Stop Blaming the Russians

By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News

15 October 16

kay, maybe the Russians are leaking what you did to Wikileaks. If your kid got caught stealing a candy bar, would you blame the person who turned them in? No. These emails are exposing things that happened, and the Russians didn’t make you do it. As far as hacking and trying to influence elections, the CIA does it all the time. The only difference here is the Russians are embarrassing you and making it public.

Easy there, Trumpistas. There is no grand conspiracy to take down Donald Trump. He is doing a grand job of that all by himself. He molested women, and in this day and age you don’t get away with it. No, we are not going to make America a place where men can get away with that again. Bill Clinton will probably be the last candidate to get away with sexual harassment in the White House. Donald, you won’t see the inside of the White House again, unless you buy a night in the Lincoln Bedroom from a future president.

You will get by this time, DNC and Clinton campaign, but only because you are up against the worst candidate in the history of the union. Your opponent is crazier than Richard Nixon. Technology, however, is sending all politicians a message. Everything you do or say can come back to haunt you.

The Wikileaks revelations are doing a service to our country. They are exposing what has always been happening behind the scenes. Politics is an ugly profession that needs serious reforms. Trump supporters, your candidate is flawed, but you are right that the system is corrupt and needs reform. Only, Donald Trump is not the person to do it.

We need to scrap the two-party system and allow for more political parties to flourish so that everyone is represented, not just the corporate elite. Let’s face it, Bernie Sanders and Rahm Emanuel should not be in the same political party. I don’t blame Bernie for using the vehicle that is viable for a presidential run. The Green Party and other parties not called Democrat or Republican are not on the same playing field. They are not allowed in the same game.

If the Russians are feeding Wikileaks, we should thank them for exposing the corruption that has always been there. Instead of blaming the Russians, let’s clean up our mess.

We can start with Donna Brazile. Donna, Donna, Donna … we worked together on the Housing Now! mobilization. You say were being impartial, yet you were leaking CNN’s town hall questions to the Clinton campaign. You were even tipping them off about social media campaigns scheduled by Black People for Bernie, who trusted you as an unbiased journalist. You say you were advising all the Democrats who were running for the nomination. I have yet to find someone you helped out in the Sanders campaign with a leaked question or a tip on something the Clinton campaign was doing. Oh, and the Russians didn’t make you do it. After the election you should step down and allow someone who can play fair to lead the party.

But it really isn’t about reforming just the Democratic Party. Conservatives, liberals, moderates, we need to sit down and devise a system that allows us all to have a voice. We need a Green Party, we need a Conservative Party, a Workers’ Party, a Corporate Party … Let’s end the sham of the Republican and Democratic parties pretending to represent anyone but the establishment. As I have been saying for years, until the system is changed, progressives must focus on taking over the Democratic Party. As long as we have a two-party system, conceding the Democrats to the establishment is suicide. We must seek power in a strategic way.

Trumpistas, we have some common ground:

1. The Democratic and Republican parties do NOT represent us.


2. Our trade deals are designed to benefit the corporate elite and not American workers.


3. The media has a stake in the establishment continuing to control the only political parties they deem viable.


4. The elite, like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, get to play by a different set of rules.

There is more, and you may not agree with my characterization of Donald Trump right now. But if you really think about it, he is not a true reformer. He is using the need for reform to pander to you. Let’s face it, the fact that the best we could do was Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is an indictment of the two-party system. We should thank the Russians and the women who are exposing Trump for showing us how bad our political system has become. We need to come together across ideological lines and agree on a system that will allow for real Democracy again. The system is corrupt, and it’s not the Russians’ fault.

Scott Galindez attended Syracuse University, where he first became politically active. The writings of El Salvador's slain archbishop Oscar Romero and the on-campus South Africa divestment movement converted him from a Reagan supporter to an activist for Peace and Justice. Over the years he has been influenced by the likes of Philip Berrigan, William Thomas, Mitch Snyder, Don White, Lisa Fithian, and Paul Wellstone. Scott met Marc Ash while organizing counterinaugural events after George W. Bush's first stolen election. Scott will be spending a year covering the presidential election from Iowa.

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