2017: A Clinton/Sanders GALiphate (Muriel Bowser 4 prez in 2025?)

Events beginning with the 9/11 attacks and ending with the October 13^th, 2015 Democratic debate point to a Clinton/Sanders “GALiphate” on January 20^th, 2017. I'm all for it and believe that American voters will bring it to pass. Let's start with the last item in the timeline: the Democratic debate of October 13^th, 2015. It was actually quite pleasant to watch. The candidates weren't focused on the faults of their opponents; but rather, on what they would do if elected. They discussed matters of general principle. Senator Bernie Sanders said unabashedly that capitalism is a terrible system that leaves the few with much while the many are scraping by on very little – my stance, to be sure. Secretary Hillary Clinton watered down his statements by suggesting that we merely rein in the negative effects of capitalism gone awry but leave it intact. I hold that against her.

Social media is now rife with comments opposing the determination by political pundits and the mass media that Mrs. Clinton “won” the debate. Let's avoid the sideshow. Nobody actually “won” the debate. Candidates showed their wares; but, voters will decide who “wins” during the 2016 Democratic primary elections – where Clinton will quickly establish her GALiphate even as ISIS quickly established a caliphate in the Middle East. Kudos to Bernie for demanding that people break away from the Clinton e-mail sideshow. The left needs to stay focused on the real issues, though the GOP probably won't take the White House again before 2033 and might end up dividing into two parties – giving us the three-(or more)-party system that we need in order to change the face of U.S.and world politics for the better.

We can sum up the biggest GOP failures in a single word: ISIS. Bush 43 invaded Iraq on March 19^th, 2003. He didn't pay the Iraqi border patrol. They abandoned their posts for paying jobs, leaving the borders open. Our military apprehended Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi in 2004. They determined he was just a “street thug” and not military business. They let him go. The Bush regime dismantled Saddam's military. Our military failed to train a viable Iraqi military. (We couldn't do that in Russian Georgia during the conflict over South Ossetia either.) Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi now leads ISIS. Former officers from Saddam's military are now fighting for ISIS. They're using weapons they stole from the U.S. military.

ISIS is being propped up by the democracy that Bush 43 brought to the region when he deposed Saddam Hussein. The wave of democracy that he imagined would occur happened during the Arab Spring. Dictators (who in many cases were supported by the U.S.) continue to be deposed seven years after the Bush regime ended. The Muslim masses who are tired of the secular rule of these dictators whom the U.S. has helped to depose are electing to implement a system of Sharia. Bush 43 didn't realize that middle Easterners would use their newfound democracy to vote for the very un-American principle of state religion – Islam, not GOP Christianity(?).

The GOP has gone from selling weaponsto Iran to now starting a war in which American weapons get stolen. In hindsight the former seems to be the lesser of two evils insomuch as it was due to intentional crime, not utter stupidity. Fast-forward to the fall of 2015 and we have Iraqi and Syrian fighters using American weapons against ISIS which also has American weapons. We have Syrian forces using Russian weapons against rebels who are being trained by the American military and given American weapons – an American/Russian proxy war by all means. We have Russians bombing the Free Syrian Army which is being trained and supported by the U.S. military and is affiliated with the Nusra Front which is affiliated with Al Qaeda which is who we were initially going after for attacking us on 9/11/01. Is anyone wondering how terrorists get weapons of mass destruction??

While some of these developments took place after the Bush regime, all of them are results of decisions Bush made following the 9/11 attacks. The GOP loves to fight but doesn't know how. Make no mistake: Our military can kick ass;but, they can't train others nations to defend themselves. This keeps the U.S. in other countries indefinitely like a husband who mistakenly applied Super Glue instead of lubricant and can't get out of his wife. That's not to speak of the fact that not wanting a perceived enemy to have weapons of mass destruction (which were never found) is the absolute worst reason to start a war. Had Saddam actually possessed WMD's, we'd have to rebuild OUR military like he had to rebuild his after our 1991 invasion. No wonder voters don't want the GOP to have the war powers of the presidency!!!

Bush 43, during the time that he was demanding that Saddam allow UN weapons inspections, called Saddam “irrelevant”. Little did he realize that the totality of his choices in creating and managing this conflict would cause his party to lose what moral high ground they had left and to become “irrelevant” for decades – possibly forever. He won a second term due to Americans' fear of terrorism. Now we're at greater risk of being attacked than we were in 2001, the terrorists' tactics have become decentralized and Reagan-esque Repubs have all the arguments they need in order to increase military spending while their citizens lack basic human needs. For those of you with short memories, Bush 43 – in a blatant use of demagoguery -- made that accusation against Saddam Hussein. The fact of the matter is that Saddam was rebuilding the military that Bush 41 obliterated in a 28-day war with only 130 American lives lost. Saddam did a pretty good job of it too. After all, our military can't defeat the “terror” group ISIS which consists largely of Saddam's former military officers. Enter the fact that Bush 41 said repeatedly that he didn't want to depose Saddam even though he had international support and the means to do it. Enter the fact that he advised his son against deposing Saddam for fear of destablizing the region. America and the world have every reason to be “terrified” of GOP stupidity. I know I am.

If the GOP wants to show the “concern for the welfare of its citizens” that Bush accused Hussein of lacking, maybe they should stage an event at a Trump-owned hotel where they can sit with their front-runner and play the October 13^th debate on a big-screen TV. If Trump and his GOP company would STFU, snack on caviar and take notes, they might get a better idea of what American voters are looking for in 2016.

A Clinton/Sanders GALiphate would be much less likely to engage in endless war, though they'd inherit a mess that was left by the GOP eight years earlier and has only grown and changed form since then. It would also offer a wholesale solution to domestic problems like the problems women have faced in this nation, though President Hillary Clinton would no doubt be scrutinized more closely than her male counterparts. (I personally long to see what a female president or two can do and to thus put an end to the bickering about how much better a female prez would be. Put up or shut up.) Bearing in mind that a president should serve all of his or her constituents, I'm inclined to believe that Hillary will do more for women than Obama has done for Blacks. After all, she is embracing her gender as a political positive more than he embraced his color in these days of “affirmative action presidencies”.

Hillary would be in an awesome position to address the Obamacare issue for once and for all. She could simply ask her husband for his 100,000 pages of documents related to his healthcare plan and hire a few hundred women of color (White, Black Brown etc) to help her thumb through it all. Her presence in the “ovary office” (a moniker adopted after her husband's flings in the White House) would make Americans more sympathetic to issues of women's health and eager to adequately address all healthcare for the last time. She could even reach across the aisle and spread love by tapping OB/GYN Dr. Ron Paul as her surgeon general/healthcare czar.

I believe that presidential elections from 2008 through 2028 will prove to be anti-Bush 43 elections with Americans choosing a Democrat (or 3rd-party candidate) each time and focusing on an different non-Bush attribute with each new choice. With Obama we got a Black. With Clinton we'll get a woman. In 2024 we might get a Black woman. Dems should start preparing current DC Mayor Muriel Bowser for a 2024 presidential run. In any instance, American voters are tired of the reign of terror inflicted on them by White, male, Republican, elitist presidents. They want something better. If they VOTE Clinton/Sanders in 2016, they'll get something better.