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November 05, 2016

2016 Election

The 2016 Campaign

by Leon Burzynski

It is no secret that the 2016 campaign for President quickly deteriorated into a sordid pit of slime. The Republican primary debates set the tone for the lowest bar for decency in the modern era, and things went downhill from there.

The eventual Republican candidate began his campaign with heavy doses of racism and hate, followed by lies about every subject connected to his campaign and some not remotely related to the campaign.

I would submit that the face of the Republican Party at present is a racist demagogue developed by the party during the days of Reagan, and expanded in the years since. During the Reagan campaign, it was “the Southern Strategy.” The goal was to use code words for racial references. It allowed racial discrimination to be an underground segment of GOP campaigns.

The election of Barack Obama changed everything. Racial references became more open and mainstream. It began when days after the election the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate stated that their main goal was to “make Obama a one-term president.” It continued with the rise of the Tea party, those angry white voters who believed the world was changing too fast. Use of the “N-word, claims of not being an American citizen, and of being a Muslim became wide-spread references to President Obama. Republicans went so far as to shut down the operation of the country by not allowing it to pay the daily bills.

Republican administrations at the state level did their part. Their main target was the Voter ID initiative. The GOP legislatures claimed massive fraud during elections, even though extensive research projects proved voter fraud to be non-existent. What Voter ID really accomplished was to make voting more difficult for thousands of Wisconsin residents and millions across the nation. Several Republican lawmakers actually stated that their reason for Voter ID was to make it easier to elect Republicans.

The 2016 election has proven Republicans not only scrape the bottom of the trash barrel; they actually will look under the barrel for a candidate. They selected a candidate who is noted as a liar, a racist, a bully, and a sexual deviate. Their candidate cheated business owners and contractors who performed services for him, and mocks people with disabilities, women, and families of war heroes.

Vivien De Back makes the case for Hillary Clinton in her article on page two. I agree entirely with her points in favor of Clinton.

Given the direction of the Republican party has chosen, I believe the only vote a conscientious, moral, ethical voter can take is to vote for Hillary Clinton, Russ  Feingold, and Democrats down the ballot.

WIARA member Gary Miszewski reminded me of some of President Obama’s accomplishments.

• Ended the Republican Iraq war.
• Presided over the creation of millions of jobs lost by the Bush economic downturn.
• Signed the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) into law.
• Turned around the American auto industry from the ravages of the economic downturn.

A list of 400  accomplishments by President Obama can be found at http://pleasecutthecrap.com/obama-accomplishments/

The bottom line is that we need to vote for Hillary Clinton for president, and Democrats down the ballot. The Democratic Party candidates, nationally and locally, are the only ones who will fight for issues important for seniors, retirees, and their families. We cannot afford the alternative. The state and nation will be much the better with a President Hillary Clinton!