Let’s face it. It’s easy to be a liberal activist these days.
Here are the key steps, which you can follow in any order:
1. Say that all people without money are good,
2. Say that all people with money are bad, and
3. And promise to be a Santa Claus like savior for children of any religion.
Following six months of Bernie “Damn the 1%” Sanders aggregating popular grievances into the most successful not-really-a-Democrat Democratic nomination campaign in history, it seemed like America was poised to remove the coal from its stockings.
No more dirty Christmases for us!
After all, the lights (solar powered, of course) started to shine on an establishment of, by, and for the evil billionaires that have corrupted all of our institutions -- including our primary elections.
So, after powerful women like Hillary Clinton worked with other powerful women, like Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazil, to ensure an undemocratic victory for the Democratic Party -- there was a wide open door for a “woman of the people” who didn’t use her gender and race as an excuse to embrace tactics traditionally belonging to the white, male, and privileged class. And, there was a YUGE opportunity to tap into the millennial enthusiasm that powered the 75-year-old Sanders machine.
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But she didn’t.
She raised a paltry $3.5 million her entire campaign. And she garnered just over 1% of the national popular vote.
So, for all the fist pounding against the institutions, how was Jill Stein able to capture the anti-establishment fervor to advance the “power of the people”?
Not enough to gain ballot access to future Green Party candidates in a single state. But, since the election ended, she has been able to raise another $7 million to recount the votes in three states that barely rejected the Democratic Party nominee.
And what has that accomplished? Nothing. Except a lot of attention from all the media outlets that wrongly predicted the outcome of the 2016 election.
So, for all the Aleppo-induced ostracization of Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson from the mainstream political discussion, what did he accomplish?
Keep in mind, Johnson was not a hero of traditional libertarians because, while he refused to embrace liberal economic policies of “give everyone a pizza and a trophy,” he also refused to accept the “give everyone a gun and fight it out” philosophy of the live free or diers.
And, as a former Republican governor, his anti-establishment appeal was in direct competition to the ultimate basher of our institutions - Donald J. Trump.
Yet, Gary Johnson managed to build a massive following. He raised over $12 million from over 225,000 individual donors, and received over 300% more votes than the Green machine.
But most importantly, he put a present in the stockings of libertarians in 39 out of 50 states: automatic ballot access.
That’s nothing to stick your tongue out about.
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