of the previous decade. But few were moved or surprised by the contradiction of the Warren Commission’s findings and the Congressional pronouncement that JFK had been killed by a conspiracy.
In 1980, my first daughter was born during the northern California Indian summer. Even the election of Ronald Reagan two months later couldn’t eclipse my elation. I recall thinking about how the world might be different when she became a woman. I could only attempt to be a good enough father so that she would be kind and strong, and brave and bright enough to gain her equanimity.
It was only a month after the 1980 election that John Lennon died. It was then I mourned his murder and Reagan’s rise as a converged event. Lennon had been hounded by the junta that had taken over the country. He had once observed, “Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that.”
I recovered with the knowledge that the power of John’s music would stay with us, and knew his spirit would give perspective and strength to my daughter and the many children whose lives were just beginning. Despite his passing, John Lennon’s open-eyed idealism had been magnified.
The combination of Reagan’s rise and Lennon’s death in 1980, with the background of earlier assassinations of political leaders, continued to shape my world. Disgusted and repulsed by the “Reagan era,” it was a time for further retreat and the nurturing of ideas for a better future.
My second daughter’s joyful arrival in February of 1984, coincided with the U.S. “stabilizing” the Middle East, firing shells into Lebanon. Our “ally” Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi people were fighting a horrific ground war with Iran. The conflict was far away, though I knew U.S. interests in oil resources in the region would eventually turn around to impact our lives directly.
Despite the violence perpetrated by our country, I was still resolved to make a better world for both daughters in my own small way. Although very young, I knew they were part of a generation of gifted, empowered women who might be able to change the course of the planet.
Hypocrisy of Reagan
In 1986-87, revelations of the hypocrisy of Reagan and his gang emerged during the Iran Contra investigation and hearings. I was fascinated that Reagan had sent a bible and cake (along with weapons, of course) to Iranian leaders when he had publicly invoked Iran as America’s greatest enemy. By helping Iran with sophisticated U.S. weapons for cash, Reagan and his team could secretly fund the Nicaraguan Contras in a dirty war outside the scope of Congress.
Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush with CIA Director William Casey at the White House on Feb. 11, 1981. (Photo credit: Reagan Library)
The issue of foiling Congress seemed to distract from what was an important question: why was Reagan helping the strongest voices for Islamic Jihad in the region? I recall thinking how any Democratic president would have been impeached, drawn and quartered for such a betrayal to the country. Reagan came away from the “affair” largely unscathed; he wasn’t protected by Teflon, as the press claimed, he was surrounded by organized criminals of the highest order.
I could no longer bear just watching events unfold. The crimes of Washington pushed me to where I had to get involved. I offered my support and assisted with the work of a handful of dedicated journalists investigating the 1980 “October Surprise,” i.e., tracing back Reagan’s secret arms sales to Iran in the mid-1980s to an earlier arrangement in which Reagan secretly approved arms sales via Israel to Iran immediately after taking office in 1981.
The evidence pointed to Reagan’s presidential campaign having secretly made a deal with Iranian leaders to delay the release of the hostages until after the U.S. presidential election. Polls had shown that if the hostages were released before Election Day, Jimmy Carter would have won reelection. And, indeed, the Iranians held the hostages until Reagan had taken the oath of office on Jan. 20, 1981.
But the statements and testimony of a couple of dozen witnesses including officials in Iran, Israel, Europe and the United States – along with important documentary evidence – failed to shake off Reagan’s Teflon.
In 1991-1992, I watched as a modern version of The Emperor’s New Clothes played before us. When faced with the possibility that an election would be revealed as a complete sham, Republicans and Democrats stood shoulder to shoulder to deny the possibility and limit the damage. No matter how much evidence emerged (smoking cannons), the truth did not matter when Washington’s status quo was threatened. I mourned for our loss of truth.
(To this day, The New York Times and other mainstream media outlets refuse to question the October Surprise conventional wisdom that Reagan must be innocent, although even the chairman of the congressional whitewashing investigation has now admitted to having second thoughts.)
However, as the special prosecutor’s Iran-Contra investigation and the congressional October Surprise inquiry extended into 1992, they did cast enough doubt on the Reagan administration’s relationship with Iran (and the role of Reagan’s Vice President – and then President – George H.W. Bush, a former CIA director) that they affected the presidential election results of 1992.
Along with his approval ratings falling steadily due to the economy, incumbent George H.W. Bush lost the false gloss of being an honest politician. The end of 12 years of Republican presidents came to an end as Bush lost to moderate “New Democrat” Bill Clinton.
The Parties Blur
Fast forward through the Clinton years when the blur between Republican and Democrats became a thick haze. The Republicans, although vaguely different from President Clinton in some social policies and economic preferences, found they could only demonize him for his handling of sexual indiscretions. His real crime was winning a second term in office, which no Democrat had done since Franklin Roosevelt. Meanwhile, U.S. foreign policy only became more firmly aligned with international corporate priorities.
President Bill Clinton
And then quickly (please) through the eight years of George W. Bush. Although the list is long, the penultimate disgrace of his presidency was the mis-applied vengeance over the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11 by using the tragedy to justify the unjustifiable invasion of Iraq.
Bush’s horrific administration, staffed heavily with arrogant and incompetent cronies, conducted a war that gave foundation to a generation of angry young people in the Middle East who will always see the United States as a terrorist state. I realized at the beginning of the Iraq invasion that violence is not about politics; I thought, there’s a child in Iraq who in 20 years will say: “The U.S. killed my father, I’ll gladly walk into Washington with a nuclear backpack.”
There was a reprieve of sorts and certainly some refreshing changes with the Obama presidency. But the recognition that Barack Obama would continue the U.S. military enterprises in the Middle East overshadowed any of his more enlightened policies. Yes, his adversaries tried to foil him at every turn, but the priorities of the wealthiest Americans were rarely in question. Washington politics and its ugly international footprint are a continuing tragedy.
And then there is Trump. It took a few days to realize that I was in mourning again, as much as I mourned when leaders were killed or when Reagan came to power; I mourn particularly for my daughters and the younger generations of women and men who deserve better. My mother, born in 1925, president of her college class, a beloved teacher and still a strong bright woman, feels that the event horizon with Trump gives her more anxiety and fear than she experienced in all of her life, including World War II. She may not see a woman as president of the United States. I mourn for her loss.
Hope for Hillary
I recognize that in many ways Hillary Clinton represented a status quo that has worn on me, but I had some hope that her ascendance to the presidency might change her, and as the first woman in that office, she might take on a leadership role that embraced pacifism; or at least might be influenced by those who feel peace is the priority.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
There is much concern for what Trump will do, but the greater pain and loss is about what he won’t do. Mourning is always about loss; in this instance, the possibilities of progress that have been taken away for the near future, assuming that Trump continues to align himself with reactionary pols – the likes of Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Pence – who stuck with him during the campaign. Many Republicans see Trump as little more than a signature-writing machine who will sign whatever right-wing bills they send him.
So, we will mourn for a while, but a better world can still be realized. My mom and my daughters are no less powerful; and we all can be empowered by the blatant hypocrisy of this election – as we also recognize the hidden history that gave this travesty its foundation.
Political events may influence how we feel; but more importantly, who we are, and what we are willing to do for each other, determines our personal and political future.
David Marks is a veteran documentary filmmaker and investigative reporter. His work includes films for the BBC and PBS, including Nazi Gold, on the role of Switzerland in WWII and Jimi Hendrix: The Man they made God. He is writing a film screenplay, Extreme Ignorance, highlighting the need to turn electronic media into a creative force.
There is nothing good to say about Hillary. Tell your mom that the election;of Trump may very well have saved us all from nuclear war.
Can’t get past Watergate and Parry’s description of events before the 1968 election. The message I take from it is that both parties were seeking political advantage, one trying for a grand announcement of a peace initiative just before the election. Why then? Why not earlier? The second was the Nixon obsession as a Cold Warrior and his very American attitude that we could win and the indifference to the loss of life even if we were to “win” that attitude expressed. That was contemptible
As to the author’s mourning, I take it he is a Democrat. Political parties create moral blinders and selective judgements.
US Democracy can’t be embarassed, because Democracy has never existed to be embarassed. What has existed is a 100% corrupt, bureaucratized-inverted-totalitarian, authoritarian-police-state. Also, how can the American people be embarassed, a clueless, classless, tyranny-embracing(patriotic-conditioned), self-deluded, self-policing, willingly-led, non-principled, shallow, know-nothing, apathetic, weak, out–of-shape, fake-laughter-sitcom-watching, worthless, morons?
I enjoyed your article, aside from a few, though important points.
“Fast forward through the Clinton years when the blur between Republican and Democrats became a thick haze. The Republicans, although vaguely different from President Clinton in some social policies and economic preferences, found they could only demonize him for his handling of sexual indiscretions. His real crime was winning a second term in office, which no Democrat had done since Franklin Roosevelt. Meanwhile, U.S. foreign policy only became more firmly aligned with international corporate priorities.”
Not so fast. Slick Willy was an absolute disaster. “Clinton doesn’t do anything to undo damage of Reagan, (except make economy profitable again for the 1%), but starves half million Iraqi children to death, repeals Glass-Steagall, privatizes prison system and ends welfare…..” And we mustn’t forget the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (which clarified the law so that most over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives transactions between “sophisticated parties” would not be regulated) and NAFTA.
Slick Willy and his slick wife could have brought in single-payer health insurance for everyone, but they decided to pander to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. The two of them were more interested in what they could take than what they could give. Always on the prowl for the skim. Well, the scum has now been skimmed off. Hopefully they dry up and evaporate off the face of the earth.
Bush, a clown surrounded by neocons. Obama, a useless, narcissistic golfer who read a good teleprompter.
Not one of them has had the interest of the American people in mind, not one of them! Trump has stopped the TPP and the no-fly zone. So far he trumps their performance. Give him a chance.
As long as the worthless American people allow that instead of violently eradicating it, which is the only solution that’s possible, that’s what they’re going to get, and get continually and increasingly.
“Hillary represented a status quo…”
How about Hillary represented an Iraq War supporter…who said during the quagmire Iraq was a great buying opportunity for American business.
How about Hillary exulted in her complicity in Khadaffi’s unnecessary murder, which transmogrified Libya into anarchist jihad war to the present?
But she would have grown into a peaceful progressivism. Yeah like Afghan war expander and reckless drone bomber Obama did after getting the Nobel. Saying nothing of his helping Saudi Arabia decimate Yemen.
I agree that Trump already brought certain change where a Clinton presidency, even if not leading into disaster, would have furthered decline and stagnation. Anyway, I do not see that such change will go far.
Trump has as already, fortunately, backed off from some of his most worrysome and adventurious proclamations. There will be no ban on Muslims, no indiscriminate mass deportations of illegals. His now announced 2 or 3 million deportation of legal offenders among illegal immigrants will match what Obama already deported: up to 600,000 a year.
The wall will be sort of a ridicule. A German cement enterprise already showed interest in the project (arousing a shitstorm). Maybe former east German experts should be hired .. just mocking. Israel and Egypt failed to control the Gaza wall which is ways shorter, great time for tunnel builders. And neither the Gulf nor the Pacific coast can be walled.
The whole process has demonstrated a deadlock of political life and culture in the US resembling the stagnation of the USSR during the seventies. The system ist not disrupted or crumbling yet, but no powers for fundamental change are visible while the desire for change is ever rising and the malfunction of the petrified institutions is obvious and growing with no substantial reform to be expected.
Trump will not be the one to perform this change. In best case he will initiate the one or the other sensible move, in worst and more probable case he will mess up a lot and deepen the rifts in the society. In foreign politics he may play a beneficial role. Two major wars, Korea and Vietnam, have begun under a Democrat and ended by a Republican (admittedly, GWB started Afghanistan and Iraq).
Btw. God save Donald Trump. Mike Pence would be worse than HRC.
Trump killed the Bush dynasty, the Republican Establishment, the Clinton dynasty, and the Democratic Establishment. He beat all of them, as well as the corrupt media, Wall Street, the MIC, and the legions of K Street lobbyists.
He has already killed the TPP and forced Obama to do a 180 on his Syria policy, finally fighting Nusra instead of trying to overthrow Assad.
Such a “tragedy.”
RPDC – yeah, anyone who pulled that off is not such an idiot, is he? He did it all. If he follows through with what he says, he will do just fine. I want to see him break up the medical monopolies, the concentration of banking and media. The American people are being crushed. So far, so good.
A very nice essay that beautifully summarizes the decline of American politics from Kennedy to today, until you reach the present and Hillary Clinton. You write…..
“I recognize that in many ways Hillary Clinton represented a status quo that has worn on me, but I had some hope that her ascendance to the presidency might change her, and as the first woman in that office, she might take on a leadership role that embraced pacifism; or at least might be influenced by those who feel peace is the priority.”
What makes you think Clinton would have embraced pacifism? Are you not aware of her ultra neoconservative positions on foreign policy? She would have been the uber hawk ready to use military force to push American interventionism and imperialism. She would never have retreated from her openly declared positions of projecting military power. In fact, she had already selected ultra hardliners, all women by the way, to lead key departments responsible for foreign policies. Because of her inability to envision the consequences of her actions, she inadvertently could have started World War III.
Unless the American people break the power cartel of the two parties, that happen to be mere factions of the Money Power Greed Party, the downward spiral of politics in America will continue until the political system, and society, will collapse.
My shortest Consortiumnews poem ever:
Mourning and grief for a liar and thief…
Thank your stars she’s not the Commander in Chief!
The hypocrisy is really quite revolting. To put grief for JFK or Martin King in the same box with Hillary’s demise deserves the loudest, longest Bronx Cheer anyone could muster.
your lack of understanding behind the JFK assassination is astounding, but not surprised. I would recommend a few good books for you to read and ponder…but I fear you are not a reader who searches for truth. Sad. If JFK had lived our world would be much better and the possibility that we would NOT have a Donald J Trump as President would have been assured.
I think that is what he is saying about JFK.
As I once mentioned to Ray McGovern, “Nobody owns a poem; they write themselves”. Mr. Parry, if he so desired, could offer a compendium of poetry submitted to this site by me and others who have made similar contributions – many of them on the subject of the Kennedy assassination. By now, it would be a rather thick volume. I think it would be a great fundraising initiative. To my mind, he owns the rights which I happily relinquish by posting here. Regarding the article and my response to it: I find it unspeakably immoral that anyone could succumb to grief at the entirely expectable outcome of an election lost by a bona fide war criminal and financial fraudster who is owned and operated by the two party duopoly, banking cartels, the weapons industry, foreign lobbyists and mainstream media conglomerates. Furthermore, it is reprehensible to invoke the legitimate historical context of national mourning for murdered heroes as an analogy to so pedestrian an event as the electoral defeat of a political parasite. With no accomplishments to speak of other than pandering to corrupt theocratic dictatorships and financial self-aggrandizement, the Clinton machine has become the fulminant essence of putrid political corruption. Had anyone found the courage to whine so incessantly about injustice when it really mattered, had anyone in government found the courage to demand that the rule of law be applied, had anyone balked at the convocation of investigations lacking the authority to impose criminal sanctions, the entire Kennedy assassination cabal could have been rounded up, tried, convicted and executed within a year. Not only was there a “smoking gun” seen by dozens of witnesses. The ballistics evidence, the autopsy evidence, the chain of custody and the interrogation evidence were all falsified or suppressed. And the same kind of pusillanimous deadbeats that let it all happen are now “grieving” for Hillary Clinton. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. When one considers that Trump defeated a neocon machine – including both the Bush and Clinton dynasties – on the precipice of initiating a world war with nuclear armed powers, the word “hero” might be worth contemplating. Just a thought.
Sanford – great rant, great poem. Keep it up.
Thanks for All, FG…
Trump didn’t so much win the election as the corporate DNC lost it. The DNC, joined at the hip to a certain wing of the Wall Street hustler crowd, put up their identity politics candidate and got trounced in the Midwestern blue states that mattered. Let’s see: vote for a candidate who had been incessantly lambasting and disparaging NAFTA and TPP or vote for the wife of the guy who championed all the “free trade” baloney during the 1990s and deregulated Wall Street, she was also constantly delivering secretive thousands of dollar speeches to the same parasitic financial elite; it wasn’t a difficult call.
What’s problematic is that all the Trump protests that are sweeping the major cities of America run the risk — amidst their criticisms of him on racial and gender grounds — of besmirching Trump on what appears to be his finest quality: his longing to get along with Putin and Russia. That Trump doesn’t genuflect to the overwhelming orthodoxy in the Western mass media of demonizing Putin and vilifying everything that comes out of the Kremlin it can keep the world from nuclear war.
This is wishful thinking of the highest order – to believe there was any reason at all a 69-year old woman would totally change her personality and politics to ’embrace pacificism’. Especially when she had declared during her campaign peace wasn’t on the table.
Zachary – good points. People do not change their personality on their own; they are usually quite comfortable in their personality. It is all they know, after all. No, they change when life gets difficult, when they hit bottom, when they start to reflect on what they themselves have done and take full responsibility for it – all of it. So far Hillary continues to blame others. This is not a sign of someone who feels any guilt or empathy for those she may have hurt. Hillary is not about to embrace anything, except maybe some bars in a jail cell.
And first woman in office? Come on, I’m a woman, and I wouldn’t have voted for her for all the money in the world. Man or woman, she is a crook, a cold-hearted crook. I’ve also got a daughter. Would I want my daughter to look up to someone like Hillary? No. She is a terribly flawed human being.
The dark clouds of Trump may bring the storm that purges corruption. The greater evil of foreign war is down and the Dems discredited, and Trump will likely sell out his supporters and discredit the Reps further. So progressives should regroup around their own lesser evils, without corporate/zionist money, and sweep away the corruption.
Progressives need a strong executive in 2020, not a smiley gardening enthusiast or LGBT pacifier or closet zionist. We have a national emergency of corruption in mass media and elections, and must restore democracy in the legislature and judiciary by executive emergency powers, followed by amendments to protect elections and mass media from the corrupt influence of money.
Joe – the media shredded Trump, and barely touched Clinton. They are still going after Trump, and will continue to do so. They need to be broken up. Media should not be allowed to ever do this. People need to hear both sides of an argument in order to be informed. If the American public is ill-informed, it is precisely because they are being lied to constantly. Even if they decided to pick up a book and try to get their information there, quite often they are still getting a biased account.
It might be fine when the other party goes against you, but when everyone is, it makes it very difficult. Obama might have had the Republicans giving him a hard time, but he DID NOT get a hard time from the media. They went easy on him for his whole eight years. What a delicate ride he had!
Yes, the mass media and elections must be deprived of all but small individual donations, by amendment of the Constitution. They attacked Trump and lost; but if Trump emerges as the greatest remaining evil, advancing the agenda of their MIC/WallSt sponsors, the mass media will approve of the resulting domestic disaster for most people, thus building progressive strength.
Obama sold out during his 2008 campaign to the oligarchy, whom he put in charge, and was the identity candidate, so the mass media criticized only his divergences to keep him in line, which largely worked.
Does anyone know of a single time when things went wrong for Hillary Clinton that she did not blame it on someone else?
If you thought Hillary’s vagina would make her less of a warmonger, then you truly have withdrawn from the world for a long time.
The biggest issue of the campaign was the harpy’s promise to challenge Russia militarily in Syria with a no-fly zone. That salient fact renders any complaints about what Trump is going to do immaterial, since that is now off the agenda. Now we have a future and can later undo whatever bad stuff he does. Another final item averted is the imposition of the neoliberal “trade” system which was really the elimination of the ability to regulate big capitalism.
exiled – yep, no-fly zone is gone and so is the TPP. (TTIP was already dying in Europe).
TWO HUGE THINGS, people. HUGE!
Thank you exiled off mainstreet – I have been feeling very much in a minority on HRC/Trump. Trump certainly deserves most of the criticism directed against him but, for me (not a US citizen but citizen of a US puppet state), the number one thing which puts Trump above Hillary is his undertaking to work WITH Russia and avert this PNAC-neocon move towards yet more war. Yes Trump has told lies (so has HRC), yes he’s a sexual opportunist who treats women badly (but so were many of his predecessors). So can we wait and see what he does, and stop this mourning for Hillary. If Trump is true to his word about Russia, perhaps we won’t be mourning drone and bombing deaths and the wholesale destruction of foreign countries and the overthrow or undermining of foreign governments.
This is an excellent summary. Why people are crying about what genitalia the president should have I have no idea.
What should matter about a president is this disgusting obsession with global war.
We all know that Hillary supports the war machine, the jury is still out on Trump but that’s more than a shade better than guaranteed warmongering.
This article: https://consortiumnews.com/2016/11/16/bernstein-interview-with-john-pilger/ said it well when it pegged Obama for 4 SIMULTANEOUS wars. Anyone who thinks Hillary wants less wars is fooling themselves.
No, if we do not address climate change now with 10 times the energy and resources we used for both the Manhattan Project and the Moon “race” there will not be a future for the human race.
Amen!
Maybe that’s where Barack’s balls went…
Americans are tired of hurting and being lied to. We have a ‘quite’ revolution going on in this country; against the Elite; the Republican leadership, the Democrat leadership, greedy Wall Street, and the Corporate Mainstream Media. Yet, reading/hearing the news these past few day, NONE of them realize it or accept it.
It is either that that ‘Elite’ accept it and change their ways, or else I fear that ‘revolution’ will not remain quite.
The rejection of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump only shows that the American people are onto the game.
It is not those on the bottom who are crashing this country, it is the leadership (or lack thereof).
I am fascinated with the “tired of being lied to” when they just elected a massive liar. Americans, frantically, want to be lied to. They want promises of greatness and a return to a bygone time. In fact, politics has always been about lies. Tell me what I want to hear and get my vote. America has been in decline for decades. Voters have had many opportunities to make change and refused to do so. Way, way to busy borrowing massive amounts of money, watching BS TV and having a good time. We have always left a significant number of Americans in the discard pile while ranting how wonderful we are. We built a lifestyle beyond sustainability and now, whining, have elected a master manipulator. The future ride will not be pleasant.